Academia Arena

Academia Arena 2016;8(1) http://www.sciencepub.net/academia

On the Science of Uncertainty: Humanity's Expanding View of the Cosmos
Manjunath.R
Independent Researcher

#16/1, 8^th Main Road, Shivanagar, Rajajinagar Bangalore: 560010, Karnataka, India

[e-mail], [e-mail]
Abstract: Because of the immense success of technology, general public regards science (which is a fascinating exploration of the impossible – from death rays and force fields to invisibility cloaks and the geometry of curved space and many counter-intuitive notions, such as black holes — regions of space with so much mass that even light rays cannot escape) as a rigorous body of physical knowledge, as established as a beautiful truth. But it is absolutely-absolutely false. Even though its computational power and its conceptual scope are remarkable, science has fatal limitations. The whole the scientific community is ignorant about it. It is strange that the scientists are not raising the issues. Science means truth, and scientists are proponents of the truth. But they are teaching incorrect ideas to children (upcoming scientists) in schools /colleges etc. from decades or millennia. One who will raise the issue will face unprecedented initial criticism. Anyone can read the book and find out the truth. It is open to everyone (Manjunath. R. On the Science of Uncertainty: Humanity's Expanding View of the Cosmos).

[Manjunath. R. On the Science of Uncertainty: Humanity's Expanding View of the Cosmos. Academ Arena 2016;8(1):11-87]. ISSN 1553-992X (print); ISSN 2158-771X (online). http://www.sciencepub.net/academia. 3. doi:10.7537/marsaaj08011603.

Key words: Cosmos; Science; Uncertainty; black holes; classical mechanics, astrophysics

A Layman’S Journey To The Frontiers Of Physics

“Through

our perceptions, universe shapes itself.

Through

our thoughts, the universe is delivering its glories.

We

are the medium through which the universe becomes conscious of its existence.”

Decoding the Cosmos since 1905

Theory and experiments are two modes of an infinite substance that [we] call Science, truth and uncertainty being relative.

A Cosmic Mystery Begins

“If my view is correct, the universe may have a kind of domain structure. In one part of the universe, you may have one preferred direction of the axis; in another part, the direction of the axis may be different.”

: Y. Nambu

I

Subaltern notable – built on the work of the great astronomers Galileo Galilei, Nicolaus Copernicus (who took the details of Ptolemy, and found a way to look at the same construction from a slightly different perspective and discover that the Earth is not the center of the universe) and Johannes Kepler – which take us on a journey from the time when Aristotle and the world of that era believed that Earth was the center of the universe and supported on the back of a giant tortoise to our contemporary age when we know better − regards body of knowledge as painterly truth. Rather it is absolutely-absolutely false. The word “certainty” in the Game of Science is a misleading term. The history of science, from Copernicus and Galileo to the present, is replete with examples that belie the charge of uncertainism in science. Despite the fact that science (which is guided by natural law and is testable against the empirical world) has revolutionized every aspect of human life and greatly clarified our understanding of the world, it has weighty limitations and it’s a journey not a destination and the advance of knowledge is an infinite progression towards a goal that forever recedes. And it's our main ingredient for understanding − a means of accepting what we've learned, challenging what we (a hoard of talking monkeys who’s consciousness is from a collection of connected neurons − hammering away on typewriters and by pure chance eventually ranging the values for the (fundamental) numbers that would allow the development of any form of intelligent life) think, and knowing that in some of the things that we think, there may be something to modify and to change. We now have considerable empirical data and highly successful scientific interpretations that bear on the question of certainty. The time has come to examine what those data and models tell us about the validity of the scientific hypothesis (which is without a trace of a doubt the most recognizable tragedy in the history of mankind and may be even in history full stop).

II

After sleeping through a hundred million years in wisps, ashes and smoking gun we − the rational beings developed from the Darwin’s principle of natural selection (a mechanistic, causal account of how living things came to look as if they had been designed for a purpose) in terms of the genetic information carried in the DNA of our cells and how it got modified by random mutations − have finally awakened our eyes on a cooled cinder, sparkling with color, bountiful with life, reciting an African creation myth (: that in the beginning, there was only darkness, water, and the great god Bumba. One day Bumba, in pain from a stomach ache, vomited up the sun. The sun dried up some of the water, leaving land. Still in pain, Bumba vomited up the moon, the stars, and then some animals. The reptiles, mammals, and ultimately the human race) and rapidly moving on to big questions such as, if the big bang was perfectly symmetrical, and then we should expect equal amounts of matter and antimatter to be formed. In other words, if matter and antimatter can be made or destroyed only in matching amounts, and the laws of physics are exactly same for the both, then how can it be that the universe contains so much matter but so little antimatter? So why do we now see only matter except for the tiny amounts of antimatter that we make in the lab and observe in cosmic rays? Is that the original big bang was not perfectly symmetrical at all?

We Humans, a curious species, are accustomed into an inquisition. The question is not ‘do we know everything from the triumph of the Higgs boson to the underlying discomfort of multiverses?’ or it is ‘do we know enough?’ But how perfectly we know about things? For many people this might sound like a startling claim. But scientific knowledge is often transitory: some (but not all) unquestionably fraught with misinterpretation. This is not a weakness but strength, for our better understanding of the events around us, and of our own existence. However, all that we can say how far we are from the truth, ‘the reciprocal of uncertainty.’ The very existence of certainty is a lot more baffled than it exists, even if we begin from a point of thinking it’s pretty damn baffled in the first point. Moreover, the very expression “certainly proven” is a contradiction in terms. There’s nothing that is certainly proven. The deep core of science is the deep awareness that we have wrong ideas, we have misinterpretations. And the fact that we human beings − who are ourselves mere collections of fundamental particles in a truly elegant fashion — still facing with the question: “What is truth,” or rather “who is Truth?” — have been able to live with doubt and uncertainty. We think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be false.

Ever since the beginning of human civilization, we have not been in a state of satisfaction to watch things as incoherent and unexplainable. While we have been thinking whether the universe began at the big bang singularity and would come to an end either at the big crunch singularity, we have converted at least a thousand joules of energy in the form of thoughts. This has decreased the disorder of the human brain by about few million units. Thus, in a sense, the evolution of human civilization in understanding the universe has established a small corner of the order in a human brain. However, the burning questions still remain unresolved, which set the human race to keep away from such issues. Many early native postulates have fallen or are falling aside -- and there now alternative substitutes. In short, while we do not have an answer, we now have a whisper of the grandeur of the problem. With our limited brains and tiny knowledge, we cannot hope to have a complete picture of unlimited speculating about the gigantic universe we live in.

We understand the things we see

We don’t understand what we can’t

Cosmological Principle:

The universe is the same everywhere.

Homogeneous:

The universe looks the same from every point.

Isotropic:

The universe looks the same in every direction.

But WHY?

For lack of other theories, we forcibly adore the theories like the big bang, which posits that in the beginning of evolution all the observable galaxies and every speck of energy in the universe was jammed into a very tiny mathematically indefinable entity called the singularity (or the primeval atom named by the Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre, who was the first to investigate the origin of the universe that we now call the big bang). This extremely dense point exploded with unimaginable force, creating matter and propelling it outward to make the billions of galaxies of our vast universe. It seems to be a good postulate that the anticipation of a mathematically indefinable entity by a scientific theory implies that the theory has ruled out. It would mean that the usual approach of science of building a scientific model could anticipate that the universe must have had a beginning, but that it could not prognosticate how it had a beginning. Between 1920s and 1940s there were several attempts, most notably by the British physicist Sir Fred Hoyle (a man who ironically spent almost his entire professional life trying to disprove the big bang theory) and his co-workers: Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold, to avoid the cosmic singularity in terms of an elegant model that supported the idea that as the universe expanded, new matter was continually created to keep the density constant on average. The universe didn’t have a beginning and it continues to exist eternally as it is today. This idea was initially given priority, but a mountain of inconsistencies with it began to appear in the mid 1960’s when observational discoveries apparently supported the evidence contrary to it. However, Hoyle and his supporters put forward increasingly contrived explanations of the observations. But the final blow to it came with the observational discovery of a faint background of microwaves (whose wavelength was close to the size of water molecules) throughout space in 1965 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, which was the “the final nail in the coffin of the big bang theory” i.e., the discovery and confirmation of the cosmic microwave background radiation (which could heat our food stuffs to only about −270 degrees Centigrade — 3 degrees above absolute zero, and not very useful for popping corn) in 1965 secured the Big Bang as the best theory of the origin and evolution of the universe. Though Hoyle and Narlikar tried desperately, the steady state theory was abandoned.

“I found it very ugly that the field law of gravitation should be composed of two logically independent terms which are connected by addition. About the justification of such feelings concerning logical simplicity it is difficult to argue. I cannot help to feel it strongly and I am unable to believe that such an ugly thing should be realized in nature.”

--Albert Einstein, in a Sept.26, 1947, letter to Georges Lema

With many bizarre twists and turns, super strings − a generalized extension of string theory which predicts that all matter consists of tiny vibrating strings and the precise number of dimensions: ten. The usual three dimensions of space − length, width, and breadth − and one of time are extended by six more spatial dimensions − blinked into existence. Although the mathematics of super strings is so complicated that, to date, no one even knows the exact equations of the theory (we know only approximations to these equations, and even the approximate equations are so complicated that they as yet have been only partially solved) − The best choice we have at the moment is the super strings, but no one has seen a superstring and it has not been found to agree with experience and moreover there’s no direct evidence that it is the correct description of what the universe is. Are there only 4 dimensions or could there be more: (x, y, z, t) + w, v,…? Can we experimentally observe evidence of higher dimensions? What are their shapes and sizes? Are they classical or quantum? Are dimensions a fundamental property of the universe or an emergent outcome of chaos by the mere laws of nature (which are shaped by a kind of lens, the interpretive structure of our human brains)? And if they exist, they could provide the key to unlock the deepest secrets of nature and Creation itself? We humans look around and only see four (three spatial dimensions and one time dimension i.e., space has three dimensions, I mean that it takes three numbers − length, breadth and height− to specify a point. And adding time to our description, then space becomes space-time with 4 dimensions) – why 4 dimensions? where are the other dimensions? Are they rolled the other dimensions up into a space of very small size, something like a million million million million millionth of an inch − so small that our most powerful instruments can probe? Up until recently, we have found no evidence for signatures of extra dimensions. No evidence does not mean that extra dimensions do not exist. However, being aware that we live in more dimensions than we see is a great prediction of theoretical physics and also something quite futile even to imagine that we are entering what may be the golden age of cosmology.

For n spatial dimensions: The gravitational force between two massive bodies is: F_G = GMm / (r ⁿ⁻¹) where G is the gravitational constant (which was first introduced by Sir Isaac Newton (who had strong philosophical ideas) as part of his popular publication in 1687 “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” and was first successfully measured by the English physicist Henry Cavendish), M and m are the masses of the two bodies and r is the distance between them. The electrostatic force between two charges is: F_E = Qq/ 4πε₀ (r ⁿ⁻¹) where ε₀ is the absolute permittivity of free space, Q and q are the charges and r is the distance between them. What do we notice about both of these forces? Both of these forces are proportional to 1/ r ^{n −1}. So in a 4 dimensional universe (3 spatial dimensions + one time dimension) forces are proportional to 1/r²; in the 10 dimensional universe (9 spatial dimensions + one time dimension) they're proportional to 1/r⁸. Not surprisingly, at present no experiment is smart enough to solve the problem of whether or not the universe exists in 10 dimensions or more (i.e., to prove or disprove both of these forces are proportional to 1/r⁸ or proportional to > 1/r⁸). However, yet mathematically we can imagine many spatial dimensions but the fact that that might be realized in nature is a profound thing. So far, we presume that the universe exists in extra dimensions because the mathematics of superstrings requires the presence of ten distinct dimensions in our universe or because a standard four dimensional theory is too small to jam all the forces into one mathematical framework. But what we know about the spatial dimensions we live in is limited by our own abilities to think through many approaches, many of the most satisfying are scientific.

Among many that we can develop, the most well-known, believed theory at the present is the standard four dimensional theory. However, development and change of the theory always occurs as many questions still remain about our universe we live in. And if space was 2 dimensional then force of gravitation between two bodies would have been = to GMm/r (i.e., the force of gravitation between two bodies would have been far greater than its present value). And if the force of gravitation between two bodies would have been far greater than its present value, the rate of emission of gravitational radiation would have been sufficiently high enough to cause the earth to spiral onto the Sun even before the sun become a black hole and swallow the earth. While if space was 1 dimensional then force of gravitation between two bodies would have been = GMm (i.e., the force of gravitation between two bodies would have been independent of the distance between them). The selection principle that we live in a region of the universe that is suitable for intelligent life which is called the anthropic principle (a term coined by astronomer Brandon Carter in 1974) would not have seemed to be enough to allow for the development of complicated beings like us. The universe would have been vastly different than it does now and, no doubt, life as we know it would not have existed. And if spacial dimensions would have been > than 3, the force of gravitation between two bodies would have been decreased more rapidly with distance than it does in three dimensions. (In three dimensions, the gravitational force drops to 1/4 if one doubles the distance. In four dimensions it would drops to 1/5, in five dimensions to 1/6, and so on.) The significance of this is that the orbits of planets, like the earth, around the sun would have been unstable to allow for the existence of any form of life and there would been no intelligent beings to observe the effectiveness of extra dimensions.

Although the proponents of string theory predict absolutely everything is built out of strings (which are described as patterns of vibration that have length but no height or width—like infinitely thin pieces of string), it could not provide us with an answer of what the string is made up of? And one model of potential multiple universes called the M Theory − has eleven dimensions, ten of space and one of time, which we think an explanation of the laws governing our universe that is currently the only viable candidate for a “theory of everything”: the unified theory that Einstein was looking for, which, if confirmed, would represent the ultimate triumph of human reason− predicts that our universe is not only one giant hologram. Like the formation of bubbles of steam in boiling water − Great many holograms of possible shapes and inner dimensions were created, started off in every possible way, simply because of an uncaused accident called spontaneous creation. Our universe was one among a zillion of holograms simply happened to have the right properties − with particular values of the physical constants right for stars and galaxies and planetary systems to form and for intelligent beings to emerge due to random physical processes and develop and ask questions, Who or what governs the laws and constants of physics? Are such laws the products of chance or a mere cosmic accident or have they been designed? How do the laws and constants of physics relate to the support and development of life forms? Is there any knowable existence beyond the apparently observed dimensions of our existence? However, M theory sounds so bizarre and unrealistic that there is no experiment that can credit its validity. Nature has not been quick to pay us any hints so far. That's the fact of it; grouped together everything we know about the history of the universe is a fascinating topic for study, and trying to understand the meaning of them is one of the key aspects of modern cosmology.

And as more space comes into existence, more of the dark energy (an invisible and unexpected cosmological force which was a vanishingly small slice of the pie 13.7 billion years ago, but today it is about three times as much as visible matter and dark matter (whose evidence has come from many sources, including astrophysical observations of clusters of galaxies) put together and it eclipses matter and hides in empty space and works for the universe’s expansion i.e., pushes the edges of the universe apart − a sort of anti-gravity) would appear. Unfortunately, no one at the present time has any understanding of where this “energy of nothing” comes from or what exactly it is. Is it a pure cosmological constant (an arbitrary parameter from general relativity, has been taken to be zero for most of the twentieth century for the simple and adequate reason that this value was consistent with the data) or is it a sign of extra dimensions? What is the cause of the dark energy? Why does it exist at all? Why is it so different from the other energies? Why is the composition of dark energy so large (of about 73% of our universe − we only make up 0.03% of the universe)? String theory (a cutting-edge research that has integrated [Einstein’s] discoveries into a quantum universe with numerous hidden dimensions coiled into the fabric of the cosmos - dimensions whose geometry may well hold the key to some of the most profound questions ever posed) gives us a clue, but there’s no definitive answer. Well, all know is that it is a sort of cosmic accelerator pedal or an invisible energy what made the universe bang and if we held it in our hand; we couldn’t take hold of it. In fact, it would go right through our fingers, go right through the rock beneath our feet and go all the way to the majestic swirl of the heavenly stars. It would reverse direction and come back from the stately waltz of orbiting binary stars through the intergalactic night all the way to the edge of our feet and go back and forth. How near are we to understand the dark energy? The question lingers, answer complicates and challenges everyone who yearns to resolve. And once we understand the dark energy, can we understand the birth and the death of the universe is also an?
Einstein letter to Professor G. Gamow (in August 4, 1946), with a comment handwritten by Gamow at the bottom

Dear Dr. Gamow

After receiving your manuscript I read it immediately and then forwarded it to Dr. Spitzer. I am convinced that the abundance of elements as function of the atomic weight is a highly important starting point for cosmogonic speculations. The idea that the whole expansion process started with a neutron gas seems to be quite natural too. The explanation of the abundance curve by formation of the heavier elements in making use of the known facts of probability coefficients seems to me pretty convincing. Your remarks concerning the formation of the big units (nebulae) I am not able to judge for lack of special knowledge.

Thanking you for your kindness, I am

yours sincerely,

Albert Einstein.

(Of course, the old man agrees with almost anything nowadays.)

--comment handwritten by Gamow

The entire universe is getting more disordered and chaotic with time i.e., the entropy of the universe is increasing toward greater disorder. And this observation is elevated to the status of a law, the so called Second law of thermodynamics (which was discovered by the great German physicist, Ludwig Boltzmann who laid down the second law of thermodynamics, committed suicide in 1906, in part because of the intense ridicule he faced while promoting the concept of atoms) i.e., the universe will tend toward a state of maximum entropy, such as a uniform gas near absolute zero (at this point, the atoms themselves almost come to a halt) and that there is nothing we have to do about it. No matter how advanced our conditions would be right for the generation of thoughts to predict things more or less, even if not in a simplest way, it can never squash the impending threat of the second law of thermodynamics (that will eventually result in the destruction of all intelligent life) nor it can bring us close to the answer of why was the entropy ever low in the first place. This makes cosmology (the study of the universe as a whole, including its birth and perhaps its ultimate fate) a bit more complicated than we would have hoped.

Explaining everything... is one of the greatest challenges we have ever faced. Hence, it has been an endeavor of science to find a single theory which could explain everything, where every partial theory that we’ve read so far (in school) is explained as a case of the one cogent theory within some special circumstances. Despite being a mystery skeptic, the Unified Field Theory (which Albert Einstein -- the most important scientist since Isaac Newton, and probably the most famous in history -- sought [but never realized] during the last thirty years of his life and capable of describing nature’s forces within a single, all-encompassing, coherent framework) presents an infinite problem. This is embarrassing. Because we now realize before we can work for the theory of everything, we have to work for the ultimate laws of nature. At the present, we’re clueless as to what the ultimate laws of nature really are. Are there new laws beyond the apparently observed dimensions of our universe? Do all the fundamental laws of nature unify? At what scale? Ultimately, however, it is likely that answers to these questions in the form of unified field theory may be found over the next few years or by the end of the century we shall know can there really be a complete unified theory that would presumably solve our problems? Or are we just chasing a mirage? Is the ultimate unified theory so compelling, that it brings about its own existence? However, if we − a puny and insignificant on the scale of the cosmos − do discover a unified field theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few people. Then we shall all be able to take part in the discussion of the questions of how and when did the universe begin? Was the universe created? Has this universe been here forever or did it have a beginning at the Big Bang? If the universe was not created, how did it get here? If the Big Bang is the reason there is something rather than nothing, and then before the Big Bang there was NOTHING and then suddenly we got A HUGE AMOUNT OF ENERGY where did it come from? What powered the Big Bang? What is the fate of the Universe? Is the universe heading towards a Big Freeze (the end of the universe when it reaches near absolute zero), a Big Rip, a Big Crunch (the final collapse of the universe), or a Big Bounce? Or is it part of an infinitely recurring cyclic model? Is inflation a law of Nature? Why the universe started off very hot and cooled as it expanded? Is the Standard Big Bang Model right? Or is it the satisfactory explanation of the evidence which we have and therefore merits our provisional acceptance? Is our universe finite or infinite in size and content? What lies beyond the existing space and time? What was before the event of creation? Why is the universe so uniform on a large scale (even though uncertainty principle − which fundamentally differentiates quantum from classic reasoning − discovered by the German physicist Werner Heisenberg in 1927 − implies that the universe cannot be completely uniform because there are some uncertainties or fluctuations in the positions and velocities of the particles)? Why does it look the same at all points of space and in all directions? In particular, why is the temperature of the cosmic microwave back-ground radiation so nearly the same when we look in different directions? Why are the galaxies distributed in clumps and filaments? When were the first stars formed, and what were they like?

If k_BT = m_electronc², then T= m_electronc²/k_B = 5.934 × 10⁹ Kelvin.

T= 5.934 ×10⁹ Kelvin imply the threshold temperature below which the electron is effectively removed from the universe.

If hυ = m_electronc², then υ = m_electronc²/h = 1.23 × 10²⁰ per second.

What does υ = 1.23 × 10²⁰ per second imply? Does it imply the threshold frequency of vibration below which the electron is effectively removed from the universe? Or if string theory (which is part of a grander synthesis: M-theory and have captured the hearts and minds of much of the theoretical physics community while being apparently disconnected from any realistic chance of definitive experimental proof) is right i.e., every particle is a tiny one dimensional vibrating string of Planck length (the smallest possible length i.e., Planck time multiplied by the speed of light), then does υ = 1.23 × 10 ²⁰ per second imply the frequency of vibration of the string that attributes mass to the electron?

Did you know that:

For most of the last 30 years of his life, Albert tried, unsuccessfully, to establish a mathematical relationship between electromagnetic forces (such as light) and gravity. His aim was to find a single formula to explain the behavior of everything in the universe, from electrons to stars, called a Unified Field Theory. He died in his sleep on April 18, 1955, from a ruptured defect in the main abdominal artery.

Why most of the matter in the Universe is dark? Is anthropic principle a natural coincidence? If we find the answers to them, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason i.e., we might hold the key to illuminating the eternal conundrum of why we exist. It would bring to an end a long and glorious lesson in the history of mankind’s intellectual struggle to understand the universe. For then we would know whether the laws of physics started off the universe in such an incomprehensible way or not. Chances are that these questions will be answered long after we’re gone, but there is hope that the beginnings of those answers may come within the next few years, as some aspects of bold scientific theory that attempts to reconcile all the physical properties of our universe into a single unified and coherent mathematical framework begin to enter the realm of theoretical and experimental formulation.

Up until recently, a multitude of revolutions in various domains, from literature to experimental science, has prevailed over established ideas of modern age in a way never seen before. But we do not know about what is the exact mechanism by which an implosion of a dying star becomes a specific kind of explosion called a supernova. All that we know is that: When a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel, the gravitational contraction continues increasing the density of matter. And since the internal pressure is proportional to the density of matter, therefore the internal pressure will continually increase with the density of matter. And at a certain point of contraction, internal pressure will be very much greater than gravitational binding pressure and will be sufficiently high enough to cause the star of mass M and radius r to explode at a rate = total energy released × time, spraying the manufactured elements into space that would flung back into the gas in the galaxy and would provide some of the raw material for the next generation of stars and bodies that now orbit the sun as planets like the Earth. The total energy released would outshine all the other stars in the galaxy, approaching the luminosity of a whole galaxy (will nearly be the order of 10 to the power of 42 Joules) which is = (Total energy of the star – its Gravitational binding energy). In the aftermath of the supernova, we find a totally dead star, a neutron star – a cold star, supported by the exclusion principle repulsion between neutrons – about the size of Manhattan (i.e., ten to 50 times the size of our sun).

“… hardly anything has been done up to the present on quantum electrodynamics. The questions of the correct treatment of a system in which the forces are propagated with the velocity of light instead of instantaneously, of the production of an electromagnetic field by a moving electron, and of the reaction of this field on the electron have not yet been touched.” -- Dirac (1927)

Why are there atoms, molecules, solar systems, and galaxies?

What powered them into existence?

How accurate are the physical laws and equations, which control them?

Why do the Fundamental Constants:

Planck's constant: h = 6.625 × 10 ⁻³⁴ Js

Speed of light: c = 3 × 10 ⁸ m/s

Mass of electron: m_electron = 9.1 × 10 ⁻³¹ kg

Mass of proton: m_proton = 1.672 × 10 ⁻²⁷ kg

Mass of neutron: m_neutron = 1.675 × 10 ⁻²⁷ kg

Electron charge (magnitude): e = 1.602 × 10 ⁻¹⁹ C

Fine structure constant: α = e²/ ħc = 1/137.036

Bohr radius: a = ħ / m_electrone² = 5.29 × 10 ⁻¹¹m

Bohr energies: E_n = − m_electrone⁴/2ħn² = − (13.6/n²) eV

Classical electron radius: r_electron = e²/m_electronc² = 2.81 × 10 ⁻¹⁵ m

QED coupling constant: g_e = e (4π/ħc) ^½ = 0.302822

Weak coupling constants: g_w = g_e /sinθ_w = 0.6295; g_z= g_w /cosθ_w = 0.7180

Weak mixing angle: θ_w = 28.76^o

Strong coupling constant: G = 1.214

have the precise values they do?

The answers have always seemed well beyond the reach of Dr. Science since the dawn of humanity − until now (some would claim the answer to these questions is that there is a transcendent God (a cosmic craftsman – a transcendent being than which no being could be more virtuous) who chose to create the universe that way according to some perfect mathematical principle. Then the question merely reflects to that of who or what created the God). But the questions are still the picture in the mind of many scientists today who do not spend most of their time worrying about these questions, but almost worry about them some of the time. All that science could say is that: The universe is as it is now. But it could not explain why it was, as it was, just after the Big Bang. This is a disaster for science. It would mean that science alone, could not predict how the universe began. Every attempt is made to set up the connection between theoretical predictions and experimental results but some of the experimental results throw cold water on the theoretical predictions.

Back in 1700s, people thought the stars of our galaxy structured the universe, that the galaxy was nearly static, and that the universe was essentially unexpanding with neither a beginning nor an end to time. A situation marked by difficulty with the idea of a static and unchanging universe, was that according to the Newtonian theory of gravitation, each star in the universe supposed to be pulled towards every other star with a force that was weaker the less massive the stars and farther they were to each other. It was this force caused all the stars fall together at some point. So how could they remain static? Wouldn’t they all collapse in on themselves? A balance of the predominant attractive effect of the stars in the universe was required to keep them at a constant distance from each other. Einstein was aware of this problem. He introduced a term so-called cosmological constant in order to hold a static universe in which gravity is a predominant attractive force. This had an effect of a repulsive force, which could balance the predominant attractive force. In this way it was possible to allow a static cosmic solution. Enter the American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble. In 1920s he began to make observations with the hundred inch telescope on Mount Wilson and through detailed measurements of the spectra of stars he found something most peculiar: stars moving away from each other had their spectra shifted toward the red end of the spectrum in proportion to the distance between them (This was a Doppler effect of light: Waves of any sort -- sound waves, light waves, water waves -- emitted at some frequency by a moving object are perceived at a different frequency by a stationary observer. The resulting shift in the spectrum will be towards its red part when the source is moving away and towards the blue part when the source is getting closer). And he also observed that stars were not uniformly distributed throughout space, but were gathered together in vast collections called galaxies and nearly all the galaxies were moving away from us with recessional velocities that were roughly dependent on their distance from us. He reinforced his argument with the formulation of his well-known Hubble’s law. The observational discovery of the stretching of the space carrying galaxies with it completely shattered the previous image of a static and unchanging cosmos (i.e., the motivation for adding a term to the equations disappeared, and Einstein rejected the cosmological constant a greatest mistake).

Thus the last and most successful creation of theoretical physics, namely quantum mechanics (QM), differs fundamentally from both Newton's mechanics, and Maxwell's e-m field. For the quantities which figure in QM's laws make no claim to describe physical reality itself, but only probabilities of the occurrence of a physical reality that we have in view. (Albert Einstein, 1931)

I cannot but confess that I attach only a transitory importance to this interpretation. I still believe in the possibility of a model of reality - that is to say, of a theory which represents things themselves and not merely the probability of their occurrence. On the other hand, it seems to me certain that we must give up the idea of complete localization of the particle in a theoretical model. This seems to me the permanent upshot of Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty. (Albert Einstein, 1934)

Many theoretical physicists and scientists of a fast developing science have discussed about mass annihilation at different times. Even a level one graduate know that when an electron and a positron approach each other, they annihilate i.e., destroy each other. This process what a quantum physicists call the mass annihilation. During the process their masses are converted into energy in accordance with E = mc². The energy thus released manifests as γ photons. A positron has the same mass as an electron but an opposite charge equal to +e. The energy released in the form of 2γ photons during the annihilation of a positron and an electron is therefore E = 2hυ = 2m₀c² where m₀ is the rest mass of the electron or positron.

2hυ = 2m₀c²

Since υ = c/λ. Therefore:

λ = h/ m₀c

But h/ m₀c = λ_C (the Compton wavelength of the electron). Therefore:

λ = λ_C (i.e., wavelength of the resulted gamma photon is = Compton wavelength of the annihilated electron).

From this it follows that

hc/ λ² = hc/ λ_C²

hc/λ² → force which moves the photon

hc/λ_C² = 3.39 × 10 ⁻² Newton →?

Is it a cutoff at which relativistic quantum field theory becomes crucial for its accurate description? Why is it so? What does it mean? The question is not fairly simple to be answered.

We story telling animals often claim that we know so much more about the universe. But we must beware of overconfidence. We have had false dawns before. At the beginning of this century, for example, it was thought that earth was a perfect sphere, but latter experimental observation of variation of value of g over the surface of earth confirmed that earth is not a perfect sphere. Today there is almost universal agreement that space itself is stretching, carrying galaxies with it, though we are experimentally trying to answer whether cosmic [expansion will] continue forever or slow to a halt, reverse itself [and] lead to a cosmic implosion. However, personally, we’re sure that the accelerated expansion began with a state of infinite compression and primeval explosion called the hot Big Bang. But will it expand forever or there is a limit beyond which the average matter density exceeds a hundredth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth (10^–29) of a gram per cubic centimeter so-called critical density (the density of the universe where the expansion of the universe is poised between eternal expansion and recollapse)... then a large enough gravitational force will permeate the cosmos to halt and reverse the expansion or the expansion and contraction are evenly balanced? We’re less sure about that because events cannot be predicted with complete accuracy but that there is always a degree of uncertainty.

The picture of standard model of the Forces of Nature (a sensible and successive quantum-mechanical description developed by 1970s physicists) is in good agreement with all the observational evidence that we have today and remains consistent with all the measured properties of matter made in our most sophisticated laboratories on Earth and observed in space with our most powerful telescopes. Nevertheless, it leaves a number of important questions unanswered like the unanswered questions given in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (by Douglas Adams): Why are the strengths of the fundamental forces (electromagnetism, weak and strong forces, and gravity) are as they are? Why do the force particles have the precise masses they do? Do these forces really become unified at sufficiently high energy? If so how? Are there unobserved fundamental forces that explain other unsolved problems in physics? Why is gravity so weak? May because of hidden extra dimensions? Very likely, we are missing something important that may seem as obvious to us as the earth orbiting the sun – or perhaps as ridiculous as a tower of tortoises. Only time (whatever that may be) will tell.

The theory of evolution (which predicts: that the use of antiviral or antibacterial agents would result in the emergence of resistant strains. This principle is, of course, a mainstay of contemporary medicine and asserts that the natural selection is a choice of stable forms and a rejection of unstable ones. And the variation within a species occurs randomly, and that the survival or extinction of each organism depends upon its ability (an internal force or tendency) to adapt to the environment) lined up pictures of apes and humans and claimed that humans evolved from apes (i.e., the chimpanzee and the human share about 99.5 per cent of their evolutionary history). This spilled out onto the corridors of the academy and absolutely rocked Victorian England to the extent that people just barely raised their voice contradicting the biblical account of creation in the lecture hall rips of the architrave. And despite more than a century of digging straight down and passing through the fossil layers, the fossil record remains maddeningly sparse and provides us with no evidence that show evolutionary transition development of one species into another species. However, we are convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been believed with blind faith, which may turn to be one of the great fairy tales for adults in the history books of the future. Like raisins in expanding dough, galaxies that are further apart are increasing their separation more than nearer ones. And as a result, the light emitted from distant galaxies and stars is shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. Observations of galaxies indicate that the universe is expanding: the distance D between almost any pair of galaxies is increasing at a rate V = HD − beautifully explained by the Hubble’s law (the law that agrees with Einstein’s theory of an expanding universe). However, controversy still remains on the validity of this law. Andromeda, for example, for which the Hubble relation does not apply. And quantum theory (The revolutionary theory of the last century clashed with everyday experience which has proved enormously successful, passing with flying colors the many stringent laboratory tests to which it has been subjected for almost a hundred years) predicts that entire space is not continuous and infinite but rather quantized and measured in units of quantity called Planck length (10 ⁻³³ cm – the length scale found at the big bang in which the gravitational force was as strong as the other forces and at this scale, space-time was “foamy,” with tiny bubbles and wormholes appearing and disappearing into the vacuum) i.e., the entire space is divided into cells of volume i.e., Planck length to the power of 3, the smallest definable volume (i.e., the Planck volume) and of area i.e., Planck length to the power of 2, the smallest definable area (i.e., the Planck area) and time in units of quantity called Planck time ( the time it takes for light to travel 1 Planck length, or 1.6 × 10 ^–35 m). And each cell possesses energy equal to the Planck energy (10¹⁹ billion electron volts − the energy scale of the big bang, where all the forces were unified into a single super force). And energy density of each cell is = Planck energy / Planck volume. However, at the present there is no conclusive evidence in favor of quantization of space and time and moreover nobody knows why no spatial or time interval shorter than the Planck values exists?

For length: Planck length (a hundred billion billion times [10²⁰] smaller than an atomic nucleus) −1.6 × 10 ⁻³³ centimeter.

For time: Planck time −5 × 10 ⁻⁴⁴ seconds.

On the other hand, there is no evidence against what the quantum model inform us about the true nature of reality. But in order to unify Albert Einstein’s general relativity (a theoretical framework for understanding the universe on the largest of scales: the immense expanse of the universe itself and it breaks down at times less than the Planck time and at distances smaller than the Planck length, predicts the existence of wormhole − a passageway between two universes – gives us a better way of grasping reality than Newtonian mechanics, because it tells us that there can be black holes, because it tells us there’s a Big Bang) with the quantum physics that describe fundamental particles and forces, it is necessary to quantize space and perhaps time as well. And for a universe to be created out of nothing, the positive energy of motion should exactly cancel out the negative energy of gravitational attraction i.e., the net energy of the universe should be = zero. And if that’s the case, the spatial curvature of the universe, Ω_k, should be = 0.0000 (i.e., perfect flatness). But the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite has established the spatial curvature of the universe, Ω_k, to be between − 0.0174 and + 0.0051. Then, how can it cost nothing to create a universe, how can a whole universe be created from nothing? On the other hand, there is a claim that the sum of the energy of matter and of the gravitational energy is equal to zero and hence there is a possibility of a universe appearing from nothing and thus the universe can double the amount of positive matter energy and also double the negative gravitational energy without violation of the conservation of energy. However, energy of matter + gravitational energy is = zero is only a claim based on Big Bang implications. No human being can possibly know the precise energy content of the entire universe. In order to verify the claim that the total energy content of the universe is exactly zero, one would have to account for all the forms of energy of matter in the universe, add them together with gravitational energy, and then verify that the sum really is exactly zero. But the attempt to verify that the sum really is exactly zero is not an easy task. We need precision experiments to know for sure.

Classical physics would have been much different

if…

A tree had fallen on Newton’s head instead of the apple.

The backwards-moving electron when viewed with time moving forwards appears the same as an ordinary electron, except that it is attracted to normal electrons - we say it has a positive charge. For this reason it's called a positron. The positron is a sister particle to the electron, and is an example of an anti-particle...This phenomena is general. Every particle in Nature has an amplitude to move backwards in time, and therefore has an anti-particle. (Feynman, 1985)

For many years after Newton, partial reflection by two surfaces was happily explained by a theory of waves,* but when experiments were made with very weak light hitting photomultipliers, the wave theory collapsed: as the light got dimmer and dimmer, the photomultipliers kept making full sized clicks - there were just fewer of them. Light behaves as particles.

* This idea made use of the fact that waves can combine or cancel out, and the calculations based on this model matched the results of Newton's experiments, as well as those done for hundreds of years afterwards. But when experiments were developed that were sensitive enough to detect a single photon, the wave theory predicted that the clicks of a photomultiplier would get softer and softer, whereas they stayed at full strength - they just occurred less and less often. No reasonable model could explain this fact.

This state of confusion was called the wave - particle duality of light. (Feynman, 1985)

Gazing at the at the blazing celestial beauty of the night sky and asking a multitude of questions that have puzzled and intrigued humanity since our beginning − WE’VE DISCOVERED a lot about our celestial home; however, we still stand at a critical cross road of knowledge where the choice is between spirituality and science to accomplish the hidden truth behind the early evolution of the universe. In order to throw light on a multitude of questions that has so long occupied the mind of scientists and the people who have argued over the years about the nature of reality and whose business it is to ask why, the philosophers: Where did we and the universe come from? Where are we and the universe going? What makes us and the universe exists? Why we born? Why we die? Whether or not the universe had a beginning? If the universe had a beginning, why did it wait an infinite time before it began? What was before the beginning? Is our universe tunneled through the chaos at the Planck time from a prior universe that existed for all previous time? We must either build a sound, balanced, effective and extreme imaginative knowledge beyond our limit. Many theories were put forth by the scientists to look into the early evolution of the universe but none of them turned up so far. And if, like me, you have wondered looking at the star, and tried to make sense of what makes it shine the way it is. Did it shine forever or was there a limit beyond which it cannot or may not shine? And, where did the matter that created it all come from? Did the matter have a beginning in time? Or had the matter existed forever and didn’t have a beginning? In other words, what cause made the matter exist? And, what made that cause exist? Some would claim the answer to this question is that matter could have popped into existence 13.9 billion years ago as a result of just the eminent physical laws and constants being there. Because there is a law such as gravity, the matter can and will create itself out of nothing. But how can matter come out of nothing? This apparently violates the conservation of matter. But there is a simple answer. Matter, of course, is what a makes up a hot star, a sun, a planet – anything you think of that occupies space. And if you divide the matter what do you get? Tiny masses… Well, because E = mc squared each tiny mass locks up tremendous amount of positive energy. And according to new model what’s called the exchange theory of gravity, there is a continuous exchange of a massless particle of spin 2 called the graviton (the smallest bundle of the gravitational force field and the message particle for gravity and it is too small to be seen in the laboratory) between one mass and the other. This result in an exchange force called gravity and keeps them bound together – what constitutes the matter. Well if you add up the sum total positive energy of masses to the sum total negative energy of gravity what you get? Zero, the net energy of the matter is zero. Now twice zero is also zero. Thus we can double the amount of positive matter energy and also double the negative gravitational energy without violation of the conservation of matter or energy. Because the net energy of the matter is zero, the matter can and will create itself from literally nothing. A thought of nothing must have somehow turned into something is interesting, and significant, and worth writing a note about, and it’s one of the possibilities. However, if this admittedly speculative hypothesis is correct, then the question to the ultimate answer is shouldn’t we see at least some spontaneous creation of matter in our observable universe every now and then? No one has ever observed a matter popping into existence. This means that any “meta” or “hyper” laws of physics that would allow (even in postulate) a matter to pop into existence are completely outside our experience. The eminent laws of physics, as we know them, simply are not applicable here. Invoking the laws of physics doesn’t quite do the trick. And the laws of physics are simply the human-invented ingredients of models that we introduce to describe observations. They are all fictitious, as far as we find a reference frame in which they are observed. The question of matter genesis is clear, and deceptively simple. It is as old as the question of what was going on before the Big Bang. Usually, we tell the story of the matter by starting at the Big Bang and then talking about what happened after. The answer has always seemed well beyond the reach of science. Until now.

Over the decades, there have been several heroic attempts to explain the origin of matter, all of them proven wrong. One was the so-called Steady State theory. The idea was that, as the galaxies moved apart from each other; new galaxies would form in the spaces in between, from matter that was spontaneously being created. The matter density of the universe would continue to exist, forever, in more or less the same state as it is today. In a sense disagreement was a credit to the model, every attempt was made to set up the connection between theoretical predictions and experimental results but the Steady State theory was disproved even with limited observational evidence. The theory therefore was abandoned and the idea of spontaneous creation of matter was doomed to fade away into mere shadows. As crazy as it might seem, the matter may have come out of nothing! The meaning of nothing is somewhat ambiguous here. It might be the pre-existing space and time, or it could be nothing at all. After all, no one was around when the matter began, so who can say what really happened? The best that we can do is work out the most vain imaginative and foolish theories, backed up by numerous lines of scientific observations of the universe.

Cats are alive and dead at the same time. But some of the most incredible mysteries of the quantum realm (a jitter in the amorphous haze of the subatomic world) get far less attention than Schrödinger’s famous cat. Due to the fuzziness of quantum theory (that implies: the cosmos does not have just a single existence or history), and specifically Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (which fundamentally differentiates quantum from classic reasoning − discovered by the German physicist Werner Heisenberg in 1927), one can think of the vacuum fluctuations as virtual matter –antimatter pairs that appear together at some time, move apart, then come together and annihilate one another and revert back to energy. Spontaneous births and deaths of roiling frenzy of particles so called virtual matter –antimatter pairs momentarily occurring everywhere, all the time – is the evidence that mass and energy are interconvertible; they are two forms of the same thing. If one argue that matter was a result of such a fluctuation. So then the next question is what cause provided enough energy to make the virtual matter –antimatter pairs materialize in real space. And if we assume some unknown cause has teared the pair apart and boosted the separated virtual matter –antimatter into the materialized state. The question then is what created that cause. In other words, what factor created that cause? And what created that factor. Or perhaps, the cause, or the factor that created it, existed forever, and didn’t need to be created. The argument leads to a never-ending chain that always leaves us short of the ultimate answer. Unfortunately, Dr. Science cannot answer these questions. So, the problem remains. However, quantum origin and separation of the matter still delights theoretical physicists but boggles the mind of mere mortals, is the subject of my thought; have the quantum laws found a genuinely convincing way to explain matter existence apart from divine intervention? If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the ultimate Cause of the Matter. Over the decades, we’re trying to understand how the matter began and we’re also trying to understand all the other things that go along with it. This is very much the beginning of the story and that story could go in, but I think there could be surprises that no one has even thought of. Something eternal can neither be created nor destroyed. The first law of thermodynamics asserts that matter or energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can be converted from one form to another. The overwhelming experience of experimental science confirms this first law to be a fact. But if the matter prevails in the boundary of understanding in that it neither started nor it ends: it would simply be. What place then for an evidence exposing that we live in a finite expanding universe which has not existed forever, and that all matter was once squeezed into an infinitesimally small volume, which erupted in a cataclysmic explosion which has become known as the Big Bang. However, what we believe about the origin of the matter is not only sketchy, but uncertain and based purely on human perception. There is no reliable and genuine evidence to testify about how the matter began and what may have existed before the beginning of the matter. The laws of physics tell us that the matter had a beginning, but they don’t answer how it had begun. Mystery is running the universe in a hidden hole and corner, but one day it may wind up the clock work with might and main. The physical science can explain the things after big bang but fails to explain the things before big bang. We know that matter can be created out of energy, and energy can be created out of matter. This doesn't resolve the dilemma because we must also know where the original energy came from.

The electrostatic and gravitational forces according to Coulomb’s and Newton’s laws are both inverse square forces, so if one takes the ratio of the forces, the distances cancel. For the electron and proton, the ratio of the forces is given by the equation: F_E / F_G = e² / 4πε₀Gm_protonm_electron where e is the charge = 1.602 × 10 ^{– 19} Coulombs, G is the gravitational constant, ε₀ is the absolute permittivity of free space = 8.8 × 10 ^{– 12} F/m, m_proton is the mass of the proton = 1.672 × 10 ^–27 kg and m_electron is the mass of the electron = 9.1 × 10^–31 kg. Plugging the values we get: F_E / F_G = 10 ³⁹ which means: F_E is > F_G. So, it was argued by a German mathematician, theoretical physicist and philosopher (some say it was Hermann Weyl), if the gravitational force between the proton and electron were not much smaller than the electrostatic force between them, then the hydrogen atom would have collapsed to neutron long before there was a chance for stars to form and life to evolve. F_E > F_G must have been numerically fine - tuned for the existence of life. Taking F_E / F_G = 10 ³⁹ as an example in most physics literature we will find that gravity is the weakest of all forces, many orders of magnitude weaker than electromagnetism. But this does not make sense any way and it is not true always and in all cases. Note that the ratio F_E / F_G is not a universal constant; it’s a number that depends on the particles we use in the calculation. For example: For two particles each of Planck mass (mass on the order of 10 billion billion times that of a proton) and Planck charge the ratio of the forces is 1 i.e., F_E / F_G = 1. Moreover, when the relativistic variation of electron mass with velocity is taken into account then the ratio F_E / F_G becomes velocity dependent.