What if Time Really Exists? by Sean Carroll

Does it make sense to order imaginary numbers?

(...[-itn,...,-it2,-it1,0,it1,it2,...,itn]...)

The mathematical axioms tell us that complex numbers can not be ordered.

Order Axioms:

1) A number can not be less than itself

2) x > y, x < y, or x = y

3) if x > 0 and y > 0, then xy > 0

4) if x < y, then for all z, x + z < z + y

5) if x < y, then for all z, xz < yz

set x = i and y = 2i and z= 2 + i

1) makes sense

2) i < 2i makes sense

3) a bit tricky:

0 = 0 + 0i and i = 0 +1i therefore i>0 and 2i>0

(i)(2i) > 0 ---> -2 > 0 FALSE!

4) 2 + 2i < 2 + 3i (complex # is of the form a + bi)

5) This is the key axiom!

xz = what exactly? xz or x*z (* is complex conjugate i*=-i)

If we distribute xz as we do for real numbers then axiom 5 is false. If we take the complex conjugate x*z then axiom 5 is true.

Quantum mechanics relies on C* algebra which is ordered. What is the big idea of C* algebra? C*C, multiply a complex number by a complex conjugate and you end up with a real ordered/countable number.

Hello Sean! Hope all is well! I was wondering what your take might be on Lee Smolin's most recent comments-- reflecting his epic change of heart & mind--that time is indeed now real.

What do you make of this?

It is great that Lee is coming around and seeing time as a *physically* real entity. MDT goes a step further in seeing time as a *physically* real entity that emerges because of a more fundamental, universal, hitherto unsung *physical* invariant--the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at c:

In January 2009 Smolin wrote at The Edge, "THE LIBERATION OF TIME: I would like to describe a change in viewpoint, which I believe will alter how we think about everything from the most abstract questions on the nature of truth to the most concrete questions in our daily lives. This change comes from the deepest and most difficult problems facing contemporary science: those having to do with the nature of time." --http://www.edge.org/q2009/q09_9.html

On Thu Jan 25, 2007 11:07 am, I used the word "liberate" in writing, "MDT unfreezes time, liberating us all with free will-the free will to move beyond ST & LQG, which are not inextricably locked into the fixed future of the block universe as Brain Green and Paul Davies would have you suppose. Neither the future nor the past exists. Motion is inherent in the underlying four-dimensional space-time geometry, as the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions. Einstein noted that all objects are moving through space-time at the velocity c. This never changes. An object stationary in the three spatial dimensions is translating through the fourth dimension at the rate of c. An object stationary in the fourth dimension-a photon-is translating through the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c. Hence it is obvious that the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions. String Theory's greatest contribution to physics has been the utter rejection of the obvious, the denial of common sense, and the institutionalization of thousands of mediocrities to ignore or shout-down any physics that might get in the way of their vast commercial industries which must trump truth-their salaries, benefits, and science-fiction books. Indeed, ST gives full license to make one's ignorance one's arrogance, and thus it is the breeding ground for those with ambitions overshadowing their talents." --http://www.groupsrv.com/science/about204630.html

In January 2009, Smolin writes "There is also no past. The past only lives as part of the present, to the extent that it gives us evidence of past events. And the future is not yet real, which means that it is open and full of possibilities, only a small set of which will be realized. Nor, on this view, is there any possibility of other universes. All that exists must be part of this universe, which we find ourselves in, at this moment."

--http://www.edge.org/q2009/q09_9.html

In January, 2007, I wrote, "Neither the future nor the past exists. Motion is inherent in the underlying four-dimensional space-time geometry, as the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions. Einstein noted that all objects are moving through space-time at the velocity c. This never changes. An object stationary in the three spatial dimensions is translating through the fourth dimension at the rate of c. An object stationary in the fourth dimension-a photon-is translating through the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c. Hence it is obvious that the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions. "

All of this was posted in an amazon.com forum on 11/13/2006 for Lee's Book: The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of Science, and What comes Next:

http://www.amazon.com/Lee-Smolins-Great-Book-Dimensions/forum/Fx1FYSVRZO4ARYG/Tx3BGVHQPRMS4OD/1

/ref=cm_cd_dp_tft_tp?%

5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books&asin=061891868X&store=books

"Lee Smolin's Great Book : A Dialogue with Lee Smolin / Moving Dimensions Theory"

Over the years I have shared several emails with Lee, Including this one from 9/26/07--I have yet to hear back, but now that he thinks time is real, perhaps he might find some :):

to lsmolin@perimeterinstitute.ca

date Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 11:56 AM

subject Hello Lee: The Curious Nature of the Photon, Einstein's Annus Mirabilis, and Moving Dimensions Theory

Hello Lee,

Hope all is well with you--just bought a second copy of TTWP to read while in the server room, recovering some lost data. :) Loved it even more the second time around.

If you ever get a moment, would be grateful for any comments on MDT.

Keep up the great work!

Elliot

INTRODUCTION TO MDT

As the hallmark of Moving Dimensions Theory is a simple postulate reflecting an underlying physical reality, let us begin with the simple postulate:

The fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions.

That is it. This postulate underlies relativity--length contraction, time dilation, and the equivalence of mass and energy. It underlies quantum mechanics--wave interference, tunneling, entanglement. It underlies statistical mechanics--entropy and time's arrow.

The great power of Moving Dimensions Theory is that the simple postulate, representing an underlying physical reality, explains curious physical phenomena in every realm-from relativity, to quantum mechanics, to statistical mechanics. MDT accounts for quantum entanglement and relativistic length contraction. It accounts for entropy and action-at-a-distance. MDT unifies all of time's arrows, and it shows that all the curious dualities-wave/particle, space/time, and mass/energy, derive from the same source. MDT resolves both the paradox of Godel's block universe/block time and the Einstein, Rosen, and Podolsky paradox.

MDT--a simple sentence brought forth by a single individual--is what physics ought to be all about--descriptions of physical reality that unify and explain physical phenomena with simple, concise underlying physical models. And, as MDT predicts relativistic length contraction, entanglement, the constant velocity of light, and wave interference, it is one of the best-tested theories of all time, in addition to being a most fundamental theory regarding the emergent nature of time.

The Curious Nature of the Photon, Einstein's Annus Mirabilis,

and Moving Dimensions Theory

As the contemplation of the photon lead to both quantum mechanics and relativity, let us also begin the presentation of Moving Dimensions Theory by contemplating the photon. Einstein's revolutionary 1905 papers included one devoted to the photoelectric effect--which considered the quantized nature of the photon--and a paper devoted to the electrodynamics of moving bodies--which considered electromagnetic radiation, relativity, and the wave properties of the photon as embodied by Maxwell's Equations. Another 1905 paper discussed statistical mechanics in the form of Brownian Motion, and Einstein's final three-page paper that year commented on the equivalence of mass and energy, as denoted with his famous equation, E=mc 2. Moving Dimensions Theory underlies and unifies all of Einstein's 1905 papers with its simple postulate--the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions.

Consider the emission of a photon in free space. One second later, the photon has equal probability of being found anywhere upon a sphere with a radius of 186,000 miles, as the velocity of light, c, is 186,000 miles per second. If we covered the surface of said sphere with detectors, one, and only one, would click. And the photon, although having traveled 186,000 miles through space, will not have aged one iota, for time stops at the speed of light. The photon will have traveled 186,000 miles through the three spatial dimensions, and yet it will not have moved one iota in the fourth dimension. And there lies our first clue to moving dimensions theory. For how can a photon propagate 186,000 in the three spatial dimensions, and yet not budge an inch in the fourth dimension, unless that fourth dimension is expanding, right along with it? Ergo, the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions. A photon, as we shall see time and again, is matter surfing the fourth expanding dimension.

Consider two interacting photons that are directed to propagate in opposite directions, as in experiments conceived by Bell and conducted by Aspect et al. One second later, each photon's polarization is measured at detectors separated by 372,000 miles. According to the laws of quantum mechanics and numerous supporting experiments, the measurement at one detector instantaneously affects the measurement at the second detector. It is as if the photons are yet side-by-side for all intents and purposes. This "spooky action-at-a-distance," as Einstein called it, is not so spooky in the context of Moving Dimensions Theory, for MDT states that although separated by 372,000 miles, the photons are yet in the exact same place in the fourth dimension, as the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions. So it is that quantum phenomena on the photonic level, as well as relativistic phenomena on the photonic level, are both accounted for with simple elegance via MDT: the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions.

Another paper Einstein penned in 1905 was devoted to Brownian motion and statistical mechanics. Drop a thimbleful of food coloring in a pool. The laws of statistical mechanics dictate that there is a high probability that the coloring will spread throughout the entire pool, and never again reassemble in a localized region. That all systems tend towards random disorder is a fundamental law of physics and condition of physical reality, and this too can be accounted for by Moving Dimensions Theory. As the fundamental motion of the universe is the expansion of the fourth dimension relative to the three spatial dimensions, two photons originating from a common origin will harbor a vast probability of being found at great distances from one another one second later--distances far greater than the distance that separates them at their emission. This is because each one has an equal probability of being found anywhere upon the surface of a spherically-symmetric wave front of probability, corresponding to the wave front of the fourth expanding dimension. Recall our system of detectors placed everywhere upon the surface of a sphere with a radius of 186,000 miles--each photon has an equal chance of being found at any detector after one second after they were emitted at a common origin, and chances are that the detectors will be farther apart than the distance of zero that defines the separation between photon's common origin. Hence entropy. Entropy arises because the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions. All particles undergoing thermal vibrations interact with photons, and all photons reside in the fourth expanding dimension, dragging all of entirety into random disorder.

Yet another paper published by Einstein in his "Miraculous Year" (annus mirabilis), was devoted to the equivalence of mass and energy. Think about the fascinating physical reality implied by Einstein's most famous equation--E=mc2. A kilogram of gold or lead or feathers sitting on a desktop is the same thing as 9x10 16 joules of energy--an exorbitant amount of energy--enough to power, or to destroy, a major city. How is it that a stationary mass possesses such a great energy? It is because the mass, which is stationary in the three spatial dimensions, is yet propagating through the fourth dimension at the rate of c. This is because the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions. Matter surfing the fourth expanding dimension appears at photons. Furthermore, as noted earlier, the photons will propagate at the rate of c through the three spatial dimensions, and yet they will never age--they will stay in a fixed place in the fourth expanding dimension. The primary invariant is c--all matter and/or photons--be it propagating through space or time, or some combination thereof, always, always moves at the rate of c. To be stationary in the three spatial dimensions means to propagate at the rate of c through the fourth dimension. To be stationary in the fourth dimension means to propagate at the rate of c through the three spatial dimensions. Ergo the fourth dimension is expanding at the rate of c relative to the three spatial dimensions. Most objects share motion between space and time, but the overall velocity of propagation through space-time is fixed at c-- this primary invariance can never change, and this reality arises because of the deeper physical reality of Moving Dimensions Theory.

And so it is that Moving Dimensions Theory underlies and unifies the papers Einstein Published during his Annus Mirabilis--his "miraculous year." I highly recommend Harvard University Press's Einstein 1905: The Standard of Greatness by John S. Rigden, about wcich Publisher's Weekly writes, "The year 2005 will be the centenary of Einstein's annus mirabilis, when he published the five papers that marked him as one of the greatest scientists of all time. Washington University professor Rigden (Hydrogen: The Essential Element) sits readers down in front of his white board and explains what Einstein said in each of these papers, what was significant in them and how the scientific community reacted (not very well, in most cases--for a while). Einstein started off with a bang: in March he proposed that light was not a continuous wave, but was made up of particles. In April he finished what became his dissertation, on how to determine the size of molecules in a liquid (that may not sound very exciting, but this is one of Einstein's most cited papers). In May he wrote his paper on Brownian motion, and then in June came the summit of his achievements that year: the paper proposing his principles of relativity and the consistency of the speed of light (commonly known as the Special Theory of Relativity). Finally, almost as an afterthought, in September came the three-page paper that unleashed his now-famous equation, e=mc2, upon an unsuspecting world. Rigden writes with a rare felicity, free of jargon and with everyday metaphors that Einstein himself would no doubt have appreciated."

I encourage everyone to read Einstein's and Bohr's and Heisenberg's and Dirac's original papers, and contrast their majestic elegance, eloquence, reason, and logic to the snarky death threats and crackpot indexes manufactured by today's "best and brightest," and the accompanying silence from their established elders--the founders of string theory's oppressive regime and hand-waving, reason-subjugating, PBS miniseries. The future book on Moving Dimensions Theory will look back to the giants of yesteryear with deep honor and reverence, so that tomorrow's physics might advance in the spirit of simple Truth and Beauty. Every effort will be maintained to demonstrate that true physics is marked by grace and simplicity, as opposed to obfuscation and bullying. Moving Dimensions Theory is an idea whose time has come, and ideas are bulletproof.

The fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions. Moving Dimensions Theory accounts for the aetherless aether.

This simple postulate offers a physical model underlying and unifiying:

RELATIVITY:

1) length contraction

2) time dilation

3) the equivalence of mass and energy

4) the constant velocity of light

5) the independence of the speed of light from the velocity of the source

QUANTUMN MECHANICS

1) action at a distance

2) wave-particle duality

3) interference phenomena

4) EPR paradox

THERMODYNAMICS

1) Time's arrow

2) Entropy

STRING THEORY'S MANY DIMENSIONS / KALUZA/KLEIN THEORY

1) a fourth expanding dimension can be interepreted as many dimensions, each time it expands

THE UNITY OF THE DUALITIES

1) wave/particle duality

2) time/space duality

3) energy/mass duality

4) E/B duality

GENERAL RELATIVITY

1) Gravitational redshift

2) Gravity waves

3) Gravitation attraction

THE SPACE-TIME BACKGROUND

1) quantum foam

2) the smearing of space and time at small distances

3) Hawking's imaginary time

PARADOXES

1) MDT explains away Godel's Block Universe

2) MDT unfreezes time

3) Resolves Zeno's Paradox

ONE GETS ALL OF THIS FROM A SIMPLE POSTULATE:

The fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions in a spherically symmetric manner, in units of the Planck length, at the rate of c.

--dr. e's email to lsmolin@perimeterinstitute.ca

date Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 11:56 AM

subject Hello Lee: The Curious Nature of the Photon, Einstein's Annus Mirabilis, and Moving Dimensions Theory)

I also sent other emails regarding Moving Dimensions Theory, including one sent on 4/19/07 which was cc'd to a dozen other physicists.

Lee writes at The Edge, "The view that time is real and truth is situated within the moment further implies that there is no timeless arbiter of meaning, and no transcendent or absolute source of values or ethics. Meaning, values and ethics are all things that we humans project into the world. Without us, they don't exist."

Yes--while time is real, I will yet agree with Einstein over Lee--Einstein writes, "Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."

Yes--I will have to stick with dx4/dt=ic from here on out to eternity, just as Ludwig von Boltzman has s=klogw on his tombstone and Max Born has xp-px=ih on his.

Best,

Dr. E (The Real McCoy)Attachment #1: 2_2_wheeler_recommendation_mcgucken_medium2.jpgAttachment #2: 1_retina2.jpg

Sono l'autore di un E-Book edito a dicembre scorso dalla Macro Edizioni dal titolo "I due Leoni Cibernetici" e sottotitolo "L'alfa e l'omega di una matematica ignota, pi greco e la sezione aurea".

Riporto l'indirizzo informatico che è questo: http://www.macroedizioni.it/libro.php?id_libro=1474&PHPSESSID=112db27d7afaa901eaae76c25cabcb4d.

Questo E-Book lo presento sul mio sito a questo indirizzo: Il geometra pensiero in rete.

Cordiali saluti,

Gaetano Barbella

Well, time does exist. See

Horwitz, L.P. (2005) On the significance of a recent experiment demonstrating quantum interference in time. http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0507044

Dear Dr. Carroll,

Here's a post that tries to comment on FQXi's 2008 essay contest (The Nature of Time) as well as its 2010 essay contest (Is Reality Digital or Analog?)

We have to wonder if the Large Hadron Collider was worth all the time and money it took to build. It won't find the Higgs boson. It may well "prove" that strings exist but this will only deceive the world because strings are only a tiny fraction of matter's true composition. Perhaps it would have been better to spend the money buying several million desktop computers for scientists to develop and refine theories with.

ALTERNATIVE TO HIGGS BOSON

An important step might be to think of "... the grand design of the universe, a single theory that explains everything" (words used by Stephen Hawking on the American version of Amazon, when promoting his latest book "The Grand Design" - coauthored with Leonard Mlodinow, Bantam Books, 2010) in a different way than physicists who are presently working on science's holy grail of unification. The universe's underlying electronic foundation* (which makes our cosmos into a partially-complete unification, similar to 2 objects which appear billions of years or billions of light-years apart on a huge computer screen actually being unified by the strings of ones and zeros making up the computer code which is all in one small place) would make our cosmos into physics' holy grail of a complete unification if it enabled not only elimination of all distances in space and time, but also elimination of distance between (and including) the different sides of objects and particles. This last point requires the universe to not merely be a vast collection of the countless photons, electrons and other quantum particles within it; but to be a unified whole that has "particles" and "waves" built into its union of digital 1's and 0's (or its union of qubits - quantum binary digits). If we use the example of CGH (computer generated holography, which is reminiscent of the holographic simulation called the Holodeck in "Star Trek: The Next Generation"), these "particles" and "waves" could be elements produced by the interaction of electromagnetic and presently undiscovered gravitational waves, producing what we know as mass and forming what we know as space-time. Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, and measurements on the Hulse-Taylor binary-star system resulted in Russell Hulse and Joe Taylor being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1993 for their work, which was the first indirect evidence for gravitational waves. The feedback of the past and future universes into the unified cosmos's electronic foundation would ensure that both past and future could not be altered. (Our brains and minds are part of this unification too, which must mean extrasensory perception and telekinetic independence from technology are possible.)

* For more information on the universe's proposed electronic foundation, please see my article and postings at

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/814

as well as my replies to Dr. Israel Omar Perez at

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/817

STRINGS ARE ONLY PART OF MATTER'S BASIS

Space and time only exist in our experience. They are emergent properties, like wetness and mind. We experience wetness because it emerges from the building blocks of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms which make up water. We experience mind because it emerges from the building blocks of neurons composing the brain. And we experience space-time since it emerges from the building blocks making up the universe. These units are a combination of electromagnetic pulses (forming a cosmic computer which includes randomness and thus the potential to escape rigid preprogramming, and have a small degree of free will) as well as a cosmic hologram (this is produced by the interaction of electromagnetic plus gravitational waves and combination of the holographic aspect with the electronic aspect unifies general relativity with quantum physics). Every physical and nonphysical part of the universal hologram would be a receptor for the downloading of data from the cosmic computer which not only exists in the hyperspace of the large-scale universe but also in the hyperspace of each subatomic particle. (In other words, the holographic universe or spacetime we know is a screen for displaying data from the 5th-dimensional computer).

It might be helpful to visualise time as the playing of a CD or video tape. The entire disc or tape obviously exists all the time. But our physical senses can only perceive a tiny part of the sound and the sights at any fraction of a second. I believe space and time are infinite, so it might be more accurate to visualise time as that HUGE number - in this case, of CDs or tapes - which some versions of string theory propose (at a minimum, 10 exponent 500). My essay - http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/814 - tells you how to travel to the future, how to return home, and how to travel into our past. Neither future nor past can be altered (a blow to our belief that we have the free will to shape the future) and my explanation of travel to the past requires re-interpretation of the concepts of "multiverse" and "parallel universes". It also requires the ability to travel billions of light years INSTANTLY. This sounds like pure fantasy, but I outline an approach based on electrical engineering, General Relativity, and Miguel Alcubierre's 1994 proposal of "warp drive" that makes it logically possible.

These unbelievable things are made believable if you read my essay (along with its postings and replies) as well as the little books I've written (listed in the essay's Endnotes). But if you don't have time to read all that (I don't think I do!), here's a little picture that tries to summarise everything in a few lines -

My essay suggests the universe is a Mobius loop and is contained in, or unified with, each of its particles (relying on physical senses or 21st-century scientific instruments would make this statement ridiculous). Then each fermion and boson would also be composed of the 3 spatial dimensions, the 4th dimension of time, and the 5th dimension of hyperspace. Detectors like the Large Hadron Collider would be unable to "see" the time and hyperspace components of particles but could only see the small (maybe 5%) 3 spatial dimensions (the time and hyperspace components would be what we call dark matter), erroneously assuming particles are those tiny fractions of a Mobius loop that physics calls strings. "Dark matter" would exert a gravitational influence because both time and hyperspace, being parts of a curved Mobius loop (whether of quantum or cosmic scale), would push objects together in the same way Einstein's curved space-time pushes objects together. We can speak of the HST now - no, not the Hubble Space Telescope but Hyperspatial SpaceTime. We can visualise the Mobius loop as composed of a hyperspace computer which generates information on how things change from one undetectably tiny fraction of a second to the next (we call this time, and it's comparable to the frames in a movie) and transmits the data (transmits dark energy?) to the insignificant portion of length, width and depth that makes up subatomic particles ... and the universe.

That's the end of my one-paragraph summary. Now for some extra thoughts that popped into my head -

Preceding the Big Bang (which created this local section of the infinite, eternal universe ... or if you prefer, this subuniverse of the megauniverse) there would have been no space, matter or time in this subuniverse and all would have been hyperspace. No transmissions of dark energy (creating time and space/matter) would have occurred - therefore the dark-energy content of the universe would have been zero, increasing to the present 72% as more and more matter was created. How is matter created? Perhaps as cosmologist Alan Guth once suggested -

"You might even be able to start a new universe using energy equivalent to just a few pounds of matter. Provided you could find some way to compress it to a density of about 10^75 (10 exponent 75) grams per cubic centimeter, and provided you could trigger the thing ..."

At the time the Cosmic Microwave Background was emitted (less than a million years after the big bang), results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe say the dark-energy content of the universe was negligible. Space/matter has been increasing since the big bang so transmissions from hyperspace (dark energy) which create them are increasing while the volume of the Mobius loop occupied by time/hyperspace (dark matter) has been shrinking as a result - according to the WMAP satellite, from 63% when the CMB was emitted to 23% today. Why isn't dark energy increasing at the same rate dark matter is decreasing? It must be because, as stated earlier, both time and hyperspace exert a gravitational influence, thereby mimicking space and matter to a degree. This mimicry causes the dark matter between the start of the CMB and the present to decrease by only about 40% while dark energy increases in the same period by about 70%.

My essay tells you how to travel into the future, how to return home, and how to take a trip into our past. Regarding travel beyond our start and into the past ... it can't be denied that these paragraphs imply the possibility of humans from the distant future time-travelling to the distant past and using electronics to create this particular subuniverse's computer-generated Big Bang. An accomplishment such as this would be the supreme example of "backward causality" (effects influencing causes) promoted by Yakir Aharonov, John Cramer and others. However, realising that we live in a cosmic-quantum unification with zero-separation and recalling Isaac Newton's inverse-square law and what it says about the force between two particles being infinite (does infinite mean 10 ^ 500, the HUGE number of universes proposed by some versions of string theory?) if the distance of separation goes to zero means there's still room for God (as Creator) because God would be a pantheistic union of the megauniverse's material and mental parts, forming a union with humans in a cosmic unification.

Best wishes,

Rodney Bartlett

I know I can't submit another essay. I don't plan to - these are just some comments that came to mind after thinking about my essay. They don't seem very relevant to the topic "Is Reality Digital or Analog?" but writing them has given even more satisfaction than writing the essay, and I'm in the mood to share them with the whole world. So if you've got time to read them ...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I fully realise that my essay doesn't sound like science at all. I can appreciate that many readers think it belongs to science fiction and fantasy. It does have saving graces though. I'm amazed at how well it fits in with the discoveries of the Microwave Anisotropy Probe and with string theory, culminating in the LHC's experimentally verified strings and my prediction of antistrings. Having said that, I must say this - it's very strange that the scientific world is so obsessed with mathematics (admittedly, my essay did dabble with it when offering a version of E=mc2 to suit the digital world - but I kept it very simple ... so simple it might be regarded as wrong). Math seems to be regarded as infallible, even though it leads to mistakes. The (partial) mistake I have in mind is string theory. I don't deny that there certainly is value in the theory, and in maths, but logic reveals shortcomings. Let me explain, after first writing a short section describing an unconventional approach to unveiling unification and offering an alternative to the Higgs boson that relies on gravitational waves.

ALTERNATIVE TO HIGGS BOSON

An important step might be to think of "... the grand design of the universe, a single theory that explains everything" (words used by Stephen Hawking on the American version of Amazon, when promoting his latest book "The Grand Design" - coauthored with Leonard Mlodinow, Bantam Books, 2010) in a different way than physicists who are presently working on science's holy grail of unification. The universe's underlying electronic foundation* (which makes our cosmos into a partially-complete unification, similar to 2 objects which appear billions of years or billions of light-years apart on a huge computer screen actually being unified by the strings of ones and zeros making up the computer code which is all in one small place) would make our cosmos into physics' holy grail of a complete unification if it enabled not only elimination of all distances in space and time, but also elimination of distance between (and including) the different sides of objects and particles. This last point requires the universe to not merely be a vast collection of the countless photons, electrons and other quantum particles within it; but to be a unified whole that has "particles" and "waves" built into its union of digital 1's and 0's (or its union of qubits - quantum binary digits). If we use the example of CGH (computer generated holography, these "particles" and "waves" could be elements produced by the interaction of electromagnetic and presently undiscovered gravitational waves, producing what we know as mass and forming what we know as space-time. Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, and measurements on the Hulse-Taylor binary-star system resulted in Russell Hulse and Joe Taylor being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1993 for their work, which was the first indirect evidence for gravitational waves. The feedback of the past and future universes into the unified cosmos's electronic foundation would ensure that both past and future could not be altered. Our brains and minds are part of this unification too - which must mean extrasensory perception and telekinetic independence from technology are possible, despite modern science's objections to these phenomena which appear to be based on non-unification.

* For more information on the universe's proposed electronic foundation, please see my article and postings at

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/814

STRINGS ARE ONLY PART OF MATTER'S BASIS

Space and time only exist in our experience. They are emergent properties, like wetness and mind. We experience wetness because it emerges from the building blocks of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms which make up water. We experience mind because it emerges from the building blocks of neurons composing the brain. And we experience space-time since it emerges from the building blocks making up the universe. These units are a combination of electromagnetic pulses (forming a cosmic computer which includes randomness and thus the potential to escape rigid preprogramming, and have a small degree of free will) as well as a cosmic hologram (this is produced by the interaction of electromagnetic plus gravitational waves and combination of the holographic aspect with the electronic aspect unifies general relativity with quantum physics). Every physical and nonphysical part of the universal hologram would be a receptor for the downloading of data from the cosmic computer which not only exists in the hyperspace of the large-scale universe but also in the hyperspace of each subatomic particle. (In other words, the holographic universe or spacetime we know is a screen for displaying data from the 5th-dimensional computer.)

It might be helpful to visualise time as the playing of a CD or video tape. The entire disc or tape obviously exists all the time. But our physical senses can only perceive a tiny part of the sound and the sights at any fraction of a second. I believe space and time are infinite, so it might be more accurate to visualise time as that HUGE number - in this case, of CDs or tapes - which some versions of string theory propose (10 exponent 500). My essay tells you exactly how to travel to the future, how to return home, and how to travel into our past. Neither future nor past can be altered (a blow to our belief that we have the free will to shape the future) and my explanation of travel to the past requires re-interpretation of the concepts of "multiverse" and "parallel universes". It also requires the ability to travel billions of light years INSTANTLY - no doubt many readers will instantly dismiss the essay because their preconceptions "know" this simply isn't possible. It indeed sounds like pure fantasy, but I outline an approach based on electrical engineering, General Relativity, and Miguel Alcubierre's 1994 proposal of "warp drive" that makes it logically possible.

My essay explains why the universe is a Mobius loop and how it is contained in, or unified with, each of its particles (relying on physical senses or 21st-century scientific instruments would make this statement ridiculous). Then each fermion and boson would also be composed of the 3 spatial dimensions, the 4th dimension of time, and the 5th dimension of hyperspace. Detectors like the Large Hadron Collider would be unable to "see" the time and hyperspace components of particles but could only see the small (maybe 5% of the whole) 3 spatial dimensions (the time component would be what we call dark matter), erroneously assuming particles are those small fractions of a Mobius loop that physics calls strings. "Dark matter" would exert a gravitational influence because time, being part of a curved Mobius loop (whether of quantum or cosmic scale), would push objects together in the same way Einstein's curved space-time pushes objects together. We can speak of the HST now - no, not the Hubble Space Telescope but Hyperspatial SpaceTime. We can visualise the Mobius loop as composed of a hyperspace computer which generates information on how things change from one presently undetectably tiny fraction of a second to the next (we call this time, and it's comparable to the frames in a movie) and transmits the data (transmits dark energy) to the insignificant portion of length, width and depth that makes up subatomic particles ... and the universe.

Preceding the Big Bang (which created this local section of the infinite, eternal universe ... or if you prefer, this subuniverse of the megauniverse) there would have been no space, matter or time in this subuniverse. No transmissions of dark energy (creating time and space/matter) would have occurred - therefore the dark-energy content of the universe would have been zero, increasing to the present 72% as more and more matter was created. How is matter created? Perhaps as cosmologist Alan Guth once suggested -

"You might even be able to start a new universe using energy equivalent to just a few pounds of matter. Provided you could find some way to compress it to a density of about 10^75 (10 exponent 75) grams per cubic centimeter, and provided you could trigger the thing ..."

At the time the Cosmic Microwave Background was emitted (less than a million years after the big bang), results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe say the dark-energy content of the universe was negligible. Space/matter has been increasing since the big bang so transmissions from hyperspace computer (dark energy) which create them are increasing while the volume of the Mobius loop occupied by time/hyperspace (dark matter) has been shrinking as a result - according to the WMAP satellite, from 63% when the CMB was emitted to 23% today. Why isn't dark energy increasing at the same rate dark matter is decreasing? It must be because, as stated earlier, both time and hyperspace exert a gravitational influence, thereby mimicking space and matter to a degree. This mimicry causes the dark matter between the start of the CMB and the present to decrease by only about 40% while dark energy increases in the same period by about 70%. If we were dealing with a simple and ordinary loop, this similarity would cause dark matter and dark energy to be more or less equal and if there was any difference in their amount of decrease/increase, it would be in the same direction. But we're talking about Mobius loops which are like strips of paper that have been twisted 180 degrees before the ends are joined. This causes their variation to go in different directions (one increases, the other decreases) and the amount of variation is quite significant (+72%, -40%). My guess is that the real-life twist occurs in the temporal segment of the loop, enabling a traveller in time to go in different directions i.e. into the future or into the past. To replenish dark matter in billions of years, we merely have to extend Guth's proposal by using the knowledge of that time to create more matter.

A real-life Mobius is by no means a featureless loop, however. If, contrary to our impressions, the universe is unified with each particle it's composed of; the WMAP satellite's findings must apply to the quantum world. The figures 72%, 23% and 5% would not only describe the present universe's content of dark energy, dark matter and ordinary matter but also any particle's content of space or ordinary matter (5%), time or dark matter (23% - time is considered to be dark matter here because dark matter is regarded as ordinary matter invisible to us since it's present in another region of the dimension we call time, just as most of a sphere is in another dimension and consequently appears as a dot when first entering Edwin Abbott's 1884 exploration of other dimensions called "Flatland"), and hyperspace (72%: the transmissions from the hyperspace computer create space and matter, cause expansion of space on cosmic scales where there are no forces to overcome the expansion as there is in matter, and are known as dark energy - creating more matter causes that matter's repelling gravity to bring about accelerating expansion).

Look at a picture of a Mobius (thanks to the repeating scales of fractal geometry, the apparently empty interior and exterior of the Mobius universe would actually be the same as the visible loop). Imagine the space/ordinary matter to be situated immediately counterclockwise (perhaps on the bottom of the loop) to the hyperspace segment and the time/dark matter portion to be immediately counterclockwise to the space/ordinary matter (time/dark matter would, moving clockwise, be next to the hyperspace segment).

The hyperspace transmissions flow directly into space/matter (all motion - "flow" and "transmissions" - are actually comparable to individual frames in a movie but are spoken of in everyday terms of motion for convenience, like saying the sun rises and sets) and are responsible for the large and unimpeded 72% increase, since the CMB was emitted, of dark energy. This flow rate of 72% also enters the time/dark matter section adjacent to hyperspace ... but the loop's twist seems to be in the time section. If we were to cut the loop lengthwise with scissors, previously varying the number of half-twists results in things such as two rings linked together or a knotted ring. So we get barriers to motion and blockages. Returning to the normal loop and twist, matters are less drastic and motion is merely slowed, resulting in a 23% flow rate.

If we lived in a non-unified universe of materialism, this is how things would remain (dark matter would have increased so today's content would be a low 23%). On p. 179 of "The Grand Design" by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow (Bantam Press, 2010) it's stated "One requirement any law of nature must satisfy is that it dictates that the energy of an isolated body surrounded by empty space is positive ..."

The only problem with that sentence, in an "everything is everywhere and everywhen" universe, is the word isolated. There can be no such thing as isolated in our cosmic-quantum unification. Page 179 also says "... if the energy of an isolated body were negative ... there would be no reason that bodies could not appear anywhere and everywhere." Does this mean you and I (plus all things in time and space) are a union of both positive and negative energy, able to display both separateness/solidity (isolation) as well as the potential to appear anywhere and everywhere? Dark matter, not being entirely positive, would be anywhere and everywhere as well as having decreased so today's content would be a low 23% (which is what WMAP says is the case).

If everything is a union of positive and negative energy, every matter particle and force-carrying particle would be too. And the strings the Large Hadron Collider might detect (being the parts of particles' Mobius loops it could see since those parts would be space/ordinary matter) might come in both positive and negative varieties. In 1928 English physicist Paul Dirac (1902-84) proposed that all negative energy states are already occupied by (then hypothetical) antiparticles (particles of antimatter). Building on this results in proposal of strings and antistrings.

My essay tells you how to travel into the future, how to return home, and how to take a trip into our past. Regarding travel beyond our start and into the past ... it can't be denied that these paragraphs imply the possibility of humans from the distant future time-travelling to the distant past and using electronics to create this particular subuniverse's computer-generated Big Bang. An accomplishment such as this would be the supreme example of "backward causality" (effects influencing causes) promoted by Yakir Aharonov, John Cramer and others. However, realising that we live in a cosmic-quantum unification with zero-separation and recalling Isaac Newton's inverse-square law and what it says about the force between two particles being infinite (does infinite mean 10 ^ 500, the HUGE number of universes proposed by some versions of string theory?) if the distance of separation goes to zero means there's still room for God (another bit of scientifically objectionable science fiction?) because God would be a pantheistic union of the megauniverse's material and mental parts, forming a union with humans in a cosmic unification.

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According to the Community Ratings, my essay in the 2011 Essay Contest is sliding further down the ratings each day. But I'm having more luck with a science journal called General Science Journal - comments of mine inspired by the essay (which are nearly 20,000 words long and include comments about "The Nature of Time" as well as "Is Reality Digital or Analog?") were published in the Journal on Feb. 6 and may be viewed at http://gsjournal.net/ntham/bartlett.pdf

I didn't have time to submit my essay for reality but the approach of theoretical sociophysics would lay out four layers of time: the changing state of the universe, physics understanding this change as the underlying character of temporal sequence, timing and tempo and then with the emergence of behaviourally modern humans a new kind of causation where humans can frame the changing world around them as 'time'.

Reality from this point of view emerges from a very specific interaction of placetime - meantime - spacetime. Meaning is 'spin down', time is 'spin up' and through this method we can understand time at a fundamental level as 'temporal capacity' and spacetime function providing the potential enabling the possibility of future, with placetime providing direction through it's stored knowledge. If this is correct then the whole world of science, indeed human knowledge could be missing a measure, and a powerful one at that.

Using Buckminster Fuller's notion of 'energy slaves' rather than refer to human population as almost 7 billion, if we take the 'nature's eye' view then if all humans got up tomorrow and lived a 24 hour day to American standards then the natural world would experience our single species as over one trillion humans. We pump 90 million tonnes of carbon pollutants into the atmosphere each and every day and exhibit a very unnatural weight on the natural, and possibly even cosmic layers of reality.

So when David Lindenmayer writes an environmental awareness book called 'On Borrowed Time' and we have unprecedented flooding in some parts of Australia, for the critical of thought we have to ask the question, coincidence or connection? Humans place a framework on the system of change all around us and call this time. However, the deeper understanding is to go below this and try and understand the layers of tempo and timing and the rate at which the fundamental, cosmic-level change occurs. This is difficult while we don't have laws for these interactions but if we can be aware that humans are impacting on the timing and tempo of the natural world and are beginning to fracture nature's aggregate then more and more we'll see plants appearing weeks earlier than they should do, more flash and unpredictable weather and possibly worse as nature's timing comes under more threat.

Carl Sagan wrote that it was perhaps the fate of all technological societies to destroy themselves. Only last year Stephen Hawking suggested that humans should seek out a new planet to inhabit. Paul Ehrlich says that we already require between 1.4-1.5 planet earths to sustain our current needs and with almost 40% of the world's population in India and China developing at pace the human 'load' on the planet is only going to become more strained. James Lovelock, author of Gaia theory thinks that we're looking at finishing this century with one billion people. This is pretty stark stuff from learned scientists.

As long as the physical (and the natural) sciences continue to 'miss' this measure of time as 'temporal capacity' as culture torques on nature, and meantime torques on spacetime then they'll miss:

(1) the understanding that it is real, and

(2) that we could do something about it.

The double slit experiment tells us something quite revealing about the human field of experience. Theoretical sociophysics says that all around us is a sea of potential, of information still 'in formation' yet when it enters the human field of experience it collapses into meaning, which has a causal weight on attention/mind. Understanding this state of 'in formation' to 'formation' (meaning) is crucial because the more meaning we create in the social world of humankind the more time (spin up) has to emerge/be generated to enable social reality. As times move slowly we are not aware of this, but the truth is that 'times' are changing so fast that perhaps this situation is required to generate a window of awareness so that we can connect important epistemological dots and understand that time is real, that it is enabled by real processes and that human industrial activity can put real pressure on those processes.

In 2011 it's worth taking a moment and thinking about why we want to learn anything about how the world around us works. Is is just knowledge for knowledge's sake or do we really want to join the dots and connect the clues even though that means having to reach out to neighbouring fields in the natural and social sciences? I think we're missing the measure of duration, and time as temporal capacity. I hope I'm wrong.

Connections

The binding of existence

This is a story, built upon knowledge, intuition, and speculation. In the end, it is built upon some known theoretically successfully tested truths, and some unknowns conveyed in a formula that I consider trumps any objections - as we ponder the scope of existence. First we know of existence, by way of our self-awareness, coupled with scientific knowledge. Second by way of the unknowns i.e., "Infinity", that must incongruously play with us (self-aware-finite creatures), in some connected manner.

This Second irascibly indefinable thing called "Infinity", simply stumps our "finite" minds every time, when we attempt to figure out its mathematical infinities. As it must. As if it did not stump our efforts to understand it, it would become defined, and anything defined, is "Finite.". So we have an absolute conundrum that operates our existence. But we are still connected, in a union, both finite and infinite, through the known attributes we have scientifically tested to be true. As without "Infinity", there can be no "Finite." And remember Infinity, has no bounds, no time, no space, no beginning and no end.

This is plainly contrary to finite logic, but Infinity simply is contrary. Always has been. And always will be. But it is also the very milk of our very finite existences... We are Connected... Our actions matter, as I will soon explain - in summary.

INFINITY: Irascible and fundamentally a necessary fickle fact. An argument that no mathematics or thought equation can defend against... To challenge this premise is to supersede infinity's very nature. It will never ever happen.

Therefore we are circumscribed to live within, the physics - largely of Newtonian and Einstein's mathematics. I would caution to note: that these finite mathematics are subject to change that currently work fairly well for our finite existence as we mathematically calculate how to penetrate and maneuver the Stars, or add 2 plus 2 to equal 4. But they do not work to unravel Quantum Mechanics (in total), and the cache of oddities, such as "Superposition's", whereby subatomic particles are in several places at one time, until they are interrupted by measurement. Or do these current finite mathematics explain "Entanglement", which allows for two subatomic elements to be millions of miles apart, however if one changes its state of "spin" or "electrical" charge the other particle millions of miles away responds instantly. Yes, this violates the concept of the speed of light as the fasted method of action in the Universe.

As Einstein called "Entanglement" Spooky, but none the less real. This seemingly violates the speed of light. But hold on, the Speed of Light travels, Entanglement implies "Connection". Or what is known as Local action.

Space is the key to this thought equation. Since space is "Infinite" to the "Finite" Observer. Space in this context is also in union with waves - as well as particles. However waves may connect all things instantly, just as waves may allow for "Superposition's."

The answer is simply that: This makes us both Local and Non-Local at the same time. Waves and or theoretical "Strings" perhaps in some union - connect our space and possibly time in ways we do not fully comprehend. If true, our infinite extended connections are observed from a finite realm only. It might be important to note here: That simply no distance is allowed in an Infinite realm, as infinity is immune to classification, therefore it is all things and no things at the same time. Make sense? It usually should not, as finite logic has a difficult time with this both intuitively and implicitly mathematically. Make sense yet?

Probably not, as this means that "Everything is Nothing and Nothing is Everything." Hence there are no real "infinites" to calculate in an Infinite realm. But this last statement is a clear oxymoron, as it should be, as infinity does not have mathematics or anything defined based in or of it. As this would imply a finite realm. It is simply infinite, and does not apply to our finite realm of mathematics.

Mathematics is purely the purview of the finite.

When I said there are really no infinities in the infinite realm. I meant it. But to us, within the finite realm or finite conscious state, as observers, Infinities are what - infinity, space and time are made of. Once again, the ultimate and infinite conundrum. However, how does this allow for the stuff of existence, such as "us", or cars, and trees and so on to exist? Well we do need infinity to have a finite realm, as I said.

That is the puzzle? That must never be answered technically, nor can it, again from a finite perspective or finite observer. This mind trap we are caught in trying to view infinity - would seem to drive one mad to think that Infinity, Space and Time have no beginning or an end.

But get use to it.

Infinity is indelible. Terms like "time" and "space" are non-words to describe Infinity correctly, as Infinity never had a beginning or an end. The space and time word terms we use within the realm of Infinities definition, or lack thereof, could not and do not exist. Unlike the finite world, which has an Alpha and Omega. (Dust to Dust, Evolution, and Space to move to, and a length of Time that life gives us to observe.

And - That is that...

We are here by way of connections of an indefinable Infinity, which has always been, and will always be. Make no mistake about it. This will provide us and others forever to give sentiency a journey to discover anew. New science from physics to health, coupled with new modes of life, new cultures to come. Save an Asteroid impacting the Earth, or a Super-Volcano taking us to our end of time as sentient beings. But others will arise, no doubt by way of times finite arrow.

The finite with a beginning and end is necessary, to find hope. Just imagine living for eternity without end. That proposition, would invoke a person to lose goals, have no new hopes, and actually impart a crazy madness of hopelessness. As you would be in the ultimate Trap, or Jail forever, if self-aware. What would be the point? One would ask themselves... And therefore, Life and Death, are necessary.

Dust to Dust and then perhaps? Take your best shot at a faithful guess! The options are many, the realities may be few. No one really knows. No one...

Plainly beyond us, the Infinite and Finite will ebb and flow, and new existences will arise through an endless connection to everything for all time...

Essential Points:

1. The Science is: That Infinity is incomprehensible to any complete understanding and, the Finite is limited to understanding all things, perhaps itself and certainly infinity. The connection between the finite and the infinite operate as if Everything is Nothing and Nothing is Everything... Have fun with that analogy! As for me, it holds true, as it confirms to me that cognitive logic eventually meets the illogic of Infinity. This lets us clearly know we will never actually know honestly and truthfully the great questions of life: As to know "ALL" or "Truth" would be to actually define a place and a time, which can only be finite. And that would defy the rules of Infinity, which cannot be technically ever defined. Otherwise it is no longer infinite; it would then become as a mere canvas with parameters. And Infinity is incomprehensible. End of Story - Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow... In other words Forever!

2. The Moral is: That Legacies matter. Build a good one. The Butterfly Effect is always on... And that is what really matters.

All the best in our journey's, Russ Otter

www.otterthink.blogspot.com