Religions > Bible > Pre-Genesis Universe(s) Origin(s) - 7c of 7 (Nothing / Everything)
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Religions > Bible |
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"Pro-Humanist FREELOVER" |
| Date: |
19 Aug 2003 10:41:29 AM |
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Pre-Genesis Universe(s) Origin(s) - 7c of 7 (Nothing / Everything) |
-Symmetry to Asymmetry-
.... transition from a state where the minimum that the sys-
tem resides in is symmetric about the zero value to one
in which it is asymmetrical is a common phenomenon in
Nature and it is called symmetry breaking.
The phenomenon of symmetry breaking reveals some-
thing deeply significant about the workings of the Uni-
verse.
The laws of Nature are unerringly symmetrical. ... Yet,
despite the symmetry of the laws of Nature, we observe
the outcomes of those symmetrical laws to be asymmet-
rical states and structures.
---
-insert-
Symmetry Breaking
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec19.html
Excerpt: ... The effect of symmetry breaking in the early
Universe was a series of phase changes, much like when
ice melts to water or water boils to steam.
.... With respect to the Universe, a phase change during
symmetry breaking is a point where the characteristics
and the properties of the Universe make a radical shift.
At the supergravity symmetry breaking, the Universe
passed from the Planck era of total chaos to the era of
spacetime foam. The energy release was used to create
spacetime. During the GUT symmetry breaking, mass
and spacetime separated and the energy released was
used to create particles.
-end insert-
---
Each of us is a powerful guide to arriving at the most
general expression of the laws of electromagnetism and
gravity. We occupy particular positions in the Universe
at this moment of time even though the laws of gravity
and electromagnetism are completely democratic with
respect to positions in space.
One of Nature's deep secrets is the fact that the out-
comes of the laws of Nature do not have to possess
the same symmetries as the laws themselves. The out-
comes are far more complicated, and far less symmet-
rical, than the laws. Consequently, they are far more
difficult to understand.
In this way it is possible to have a Universe governed
by a very small number of simple symmetrical laws
(perhaps just a single law) yet manifesting a stupendous
array of complex, asymmetrical states and structures
that might even be able to think about themselves.
In the last decade, there has been an enormous upsurge
of interest in trying to understand the asymmetrical out-
comes of symmetrical laws. The availability of inexpen-
sive fast computers has greatly facilitated this activity
because the complexities of the asymmetrical outcomes
are generally too great for unaided human calculation
to reveal what is happening in full detail.
-Universe Scope-
.... If the Universe is infinite in extent then anything that
has any chance of occurring will be occurring some-
where, and so somewhere there will be a region where
there is a matter field whose potential-energy landscape
is shallow enough for a very slow change to create a
lot of accelerated expansion.
Even if this is an unlikely situation (although there is
no reason to think that it is), it will still happen in some
places and we will find ourselves residing in one of
them.
This scenario makes our picture of the geography
of the Universe vastly more complex. ... The little
variations in the structure of the vacuum from place
to place will have been amplified from microscopic
scales to the vastness of extragalactic space.
.... The possibility of different vacuum states is far-
reaching because if our Universe possesses differ-
ent possible vacuums it means that the constants
of physics, quantities which measure the strengths
and properties of the forces of Nature, need not
be uniquely determined.
.... Soon after it was realised that a 'chaotic' vacuum
landscape could give rise to different degrees of
inflation all over an infinite universe, Andrei Linde
and Alex Vilenkin, both Russian physicists now
working in America, realised that things could be
even more spectacular.
These ubiquitous bouts of inflation need not be
relegated to some time billions of years in the past.
They should be occurring continually throughout
the history of the Universe. Even today, most of the
Universe beyond our visible horizon is expected to
be in a state of accelerating inflation.
.... Eternal inflation was not something that cosmolo-
gists went out to construct deliberately. It turned up
as an inevitable by-product of a theory which offered
a straightforward explanation for a number of the ob-
served properties of the Universe.
.... Overall, the Universe is likely to be in a steady
state, but populated by many little inflating bubbles,
each spawning a never-ending sequence of 'baby uni-
verses'. Most of the Universe will be undergoing in-
flation at the moment. We live in one of the regions
where inflation stopped in the past and we could
not exist if it were otherwise.
.... This revolution in our conception of the Universe
sees us as inhabitants of a large domain that has arisen
in a cosmic history with neither beginning nor end,
where the special requirements for stars and chem-
istry and life to evolve are met. This local part of
the Universe that has inflated to contain our visible
portion of the Universe is just part of the story.
Elsewhere, the Universe is predicted to be very dif-
ferent. ... our conception of the Universe has been
transformed and we must expect that what we can
see is not likely to be representable of the whole.
All of the complexity that we expect to define the
totality of the Universe around us is a reflection of
the structure of the vacuum. It is a bottomless sea
of energy for expanding universes to produce off-
spring in the form of sub-regions that go their
own way, becoming larger and cooler, ultimately
creating within themselves the conditions for fur-
ther baby universes to be born.
-Something Out of Nothing?-
At first, these events of inflationary reproduction
appear to be spawning something out of nothing.
In fact, the situation does nothing of the sort.
We might think that if a whole sub-region of uni-
verse appears and starts to expand then we must
be violating one of the great conservation laws of
physics.
The most familiar is the conservation of energy. It
was discovered in the last century that in all natural
processes, the quantity that we call 'energy' is con-
served. We can change its form, shuffle it around
in different ways, use it to turn mass into radiation
and vice versa, but when all is said and done, after
we do the final accounting we should always find
that the total energy comes out the same.
So we might think that if we go from 'no universe'
to 'universe' we are getting something -- energy --
for nothing and our fundamental conservation law
is being broken. However, things are not so simple.
Energy comes in two forms. Energy of motion is
positive but potential forms of energy are negative.
The latter is possessed by any body that feels an
attractive force, like gravity.
Universes and inflating domains within universes
have very surprising properties when we start to
inquire about their energies.
Einstein's theory of general relativity ensures that
the total of the positive values of the energies of
all the masses and motion with them is *exactly*
counterbalanced by the sum of the negative poten-
tial energies contributed by the gravitational forces
between them.
The total energy is zero.
An expanding region can appear without any vio-
lation of the conservation of energy.
This is a rather striking conclusion. It shows how
a large amount of inflationary expansion can be
underwritten by drawing on a large potential reser-
voir of negative potential energy.
.... Vacuums can change; vacuums can fluctuate;
vacuums can have strange symmetries, strange
geographies, strange histories. More and more of
the remarkable features of the Universe we ob-
serve around us seem to be reflections of these
properties of the vacuum.
-Why is there Something Rather Than Nothing?-
Some regard such questions as unanswerable, some
go further to claim that they are meaningless, whilst
others claim to provide the answers.
Science has proved a reasonably effective way of
finding out about the world because it confines it-
self, in the main, to questions about 'how' things
happen. If it does ask the question 'why' it is gener-
ally about an aspect of things that can be answered
if one is in possession of a full description of how
a certain sequence of events occurs, what causes
what, and so on.
As one digs deeper to the roots of scientific theories
one finds that there is a foundation of a sort that we
call the laws of Nature, which govern the behaviour
of the most elementary particles of Nature.
.... So far, we have not found a theory that requires
there to be only one possible universe.
.... This question boils down to one about the nature
of the vacuum landscape for the ultimate theory of
the Universe.
If there is a single valley in this landscape, then there
is a single possible vacuum state and one possible
set of values for the constants of Nature that define
it.
If there are many valleys, and so many vacua, then
the constants of Nature are not uniquely specified
by one possibility. They can exist with different
values and ... they may even do so elsewhere in our
Universe now.
Hence there has emerged a more modest version
of the great ontological question, 'Why is there
something rather than nothing?' which physicists
are able to comment on in a meaningful way. From
their perspective, certain aspects of the world may
be inevitable or be necessary features of any uni-
verse that is going to contain living observers.
-Singularity-
.... the old conclusions of the singularity theorems
are no longer regarded by cosmologists as likely
to be of relevance to our Universe.
Crucial assumptions in those theorems -- the attrac-
tive nature of gravitation, and the truth of Einstein's
general theory of relativity all the way back to the
earliest times when energies are so high that quan-
tum gravitational effects must intervene -- are no
longer likely to be true.
What are the alternatives?
-Cyclic Universes-
One option that has an ancient pedigree is that it had
no beginning. It has always existed.
A persistently compelling picture of this sort is one
in which the Universe undergoes a cyclic history, per-
iodically disappearing in a great conflagration before
reappearing phoenix-like from the ashes.
.... suppose the Universe re-expands and repeats this
behaviour over and over again. If this can happen
then there is no reason why we should be in the first
cycle. We could imagine an infinite number of past
oscillations and a similar number to come in the future.
-Eternally Inflating Universes-
.... Another means by which the Universe can avoid
having a beginning is to undergo the exotic sequence
of evolutionary steps created by the eternal inflation-
ary history.
.... There seems to be no reason why the sequence
of inflations that arise from within already inflating
domains should ever have had an overall beginning.
It is possible for any particular domain to have a his-
tory that has a definite beginning in an inflationary
quantum event, but the process as a whole could
just go on in a steady fashion for all eternity, past
and present.
(end excerpts)
- - -
Excerpts from "The Hole in the Universe - How
Scientists Peered over the Edge of Emptiness and
Found Everything" (K.C. Cole, ISBN 0-15-100398-X) ...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0156013177
.... Understanding nothing matters, because nothing is
the all-important background upon which everything
else happens.
.... For centuries, scientists, mathematicians, and phil-
osophers have tried to track nothing down, give it a
name, put a box around it.
.... In the past few hundred years, the struggle to get
a handle on nothing has changed the course of mathe-
matics, physics, and even the study of the human mind.
And while that's a fact well known to science, precious
few laypeople have been let in on the secret: While no
one was looking, nothing became a central player that
creates number systems out of whole cloth; bubbles
up matter and universes; materializes sights, sounds,
perceptions.
As physicists and mathematicians plunged deeper into
the void, they emerged with an abundance of riches
that seems to have no end in sight. Indeed, the evolu-
tion of nothing into a full-fledged player in the universe
stands as one of the greatest paradigm shifts in human
thought.
.... In physics, the study of nothing lies at the bottom
of every burning question from the cramped quarters
of subatomic spaces to the expansive realm of the
cosmos at large, and especially at the ragged edges
where the largest and smallest meet.
All properties of matter, of forces, of space, and of
time are intricately woven into the vacuum itself -- that
is, the ultimate nothing.
.... The loveliness of mathematics and physics is that
it allows us to move the search for nothing out of the
realm of pure navel gazing and into an arena where
concrete questions can be posed. ...
(end excerpts)
[K.C's book offers yet another fascinating view into
how nothing is teeming with activity from which the
origin(s) of universe(s) may be understood - highly
recommended, but as this post is getting rather long,
I'll leave you in suspense - needless to say, it would
be a worthwhile investment to read the books listed
in this series of posts, and others, to expand your
horizons on the nature of being in this grand cosmos
of wonder and mystery whereby nothing is the most
important something that resides at the core of every-
thing that has existed, does exist, and will ever exist.]
- - -
Posts in this series:
Universe(s) Origin(s) Preface
http://www.ghg.net/phf/universes_origins_preface.htm
Universe(s) Origin(s) - 1 of 7
}}} String Theory / Infinities / Singularities {{{
http://www.ghg.net/phf/universes_origins_1_of_7.htm
Universe(s) Origin(s) - 2 of 7
}}} No Origin of the Universe? {{{
http://www.ghg.net/phf/universes_origins_2_of_7.htm
Universe(s) Origin(s) - 3 of 7
}}} Multiverse? {{{
http://www.ghg.net/phf/universes_origins_3_of_7.htm
Universe(s) Origin(s) - 4 of 7
}}} Universes from Black Holes? {{{
http://www.ghg.net/phf/universes_origins_4_of_7.htm
Universe(s) Origin(s) - 5 of 7
}}} Cyclic Universe? {{{
http://www.ghg.net/phf/universes_origins_5_of_7.htm
Universe(s) Origin(s) - 6 of 7
}}} Einstein / Big Bang / Superstrings {{{
http://www.ghg.net/phf/universes_origins_6_of_7.htm
Universe(s) Origin(s) - 7 of 7
}}} Nothing / Everything {{{
http://www.ghg.net/phf/universes_origins_7_of_7.htm
- - -
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~~~
Pro-Humanist FREELOVER
http://www.ghg.net/phf
(Freethinking Realist Exploring
Expressive Liberty, Openness,
Verity, Enlightenment, & Rationality)
~~~
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