Essay Abstract

This essay is a cursory overview of the first insights to come out of an investigation into the question whether a universe can create itself out of nothing and, if so, how. The suspicion that in an uncaused universe where things create, and so explain each other it doesn't make sense to try to describe events in terms of cause and effect is supported by the fact that quantum mechanics only makes perfect sense if we abandon causality, if, as in quantum field theory, we consider particles to be the product as well as the source of their field, their interactions. As the law of action = reaction acknowledges the fact that the force on a particle can only be as strong as its opposition to it, its inertia, and particles owe their inertia to the force they anchor each other on the positions they act from, gravity must be ambivalent. By introducing a quantummechanical definition of mass, the essay shows how attraction and repulsion are the two sides of a gravity that powers and is powered by the expansion of the universe, inevitably leading to a uniform mass distribution. As in a self-creating universe the total of everything inside, including spacetime itself stays nil, nature has a paradoxical character which may take some effort to digest: instead of clinging to the essentially religious idea of causality and missing the fun, the reader will have to get used to the rational reasoning required to understand and appreciate the tale.

Author Bio

I studied chemistry at the University of Technology Eindhoven in 1969-74, but stopped halfway between my bachelor and master degrees as a professional life among people as boring as my fellow students, who in the course of their education managed to loose any imagination and creativity they may have started with, was too depressive a prospect to stomach. About ten years ago I became seriously enough interested in physics to study its essential textbooks to be able to use its many inconsistencies as guide for my investigations.

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Hi Anton. Greetings, you mentioned that your essay "shows how attraction and repulsion are the two sides of a gravity that powers and is powered by the expansion of the universe, inevitably leading to a uniform mass distribution".

Remarkably similar to your ideas, I have already previously written:

1) "Electromagnetism involves extremes of feeling, brightness, visibility, size, and energy. Gravity and electromagnetism/light are united at the [gravitational] mid-range of feeling between thought and sense. When scale is balanced, gravity is repulsive and attractive as electromagnetic energy/light and feeling. I have demonstated all of this in/as the dream."

2) "Demonstrate gravity as attractive and repulsive -- in keeping with relatively constant (and proper) lighting, energy, and brightness -- in a space that is at once understood to be larger and smaller. The space must also be invisible and visible at once. I have demonstrated ALL of this in/as dream experience."

3) "The dream represents the underlying and fundamental process/manifestation by which the totality of experience is attained to and known/understood at its deepest level. The world requires and involves man."

4) "The fundamental laws of physics must be unified and also understood in a fashion that allows life and experience (in general) to be. Consistent with this, dream experience is essential to the proper (and complete) understanding of both life and experience in general."

What do you think of these ideas? Do you think that they are correct?

Also, what do you think of the following?

"The ability of thought to describe or reconfigure sensory experience is ultimately dependent upon the extent to which thought is similar to sensory experience." AND "Dreams make thought more like sensory experience in general."

The fundamentally interactive nature of being, experience, and thought is undeniable.

Dreams make sensory experience in general (including gravity and electromagnetism) more like thought. Accordingly, the unification of Maxwell's and Einstein's theories (in a fourth spatial dimension) is plainly and significantly evident in/as the dream. Dreams involve a fundamental integration and spreading of being and experience at the [gravitational] mid-range of feeling BETWEEN thought AND sense. Dreams add to the integrated extensiveness of being, experience, and thought in and with time.

The natural and integrated extensiveness of being and experience go hand-in-hand -- in and with time as well. I have proven this definitively. Witness the following:

Dreams are an emotional experience that occur during the one third of our lives that we spend sleeping, because emotion is one part (or one third) of feeling, emotion, and thought. Consistent with this, both feeling and thought are proportionately reduced in the dream. Thoughts and emotions are differentiated feelings. Dreams are essential for thoughtful and emotional balance, integration, comprehensiveness, consistency, and resiliency. Indeed, emotion that is comprehensive and balanced advances consciousness. If the self did not represent, form, and experience a comprehensive approximation of experience in general, we would be incapable of growth and of becoming other than we are.

The totality of the system/experience has to be considered.

Do you agree with this: "The fourth dimension must be understood as additive (in regard to space) as well as being subtractive (on balance) as well." How does your essay account for this?

The self, represents, forms, and experiences a comprehensive approximation of experience in general. Also, the self represents, forms, and experiences comprehensive approximations of experience in general. If the self did not represent, form, and experience a comprehensive approximation of experience in general, we would be incapable of growth and of becoming other than we are.

The 4th space dimension gives us Einstein's theory of gravity (general relativity) AND electromagnetism (Maxwell's theory of light). We know this.

Moreover, it is common sense that this union is plainly and obviously evident in our experience.

1) I have demonstrated a comprehensive union and balancing of gravity and electromagnetism/light.

2) Dreams improve upon the integrated extensiveness of experience and thought.

3) Dreams involve a fundamental integration and spreading of being and experience at the MID-RANGE of [gravitational] feeling between thought AND sense.

4) Dreams make thought more like sensory experience in general (including gravity and electromagnetism).

5) The ability of thought to describe or reconfigure sense is ultimately dependent upon the extent to which thought is similar to sense.

My understanding/description of how the dream constitutes the union of gravity and electromagnetism/light is complete, fundamental, simple, comprehensive, and consistent. It is lacking nothing.

See: The Dream Fundametally Balances and Unifies Gravity and Electromagnetism

http://radicalacademy.com/studentrefphilfmd13.htm

I have even mathematically demonstrated/proven it in a fundamental fashion; as I have shown the three to one (one third) relation of BOTH space (the three space dimensions in relation to the 4th space dimension) AND time (3 to 1 in Einstein's theory of gravity) in dreams; as dreams occur during the one third of our lives that we spend sleeping. Or, you could say that the extension in space (three to one, or one third) is consistent with extension in time. Note: there are three parts of time as well -- past, present, future.

Electromagnetism/light and gravity are fundamental to life. They are united in the dream. The totality of experience has to be considered.

To think that the union between Einstein's theory of gravity and electromagnetism (i.e., Maxwell's theory of light) is not plainly and significantly obvious/manifest in our experience is one of the greatest blunders regarding lack of common sense that I have ever seen.

Electromagnetism involves extremes of feeling, brightness, visibility, size, and energy. Gravity and electromagnetism/light are united at the [gravitational] mid-range of feeling between thought and sense. When scale is balanced, gravity is repulsive and attractive as electromagnetic energy/light and feeling. I have demonstated all of this in/as the dream.

Demonstrate gravity as attractive and repulsive -- in keeping with relatively constant (and proper) lighting, energy, and brightness -- in a space that is at once understood to be larger and smaller. The space must also be invisible and visible at once. I have demonstrated ALL of this in/as dream experience.

You now have electromagnetism/light as gravitational space. Space manifesting as BOTH gravitational AND electromagnetic/light energy. (Constant energy as well.)

The union of gravity and electromagnetism/light in a fourth spatial dimension completes, balances, and extends Einstein's theory. (Don't forget, Einstein's theory is incomplete, as it shows that space/the universe is EITHER expanding OR contracting.) It demonstrates thought that is more like sensory experience in general. The ability of thought to describe or reconfigure sense is ultimately dependent upon the integrated extensiveness of thought, experience, and being. Indeed, the ability of thought to describe or reconfigure sense is ultimately dependent upon the extent to which thought is similar to sensory experience. Dreams make thought more like sensory experience in general. Dreams involve a fundamental integration and spreading of being and experience (including thought) at the mid-range of feeling BETWEEN thought AND sense.

I have unified gravity and electromagnetism/light in and with time. DO YOU AGREE?

  • [deleted]

Anton, I forgot to mention, feel free to quote me in your future work.

Author, Frank Martin DiMeglio

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Hi Anton:

In your essay -- regarding the significance that you attach to "perpendicular":

Note: The 90 degree angle involving the body in relation to dream and waking experience. I forgot to include this in my prior 2 posts.

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"... any fool can master the maths of physics and publish respectable looking nonsense full of impressive equations ..."

I find this offensive. More like any fool can write a garbage essay.

Dear mr./mrs. Anonymus,

Though my comment wasn't intended to offend as the work of so many physicists is invaluable, I only meant that too often a theory is proclaimed, complete with the appropiate equations and accepted by the physics community, at least for some time, but which nevertheless is complete nonsense.

My comment was partly inspired by the fact that an academic degree doesn't guarantee that the person in question is no fool, and partly by complains of authorities in physics about crackpot theories (of which I suppose this contest may contain a few, mine included) as ideas lacking (dis)provable assertions and equations often are quite useless indeed.

Though they certainly do have a point, this is not to say that accepted theories aren't crackpot either: the problem is that as we tend to believe equations to clothe the truth, they're taken more serious.

Nevertheless, I may have been too harsh as anybody tries to do his/her job as good as he/she knows, so the problem perhaps lies more in the way science is institutionalized, in the fact that the efforts, time and money spent on research into some question often aquires such an overpowering momentum that it effectively blocks investigations into alternative possibilities and even buries any germ of conflicting ideas and interpretations before it can take root in our mind.

The reason I do think that regular physics got astray in some fundamental questions are the results of my own investigation: though the view which unfolds in the essay mainly changes the interpretations of equations and measurements and experimental results rather than the equations and results themselves, there are a few laws and theories which don't make sense.

One example is the second law of thermodynamics which says that the entropy inside a closed system can only increase in time: however, if the system is really isolated so it cannot exchange energy in any wavelength, then it doesn't even exist to us: if its entropy changes, then it isn't closed.

Though time is supposed to proceed in the direction of increasing entropy, if the universe is closed, if as a whole it cannot have a clock (its hands rotating with respect to what?), if there's nothing with respect to which the passing of time inside of it can be established, then neither can we speak about a change of entropy inside of it.

Since we cannot isolate a system from gravity, we can never construct a perfectly closed system to prove the assertion that the entropy inside only can increase with time: that we talk about the passing of time inside the -supposedly- closed system shows that we don't even consider it to be closed at all as it doesn't even make sense to speak about the passing of time within a perfectly closed system as it, its content wouldn't even exist to us.

The idea that the entropy of the universe was at minium at its begin refers to a supposedly orderly beginning and may agree with a Big Bang, but is wrong if the universe doesn't need a bang to get started: if the entropy changes inside a system closed but for gravity, then the effect of gravity over time must compensate any entropy increase, which is consistent with the drift of the essay.

Big Bang hypothesis in my opinion is useless as it doesn't even offer the beginning to an answer about the origin of the energy created, why and how energy can explode, come into being, whether its quantity was infinite (and its creation cannot be finished) or, if finite, how that particular quantity was determined, how, if there's nothing with respect to which this quantity can be qualified as being small or large, it can be measured off.

If there's no space nor time outside the universe, no clock and ruler, then how can we qualify the Bang as happening inside an infinitesmal point some time in the past, happening within an infinitesmal time?

How can a hypothesis according to which the quantity of energy stays the same ever after its creation possibly be reconciled with the fact that if spacetime is crowded with virtual particles carrying energy, its energy content must increase as it expands ?

Big Bang and inflation hypotheses have been dreamed up to explain the expansion of the universe, its homogenity and isotropy, ideas which have branched into thousands of publications, treating one aspect and the other, one more complex and ingenious than the other, but missing that crucial keystone, the mechanics of the bang without which every assertion and supposition is no more than fiction.

In my essay, I offer a mechanism for self-creation which besides being surprisingly simple, automatically and unavoidably leads to a homogenous, isotropic and fairly flat universe.

Since in my view the universe starts with an infinitesmal energy, its energy and dimensions increasing, accumulating as we speak, there's no need for a bang to end up with the amounts and dimensions of the universe we find ourselves in: it contains as much energy as it is large or old.

The problem of present cosmology is that we're so used to things and events having causes that we assume our universe also to have a cause, that is, a creator, whereupon we assume that all particles are made as intended, as the cause, as the source of their interactions and not also their product, the Big Bang hypothesis being a latter day version of Genesis rather than science.

Religious tradition has soaked our brain for so long that even scientists who call themselves atheist haven't freed themselves from the siren song of causality, the foundation of all religion, from the implicit belief that particles are real, do objectively exist in an absolute sense, even beyond their universe.

A further example is the Higgs mechanism which I think of as a monumen for our ignorance about the nature of mass, for the failure to combine Mach's principle with quantummechanics to a deeper understanding which would have prevented a huge waste of time.

The trouble is that all the effort, time and money invested in these theories and their testing, in articles and books grant them a respectability which in the course of time metamorphoses into unassailable truths, which henceforth are taken for granted, blind alleys the properties of which (among them that they are lead nowhere) are built into ever more far-fetched, complicated theories, their ingeniousness mistaken for the guise of truth, to become so complicated that nobody knows anymore what others are doing and getting farther lost, imprisoned by our own preconceptions.

To me such hypotheses (and word combinations like 'negative-pressure vacuum energy density' which suggest to explain something -Wikipedia: Inflation (Cosmology)) much resemble the realm of thought of the alchemists, who agreed on insights which to us, today, seem embarassingly nonsensical.

Reversely, I don't expect authorities in present physics to appreciate my ideas, so I'm certainly not surprised nor insulted to read the essay be qualified as garbage.

My position is not unlike that of the writer in a story by Borges & Casares (The Chronicles of don Bustos Domeqc) who told his stories, in the expectation that oral tradion would polish them to their final form if they were anything worth at all: though I think my tale to be consistent, as I may have made an error in my thinking or missed some essential facts which would contradict my ideas, I don't know whether they are worth anything at all, but expect them to be developed if they do indeed have potential.

Though the right to feel offended is a Human Right, I hope you feel less offended after this explanation, or, what I really would appreciate, by using your anger in a productive way by tearing my ideas to pieces by arguments so I can correct the error of my ways.

More ideas to dismantle can be found at www.quantumgravity.nl.

  • [deleted]

'Since we cannot isolate a system from gravity, we can never construct a perfectly closed system'

You can see an example how to isolate gravity and construct a perfectly closed system here If the link do not work see below

http://www.fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Leshan_Leshan.pdf

If you ask 'whether a universe can create itself out of nothing' then this essay will be interesting for you.

What is outside of your self creating universe? - Nothing is outside of universe, it is a hole in spacetime.

Dear mr./mrs. Anonymus, (part 2)

Your comment made clear that I have to attend the question how present physics can be so wrong about some rather important issues, so here's part two of my answer to you.

Though most articles on astrophysics, for example, report measurements, speculate about mechanisms of the observed phenomena or propose theories to explain them, they all are more less executed with the idea of the Big Bang in mind, so however objective they aim to be, as the direction of the research, the choice of the subject and the parameter which are and aren't investigated, is to a larger or smaller extent determined by this idea, its results may be already be compromised from the start.

As a bang doesn't automatically lead to a homogenous, isotropic and flat universe, mechanisms and theories must be dreamed up to correct for this: as inflation hypotheses itself offers some problems, why, how the supposed exponential inflation can stop itself, for example, or by what it is driven in the first place, this requires a new theory, which, as it in turn will be imperfect, will lead to a new one.

What we have, then, is that the imperfection of one theory is the seed of the next, theories breeding like rabbits, everyone of them causing an avalanche of articles, which likewise are infected with the Big Bang hypothesis, a mechanism which in music is called 'acoustic feedback' and can bust eardrums, but in physics leads to a tunnel vision which destroys any claim to objectivity, however objectively and careful the research inside the tunnel itself may have been executed.

As the level of sophistication increases with every next theory, we work ourselves deeper and deeper into the quicksands of our preconceptions, the more ingenious the proposed solutions, the more difficult it is to extract ourselves out of the mess as we tend to take ingeniousness for truth, artificial constructs becoming ever more bizarre, their relation the reality it is supposed to describe fading away.

Creating its own reality, this practice is not unlike trying to find a lost key under the street lights, the role of the dark areas in between reduced to connect one lighted spot to the other.

We have, then, the following chain of reasoning: we discover that spacetime expands and, believing that everything the universe contains at present was created in complete detail at the same time, in the past, so, following events back in time, we have to conclude that the universe must have started with an explosion from a single point to account for the velocity (clusters of) galaxies move apart.

However, the discovery that the expansion accelerates means that the expansion doesn't necessarily need an explosion as cause, so instead of discarding the bang idea altogether, we try to save it by inventing terms like 'dark energy' to try to explain this acceleration, terms which don't explain anything but just seem to offer the promise to do sometime in the future, making the problem managable for now, that is, weeping it under the carpet so we can sleep in peace for the time being.

If, according to the proposed mechanism, the universe began with an (almost ?) infinitesmal energy, its energy continuously increasing in time, powering time, massenergy and spacetime creating each other, then what we see now is the accumulation over billions of years of this continuing creation, the billions of years the product of this creation as well as there is no clock, as there passes no time outside of it.

According to this scenario, we don't need a bang, there are no laws of physics violated or declared to be out of order, producing in a natural, automatical way the homogenity, isotropy and flatness we see.

This, of course, doesn't mean that all work was in vain: as many measurements and mechanisms also can be related to quite different scenarios, we can try to relate them to any consistent set of ideas, however unfamiliar they may be, to see whether what seems to make sense on paper works in practice.

The alternative is to keep believing in a Big Bang, never being able to prove its truth since we don't have any explanation about its origin or mechanics: by assuming that the laws of physics aren't valid at the beginning, a state of affairs which by calling it 'singularity' suggests that we know what we are speaking of, we use an abacadabra spell to serve as a loincloth which conceals the truth that we cannot switch off the laws of physics when they're inconvenient, to declare them invalid when they don't fit our ideas.

Though I do hope I'm exaggerating the scale of the misunderstandings in present physics, the pleasant unanimousness of commonly accepted interpretations isn't conductive to undertake expeditions into the unknown lands that unfold in alternative directions.

Science proceeds like a blind mountaineer who never knows whether he has reached the top of a foothill or the top of the mountain, who only can explore by leaving the top he reached (the scientist finding himself stuck with conflicting theories, seduced to keep sitting on his ass by declaring the laws of physics to be out of order), by climbing down (allowing doubts) and feel his way to an even higher top.

Hi Lesham,

As particles preserve their mass by exchanging energy, by transmitting gravity between them, and you cut off this exchange by isolating the particles inside a system from the particles outside of it, they cease to exist to their siblings outside, so you would annihilate them if you could completely isolate them.

Our mistake is that we believe that things can exist even if they wouldn't interact at all: however, in a self-creating universe, particles exist only to each other as far as they exchange energy, so to exist is not a noun but a verb as it has to keep exchanging energy to keep existing.

This indeed is a religious belief as it refers to the existence of some higher realm outside of it, of which our universe is only a part of, a realm with respect to which things (and people) have a real, an infinite kind of existence, a realm we assume to have a clock which determines the pace of events inside.

It is this belief which is at the root of the most serious misconceptions in present physics, that we imagine to look from the outside at the universe, like we imagine its Creator to do.

By doing so, we allow the expansion of spacetime to mean that galaxies move apart with velocities exceeding the speed of light: since we wrongly assume that all matter was created at the same time in a distant past, all galaxies must be of about the same age, so in our imagination we see all galaxies at about the same age, from a certain distance moving apart at velocities greater than the speed of light.

However, taking their spacedistance for real but ignoring their corresponding time distance completely invalidates Big Bang hypothesis and any theory hatching from it, so in taking these fantasies to be true, we completely fucked up physics: if we wouldn't ignore their time distance, we wouldn't see anything at all looking from the outside in.

As galaxies moving with a velocity with respect to each other larger than the speed of light don't exist to each other so 'with respect to each other' doesn't even apply, they cannot move faster than light.

The universe, then, is certainly is not a hole in spacetime but instead part of it, so there's no spacetime outside of it, no place or time to be at and look at it.

Anyway, if an observer could look from the outside in, then either his ability to absorb photons means that he already is part of it, inside of it, or he would see nothing at all as he can only exist outside of it if he's built out of stuff which in no way can interact with what's inside of it.

Though a discussion of the non-existence of spacetime outside the universe may seem of the same order as the question how many angels fit on the top of a pin, the point is that spacetime is a quantity which only exists to objects to which it physically, energetically matters what their distance is.

Let's imagine an huge volume of spacetime with only a single particle in it, never mind for the moment that for lack of other particles to exchange energy with, it cannot even exist itself.

As long as it has nothing to interact with it doesn't matter energetically where it is: as it cannot know where it is, all positions are identical to the particle, so the volume can be infinitesmal as well as infinite.

To the particle spacetime then is a completely undefined quantity, which is not surprising as it can exist itself, have mass only by exchanging energy with objects in its environment, an exchange providing information about their direction and distance, and so about the dimensions of spacetime itself.

Since as particles create each other, they see each other appear at the same time, in concert, we might imagine the universe to start with particles of a very low energy, their exchange proceeding in extremely large wavelengths so their position, their distance is very indefinite, spacetime between them ill defined.

As even a large displacement takes almost no energy, all positions being almost identical, it doesn't even make much sense to use an adjective like 'large' for their distance or the dimensions of spacetime.

If we define spacetime to be larger as it contains more physically, energetically different positions, then to a particle spacetime is smaller as its own restenergy is smaller.

As the distinction between the distance between particles and their velocity with respect to each other fades at larger distances, higher velocities or lower energies, all quantities becoming less definite, so does spacetime: the smaller the energy of the particles, the less defined spacetime looks to them, the less physically different position it contains, the smaller it can said to be.

The higher the restenergy of a particle, the more physically different positions its universe contains, the more particles at larger distances it exchanges energy with, the larger its part in their creation is and in the associated creation of spacetime, its expansion.

So mass and spacetime are intrinsicly related, spacetime being a product, an aspect of mass and vice versa instead of something which comes for free, some empty, abstract property-less quantity.

As seen from the only possible observation post, at the center of his universe, its rim then is no sharp border but an area where the energy of the particles decreases to become infinitesmal: the more distant, the smaller, the less indefinite their energy, the longer their wavelength and the less definite their position, the less spacetime is defined, the more the concept of spacetime looses any significance.

Hi Anton W.M. Biermans,

'Though a discussion of the non-existence of spacetime outside the universe may seem of the same order as the question how many angels fit on the top of a pin'

Outside of your selfcreating universe is nothing, it is a hole in space-time or an absolute vacuum. It is not an abstraction, we are able to detect and create experimentally these holes in space-time. We can detect easy holes using their properties. If a hole appears, it means disappearance of extension and duration properties. Therefore, if we increase the concentration of holes in space, the observer must detect the time dilation and length contraction effects. Because in the limiting case when space consists of holes only, the distance between every two points is equal to zero and time as a property do not exist. Outside of universe does not exist the properties of extension and duration.

To create a hole in space-time, we must remove all matter from chamber very quickly. For this purpose we can use inelastic scattering of particles. If a particle with a near-luminal speed strikes another particle, one leaves its volume at near-luminal speed due to a hole must appear.

Thus, if clocks placed near a collider tick slower, it will be an experimental proof for the holes in space-time.

Since we can remove the space-time, consequenly space-time really exist.

13 days later

Reply to Robert Oldershaw, Dean Rickels, ...

As for a lack of alternatives, most astrophysicists take the Big Bang idea as a starting point for their own research, affecting the direction and subject choice, its implicit assumptions infect their investigations or at least the interpretation of their observations, and thus the theories they come up with. As the bang doesn't automatically produce a homogenous, isotropic and flat universe, mechanisms and theories must be dreamed up to correct for this: as inflation hypothesis itself offers problems as to its why, how it can start at all, by what it is driven and how it can switch itself of and know when to, this requires a new theory, which, as it in turn unavoidably also is flawed and fails to solve all problems, breeds new flawed theories. What we have, then, is that the flaws at the heart of Big Bang hypothesis seed of subsequent flawed theories which are supposed to cure the deficiencies of the preceding theory, and which instead of supporting the Big Bang idea in fact only serve to expose in detail what's wrong with it. The mechanism which in music is called 'acoustic feedback' and can bust eardrums, in physics leads to a tunnel vision which destroys any claim to objectivity, however objectively and careful the research inside the tunnel itself may have been executed. As the level of sophistication increases with every next theory, we work ourselves deeper and deeper into the quicksands of our preconceptions: the more ingenious the proposed solutions, the more difficult it is to extract ourselves out of the mess as we tend to take the ingeniousness of a theory as proof for its truth instead of becoming suspicious about once again having to squirm ourselves into another thought-kink to explain why the preceding theory didn't solve all problems it was designed to do after all, artificial constructs becoming ever more far-fetched, their relation to the reality they're supposed to describe fading away: creating its own reality, this kind of research is like looking for a lost key under the street lights.

The discovery that clusters of galaxies recede from each other understandably led to the idea that this motion must have started from some point in the past, all the energy and matter present today created there and then. However, if spacetime expands and contains energy in the form of virtual particles which can propmote each other to real ones, then the creation of energy and spacetime still continues and wouldn't necessarily need a bang to start. Though gravity was supposed to decelerate the expansion, it seems to accelerate, implying again that we don't need a bang to get the stuff moving and being created which is to become galaxies. A bang starting from an infinite energy density (singularity) wouldn't be able to start as the associated infinite gravity would prevent any explosion, so to nevertheless let the party start, we discard this objection by simply putting out of order all inconvenient laws of physics, which perhaps is its most embarassing feature. Instead of discarding the whole bang idea altogether and try dreaming up some alternative, we waste our time trying to save a conjecture which isn't even worth saving as it doesn't offer a single clue as to the origin of all that energy and matter, the why of it or its mechanism, nor a single piece of usefull information let alone a shred of proof.

One argument against the inflation idea, which on its own should be damning enough, is that it refers to an imaginary observation post outside the universe, as if looking from some higher realm, over god's shoulder. As any observation, even an imaginary one requires that the conditions at and the position of the observer with respect to the observed can be established, which by definition is impossible outside the universe, these imaginary observations and speculations are competely invalid and useless. If we imagine to see particles or galaxies of the same age billions of lightyears apart receding from each other faster than light, then we ignore the fact that objects cannot move at a velocity with respect to each other faster than light as they then wouldn't even exist to each other so 'with respect to each other' would loose any significance, as would the concept of 'velocity'. Much worse is that in ignoring the corresponding timedistance between them, which we do as we imagine to see all galaxies at the same evolutionary phase, we in fact state that they have an absolute, objective, real existence even beyond the borders of the universe itself, as if there's some higher realm outside of it, something with respect to which they still exist, the belief that a thing can exist even if it wouldn't interact at all. As this comes down to acknowledging the existence of some creator, Big Bang and Inflation belong to the domain of metaphysics. Though galaxies 'see' each other in a similar evolutionary phase, this is not because their light took so long to reach the other: as they create and preserve each other by exchanging energy, they only exist to each other as far as they exchange energy, so a galaxy exists only in its energy exchange with every other galaxy in its universe, its wavelengths increasing with distance. That observers at different distances see 'the same' galaxy in different evolutionary phases is because just like the energy of a particle or cluster is a superposition of varying frequencies, its state is a superposition of states.

If, according to the proposed mechanism (see essay), the universe began with an infinitesmal energy, its energy continuously increasing in time, mass, energy and spacetime creating each other, then what we see now is the accumulation over billions of years of this continuing creation, time being the product of this evolution, there being no time, no clock outside of it -which has the important consequence that there's no point in space nor time from which the absolute, objective time sequence of events can be established, spelling doom for the usefulness of the classic concept of causality. The proposed scenario instead of violating laws of physics explains their necessity and produces in a natural, automatic way the homogenity, isotropy and flatness we see, an expansion not thwarted but powered by gravity or gravity being powered by this continuing creation.

5 days later
  • [deleted]

Hello dear Mr Anton W.M. Biermans ,

Nice to know you .

In your essay,you speak about the expansion ,I have a question ,

Are you sure what our Universe actually expands ?

What about the evolution point of vue ?

If the self creating Universe is an effect thus what is the cause ?

Sincerely,

Steve

As some comments on other essays elucidate my own, I'll also post them here.

Comment on 'The Fariness principle and the ultimate TNOE - bij Giovanni Amelino-Camelia

' ... The outside world is something independent from man, something absolute ...'

If the universe creates itself out of nothing and continues to do so, then the sum of everything inside of it, including spacetime itself has somehow to remain nil, so things certainly do not have an absolute kind of existence, a reality outside the universe -the 'somehow' being the main subject of physics. If particles and galaxies create each other, if they only exist to each other as far as they interact, keep exchanging the energy they need to exist, then they have no absolute existence, no reality outside of interactions, outside their universe. The idea that an object can have an absolute kind of reality, as if there's some higher realm from which it can be observed in all its glory, without affecting the observed, is a religious notion. Furthermore, as we consist of particles, the 'outside world' is not completely independent from us, a fact which Schrödinger's cat will confirm.

' ... Our present formulation of the fundamental laws of physics is inapplicable to contexts in which both quantum mechanics and general relativity play a non-negligible role (...) that quantum mechanics and general relativity both played crucial roles at the big bang...'

The reason for this inapplicability is that general relativity is a classic theory, formulated around the notion that objects do have an absolute kind of existence in the assumption that the mass of particles is only the source of their interactions and not (as quantum field theory should be interpreted to say) also their product. Besides the universe having no need for a bang to get started (so there isn't even a singularity where the two theories can clash), the mass definition I propose seems to have all basic elements to build a relativity theory with quantummechanics at its heart and so is free from the flaws of the present version. The present problem, then, is that we believe the mass of particles to have an interaction-independent component, as if there's an unassailable holiest of holy inside the particles which cannot be affected in any way, and which indeed would create black holes with finite horizon diameters, with singularities at their center. If, however, the mass of particles is as much the product as the source of their interactions, then there can be no singularity, no points of infinite density and zero volume, nor can the hole have a finite horizon diameter. Though the mass density of objects may have no limit, the density of any real object has a finite value, depending on the distance it is observed from.

'...From "within" each doll it should only be possible to get information on neighboring dolls ...'

If particles to keep existing, keep exchanging energy, then with this exchange they communicate all information about all particles in their universe, so a particle, like a hologramfragment, contains all data of the whole, be it that this information is less definite, more vague the smaller the fragment is.

'... an effect of gradual saturation of our ability to uncover new phenomena (...) the substantial lack of progress ... of the last quarter of a century...'

To me the origin of this 'saturation' seems to lie in our excessive respect for ideas and concepts which may have passed their sell-by date, in our aversion to leave the comfort of our belief in the gospel truth as proclaimed by our revered patriarchs of physics, in our lazyness or lack of imagination. If what has been useful in simpler times now obstructs its development and has become the cause of our misery, then physics perhaps needs an overhaul which doesn't spare cherished concepts like those of charge, gravitons and antiparticles, of the idea that gravity is exclusively attractive. As outdated ideas produce conflicting theories, we're liable to create problems which don't bother nature itself, problems we cannot solve as we created them ourselves, problems which tend to breed new generations of problems and in the process cultivate the idea that the universe itself is so impossibly complicated that the it must have got at least a PhD in physics before being able to create itself. As history shows, real progress in physics always proceeded by conceptual revolutions which showed previous assumptions to be false, the result of the tunnel vision of that time. If nothing works to break the present impasse, we should try to dream up alternatives and not back off when they contradict some old sanctified ideas as we've got nothing to loose but what very well might be our preconceptions that chain us to ideas which, as I argue, essentially are of a religious nature. Just like praying is an effective method to selfhypnotize the believer to keep believing in the god he prays to, repeating mantra's in physics which don't even work is just a way to avoid thinking about the fundamental magic they refer to, a magic which however weird it may seem at first sight, nevertheless obeys a very rigid, compelling, unavoidable logic.

The job Copernicus started apparently is far from finished: after acknowledging that every point is at the center of its own universe, part two is to finally admit that as there's no clock outside the universe, no point from which unambiguously can be determined what precedes what, the concept of causality has become useless in physics. Only in a universe produced by some outside intervention, a caused and causal universe things can have an absolute kind of reality, an interaction-independent existence, being only related by having the same creator, their behaviour more a kind of side-effect of the properties they've been provided with than related to the need, the effort to keep existing themselves. In a universe where things and events create each other, they are far stronger related than causality can account for.

  • [deleted]

Thanks for the development .

Indeed the ultim entropy is very difficult to encircle because is outside the physicality .

But of course we see this splendid equation and its building in our Universe in evolution ,where the mass increases and improves,optimises ....

Our Universe is indeed a mechanic which is under an ultim equation and its universal parameters ,invariances ,coherences ,constants ....

I understand your point of vue .

Good luck for the contest

Regards

Steve

Comment on "What is the Ultimate Velocity ?" by Andrew Miller

'... one day it may be possible to travel faster than the speed of light ...'

I'm sorry but the speed of light isn't even a velocity but just a number which says how many meters correspond to how many seconds, so you can never travel a greater spacedistance than the time-distance it corresponds to. Like some rulers which show lengths in centimeter at one side and in inches on the other, their ratio being 2.54, spacetime uses a ruler with a length scale at one side and a time scale at the other, the ratio between meters and seconds being c. Spacetime is not a space where it is everywhere the same time: the idea of a universal clock, which comes down to a clock outside the universe directing the pace of everything inside is a truly religious notion. As it isn't everywhere the same time but clock readings depend on the observer and the observed process, as there's no point in the universe from which unambiguously can be determined where it is earlier or later, a photon cannot even know in which direction it moves. Only an object which interacts with the environment it travels through can have a velocity with respect to the things it interacts with: as the photon cannot express its properties in interactions so the part "with respect to" doesn't even apply, the speed of light is not a velocity. As it took me years to accept this state of affairs and only now am beginning to understand this dichotomy, its need in nature for engineering reasons, I suspect this to be hard to fathom for the reader: that Newton was right in thinking light to be transmitted instantaneously, Einstein being right in equating a spacedistance with a timedistance, but nevertheless mistaking a timedistance for a duration. As to a photon the world it travels in doesn't exist as at that speed its properties are suspendend in time so it cannot express them in interactions with that world (which anyway would require influences propagating even faster), to the photon there's no space nor timedistance between the points it is transmitted (never mind that photons do seem to interact when traveling -see Mechanics of a Self-Creating Universe), its transmission is instantaneous, notwithstanding the fact that an observer measures a time proportional to the distance between the points it is transmitted as to him they have different spacetime coordinates.

Hello Mr. Biermans,

After reading your essay, I could appreciate the honesty with which you described it in your abstract: a cursory overview of the first insights to come out of an investigation into the question whether a universe can create itself out of nothing and, if so, how. I encourage you to go ahead. Many times your phrases begin with the word "if". The ideas you advance are speculative, in the good sense of the word. As Einstein wrote to his friend Michele Besso: "only bold speculation will enable us to progress and not an accumulation of experiments". However, speculation is not enough. It would be good if you referred to verified experimental facts and try to formulate the speculations as physical laws. If I understood your point well, you propose to express gravity as a vector perpendicular to the electric field and the magnetic. This may be expressed quite simply as a vector product G proportional to E x B. I don't see how this would relate to experimental evidence but maybe you have some original insight. I think that in this way you may begin to adjust your model.

By the way, in order to promote the contest, I publish essay quotes on my twitter profile and blog. Would you mind if I quote some of yours (with a link to your essay of course)? For example : "If an electron cannot express its charge if there is no other charge in the universe, then it couldn't be charged itself."

Regards,

Arjen

Arjen, Of course you may quote. Answer follows one of these days.

Reply to Leshan

If we define the outside of a universe as that area where the concept of spacetime looses any significance (keeping in mind that every every observer is at the center of his own universe), then the universe of course is no hole in spacetime, nor in some other kind of stuff, some other quantity or realm. That said, in the central area of a large region of spacetime which like an enormous soap bubble is enclosed by clusters of galaxies, spacetime is so undefined that positions over a large distances are almost identical physically, the virtual particles populating this area having an extremely low energy.

If we have two extremely long rulers (both having a scale for meters and one fore seconds), a regular one which contracts and expands according to the gravitational field it is dipped in, and a rigid ruler unaffected by the field and put them alongside each other from one cluster of galaxies diagonally across the bubble towards a cluster at the other side, then the density, the number of marks on the regular ruler per meter of the rigid ruler would be high and increasing nearer the clusters, at the ends of the ruler, whereas in the empty area their density would be extremely low, meaning that the distance in space and time between what on the rigid ruler corresponds to an enormous number of graduation marks, is very small in meters and seconds on the regular ruler which measures the physical distance. Nevertheless, a spacetime area which is completely empty is a waste of space in the eyes of nature: as such an area would take up space in our universe and increase the distance between objects at both sides and change their interactions, there are no such completely empty areas. If spacetime cannot exist without the virtual particles which keep it going, if these particles and spacetime are two aspects, manifestations of the same thing, then a completely empty spacetime can only exist in the mind of a mathematician.

Dear Anton,

I applaud you for your discipline in self-study of physics. I agree with the zero-splitting argument and ambivalence about causality. Causality is a relative phenomenon, described well by quantum transactional wavefunction collapse (check out John G. Cramer's work)... something you and I both have independently determined, and at least one well-known physicist agrees!

A couple of notes from reading your essay:

1. Your long sentences can be cumbersome to read, but I like that you let your chains of reasoning flow, clearly demarcated by commas and periods.

2. "As the accuracy in one is equal to that in the other" ... shouldn't that be "is inversely proportional to the other?" - but I still understand your point.

3. "they indeed are the source and product of their interactions." This self consistency is the standing-wave model of particles... the quantum conjugate state constructively interferes with the state. Particle and antiparticle - but at opposite times, charges, locations, etc. CPT symmetry and all of that.

4. I'm glad you stick to physics, unlike many people who avoid equations - discussing religion and mind and dreams.

5. "try to translate into equations" I agree, and I'm glad you see the necessity. Translation into equations is always daunting because one must eliminate things to make them manageable. "In this limit" or "neglecting ___," it's hard to accept such arguments. In a metasymmetrical landscape, it's hard to remove any one piece because all the others are related.

RE: "Science proceeds like a blind mountaineer.."

I really enjoy your quote. I don't know whether it has been said before, but I suspect it is at least experientially true for most scientists out there. It takes a strong belief in an idea to stake a claim which could immediately become obsolete or falsified.

I suggest two solutions for scientists:

1. Speculate and announce. This usually generates attention, as long as the basis of the speculation is conventional. This is basically an exaggerated incrementalism: each new idea, however revolutionary, must clearly result from a study of the existing theories. The idea is to know where you are going and suffer any critique (or attract a climbing party) before you embark on the journey.

2. If it's easy enough to do alone - just do it. The problem with this is that the idea has less impact. An idea in captivity doesn't proliferate. Another trouble is communication. To be understood by the majority of scientists, one must adopt their parlance - study their methods and start with the common assumptions before showing anything new. So, alone, one ought diligently study the work of others if to be accepted by them.

Reply to Arjen Dijksman

' ... you propose to express gravity as a vector perpendicular to the electric field and the magnetic. This may be expressed quite simply as a vector product G proportional to E x B. I don't see how this would relate to experimental evidence ...'

You don't see this because you still think that the mass of particles and the spacedistance between them are entirely different and independent quantities: if, as I argue, mass and distance define, create each other, just like energy and time, if the mass particles show to have to each other, the force between them, the frequency they exchange energy at varies with their distance so their distance is part of their properties, of their mass, then the Maxwell equations relating the E and B field to the distance to its source, in this distance already contain gravity implicitly. In a volume of spacetime with only one single particle in it all positions are identical: as long as it has nothing to interact with so it doesn't matter energetically where it is, it cannot distinguish whether the volume it sits in is infinite or infinitesmal so spacetime to the particle is a completely undefined quantity, as is the particle itself as it cannot exist if there's nothing to exchange energy with. To illustrate how intrinsicly mass and space are related, imagine, in an empty universe, a particle and its antiparticle creating each other by separating as they can only exist at different places, the particle borrowing its positive energy from its twin which, in counterphase, needs an equal, negative energy. The farther apart they move, the longer this takes, the longer they live, and, as at larger, less definite distances, gravity between them is less definite, smaller, so is their energy. Of course, alone in their universe, they cannot feel any force at all, can have no energy as there's no gravity between them to make one position, on distance differ energetically from the other until they acquire some inertia, a foothold to exert and experience gravity from. As they can only rent some inertia from neighboring particles by exchanging energy with them, then this requires the creation of such neighbors to do so, particles which also are looking for partners to exchange energy with, to exist to. As their mass, the energy they exchange to keep existing depends on the force* between them, which in turn depends on the definiteness in their position, in their distance, then they create spacetime as soon as they start to exchange energy. The higher their energy, the less indefinite their distance is, the more energetically different positions they can disinguish, the larger spacetime is to them. As any particle is at the center of its own universe, they create each other at the same time, their energy exchange perhaps** starting in very long wavelengths, an exchange which in time shifts to shorter wavelengths as they contract in clusters as this is the only way to create new particles at the rim of their universe and keep existing themselves: create or perish. So mass and distance, define, create each other just like energy and time, the problem being that if we assume that the mass of particles is an intrinsic, interaction-independent property and use their masses to calculate their distance from the force between or vice versa, or derive their mass from forces and distances, we arrive at numbers which ignore this fact: that to nature mass and distance, space, are interchangable, pass into each other, as mass, a gravitational field is an area of contracted spacetime which outwards passes into 'empty' spacetime, which is but a diluted form of mass.

Though their exchange is instantaneous, the spacetime they create between them makes particles see each other in an earlier** evolutionary phase, farther shifted to red at larger distances, so they don't see each as they were in the past, as if it takes the energy they exchange so long to reach each other, but simply because they exchange energy in less definite, longer wavelengths as they are farther apart. If their energy is a superposition of energies of different wavelengths, their position a superposition of (in)definitenesses in their position, then by exchanging energy particles knit spacetime together to the continuum we see.

The splitting of a particle with positive energy from its counterpart with negative energy, or the oscillation of particles between opposite states is the same as the particles moving in opposite time directions, as if they oscillate about a zero-time point to prevent violation of conservation laws, which is impossible as with their energy, they create the time to exist in. This energy gap represents a shorter timedistance as a smaller spacedistance equals a greater force, a higher energy, their behaviour more rigidly coupled at shorter distances, one particle being a larger part of the universe of the other. As they create each other at the same time, a timedistance between them certainly is not the same as a duration, never mind that an observer will see the nearest particle change before its twin, a duration which is equal to their space- cq timedistance.

Perhaps we should distinguish two kinds of gravity: the one we're familiar with, the kind which makes stars and galaxies move and radiate, powering or powered by the expansion of the universe, the ongoing creation of massenergy and spacetime out of each other, and the less visible kind involved in the energy exchange objects preserve their properties with. Related to this, there are two kinds of time, an evolutionary kind of time where the evolution of galaxies doesn't so much happen in time, as if there's some clock outside the universe decreeing the pace of events inside, but an evolution which produces time as it proceeds, the accumulating kind of time we associate with past, present and future, and another kind of time which is related to the frequency particles oscillate about a zero-time point, to the energy exchange they preserve each other's mass. Though one process is impossible without the other, our mistake is that, since we take gravity for an attractive force, we interprete the gravitational constant as the constant which relates the force between masses, whereas in fact it only refers to the gravity which is involved in the creation process, in the expansion of the universe. The kind of gravity which is carried by, produced by the energy exchange between (clusters of) particles is much stronger, but, as the mass of an object equals its inertia, doesn't cause any acceleration, though of course one kind of gravity cannot exist without the other. This, by the way, is why the acceleration of an object in free fall doesn't depend on its own mass: that it does depend on the planet's mass is because it is part of a contracting cluster, our Milky Way: the larger its mass, the greater its part is in the ongoing creation, in producing the universe, in its expansion.

Anyhow, the problem to quantify the relation between the E, B and G fields more explicity doesn't invalidate the assertion that these equations contain gravity in the distance x to its source.

If in a windowless rocket, we cannot distinguish whether it is at rest at some planet or accelerates in space, an acceleration from gravity, and an electric field by accelerating a particle brings its inertia to expression as gravity, as a force between the source of the field and the particle, then perhaps we should apply the equivalence principle by saying that electromagnetism is but a way to manipulate gravity, so we shouldn't even speak about an electromagnetic force as if this is an entirely different kind of force which has nothing to do with gravity -in which case we'll never unify them. So if a force does what gravity does and in its effects cannot be distinguished from gravity we should call gravity, however the means we manipulate it with may differ. If the E, B and G fields indeed are different aspects of the same thing, then gravity is an electromagnetic phenomenon and vice versa. Similarly, if a photon is an electromagnetic phenomenon which in transporting mass transmits impulse between particles as their changed masses requires a displacement to find a new equilibrium in their neighborhoods, and in their displacement transmits gravity between them, then what do we need the graviton for?

These considerations don't answer questions like why electrons tend to move apart or why a muon, so much heavier than the electron nevertheless seems to have the same charge. I also don't know whether the Poynting vector S ~ E x B giving the energy flow vector of the electromagnetic field can be related to the blackbody radiation of a particle of a cluster of particles, to the energy exchange to preserves its mass. What I do know is that in science it is often more important to dream up good questions than finding answers, though a good answer often opens a path to new discoveries and questions.

However magnificient Maxwell's equations are, they're not all there is to electromagnetism as we tend to forget that we don't even know what it is we don't know. By sticking a label on something, by ascribing electric phenomena to a cause and calling it charge, we commit the act of assuming it to be an intrinsic property of particles, a label behind which we can hide our ignorance about its nature so well that we don't even consider it a subject for study anymore, as if we know all there is to know about it. That we assign particles charge sizes like 1, 1/3 and 2/3 should have made us suspicious as to the pretention that they refer to an interaction-independent property as this is impossible in a self-creating universe. Rather than referring to an intrinsic property, these simple numbers seem to express the need for an explanation for electrically neutral composite particles or states of equilibrium where particles somehow manage to shield themselves from the kind of interactions we associate with charge. Though this is a simplistic, wild speculation probably far off the mark, we might imagine the oscillation frequency of the rotating protonquarks in hydrogen to fit the electron's frequency at different distances, in discrete orbit radii, moving at velocities at which its own frequency is just redshifted enough to fit some of the proton harmonics, equilibrium states we explain by saying they are oppositely charged, as if a force can be unambiguously either attractive or repulsive, an explanation which to me seems rather primitive.

Unfortunately, one outdated idea, one flawed concept breeds the next as it is because we take charge for an intrinsic particle property that we need antiparticles to explain why quantummechanics work. If the charge of a particle only refers to the sign of its energy and fundamental particles oscillate between opposite states, the phase they are in with respect to each other determining their interactions, then we don't need antiparticles, though by pushing them into counterphase with respect to 'regular' particles, we can manipulate them to act as if they are a really different breed. The point is that if the energy of a particle doesn't have any particular sign but its size is determined by the frequency it alternates between opposite states, then like a photon, any fundamental particle is its own antiparticle. If any property contributes to the energy of a particle then it only can exist, contribute to its energy if it also alternates between opposite signs or states: if even for a particle 'to be' is a verb and not a noun, then charge cannot be a static quantity. The concept of charge, then, doesn't only produce that of antiparticles, but is itself the product of the misunderstanding that gravity is attractive as this necessitates an explanation as to why some particles tend to move apart, or why the force between other particles is so much stronger than (an attractive) gravity can account for.

Though I have some ideas about why electrons tend to move apart or why they always are deflected in the same direction in a magnetic field, as if their compass is fixed in some particular direction, or why the muon despite being heavier acts as if it has a charge equal to that of an electron, they haven't yet matured enough to be presentable, though I hope they are before the contest ends.

* gravity being a simultaneously attractive and repulsive force. In the example of the particle and its twin counterpart, this may translate as the necessity to attract when apart -and annihilate, but to repulse to move apart and create each other out of nothing, though the notion of attraction and repulsion is somewhat outdated as no force can exceed the opposition is evokes.

**perhaps, **earlier: well, this depends on whether a self-creating universe can have a beginning at all