I have been reading “Nothing” by the New Scientist edited by Jeremy Webb. Very interesting read. Some quotes from it that are getting the juices flowing:
“Because of a slight and, to this day, mysterious lopsidedness in the laws of physics, there were roughly 10 billion electrons for every 1 billion protons. So, after an orgy of annihilation, the universe was left with a surplus of matter, and with about 10 billion photons for every electron, a ration that persists today”.
It probably drives scientists nuts that there are any inconsistences in their theories, however for me, it is comforting. I love the fact that there are mysteries in the very core of our understanding of what the universe is made of right down to the very composition of matter. I honestly believe that there is no end to what scientists will discover in particles of energy and matter.
“infinities warn physicists that theories are flawed.”
I truly believe science is simply another way of understanding the universe and people. It is not necessarily the right one, it is just much more complex than any other way of understanding. It is however a theory, and not to be mistaken with an undisputed truth. It is by its very nature constantly disputed and updated. Many of the theories also reaffirm my own understanding of the universe – i.e. that there is a divine energy that is in everyone and everything from people to animals to plants to the very air and space and the dark matter in between. For me this is not frightening. It means to me that the universe exists exactly as it is in a state of infinite perfection. It was not created therefore it cannot be destroyed. It just simply is.
“The 3 basic forces that govern the behaviour of all matter – the strong and the weak nuclear forces and the electro-magnetic force – are no more than facets of single “superforce”.
That single superforce, is life itself. I believe it always was and always will be, although that is a point the scientists will argue about. Scientists know what happened in the universe during the big bang and from 10 (-35) seconds after it, but they do not know what happened before that and they do not know the answer to the real question – “What caused the big bang?”.
“Who cares about what happened half a second after the big bang? What about the half a second before” Fay Weldon
No argument about whether the universe was created by a god or whether it created itself can really stand up unless there is some way of knowing not what the result of the big bang was (life) but why was there a big bang and what caused it to happen? I say if you do not believe that someone or something created the big bang, then something must have existed before it. It seems to me that the scientists and god worshippers have very little to argue about in terms of existence. In “Nothing” Physicist Paul Davies talks about a speck from which space emerges but states that:
“The speck does not sit here for an infinite duration. It appears instantaneously from nothing and immediately expands”.
What a thought. The speck of space appears out of nothing. I still cannot get my brain to grasp the concept of the universe simply appearing. Even from a scientific perspective you must have to believe that something caused the speck to appear or that it was always there. I think the universe was always there, the nature of it’s existence is simply expansion and evolution. I understand what the physicists are saying in that if something is expanding, then it must not have always been there and therefore must end one day. I do not think that you have to accept that. I think I may be able to accept that something can and has always been in existence in a constant state of evolution. I believe that something is the universe and I am not entirely convinced that it is expanding. Since there are galaxies and galaxies and matter beyond them that apparently exist that we have no knowledge of scientifically, could it not be argued that the universe does not necessarily have to be constantly expanding, but constantly changing. Galaxies exploding changing the composition of mass from one thing to another but the energy always there somewhere?
However to throw a spanner in that thought, another one from Paul Davies:
“There is no possibility of the speck existing through time because time itself begins at this point.”
What if the universe does not know anything about time and it only exists because human beings created the concept? It may be that it does not exist at all and that we have invented it to make some sense of our existence, like the big bang theory.
Happy to hear other people’s thoughts on existence! Make that your weekly prompt – without having to give any kind of facts or evidence to back it up, what is your understanding of how the universe came to be?
Vhairi Slaven 