h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

(back soon)
()

Elephant - Rhinoceros hybrids?

[Just so long as its an honest brain storm (and not too off color), I'll include it here.]

Where did I leave off just before having to drop everything to do almost around the clock battle with the computer and for a couple of weeks?

Taking it from dizzydinxta: [Post 33 of this thread]

... "(often two or more things)" ...

... ", what happend before that?" ...

Concept inspired by Richard Feynman's electron:

Suppose it were only one thing? Naturally one would want it to be the simplest thing possible, let's say the elementary quantum, which will be treated in context as a "particle" (whatever that means, presuming its anything more than a verbalism).

So, in the beginning there was the quantum. Where it came from, how it came into being is a mystery, whether by a special act of God, as a consequence of a freak laboratory accident or a conscious exercise of self determination by advanced intelligences at the end of time or a host of other possibilities is unknown.

The quantum exists at a level of organization below the uncertainty range of Werner Heisenberg, in the range of undeterminabilty, it being impossible to determine either its location or state of motion if any.

It moves discontinuously, since there is no continuity below the level of the elementary quantum, space itself being comprised of a quantum gas of the elementary quantum and the associations it forms. It can move at any speed, greater or less than the speed of light, traversing any distance in a discontinuous jump, so long as that distance is an even integer multiple of its own radius, either forward or backward in time any amount of time. (Time always travels in pairs of chronons. I don't know why. May be something about the neighborhood. Be it noted, the elementary quantum represents a lower level of organization than time itself.)

The proposition that there is only one of them at least has the merit of accounting for the uniform character of the properties of the elementary quantum wherever/whenever it is observed (or determined).

When it jumps it leaves behind a hole of exactly the same dimensions and properties as itself. At this juncture, the question rises whether its a case of unending spontaneous generation of ever increasing numbers of elementary quanta whenever a quantum jumps, or a case of the elementary quantum eventually migrating back to "instantaneously" fill the hole it left behind (after of course, aeons elsewhere/when) in conditions in which time itself has become irrelevant. In either case, in no time at all, it has generated a plenum of space-time as extensive as the plenum always has been. The latter case (the elementary quantum migrates back to fill the hole it left behind) is actually the least hypothesis, since otherwise one has to account for why the properties of the elementary quantum are always the same no matter where, when or how it is observed or determined, and I'm afraid that question is beyond me.

[At least for the moment!]

In the next round of self generation of the space-time (dis)continuum, higher level particles begin to emerge on account of quantum/quantum interactions of the quantum which can occur in two states, a spin-like state in which it represent the least possible unit of angular momentum, and a momentum like state in which it represents the least possible unit of linear momentum.

With respect to its other properties, it has positive and negative linear momentum bonding site at opposite ends of its linear momentum axis and at least four spin-like bonding sites, oriented at right angles to the axis of its linear momentum bonding sites, between them. If the quantum attaches itself in a spin-like orientation to a quantum in the linear orientation, the consequence is an elementary neutrino. If it is two units of spin and one of momentum, then the consequence is an elementary photon, and if it is four spins to one momentum, then the consequence is an elementary graviton (the elementary graviton of P.A.M. Dirac). [Particles of this character, formed by random fluctuations of the elementary quanta of the quantum gaseous vacuum field, are called quantum fluctuation particles.]

With respect to the hypothetical third elementary particle in this diagram (momentum one, spin three) so far as I know they have not been observed in nature, though I do have an inkling or two as to where some may found hiding.

By way of an illustration of the size of the elementary quantum (getting ahead of myself a little), [the elementary quantum equivalency of the rest mass of the neutron is one mole (Avogadro's number)], minus [the elementary quantum equivalency of the electron, multiplied by the spin and momentum statistics of the elementary graviton].

By comparison, a mole of golf balls or hen's eggs is about the size of the moon. In context of the neutron, there is a question as to whether the elementary quanta comprising it are aggregated in a lump, arranged in a shell like the soap film surrounding a soap bubble or some manner more complex than that as implied in poly-electron theory. [The elementary quantum equivalency of the electron (or anti-electron) is the same as that of a gamma ray of five point eleven Mev.]

Having laid foundation I'll return you now to the visualization exercise described in [Post 31] of this thread. Wheeler, by the way, provided a pretty good illustration in his quantum foam diagram, of the creature from [post 31].

In order to avoid copying from one another's papers, in the process spoiling the surprise for others, you can write up your answers anywhere the word "black" appears in any h2g2 thread... or anywhere else for that matter, so long as it isn't here.

[ He's an Alfred Hitchcock fan. ]

...

Answers?

[On the creature from Post 31.]

Sometimes the simplest of questions have the most complicated answers.

After the passing of the rumbling, thundering herd of elephant - rhinoceros hybids?

Some the underpinnings of the Old Norse Tales suggest that the Universe was given birth to by a great cow, called Audumla (the Hathor of the Egyptians). The Milky way is said to be her milk.

Taking yet another alternative view, one might begin with a question as to what one can divine about the nature of the mind of God by means of observation of his handiwork, this physical Universe we inhabit.

So one surveys the entire panoply; from the big bang, to exploding cosmic voids to galactic pinwheels to gamma ray bursts engendered by hypernovae collapsing into black holes, supernovae seeding the cosmos with heavier elements, leaving behind beacon neutron stars, novae, planetary collisions and a host of lesser physical catastrophes; gradually, it kind of creeps up on one: Obviously, God likes fireworks.

Whatever the Lord God decided was meant to be there. Only kidding, the big bang has been proven then without a shadow of a doubt has it?

Beyond any doubt? Well, no, but beyond any reasonable doubt.

Before the big bang was Fred Hoyle's steady State theory, predicated on questions as to how matter, energy and space itself came into being.

If nothing else, the universe is bigger than it looks, the part we can see but one c-theta sector* embedded in a larger plenum.

I'm personally inclined to agree with Hoyle that while the big bang model works well over the range of the observable, that represents a only local fluctuation.

For some reason (don't ask why) but I get the feeling that nothing was there before the big bang....

Many people think so. It may even be so. As a matter of fact there is almost no observational evidence relating to events farther removed in time/space than the Wilson/Penzias Universal Microwave Background threshold and one can but speculate beyond that limit, approximating to the limit of the local C-theta sector (which means as far as one can see with electromagnetic observations). The big bang itself is outside that limit, cannot be observed directly by any means currently available, so is itself an issue of speculation. Science advances only by means of proposing and testing hypotheses, which is a justification for speculation extending into the unknown.

What was before the big bang...?

Perhaps the prototype pilot phase Little Bang followed by piles of paper analysing the results, proposing costly further research before putting together the Big Bang Red Button...?

WR

Just so long as we're being a little zany, you know how it is with some people confronted with a button with a red cover marked "Don't Touch"... ...that and the sign over the door opening on the larger universe outside, reading: "Contracted by the Katzenjammer Kids."

More seriously, I think that the cosmic void evidence strongly suggests the Universe must be bigger than it looks.

I think people have already desocvered that the universe never ends.

In the current accelerating expansion model, established on a basis of the type 1A supernovae evidence, its supposed to eventually burn out and evaporate. That one, though, is a flat space model that doesn't take into account space time curvature due to gravitation and changes in gravitational flux densities over time due to declining mass density as a consequence of cosmological expansion.

right ok.

The problem has to do with changes in the speed of light depending on local mass densities, motions and gravitational flux densities.

Fizeau demonstrated that the speed of light varies with local mass density and relative motion of the medium that the light is passing through, a point mentioned in passing by Einstein in his book on relativity while he was specifying "the speed of light in a vacuum" for his speed of light constant, which is the highest value for it that can be currently measured.

Einstein later proved that the speed of light varies with local gravitational field densities, Einstein's prediction confirmed by Sir Arthur Eddington's solar total eclipse observations.

This relates to the big bang on the point that as the volume of the universe increases, presuming the mass remains the same, its density decreases, which means that the speed of light increases with passing time and was lower during the earlier phases of cosmological expansion.

In turn, this has an impact on the energy of nuclear reactions like those that power the stars and type 1A supernovae. Since the speed of light constant is the intermediary of mass/energy equivalency, this means that in conditions of high mass density like those that obtain in stellar interiors or obtained during the earliest phases of cosmological expansion, the amount of energy generated by a nuclear reaction has to be less than that which would be generated by the same reaction in free space far removed from nearby gravitational sources (flat space).

There is another point that since the speed of light changes on a cosmological scale over cosmological time and is higher now than it was in the earliest phases of cosmological expansion, the universe must be smaller than it would appear if one assumed that the speed of light was an invariant.

Time and everything we know only exists in everything know. Beyond that is only the "now". So before the big bang it was now, the immediate, because nothing else existed.
It's from this immediate and timeless now that the gods of our yesteryear watched over us - or didn't.
This philosophy is used in the book: Damon - The Providence Of Pan.

The big fuse?

I must say that the exhaustion I was suffering from when I did the posts above shows. I really ought to do a re-edited expansion on it.

More recent observations, established first by the Spitzer infra-red telescope and more recently than that, by the Hubble space telescope, after its most recent upgrade, show objects at the limit of the observable which appear to be galaxy sized masses of inchoate gas without evidences either of spiral structure or of star formation, and beyond that there is (so far) nothing observable.

Observations at the limit of the observable allow of possibly answering the questions that follow:

1.) Are we seeing more and more new material coming into the range of the observable with passing time?

2.) Or, is it simply the same old material getting more and more spread out with passing time?

3.) Or, is more and more material being lost to view with passing time beyond the limit of the observable established by the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes?

My guess is that it will probably be the first answer. Its exciting that those questions have become potentially answerable.