Other Things Worthy of Your Time
Abiding to the Laws of Space
and Time
2/5/04
As we discover more around us, it becomes evident how important the history of time is to understanding the future development of the universe. There will come a time when we’ve found all there is to know about the world around us and we’re left to studying the things we may never have definite answers to—theories of what will become of things, and theories of how it all began.
What are the forces of the universe? Electromagnetism, Relativity, and Gravitation. These are the forces that power the universe, balance it, and hold it together. They’re cosmic constants that not only control the limits of our physical abilities, but define our understanding of the universe altogether. All of the forces affect the physics of our livelihood in every form, and all affect each other in a similarly inclusive manner. But how are they integrated? How is it that such a seemingly evident connection between them has evaded the greatest minds of any era? It’s the problem with Unification; a concept so apparently obvious, that it seems essential for the continuity of all things, yet a concept so complex, at least thus far, that it evades understanding.
Gravity effects all matter. Everything is physically attracted to everything else. Satellites orbit the earth. The earth orbits the sun. The sun orbits around a central mass of other, larger stars and celestial bodies, and these bodies—the stars, the planets, and the satellites, probably orbit around other bodies central to them. No matter how large the body, the force of gravity affects it in the same way it affects everything else. The different the mass though, and the size, the varying the effect of gravity. It’s all relative, but there are still complications with utterly flawless controls.
Why don’t the components of atoms break apart and seek larger bodies with larger forces of gravitation? Why are almost weightless particles attracted to other weightless particles? When the minute distance between the nucleus of an atom and the particles revolving around it still doesn’t overcome the gravitational pull of more massive bodies, why don’t they flee? Why doesn’t all matter simply break apart in search of other matter that should simply break apart? By applying only one of the cosmic forces, you still can’t hold the universe together. Concepts such as Quantum Mechanics hold the miniscule divisions of material together, and concepts such as Relativity govern things like light photons, capable of escaping the limitations of basic physics. Relativity is a Force, but all Forces are relative.
These are only things we’re beginning to understand.
Modern scientist are beginning to realize, from their own discoveries that brought only question and even contradiction to once perfect Laws of Science, that there are few ‘sure things’, and you can’t even be sure about those. It seems like the more we understand, the more we find out we don’t, and that’s how science and understanding work.
The idea of ‘Science’ is a method of discovery by the continuation and repetition of testing guesses. Similar results spark interest. Continuously similar—and exact—results spark discovery. If something happens a certain way the first time, it doesn’t mean it’s going to necessarily happen that way the next, and figuring out why it happens in the first place uses the same reasoning. Science is discovery and proving by doing. It’s knowledge by cold, hard facts. Science educates skepticism until something is shown to be true, and places an ever-present necessity for doubt even when something can be so solidly defended. Because of this, Science is already too hectic, only regarding itself. Matters lacking in proof, demanding leaps of faith are out of the question entirely.
What is a Theory? It’s the next step up the method of scientific reasoning above the hypothesis, which is an educated guess. It takes hundreds of proven hypothesizes to become Theory, and thousands of utterly unquestionable proofs of theory to become Law. If Science starts with a guess, how can the reasoning of faith be a direct contradiction? Isn’t faith—in the form of an educated guess—the foundation of Science? Once something is ‘proven’, we ‘hold these truths to be self-evident’, and do so faithfully, regardless of the knowledge that something could come along someday and redefine understanding as we think we know it.
For hundreds of years, people believed the world to be flat, until someone finally had the nerve to sail to China and trip over America on the way, proving centuries of surety wrong. After that, the idea that the earth was the center of the universe was taken for truth, then shown to be erroneous, now seems like it might not be too far from it after all. And for thousands of years, and still today, people have suggested the existence of existence outside our own reality—the existence of divinity, or what’s forever been known as God—and this is an idea that can never truly be eradicated and disproved. As if the method of disproving is any more solid than proving, which is continuously shown to be faulty.
What if we do solve the riddle of Unification somewhere down the line? Will we have unlocked the secrets to the universe? What if we move further, and figure out all there is to know about physical existence? What’s left then?
The most complicated idea known to man is the Human being; the consciousness so complex that it can’t simply be explained through electronic impulses and neural transmissions. The greatest physicist of the modern era, possibly of more (Stephen Hawkings), said, “People are not quantifiable” (Boslough 49). Man himself, a being so seemingly petty in regards to the universe and time, seems ever more intricate. Why couldn’t we have been made for so much more?
Steve Boslough, in his book, Stephen Hawking’s Universe, describes the beginning of time as this: “Into a void, so absolute as to mock any human concept of emptiness, appeared a single point of raw potential” (Boslough 75). This describing the initial appearance of all matter in the universe, compressed into the tiniest, yet most massive speck ever, ready to burst in the event known as the Big Bang.
How, exactly, did that point get there?
Science leads to discovery, which in turn leads to knowledge. We could hold all the knowledge there is to know of the physical world and still not be able to answer the question of what existence there was before existence. All physical matter and energy couldn’t have just blipped into existence all of a sudden without cause, and what is the only suggestion for the Beginning we have, and have always had since Human history opened its pages? All sources point to an entity or existence outside the boundaries of physics and the laws of science. Call it a consciousness, a presence in an alter-dimension reality, or the aura of frigging Elvis Presley if you like, but existence in terms of any laws or physics we have requires something. Even without our physics and our science, the beginning of time requires something. Forces of nature, cause and effect, whatever—Science itself remains ever dependant on a concept of divinity—which might even be the wild card to Unification itself.
Science, as we know it, though, might actually become the shackles to understanding, because Man would never accept a science of things beyond the boundaries he’s confined to.
Works Cited
Boslough, John. Stephen Hawking’s Universe. New York: Avon Books, 1985.