Dear Nima Arkani-Hamed,
I am writing to you because I understand you to be the leading theoretical physicist of your generation and that you recognize that there is a "sickness, a deep sickness" within physical theory as it exists at the present time. Among the things that lead you to suspect the presence of this ‘sickness’ are: the weakness of gravity (much weaker than the other three forces of electromagnetism, the weak force and the strong force), the size of the universe (much bigger than present calculations would predict), and the seeming incongruity of the quantum theory of the world of tiny, subatomic particles, and Einstein’s theories of general and special relativity which governs the world of gigantic objects hurtling through space at enormous speeds.
Finally, you say that spacetime must go. That, somehow, it must be replaced by something even more fundamental. Fine. I’ve been waiting for it to go for a long time. But you must realize, that if you are removing things at the very center and foundation of a structure, other things will fall with it. The solution may require, not just that you look at the areas of ‘sickness’ that you have pinpointed in a new light, but that you look at the entire universe and your relation to it in an entirely new light.
The solutions that you seek to this sickness, you have said, cannot come out of the blue, cannot be "silliness." Foremost among those things that you list as silliness is consciousness. You talk about the two most popular current physical theories that would lead, in one case, to a universe that doubles every 10-42 seconds. Given that the universe is, according to these same theorists, over fourteen billion years old, that would lead to a remarkable number of universes. This is called the ‘cosmological constant’ problem. And the problem doesn't end there. It would create a mega-universe expanding at unfathomable speed, where the atoms of this mega-universe are themselves universes. So, wouldn't the unpredictability of the interactions of these atomic universes create new mega-universes at the same rate as we, in our puny universe, are creating regular universes? Where does it end?
The second theory would lead to the understanding that the entire universe, including ourselves, should be crushed into specks of tiny dimension and unfathomable weight. This is called the ‘hierarchy problem.’ These theories, although you have the courage and frankness to admit that they lead to absurd conclusions, are still considered, by you, to be serious theories and not silly, like consciousness.
Consciousness, however, if you think about it, and you may not be used to thinking about it in this way, is the context of our entire experience. I am writing these words within the context of consciousness. You explain your theories and the problems with these theories in the context of consciousness. Whatever you or I are experiencing at this very moment, we are experiencing in the context of consciousness, because that’s what consciousness is: the ground of experience. Because something is ubiquitous usually means that it is very important, not silly. Fish may not recognize that they swim in water, because they have never experienced 'no water.' That does not mean that water is not vitally important to their existence, nor that it does not even exist. It is the context, the very underpinning of everything else that happens in the life of a fish.
I think you also mean, by silliness, that it cannot ignore the five hundred years of serious theoretical research in physics that have preceded it. That it must respect and take into account and provide a way of explaining these theories and where they have gone awry. You give as an example to explain what you mean by serious as opposed to silly, the following: If you come across a pencil balanced on its end, standing perfectly vertical, you might attribute that to a miraculous fine tuning of elements, to some unseen being who is holding these various forces in balance by an intelligent and unseen will. But, upon further investigation, and especially if the pencil maintained its perfect verticality for some time, you would discover some mechanism, something perhaps hard to see at first; an almost invisible string, bolted to the ceiling, to which it is attached, or some tiny indentation in the table where there is a very narrow, but deep hole where a needle, well anchored from below, pierces the bottom of the pencil and protrudes up the middle of it far enough to guarantee its stability. According to you, this is an example of how science, instead of being satisfied with the idea that there is a 'miraculous' fine tuning, discovers mechanisms whereby what takes place is not at the mercy of some uncanny fine tuning, but is the inevitable, and dependable, and reliable result of understandable mechanisms.
MECHANISMS AS INTERIM BUT NOT ULTIMATE
SOLUTIONS
I agree with you that there are mechanisms within mechanism and the search for these more subtle, harder to see mechanisms, has been enhanced by more powerful optical equipment and more sensitive measuring devices. I agree that we have learned much about the way the universe, both big and small, functions, by the discoveries of these subtler mechanisms. But you will not be able to follow a trail of subtler and subtler mechanisms until you come to a most subtle mechanism which is the origin of all that follows. For instance, with the vertical pencil, you discovered an invisible thread or a hidden needle. But how did the hidden needle or the invisible thread get there? There is no other conclusion than that it was placed there by a human being whose intention and will was to create something that would give other human beings the illusion that the pencil was standing straight up ‘by itself.’ In other words, with this, as in all human creations, it begins not with a physical mechanism, but with an idea and with enough will and intention to gather the materials and fashion them in a way that materializes that idea and makes it functional. And by functional, that means that it is able to provide an experience to oneself or to others that you intended it to provide. The physical world, at least that part of it which is created by the labor of living beings, which is the world of observable mechanisms, is the bridge between non-physical intention and non-physical experience.
You speak of four forces, gravity, electro-magnetism, the weak force and the strong force, but these, alone, cannot get you to the vertical pencil or any creation by any living being, human or otherwise. Each living being has a metabolic mechanism whereby it generates energy for its own purposes. Now the metabolic generation of that energy can be explained in terms of the four forces; but what the being does to gather the materials and actually construct these objects, be they great works of art, breakfast, beaver dams, bird’s nests, bee hives or the intricate construction of termite mounds, cannot be so explained. We, all living beings, use our metabolized energies to overcome the forces of gravity, of friction and inertia, to do what we ‘want’ to do. The things we want to do, at least with all beings other than humans, and with healthy humans, often coincides perfectly with what we need to do to enhance our survival. This remarkable coincidence between biological needs and experienced desires, overlooked by modern science, is a topic deserving volumes of attention, but is not the point of this post. My point is, when it comes to the origin of anything manufactured by creatures, it begins with will and intention, forces that don’t negate the four forces, but that are there to specifically overcome natural forces to enable these creatures to do what they want to do (which, miraculously, often aligns perfectly with what they need to do).
When we see the complexity of human artifacts, even something as simple as a sharpened spear, we immediately assume that it was created by human will and intelligence. If I study all the mechanisms and all the mechanisms within mechanisms that allow my iPhone to function, this should not lead me to the conclusion that it all began with some randomly formed mechanism, but that it began with an idea and the will and intention to fulfill that idea from a person or several people of very high intelligence. The very complexity of each mechanism and the hierarchical organization of mechanisms leading to a specific and reliable result, leads us to the unquestionable conclusion that very intelligent people were at work in its formation.
When we see the even greater complexity of the physical structure of the natural universe, and the almost infinite complexity of the bodies of living beings, many of us see in that no evidence, whatsoever, of an intervening intelligence, while others see just the opposite. Two different ways of interpreting the same thing. However you think regarding intelligent origins, I ask you to to please continue reading through to the end of this post and consider it with an open mind.
MORE FUNDAMENTAL THAN SPACETIME
Both space and time require the existence of objects, of things. Space is the measure of the distance between things and time is the measure of the rate at which things change or change their positions. If you are looking for something more fundamental than spacetime, you are looking for something more fundamental than things. Since the time of Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius, an assumption has been made that the universe is composed of tiny particles that are immutable, indivisible and eternal and that the various arrangements of these fundamental particles are what produces all the phenomena of the physical universe that we see around us. Yet what are these fundamental particles? As time went on we discovered, over and over again, that the particles that we once thought of as foundational, solid and indivisible, were, on deeper inspection, spacious and mutable. The atom, much, much smaller than originally thought of, is almost entirely space. As you said, Nima, the nucleus is one millionth the size of the atom and the electron is much smaller than that. The nucleus, rather than containing immutable protons and neutrons contain much smaller quarks which occupy the space within protons and neutrons.. And now even the tiny quark and the tiny electron, rather than being, as once considered, point particles (which is, itself, an oxymoron), are now found to contain space and within that space, according to some, are unimaginably tiny loops of string. Actually, they are called strings, but they are really tiny loops of vibrating energy. Perhaps string theorists, wanting to hold on to the idea of a material basis for the construction of the universe, decided to label energy loops as strings to maintain the appearance of materiality. It is the differences in vibration and shape of these energy loops, that supposedly create all the subatomic particles that we see. Well, that we detect, rather than see. These particles, way too small to be seen, are detected because we are able to discern a certain spin, a certain charge and a certain mass, coming from discrete areas within the atom.
This string theory is considered by many to be the T.O.E., the theory of everything. But how do these energy loops find themselves vibrating at such intense frequencies and maintaining such unusual shapes? The answer is that they are supported by ten dimensions. These dimensions occupy the interstices of space that we cannot see, or even detect, because they are smaller than the smallest frequency of a light wave, which is the medium through which we receive information. And it is within these invisible interstices that we find the ten dimensions and their strings. But is a dimension a mental concept that we use to describe space and movement, or is it something real? And by real, I mean something that is capable of exerting a force or resisting a force. Is my movement, or yours, constrained or supported in any way by length, width or depth? My movements are constrained by the limitations of the physical structure of my body and by gravity. Gravity is not a dimension. It’s a force. Gravity is an ‘in’ force, which pushes me back toward the center of this planet. There is also an ‘out’ force. But we’ll talk about these two forces, as oppose to four, later.
Proponents of string theory liken the ten dimensions and the way that they support and direct energy loops to a French horn. The shape and size of the various sections of the French horn change the way the sound waves vibrate within them. But wind instruments are made of wood or metal. What material could these ‘dimensions,’ almost infinitely smaller than an atom, be made of? And if they are not made of any matter, how could they constrain or support anything, whether you call them 'dimensions' or anything else? And, if you continue the metaphor, with the French horn it is the player that is providing the energy to blow the air through the instrument, and if the sound being made is beautiful, makes a kind of sense or achieves a kind of harmony, then we know that the rhythm and the various strengths of the exhalations that the player makes and the stops that she presses to direct her breath to different chambers within the horn, are the result of a plan provided by a composer, if the composer be the player herself or someone else. In string theory, who is the composer, or the arranger and who provides the power to keep these loops spinning eternally at such precise strengths and frequencies? And how do these mystical dimensions force the loops into particular shapes and frequencies? The theory of everything poses as many questions as it answers.
A WORLD OF FORCES
Rather than 'matter,' what we discover as we peer more and more deeply into seemingly solid things, are fields of attraction between forces. We detect the existence of subatomic particles by detecting a certain charge, which lets us know whether the 'particle' contains an inward force, positive, or an outward force, negative, and which direction the 'particle' is spinning, since everything seems to be spinning one way or the other. The only indication of an actual particle is the reading we call 'mass.' But mass is the resistance to acceleration. If mass were not a thing, but an inward force at the center of an object, pulling all elements of the particle toward it, this would create inertia and make the particle resistant to acceleration in the same way that 'matter' would, but it would put an end to this fruitless search for the ultimate particle. There are no particles. What we call particles are the stable, and somewhat stable, configurations of forces; one of which is an inward force pulling everything to the center and one of which is an outward force pushing everything to the periphery.
We see these configurations as more solid and immutable than they are. Our particular sensory systems and brain structures particularize this wavy world of force configurations into a world of seemingly solid and familiar and unchanging objects. Every 'thing' is changing and we always experience that change, at least somewhat, as a surprise. Even the biological changes of our own bodies and the bodies of the people around us, especially if we haven't seen these people for several years, come as a delightful or shocking surprise. Again, the universe is one way, but the way we perceive it is another, and another for every individual being from every individual species on this planet.
By this reckoning, things are flipped: forces are not the result of matter, but matter is the result of forces, and matter, itself, is, ultimately, an illusion of configuring forces.
ONLY TWO FORCES
I am not taking anything away from the complexity of all that has been thus far revealed, but I am saying that all of it is the manifestation of two forces, an outward force and an inward force. These same two forces, the outward one and the inner one, have been referred to throughout history as yin and yang, Heaven and Earth ( as they are referred to in the very first line of the Judeo- Christian Bible), In and Yo, Shiva and Shakti, Father Heaven and Mother Earth, Baca and Fana, and many other names because monistic dualism, the idea that two comes from one and from two comes the many (all visible phenomena) was the main way of viewing the world in pre-industrial times. The Greeks and Romans were not the first people to think about the nature of the universe. In places later called Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas, people had been thinking and wondering about the world around them for thousands of years before Democritus ever came up with the idea of immutable particles.
I believe that the latest understanding of the Big Bang is that it came from a singularity, which was composed of a contractive (inward) force, dominating an expansive (outward) force. The Big Bang occurred when the outward force overwhelmed the inward force. According to current thinking, these forces predate matter. Matter only occurred shortly thereafter as a result of the mingling of these two forces. All I am saying is that the two forces didn’t combine to make something ‘new’ called matter. I am saying that what we call matter is the various configurations of these two forces. There is no thing called matter, that passively reacts to the forces around it, but that matter is, itself, its own configuration of those same forces and interacts rather than passively reacts with the forces that impinge upon it.
The inward, contractive force, concentrates and is found at greater strengths at the center of naturally formed objects. These objects include the relatively stable objects of atoms, protons, neutrons and quarks, of all living beings, of planets, stars, and galaxies. They also include the less stable, more outward force dominated forms that we call waves. Because the inward force is concentrated, we recognize it, but label it mass, which we assume is this solid thing, different from the forces that surround it, although no one has ever seen it, and no one is really sure what it is. In its pure form, which is not part of the physical universe, but still exerts tremendous force, we recognize it as black holes. And we are discovering more and more of them. The current thinking is that there seems to be a black hole at the center of every galaxy. Black holes are not a lot of concentrated matter that happen to have a lot of mass. We only think that because we cling to the idea that forces come from matter, rather than matter coming from forces. Black holes are pure inward energy that contains no matter whatsoever. The inward force is so strong in these places, that it simply crushes atoms, molecules and particles (all outward/inward configurations) out of existence. The inward force of these configurations joins and adds strength to the black hole and the outward force races away from the black hole adding more pushing resistance to the now greater pulling force of the black hole.
The outward force disperses. It is everywhere in the universe except within black holes, but it is not part of the physical universe until it combines with the inward force. These two forces do not so much attract each other as they entrap each other. Any unattached inward force is immediately surrounded by enough outward force, which is ubiquitous in the universe, except within the event horizon of black holes, to keep it from contracting more and more deeply inside itself and merging with the nearest stronger accumulation of inward force. This attraction between smaller inward force and larger inward force is the real attraction between objects. The inward force we call positive. It contracts and pulls all forces toward it. The outward force we call negative, but it is dispersive and moving away from centers of inward force. The outward force creates the outward, centrifugal force of all spinning objects. The inward force creates the inward centripetal force that restrains the outward force and prevents it from dispersing and flying off through the universe. The dimensions of any object are created by the outward force. The boundaries and stable shape of any object are created by the inward force.
Because the outward force is expansive, it is harder to detect. But when the outward force is confined, when we have a situation where the outward force is held back by the inward force, the amount of expansive power held in check in a tiny space can be enormous. Thus the Big Bang and every other explosion that occurs or has ever occurred in the universe.
From here on I will use the traditional words of yin to mean the outward force and yang to mean the inward force. The yin force is held in check in every seed and egg. We really grow out not up. And we grow in all directions from this central, yang dominated egg/seed. A body in orbit is being held in orbit both by the centripetal force of the powerful yang object around which it rotates and its own yin force. If the yang force of the central object were not there, pulling the orbiting object in toward the center, it would go flying directly away from that inward force. The force that would make it fly away is the yin force. Every seeming ‘object’ is a configuration of both yin and yang. The earth is both yin in relation to the stronger yang of the sun, and yang in relation to the weaker yang force of the moon.
The universe is organized in a hierarchy of yin and yang. We will get to atoms in a moment, but for now, let’s just say that the moon orbits the stronger yang of the earth, the earth orbits the stronger yang of the sun, the sun orbits the stronger yang of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, as do all the stars and solar systems of our galaxy, and all the galaxies, the entire universe of stars, orbit the central black hole which stands at the middle of the universe.
THE CENTRAL BLACK HOLE
Supposedly there was a Big Bang. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with that premise. But if there was this huge explosion, you would be able to locate, as with any explosion, the origin of it by tracing back the lines of debris that originated from it. According to modern thinking, the entire physical universe is the debris of the Big Bang, and it is expanding, and has been expanding, since the Big Bang took place, about 14.5 billion years ago. Some people liken the physical universe to the skin of an expanding balloon. But since we can look for billions of light years in every direction through our most advanced telescopes, it makes more sense to think of it as an expanding bowling ball, where the expanding shell is at least some billions of light years thick.
If you trace back the lines of debris from this expansion you would locate the origin of the Big Bang not in the physical universe, but at the center of this expanding bowling ball. Yin is velocity, yang is stillness. What exploded out was yin dominated. The residue of the Big Bang is the central black hole of the universe. The event horizon of this black hole begins where the physical universe begins. The earth is billions of light years from this black hole, but also, many billions of light years from the outer edge of the universe. So through our telescopes we should see various distances as we look in different directions. If we are pointed straight in toward the central black hole, we should see stars, at most, only a few billion light years away. If we are pointed straight to the periphery, we should see stars much farther. If we are pointed toward the periphery, but at an angle, we should see stars in some directions, very much farther still. If we are able to look inward toward the edge of the black hole, we should see stars at great distances alongside stars that end at much shorter distances, because we cannot look through to the other side of the black hole.
DARK MATTER AND DARK ENERGY
Our calculations are based on a set of assumptions. The assumptions are wrong, therefore our calculations are wrong. We assume there was a Big Bang. We assume that the ‘origin’ of the expansive force was the Big Bang, even though the Big Bang was created by the expansive force, not the other way around. We assume that it took place 14.5 billion years ago, and we assume that the speed of light is a constant. Based on these assumptions, the size of the universe is way too big (ninety-five billion light years in diameter as opposed to 29 billion light years) and the expansion, although way too fast among very distant stars, is way too slow among other stars. The force of gravity is too weak for Nima’s satisfaction in many places, but too strong for other scientist’s satisfaction in other places. Some galaxies that should have dispersed because there isn’t enough central gravity, mysteriously hold together.
This should lead others, as it has led you, Nima Arkani-Hamed, to the suspicion that something is deeply wrong. But for others, rather than question the assumptions that their calculations are based on, have made a radical adjustment. They have created ‘dark matter’ which cannot be seen, cannot be observed in any way, but which we know must be there because the expansion of the universe is slowed down in certain areas. Then we have created ‘dark energy,’ also unseen and unknowable, but we know it is there because the expansion is too fast in other areas. And this is no minor adjustment. According to these same scientists 95% of the universe is either dark matter or dark energy. What we can see or in any way directly detect, is less than 5% of the actual universe. Isn’t it time to question these assumptions?
Just like the atom has a central yang nucleus around which the yin periphery orbits; just like the solar system and the galaxies have the same, the entire universe rotates around a center, the central black hole. If I am trying to swim away from a waterfall, and just upstream of it, my ability to make any headway will be diminished by the pull that that waterfall is having on the water at my location. If I'm too close to the waterfall, it may overcome me and I will recede and fall back into it. If I'm miles upstream, the pull of the falls is negligible and I can swim freely in all directions. Stars and galaxies that are close to that central yang force, that central black hole, are expanding much more slowly, if at all. They may be just treading water, so to speak, struggling to hold their position as their outer yin force is just in balance with the inward yang force of the central black hole. Many billions of light years away from the center, toward the periphery of the physical universe, the yang pull from the center is negligible and the yin force is much greater.
SPACETIME
What is spacetime, anyway? Oh, I know that many science writers are happy to throw a pool table top, or a tarpaulin or a bed sheet, under the entire solar system, and call this space time, so that we can see how the weight of the sun depresses it and within that depression planets orbit around in it. But what is it? And in what direction are these objects depressed? As it turns out, they are alway depressed in the exact direction of the nearest stronger yang object. Also, what could space time be made of if it is both strong enough to be depressed by giant objects and still maintain its integrity, and yet does not impede, or is not affected at all by the passage of light.
We have heard, over and over, that the speed of light is a constant. Our most important calculations are based on that. We also know that light is a constant only in a vacuum. Even the mild atmosphere of the earth slows down, somewhat, the speed of light. And when we probe the ‘vacuum’ of space with higher and higher energy, we see more and more particles bubbling up into our universe, which leads us to think that particles are constantly bubbling in and out of our universe into a different one. If that is true, and light, speeding through the universe, has to contend with the forces generated by all these countless particles, is the speed of light a constant? Is there any stable vacuum in the universe where the speed of light could be a constant?
YIN/YANG
So what happens if yin/yang replaces space time? First of all, we can do away with dark matter and dark energy. At the center of the universe is the tremendous pull of the central black hole. Galaxies near that black hole are expanding like swimmers trying to make headway upstream of a waterfall. For many of them, headway is impossible. The best they can do is tread water and no expansion is possible. Billions of light years from the central black hole, the pull is very diminished, and the yin/yang ration of the whole environment is much more toward the yin side. Here things can move much faster and expand much more easily. Also, what is called the vacuum of space is pure yin, which I remind you is not part of the physical universe until it combines with yang. When you probe that ‘vacuum’ with higher and higher energy, the yang energy of your probe is combining with the pure yin of the ‘vacuum’ and you are creating the particles that you think you are discovering. And you are also, by the way, concocting another universe to explain the sudden emergence of these particles.
SPEED OF LIGHT AND THE EXPANSION OF THE
UNIVERSE
All our notion of an expanding universe comes from the Doppler effect, the red shift. When we see light coming from stars billions of light years away, and we know, or think we know, that the speed of light is a constant, then the only explanation for the red shift is that the source of light, the distant stars, are moving farther and farther away from us. It is on this basis that the whole understanding of an expanding universe rests. But there is another explanation for a red shift. And that explanation is not that the source of the light is receding, but that the speed of the light is slowing down. We are looking at galaxies much farther from the central black hole. Yin is dominant in these environments. If we were able to go there and measure, which we would not be able to do, we would still get the same reading, that light is traveling at 186,000 miles per second. This is because everything is expanded, including our measuring instruments and what constitutes a mile. So to travel 186,000 miles per second in that expanded environment would require a much greater velocity. And the reverse would also be true. If we were able to measure, in an environment much closer to the central black hole, which we also cannot do, we would still get the speed of light at 186,000 miles per second, but all our measuring instruments would be contracted and our sense of what constitutes a mile would be much smaller. To cover that shorter distance, light would be traveling much slower.
The problem is that when we look through our telescopes we are seeing light that began in one yin/yang context and is moving to another. So from within any context, from within that frame of reference, light would be traveling 186,000 miles per second. But looking at it from our perspective light slows down considerably to enter our more contracted yin/yang context. Since we are much closer to the central black hole than the periphery of the universe, we see the great majority of stars as ‘expanding’ too fast, and some as expanding too slow. But it is not the receding or approaching of the galaxies, but the change in the velocity of light, as it moves from one yin/yang context to another.
YIN/YANG WITHIN THE ATOM AND THE FOUR
FORCES
The nucleus of the atom is the yang center of this configuration. Within the proton and even the ‘neutral’ neuron, there are enormous, powerful forces that are neutralizing each other, with yang pulling in and yin pushing out. We feel only a very small portion of that force if the proton or the electron, for instance, is slightly out of balance. Gravity is the amount of yang pull that extends beyond the periphery of the configuration. Yang is strongest at the center, and by the time it reaches the periphery the great, great majority of it has been neutralized by the yin formations toward the periphery. At the periphery is the outer ring of electrons, or electron waves. This outer periphery acts as a buffer, keeping other configurations away and maintaining the integrity of the configuration that it surrounds. The exception is when the atom is a negative ion. Then there is a little too much energy at the periphery. Nothing to threaten the structure of the whole configuration, but the outer ring is looking to make a more perfect balance by sharing its outer ring with a positive ion which has a slight deficiency in its outer ring. Again, nothing so out of balance to threaten the explosion or the implosion of the atom. When a positive and a negative ion share their outer ring, that is as far as the attraction goes, just until a more stable balance is achieved. There is no invasion into either atom past the outmost periphery. An unattached electron, which is a yin charged configuration, moves to find a positively charged configuration with which it can make balance. This is electro-magnetism.
Now in some atoms, over time, there is either a gradual loss of yang, which means that the atom is no longer strong enough to hold the periphery in tact and the atom is in danger, from too much outward force, of explosion; or a gradual loss of yin, so that the central yang force is exerting too much inward pressure on the periphery and there is a danger of implosion. At that point there is a yin discharge which strengthens the center of the atom and allows it to maintain the periphery without fear of explosion, or a yang discharge, if the center is too strong, which allows the periphery to stay in tact without fear of implosion. This strategy for maintaining the integrity of the atom, and achieving balance, is referred to as radio active decay and, supposedly, controlled by the weak force.
At the center of the atom are protons and neutrons and, as I said earlier, tremendous forces of yin and yang are locked within them. The proton has an outer yin periphery, just like the atom does. The proton, although a millionth or less the size of the atom, contains a much smaller but much more intense force field within it than the atom as a whole. What is referred to as ‘Coulomb’s Force’ is the negative peripheries of protons pushing away from each other. Again, the same as at the periphery of the atom, but with much more intensity. The strong force is that force which is strong enough to overcome the Coulomb’s force and fuse protons. There is already a very strong yang force at the center of the atoms. This force pushes the protons and neutrons together against the Coulomb’s force, so that we have a compact nucleus. When a powerful exterior yang force is added to the yang force that is already there, say in the environment near the center of stars, or in the vicinity of black holes, then we have an invasion of the nucleus of one atom by another and a concomitant explosion of energy and a realignment of structures as new balanced configurations are achieved. But the strong force is that super yang force that comes from without and not within the atom. And I include, in that external force, what nuclear scientists can provide to make an atomic bomb.
PARTICLE/WAVE DUALITY
Are there multiverses, and strange paths that particles follow as they blink in and out of this universe? Possibly, but if you question the rigidity of the particle and see it as a wave, not of matter, but of yin and yang, you would get a much simpler explanation. Take the two slit experiment. Every seeming object is a combination of yin and yang. Yin creates the dimensions and yang creates the contours. I know that there is some yang in a light wave, even though it registers as massless. I know it because a light wave maintains a certain wavelength and shape and does not disperse randomly through the universe. Yin is velocity, infinite velocity. The speed of light is yin velocity held back by the smallest amount of yang known in the physical universe. There is a stream of yang energy at the center of a light wave. This stream of yang is too small to be detected. When you have two slits with measuring devices at each slit, the 'measuring' device emits a positive force which attracts the yang stream at the center of the wave. The wave undulates, so the yang stream at the center is closer to the left slit or closer to the right slit at any given moment. When that yang stream is close enough to be attracted by the measuring device on the right, the stream pools up on the right until it is strong enough to pull the yin waves streaming around it into an orbiting circle. This is a photon. The same, of course, is true, for the measuring device on the left.
When you say that photons are massless, then you have to accept the idea that no mass at a certain velocity has enough "velocity mass" to dislodge an electron from the surface of a metal. But any school boy knows that however many times you multiply zero it still comes out zero. Or as Shakespeare said, "Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again." Why does light bend a bit when it passes close to the vicinity of a star or the center of a galaxy? Because it is not massless. It does contain some yang, it's just that, on earth, there is no yang force strong enough to attract it, so that we can measure it. It's like the matronly woman who complains that her elderly husband is devoid of libido, has absolutely no testosterone. Then she discovers his treasure trove of pornography or that he is in regular attendance at the local strip club. It's not that he didn't have any attractive force, it's that his attractive force was very weak, and needed a stronger source of attraction to provoke a response. And so, light bends as it passes enormously powerful centers of yang. Not the bending of space time but the attraction of smaller yang to larger yang.
In sum, we have a universe that is composed of two opposing forces that configure with each other. We live in a context of yin and yang and that governs the amount of space (distance covered) and the velocity at which things occur. From this perspective, the universe is not necessarily expanding, and certainly not at the rate that modern science predicts. There are not four forces, but two. And the foundation of this illusive thing that we see that is called the physical universe is not matter, but forces. And the foundation of these forces and the precise laws that govern them is a transcendent intelligence and will, not contained within a human body, or a human brain, not within any physical constraints at all. It is the 'name that cannot be named.' But if you need a name you can call it the Infinite, the Atman, the Divine, as long as you don't start rigidly and materially associating that name with a specific person, a specific set of rituals, a specific hierarchy in which one God is stronger and one god is weaker, one God is real and one god is false. Not spirituality, but this rigid materialization of spirituality, that we call religion, is why so many people seem 'allergic' to spirituality. But God is beyond opposition. God is!
The 'sickness' at the center of your theories, Nima, is this, and as long as you continue to search for a material cause to a spiritual problem, you will never cure your sickness. I admire the diligence and the drive with which you continue to look out at the world. What you need is to balance that with the discoveries that you can make by looking within. You need to mix your voluminous research with at least a little 'search.'
You may think me arrogant for writing this. But I see the sickness as well as you. And I see it as infecting not just the world of theoretical physics, but society as a whole. And if you are aware of the sickness and are aware of the cure, then compassion, not arrogance, would demand that you make people aware of it.
If you have read this, Nima, I congratulate you on your open-mindedness. And, of course, if you have any response or any further questions, I would eagerly await any comments. And that, of course, is true for anyone else who has read this post. Thank you.
Matt Chait
