I am not a scientist by training, not even an engineer or technician. I have taken science courses in college, though, and continue to maintain a healthy interest in it. But I don't have the specialized training needed to fully understand the cutting edge of new research, nor do I possess the extensive mathematical prowess needed to make my way through some of the branches, most notably physics. But that shouldn't keep me from writing about it, though. After all, I am affected by scientific research, for better or for worse, and also tend to share in its subsidy either directly through my taxes or indirectly through private companies (which pass on the cost of research to the customer in their goods and services).
The Science Channel is one of my favorite channels to watch. Not that I like everything on it: they seem recently to be ominously turning down the road of fiction programming, something more appropriate to the Sci-Fi Channel. But there are some really good shows on it nonetheless. The other night I saw one of these, which dealt with how today's physicists are coming up with theories and ideas concerning the basic nature of reality.
I probably am off a little with my accuracy in describing the different viewpoints I heard. But still, I was amazed at how divergent many of the top physicists were in their take on the basic nature of the universe and reality. One conjectured that, since time depends on mass to have any meaning, and that at the origin of the big bang there was a singularity which made time irrelevant, then our own universe eventually will expand and cool to the point where only massless photons are left. And thus no time, fulfilling (at least in the mind of this particular physicist) the prerequisite for another big bang to a new universe. Another physicist had a similar idea, only that it was black holes that were the spawning grounds for new universes. Renown Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind, largely known for his holographic theory that supposedly allows for information to be preserved in the event horizons surrounding black holes, postulated that there may be a holographic projection of all of our three-dimensional reality elsewhere in the universe. And then he pulled a mind-job on everyone by suggesting that perhaps what we perceive as reality around us is nothing more than a hologram.
Susskind, with his ideas, still stressed the point that it was through mathematics that he developed his theories. In fact, without this tool, scientific advancement would be very, very limited. And then another physicist came on the show to deliver the coup de grace: maybe mathematics isn't a tool that humankind has invented and developed over the centuries. Maybe instead mathematics IS the underlying structure of reality and we are gradually becoming more aware of it. Upon hearing this I felt like screaming in frustration...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
"One conjectured that, since time depends on mass to have any meaning, and that at the origin of the big bang there was a singularity which made time irrelevant, then our own universe eventually will expand and cool to the point where only massless photons are left. And thus no time, fulfilling (at least in the mind of this particular physicist) the prerequisite for another big bang to a new universe."
ReplyDeleteI have a similar idea to this one however i think that nothing is massless( its small but its sill there}. Therefore there is still time when that happens. the only situation when there is no time at all at a particular place is when the whole universe collapse back to its original singularity( most likely a black hole as in the second idea). Only then there wont be any time at all AROUND it, however there is still time IN that singularity structure. Time still exists means there are still somethings going on in there. This allows another big bang to happen. And so another universe is born then collapse and then another.
And I believe in the exist of a smallest particles that creates everything else larger in existence. I also believe that time and these particle have a connection - a special one!
Please let me know what you think about what I just said :)
Ah, I'm no physicist of any kind. I'm just another person who talk great interest in Physics.
Thank you for your comment.
ReplyDeleteYour ideas show that, like me, you tend to speculate a lot about the ultimate nature of reality and our universe. And, like me, you can't back it up with mathematics! But who knows, you may be right...
What I objected to on the show was how mathematics was presented as an arcane, secret key to understanding, something that only great scientific minds could use. And then those scientists were presented, and for the most part they just dabbled in speculative fantasy!
You are absolutely right!
ReplyDeleteI hope one day I could become one of them!
Maybe you will!
ReplyDeleteThe big bang and inflation
ReplyDeleteAccording to brane theory two branes touched or bumped into each other at a point and this was the singularity of the big bang.
However if we think of these two branes continuing to contact at an increasingly larger radius moving at a rate greater than the speed of light( relative to our space/time ) would this not explain how inflation occurred?
What if these branes are like soap bubbles and our universe is the contact surface between two of these bubbles. The matter in our universe condensed out of the kinetic energy from this collision.
The history of a black hole is written or smeared on it's rippling skin, called the event horizon.
ReplyDeleteThe observable is just the rippling skin of the real universe.
Time, gravity, the stretching out of space and the second law of thermal dynamics are somehow linked in a manner that has yet to be described.