Part 2 of 3. THAT WHICH IS

Quantum Physics and General Relativity

                          “Its always the things we know for sure, that get us into trouble!”

Our understanding of the world as we see it, is based on Newtonian science. Newtonian Physics can only be applied to the scale that we can perceive. Like cars or planetary movements. It is a deterministic view, which is based on cause and effect. For example, the Newtonian idea was that, if we knew the variables of a system. We then could with a very high degree of precision, predicts the outcomes of that system. We know this is to be not true today.  This view is about 280 years old, needless to say completely outdated. I hate to sound like I’m beating up Newtonian ideas, its not intended. Newton was a pioneer at his time, a great scientist, and his work laid the groundwork for modern science to flourish upon.

The new/current theory is called “Quantum mechanics” is non-deterministic view of the universe. Most of us have heard about it, but know almost nothing about it. This is an attempt to explain the fundamental of Quantum Mechanics (QM) and its far-reaching implications for us.

Before you can understand the fundamentals and their impending implications. You must first get few facts cleared and throw away your existing understanding of world as described by Newtonian Physics.

Quantum Mechanics

Quantum Mechanics is the body of physics, which explains the behavior of matter and its interactions with energy, at the atomic level.

Facts: Matter

1.    The idea of matter/atom put forward by Rutherford and Bohr, (what we learnt in school) was that the atom looks like a mini solar system, sun being the nucleus (protons and neutrons) where most of the mass is situated, around it are revolving electrons. This idea is more than a hundred years old, is known to be incorrect.

Matter/atom has been found to be 99.99999% percent empty space. Which means the difference between a dense heavy metal and empty space is off .000001 percent! What seems to be solid matter, is energy vibrating at a certain level.

Einstein said, “Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.”

It has been estimated that the entire matter making up planet earth, can fit into a matchbox, once the empty space is removed. A picture/model can’t describe an atom; Hence quantum description of an atom is mathematical.

                         

                               Characteristics of matter are:

A)   An electron can exist in two or more places at the same time and then disappear all together. This experiment has been repeated 1000 of times with the same results all around the world. This phenomenon is called super positioning.

B)   Electrons don’t flow fixed paths or revolve around the nucleus of an atom. They seem to jump from one location to another without travelling the distance between, known as a quantum leap! Which is same as a person being in one corner of a room and a fraction of second later in opposite corner. Without actually travelling the distance between.  Electrons only exist as a cloud of probabilities. Popping in and out existence randomly. There are numerous theory suggesting, different explanations to this, for example a leading belief is that electrons exist on many different dimensions and keep jumping between these dimensions. But we simply don’t know.

C)  Wave-particle duality: - atomic particles like electrons, even atoms and something even as big as molecules behave both like a wave and a particle. For example Person A throws a ball to person B. The ball first travels like a particle or object, then as a wave (like in an ocean) or both as a wave and a particle simultaneously. Depending on whether they are being observed or not.

A……. ))))))))))))……..B   and   A.).).).).).).).).) B

Those of you how cant accept these fact YouTube “the double slit experiment”. It is said that matter exists only in a waveform, only when it is measured or observed by an observer (us), it appears as particle.

D) The exact position and the speed of an electron, can never be known at the same time. We can measure the speed or its location but not both. This isn’t due to not having the correct measurement tools. But is rather the fundamental nature of a particle. It exists only as cloud of possibilities (wave particle duality). This is known as the measurement problem in QM.

F) Quantum Entanglement- is a phenomenon where 2 particles interact with each other and become entangled. Meaning they start copying and acting like each other. The bizarre thing about quantum entanglement is that once entangled no matter how far these become from each other, they are always a mirror image of each other. For example if 2 cricket balls became entangled, then become separated, one is sitting in a field in England, the other one in India, involved in a T20 match. The ball sitting in England would start to mimic the action of the ball being played with. Without any stimulation the ball would race to the boundary, bowl itself, spin, swing itself. It doesn’t matter how far the balls become from each other they will remain entangled.  Einstein called this spooky action at a distance, as it amazed him.

2.    Light- what we call light is actually, Electro-Magnetic Radiation (EMR). It made up of tiny little packets of energy called photons. Light also exhibits dualistic nature. It travels both like a wave and particle. Speed of light is constant, always measured to be 300000 km/sec. Speed of light is universal speed limit, meaning nothing can ever exceed the speed of light. Because as any object approaches the speed of light, space and time would stretch enough to make sure it could never equal 300000 km/sec. (speed=distance/time; as speed goes up, distance would stretch or time would speed up, to protect the speed of light limit).

It is also worth noting that to an observers experience the speed of light, traveling at 3,00,000km/sec. But for light, the point of emission (A) and point of absorption (B), are co-incidental. What this means is that from lights point of view neither time nor distance exist, both time taken and distance travelled are “Always Zero”(Zero interval). Another way of looking the speed of light; is that an observer stretches this Zero Interval into 3,00,000 km for every second of time. Speed of light is actually the constant ratio of manifestation, perceived from our view. For every second of time, 3,00,000 km exist. But in reality neither time nor space exists. Meaning the entire universe has no size at all, it only looks to be astronomically large.

                             GENERAL RELATIVITY

Universe- A collection of trillions of galaxies (each with trillions of stars), separate by vast amounts of seemingly empty space. Just to give you an idea about the size of the observable universe (it might be far larger) is 93 billion light years across. Meaning to get from one end to another we would have to travel for 93,00,00,00,000 years at the speed of 3,00,000 km/sec or in kilometers= 93,00,00,00,000 x (300000 x 60 x 60 x 24 x 365) (you can try and calculate that, good luck!).

 Composition of the universe: 70 percent of the entire universe is made of dark energy, 25 percent of dark matter and the rest 5 percent is ordinary matter like us and our planet. This has been a well-known fact for 2 decades now.  

A.   Space is perhaps one the most important and the most misinterpreted/misunderstood concept. In Newtonian physics Space was believed to be empty and static with nothing in it to be described. It has been found to be not so empty and static. We all think of space as something that surrounds our planet. But since matter is 99.99999% empty “SPACE”, space exists everywhere, even within us and we are floating in it. It is fair to say therefore that we are made up of space rather than matter.  Far from being empty, space is teeming with energy, dark energy and dark matter.  Einstein description (best one we have) of Space is that it is 3 dimensional, and behaves like a stretchy fabric, that has inherent springiness, which is manipulated by matter and light. Or if you prefer the poetic Vedic description better of it being an enormous cosmic ocean.

B.   Time- The fourth dimension as described by Einstein. Time is perhaps the most complicated concept. Due to its complexity I cannot explain it, so you will have to study it yourself if you really want to know. Entropy gives rise to time. Time is also relative, meaning it can slow down and run faster. For example if you lived on the moon, time would run faster for you, than someone living on planet earth due to higher mass of planet earth. This is called time dilation. Time is relative, can be manipulated by light and mass.

C.   Space-Time Continuum- A concept described by A. Einstein with his theory of relativity. Which in simple language means the combination of Space and Time is relative, and not fixed. That matter and light both stretch and contract space-time.  For example it is incorrect to say that earth revolves around the sun. The mass of the sun actually bends space-time around it, while earth is simply trying to move in a straight line, but is trapped in the space warped by the sun. Analogy of a whirlpool with sun being the center and earth being sucked in each time its revolves around it.

Here is a picture of earth warping the space around it and the moon trapped in the wrap.  What we think and experience as gravity is just matter falling thru the wrap in space-time.  It is important to note that this picture is for demonstrations only, it depicts the earth sitting on space but in reality the space would envelope the earth from all direction.  

Picture-1

D.    Dark energy and Dark matter- these are the most recently made discoveries (1990). Nothing is currently known about dark matter, which is 25% of the universe. It’s called dark matter, as it neither emits or absorbs light, light simply passes right thru it, hence “dark” matter. Not much is known about dark energy either, what we do know is makes up 75% of the universe. Dark energy is present in space, which is why space is not considered empty anymore. Dark energy is what gives space its springiness. It is the weakest energy in the universe however due to it being presence in astronomical number, it becomes the most powerful source of energy. Here are 2 scenarios to explain the importance of it. Dark energy is fundamental for the universe to exist, as it does today. For example if dark energy was any weaker than its present state, gravity (warping of space-time by matter) would have pulled and fuse together all the matter in the universe. This is called the big crunch. Nothing but a large clump of matter would exist, with no space even within it. On the other hand if dark energy was even a fraction stronger than its present strength it would make space expand so much that each and every atom/particle in the universe, would be ripped apart to its fundamental components and be pushed away for eternity. And nothing would exist, the universe would be dark and cold place. Which is believed to be our current case, meaning that with time dark energy will become stronger and stronger and eventually rip everything apart (the big rip).

Quantum Physics can appear to be gibberish, a bad joke, but it has 80 years of experimentation and data to support all its claims. This is perhaps the reason why the paradigm shift, hasn’t happened, why so many people can never accept it. But there acceptance is no required, for truth to be true!

I’ve tried to explain the some parts relevant to this discussion without going into too much detail. I encourage you to do some research your self. There is much more where this came from.

So what have we learnt so far? Lets have a little re-cap before the next/last part of this article. Where I’ll try and sum it all up, and show why and how this information relates to you as person.

ü  The picture painted by our senses, however detailed does not represent the real world. The world we see simply doesn’t exist. The image we see is a product of our mind, everyone has a personalized image in their minds.

ü  Matter as we perceive it, simply doesn’t exist. Whatever matter is, it is not made of matter! Its 99.9999 percent empty space(appears empty but is teeming with Dark Energy) and is .00001 percent matter. Hence is much more accurate to say, we are made of space, filled with dark energy.

ü   Matter exhibits a wave-particle duality. When not measured or observed, it’s a wave. When observed by an observer (us) it pops back into existence and appears to be in particle form. What this means is while you blink, the world disappears into a waveform and appears when you open your eyes.    

ü  We learnt about Quantum leap and Quantum entanglement.

ü  Light also has a wave particle duality. From the point of view of light/science, neither time nor space exists.

ü  We learnt dark energy is 70 Percent of the universe and present everywhere in the universe(within space), in every single atom and even within in Sub-particles. 

When viewed through the understanding of Quantum Physics and mathematics universe, is a system in FLUX. This is an Artistic representation of the flux by a Japanese painter.

Picture-2

It’s a view of the universe, which is indivisible or Non-dual. It is a complex system, interconnected, full of different forms of energy acting upon each other, which gives rise to pattern and complexity. Universe is fractal in nature, and is far too complex for human intellect to contemplate. We are part of this non-dual universe, and not separate beings with bodies like we think.

In conventional thinking, we always view the universe/space as something external, that which exists outside our atmosphere. We view our planet/world as being separate from it. These divisions are just concepts, we have created. In reality all there exists is the flux.

So what does all of this information leave us with, and what does it mean for us. It dismisses everything we are aware of our senses, bodies, matter, time and space. So what is left? We can dismiss everything, but one thing we cannot dismiss is consciousness. What is meant by that is, we can dismiss matter as being unreal/illusionary, but our experience of it, cannot be dismissed.

What is this consciousness, which the quantum physics, refers to as an observer? An observer who can change, the states of matter by a simply looking and stretch the zero interval into a diverse universe 93 billion light years across. Science has no answer for this question, yet it has led us here. Since there is no way for science to examine, measure, analysis consciousness/awareness. It has hit a dead end. Which makes sense, as science is a product of consciousness.

This is where the cookie starts to crumble, or if you prefer the plot start to thicken. The answer to this question is beyond the realms of science, at least of todays science. This is where science ends. As soon as we speak of consciousness, we are in the realm of spirituality. This inescapable question will be answered in the next part. And things will become much more clearer and simpler.