Universe, Page 2

Nothing is Everything

I feel there are two parts to the above paragraph that I'll have to explain separately. The first one is the idea of an infinite plane. My argument is that you can have an infinite plane seeing as the net energy equals zero (matter = energy). I'm sure that your saying to yourself, "I'm tapping my knuckles on my chair, it most certainly is real, how can something this real be nothing?". I also assume your saying to yourself "if everything is symmetrically opposite, why do we exist instead of matter and anti-matter destroying each other--or in other words, why the excess matter over anti-matter?". Ok, let's see if I can kill two birds with one stone.

Ok well killing two birds with one stone ain't gunna happen, so lets do this one at a time. When I say you can have a infinite plane of nothing, what I mean is that you can have an inifinite plane where the net energy equals zero. That doesn't rule out the fact that something physical exists. All that really means is that you can have an infinite number of universes because the energy expense in creating such universes will be zero.

And why the excess matter over anti-matter? Well the excess matter is thought to be due to the random processes that occured at the very beginning of the universe. I won't go into the theories of why this or how this happened. I will make this point though. The excess matter over anti-matter may seem to contradict my symmetry idea up above. But that's only because we aren't looking far enough.

There's a book called "Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point" writen by Huw Price, and he uses the analogy of right and left handed molecules. He says this in the middle of page 52, "Suppose we have a chemical substance whose molecules may exist in either left-handed or right-handed forms. (Many real compounds are like this, including sugar.) Suppose we examine the molecules in a particular sample of the substance concerned, and find that all of those examined are of the left-handed variety. There are two possible explainations of this result. The first ... is that the sample really contains only left-handed molecules. The second ... is that while there are both left-handed and
right-handed molecules in the sample, we only see the left-handed kind. This might be due to some kind of bias in the observation technique. The right-handed molecules might be very soluble, for example. If we were examining the crystals found in the sample, this would explain why we only encounter the left-handed variety of the substance in question."

So as you can see, we have left-handed and right-handed molecules. This can be likened to matter and anti-matter. Now, we know that both matter and anti-matter exists, the same way left-handed and right-handed molecules exist. Both cases are symmetric opposites. The right handed and left handed molecules might not exist in the same sport in equal pairs. You might get a bias of either molecule at some stage. However, the symmetry still exists.

The same way that there was an excess amount of matter over anti-matter in this universe, there might be universes where the opposite is the case, an excess amoutn of anti-matter over matter. Now, matter and anti-matter won't be in pairs in this case, but the symettric opposite is still present. The possibility of bias in the measurement was suggested in the above analogy. This possibility may also be applied to the case of matter and anti-matter. It is not unfeasible for there to be excess matter over anti-matter, but at any rate, the symmetry still exists on the larger scale.

Existing in Time?

That was the first point I wanted to make. The second point that needs to be raised is the idea of time being non-existant. I know this goes against everything that is ingrained within our souls, but if you think about it, it is an interesting concept. For example, try explain the last time you went to the dentist without refering to days, minutes, hours, the sun, etc. I realise that is anti-climatic in a way, because I am asking you to describe a point in time without any reference to time. Which is like trying to explain the distance between two objects without reference to your typical measuremens of it.

However, it raises the question of, "Is time really something that is ingrained into nature? Or is it something we've conceived?" The whole idea of getting you to explain a point in time with out the usually reference to its measurement was to get you to realise that if we didn't have a name and a meaning for different measurements of time, then it would be impossible to describe it. We consider a day to be the time when the sun rises to when the sun sets. Now suppose that we disregarded that as a measurement of time. What would it be then? It would simply be the sun rising and setting. It wouldn't have any meaning to us if that were the case.

That lead's me to this: Did time only start existing when we gave it a measurement and a meaning? Before we human's came onto the scene, did time actually exist in the first place? Or is it simply a human measurement in terms of cause and effect. The number of cause and effect moments between two spacific events.

For example, there are seven days in a week. In othere words, seven cause and effect moments equals a week--the cause and effect moment being regarded as the rising and setting of the sun (a temporally time assymetric sequence). But what was the value of this 'week' before we came along and gave it meaning? That's right, a week meant nothing until we made it mean something.

So does time really exist?

Evidence shows that it does. There are various descriptions of time, given by several 'arrows'. Like the cosmological arrow of time and the thermodynamic arrow of time. Many will argue that because of these, time is an ingrained part of nature.

I'm definitely not going to argue against this point at the moment, but I do argue it in my Time article. In any event, I hope I've made you realise that we don't really know much about it when we get down to the bare bones and think about it. Time is non-existant? I think in some ways that might be true.

Zero Point Energy

Whether you think it does or doesn't exist is beside the point. The idea however, is to elliminate the need for casualty. Where things have a definite beginning. That is what makes considereing an infinite plane that has existed for eternity so demanding on the brain. Because of our daily experiences, it makes it seem illogical for this case to exist.

Of course though, there is one final problem we've yet to address: What created the universe in the first place?

Current evidence suggests that the universe was at one time, in the distant past very, very small. Evidence to suggest this include spectroscopic measurements of distant bodies in space, which suggests a type of expansion of the universe from past to future. Scientists think that the universe came into existance around about 12 billion years ago.

Although the universe is extremely big as we see it today, 12 billion years ago, it would make sense that the universe was relatively small. Physics at an atomic level well include some form of quantum mechanics, whether it be the copenhagen or the transactional interpretation.

One suggestion of why the universe was born into existance in the first place is that it was a result of 'quantum fluctuations'. I've never actually found out why or what this means, so I won't attempt to describe it to you. I will, however, touch upon a phenomenon called Zero Point Energy.

Evidence suggests that even the empty vacuum of space contains energy. This was supposed to have been varified by a phenomenon called the Casmir effect. Basically, two metal plates were placed very close together and all of a sudden the plates were forced together. It was suggested that this was due to outside pressure from this zero point energy (obviously, I skipped over a lot of details with that experiment, like isolation of the system and all that). It is even thought that you can extract energy from this empty vacuum of space. It all works in theory, but constructing something big enough to make any use of it is unefficient.

What I'm trying to see in a round about way is that even though that this is a relatively new theory (there'll have to be a lot more experiments before it becomes a fully proven and accepted theory), and even though some of this theory is based on the current model of quantum mechanics, no matter how right or wrong it is, the fact of the matter is that observation has show that it is the nature of the empty vacuum of space to have this particular characteristic. Some theorists suggest that this source could replace all our current sources and run the earth. Some go as far as saying that although the energy is small in a relatively small region of space, accumulatively through out the universe, it would be quite a lot of energy, to the point that some suggest it could be an explaination for the dark matter problem.

Just imagine for one second though. If this energy is accumulative, then imagine how much energy there'd be in an infinite plane!! You know what this does? It brings our original option one back into the game. The idea that there is energy before the big band, and that this energy is conservered after the big bang is no feasible. Assuming that the vacuum of space is indeed the true vacuum (lets not get into any debates about what it's like inside this universe and what it's out side of it. Let's simply say that a true vacuum is a true vacuum), then maybe it is the nature of nothingness to display this characteristic. Like natural law, maybe this characteristic just is. I know we'll want to explain why where and how it came from, but maybe, just maybe, it just is.