Gravity Waves, Relativity and Quantum Physics: Part I

The recent finding of gravity waves produced by the merger of two distant black holes has been taken as yet another confirmation of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. There have been various such confirming measurements, including the gravitational redshift and lensing of light and non-Newtonian, changes in the orbit of Mercury. But the deeper significance of this latest discovery lies in what it may say about the rival grand theory, quantum physics. The Standard Model of modern physics has proven remarkably good at accounting for the known elementary particles (fermions, hadrons and bosons). The measurement of the Higgs boson in 2012 was an astounding confirmation of our most basic understanding of the origin of mass. Despite the “spookiness” of some of the predictions of quantum physics – such as quantum entanglement – many of its strangest have been verified.

Indeed, the Standard Model is rather too perfect. It seems to account for most of the basic parameters of matter and energy including three of the four fundamental forces: —electromagnetic and the weak nuclear (unified as electro-weak) and the strong nuclear interaction (which holds together the atomic nucleus). But it cannot explain gravity, dark matter or dark energy (thus leaveing out 95% of what we believe to be the universe). In trying to extend its reach – to achieve a grand unified theory to include gravity –- physicists have so far failed to find the new phenomenon that would hint at new physics in the form of supersymmetry or string theory. The Standard Model explains what it does so perfectly that those seeking to take it further cannot seem to find any of the discrepancies that might point the way to a Grand Unified Theory of Everything.

General Relativity, on the other hand, has been confirmed in every case. It provides a coherent theory of the universe as framed by spacetime and the speed of light. It does not explain the Big Bang or the menagerie of fundamental particles. Rather, General Relativity describes how mass interacts with space and across time. Mass deforms spacetime and matter and energy – including gravity waves – travel in straight lines along the bends. Einstein's famous equation – the E=MC² of Special Relativity – does not explain why mass and energy are interchangeable but provides a way to measure the transformation of one into the other within the limitation imposed by the speed of light (which cannot be exceeded).

Relativity is in essence a top-down theory. It begins with Einstein's grand view of the very nature of spacetime, the basic fabric of the universe. Quantum physics is more bottoms-up, seeking to discover the basic pieces of reality. Relativity is a complete and verified theory within its defined area. The Standard Model of quantum physics is incomplete within its domain. It may be that relativity is somehow the more fruitful way to think about the universe. For Einstein, gravity is not a force, as it was for Newton, but an artifact of mass bending spacetime. Quantum physics again treats gravity as a force and seeks to find its particle, the “graviton.” But what considerations may be drawn from looking at quantum physics in light of relativity, instead of trying to extend it to account for gravity? The key may lie in pondering more deeply mass, light and the role of the observer.

Light Music

Been reading Light Music, a 2002 sci-fi novel by Kathleen Goonan. Like most good science fiction, it takes some central bit of science or technology and extrapolates it. Light Music contemplates a juxtaposition between string theory and consciousness. Now string theory has taken some hits recently as analysis of the Higgs field seems to rule out the simpler, more elegant, versions of supersymetry. But Goonan paints a picture of consciousness, residing somewhere in the extra tiny dimensions postulated by supersymetry, as a kind of energy acting on the universe through matter as a kind of string vibration, a kind of music, as photons of light are vibrations of electro-magnetism. Thus Light Music. Very interesting speculations.

In this space, I've suggested that consciousness is primordial, that it does not rise from matter, or any particular organization of matter, but may indeed be prior. That consciousness – our individual experience of it – may be bound up with light, which is its “speed.” So picture consciousness as vibrations in (of?) spaces too small for us to observe – at or even smaller than the Planck length – intersecting the fields and particles of matter and energy we can measure and manifesting as observation. Yes, a “ghost” in the machine, taking the form of mind when the organic substrate is complex enough to give rise to such. Collapsing the wave function and exercising choice, self-generating music out of our individual being, a lifetime symphony.

Just another rumination.

The Higgs and Time

It's coming up on a year now since the confirmation of the Higgs particle and field. This was an exciting reaffirmation of the Standard Model of modern particle physics. But after a year of refining measurements, it seems the version of the Higgs found fits too well with the current model and offers no hint of any unexpected strangeness that could lead physicists to further insights and discoveries. The Higgs mass has been determined to be 125.7 GeV (gigaelectronvolts). Quite remarkable measurement but one that agrees so perfectly with the Standard Model that it leaves little room for current theories that tried to go beyond it to a more unified physics. Most varieties of supersymmetry and string theory – the simpler, more beautiful ones that physicists prefer – cannot meet the constraints imposed by the Higgs value. The current model cannot account for gravity or relativity and can't explain dark matter or dark energy. This means that while it can explain very well 5% of the universe, it cannot say a thing about the remaining 95%.

But it may be even more interesting to ponder the fact that the particle that gives other particles mass also has a mass. The Higgs field interacts with some particles (the quarks) and gives them mass while others (neutrinos and photons) are lightly or un-affected and have little or no mass. But if the Higgs interaction gives mass, what gives mass to the Higgs? This is another of the strange places that our modern science leads us. (Are you watching St. Thomas?)

Mass may also be at the root of time. Things with mass cannot travel at the speed of light and therefore exist immersed in time. Things without mass do travel at light speed and therefore are not subject to time. It's as if mass is really a measurement of the degree to which stuff is trapped in time, separated out of what would otherwise be an eternal now. Or to put it another way, introducing mass is a way to throw things out of heaven and down to earth?

The Speed of Consciousness

I've been thinking about consciousness and reality for many years now and have come to believe that the most reasonable hypothesis is that reality is intimately related to consciousness and that consciousness is at least as primordial as matter and energy. Along the way, I've imagined the universe from the point of view of a surfer riding a photon created in the Big Bang. Because at the speed of light time stops, that “surfer” will be everywhere the photon will ever be in the same instant. From that vantage point, time does not exist and one can imagine the universe, from its moment of creation to its end, as a single crystal containing all of spacetime.

Today I was wondering about the speed of light and what exactly it means. One of the odd things about the speed of light is its value, 186000 miles per second. Why is it exactly that and what does it mean that light has a “speed” when, from the point of view of light, it is instantaneous. Perhaps the speed of light is not its speed at all but rather the speed of time? We experience time as a wave, passing from past to future with its crest being the present moment, our now. I've been reading Montaillou – about the life of a village in southern France in the early 14th Century – and felt myself looking through a portal into the lives of people far away in time, in many ways so different, but also real breathing humans just like us. Of course, when these people were alive – when they were riding the crest of time – theirs' was now. We now ride the wave but it will continue beyond us. Perhaps it is time itself that moves through the crystal universe? We see light moving at some speed only because that is the speed with which time can record its own passage.

It may seem strange to think of time moving with some speed. Whether spacetime is quantum or analog is now much in debate within physics, as well as what the smallest moment of time or unit of space may be. But according to relativity, the speed of light is both a measurement of space and time. The total distance between two points in spacetime must be conserved within the limits of the speed of light. Between two objects at rest to each other, the distance is almost entirely one of space because their speed relative to each other is functionally zero. Two objects moving relative to each other at some speed will have part of their distance in space and part in time. At rest or at low speeds, the distance in time may be negligible. But an extreme example is the case of the two twins. One twin stays at home on earth and the other travels to a nearby star and back at the speed of light. At the speed of light, the distance of the trip is experienced mostly as time. When the twin returns to the spot where he left, he has barely aged while his twin is an old man. What is being measured by the “speed of light” is really the relationship of time and space.

What is it that is traveling at the speed of light? It's not really time but our awareness of the distance traveled within spacetime. The speed of light may actually be the speed of consciousness. By this I mean the speed of our crest of awareness through the timeless, eternal crystal universe. Whatever consciousness caused the Big Bang, determined the value of the Higgs boson and the parameters of physical reality, and dumped itself into that reality may have wanted a long vacation. At the “speed of light” – really the speed of the wave of consciousness that sweeps through creation – the lifetime of the expanding universe (expanding due to dark energy) should be counted in tens of billions of years. An infinite string of nows flung like pearls upon the wine dark sea.

The Higgs and Creation

The "discovery" of the Higgs boson in July was hailed by many - finally, the "God" particle - and understood, assimilated into our understanding of the universe and creation by who?  To the community of physicists, it seemed to "explain" the universe, why it is here, why it is something rather than just eternally careening photons of energy.

In an excellent piece in ScienceNews, Tom Siegfried offers one of the most lucid explanations of what the Higgs is all about.  It's not so much the particle as the Higgs field itself.  In the first trillionth second or so after the Big Bang, everything was the same non-thing, speeding around at the speed of light.  Then the expanding universe cooled enough for the Higgs field to manifest itself.  When it did, it caught some of those careening non-things in its net.  The Higgs field slowed these down, subjected them to resistance, made them move as if they were plowing through a field of thick molasses.  They experienced inertia - thereby gaining mass - and became things, the elemental particles of which matter is made.  The others that were not affected by the Higgs field continued on their way as photons traveling at the speed of light.  The Higgs field, in other words, called forth from light the material universe.  Pretty cool, eh?

And there's more to it.  When the Higgs manifested itself with the (relative) cooling of the universe, there sprang up not just one kind of particle but a whole menagerie of them.  Each kind affected by the Higgs field to a different degree, therefore having differing masses.  Without this differentiation, there would be no real physics or chemistry.  Therefore no suns, planets or life.  In other words, from the moment of the Big Bang whatever was in the expanding blob of energy that was the universe was already imprinted with that which would be manifested as all the kinds of particles and forces of which we know (and probably some we don't know as yet).  The moment the Higgs field grabbed them, they became what they were to be.

This is quite a lot to consider.  But still there is more.  None of this so far explains gravity, dark matter or dark energy.  What about particles with mass also leads to gravity being able to warp time and space?  Where are the particles with mass - though apparently very little individually, as if barely caught by Higgs - that make up dark matter?  And what is that energy that seems to operate on large scales counter to gravity?  What is that dark energy all about anyway?

One can say that we are like dogs in relation to the works of man when we try to grasp what it all means.  Dogs just don't have the capacity to understand man or how we create the world they live in.  And we can't really understand why something exists rather than nothing.  Chalk it up to ramdoness, just fluctuations in the vacuum.

But this bears further thought.  What can we say about creation?  1. It happened. 2. It apparently happened according to laws written into the act - or moment, if you're shy - that would determine what manifested and when. 3. It produced a universe that allowed the development of life and manifestation of consciousness.

My Dad was a truck driver and never graduated grammar school.  He'd look up at the night sky and ask me how I could believe it's just accidental.

A lawful act of creation would imply what? Or as God said to Job:

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding....
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone?