Alternative Models of Cosmology

COSMOLOGY AND THE MULTIPLE YOU

The quantum mantra revolves around the theory that in physics, anything not forbidden is compulsory - given enough time and/or space. While there is nothing forbidden about an identical twin(s) of yourself existing elsewhere in the cosmos, how compulsory that is depends on what sort of cosmological model you adopt.

You are unique, aren't you? There never has been a person exactly like you before, there isn't now, and there never will be. Maybe! Depending on what's really real in all things cosmological, the odds that there are identical copies of you out there can range from plausible if improbable, to plausible and probable, to in fact near certainty, even certainty. The key issue revolves around the concept of infinity, or near infinity. If one has an infinite number of universes to play around with, and/or infinite time, then every possible history is, sooner or later, somewhere, compulsory.

The idea of a duplicate you or two or three isn't that far-fetched. Even on Planet Earth, this tiny speck within the cosmos, you have had, do have, and will have doppelgängers. But those are just look-alikes, not actual duplicates of you down to the nittiest-grittiest detail.

From the outset, some definitions are in order. We have the 'observable universe' which is that part of the entire Universe we can actually see in the here and now. Parts of the Universe that exist, but which light hasn't yet reached us, aren't part of our 'observable universe' - yet. The 'Universe' is all that we can ever know about, regions seen, and regions as yet unseen. Then there is the 'Multiverse' which, if it exists, are a conglomerate of separate Universes, each of which exists as a discrete entity in a three dimensional arena and which we could potentially interact with. Think of separate houses along a street you can visit in turn as separate universes. An overall analogy could be the nucleus part of a liver cell (our 'observable universe'), the entire cell (the Universe), and the grand collection of liver cells - the liver Multiverse as it were. Apart from those, there are parallel (mirror/shadow/alternate) universes which 'exist' - for lack of a better phrase - in other planes of existence and like houses that exist in a time instead of a special sequence, say on the same block of land, one can't easily travel from one to another. There's also the Many Worlds Interpretation variation of parallel universe, and simulated universes.

Firstly, could there be another you or multiple copies of you in the existing Universe? That's plausible, but probably unlikely.

Discussion: The existing Universe could be as near to infinite as makes no odds. It obviously can't be infinite, because it would take an infinite amount of time to expand the Universe to an infinite volume, and we know the Big Bang took place less than 14 billion years ago. And, the Universe can't contain an infinite amount of stuff; otherwise it would have to have an infinite volume to house it all. The fact that our night sky is dark, suggests that there can't be an infinite number of stars and galaxies in our observable universe, otherwise, no matter in which direction you looked, you'd see a star or galaxy and the night sky would be as light as the daytime. However, from our point of view, while not infinite, the Universe is still BIG! And it does contain a lot of stuff. It is within the bounds of possibility that within such a vast space, by chance, there could be a duplicate(s) of you, even more identical to you than any identical terrestrial twin you might happen to have. The odds aren't very high to be honest, but they aren't zero. However, even if an identical copy of you exists elsewhere out there, the probability is far greater that they already have, or someday will. The odds that two copies of you exist right now multiply the odds against by many orders of magnitude. Finally, even if another copy of you exists somewhere out there now, they are in all probability way to far away for the both of you to ever shake hands.

Secondly, could there be another you or multiple copies of you in a cyclic Universe? That's not only plausible, it borders on near certainty.

Discussion: Current cosmological observations suggest that our Universe began some 13.7 billion years ago in a Big Bang. Alas, the expansion of our Universe appears not only not slowing down, but ever accelerating due to something cosmologists and astrophysicists are calling dark energy - which they admit they don't really understand. Anyway, despite dark energy, many cosmologists cling to the concept that eventually the expansion will slow down, halt, and reverse, resulting in ultimately a Big Crunch billions of years in the future. That Big Crunch leads directly to another Big Bang - expansion - contraction - Big Crunch - Big Bang, etc., etc. Thus one has an ever oscillating or cyclic Universe with no beginning and no end. Ah, the concept of infinity (this case in time) rears its head. Since the Universe has already gone through an infinite number of these cycles, as surely as night follows day follows night, anything that could have happened, has happened, and happened an infinite number of times. That includes in infinite number of you, and the life your leading now right down to the last detail an infinite number of times, as well as leading differing lives in every possible variation from the major (marriage, career, children, lifespan, etc.) through to the relatively minor, right down to the highly trivial (like an infinite number of lifetimes absolutely identical to the current one except for one morning when you had an ever so slightly different breakfast cereal). Just think, somewhere in the infinite past, there was a version of you who lived an entire lifetime driving a car and never hit a red light! Again, anything that is within the realm of possibility, even if improbable in the extreme, has happened, and has happened again an infinite number of times. Such is the nature of infinity. The other nice thing about an infinite Universe (whether in time or space) is that all those unsuccessful eggs and sperm, all those failed or un-germinated seeds, all those spores and pollen that never bore fruit, all those lives that never were, all now get their moment in the sun!

There's an interesting variation on the above theme. Most of us are probably familiar with the sci-fi idea of being caught in a time-loop. You repeat an interval of time over again and again, probably until some weird sense of deja vu alerts you that something's not quite right. Expand the idea to the grandest scale possible. Big Bang - expansion - contraction - Big Crunch - Big Bang - expansion, etc. but each cycle isn't a new cycle with a new history and new possibilities rather each cycle is absolutely identical to the one that came before, and the one before that, etc. So, there will be an endless number of you, but there will be no wild new things in your lives, just the same old life, again and again. Maybe that's where we get our now and again sense of deja vu from.

Of course in a cyclic universe, one universe dies before the next is born, so a copy of you in a previous universe is kaput before your universe comes into being, and you will be kaput before the next cycle starts, so there's no meeting of identically like minds.

Thirdly, could there be another you or multiple copies of you in the Multiverse? That's not only plausible, but much more likely than if only our one Universe exists.

Discussion: We live in a Universe that is very friendly to life-as-we-know-it (life-not-as-we-know-it is another can of worms that need not concern us here). That is, it seems that the various physical laws and physical constants are fine tuned to allow our kind of life. If any of those values were slightly greater or slightly lesser, the biophysics and biochemistry that allow organic life forms to exist wouldn't be possible. For example, if gravity were ever so slightly weaker, atoms/molecules wouldn't coalesce into macro-bodies like galaxies and stars and planets. If gravity were ever so slightly stronger, stars would be far more massive on average, and the more massive a star, the shorter it's lifespan, to the point where there wouldn't be enough time for life in a young solar system to develop before the parent star went poof! So, that fine tuning leads to a trio of possibilities.

The first is that we (meaning the Universe's life forms) are just incredibly lucky that our one and only Universe just happened to meet all the Goldilocks criteria that allow us to exist. The second is that there is indeed, an intelligent designer responsible for those conditions. For want of a better word, let's call this intelligent designer "God". (There's an interesting variation on this theme and that is this Universe was created by an extraterrestrial intelligence in another Universe, a feat which might be relativity simple to a highly advanced technology able to manipulate the basic forces of physics.)

The third possibility is that there is a Multiverse. We can all agree that our Universe is a Goldilocks universe. We can also all agree that we can imagine other universes, while superficially akin to ours (it would at least have space and time), have differing values for some of all of the physical properties we associate with ours - differing values for the physical constants, the types and numbers of physical forces and particles, the physical laws that are part and parcel of physics, etc. It's akin to humans - we're all superficially similar, yet each one of us (past, present and future) is unique (even identical twins differ and the same applies to clones as well as nurture affects us as well as nature). So, like we have a multiverse of humans, we could have a multiverse of universes (the Multiverse), some of which, like ours, will be Goldilocks universes, although most won't be because some critical constant(s) or force(s) or particle(s) or law(s) will be different enough not to allow the complexity we associate with life-as-we-know-it.

In other words, there exist dozens, hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe multi-millions or billions (or more) of universes where the physical laws and constants may well be different. That being the case, most universes will be barren of life because their physics, hence chemistry, aren't compatible with life-as-we-know-it. But a few, by chance, will be Goldilocks Universes. It wouldn't surprise anyone that because we exist, our Universe must be a Goldilocks Universe.

How exactly a Multiverse would come about is neither here or there. But there is at least one theory. To help explain various observational cosmological anomalies that would follow a traditional Big Bang, several decades ago the idea was floated that immediately following the Big Bang came a period of ultra-rapid inflation, before the expansion settled down to a far slower rate. Today, inflation is widely accepted as part and parcel of the Big Bang model. However, inflation need not have ceased at the exact same nanosecond everywhere. That is, if inflation continued on at one point, another Universe would quickly form, and if inflation didn't shut down exactly at the same moment, another bubble or pocket or baby universe would bud off, and so on and so on, resulting in a sort of bubble/foam collective of universes - the Multiverse.

The upshot is that lots of universes (a Multiverse), could mean a lot of you! However, distances separating the various copies of you are now even vaster, so again, getting together for dinner and drinks isn't possible.

Fourthly, could there be another you or multiple copies of you in Parallel Universe(s)? It's plausible, but perhaps not all that probable.

Discussion: We've all seen various sci-fi shows where our heroes get propelled into some sort of parallel or mirror universe. The characters they meet are close to, but not identical to themselves. The history they encounter is similar to, but not identical to the history they know. Of course that's for the sake of the plot. A parallel universe could easily contain a parallel you. Unfortunately, sci-fi aside, while there's theoretical reasons to postulate parallel universes, there's no known way of getting to them (and therefore no way of meeting yourself - assuming another yourself exists). But like in the Multiverse concept, if there are multi-billions of parallel universes, that increases the odds of a duplicate you.

Fifthly, could there be another you or multiple copies of you in the 'Many Worlds Interpretation' of quantum physics? That's taken as given!

Discussion: There is a theory known as the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics that each time anything, from fundamental particle to human being, comes to a fork in the road as it were, and has to make a choice(s), both/all forks are taken (something can be, and not be at the same time). To accommodate both/all alternatives, this quantum decision making (in the case of the micro), or macro decision making (in the case of scales we're familiar with), the entire Universe splits, and where we had one Universe, we now have two (or more), one for each fork. Of course when you consider the number of forks that the Universe encounters, well it's been calculated that every second, some 10 to the 100th power of Universes need to be created. (Just think how many hundreds, perhaps thousands of decisions (usually quite trivial, often subconsciously) you make every day. There has to be a new Universe to accommodate every alternative. Of course that means that when you add up all these collected Universes, there must be a lot of you, and a lot of everything else, each one ever so subtly different. In the case of deciding between wearing a green dress or a red dress there are now two Universes - one with you in a green dress; one with you in a red dress. And as in the case of parallel universes, there's no known, even theoretical, way of getting from this (say green dress) one to say another one of them (say red dress) and thus exchanging greetings with your identical self or selves.

Lastly, could there be another you or multiple copies of you as a Simulation? That too is as close to certainty as makes no odds!

Discussion: Do you exist? I mean really, really exist and have a physical reality? That's a pretty dumb question you'll probably ask! The answer is an obvious 'yes'. But, what if I were to suggest that the odds are very high that you have no actual physical reality, and that I have no actual physical reality, and that in fact all terrestrial life, Planet Earth, perhaps the entire observable universe has no actual physical reality! In other words, what if we are a computer simulation!

Let's suppose, for argument's sake, that in the real physical Universe, there exists some tens of thousands of extraterrestrial civilizations which have evolved technology our equal or better; even more advanced than we can conceive of. The odds are high that most would have invented computers - hardware and software. Any one civilization, such as our own, have (to date) produced multi-thousands of computer programs, many of which simulate life forms - think of the hundreds, indeed thousands of computer or video games. No doubt these programs will grow, over time, ever more complex and lifelike until they simulate reality to the same degree as reality itself.

If one advanced civilization produces multi-thousands of individual computer programs that simulate an actual, or imagined, reality, what are the odds that we aren't one of those simulated thousands vis-à-vis being that advanced civilization that actually exists in real reality? How could you know if you were real (hardware), or imaginary (software)? I maintain there's no way of you knowing, at least for absolute sure.

There's only a relatively few actual civilizations, but untold numbers of created false (simulated) realities - what odds we are one of the real ones and not one of the imaginary/simulated many?

Perhaps our concept of 'God' is nothing more than a mythological version of some advanced, but hardly supernatural, extraterrestrial computer programmer! Now as long as nobody hits the delete key!

But of course if there are multiple copies of that computer program containing you then that equates to a lot of you! You could exist hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of times over, all leading perhaps identical, but more likely as not, similar 'lives'. Now you quite obviously could not meet yourself as each piece of software is akin to a one universe - the collection of all the units of that software is akin to a type of Multiverse!

Is the idea really so way out in left field that there's not a snowball's chance in hell that it could be right? We have to look to advances in our own terrestrial computing power to determine that. Computer generated simulations are already realistic enough that they are used to train pilots and MDs and other humans in professional activities where mistakes in training, if done in real situations, could be disastrous. Our cinema industry has already produced computer generated virtual reality films, bypassing real actors and real scenery. It's entirely possible to bring back in a sense dead actors to star again in new productions. We've all be awed by computer generated special effects in films that are so realistic that if you didn't actually know better, you'd swear they were real.

Walk into any DVD store and you'll find thousands of video (computer) games and/or simulations that you can run on your PC. Most have 'humans' in various role-playing guises that are software generated and which you interact with. The reality factor is increasing by leaps and bounds. At what point will the software become complex enough such that these simulated 'beings' are advanced enough to have self-awareness? What happens when the computer software programming these virtual 'humans' becomes equal to the software (brains) that program us? What happens when the computer software complexity exceeds that of the human brain? Far fetched? Methinks not. Now just replace our virtual 'humans' with ourselves, and maybe, just maybe, we're the virtual reality in somebody (something) else's actual reality.

That theory is testable. While I can think of no way to prove I'm not a simulated being, one can find evidence that we do live in a simulated universe, and by implication, we too are simulated beings. No software (computer or human wetware - brains) is perfect. If there are any glitches, or software upgrades, they might be detectable as anomalous phenomena in some context or another. Like say one of the physical constants were tweaked and altered ever so slightly (and there is some evidence for that - the fine structure constant for example or the proton-electron mass ratio has apparently changed over astronomical time periods), or say the expansion of the Universe began to accelerate for no real apparent reason (that sounds familiar - recall dark energy). Computer software - from our experience - is always being upgraded and updated. If the same applies elsewhere, we could perhaps notice it if we're a product of that software.

Even though there could be multiple copies of a video game that contains you as a character, it's one you per copy, so again, no meeting yourself. That's not to prevent the creator of the game from including multiple copies of you within the one game - if so; well a conversation between you and copies of you won't be very interesting since you each know what you're going to say before you say it!

Finally, one bright note is evident. Even as you approach your own demise, take heart and rejoice, for somewhere out there, there is another you(s) to carry on, and on, and on, and on, and on! As the sun (once upon a time) never set on the British Empire, so to will the sun never set on you.

By the by, if you want to split hairs, you could insist that any copies of you aren't really identical in that the elementary particles, atoms and molecules making up your twin aren't the same elementary particles, atoms and molecules making you up. The flaw in that argument is that all fundamental particles, like say all electrons, are identical to as many decimal places as you care to measure and calculate.

THE BRANES AND THE BULK AND THE BULK OF THE BRANES: THE BRANE NEW WORLD OF BRANEWORLDS

For millennia, New Age devotees have related observations of nebulous exotic entities from apparently alternative realities like Parallel Universes that have made a crossover into our reality. Rational people suggest that's just so much bovine fertilizer. Or is it? Perhaps theoretical physics and String Theory might just support such an exotic scenario, the scenario of the Braneworld.

Question: Might 3-Braneworlds equal Parallel Universes (or in mystic-speak Astral Planes; Alternative Realities; Spirit Worlds; Parallel Realities; Higher Planes of Existence; Higher Dimensions; Portals in Space-time, as well as a host of related New Age claptrap phrases that non-New Age squares indeed call claptrap) from which come 'higher beings', 'astral entities', our 'enlightened space brothers' or even plain ordinary everyday run-of-the-mill aliens.

You cannot have nebulous otherworldly beings, or alternate reality entities, without having an alternative place or reality or an other-world(s) from which they come from visiting from and call home. Higher planes of reality and associated phrases have been called so much poppycock and confined to the rubbish bin, but perhaps prematurely.

Well, String Theory comes to the rescue, if not for the benefit of New Age gurus, then for cosmologists and theoretical physicists. But perhaps we can kill the two birds with the one stone as it were.

It all starts with String Theory. Now you probably think of the elementary particles, if you think of them at all, as very tiny little billiard balls. However, some bright sparks decades ago came up with an alternative. Instead of a zoo full of different types of little billiard balls, there were tiny vibrating strings. How they vibrated determined what kind of elementary particle it was - one good vibration/second might be an electron; two good vibrations/second a positron; three good vibrations/second equate to a neutrino, etc.

Strings could either be open (like an ordinary piece of string) or closed loops like a circle or ellipse; somewhat like a doughnut.

Now these strings are one-dimensional. But there can be two-dimensional Stringy objects, called Branes, short for Membranes. In fact, Branes became the generic name for all structures in String Theory, usually identified as p-Branes (weak pun) where the "p" stood for the number of spatial dimensions. So a 1-Brane was a string; a 2-Brane was a membrane; a 3-Brane was akin to our own version of reality. A 3-Brane is commonly referred to as a 3-Braneworld.

Oh, there's a catch. In order for String Theory to theoretically work, there has to be extra dimensions (I can hear New Age mystics cheering now), in fact nine spatial dimensions all up, plus the one dimension we call time. So, in fact you could go all the way up to a 9-Brane. Again all p-Branes have an extra time dimension as well tagged on. All up, that's six more spatial dimensions than we are comfortable with, but they tend to be out-of-sight and out-of-mind. Most extra dimensions are extremely tiny and curled up and hiding in-between the bits and pieces, the flotsam and jetsam of the quantum realm. But one extra dimension could be extremely large indeed providing the space all else, like 3-Braneworlds, is housed in.

Now 3-Braneworlds have to exist in higher dimensional space, like a 4-Brane which we can't traverse. It's just akin to how a fridge magnet is 'trapped' on a 2-D fridge surface (a 2-Brane plus extra time dimension) yet resides within a 3-D (3-Brane plus additional time dimension) space. Or, to use another analogy, a 2-D shower curtain hangs in 3-D space but the water droplets are confined to the 2-D shower curtain surface. We're confined to a 3-D universe 'surface' (3-Braneworld plus one time dimension) but that resides in a 4-D (4-Brane plus one time dimension) volume. To cut to the chase, lets just call that what our spatial 3-Braneworld universe reside in a realm of five space-time dimensions. That realm has been given a name - it's called the Bulk. Why it is called the Bulk I have no idea, but that's what it is named.

I've notched the Bulk up to being a five dimensional space-time (out of a possible ten), but it could just as easily I guess be the tenth space-time dimension (9 spatial and one of time). It doesn't really matter since we can't directly see it, taste it, touch it, hear it or smell it, be it a 4-Brane or a 9-Brane. But regardless, the absolute key point is that gravity can connect 3-Braneworlds via the Bulk whether the Bulk has a 4-Brane, 5-Brane, 6-Brane, 7-Brane, 8-Brane or 9-Brane spatial dimensionality.

So much for the background theory: now, the interesting bit is what if our universe were in fact, in reality, really a 3-Braneworld (plus a single dimension of time) residing in 4-Brane spatial volume, or the equivalent, a five space-time dimensionality (the Bulk). What if in fact there were other 3-Braneworlds (each with a time dimension) residing in that same 4-Brane (plus time dimension) volume of five dimensional space-time (the Bulk). Because of that residing (or hiding) in a higher spatial dimension, two 3-Braneworlds could exist within millimetres of each other, unseen, separated by the Bulk. Why unseen? It's back to those tiny open and closed strings and where they call home.

Closed strings are confined to our own 3-D or 3-Braneworld universe (like water droplets on that shower curtain) where they appear as those elementary particles that are associated with electromagnetism like photons and electrons, as well as those particles part and parcel to the strong and weak nuclear forces. These three forces are the quantum forces that rule our roost. If closed strings are the case for neighbouring 3-Braneworlds, then we can't see them because their electromagnetic (light) particles, photons, are forever confined and trapped to that 3-Braneworld and never reach us. Other 3-Braneworlds are invisible to us. That leaves the fourth force, the non-quantum force, gravity.

Open strings are the force particles of gravity, called gravitons. Open strings can exist with one string end attached to our 3-Braneworld, the other string end to an alien 3-Braneworld. Open strings, in other words, could cross the Bulk from our 3-Braneworld to another 3-Braneworld and be attached to both. In other words, gravity is our best bet means of detecting other nearby 3-Braneworlds. But you can't see gravity, so our neighboring 3-Braneworld is for all practical purposes is still invisible to us. However, you can 'see' the effects that gravity has on objects you can see. You can't see the gravity that controls the flight of a baseball, but you can see the effect of gravity on the baseball.

Postulating a nearby 3-Braneworld explains a trilogy of puzzlements. One is Dark Energy, one is Dark Matter; the other third is why gravity is so weak relative to the other three fundamental quantum forces (electromagnetism; weak and strong nuclear)

The Mystery of Dark Energy: If two 3-Braneworlds are in close proximity, attached by gravity, then they could have a close encounter of the ka-boom kind. We might term that ka-boom a 'Big Bang'. If the Big Bang was an actual collision between two 3-Braneworlds (known as the Ekpyrotic Universe scenario), causing a ripple and expansion effect, then Dark Energy is that left over residual oomph, the continuing shock wave of the Big Bang which comes to the fore and dominates the Universe when the initial radiation dominated epoch and the following matter dominated epoch begin to thin out or dilute as the Universe expanded. In this scenario however, we have to have Dark Energy eventually thin out, dissipate and fade away too.

The Mystery of Dark Matter: In order to explain various rotational anomalies of the galaxy, ours and others, additional but unseen matter with associated gravity has got to exist - it's either that or we have to drastically revise the laws of gravity as we currently understand them and no scientist is wiling to tilt at that windmill. Unfortunately, this postulated additional matter isn't akin to normal matter which you can detect because you can see it. We can't see this additional matter which is postulated, indeed nearly required, to exist. That's why it is called 'Dark Matter', though a better term might be 'invisible matter'. However, if a nearby 3-Braneworld universe shared its gravity with us, via those open graviton strings that transverse the Bulk, well that explains the 'need for extra gravity' to explain rotational anomalies and thus eliminates the need for the theoretical un-matter-like 'Dark Matter'.

The Mystery of Weak Gravity: Gravity is the 98-pound weakling force relative to the trio of Charles Atlas quantum forces. Why has always been a total mystery that theoretical physicists have had to deal with. Open (gravity) strings in the Bulk explain why. Closed strings are confined to our own 3-Braneworld. We feel their full strength. However, our open string gravitons aren't confined to our 3-Braneworld. Our gravity is diluted by spreading out into and throughout the Bulk and also attaching to other 3-Braneworlds. That's why it's the 98-pound weakling.

Another mystery is to answer the question, if our 3-Brane universe is expanding, what is it expanding into? Well, it's expanding into that five space-time dimensional Bulk.

Anomalies aside, another 3-Braneworld could be, well millimetres away from our 3-Braneworld along with their 'shadow entities' or 'higher beings' or 'aliens' and we'd never know it except through their gravitational contribution, what we call 'Dark Matter' which, because it doesn't actually exist in our own 3-Baneworld universe, can never have its identity 'discovered' in our labs or high-energy particle accelerators like CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

It should be pointed out that even though two 3-Braneworlds could be millimeters apart, they are not intersecting, just as your home and your next door neighbor's home don't overlap.

So another question obviously arises. If our 3-Braneworld in that five dimensional space-time Bulk is in extremely close proximity to another 3-Braneworld also in that five dimensional space-time Bulk, and there's gravity twixt them and us, well, what happens when two 3-Braneworlds collide in the higher dimensional Bulk?

If two 3-Braneworlds are attached by sharing gravity via those open strings, then they in fact can collide. It's our Big Bang event of 13.7 billion years ago explained. The Big Bang was just a massive supply of kinetic energy supplied at one location; one set of coordinates, caused by our 3-Braneworld impacting another 3-Braneworld at that one specific point. The two 3-Braneworlds then rebounded, but of course could collide again at a later (unpredictable) date. It's an interesting variation on the concept of a Cyclic Universe.

The standard 3-Braneworld model likens them to very flat and thin rubbery membrane sheets parallel to each other, sort of like thin LP albums cheek-by-jowl with only tiny separations between them on a shelf. They can approach (under gravity), collide (not everywhere at once as they are not 100% mirror smooth due to random quantum fluctuations if nothing else) then rebound. I think that's imposing a rather artificial and rigid set of conditions though I gather if you crunch the numbers two membrane thin and parallel 3-Braneworlds are the most likely and stable geometric configuration you can get (but I still think that's unsatisfactory). Normally when you think of something like the Universe, and something that's expanding, you think of round things - not flattish membrane sheets. So how about an elastic balloon-ball analogy?

Say we have two 3-D elastic balloon-balls in 4-D 'space' (I think they actually call this hyperspace as well as the Bulk) or a five dimensional space-time realm. There could in reality be a dozen 3-Braneworld balloon-balls all in close proximity, but two's enough for now to illustrate things. These 3-D elastic balloon-balls in collision can expand and contract and ripple, though they remain tethered together by those spring-like inter-brane forces (those open string gravitons).

Each 3-Braneworld balloon-ball has a mix of radiation, matter and Dark Energy which dominates that balloon-ball in turn as the 3-Braneworld evolves cyclically by experiencing a collision, the Big Bang; an expansion; dilution of each component element in turn - otherwise called entropy; cooling; and contraction back to its original state ready for another collision and Big Bang. That term entropy is nothing more than the concept that order tends towards disorder, or in other words, all that original high ordered radiation, matter and Dark Energy becomes more disordered and all ends up ultimately as a uniform but very dilute 'soup' until the next injection of kinetic energy - the next collision and Big Bang in an endless cycle.

So, the story thus far: Two 3-Braneworld balloon-balls in higher dimensional space-time (the Bulk, which isn't a static 'observer' but an active participant in these events), slowly, ever so slowly start to gravitate towards each other, slowing but surely picking up speed over time. Okay, so they approach each other under their joint mutual gravitational attraction. They hit (that's our Big Bang); they ring or reverberate like a bell; they compress and each balloon-ball heats up die to that initial compression and expands; the two balloon-balls rebound but quickly slow, stop and set the evolving conditions in each balloon-ball recycle back for a repeat performance.

Another way of putting that evolution is that the kinetic energy of motion resulting in the Big Bang event at time and point of collision was converted to radiation, matter and Dark Energy which then dilutes over time as the 3-Braneworld expands, finally cools, slows down, contracts back to it's original balloon-ball configuration.

Those extra-dimensional spring-like dynamics keeps the 3-Braneworlds apart but tethered though both are individually expanding or contracting or rippling and both are on the rebound from the other. When things settle down, and maximum entropy rules the roost, they can come together again still connected to its neighbouring counterpart by those open graviton strings.

Fly-In-The-Ointment #1: Even if other entities are just millimetres away in their 3-Brane Universe, they are as separated from us by the five-dimensional space-time Bulk as we are from them. How can they use gravity to get from their 3-Braneworld to its next door neighbour 3-Braneworld (that's us) through higher dimensional space-time? One can't just hike across gravity like it was a bridge. There's gravity between the Earth and the Moon but you can't walk-the-walk between the two.

How then does an other-world, a 3-Braneworld ET or the 'higher beings' that exist there get to our 3-Braneworld and then appear as those New Age 'shadow beings' from those mystic Never-Never Lands they like to go on, and on, and on about? Well, about the only viable scenario I can think of is excessive gravity translates into Black Holes which can, in theory, translate into Wormholes (for lack of a better word or concept) and Wormholes can be used, in theory, as a transit system. On the plus side, entities intelligent enough to manipulate gravity to create a wormhole transit system with entrance and exit portals will have no need of intergalactic or interstellar spaceships and million year journeys.

Fly-In-The-Ointment #2: String Theory, Branes ("p" or otherwise), the Bulk (or hyperspace), etc. well it's all just pure (and highly technical) mathematical theory. There's not one shred of experimental evidence; there's not one single run on the board that Strings and Branes exist. Till some theoretical physicist turns experimental physicist and hits a home-run, well I'm afraid all of the above will have to reside in New Age La-La Land, however fascinating the scenarios are.

John Prytz, (and thank you to Georgina),

As I was contemplating what other stroke to use in replying a different folk, Georgina seemed to have given me a hint.

So, John as you keep telling me to prepare you various recipes that Space is not a Nothing, which when I do you declare that they are not tasty, can you return the favor and prepare a recipe for Action-at-a-distance? Newton himself declined doing this, with his famous statement, "hypotheses non fingo".

You may also read Georgina's post on the Faster than Light thread on Dec. 2, 2014 @ 07:25 GMT and the quote attributed to Newton (one of my favorite quotes from the man).

Thanks for pointing to the slingshot effect. I read it and it is interesting. It is an outcome of good reasoning from mechanical principles. The Wikipedia refers to it as Gravity Assist.

In the relevant physics, the applicable equations are time-reversible, so if I am correct, in reverse motion the Moon can also sling backwards and donate energy to the Earth. IMHO, this slingshot effect does not fully address how come orbits are stable and behave like a perpetuum mobile.

Now, one figure says more than a thousand words, so let me give you more figures to contemplate.

Given the Moon's distance at apogee as 405400km and at perigee 362600km, with the Total energy in orbit (potential and kinetic) as

-GMm/2r,

putting in the Earth's mass, M and Moon's mass, m

At Apogee, the total energy of the orbit = -3.628 x 1028J

At Perigee, the total energy of the orbit = -4.056 x 101028J

Therefore, we have a difference of 4.28x101027J of energy, either lost as heat or otherwise radiated away and replenished by the Simulator after perigee,

Or Stored somewhere by the Simulator for re-use every cycle, which Store may not be classified as a nothing.

In one of your posts I was delighted to see, "That is because there is an ultimate limit to how small length (hence volume) can get. The smallest possible length is known as Planck length and anything less than that space ceases to exist. Planck length is 1.6 x 10-35m". I think we can build on this, as something that has a finite limit to divisibility must have structure of some kind.

Regards,

Akinbo

AN INFINITE COSMOS: ISSUES ARISING

The nature of, the size, the shape and the duration of our Universe has been speculated and debated upon ever since humans gazed in wonder at the night sky. Though ideas have waxed and waned, and though modern cosmology is more focused than ever on actual observations, speculations, well that's still the case today. My take, albeit slightly more philosophically inclined, is that our Universe is just part of an overall infinite in space and infinite in duration cosmos.

In the infinite beginning there was something rather than pure nothing - a finite amount of something in an infinite void of nothingness. This scenario eliminates the philosophical quandary of what's beyond the boundary - that only other alternative. This eliminates the philosophical quandary of how much stuff there is. An infinite amount of stuff doesn't leave you much elbow room.

In the infinite beginning, well there was no beginning; there can ever be an end. No Alpha - no Omega. This eliminates the philosophical quandary of what comes before the 'beginning' and what comes after 'the end'.

Okay, having postulated an infinite cosmos in space and in duration, well, other certain and not so philosophical issues come to the fore. If they can be addressed, well that's all to the good. If not, well it's back to the drawing board.

I'll start with...

Olber's Paradox

The night sky should be as bright as the daytime sky since in whatever direction you look, sooner or later you should see a star or galaxy that's in your line of sight. That's Olber's Paradox because the night-time sky isn't as bright as the daytime sky. One resolution is that our observable Universe is finite and there are only a finite number of stars and galaxies and thus, there will be lines of sight that do not intersect with an object that's emitting light.

But what if the cosmos is infinite in size and has existed for an infinite amount of time? Does that resurrect or reinstate the validity or viability of Olber's Paradox? Not necessarily.

Why is there something rather than nothing? That's been a prime philosophical question that has raged for aeons. But, on reflection, overall, there is a great deal more of nothing than of something. If everything was something, it would be rather difficult to move. There would be no elbow room. In other words, just because the cosmos is infinite in duration and in volume doesn't mean that there has to be an infinite amount of something within.

Let's say that pure nothing is a perfect vacuum. Then something within that nothing makes for an imperfect vacuum. One could image a cosmos so dilute that there could literally be gaps of pure nothingness between the bits and pieces of something. Or, one could imagine a universe that contained just one final cosmic Black Hole that had over all the infinite aeons gobbled up everything else that had been a something within the cosmos, and thus 99.99999% of that cosmos would contain absolutely nothing.

That aside...

Stars, like people, are born, and thus their light may not have yet reached us.

Stars, like people, die, and thus their light has ceased to reach us. It has all now passed by.

In an infinite space, stars maybe so far distant that by the time their light reaches us, it's so diluted or spread out that only one photon per hour hits the eye and that threshold is too low to stimulate the optic nerve and thus register.

Ever present cosmic Black Holes have gobbled up a lot of the radiation that is emitted and reflected. In fact, in a cosmos that's infinite, why haven't those astronomical Black Holes sucked up everything that can be sucked up thus terminating any and all evolving universes within that cosmos? Well the answer is Hawking radiation which theoretically predicts, on pretty substantial grounds, that eventually Black Holes will radiate away their mass. Once input is less than Hawking radiation output, the Black Hole will slowly, ever so slowly, radiate away, giving back to the cosmos what it once took away. There will be more on the significance of that shortly.

Entropy and Cosmic Recycling #

Another concept that needs addressing is entropy or the Second Law of Thermodynamics, otherwise known as the 'arrow of time' or sometimes as 'time's arrow'. If one considers an infinite universe to be a closed box or closed system, then over time, and we have an infinite amount of it, that closed box should reach absolute equilibrium and no further cosmic evolution would be possible. There would be a maximum amount of disorder, and there would be no further energy available to reverse that level of disorder.

It should be noted from the outset that in any closed box or closed system, entropy rules. Things will go from a state of order to a state of disorder without outside interference, that being an external source of energy to reverse the natural trend. The commonly cited example is if you have a closed box (the kitchen), and you turn off the fridge, the kitchen and the fridge will eventually reach absolute equilibrium, the same temperature. The kitchen warms up the fridge; the fridge cools down the kitchen, until both are at the same temperature - maximum disorder. It takes an outside energy source - electricity - to keep the fridge colder than the kitchen and thus in a state is disequilibrium or a state where entropy has not been maximized. Trouble is, once energy is evenly spread out throughout a closed system (like the fridge in the kitchen), no matter how much of it there is, it's useless in terms of doing useful things - like initiating change.

Another example: Your own body is a closed system. Your body's energy is in equilibrium. You are at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit from head to toe. Within that state of affairs, your body can not do useful things. Fortunately, there's a larger closed system that your body is a part of (like the fridge is part of the kitchen) that enables you to disrupt your body's equilibrium and thus provide the means for your body to initiate change. Your outside energy source is food, which is good since once you invoke that larger closed system that contains you, that larger system absorbs your body heat that gets radiated away into it. So the fridge needs outside energy to replenish its supply of cold; you need energy to replenish your body heat and to provide the ways and means to keep you keeping on. Of course as we all know, that's just postponing the inevitable. Sooner or later the fridge breaks down with wear; ditto you too. But in the meantime, and for a little while, you can keep your body's entropy under control.

Now any attempt to tunnel around various laws, principles and relationships of physics might be in vain, but not a total waste of time. The laws, principles and relationships of physics are constantly being refined, even overturned as in Einstein refined Newton's gravity; the Sun going around the Earth got overturned by Copernicus. However, anyone attempting to tunnel over, around, or through the Second Law of Thermodynamics should abandon all hope. If you try to butt heads with entropy you'll just end up with a sore head. You'd have better luck patenting a 'perpetual motion' machine, itself a violation of the ways and means of the entropy concept. In fact entropy is why you can't construct a perpetual motion machine and why any patent officer worthy of the name would refuse you a patent for one.

Still, in an infinite cosmos, a cosmos that keeps on keeping on, there probably needs to be a way to go from a state of disorder (high entropy) back to a state of order (low entropy).

As we noted in the example of the fridge and your body, it takes energy to reverse entropy or at least hold it at bay. A reversal of entropy is sort of like that closed box with Maxwell's Demon (representing energy) that controls a slot that the Demon can either open or close that's in the middle of that closed box that's of a uniform temperature. The Demon opens the slot whenever a rapidly moving (hot) molecule heads toward the left side or when a slower moving (cold) molecule heads toward the right side. After a while, the left side of the box will be containing just hot stuff (rapidly moving molecules) and the right side cold stuff (slowly moving molecules). Maxwell's Demon is like a kid expending energy sorting a bag of 1000 various coloured marbles (maximum disorder) into piles of reds and greens and blues and yellows (maximum order). Of course our infinite cosmos contains no demons, and marble-sorting kids need not apply if there's ever a job ad for restoring order to an infinite cosmos.

Okay, without demons (or entropy reversing kids), our infinite cosmos heads towards a state of maximum entropy or maximum disorder or maximum uniformity. The cosmic temperature will be the same everywhere; matter will be evenly distributed. But, can an infinite cosmos ever reach such a state? It could or should take an infinite amount of time, but that's also assumed.

Yet alas, what even an infinite cosmos needs is a Maxwell's Demon. The cosmos, if it is to retain a state of vitality for an infinite duration, needs something that recycles stuff that's at maximum entropy (maximum disorder) back to the basics of minimum entropy (or minimum disorder) where useful things can continue to happen.

* The Role of Gravity

Gravity seems to be a Maxwell Demon's kind of force that keeps on keeping on. As long as you have two bits of matter, even just two electrons, you have gravity. Radiation (electromagnetism) could be dispersed evenly in infinite space over infinite time, but it is hard to imagine that situation with gravity. The only real way gravity could be rendered inert and useless as an energy source would be if it was 100% concentrated in just one place - like a super ultra mother of all cosmic Black Holes. The only other way gravity could be nullified would be in matter were distributed so absolutely evenly such that every bit of matter were being gravitationally pulled on absolutely evenly in each and every direction. But the slightest nudge or deviation from this ideal theoretical state (inevitable given quantum fluctuations) would throw everything out of equilibrium. But because matter is energy and energy is matter, if gravity can disrupt the distribution of matter from a state of near perfect uniformity, then energy will follow the short and curly material bits. Light (photons) reacts to gravity as much as electrons do. Further, the one extra nice property that gravity has is that it can't be blocked. You can block out light or shield yourself from electromagnetic effects, but nothing will shield you from gravity.

* The Recycling Role of Radioactivity

Fortunately, there are several basic ways of recycling complex cosmic stuff back into the cosmos in the form of simple stuff. The first of these however has issues. Gravity can contract and pull together interstellar gas and dust into a proto-star which will ignite under pressure via thermonuclear fusion to form a radiant star. Stars however fuse lighter elements into heavier elements, and when a star goes nova, or becomes a supernovae, those heavier elements increasingly form the next generation of interstellar gas and dust. Eventually, after many generations of enrichment, interstellar gas and dust is lacking in those lighter elements (mainly hydrogen and helium) which easily undergoes fusion. Heavy elements, like iron, just won't fuse any more and so the continued formation of radiant stellar stuff grinds to a halt. But, there is an escape clause.

Among the heavy elements; elements that stars manufacture, are radioactive elements with unstable atomic nuclei. Radioactive decay re-releases back into the cosmos those fundamental bits and pieces that can reform into those lighter elements that are the basic building blocks for forming radiant stellar objects. There is cosmic recycling from the simple to the complex and back to the simple again.

* The Recycling Role of Cosmic Black Holes

The second way of cosmic recycling is, believe it or not, via cosmic Black Holes. Astronomical Black Holes, via the vacuum energy (quantum foam or fluctuations) and quantum tunnelling, can release elementary particles back into the cosmos. As mentioned earlier, this is known as Hawking Radiation, after theoretical cosmologist/astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Complex stuff can go into a Black Hole, but just very simple stuff ultimately comes back out again.

* The Recycling Role of Life

Life can be an entropy buster as in the case of Maxwell's Demon, the kid who sorts the marbles, the mum who does the housework, the bird or beaver who gathers up forest debris to make a nest. But, it takes outside energy to accomplish these things and at the end you haven't decreased complexity - the marbles are still marbles; twigs are still twigs. But microbes like bacteria, etc. can break down complex stuff (like twigs) and turn it into less complex stuff which can be recycled into hundreds of new and different complex things. So, when our home planet eventually meets its Waterloo, and gets scattered back into the cosmic winds, thanks to bacteria, there will be more simple stuff floating around than would otherwise be the case

So complex stuff gets recycled back into simple stuff, all brought together again by gravity to ultimately form complex stuff again. The cosmos receives recycled stuff back, from which it can keep on keeping on!

* A Fly in the Ointment

In a cosmos that's both infinite in space and infinite in duration, here's an interesting 'angels on the head of a pin' question. There are two forces which in theory can extend their influence indefinitely, that is, unto infinity. They are electromagnetism (of which light is a prime example) and gravity. So, can the influence of a force cross an infinite space if it has an infinite amount of time to do it in?

Perhaps Maxwell Demon's 'closed box' isn't really an appropriate 'container' for an infinite cosmos. If the cosmos is infinite, can it be described as a closed system?

The Multiple You

And so finally, consider and reconsider the quantum mantra: "Anything that isn't forbidden is compulsory; anything that can happen will happen". That's even more the case when you have infinite time and space to play around with! So, I add to that mantra "and will happen again and again and again, an infinite number of times". That actually means, or at least very strongly suggests that every possible scenario, every possible history, and every possible variation on each and every scenario or on any theme that you care to think of or think up will happen again and again and again. That, by the way, includes you. You are a scenario, and you, and every possible variation of you and your history will transpire numerous times; actually an infinite number of times. If that isn't spooky, I don't know what is, but it's a logical consequence of having an infinite cosmos.

# There are other ways and means of cosmic recycling too.

Stars are of course spewing out photons, as well as a whole stream of other bits and pieces from cosmic rays to neutrinos collectively called the solar wind, augmented by solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Interplanetary and interstellar space is full of this flotsam and jetsam that stars are giving off. In fact, the Universe tends to be a pretty active place: bits coming together via gravity only to be ejected back into space again be it radio waves (photons) from pulsars or gamma-ray bursts from high energy objects deep in the cosmos.

I understand that even seemingly stable subatomic nuclei aren't really stable in the ultra long term. After trillions of years even the elements we think of as everlasting will disintegrate and go poof with their own half lives.

On a smaller scale, an isolated neutron will decay into a proton, and electron and an anti-neutrino. However, since a neutron is already pretty fundamental, further breakdown isn't all that additionally useful.

Some variations on the standard model of particle physics require protons to decay (into a positron and a pion) albeit with an extremely, extreme half life. Experiments have been conducted to verify this proton decay but to date without success. No matter, a proton (like the neutron) is already pretty fundamental.

Akinbo,

Action-At-A-Distance? I assume you mean how does gravity work? Well, gravity and the electromagnetic force are very much akin - sort of like brother and sister. Both extend outwards (theoretically) to infinity. Both observe the inverse square relationship. When it comes to the electromagnetic force, it is the photon that conveys that force. When it comes to gravity, it is the graviton that conveys the force of gravity. Newton couldn't have been expected to know about the graviton. Of course the fly-in-the-ointment is that the graviton hasn't been found yet. However, it is postulated to exist, much like the Higgs Boson was expected to turn up eventually - and did. It is expected that when gravitational waves are detected, well that will put the icing on the graviton cake.

John Prytz

Thanks John for the reply and sharing your interesting alternative perspectives.

Yes, by Action-At-A-Distance, I meant what mechanism(s) exists to implement the observation. I was going to ask you a follow up question before reading your reply. That follow up, was to ask how the Moon manages to steal energy from the Earth and move to higher orbit after perigee without touching the Earth, and if your slingshot analogy applies, how the Moon manages to return this energy so that its orbit reduces as it does after apogee? Is there evidence of lowering in Earth temperature after a Moon-theft, or perhaps this will be too small? I actually tried to calculate using Q = mcφ, with c being specific heat capacity of Earth and φ, temperature change but appears tiny.

Your reply here suggests Action-At-A-Distance may be by means of particles? Do these particles have mass? Any idea of there numbers? Are they radiated into space in all directions, or only in the direction of the Moon? Even, if the Moon was not there will these particles still be emitted by Earth, and if so could the Earth survive 4.5 billion years of such continuous emission?

This force particle mechanism which you seem to support is one of the ways to deny Space any role as a participant in the drama taking place. Sometime ago, I asked Steve Agnew, how come magnets on opposite sides of a thick slab, opaque to visible light and maybe made of lead so that higher frequency rays don't pass, yet the magnets on opposite sides still influence each other. Can this still be via exchange of photons?

Then, how can bombardment with photons cause attraction instead of repulsion in the logical way you have been showing in your posts?

How come, when the Moon is at perigee and probably facing its highest amount of bombardment with gravitons said to mediate attraction, it is then it decides to escape and actually does so, till it is dragged back again at perigee? (This may apply as well to the atomic orbit if elliptical).

I will implore that you continue in your logical way and not join the bandwagon of Higg's Boson and other such ideas not in accord with Newton's reasoning from mechanical principles.

My main reason for this post before I was distracted to do this reply, was to ask what is your take on the Electromagnetic wave model. The little I know and hear is that in a region of space devoid of matter and charge, an electric field changes into a magnetic field, which in turn changes back to an electric field and this alternating change manages to propagate over vast distances. In the space between a source and a destination, how can such change from electric field to magnetic field and back again take place? There is no wire or coil, no charge and no magnet. This is part of the reason why a little voice tells me that Space has a hand in what is going on. I however, admit that there may be other explanations like yours that are against 'substantivalism'. This is a debate that has been going on for centuries. Did you manage to read Newton's views that I linked? Did you manage to simulate motion on your computer screen without allotting any pixels to Space since it is nothing and has no role to play in the simulation? I would be interested to know.

You seem to be disagree that things being in two places at once, superposition of states, etc, which are IMHO good reasoning from mechanical (classical and quantum) principles. However, your mention of Photon here makes me ask: Do you have any quarrel with the 'Photon' picture, or do you agree with all that has been said about it? Are you aware that the indivisibility of the photon, (if such a thing exists to replace the wave picture) is central to quantum mystery? Bohr and Feynmann say we should believe as sacred that a photon is indivisible and make this a postulate in quantum mechanics.

Of course, if light is not particle but wave, it must be waving in something that is not a nothing. I am not talking here of the aether.

Regards,

Akinbo

Akinbo,

You may wish to direct some of these questions to an actual professional physicist, which I am not, and/or read up on the standard model of particle physics.

Action-at-a-distance is apparently conveyed by actual particles associated with the four forces - EM, gravity, the strong and the weak nuclear forces.

Actually, when you stop and ponder the issue, as you have, all of the four fundamental forces are mysterious. You can read textbook after textbook written by prominent particle physicists filled from beginning to end with equations and all you will find is what happens or what will happen in any given scenario. The textbooks and the authors and the equations never tell you how the forces actually operate and especially why what happens, happens. Of course things are way less mysterious if all this forceful activity is just software programming. Perhaps action-at-a-distance is just a feature of our virtual landscape, part of the overall Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe.

P.S. - don't forget that when it comes to the Earth-Moon system, or any two objects with mass, that the gravitation attraction between them is a two-way street. It's not just Earth that attracts the Moon, but equally the Moon attracts the Earth. And obviously the gravity of any object with mass isn't directed outwards in a specific direction. The Moon goes around the Earth and is always 'feeling' Earth's gravity. Therefore, Earth's gravity isn't unidirectional.

John Prytz

"You may wish to direct some of these questions to an actual professional physicist, which I am not, and/or read up on the standard model of particle physics".

No use doing that. In the first place, many will not answer. Some that do will give incoherent and inconsistent answers, one would wish that one ever bothered to ask. You have yourself pointed to some of the absurdities in quantum theory. The few that give the kind of answers you and I would like and understand as illuminating would hardly want to be quoted as saying anything. From time to time, we however get to see slips of the tongue, some of which Pentcho and others draw attention to.

On whether or not, space is a participant, thanks for your views but keep an open mind still just in case.

Regards,

Akinbo

Akinbo,

I've had a mixed bag when emailing scientists about some issue or other. Some have been extremely kind and replied; others have totally ignored me. Sounds like a reflection of the general human condition to me.

Now some further thoughts about gravity and related as per your earlier post.

Firstly, here's a paradox. Nothing can readily escape from inside the Event Horizon of a Black Hole*, not even photons of light and other EM radiation can flee from a Black Hole once trapped inside. But obviously gravity and gravitons can escape from a Black Hole since a Black Hole has gravity which extends beyond the Event Horizon. So photons can't and gravitons can so IMHO something is screwy somewhere. Perhaps this is just another cosmic oops made by our fallible Supreme Programmer!

Somewhat akin, there has to be a fixed number of gravitons in the cosmos if there is a fixed amount of mass (hence gravity). Since all mass attracts all other mass, there must be a constand exchange of gravitons between masses. So, yes, the Earth must lose gravitons over time (which would be like you shedding a few dead skin cells - hardly of much consequence) but it also gains gravitons from other objects external to it. There's a comsic give-and-take balance overall.

Gravity is the one long distance force you cannot shield yourself from. Of course you can't shield yourself from the strong and the weak nuclear forces either since they operate everywhere including inside your own body. You can't shield yourself from neutrinos either, but they aren't a force particle (though there is no doubt about its particle status). You could shield yourself from all EM (including magnetic fields) apart from your own infrared body heat generated from within.

One logical reason why a magnetic field goes right through some barrier of matter placed in its way is that matter is mainly empty space. The anology is such that the nucleus is the size of a grain of sand in the middle of a football field and the electrons are a few spectators located in the stands. There's plendy of wide open space for magnetism to ooze on through a 'barrier'. Some things are just more transparent that others. Neutrinos for example can pass through light years worth of solid lead.

As far as space-is-not-a-thing is concerned, I can't see how that hinders the operation of any forces or fields or things of substance and structure. For example, take a standard laboratory Bell Jar. The gravity inside of it doesn't alter one whit before or after the air (stuff) is sucked out of it. A light beam still travels through the extremely rarified vacuum. Radioactive stuff will still go poof at the same rate regardless of how much air is in the Bell Jar. Magnets still do their magnetic thing. Okay, sound requires space-as-a-thing, but as the tag line goes, "in space, no one can hear you scream".

One final though about "Twilight Zone" physics. Never mind what it means, it works doesn't it? So just shut-up and calculate. Nothing succeds like success. So when you're on a good thing, stick to it, or in other words, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

*Excepting of course Hawking Radiation but that's like a slow dripping faucet compared to a gushing fire hose. In any event, when it comes to a Black Hole, one can easily say that incoming matter and energy exceeds outgoing matter and energy - except for the anomaly of the graviton.

PS - I can recommend the two books by Professor of Theoretical Physics at Harvard University, Lisa Randall. The first is "Warped Passages: Unravelling the Universe's Hidden Dimensions" (2005) and "Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World" (2011). She's also very easy on the eyes, if you know what I mean.

John Prytz

That photon-graviton-black hole paradox is an interesting one. More so, as both graviton and photon share the same speed, c. If it is original to you, then you deserve the kudos and should make it more popular in physics community. Perhaps, 'Prytz paradox'? :).

You seem willing to give 'Graviton' a chance to exist. If that is the case, then Gravitational waves also exist. And Wikipedia and other sources tell us that Gravitational waves represent alternating deformities in Space, something that you had said is certainly a Nothing. In other words, a 'Not-thing' is capable of vibrating, which vibration is propagated at speed, c.

According to Wikipedia, as a gravitational wave passes,... distances between free objects (not acted on by any force), increase and decrease rhythmically as a gravitational wave passes.

Akinbo

John P. (to differentiate from John M), I just took a nap and part of my 'day dreaming' activity was what else to tell you. Peter J., seems to have partly beaten me to it in his recent post on this thread on on Dec. 5, 2014 @ 14:38 GMT. But let me still go ahead...

Actually our debate extends to the historical one, whether motion was an absolute or relative phenomenon? Recall Newton vs Leibniz & Mach. Do things move because another thing is looking? Analogous to your arguments with Georgina about whether the Moon was there if no one is watching. Or do things move irrespective of whether things are looking?

Our Earth spins on its axis. We know this because we observe day and night. Suppose the Great Simulator were to remove the Sun and all other things in the universe leaving the Earth alone, will the Earth continue to spin? Note that in a simulated universe the Sun can be inserted and extinguished depending on the whims of the Simulator.

I actually wanted to use quantum mechanical particle spin, but the concept appears incomplete and flawed in places. But the question still applies, will a lone electron in the universe spin?

I think it is agreed to Leibniz, Mach and Newton that the phenomenon of motion can only take place when there is a 'thing' to do the looking and agree that motion took place. In a lucky universe, the Sun and Stars may be there so motion can be said to take place.

In an unlucky universe, without Sun and Stars, will there be Earth motion?

If the Earth would still continue spinning, despite removing the Sun and every thing, including quantum vacuum particles, then by our definition Something must be doing the looking, even if that Something is still regarded as a non-participant and a nothing. Without anything whatsoever capable of testifying to it, the Earth would stop moving and only continue again when something is introduced to look.

Regards,

Akinbo

*Actually, I wonder if I made myself coherent or just blabbing.

*Peter, J. used ISM, which I presume is interstellar matter and I was wondering if in the theoretical considerations, this could also be eliminated leaving only empty matter-free vacuum.

*I am not sure you have found time yet to read the links to Newton's arguments in an earlier post.

Hi Peter,

Paragraph 1. Your conjecture? or accepted theory?

2.You wrote "But John's view may be none the less valid if we properly discern condensed 'matter' from the dark energy condensate, which doesn't itself couple with EM (unlike 'ether')." You refer to John's view, what view would that be? He has written copious amounts,expressing numerous points of view on many different discussion pages. Far more than even I am prepared to read as it would consume my life completely at the rate he is uploading it. Well if he wants his no thing to mean just no condensed matter that's what he should specify. And that makes the whole visible universe no thing because the objects seen are outputs of EM data processing not condensed matter things.

Dark energy is something required to be added to the model of the expanding universe to account for that apparent expansion. If it, the material (Object) universe, made of all these particles, is not expanding but the Earth is moving away from the sources of the radiation being received, there is no dark matter in the Object universe.

3.You write "all particles are the sum of their spin states." Is that in quantum theory or in actual fact? A handy assumption can be made because their spin is unknowable prior to measurement but that does not mean that that is what is in Object reality.

you wrote "Momentum is conserved, so the 'spin is continuous not reversing. But if you observe a particle simplified to a sphere spinning clockwise (electron), then observe it from the rear, what spin does it have?"

You have just flipped from talking about quantum effects to talking about a relative perspective of something concrete. What spin does it have if it is both simultaneously. Leonard Susskind explains that the spin vector of an electron can be pointing in any direction in space. Obviously which would depend upon how you look at with eyes it if it was possible to do that. Its not possible. Measurement can be made using a magnetic field but the field causes the electrons to become aligned. Either releasing a photon in the process, called spin up or not releasing a photon called spin down.Are the electrons actually both spin up and spin down prior to measurement -no because it is the measuring apparatus, the position of the magnets in space that affects the orientation of the electron causing the alignment. It actually makes more sense tome to think small motion to become aligned no photon,just called spin down relatively large motion to become aligned photon release,just called spin up.

4.You write"To also comply with conservation laws; focussing energy to local vortices (which then DO couple with EM fluctuations as we know) leaves a condensate density gradient around it. (The process is quite well approximated by QED and QCD)." If you say so Peter but I haven't done the research or come across this, so I know nothing about it.

No these things as you describe them are not intuitive.

Was the double coat of the Samoyed a chance mutation and how cold were they before it occurred?

Correction: If it, the material (Object) universe, made of all these particles, is not expanding but the Earth is moving away from the sources of the radiation being received, there is no dark energy in the Object universe.

I don't know why but I am only sometimes able to edit posts.

Akinbo,

Rather than address your specific post about the lone Earth, I've already done some pondering about the lone electron, which I copy here for your amusement.

THE WORLDVIEW OF THE LONE ELECTRON

One way of coming to terms with the cosmos is to do thought experiments and keeping things simple. When you come to terms with the simple picture, then you can gradually build up the complexity until you start to model the real cosmos. There's nothing much simpler than to imagine an entire universe that contains one and only one electron - absolutely nothing else: just the Lone Electron. What sort of worldview would our Lone Electron have or we have of it? Actually it would be Boring with a capital B.

With respect to a Lone Electron universe, let's consider...

ACCELERATION/DECELERATION: None. The same argument applies as with velocity.

ARROW OF TIME: If there is no time experienced by the Lone Electron, then there can be no arrow of time either. In short, the Lone Electron has no experience of a past, present, or future.

CHARGE: Yes, the electron has a charge of minus one or in other words a negative charge of one unit. However, in order for charge to be meaningful, it has to be acting with or against another charge of which there is none. So, does our Lone Electron have charge in this context or doesn't it?

COLOUR: An electron is colourless. In any event you need photons, electromagnetic energy, light waves, to transmit (wavelength and frequency) what we (our brains) interpret as colour. Our drab, bland, colourless Lone Electron has no photons to transmit any information about itself, and there are no eyeballs and brains to interpret that information in any event.

ELECTROMAGNETISM: The electron is most associated with electromagnetism and the electromagnetic force. The associated force particle is the photon and electrons can absorb and emit photons (absorb and emit energy). However, in this scenario, there are no photons, so therefore there is no electromagnetic force. In any event, a force is only a meaningful concept if there are two of more particles involved, since, if you are the sum total of things, you can't give off or receive a force.

ENTROPY: Entropy is a statistical concept where over time, left to themselves, things tend to go from an ordered state to a disordered state, like before-and-after pictures of a wild party. One electron does not make for statistical analysis, so the electron's state of order or disorder is what it is. It doesn't increase nor decrease. In fact it's rather meaningless to philosophize over it.

EQUILIBRIUM: The Lone Electron is in a state of equilibrium with respect to its surroundings. It could hardly be otherwise since there are no other surroundings except nothingness.

EXISTENCE: Yes, it would be incorrect to say our Lone Electron didn't exist. However, there's nothing else around it to verify that existence or give any meaning to it.

GRAVITY: Since the electron has mass, it must have gravity. However, gravity only has real meaning between two (or more) objects with mass, like the Earth - Moon - Sun trilogy; or, in the most traditional of traditional scenarios, the Earth - falling apple scenario that, according to mythology, inspired Isaac Newton. So, in the Lone Electron scenario, it's pretty meaningless to talk about gravity. In fact it might be meaningless to talk about gravity since gravity is equivalent to acceleration as shown by Einstein. Acceleration implies motion or velocity which in the context of a one electron universe is meaningless. Further, the (hypothetical) particle associated with gravity, the graviton, would be conspicuous by its absence in this Lone Electron thought experiment.

MASS: Yes, the electron has mass. However, it's yet another particle, known as the Higgs Boson that gives particles with mass, their mass. The Lone Electron has no Higgs Bosons around to give it muscle.

MOMENTUM: None. The same argument applies as with velocity.

PHASE: There is no phase. One electron does not a solid, liquid, gas or plasma make. An electron, all by its little lonesome, cannot undergo any phase change, like say from a liquid to a solid.

SENSE OF IDENTITY: Our Lone Electron doesn't have a sense of self-awareness since it isn't conscious and in any event it has nothing else around it to provide a contrast to itself.

SPACE: Since the Lone Electron exists in this universe, it has to exist in some sort of realm, a concept we call space. However, space is not a thing, and the electron is, so while the two share a common existence, its all apples and oranges.

SPIN: Our electron will either be spin-up or spin-down. However, orientation, as with velocity, is always with respect to something else. If you removed all of the rest of the Universe (stars, planets, constellations, the Sun, etc.) just leaving the Earth, well the labels North and South Pole become meaningless. There no longer is anything that's up or down or sideways that one can orient the Earth's axis to. We know north because that's where the North Star is located. No North Star. We know south because the Southern Cross is overhead. No Southern Cross. A compass isn't any help because it's only an arbitrary convention what we call north and south and in any event the compass is an example of that 'something else'.

STRONG NUCLEAR FORCE: The strong nuclear force only applies in keeping an atomic nucleus together. Protons, with a positive charge, would like to repel each other. That they are held in check - confined to quarters - is due to the strong nuclear force. There is no atomic nucleus in a one electron universe, therefore there's no strong nuclear force.

TIME: An electron is a fundamental particle, a basic building block. It doesn't change any spots and there's nothing else around to cause the electron's spots to change or to 'witness' change. No change means the concept of time is meaningless, so therefore, no time unit need apply here for a job.

VELOCITY: No, the concept of velocity is meaningless in this context. Velocity only has meaning when measured relative or compared to something else. If you drive along at sixty miles per hour, that's relative to the landscape you are driving past, like the surface of the road. The Lone Electron has no landscape for its velocity to be measured against.

WEAK NUCLEAR FORCE: The weak nuclear force governs radioactivity, or the decay of unstable atomic nuclei into more stable forms. One type of radioactivity (Beta decay) can emit an electron, but in the absence of any nuclei, unstable or otherwise, our Lone Electron has no connection with the weak nuclear force since in this, our electron's universe, there ain't no such critter.

So we see how much more meaningful it is to have more than one item per universe. Fortunately, our Universe satisfies that criteria. But the real interesting bit, at least from a philosopher's point of view, is how some of our most take-it-for-granted concepts that form our worldview, disappear or have no meaning when applied to just one entity. It's impossible for us to imagine a worldview without there being time, the arrow of time (past, present, and future) or entropy. It's impossible for us to imagine a worldview without mass or gravity. It's impossible for us to imagine a worldview without motion. Yet it is entirely possible to imagine a Lone Electron universe where exactly that worldview has to apply!

John Prytz

I previously wrote -'It actually makes more sense to me to think small motion to become aligned no photon,just called spin down relatively large motion to become aligned photon release,just called spin up.'

As the decay to spin up has a half life the spin down, no photon detected, group should include both undetectably small motion to alignment and not yet persuaded to align. Perhaps not yet persuaded are the ones caught between the forces to tilt up to gain alignment and tilt down to gain alignment. This gives a rater different picture of what spin up and spin down might actually represent.

OUR UNIVERSE AS A COSMIC FISH TANK

The Big Bang origin-of-our-Universe event was not the be-all-and-end-all of things. The Big Bang event was but a minor event in the larger cosmic scheme of things. If the elementary particles that comprise your mind and body could talk, what a tale of eternity they would tell!

THE SETTINGS

Setting Number One - Time is infinite in scope. 'Once upon a time'; 'in the beginning', are two standard openings to the stage setting where ultimately, our Universe, plays its part. Alas, although there was an 'in the beginning' to our Universe, ultimately, IMHO there was no such thing as an ultimate 'in the beginning' in the broader cosmic context. In the broadest of broadest viewpoints, time stretches infinitely from cosmic horizon to cosmic horizon. Unlike all we know of regarding beginnings or creations, from our Universe, to our Solar System; to Earth; to terrestrial life, down through the ages to us, there is no ultimate beginning; there is no ultimate ending to the broader cosmic setting we find ourselves in. 'Once upon a time', should really read, 'once upon an eternity'.

Setting Number Two - Space is infinite in scope. In the broadest or broadest viewpoints, there's no such thing as an edge or a border or a boundary. Space stretches infinitely from horizon to horizon. Again, that's not the case when just considering our Universe, our Solar System, our home planet. But, this infinite space is again part of the overall stage where our Universe acts out a role - along with probably lots of other universe actors.

Let's call this larger context an infinite cosmic fish tank, and our Universe a fish.

Setting Number Three - There is no shape to the infinite cosmos. Why propose an infinite in space and infinite in time fish tank cosmos or cosmic setting in which to plunk our Universe - where our Universe is one of the fish? Because it does away with those awkward questions of what came before; what comes after; what lies at the farthest reaches? There is no before in the fish tank. There is no after either. There is no farthest away, only something even farther away, ad-nauseam. It also does away with the need to define an overall shape to our fish tank cosmos. An infinite volume has no shape!

That said, it must be repeated and made clear that our Universe (a fish in the infinite tank) did have a beginning, and therefore one can legitimately ask what came before. Our Universe does have a finite size and therefore a shape - probably spherical. What defines the (ever expanding) size and shape of our Universe is how far out light (the speediest thing we know of) has been able to travel since our Universe's creation, some 13.7 billion years ago. That's the boundary to our Universe. Again, our Universe is probably a sphere, with a radius of 13.7 billion light years (a light year being the distance light travels in one year - which, at 300,000 km per second, is a long way). Or, a diameter of 27.4 billion light years.

Setting Number Four - The laws, relationships, and principles of physics (and ultimately chemistry, etc.) are universal throughout the fish tank cosmos. All the fish may not be of the same species and even those that are of the same species may have differing ages, sizes, sexes, etc. but they are ultimately all fish, subject to the universals that govern all things fish; the cosmic 'water' is uniform throughout.

Setting Number Five - Those fishy laws suggest that fish universes, each and every one (assuming more than just our Universe fish is in the infinite tank) are unstable - which real fish are - unstable that is. The same fish on two separate days is not the same fish, any more than you are the same you from one day to the next. You grow, you age, your cells and their components get replaced, etc. Translating to real universes, universes are unstable in that they must evolve; either expand, or contract. If there is one thing they can not be is static and unchanging. So, our infinite cosmic fish tank is a dynamic one. Fish come and go, but the tank is forever.

BEFORE THE BIG BANG: THE BIG CRUNCH

Once upon a time there was this universe, but not our Universe. This universe existed way before our Universe existed. For some reason(s) this universe had sufficient matter/mass and thus gravity to slow down its expansion rate, halt same, and reverse the flow. Slowly, but ever so surely, this universe contracted, grew ever hotter and denser, until, like thousands of cars converging at an ever higher rate of speed, came together at an intersection. You have, in effect, the Big Crunch!

What happens when all the stuff that comprises a universe comes together? Well, what happens when you concentrate a lot of stuff into a small space? You get a Black Hole. There are probably going to be already in existence a lot of Black Holes in this collapsing universe, if our Universe is any guide. So, existing Black Holes will have a feeding frenzy as matter around them gets confined into a smaller and smaller space; Black Holes themselves can merge creating a bigger Black Hole, until finally, all mass will be inside a super Black Hole, the product of smaller Black Holes gobbling up matter and ultimately combining until a super Black Hole is all that remains of that universe. But wait, there's more!

Think of the mass of an entire universe, all coming together at a single point in space and in time, at velocities that make Formula One racetrack driving look like a snail ploughing through molasses on a frozen winter's night! This is going to be the Mother of the Mother of the Mother of all collisions. No Hollywood special effects team could want for more! The upshot is going to be, just prior to the finale, the existence, as noted above, of the Mother of all Black Holes. There's going to be one hell of a massive distortion of space and time, or, space-time. The sheer momentum of such a collision, a Big Crunch, will turn space, or space-time, inside out. All that momentum can't just come to a screeching halt in a nanosecond. What's the result of a super collapsing Black Hole? A super massive explosion - a White Hole - a Big Bang.

BETWEEN THE BIG CRUNCH AND THE BIG BANG

Once upon a time there was this brief, but extremely intense transition between another universe's Big Crunch and our 'in the beginning' Big Bang event. I've already suggested that pure momentum of this runaway freight train will be, as an analogy, a sock turning inside out. That 'inside out' event will be a pretty quick-smart happening. What happens in that brief interval of time has to do with several parameters. One is of course time - how quick - well, quick - probably several seconds to minutes. The other is space - how small - well small. But is small classically small or quantum small? Classically small refers to the minimum size of the Big Crunch vs. the original size of that universe. Classically small could still be a 'point' many light seconds/minutes/hours in diameter. Quantum small means a 'point' that is within the realm of the quantum - say atomic sized, probably way less. Logic: can you squeeze the contents of an entire universe down to the size of an atom, or elementary particle? Or, perhaps it is more logical to suggest that the ultimate squeeze is somewhat larger. Now 'larger' may still be tiny relative to the universe's original size, but still one hell of a lot bigger than what's implied by the word 'quantum'. Yet, cosmologists would have one believe that our Universe started out as 'quantum small', not 'classically small'; that quantum small somehow ruled the roost when our Universe went the way of the Big Bang event - the origin of our Universe. To me, that's too big an ask to ask.

Any standard cosmology text will tell you about the conditions that existed within nanoseconds of the Big Bang event when the Universe was less than the size of your common cold bacterium. It was very, very super hot. It was very, very super dense. That's what the equations say (no cosmologist was around at the time to actually observe and measure), but equations are abstractions and Mother Nature doesn't deal with abstractions. Now both hot and dense are two logical Big Bang environmental parameters just nanoseconds past that event - but what of volume?

One can of course take any contracting object and extrapolate down to where it shrinks to a point of zero dimensions and thus have an infinite density (which therefore would be a Black Hole). But, does that reflect reality? IMHO: not on your Nellie. There must be (well, should be) some ultimate state of matter that when compressed, can't be compressed any further. It would take an infinite amount of gravitational force to do it and the Universe, any universe, doesn't possess infinite gravity.

What's the minimum size our Universe (or any universe in general) could be squeezed down to? If you asked that question to any reasonably educated adult, even a kid, while you'd get a range of answers, gut feeling tells me that - unless they were well versed in cosmology - that that volume wouldn't be within the range that couldn't be seen with the naked eye. Now, it is dangerous to apply common sense when it comes to sussing out nature's hidden secrets, but I'm now going to throw caution to the wind and applying this common sense dictum - The Universe, any universe, was never, repeat never ever the size that we would describe as microscopic!

Okay, so here we have this universe contracting down, getting hotter and hotter; denser and denser, and smaller and smaller as it slides into the Mother of all Black Holes, and immediately, within nanoseconds (or close to nanoseconds as the actual size allows - maybe seconds, maybe minutes) spew its guts out via a White Hole. Those guts form the contents of our Big Bang Universe. That midpoint - what was the minimum size of that transitional post Black Hole / pre White Hole event? All I'm prepared to say is that it was visible to the naked eye - assuming naked eyes were around 13.7 billion years ago! It was certainly not microscopic!

However, the really real important bit here is that our Big Bang, the product of a previous Big Crunch, happened in pre-existing time and space. The Big Bang did not, repeat, did not, create time and space. The question, 'what happened before the Big Bang?' has now a perfectly logical answer. The Big Crunch happened before the Big Bang.

OUR BIG BANG ALPHA

Once upon a time there was this Big Bang origin of our Universe. Any Big Bang worthy of its salt results in an expanding Universe. What's the evidence for the Big Bang, that our Universe is expanding (exploding?) from a point back in time (and therefore by running the film backwards contracting back to that point in time). Well, there are four lines. The first is theoretical. All universes are unstable (as noted above) and must either expand or contract. The second is observational - the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). An explosion - something hot - expands and cools off. The CMBR is the Big Bang's heat that has now cooled after 13.7 billion years of expansion. The third is also observational - distant objects in space exhibit a red-shift - they look slightly redder than they actually are because they are moving away from us. The farther away, the faster they are moving, the redder they are. If they were moving towards us, they'd appear slightly bluer. The relationship between distance from us and velocity is what you'd expect from something that went 'bang'. Lastly, also observational, is the distribution of objects out there. If there were no 'bang', then the distribution of objects (galaxies and clusters of galaxies) in space would be more evenly distributed than what's observed.

Ah, but where are the coordinates - that place in space - we can point our telescopes towards and literally see the remains of that Big Bang explosion? I mean we see the after affects of stellar (supernovae) explosions like the Crab Nebula which occurred in 1054 AD. Well, there's a vast time difference between 1054 AD and 13.7 billion years ago! By analogy, say you have a fireplace, and on a cold winters night you fire up same, and thus warm up you home to a comfortable level. But after a while, the fire burns out. If you leave the house, but return after a few hours, you will note that your fireplace is still a tad warmer than the rest of the house. That's like the 1054 AD event. But, now say you go on vacation and don't return for say a month after-the-fact. When you do, will your fireplace be any warmer than the rest of your home? No! Well, that's equivalent to the 13.7 billion years. We can't place those Big Bang coordinates because they have cooled to such an extent as to be the same temperature as the rest of the house, or Universe in this case. The place, those coordinates, of the Big Bang event no longer has any distinguishing features our telescopes can pick up on.

NOW

Once upon a time, a time we collectively call 'today' or 'now' or 'the present' is all we have to measure what came before and what will come after. What we currently believe is not what was believed a century ago; a thousand years ago; ten thousand years ago. Probably, a century from now; a thousand years from now; ten thousand years from now, what we believe about the Alpha and the Omega of our Universe, and its place, if there is a place, in an even larger context, will probably be as different. Knowledge evolves. The cosmology I learned as a teenager is already vastly different than the cosmology I read about today as a retiree. However, today is all we have to work with, but keep in mind it's a work in progress. So what do we believe now? One - our Universe had a beginning. Two - our Universe won't go out with a bang (or a crunch), but with a whimper, just slowly fading away getting thinner and thinner as if our Universe is on some sort of eternal diet. Three - our Universe is the be all and end all of all there is. What can we however speculate on now? One - There was a 'before' before our Universe began. Two - our Universe may have a different fate in store, and it could end in a bang (or crunch), not a whimper. Three - there may be far more to the cosmos than has yet been dreamt of in anyone philosophy. In fact, if one looks at the history of the size of our cosmic neck of the woods, the trend has always been towards a vaster and vaster cosmos. If our ancestors could only know then, what we know now, their minds would have been so boggled as to probably defy description. So, if we could know now, what our future generations will know, no doubt our heads would hurt too!

Part of our 'now' is the presence of something called 'dark matter', of immense importance to things cosmological, that cosmologists can't yet explain or identify. Okay, I'll make an heroic speculative effort to explain it in the light of what I've postulated above.

Now, it has been speculated that matter that gets sucked into a Black Hole undergoes a phase change into a new form of matter, sort of like ice to water to steam, or steam to water to ice. What exactly the nature of that inside-the-Black-Hole phase change is - well, your guess is as good as mine. However, I have come up with an idea. The matter sucked inside a Black Hole has been transformed into 'dark matter'! Now 'dark matter' has mass and gravity, but doesn't interact with any electromagnetic forces. We know that because 'dark matter' exists within our Universe; not of necessity hidden exclusively within Black Holes. So, how does 'dark matter' get out of a Black Hole and into our Universe at large? It doesn't, at least not as 'dark matter' but maybe a Hawking radiation. Well, that doesn't explain the 'dark matter' all around us. So there has to be an exception, and I suggest that exception was the transformation of a previous universe's Big Crunch - forming the Mother of all Black Holes - so warping space-time that it turned itself inside out and emerged as a While Hole, spilling out its contents and forming our Universe in the process. The Mother of all Black Holes transformed much of that universe's ordinary matter into 'dark matter', but the process of Black to While Hole transformation happened so rapidly that not all matter got so converted before the spewing. So, what was vomited as our Universe was a lot of 'dark energy', but not quite 100%, keeping in line with what we observe, or rather detect but don't directly observe, today.

THE FATE OF OUR UNIVERSE OMEGA: HEAT DEATH & THE BIG RIP

Once upon a way, way, way future time, our Universe will be drastically different than the one we know today. There are three possibilities. Firstly, the total amount of gravity (a pull force) will be enough to cause our Universe to slow down, stop, and reverse direction, to ultimately result in a Big Crunch. That's unlikely based on current observational evidence. Secondly, the Universe's gravity could be just enough to slow the expansion rate of the Universe down, such that it reaches zero velocity after an infinite amount of time. That sort of knife-edge balance is unlikely. Way too many factors have to balance each other out. It's like tossing a ball at a ceiling hundreds of metres high, and having the ball just stop its upward trajectory just as it ever so barely caresses the ceiling. That's way too unlikely a scenario. Thirdly, the Universe's gravity won't be enough to stop, far less reverse the expansion, and thus our Universe will forever, and forever, and forever (amen) grow ever bigger, ever decrease in mass/energy density, until overall, there's so little energy available per volume of space that even one minute of warmth will be worth thousands of times what the price of gold is today. In fact, it will be priceless. That's what is known as the Heat Death fate of our Universe.

Current observational evidence suggests the third option as the likely option. Contrary to expectations, our Universe's expansion rate is not slowing down (under gravity's pull force), but is instead accelerating under a currently postulated but mysterious 'Dark Energy' (push) force. Now this 'Dark Energy' push force is a function of space itself. The more space, the more 'Dark Energy' there is. Space is of course expanding, so 'Dark Energy' is becoming ever more dominant. Eventually, 'Dark Energy' could be powerful enough to push clusters of galaxies apart; push the components of individual galaxies apart; then the stars that comprise those galaxies and the solar systems that surround those stellar systems. 'Dark Energy', as it grows more powerful, could then push apart stars and planets; hence the molecules than make up those bodies into atoms. In turn, those atoms could be pushed apart into their fundamental particles - quarks and electrons and photons, etc. Whether or not quarks and electrons and photons can be further torn apart - well, that's pushing the boundaries of current particle physics. Anyway, all this pushing apart is collectively termed 'The Big Rip'.

The interesting bit is that if there is an outside of our Universe, then in theory, humans - assuming there are humans around trillions of years hence - or other intelligent life forms will be able to escape the Heat Death and/or Big Rip.

One obvious question rears its ugly head. If our Universe originated from another Big Crunch universe, and if our Universe is not fated to end in a Big Crunch, that breaks any sort of expected oscillation or cycle. Our Universe in turn can't generate another universe further on down the track. Yet it should since we presumably inherited that previous universe's full compliment of matter and energy and thus should be fated to ultimately Big Crunch as well. Presumably, something happened during the Big Crunch - Big Bang transition to perhaps siphon off some of the matter/energy and send it to an else-where or else-when. The extreme physics that would operate during such a transition aren't well understood and I have to leave open the possible that something more relevant to "The Twilight Zone" can happen. Of course perhaps something further on down the track might revise the current expectations for the fate of our Universe - the pendulum could swing back towards a Big Crunch scenario.

So, how do we get Big Crunches?

There are two possible ways. One is a universe that's massive enough to collapse, generate a new universe, which then collapses and the cycle repeats. No "Twilight Zone" weird physics happens within the transition, or at least not enough to alter the outcome. The other is to have one ever expanding universe intersect another ever expanding universe. The area of intersection would increase (double) the mass/energy content within that area. That then might be enough to cause that area to start contracting and ultimately Big Crunch. This is similar to, say one supernova spewing out dust and gas; another supernova - ditto. The intersection of part of the two expanding regions of gas/dust is then enough to cause a local contraction of the combined gas/dust, ultimately forming a new, next generation, star, probably an entire stellar system (star planets).

DOES THE COSMOS CARE?

In our Universe, stars are born; stars die. Their matter and energy get recycled into new stars. In our cosmic fish tank, universes are born; universes die and their matter and energy get recycled into new universes. It doesn't really matter whether a universe dies in a Big Crunch or in a Big Rip/Heat Death. The elementary bits and pieces, electrons and quarks and photons are eternal or immortal. They, unlike us, don't age. And so, in the broadest of broadest of points of view, our Universe comes to some sort of end, but 'life' goes on. The fish tank cosmos doesn't concern itself with the end of our Universe, any more than our galaxy gives a stuff about the end of our solar system, nor does our Sun concern itself with the petty affairs on one of its planets - Earth.

Humans may care - all else is indifferent.

AN ULTIMATE TRUTH

Whether or not there was some sort of ultimate beginning; whether or not there will be some sort of ultimate ending, the bits and pieces that currently make up you, were there and will be there. That, in one sense, makes you as immortal as the cosmos itself.

Akinbo,

Regarding your 5 December (14:01) post...

What do gravity-waves wave in?

Here's a rather long list of all those laws, principles and relationships of physics that require space-as-a-thing (of structure and substance).

??????????? Oops!

It turned out to be a rather short list of absolutely nothing at all.

Once upon a time light-waves (and other electromagnetic photons waving in the cosmic breeze) were thought to require something to wave in, but that proved not to be so, so I rather suspect gravity-waves (gravitons waving in the cosmic breeze) won't require space-as-a-thing either. Just a hunch.

By the by, the graviton, though undetected to date, is considered to be part of the standard model of particle physics.

John Prytz

John, P

Your hunches are generally good, but when it comes to Space perhaps not as sharp.

You said: "Once upon a time light-waves (and other electromagnetic photons waving in the cosmic breeze) were thought to require something to wave in, but that proved not to be so, so I rather suspect gravity-waves (gravitons waving in the cosmic breeze) won't require space-as-a-thing either".

You are mistaken in that regard because light is wave and IMHO not particle. What light is waving in may not yet have been put to rest in the physics community, but for those of us who believe space is something, we don't need to look too far to see that space can be waved in.

If you have a circular arrangement of beads arranged as 'O' for example and a "disturbance of space" passes by, say through the centre of the 'O' - here is what you will observe:

VIEW

Even, though I am of the view that GR has shortcomings, this prediction has implications that can help cure shortcomings in SR and GR regarding what role space can play in energy transmission. This becomes more significant when gravitational waves are accepted to represent disturbances in space as a thing (as you can visualize in linked diagram) and their velocity is c.

It was on the basis that electric and magnetic fields propagate at a velocity with a SAME value c that made light also come to be termed an 'electromagnetic' wave. If what is good for the goose is good for the gander, using the 'same reasoning from mechanical principles', if light travels at same velocity c that gravitational waves travel, then light can be regarded as a belonging to a part of the spectrum of which gravitational waves belong; and my own hunch tells me that this being so light must also be capable of propagating as a disturbance in the same 'space as a thing'.

I think enough has been exchanged, if you were ready to give benefit of doubt to space you would have done that already. But as you are bent on not allowing it to exist, there is not much hope for it in your Simulated universe.

Regards,

Akinbo

Akinbo,

If gravity acts similar to an electromagnetic wave, like light, wouldn't gravity then be subject to similar restrictions that light is subject to.? I'm thinking that there should be some kind of limitation to the "amount of gravity" that could saturate a particular piece of real space...?