Dear Jonathan:
I enjoyed reading your well-written and comprehensive paper on the cherished assumptions. I completely agree with your statement:
"There will always be frontiers in Physics, horizons we cannot reach and must speculate about instead. It is best, therefore, to be aware that any of our cherished assumptions could be wrong, and to remember the assumptions we do not know we have made might be an even greater problem."
What is missing may be more important than what is included but wrong. While the existing and well-cherished theories and assumptions may have been proven correct based on classical experiments performed as per the established scientific method, serious inconsistencies (singularities) and paradoxes (dark energy, dark matter, quantum gravity, multi-universes etc.) result when applied to predict the observed universe at cosmic scale. These paradoxes are shown to be the artifacts of the missing physics in my posted paper - " From Absurd to Elegant Universe".
The paper demonstrates that the current paradoxes are artifacts of the missing physics of the well-known phenomenon of the spontaneous mass-energy conversion such as observed in the spontaneous decay of quantum particles, wave-particle duality, and Hawking radiation [7] involving the evaporation of black holes mass. A new Gravity Nullification model (GNM) is proposed to describe the missing (hidden variable) physics of the spontaneous conversion of mass to energy. This is integrated into a simplified form of general relativity to provide a GNM based Universe Expansion (GNMUE) model, which predicts both the observed linear Hubble expansion in the nearby universe and the accelerating expansion in the distant universe. The integrated model resolves many of the paradoxes haunting physics and cosmology today. The proposed model eliminates singularities from existing models and the need for the incredible and unverifiable assumptions. Predictions of the model show a close agreement with the recent observations of the universe. The integrated model is also shown to resolve inconsistencies between quantum mechanics and general relativity. GNMUE provides consistent answers to key fundamental questions:
• Did the universe have a beginning - the Big Bang? Does it have an ending?
• What is the true nature of time and space? Is the universe expansion accelerating?
• Could the speed of light be exceeded? What is C? Do the universal constants vary with time?
• Are there parallel universes and multi-dimensions beyond ordinary three space and one time dimension?
• Is uncertainty or randomness the fundamental property of the universe?
• Is photon mass zero?
• Why the cosmological constant is so small as compared to that calculated by quantum mechanics?
• Is there non-locality in the universe?
• What is quantum gravity? Does quantum gravity have an absolute time?
• Is there dark matter or anti-matter? Do black holes exist?
• What governs the creation and dilation of matter?
• What governs the quantum versus classic behavior and the inner workings of quantum mechanics?
• What is the ultimate universal reality? Is it digital or analog or else?
In summary, all the above questions and the related assumptions currently cherished as answers are shown to be mere artifacts of the missing physics that must be included in a universal theory to avoid any paradoxes and inconsistencies.
Sincerely,
Avtar Singh