Perhaps one of the most beneficial discoveries civilisation could make is one which:
a) convinces the average person that scientific theory is not divorced from his or her life but is intimately connected with that life, and
b) causes men and women to believe science (knowledge based on deductions from observations and measurements) and mysticism (knowledge which is based on the immediate intuition of truth) are complementary.
Did you know that whenever you watch a videotape - any tape you may be acting out the nature of the entire universe: all space and all time, too. How can this be?
Mathematical equations developed by the great scientist Albert Einstein say a maximum of 3 'subuniverses' could exist in our cosmos:
1 finite (space as we know it ie having the 3 spatial dimensions of length, width and height) and
2 infinite (the 4th and 5th dimensions).
Since those equations say time is infinite and Stephen Hawking (sometimes called the world's greatest living physicist) and his colleagues inform us that time can be thought of as another spatial dimension, travel through the 4th dimension would be equivalent to time travel (other dimensions would also, via the theory of cosmic wormholes worked out by Californian physicist Kip Thorne and his colleagues, be shortcuts through the curvature of space and may, though it sounds like pure science fiction, enable flights to be completed in mere seconds when they would take billions of years if we travelled the long and winding road of space's many curves). Thus, travelling in space can be compared to watching a videotape - just as you can view any frame on a tape by fast forwarding and rewinding, you can arrive wherever you wish in space and time by journeying interdimensionally.
Many scientists think the universe is the ultimate computer (as physicist Paul Davies of Adelaide University correctly points out, the never ending decimal places of pi - the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, approximately equalling 3.14 - could not be calculated by a finite computation). Therefore, if the universe is a computer, it must be an infinite one and include 4th/5th dimensional space. In this case, the distortions which occur with more than 3 space dimensions (distorted gravitational and electrical forces, brain waves and other travelling waves) could be overcome by reprogramming or self-reprogramming.
Einstein concluded space and time cannot exist separately but form an indissoluble union called space-time. So if the 3 dimensions of space are a videotape, the 4th dimension of time must correspond to the VCR and TV. As the VCR plays a tape and the TV displays/broadcasts the story, they give the perception of movement to the tape's individual frames. Similarly, time imparts change and motion to a cosmos which would otherwise be an unchanging 'snapshot'.
Finally, VCRs and TVs must of course be connected to a power source. In 1921, physicist Theodor Kaluza proposed that the force of electromagnetism (electromagnetic waves consist of oscillating electric go and magnetic fields and include radio waves, visible light, ultraviolet light and X-rays) is produced by disturbances in an unseen 5th dimension. To complete our video analogy; space-time must necessarily be connected to the source of electromagnetic power (the 5th space dimension).
Because they're related to the above, I'd like to include here two letters I wrote to TIME AUSTRALIA magazine. The first refers to scientific thought and mystical thought both being necessary in order to reach an ultimate explanation of things and to understand cosmic mysteries - the second concludes that the universe (of which humans are a part) has infinite energy content and infinite intelligence, and equates this infinite universe with God. Therefore, humans are part of God and achieving knowledge of the Supreme Being through direct awareness (in other words, mysticism) seems perfectly plausible.
Feb. 20, 1996
TIME AUSTRALIA Letters
GPO Box 3873
Sydney, NSW 2001
Dear Editor,
Regarding 'Is Anybody Out There?' (Feb. 19) -
As inspiring as the question of the existence of other intelligences in the universe is (I personally believe space and time must abound with ETs), there seems to be an even bigger question: Is the universe truly 'under a death sentence from the second law of thermodynamics'?
The 2nd law states 'heat will not pass spontaneously from a cold body to a hotter one' therefore scientists believe that the energy the universe contains will eventually be dissipated evenly and irrecoverably throughout the coldness of space. ('Reader's Digest Book of Facts' - 1985, p. 233)
Albert Einstein's 1917 equations state that the cosmos could have 3 parts or subuniverses (finite space with its 3 dimensions, infinite time which is called the 4th dimension and an infinite hyperspace [space of more than three dimensions] which may be called the 5th dimension). (see the 1973 book ALBERT EINSTEIN: CREATOR AND REBEL by Banesh Hoffman and Helen Dukas)
TIME suggests the two instincts of the brain (scientist and mystic) need to fit together in order to understand cosmic mysteries - THE MIND OF GOD (a 1992 book by Paul Davies, published by Simon & Schuster) states that rational thought cannot lead to an ultimate explanation of things without mysticism (p. 230). Thus, in this case we need to consider the 1958 out-of-body experiences of American businessman Robert Monroe. He claims to have visited dimensions he calls Locales I and III ('I' is the 3-D world we know, 'III' would be 5-D hyperspace). According to Monroe, Locale III is 'bonded together . . . by a force beyond our present comprehension.' ('Psychic Voyages' by Time-Life Books: 1987, pp. 27-32)
Could this force be related to a hyperspatial energy source which renews and refreshes space-time, thereby rescuing the universe from death caused by thermodynamics' 2nd law? By itself, this energy could not renew space-time (because it, too, would 'eventually be dissipated evenly and irrecoverably throughout space') but would be there when, at some unknown point in the future, intelligent beings mathematically and technologically manipulate hyperspace to produce a renewed cosmos (it seems that an unidentified adaptation of this manipulation could produce the original cosmos). This eventuality would, as THE MIND OF GOD puts it, 'explain the origin of the universe within the framework of physics' (p. 40).
Feb 27, 1996
TIME AUSTRALIA Letters
GPO Box 3873
Sydney, NSW 2001
Dear Editor.
'What's Hiding In the Quarks?' (Feb. 26) gave me plenty of
mental exercise - TIME is a great magazine if your brain is
in the mood for aerobics! Pardon my lack of knowledge, but I
was under the impression that there probably is structure
within quarks (I was obviously wrong, since scientists find
this possibility startling).
What about Einstein's famous equation E = mc2 (energy equals mass times the velocity of light squared)? This 'unifies the concepts of energy and matter and relates both to the velocity of light' and means 'mass and energy are interchangeable' ('Coming of Age in the Milky Way' by Timothy Ferris - published by The Bodley Head, London: 1989, p. 194). Doesn't this naturally suggest that particles of matter may possibly be composed of 'bits' of energy?
What about the facts that masses of subatomic particles are measured in electronvolts (eg p. 298 of 'Coming of Age in the Milky Way' says the proton's mass is 938.3 MeV [Million electron volts equalsan infinitesimal fraction (1.60219 x 10 -19) of the unit of work and energy called a joule? (The Hutchinson Encyclopedia, Guild Publishing London, 8th [1988] edition, p. 653)
But to return to quarks: the top quark's mass 'is almost 200 times that of the proton' ('Strange Quark Matter' by Carl B. Dover, 'Science Spectra' magazine - issue 3, 1995, p. 50). Quarks are 'confined in individual three-quark clusters such as neutrons, protons, lambdas and other strange objects' ('Strange Quark Matter', p. 52). But the immensely massive top quark could not, if it obeys common sense, be confined to a less massive hyperon (the lambda and other nuclear particles containing the strange quark - like the xi and sigma - are hyperons, and are less massive than a deuteron or deuterium nucleus which is made up of one proton plus one neutron [neutron mass = 939.6 MeV, slightly more than a proton's]).
(information in previous sentence compiled from: the 'Strange Quark Matter' article mentioned above, the 'Teach Yourself GREEK Book' by F. Kinchin smith and T.W. Melluish, The English Universities Press Ltd. [1966], the article 'Atom' in 'The WORLD BOOK Enclyopedia' by Field Enterprises Educational Corporation, Chicago [1967] Chambers Science and Technology Dictionary, edited by Prof. Peter M. B. Walker [1992], pp. 447 & 241, and the 'Coming of Age in the Milky Way' book mentioned above, p. 404)
We are thus led to the strange world of quantum mechanics where common sense seems to be most uncommon. Quantum mechanics says 'for some purposes it is helpful to think of particles as waves' ('A Brief History of Time' by Stephen Hawking - Bantam Press, 1988, p. 56). As particles can be thought of as waves, we owe it to ourselves to consider the possibility that they consist of individual units (if energy and matter are unified by E = mc2, maybe these units are Planck-scale [10 -33 cm., or a centimetre divided by one with thirty three zeros after it] energy pulses) which, reminiscent of superstring theory as well as of wave-particle duality, travel in waves or currents ('Workings of the Universe' by Time-Life Books, 1991, pp. 53 & 84).
Referring back to the 2nd paragraph's belief that Einstein's work suggests 'particles of matter may possibly be composed of "bits" of energy': it becomes hard to see how, if the structures within subatomic particles turn out to be real and if those structures really do travel in waves, particles of matter could not be composed of Binary digits. Just as pulses of electrical energy correspond to 'ones' and 'zeros' (binary digits) in earthly computers, pulses of electromagnetic energy within the cosmos could be termed 'space-time bits'. When their travel brings them to a specified space-time coordinate, they might be regarded as corresponding to one binary digit before they reach, and after they pass, that coordinate; they'd be regarded as the second binary digit. Above sentences have concluded the 'top quark could not . . . be confined' and 'we are thus led to the strange world of quantum mechanics'.
Now we are led to the strange world of superstring theory as portrayed on p.89 of 'Workings of the Universe'. For the 'specified space-time coordinate' mentioned above could lie inside a certain subatomic particle - while there, a space-time bit 1s one binary digit; assuming the laws of nature apply equally to top quarks and space-time bits, the bit 'could not be confined' and may correspond to the other binary digit when it is outside the subatomic particle. This chaotic trade of space-time bits between particles and space-time itself reminds us of p. 89 of 'Workings of the Universe' where it says 'The interplay causes fingers to materialize and disappear, an activity that describes, among other things, the ceaseless appearance and disappearance of gravitons, the quantum particles of gravity.'
So if space-time has its equivalent of computers' binary digits, we'd find ourselves living in a 'cosmic computer' - since the universe as a whole is obviously much more advanced than the parts of it which we call our computers, the 'cosmic computer' must possess a universal AI (artificial intelligence). And if Einstein's 1917 equations are correct (the ones that suggest the universe incorporates infinity, as well as finiteness - for a fuller explanation of this point, see the letter I wrote to TIME on Feb. 20, 1996), we'd find ourselves living in a cosmic computer with infinite energy content and infinite intelligence. I don't know if Paul Davies and Stephen Hawking would agree, but knowing an infinitely intelligent and energetic universe sounds suspiciously like knowing the mind of God.
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