From Quantumgravity

Contents 1 Mechanics of a Self-Creating Universe 1.1 1 Overview 1.2 2 The ambivalence of energy 1.3 3 Mass and space / energy and time: a definition based on the uncertainty principle 1.4 4 Self-creation 1.4.1 Locking arms 1.4.2 Space and mass 1.4.3 The Planck constant 1.4.4 Unification; particle properties and physical laws 1.5 5 Charge, antiparticles and infinities 1.6 6 Causality, time and the speed of light 1.7 The color of light 1.8 Evolution [under construction] 1.9 ABBREVIATIONS 1.10 About me

Mechanics of a Self-Creating Universe

All mass is interaction

I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.

Richard Feynman^[1]

1 Overview

To be able to reconcile quantum mechanics and relativity theory or unify what appear to be different forces, we first need to find out why quantum mechanics works^[2]. This study aims to show that quantum mechanics can be understood if we assume that we live in a universe which creates itself out of nothing and without any outside intervention.

If the actual existence of a Self-Creating Universe (SCU) means that it must be impossible for the universe to not exist, then to understand its mechanics is to understand this inevitability.

If in a SCU particles have to create themselves, one another, then their properties must be as much the product as the source, the effect as much as the cause of their interactions. Indeed, if there would be only a single electrically charged particle in the entire universe so it couldn’t express its charge, then it cannot be charged itself, so charge, or any property, for that matter, must be something which is shared by particles, something which only exists in, is expressed and preserved within their interactions.

However, to exist as particles, to have discrete properties, a fixed identity, requires some kind of ‘backbone’ to prevent their properties to vary with the environment, as the conditions (like temperature and density) they find themselves in vary, conditions they create themselves. Only if they can respond to changes in their environment by adjusting their behavior instead of their properties –their motion, their kinetic energy instead of their rest energy, for example, can they preserve their identity, the properties they have according to each other.

In a universe which creates itself out of nothing, conservation laws require that the grand total of everything inside of it, including spacetime itself remains nil. Paradoxically, the universe then doesn’t exist, has no reality as a whole, as ‘seen’ from without, so to say, but only exists as seen from within, to an inside observer who physically is part of the sum which is to remain nil. If the particles an observer or object is built from are like the numbers the sum of which is to stay nil, then the different forces in nature are unified in this sense, cooperating to form the world we see without violating any conservation law. (Since an interaction is a kind of observation and particles interact, in this text ‘observer’ can refer both to a human observer or an observing particle, unless specified.)

A SCU then is like a zero endlessly splitting itself into positive and negative numbers, their sum always remaining nil, a perpetuum mobile which yields as much as it costs: nothing. In contrast, Big Bang Cosmology (BBC) treats the universe as an object which has properties and evolves as a whole in time, as an object which lives in a time dimension not of its own making, so BBC implicitly presumes the existence of something outside of it with respect to which it exists and has properties.

However, to regard the universe as object we (in our imagination) can observe from without –like we imagine god to look at his creation– is a conceptual error of the same magnitude as the idea that the Earth is (at) the center of the universe.

If conservation laws require that everything inside of it must cancel, add to nil, then there’s no particle or property left to be involved in some interaction even if there would be something outside of it to interact with. Trying to calculate from observations how much mass and energy the universe contains or how large it is makes as much sense as asking how large its net electric charge is^[3].

A SCU only exists as seen from within, to an observer (or observing particle) who (which) physically is part of the sum which is to stay nil, so here it doesn’t make any sense to speak about the state or properties of the universe as a whole^[4].

This zero-requirement is not something trivial: this most fundamental law of physics is a powerful tool to detect misconceptions which from the usual point of view are too self-evident to even suspect, a shortcut to determine whether some idea might make sense or not.

If the universe cannot have any particular property as a whole, then it cannot contain more particles than antiparticles, for example, so if we (think to) observe it to contain much more matter than antimatter, then there must be something wrong with our observations or with our notion of what a particle is, what energy is^[5].

If everything inside the universe has to cancel, to add to nil, if when there’s nothing outside of it with respect to which it can have properties, then it simply cannot have some particular property or be in some particular state as a whole, nor can it have a beginning as a whole.

By regarding the universe as an object which has properties as a whole, as something which evolves in time, as something the state of which we can (in our imagination) inspect from without, we in fact say that there’s something outside of it to which it physically is related, is part of: that it has been created by some outside intervention.

Big Bang Cosmology therefore is a naïf modern-day Genesis tale representing an essentially religious view on the universe –never mind the observational ‘evidence’ which seems to substantiate it. In regarding the universe as an object which has particular properties and evolves as a whole in time, Big Bang Cosmology states that the universe lives in a time continuum not of its own making: that there’s a clock outside of it (showing cosmic time –the time passed since the bang) the pace of which doesn’t depend on anything. As our notion of time therefore is deeply flawed, so are our interpretations of the observations which at present are thought to indicate that we live in a Big Bang Universe (BBU). However accurate these observations are, if the assumptions upon which their interpretation are based are invalid, then big bang hypothesis is worse than useless as any scientific paper dedicated to substantiate it contributes to the respectability, the credibility of the underlying misconceptions, perpetuating them.

If in a SCU particles create one another so their properties are both product and cause of their interactions, then particles only exist to each other if and as far as they interact, so here particles and the objects they form have a relative existence. Whereas in a SCU particles evolve in a trial-and-error process, according to BBC all particles have been created, passively, from one moment to the next, their properties calibrated to the last decimal, so once created, the particles are assumed to stay created without this requiring any activity on their part. As a result, particles and the objects they form in BBC have an absolute kind of reality, as if they would exist even if they wouldn’t interact at all, as if they would be observable even from without the universe. In presuming particles and particle properties to be only the cause of interactions, in regarding them as autonomous objects, as objects the existence of which doesn’t depend on anything we make their properties and the forces between them unintelligible. Particles and the objects they form only would have an autonomous, interaction-independent existence, an ‘Über-Universal’ kind of reality if they would have been created by an outside creator, so by treating them as such, we put religion into physics.

Familiar only with a macroscopic world, with objects the existence and properties of which don’t seem to depend on anything, we tend to regard fundamental particles as tiny versions of such objects so we assume them to behave similarly, as if their existence doesn’t depend on anything, as if ‘to be’ is a static state which requires no activity. However, if in a SCU, if at quantum level particles are both the effect and cause of their interactions, if they only exist to one another if and as far as they interact, if their properties are both product and source of their interactions, then ‘to be’ is not a static, passive state but an activity, a verb: in a SCU ‘to be’ ≡ ‘to interact’.

We can distinguish two kinds of interactions: the energy exchange between particles in equilibrium by means of which they express and preserve each other’s properties, and a dynamic kind which appears when the equilibrium is disturbed, leading to a change in their exchange, in the properties they have with respect to each other. Forces between particles are supposed to be transmitted by virtual particles carrying energy: whereas gravity between massive particles is thought to be transmitted by the exchange of gravitons, the electromagnetic force between charged particles is supposed to be transmitted by the exchange of photons. These photons are supposed to become real only when the equilibrium between the particles is disturbed and the frequency they exchange energy at changes, the force between them.

Though the continuous energy exchange between particles by means of which they express and preserve each other’s properties is unobservable as long as they are at equilibrium; if we could cut off their exchange, they would stop to exist to each other as definitely as the picture on a TV screen would vanish when we pull its plug.

In assuming that elementary particles have an autonomous existence, i.e., that their properties are interaction-independent quantities, BBC in fact belongs to classical mechanics. Whereas BBC treats particles as classical objects, i.e., as being only the cause of interactions, in a SCU particles are quantum objects, both cause and effect of their interactions so they would vanish from each other’s universe if we cut off their energy exchange. Though a property by definition is constant, interaction-independent, in a BBU this translates to “not powered by anything”, as if a particle would exist even when isolated from interactions, as if its mass is an absolute kind of quantity.

In contrast, if in a SCU particles create, cause one another so we cannot distinguish particle properties from their expression, their mass from the force between them, between cause and effect, then we cannot regard the (rest) mass of particles as an absolute quantity. If when we measure the mass of a fundamental particle, we always find the same mass, then that is because we measure it in the same conditions, following the same protocol. However useful this approach is in physics, if mass cannot causally precede gravity nor vice versa, if the mass of particles is as much the product as the cause of their interactions, then we can as well say that, according to the particles –unable to perceive distances, to distinguish between mass and force– that the mass they have according to each other, defined as the frequency they exchange energy at, increases as their distance decreases. So though we can say that the mass of particles approximately stays constant as they contract to a star and it is only the force between them which increases, if their energy increases as they do, the frequency they exchange energy at, and energy is equivalent to mass, acting as a source of gravity, we can as well say that their mass increases with respect to each other. So though physics is impossible without distinguishing mass from force and distance, if when particles contract, their energy increases^[6], the frequency they exchange energy at, then from the perspective of the particles, there is mass created as they do.

If in a SCU particle properties only exist within interactions, then only the mass ratio of different particles is an interaction-independent quantity, not the force between them, the mass one particle has according to the other, the frequency they exchange energy at, so here their mass can change without affecting this ratio. In other words: particle species can coexist as long as they can keep the ratio between the frequencies they exchange energy at unchanged by adjusting their distance and motion.

Because in a BBU the particles and objects they form have an absolute kind of existence, we take their existence, their properties for granted, as the cause of events, as starting point for our inquiries and theories instead of making them the subject of our investigations: how they came to have such properties.

A big bang universe only can have a beginning if there’s something outside of it with respect to which it starts, if it lives in a time realm not of its own making, enveloping it. However, as long as nothing changes time can be said to stand still so an imaginary outside clock (showing cosmic time) would for an eternity be in the 00:00:00 position, to start to run only at the bang, and run at some particular, constant pace. The problem is that if there’s nothing with respect to which the pace of time, of our cosmic clock can be compared, then how can the universe be said to evolve at a certain rate at all?

In assuming that it is the same (cosmic) time everywhere, that it passes at the same ‘divine’ pace everywhere, BBC in fact says that time comes for free.

In contrast, as conservation laws say that a SCU has no physical reality as a whole, then it obviously cannot have a beginning in time. If a SCU is to contain and produce all time within, then clocks must be observed to show an earlier time as they are more distant. This they only can if they run slower as they are more distant, if time is observed to pass at a slower rate at larger distances: if a space distance is a time distance.

Indeed, galaxies not only are observed to be in an earlier phase of their evolution as they are more distant, the emission lines in their light are shifted farther to red, so processes at the light source are observed to proceed slower as it is more distant.

In a BBU it is the same time everywhere so the fact that galaxies are observed in an earlier evolutionary phase as they are more distant is explained by saying that it took its light so long to reach us, by interpreting the speed of light c as a velocity, whereas its redshift is understood as caused by their receding motion^[7], by the expansion of the universe. In contrast, as in a SCU it is not the same time everywhere, as a space distance is a time distance, here c isn’t a velocity but a property of spacetime, a number saying how many meter space distance correspond to one second time distance. Though in a SCU the redshift of galaxies doesn’t necessarily indicate a receding motion, a SCU cannot but keep creating mass and energy –which, as will be argued– is accompanied by or is equivalent to, the creation of spacetime, of space and time.

Because a BBU evolves in time, with respect to an absolute clock outside of it, here we can use that clock to determine what precedes what in an absolute sense –which is a prerequisite to be able to speak about a velocity. A SCU contains and produces all time within so here it is not the same time everywhere: it has no such absolute clock, no unique vantage point from where an observer can determine where it is earlier and where it is later in an absolute sense, what causally precedes what. Indeed, if particles create one another, so we cannot really say which of them popped up first, caused the other to exist, in a SCU the speed of light c is not a velocity but a property of spacetime. Though if we if we use light to measure a distance between two points, we measure the time duration between its emission at one point and its absorption at the other, that doesn’t mean that it takes light time to travel: if in a SCU the points aren’t just separated in space, but also in time, then the photon bridges their spacetime distance in no time at all.

This agrees with Special Relativity theory (SR) according to which a clock moving at the speed of light arrives at one point showing the exact same time as it departed at the other: according to the photon itself, its voyage doesn’t take any time at all. As in a SCU a space distance is a time distance, you obviously cannot cross a space distance within a time shorter than the time distance that space interval corresponds to –which is why we say that nothing goes faster than light. This is why all observers, no matter their own motion measure the same ‘speed’ of light c: because it isn’t a velocity but a property of spacetime, i.e., something which is independent from their behavior, though c obviously is a limit to the velocity anything can move at. In contrast, as in a BBU it is the same (cosmic) time everywhere, here a space distance does not correspond to a time distance: only by interpreting c as a (finite) velocity can we explain why clocks are observed to show an earlier time as they more distant.

Though the difference in the interpretation of c as a velocity and as a property of spacetime is very subtle^[8], it also is a very fundamental difference and distinguishes a BBU from a SCU.

As the observed redshift of galaxies in BBC is thought to be caused by their receding motion, following their recession backwards in time (and space), all matter would end up in a single point, which is the origin of the Big Bang hypothesis.

According to this hypothesis, all fundamental particles are supposed to have been created at the bang, all properties, parameters, laws of physics and constants of nature ‘switched on’ at the exact right values from one moment to the next: as if there has been a preceding calculation to calibrate the required quantities needed to actually create a universe which doesn’t immediately disintegrate. However, if nature before it exists cannot calculate how to create itself, then you’d say that particles and particle properties must evolve in a trial-and-error process, that their evolution, their creation is that calculation process in progress. This means that in a SCU the evolution of stars and galaxies is part of the calculation of particle properties, the evolution of particles –which obviously only is possible in a universe where c is not a velocity: the notion of time in SCU is different from that in a BBU.

As in a BBU gravity between clusters of galaxies should slow down their motion away from each other, the rate of expansion of the universe was expected to decrease in time, so the redshift increase with distance should decrease at larger space- c.q. time distances. It therefore came as a big surprise when the distance-redshift relation was observed to be linear –a phenomenon which was interpreted to mean that the expansion of the universe, instead of slowing down in time, seems to accelerate. To explain this, BBC had to dream up a so-called dark energy to power this acceleration^[9].

The problem is that an accelerating expansion requires a continuous creation of (dark) energy, which is at odds with the big-bang hypothesis which was expressly designed to limit the violation of conservation laws –the creation of the universe out of nothing– to a one-off affair: if energy continues to be created, then what do we need a bang for?

If the energy to be created at the bang would be infinite, then the bang cannot be finished within a finite time, so if the universe is to begin with a bang, then the quantity to be created must be finite –begging the question who or what determined the quantity to be created. Obviously, a universe only can have a particular property if there’s something outside of it with respect to which it can have some property: if it has been created by some outside intervention. The (original) assumption that the universe contains a finite, constant quantity of mass and energy dictates us to believe (or is the result of believing) that the rest mass of particles is a constant, absolute quantity: that particles only are the cause of their interactions.

As particles were provided with a certain mass and kinetic energy at the bang, it was the question (before the observations in the late 1980‘s indicating that the expansion doesn’t decelerate, after all) whether the galaxies they formed will keep moving apart forever, whether the universe keeps expanding at an ever-decreasing rate without ever stopping to expand (if it has a critical density and we live in a flat universe), or whether the expansion will change into a contraction:

“… cosmologists were asking why the geometry of the Universe was flat, or at least so close to it. When the density of our Universe was determined to be the value corresponding to a flat universe, or at least a universe close to flat, this appeared very strange to many cosmologists. As time passes and a universe expands, if its density is not exactly the critical density (the value corresponding to a flat universe), it steadily becomes more curved and less flat. If in the first seconds after the Big Bang the Universe had a density that was even slightly more or slightly less than the critical density, then by today the Universe would be very highly curved. In fact, in order for the density of our Universe to be within a factor of ten of the critical density today, the density at one second after the Big Bang would have to be fixed to the exact value of the critical density to within one part in 10⁶⁰. Finding our universe to be flat is like balancing a needle on a table and finding that it hadn't fallen over a billion years later.”^[10]

Apparently, such improbably large numbers were no reason to reconsider the entire big bang hypothesis: as will become clear, such problems don’t rear their ugly head in a SCU.

In a BBU it is the same time everywhere, so here the Cosmological Principle (CP) only requires that the universe should look about the same to all observers, wherever they are and as long as they look at the same cosmic time. In a SCU it is not the same time everywhere, so here the Perfect Cosmological Principle (PCP) applies according to which the universe should also look about the same to any observer whenever he looks at it^[11]. If according to the PCP the universe looks about the same to every observer where and whenever he looks at it, then the redshift of galaxies obviously cannot depend on when the observer looks at it, so we should observe a linear distance-redshift relation.

From an engineering point of view, a universe which is to create itself must invent some kind of stuff which has the tendency to increase, which cannot stop keep (re)producing itself. As will be shown, it is mass which does the trick: gravity isn’t just a property of mass, it powers (or is powered by) this continuing creation and is proof that we live in a SCU.

If according to relativity theory, as seen from outside a gravitational field, events within the field proceed slower as the field is stronger, then random events which increase the field, the mass of its source, tend to be preserved above events decreasing it^[12], so mass indeed tends to increase in time: as it is the contraction of particles which increases the field they find themselves in, the field of their neighbors, particles tend to contract. If ‘all mass is interaction’, and particle interactions in as they contract, then, as will be argued in some detail, there’s mass created as they do.

So instead of saying that particles contract because they have mass –as if mass can precede gravity, if in a SCU their mass is as much the effect as the cause of the force between them, then we can say as well that they acquire mass as they contract.

What’s more, if it is the presence of mass somewhere which makes positions in its vicinity physically different, if we define a volume of space to be larger as it contains more physically different positions^[13], and according to relativity theory a gravitational field is an area of contracted spacetime as seen from outside the field, then the creation of mass, the increase of the field corresponds to the creation of space^[14].

The result is that gravity powers itself, the continuing creation process inherent to a SCU, expanding it, and, in effectuating physical changes, powering time itself: without gravity there’s no time, without time there’s no energy, no mass, no gravity. If a universe is to create itself out of nothing, then this must mean that mass, energy, space and time are intrinsically related, that they define, create one another so one cannot exist without the other. In contrast, a BBU is kitted out with a finite, constant quantity of mass and energy, a finite and fixed number of (real) particles which, blasted apart at the bang, recede from each other as if they move in a mathematical space (a space where all positions are identical except for their coordinates), as if space comes for free and only serves to accommodate particles in, as if though mass does curve space in its vicinity according to relativity theory, it essentially is a property-less, mathematical quantity^[15].

Because in classical mechanics particles only are the source of interactions, here a force is either attractive or repulsive, so any equilibrium between particles is explained as the result of two opposite forces, two different kinds of forces, each necessarily with its own independent source –in which case they never can be unified even in principle^[16]. The problem of having independent, opposite forces is that any equilibrium between particles then is unstable, the more so as the forces are stronger, like in atomic nuclei where we had to dream up a complicated mechanism to explain why the equilibrium is stable after all. In contrast, since particles in a SCU are the product and source of their interactions, of the force between them, a force cannot, of itself, be either attractive or repulsive. If, as will be argued, particles evolve to higher energies as they contract, then the distances at which they are in equilibrium, in atomic nuclei, for example, similarly are the product of that evolution, so here a single force which in equilibrium is as attractive as it is repulsive suffices. It is because of the ‘inclination’ inherent to mass to increase, of massive particles to contract why gravity seems an exclusively attractive force why we believe that any force is either attractive or repulsive –which it only would be if particles only are the cause of forces, if it mass could precede gravity.

If in a SCU particles and particle configurations, their energy and equilibrium distance in nuclei are the product of an evolution, then we don’t need different, independent forces to balance the particles at such distances: a single force suffices, a force which acts attractive when we try to prise them apart and repulsive when we press them closer together.

Though the electric charge of particles is thought to be completely different and independent from mass^[17], if the electromagnetic force between particles, their energy exchange adds to their energy and energy equals mass, then, as will be argued, it is this energy exchange by means of which particles express and preserve each other’s mass. So whereas in equilibrium the frequency of their exchange wouldn’t change in time, as mass has the tendency to increase, it is this tendency we observe as a gravitational force, a force which appears to be exclusively attractive^[18], which, in turn, deludes us to believe that any force, of its own, can only be either attractive or repulsive.

If any property exists only within interactions between particles, as much the product as the source of a process, then any property must have a dynamic character, so the electric charge of a particle is not the static quantity it at present is assumed to be. A property must be a dynamic quantity if it is both cause and effect of interactions –which is why particles have a wave character, something which changes, alternates in time: as will become clear, the charge sign one particle has according to the other refers to their phase with respect to each other.

A universe which has a beginning as a whole necessarily implies it to have been created, caused by some outside intervention, so BBC by definition cannot explain the origin of all matter and energy created. A BBU therefore is like a mechanical toy which, once created, winded up at the bang, only can unwind in a predetermined manner^[19]

In contrast, as a SCU has no beginning, no cause, it cannot be understood in terms of cause and effect: in a universe where particles create one another, they are as much the cause as the effect of their interactions. Though we cannot, at quantum level, analyze events in terms of cause and effect, in a SCU they are far stricter related than causality can account for, than in a BBU.

The flaw of causality is that if we understand something only if we can explain it as the effect of some cause, and understand this cause only if we can explain it as the effect of another, preceding cause, then this either goes on ad infinitum or we end up at some primordial cause which, as it cannot be reduced to a preceding cause, cannot be understood by definition, so either way, causality ultimately cannot explain or prove anything^[20].

So whereas a BBU cannot be understood as any attempt strands at the mythical Big Bang, a SCU has no such problem as it has no cause by definition, as it doesn’t even exist as a whole.

As in a SCU particles create, cause each other, they explain each other in a circular way, so here we can take any element of an explanation, any link of the chain of reasoning without proof, use it to explain the next link and so on, to follow the circle back to the assumption we started with, which this time is explained by the foregoing reasoning^[21].

If particles create one another, and the mass of a particle, the forces on it are greater as they are more equal from all directions, then mass preferably is created at the mass center of the particles it owes its energy to, so this self-creation process automatically produces a uniform mass distribution, so a SCU necessarily is a homogenous, isotropic universe. In contrast, as big bang mechanics doesn’t produce such homogeneity, BBC had to dream up a Cosmic Inflation scheme to correct for this, which, like the dark energy it needs to ‘explain’ the linear distance-redshift relation of galaxies, is quite a far-fetched, artificial ‘solution’ to a non-existing problem.

Though a SCU is less photogenic, ‘Hollywood-sensational’ than a BBU, it is a much more interesting universe as, unlike a BBU, it actually can be understood rationally, be it not causally: unfortunately, we confuse causality with rationality.

As I was interested in the general mechanics and principles of how a universe may create itself out of nothing, to get a rough idea how things might work, to see whether its creation even can be understood rationally, I haven’t tried to quantify things in equations. Though this certainly needs to be done to promote this narrative to science, I do suspect that physics, and especially quantum field theory, has most of equations already even if this study may change the interpretation of some of them or even help simplifying them.

As this study is a work in progress so pieces of the puzzle are still falling into place, I tend to elaborate on subjects in one chapter which are only introduced and argued properly later in the text, so the sequence sometimes gets mixed up. As new insights develop when working on one part, I cannot at once correct or adapt related, preceding (and later) parts in the text, making it harder for the reader to follow, flaws for which I apologize but which I cannot remedy on short notice.

If my own experiences when working on this study are anything to go by, then I expect the reader to encounter some serious difficulties:

to introduce a new way of looking at things, to think in a new manner about them is not unlike trying to explain color to someone who perceives the world in black-and-white;

so to understand it –to learn to see the world in color, so to say– readers must familiarize themselves with all essential parts which only together make a SCU work;

because they separately may seem too preposterous to even consider, the reader needs to be able and willing to suspend his disbelief;

which takes a lot of effort as his thinking will tend to slip back in the old, familiar tracks, like the needle on a scratched record keeps repeating the same parts, the same dogmas over and over again, a mantra confining his thinking to the truth as it is approved of by Big Bang Cosmology instead of allowing his mind to roam the new vistas this survey opens.

I’d very much like to know if you can appreciate what I’m trying to –and help to improve this text by pointing out errors, inconsistencies and experimental evidence which may contradict (or confirm) my propositions, so comments and questions are welcome at:

anton@quantumgravity.nl

Anton Biermans, Eindhoven

Notes

1. ↑ First quote from "Principles" (c. 1950), quoted in Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992) by James Gleick; last quote from The Character of Physical Law (1965) Ch. 6
2. ↑ See Interpretations of quantum mechanics
3. ↑ Though many physicists believe that the total energy of the universe is nil, they still regard the universe as an object which has particular properties and evolves as a whole –which pretty much contradicts the gist of that belief.
4. ↑ Because we’re only familiar with the visible, i.e. macroscopic objects of our world, objects the existence of which doesn’t seem to depend on anything, we assume that the particles they are built out of similarly just exist, as if, once created, they stay created without this requiring any activity or maintenance. However, if in a SCU particles only exist to each other if they interact, if they express and preserve their properties by interacting, if they are as much the product as the source of their interactions, then it are these continuous interactions between the particles they’re made out of to which macroscopic objects owe their seemingly inert existence to. Though at macroscopic level ‘to exist’ deceptively appears to be a static state, at quantum level ‘to exist’ is ‘to interact’, so here the particles, their properties can be regarded as the numbers of the sum which is to stay nil. Whereas macroscopic objects obey causality, their behavior described by classical mechanics, if in a SCU particles are both effect and cause of their interactions, then, as will be argued in some detail, causality doesn’t apply at quantum level –which is why physicists, confusing causality with rationality, are still bewildered by quantum phenomena.
5. ↑ or what we call antiparticles are not in all respects the exact mirror particles from the ‘regular’ ones. Similarly, if there cannot be some particular minimum distance or quantum of energy in the universe, then the Planck constant h cannot be the minimum quantum of energy it at present is believed to be, nor can the associated Planck length be a minimum distance. As will be argued, the Planck constant only separates energy levels: if at higher temperatures or energies the energy gap between successive (discrete) energy levels decreases and there’s no limit to the energy a particle can have, then there’s no minimum energy gap, though the width of gap of course always is a discrete quantity, however small. If, as is customary in physics, h in calculations is put unity, then every time we improve the accuracy of our measurement and add a further decimal to h, we in fact increase the power of our microscope with a factor 10. The fact that there can be no clock, yardstick or kilogram weight outside the universe to compare inside quantities with, already implies that h cannot be an absolute kind of quantity but must be a ratio –which it is indeed: a conversion factor relating energy and time. The fact that according to conservation laws, the universe cannot have any particular property as a whole, is equivalent to the Cosmological Principle (CP) which says that no point in the universe can be more unique than any other.
6. ↑ which it does according to the Uncertainty Principle (UP)
7. ↑ an effect known as the relativistic Doppler effect
8. ↑ Though it is impossible to experimentally prove whether it is a velocity or just a property of spacetime, a conversion factor, the best ‘proof’ I can think of is showing the inconsistencies of a cosmology where c is a velocity, or by showing how flabbergasting quantum phenomena like the EPR paradox and the double-slit experiment only are comprehensible when we stop interpreting c as a velocity. Just like a yardstick often has both centimeter and inch graduation marks, converting inches in centimeters and v.v., a yardstick to be used by physicists should have both centimeter and picosecond graduation marks to prevent them from confusing c with a velocity.
9. ↑ To power this ‘accelerating’ expansion, the universe should contain as much as 18.5 times dark energy than the energy visible in the form of galaxies and (intergalactic) gas. In most scenarios the density of dark energy is supposed to be constant, so it is not ‘diluted’ as the universe expands.

   ”It's fair to say that the theoretical physics community is, at least for the time being, entirely baffled when it comes to dark energy. It is not the fact that dark energy exists that is so confusing to us –that can easily be understood within the context of quantum theory. Instead, the thing that appears to be so inexplicable is the quantity of dark energy present in our Universe. … Dark energy and matter are, as far as we understand them, completely unrelated phenomena. … A simple version of the calculation, including only the known particles of the Standard Model, finds that there should be a whopping 10¹²⁰ times more dark energy than the quantity we observe.”

   Dark Cosmos, Dan Hooper (2006) P 174 – 175
10. ↑ Dark Cosmos, Dan Hooper, P 194
11. ↑ That is, as long as conditions at the observer –such as the strength of the gravitational field– are comparable and the observers are physically similar. Though a SCU then is a kind of Steady State Universe (SSU) where matter keeps being created, it certainly is not Fred Hoyle’s steady state universe. Hoyle not only fails to give any explanation about the origin of this continuing creation, it suffers the same flaw as a BBU as it is thought of as something which has properties as a whole, as an object which but for practical difficulties can be inspected from the outside.
12. ↑ Since a reverse process leaves no traces, we perceive events to follow one time direction rather than the other, which is why there’s an ‘ arrow of time’.
13. ↑ the distance of a massive test particle to the massive object affects its own energy, the frequency it exchanges energy at
14. ↑ –which from within the field of one contracting cluster is observed as an increase of the distance to a neighboring contracting cluster, a distance increase which, as will be argued, is misinterpreted as proof that their mass decreases as they contract.
15. ↑ Though the uncertainty principle is interpreted to say that empty spacetime is filled to the brim with virtual particles, if they are distributed uniformly over space so their presence is a property of spacetime, then they obviously cannot cause positions to physically differ, affect things and curve space.
16. ↑ In present physics a force is either attractive or repulsive, so here what appear to be different forces are assumed to be equally strong at the so-called Grand Unification Energy (GUT). However, if at the GUT energy, at an extremely high temperature, they still are different kinds of forces, either attractive or repulsive, if these apparently different forces only can balance each other if they each have their own, independent source, then we haven’t unified them at all. Unification means that the different phenomena we associate with different forces ultimately can be understood as the result of single force or interaction which, depending on the scale, situation or on the particular degrees of freedom involved, gives rise to different kinds of phenomena.
17. ↑ If in that case it would be impossible to unify electromagnetism and gravity, if charge and mass really would be independent quantities, then these forces would not be able to exist within the same universe.
18. ↑ If the contraction of particle clusters creates distance between them so they recede from one another, as if they repulse, then gravity similarly is both attractive and repulsive.
19. ↑ If so, then we would live in a Laplacian universe:

    “We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.”

    Pierre Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities, translated from the 6th French edition by F W Truscott and F L Emory, Dover Publications (1951) pp.4
20. ↑ Because we’re only familiar with the visible, i.e. macroscopic objects of our world, objects the existence of which doesn’t seem to depend on anything, objects which, as they appear to obey causality, we can call classical objects, we assume that the particles they’re built out of similarly just exist, as if, once created, they stay created without this requiring any maintenance. However, in a SCU particles cause one another, if ‘to exist’ is ‘to interact’, then at quantum level we cannot divide events in causes and effects, so the macroscopic objects they form may appear to obey causality even if their particles don’t.
21. ↑ That is, if our reasoning is sound and our assumptions are valid. If we have more confidence in a theory as it is more consistent and it is more consistent as it relates more phenomena, makes more facts explain each other and needs less additional axioms, less more or less arbitrary assumptions to link one step to the next, then any good theory has a tautological character, fitting a self-creating, self-explaining universe. The circle of reasoning ought to work equally well in the reverse direction.

2 The ambivalence of energy

Nature’s trick to keep the grand total of everything inside the universe nil, is to design energy as a quantity which is neither positive nor negative but both, as something the sign of which alternates in time: the greater the frequency ν of the alternation, the higher the energy E of the particle^[1].

Interference ( double-slit-) experiments with light indeed show that there’s no net energy liberated when two identical photons annihilate, so a photon is its own antiparticle, or, interpreted as a wave phenomenon: its energy is as positive in one phase as it is negative in the next. However, if the source cannot have lost any energy by emitting the annihilating photons and if this means that it hasn’t even emitted them, then the source must know in advance in what directions an emission will fail. Indeed, if the particles of the light source exchange energy with all other particles in the environment, including those of the experimental setup, then the source at all times knows in what directions it can successfully get rid of some energy^[2]. So the fact that the energy, the frequency of a particle always is a positive number doesn’t mean that energy is itself a quantity which is either positive or negative.

If mass and energy are two manifestations of the same thing, then mass similarly must be a quantity which is neither positive nor negative, implying that the sign of the rest energy of a particle alternates at a frequency equal^[3] to its rest energy. If a massive fundamental particle then also is a wave phenomenon, we should find the same kind of interference pattern if we use electrons instead of photons in the double-slit experiment –which we do indeed^[4]. What is surprising, however, is that even if the electron gun in the double-slit experiment shoots the electrons one at a time we get an interference pattern, as if a single electron goes through both splits and interacts, interferes with itself. However, if the electron is connected to all particles it exchanges energy with, and on nearing the slits, the environment it interacts with splits into two only partly overlapping particle collections, then these somewhat different worlds both affect the electron’s path. So whereas electrons in an electron beam mainly interfere with each other, a solitary electron is interfered with by the two more or less separated environments it owes its energy to^[5].

If energy is a quantity which is greater as its rate of change is greater^[6], and its rate of change (dE/dt) varies within every cycle, then it depends on when and how long we look at a particle what energy we find it to have. If we take the time Δ t we look at it to be much smaller than the period of the wave, then the energy we find it to have, its rate of change, will vary from zero to some maximum value proportional to the frequency it alternates its sign: the higher its frequency, the greater the variation in its energy is, that is, in its rate of change. If according to the uncertainty principle the product of the indefiniteness Δ E in the energy of a particle and that in the time Δ t it has that energy, then the uncertainty principle actually is equivalent to the Planck relation which defines energy in terms of time. If a higher energy of a particle means a greater variation in its energy, then that doesn’t mean that its energy is less definite as it is higher: if a frequency only can be higher as it is more regular, as all periods are more exactly of the same length, then a higher energy is a less indefinite energy –which is contrary the present interpretation. For reasons which will become clear, in this text the energy of a particle is defined to be less indefinite as it is higher: the variation in its energy doesn’t refer to an uncertainty in the energy of a particle but instead is a measure of its energy^[7].

If energy is a quantity which is greater as it is less indefinite, then mass also is a quantity which is greater as its magnitude is less indefinite. So if we substitute m for the energy E of the particle and x for t, then the uncertainty principle states that the mass of a particle is greater as it is less indefinite, as its position is less indefinite –which is to say, as it is confined to a smaller area, as it is more strongly anchored in all directions by the energy exchange with all particles within its interaction horizon, particles it owes its mass to. As in a BBU a particle only is the source of interactions, its rest energy fluctuates about its textbook value due to the random emission and absorption of virtual particles: though according to the uncertainty principle the deviation in its energy lasts shorter as it is greater, this doesn’t explain the wave character of the particle. However, if energy is a quantity equal to its rate of change, then the mass of a particle varies in every cycle between zero and some maximum value: as the particle in every cycle exchanges all of its energy with its environment, if in a SCU particles owe their energy to each other, to this exchange, here the wave character of massive particles is self-evident.

If the rest energy of a particle varies within every cycle, then so does the indefiniteness in its position: whereas in a BBU the particle only is the source of its interactions so here the indefiniteness refers to the uncertainty about where it is, if in a SCU its mass varies at a frequency corresponding to its rest energy, then so does the area corresponding to the indefiniteness in its position, the ‘size’ of the particle, so to say. Whereas the particle in a BBU always can be localized somewhere, as if it is a tiny (or even infinitesimal) ball, in a SCU its ‘size’, the area corresponding to the indefiniteness alternately expands and contracts at the frequency corresponding to its rest energy (if at rest). In a BBU we can find the particle anywhere, as a whole, with all its properties at maximum strength, so to say, be it that the probability to find it somewhere decreases with the distance to its ‘home base’: as it is shorter present somewhere at larger distances, its interactions or their effects are weaker at larger distances from its home base. In contrast, as particles in a SCU express and preserve their properties by continuously exchanging energy, they already are present everywhere, affecting the behavior of the particles they owe their properties to. So though in a SCU the mass center of the particle remains at the same place as long as it rest, as a measurement interaction affects its position, we cannot predict where it will be detected. Since the indefiniteness in the energy, momentum and position of a particle varies within every cycle, we cannot predict in what phase it meets a probing particle (the energy, momentum and position-definiteness of which similarly varies) we use to localize it, and hence how and where they interact, where we find the particle. Though we cannot predict the result of a measurement if the interaction affects the quantity to be measured, if we repeat the same measurement many times over, we find (and can predict) a probability distribution of results corresponding to all possible phases they may meet in.

If at higher energies, the particle for a shorter time repeats the phases corresponding to lower rates of change, lower energies, relative to its higher energy phases, then the probability to find it within a smaller area is higher as its rest energy is higher^[8]. If in every cycle the energy of a particle, its rate of change for a short time is zero –the higher its (rest) energy, the shorter that period, so its position for that time is completely indefinite, then it can reappear and start its next cycle at a distance from its previous position corresponding to that period times the speed of light –which is why it can ‘tunnel’^[9]. The lower its rest energy, the longer the time its energy is zero or very small, the greater the area is where all positions are physically equal to the particle, the greater the distance it can bridge in that time, the less indefinite its position is.

Whereas a massive particle in classical mechanics only is the cause of interactions, it is a tiny pellet with wave-like properties (the origin of which remains unclear), in a SCU it is a wave phenomenon showing particle-like behavior. In a SCU it is a (mobile) area of spacetime where the definiteness of positions in a wave-like manner varies in space and time: according to an observing particle in that area positions (in radial directions toward its center) differ in space, energetically, the extent of the difference varying in time with a frequency which decreases farther from the center of the area. Its particle-like properties consist of its inertia, its opposition to an acceleration, and of the resistance its gravitational field offers to a penetration by other particles as the field slows down in time events inside of it, thereby giving it the tangibility we associate with pellets^[10].

Notes

1. ↑ According to the Planck Relation E = h ν where h is Planck’s constant. Though the uncertainty principle is often interpreted to say that a violation of the law of conservation of energy is allowed for a shorter as the violation is greater, it is this ‘violation’ which actually produces time. So if as a particle pops up out of the vacuum, its energy increases –the faster it increases, the higher its energy is, then according to the UP this phase is alternated with an equally fast energy decrease, as if to undo the effects of its popping, it just as hard pops out of existence. However, if to really exist, it needs something with respect to which it has energy, then it doesn’t borrow its energy from the vacuum, but from neighboring particles which start their cycle in an opposite phase, with a negatively increasing energy, so to say, so particles can, by alternately borrowing and lending each other the energy to exist, express and preserve each other’s existence. As time only passes in a world which doesn’t repeat the exact same state again and again, if time is to keep passing, the world to keep evolving, then this requires the frequency of this exchange between particles to change, which boils down to mass having the tendency to increase, which is why gravity seems to be an attractive force.
2. ↑ Though the finite light speed may seem to throw a spanner in the works if after the emission of the photon, the intended receiver moves out of the path of the photon, as will be discussed in detail in a later chapter, in a SCU the speed of light isn’t so much a velocity but rather a property of spacetime, a number which says how many meters space distance correspond to one second time distance. If when both the state of the source and receiver of the photon change by the transmission, then to the source, the receiver changes at the time it emits the photon, whereas to the receiver the source only emits the photon at the time it absorbs the photon. As the source and receiver are separated in space, they are separated in time so they disagree about the time of the transmission. However, if according to the CP, no observer is more unique than any other, then they both are right about the time of the transmission. Whereas in a BBU it is the same (cosmic) time everywhere, in a SCU every observer sees clocks run slower, showing an earlier time as they are more distant, so here it is not the same time everywhere. It is because the observed pace of events varies linearly with the distance that a space distance is a time distance, that we measure a duration for the transmission. As there’s no such clock outside a SCU, here we cannot determine what in an absolute sense precedes what, what is cause of what so we cannot really say that the emission of the photon at one place in an absolute sense precedes its absorption elsewhere –which it does in a BBU. According to the photon its emission and absorption coincide in time. Though any observer measures the transmission to take a time equal (c = 1) to the distance between the source and the receiver, whereas in a BBU this duration refers to the voyage of the photon, in a SCU it refers to the spacetime distance between the source and the receiver, so here the photon bridges any spacetime distance in no time at all. If the particles involved in the emission exchange energy with the particles of all possible receivers, then the receiver is involved in the emission process.
3. ↑ In this text, c = 1 = h
4. ↑ Yes, this indeed means that a massive fundamental particle likewise is its own antiparticle, though as they owe their mass to their energy exchange with all other particles, two identical particles usually don’t meet each other in counter phase to annihilate, act as each other’s antiparticle. If any two particles exchange energy at a single frequency so their energy sign flips at the same time, then they don’t see the sign of the other particle alternate at all –discussion to be continued.
5. ↑ If as particles exchange energy, they exchange information, then this may explain the phenomena described in hidden variable theory.
6. ↑ E = dE/dt = d²E/dt²= … (except for a phase shift = sign change), so energy is a truly fractal quantity.
7. ↑ If we take Δ t small enough, we only find Δ E to have very different values if the particle has a high energy: the variation in the energy Δ E of a particle with a low energy doesn’t increase if we decrease the time Δ t we look at it. The point is that as a low energy means that its position is less definite, its distance in space and time to the observer, then so is the time we look at it: if in a SCU time is observed to pass at a slower pace at larger distances, then the time Δ t we look at is longer.
8. ↑ If a particle in every cycle repeats lower energy states, rates of change, and a muon (a heavy electron) for example, for a short time in every cycle actually has the energy of an electron, looks like an electron, then this makes it easier to understand why fundamental particles can decay to other particles or appear to have a mixed identity.
9. ↑ quantum tunnelling
10. ↑ If the energy of the particle, its rate of change varies within every cycle, then so does the strength of its gravitational field, the physical difference between positions in its vicinity, with the result that an intruding particle periodically is ‘kicked’ away –which can be associated with the momentum of the ‘kicking’ particle, a momentum which therefore likewise varies and alternates its direction within every cycle. Since one has chosen with a less indefinite momentum to mean a smaller momentum (or rather, a smaller rate of change of its momentum), a momentum which is smaller farther from the particle’s center, the uncertainty principle here says that a smaller, less indefinite momentum goes together with a less definite position of the particle, Δ x Δ p = constant. Whereas a classical particle only has a momentum if it moves, a quantum particle even has momentum when it is at rest. In the classical picture where the (point-) particle is the source of its properties, it moves in its entirety within the area corresponding to the indefiniteness in its position, so here it only has an momentum if it moves. Here the uncertainty principle says that the smaller the area the particle is confined to, the less definite, the higher its momentum is, the higher its velocity is within the area it is confined to. As it moves faster as the volume it is confined to is smaller, alternately decelerating, changing its direction of motion to accelerate again, in this view particles by colliding confine each other within a finite volume, so an object consisting of massive particles doesn’t collapse, is tangible. In the quantum picture the object doesn’t collapse as a decreasing of the distance between particles is accompanied by a higher exchange frequency, which as this requires pressure, energy, doesn’t happen spontaneously.

3 Mass and space / energy and time: a definition based on the uncertainty principle

It seems reasonable to define the indefiniteness in the position of a particle as greater the less it matter to nature whether it exists, when it is where, as its mass is smaller: the smaller it is, smaller the force it feels and exerts, the weaker its interactions are, the less energy it takes to displace it, the larger the area it can be found in, the less definite its position is.

If particles express and preserve their mass by exchanging energy, then they tend to anchor each other at such positions where their exchange frequency is the same in all directions: the greater the mass of a particle, the higher the frequency it exchanges energy at, the greater the force it takes to displace it from such equilibrium position.

As the force it takes to accelerate it is greater as its mass is greater^[1], it is obvious to define the mass of a particle as greater as its position is less indefinite, as it is anchored stronger within a smaller area: the less indefinite its position is (or the position of the mass center of an object) the greater its mass is and vice versa.

The same holds for energy: the smaller the energy of a photon, the smaller the effect of its transmission is, the less it matters to nature whether it is transmitted and how large its energy exactly is. The lower its energy, the longer its wavelength^[2], the less definite the time at which a wave crest or trough passes some point, the less definite its wavelength is, its energy, the less definite the distance is between the particles the photon is transmitted between.

As a smaller mass is a less definite mass, the mass or energy of a particle also can be defined as smaller the less definite it is^[3].

Since we cannot push harder against an object than it pushes back^[4], the forces on a particle only can be stronger as they are more precisely equal from all directions. The greater the forces on a particle are, the more equal they must be from all directions, the smaller the area is where they are more exactly equal, the less indefinite its position is, the more energy it takes to displace it, the greater its inertia is, its opposition to an acceleration.

The force between two particles changes more per unit distance as their distance is smaller, so a distance is less indefinite as it is smaller: the smaller or less indefinite their distance is, the higher, the less indefinite the frequency is they exchange energy at, the stronger the force between them is, the greater the mass one particle has according to the other. The smaller the mass of two particles is and/or the farther they are apart, the less definite their mass and/or distance is, the lower, the less definite their exchange frequency is.

The result is that their exchange frequency shifts to red at larger distances even if they are at rest with respect to each other, so they see one another’s clock run slower as they are farther apart, agreeing with a SCU where, if it is to contain and produce all time within, clocks must be observed to run slower as they are more distant. As processes at a light source are observed to proceed slower as it is more distant, the redshift in the light of galaxies should increase linearly with their distance –which is observed indeed.

We can measure the distance between two identical particles, so we can, from the force and distance between them calculate their mass, that is, distinguish between mass and force, a distinction which is very useful in physics. A particle only can ‘observe’ another particle by interacting with it: though their exchange frequency depends on both the mass of the other particle and their distance, as it cannot ‘measure’ their distance, it cannot distinguish between the mass of the other particle and the force it exerts, mass from its effect.

As this study tries to find out how their world might look to the particles that form it, in this text ‘mass’ and ‘force’ often are used interchangeably: as in a SCU the mass of particles is as much the source as the product of the force between them, they are interchangeable after all. If the mass of particles is powered by interactions, then their mass –the mass one particle has according to the other– increases with the force between them.

Though we may be aware that ‘all mass is interaction’, in practise we still regard the mass of a particle as something absolute, as a privately owned property it received at its creation, as something which doesn’t depend on anything and therefore cannot change. However, as there’s no standard mass outside the universe to calibrate, to measure off the exact quantity of mass different particles are to receive at their creation, we can only speak about the mass ratio between different particles, not about their absolute magnitude. As in a BBU all particles have been created by some outside intervention, here they have an absolute kind of existence, an ‘Über-Universal’ reality, so to say, so here their mass similarly is an absolute quantity, only the source of interactions and hence is finite and constant. This is different in a SCU: though we say that it is the force between particles which increases, not their mass, if the force becomes infinite at an infinitesimal distance then the particles must somehow have an infinite supply of energy to their disposal to power that ever-increasing force –in which case their mass would actually be infinite. If, on the other hand, their mass is a potential quantity the realisation, the expression of which depends on their interactions, then that is the same as saying that their mass is as much the product as the source of the force between them. So whereas in a BBU a particle and its mass are absolute quantities which but for practical reasons can be observed even from without the universe, in a SCU a particle, its mass is a relative quantity so here we can only speak about the mass ratio of particles, a ratio which can remain unchanged even though the force between them, the mass they have according to each other changes. The point is that if in a SCU the mass of particles is both cause and effect of the force between them, then we cannot distinguish a property from its expression like we (think we) can in a BBU, the mass of a particle from the force it feels and exerts.

Evidently, if the force between particles is both the product as the source of their mass, then the force between them cannot be either attractive or repulsive, so in an equilibrium state the force between them is as attractive as it is repulsive. Whereas in a BBU any equilibrium between particles is thought to be an equilibrium between two different kinds of forces, two opposite forces each with their own independent source, as will be argued, in a SCU any force is ambivalent, as attractive as it is repulsive.

If particles nevertheless contract to clusters, then that is because according to relativity theory, a gravitational field slows down events inside of it as seen from without the field, so any motion of the particles leading to an increase of the field, of the mass of its source, tends to be preserved above a motion decreasing it, so in a SCU mass tends to increase, to keep creating itself, and, in doing so, powering time itself. As will be discussed in some detail, this gravitational contraction is accompanied by a distance increase between the contracting clusters so gravity also is an ambivalent ‘force’.

If particles express and preserve their mass by exchanging energy, powering the force with which they anchor each other to the positions they act from, then gravity between them obviously cannot exceed the force which keeps them at those positions, their inertia, their opposition to a displacement, so the mass of an object obviously equals its inertia.

W Rindler, in Relativity: Special, General and Cosmological ^[5]:

“Although inertial mass, passive gravitational mass and active gravitational mass are conceptually distinct, no experiment has ever unambiguously demonstrated any difference between them. In classical mechanics, Newton’s third law implies that active and passive gravitational mass must always be identical (or at least proportional), but the classical theory offers no compelling reason why the gravitational mass has to equal the inertial mass. That it does is merely an empirical fact. Albert Einstein developed his general theory of relativity starting from the assumption that this correspondence between inertial and (passive) gravitational mass is not accidental: that no experiment will ever detect a difference between them. However, in the resulting theory, gravitation is not a force and thus not subject to Newton’s third law, so the equality of inertial and active gravitational mass [...] remains as puzzling as ever. In General Relativity [GR] two of Einstein’s concerns merged: gravity as an aspect of inertia, and the elimination of the absolute (that is, uninfluenceable) set of extended inertial frames. The new inertial standard is spacetime, and this is directly influenced by active gravitational mass via the field equations. Yet in the total absence of mass and other disturbances like gravitational waves, spacetime would straighten itself out into the old family of extendend inertial frames. Einstein was equally quite willing to drop that idea, and so shall we. The equality of inertial and active gravitational mass then remains as puzzling as ever. It would be nice if the inertial mass of an accelerating particle were simply a back-reaction to its own gravitational field, but that is not the case.”

Indeed, only in a BBU, in a world where particles only are the cause, the source but not the product of their interactions, where a force is either attractive or repulsive, this equality remains a mystery: in a SCU this equality is too self-evident to even be noteworthy.

Physics at present presumes the existence of two kinds of particles associated with mass: the hypothetical graviton which is supposed to transmit gravity between masses, and the equally hypothetical Higgs boson the existence of which is postulated to give all other particles their mass^[6]. Like virtual photons (are assumed to) transmit the electric force between charged particles, massive particles are supposed to transmit gravity between them by exchanging gravitons. However, if the mass of a particle decreases as it emits a photon and the mass of the absorbing particle increases as much, then the photon has effectively transported mass. If the photon transmission changes the mass of both particles and hence the force they exert and feel from all particles within their interaction horizon so the photon does the job the graviton is supposed to do, then what do we need gravitons for? Though the photon is supposed to transmit force between electric charges and the graviton between masses, as will be argued in a later chapter, the charge sign of particles refers to the sign of the energy one particle has according to the other and is a relative quantity: our present idea of charge as a static quantity is antiquated and urgently needs to be updated.

If particles express and at the same time preserve each other’s mass by exchanging energy, then what would we need gravitons and Higg’s particles for? Do we really believe that nature is so inefficient as to create mass-challenged particles, to subsequently dream up Higgs particles to provide them with mass and thereafter create gravitons to communicate, to express that mass?

Leon M. Lederman^[7]:

“So Higgs is great. Why, then, hasn’t it been universally embraced? Peter Higgs, who loaned his name to the concept (not willingly), works on other things. Martinus Veltman, one of the Higgs architects, calls it a rug under which we sweep our ignorance. Sheldon Glashow is less kind, calling it a toilet in which we flush away the inconsistencies of our present theories.”

.

The question is what happens to the mass of a particle when we remove it from the position it is anchored at, from the neighbors it owes so much of its mass to? By moving it to an empty region of spacetime, far from other masses, we decrease the force it feels and exerts, and make its position less definite so its mass as expressed in interactions, the frequency it exchanges energy at decreases as we do. However, if the particle is to conserve its rest energy, then as seen from its mass center, the frequency it exchanges energy at must remain the same. This it can do by contracting its gravitational field: if the particle contracts its gravitational field as it is removed from other masses so its field gradient increases, and as seen from outside the field, a clock inside of it runs slower as the field is stronger, then as seen from the particle’s mass center, according to the particle’s slowed-down clock, the frequency of its exchange remains unchanged, so according to the particle itself its mass is conserved.

However, in this case the indefiniteness in its position doesn’t so much refer to the position of its mass center within the mass distribution of particle, on its mass, but rather to its whereabouts^[8]. Whereas a particle in an early phase of its evolution, as long as its mass is small, can be thought of as a more or less diffuse mass distribution^[9], the position of its maximum energy density ill-defined, this is different for particles in a later phase of their evolution when their mass is much greater, for the real particles which make up our world.

If in empty space, far from other masses, the position of the particle is ill-defined, then it cannot be at rest, so it will accelerate towards the nearest mass as soon as we release it. In other words, on transporting the particle away from where it was anchored to empty space, we add energy to it, a potential energy which, once we release it, sets it in motion.

Notes

1. ↑ Newton’s 2nd law: F = m a with F the force applied, m its mass and a its acceleration.
2. ↑ The rest energy of a particle can be expressed as a frequency, ν and as a wavelength λ, related as λ = c / ν where c is the ‘speed’ of light, a number which says how many meters space distance correspond to one second time distance
3. ↑ Though at present the energy of a particle is said to be less definite as it is higher, it will be argued that in many cases it is the other way around.
4. ↑ Newton’s 3rd law: action ≡ reaction
5. ↑ 2nd edition, end of section 1-14
6. ↑ though it remains unclear where the Higgs particle gets its own mass from or how an ‘empty’ particle which before it has mass or any property at all, can have enough reality to interact with the Higgs boson to acquire that mass and how it can decide how heavy it will be.
7. ↑ In The God Particle (1993), p 375
8. ↑ As in a BBU the mass of the particle doesn’t depend on anything, only is the cause of its behavior, the present interpretation of the uncertainty principle concerns only its whereabouts, and hence treats the particle as something which has a definite position and impulse, and only limits our knowledge about both. Whereas in a BBU these quantities don’t depend on anything, in a SCU they do, among other things, on the observer –as Schrödinger's cat corroborates.
9. ↑ A particle is not something which has a border, a surface separating some content (mass) from its effect, its field.

4 Self-creation

Locking arms

If as seen from outside a gravitational field, events inside of it are observed to proceed slower as the field is stronger, then (the effects of) random events increasing the mass of its source tend to be preserved above events which decrease its mass, so particles tend to contract to clusters: by increasing their energy, gravity actually powers time itself. A BBU, however, lives in a time continuum not of its own making: according to the big-bang hypothesis, all fundamental particles have been created at the same event, at the same time, so here the universe exists and evolves as a whole, with respect to some imaginary ‘outside clock’, so it looks different at different ages. That we see a galaxy in an earlier evolutionary phase as it is more distant, is because it takes its light so long to reach us, so we see it as it was in a distant past. In contrast, a SCU can have no beginning nor can it evolve as a whole: as things only can evolve with respect to each other, an observer at all times sees galaxies in all possible phases, so all observers will always see a similar universe, no matter when they live and look at it^[1]. As there’s no clock outside a SCU, we cannot even ask what precedes what in an absolute sense, so we cannot say that fundamental particles causally precede stars and galaxies: in a SCU we can say that particles create one another, their properties as they form stars and galaxies as much as the other way around. In a SCU all observers see clocks run slower, showing an earlier time as they are more distant so if every observer is at the center of his own universe so the universes of different observers only overlap partially, they don’t share the exact same time continuum, so a SCU doesn’t even have an ‘inside clock’, a cosmic time all observers agree upon. Though a SCU cannot, as a whole, evolve or ‘move’ in one time direction rather than the other, we experience time to pass in one direction like someone living in the mountains moves up with the mountain as it keeps getting higher: that we rise doesn’t make the valley disappear as it keeps deepening at the same rate. So whereas in a BBU the early evolutionary phases eventually will vanish from the universe, in a SCU these early states keep being produced, the valleys keep ‘deepening’ as we rise with the mountain^[2].

If particles only exist to each other as far as they exchange energy, the frequency of which increases as they contract, increasing the force between them, the mass they have according to one another, then they create each other(’s mass) as they near each other from infinity. In a linear universe (or ignoring what happens in the other space dimensions) like this:

D-----C------------A----B---------------------------P---Q---------R

the energy exchange C ↔ A and D ↔ A contribute to the force between B and A (as do D ↔ B and C ↔ B; P, Q, R ↔ A and P, Q, R ↔ B) so C and D are represented in the interactions between A and B. As the position of A is less definite according to D than it is to C or B, the exchange A ↔ D proceeds in longer wavelengths than the C ↔ A or B ↔ A exchange. If the wavelength of their energy exchange is a measure of the indefiniteness in the position one particle has according to the other, of the size of the area where they locate one another, then B locates A in a much smaller area than D does, but, as the position of A and B also are affected by their exchange with C, D, P, etc, which is affected by their behavior, their motion, there is a probability for B to find A in the larger area where C or D locate A. As all exchanges contribute to the definiteness in the energy and position of a particle, the probability to find it somewhere is determined by this superposition of (in)definitenesses (For how waves add, see the superposition principle).

If a lower, less definite exchange frequency is associated with a less definite position, a lower, less definite energy of the observed particle, then particles see each other in an earlier evolutionary phase of their evolution as they are farther apart. The farther apart they are, the earlier the evolutionary phase they see each other in (at an earlier time according to their own clock), the slower they see each other evolve, at a much lower pace than ‘the same’ particle is observed to oscillate and evolve by a near neighbor. The evolution of particles then proceeds from having a more or less virtual character as their energy is lower, the effect of their existence is smaller, to become more real as their energy increases: the more particles contact within a smaller volume, the higher the frequency they exchange energy at, the less indefinite their position and energy becomes, the more stringent they have to obey physical laws, the more real they become. Robert B. Laughlin:

”By far the most important effect of phase organization [for example, a phase transition of a gas to a fluid or solid] is to cause objects to exist. This point is subtle and easily overlooked, since we are accustomed to thinking of solidification in terms of packing of Newtonian spheres. Atoms are not Newtonian spheres, however, but ethereal quantum-mechanical entities lacking that most central of all properties of an object –an identifiable position. This is why attempts to describe free atoms in Newtonian terms always results in nonsense statements such as their being neither here nor there but simultaneously everywhere. It is aggregation into large objects that makes a Newtonian description of the atoms meaningful, not the reverse. One might compare this phenomenon with a yet-to-be-filmed Stephen Spielberg movie in which a huge number of little ghosts lock arms and, in doing so, become corporeal. For this to occur, their number must be stupendously large.”^[3]

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Indeed: particles only become real when they ‘lock arms’, when they keep locking arms, that is, when by starting to exchange energy, they start to exist to each other. So whereas in a BBU particles contract because they for unknown reason have provided with mass at the big bang, mass which has the strange property to make particles contract, in a SCU their mass is as much the product as the source of their contraction.

Space and mass

An infinitesimal mass of particles physically is equivalent to an infinite distance between them even if they would sit on the head of the same pin, though this they won’t likely do as to a particle of infinitesimal mass all positions in space are equal physically: the smaller its mass, the less one position differs from the other, the less it can have a predilection for one particular position, the less definite its position is. As the force between particles, the mass one particle has according to the other depends as much on their mass as their distance so a particle cannot distinguish the effect of one from the other, then mass and space, distance to some extent are equivalent, interchangeable quantities. The lower the energy of a particle, the longer the wavelengths it exchanges energy at, the less we can determine when/where a wave crest or through passes some point, where the particle is and what its energy exactly is, the smaller the effects of its existence are. The more distant it is and/or the smaller its mass is, the longer its wavelength is, the slower it oscillates, the earlier the evolutionary phase we see it in and the slower it evolves. If at smaller energies its position is less definite and it is observed to be in an earlier phase, evolving more slowly, then a particle of an infinitesimal mass can be said to have always existed and will always keep existing everywhere, though the effects of its existence also are infinitesimal, so we cannot really determine whether it does exist or not. If the creation, the evolution of particles proceeds at a slower pace in earlier evolutionary phases, as their mass is smaller, then we might say that it is time itself which takes a long time to ‘get up to speed’ so to say, for a particle and its universe to take shape. This is in contrast to big bang cosmology which tries to make believe that you can have time start from one moment to the next, at full speed, without there being something with respect to which time starts, a universe to begin. Big bang hypothesis is but modern –but nevertheless religious– version of Genesis: in regarding the universe as an object which has properties as a whole, properties which change in time, a time not of its own making (as if the passing of time comes for free) it is a religious hypothesis as it implicitly states that the universe was created by some outside Artificer.

As the force between two particles changes less per unit length as they are farther apart, a distance is less definite as it is greater and/or their mass is smaller, as their exchange frequency is smaller. The lower this frequency, the less definite their distance is, the larger it is, the less one position differs energetically from the other, the less defined spacetime is to the particles, the earlier the evolutionary phase they see each other and the slower they see each other evolve, the less what happens at one particle affects the other, the less their universes overlap, as if the laws of physics which rule events at one place are less compulsory or applicable elsewhere, the less so as they are farther apart^[4]. Being the product and source of their interactions with everything in their environment, two particles would be identical if their universes coincide: the smaller their distance is, the less indefinite it is, the higher the frequency they exchange energy at, the more the frequencies they oscillate at converge to the same value, the stronger they force each other to behave identical, to obey more strictly the same physical laws, the more they become identical.

The farther apart two particles are, the less definite their distance is, the lower, the less definite the frequency they exchange energy at, the less definite the information they exchange, the less definite the properties of the other particle are, the earlier the evolutionary phase they see each other in, the slower they see each other evolve. If the same happens to their exchange frequency when they recede from a short distance at a high velocity, then a large distance to some extent is equivalent, indistinguishable from a high receding velocity^[5]: the higher the receding velocity or the greater the distance of the observed particle, the less we can distinguish its velocity from its distance. If we cannot distinguish the effect of distance from that of the receding velocity of a particle (or light source) so distance and a receding motion to some extent are equivalent, then this suggests that spacetime itself has an ‘inclination’ to expand^[6], just like mass has the ‘lust’ to increase, so to say, a growth which is related to the expansion of space, and hence to the ‘inclination’ of time to proceed.

If the mass of a particle or cluster is greater as the forces on it are stronger, and forces can be stronger as they are more exactly equal from all directions, that is, as it is more exactly at rest with respect to all objects it exchanges energy with, then mass is preferably created at rest, or rather, at the mass center of all objects owes its mass to, in proportion to their contribution to its mass. This mechanism automatically produces a uniform mass distribution in a SCU, so it looks about the same in all directions and from every point in the cosmos as the CP requires. In contrast, big bang mechanics leads to a heterogeneous universe, so to explain the observed isotropy and homogeneity, we had to dream up a cosmic inflation scheme to achieve the same result, the flaw being that it doesn’t offer any explanation about the origin of the energy needed to power the inflation, nor how the universe knows when to start and stop inflating^[7].

If particles contract to clusters so the frequency they exchange energy at increases, then so does their mass and the mass of their cluster: as the force on a particle from the center of its own cluster only can increase if it increases as much from the opposite direction, from neighboring clusters, clusters only can contract in concert, if they contract everywhere. Whereas seen from the mass center of a particle, the force it feels and exerts, the frequency it exchanges energy at is equal in all directions^[8], so the particle owes its mass as much to is own cluster as to the force between the clusters. However, as its exchange frequency is blueshifted in the direction of the cluster’s center and redshifted in outwards direction, an outside observer ignoring Newton’s action = reaction law, would say that the force on the particles is stronger from the cluster’s center than it is from the opposite direction, as if the mass of particles only is the cause of their contraction –which we only assume because we believe in the big bang fairy tale according to which the mass of particles is a constant, interaction independent quantity^[9].

So as the cluster contracts, the force on and from any of its particles increases equally from all directions, the forces being stronger in all directions nearer the cluster’s center. If the force between the particles within a cluster only can increase if the force, the energy exchange between the clusters increases, then the contraction of particles within clusters can only proceed if the clusters contract to cluster of clusters etcetera. Whereas in a BBU particles pop up ready made and causally precede galaxies and clusters of galaxies, in a SCU particles evolve as they contract to stars, galaxies and clusters of galaxies, so the formation of galaxies affects their evolution. Though an exponential inflation may have homogenized the particle distribution in a BBU, their contraction would lead to a random distribution and size of galaxies and clusters of galaxies, as in a SCU the mass of galaxies, clusters and supercluster depends on their distance and vice versa, their distribution should be more regular, show scale invariance, which it does indeed^[10].

In a BBU the redshift in the light of galaxies can only be explained as the effect of their receding motion, so if we follow their motion back in time, all matter and energy comes together within an infinitesimal point at some time in the past. Obviously, if the universe doesn’t exist as a whole, if by definition there’s nothing outside of it with respect to which it can have particular properties, if everything inside of it has to cancel, add to nil, then it doesn’t make any sense to speak about a beginning, a size or age. Unfortunately, the present misconception that the universe does have a beginning, a size and age has consequences for how we conceive of space and time. In a SCU, according to the proposed mass definition, galaxies are shifted farther to red as they recede faster from us, but also if they are more distant even when at rest, so here we cannot unequivocally determine the cause of their redshift. Whereas in a BBU the motion of galaxies is supposed to have been caused by the kick their particles got at the bang, supplemented with some mysterious dark energy, in a SCU the expansion of spacetime is the consequence of the continuing creation of massenergy. In a SCU the radius of the interaction horizon of a particle^[11] increases as it evolves to a higher energy, so the size and age of its universe depends on its own energy, in contrast to a BBU where all particles have the same birth date. Because a BBU, evolving as a whole with respect to some imaginary outside observer, lives in a time domain not of its own making, following that evolution backwards in time we end up with the end of the entire universe, shrinking to an infinitesimal point, popping out of existence at the gnaB giB. In contrast, as a SCU doesn’t exist as a whole, nor lives in an external time continuum, we cannot follow ‘its’ evolution in any time direction: here things at one place/time only evolve with respect to things at other places/times, so if we want to follow events in backwards time direction, we have to choose an observation point, an observing particle within the universe and follow its ‘devolution’ to lower and lower energies. Evidently, as its energy (exchange) decreases, so does the energy of all particles within its interaction horizon, so though its universe vanishes as its energy becomes infinitesimal and it stops to exist itself, this is not the end of all other objects. In other words, in a SCU all particles live in their own universe, so the universes of two particles never completely coincide, so they don’t have the same ‘birth date’ –between quotation marks as, unlike a BBU, they don’t pop up from one moment to the next with all their properties at full strength, but are the product of a lengthy evolution. The assumption that the universe as a whole has a finite, constant energy^[12] leads to an infinite energy density at the bang, referred to as a singularity: as forces are infinite, incalculable, we simply say that the laws of physics aren’t valid at the bang. In contrast, in a SCU there are no singularities so all physical laws always hold: singularities only appear in a universe where particles only are the cause of forces, in a universe has been created by some outside intervention, where the laws of physics are commandments handed down from ‘above’. In a SCU the laws of physics evolve together with the particles the behavior of which they rule: if different particle species only can preserve their properties by following certain rules of behavior, about how to move and what distances to maintain with respect to each other to enable them to keep existing to each other, then the evolution of particles is the evolution of the laws ruling their behavior.

Though the concept of mass as an autonomous, conserved quantity is indispensible in physics, in regarding mass as an absolute, objective quantity the size of which doesn’t depend on anything, we discard its tendency to increase: if it is this tendency which powers events in nature, we find a mare's nest if we dream up explanations to make up for this ignorance.

By regarding mass as an absolute quantity, as something the magnitude of which doesn’t depend on anything, we turn spacetime similarly into a quantity which similarly doesn’t depend on anything and hence cannot be explained Since in a BBU particles have been given their mass for free at their creation, spacetime also is thought to come for free, so in this view mass and space are unrelated, independent quantities, even though gravity between particles does depend on their distance.

However, if particles only can distinguish between positions if they differ physically, if their position, their distance affects their exchange frequency, the mass one particle has according to the other, and we define a volume of spacetime as larger as it contains more physically different positions and it the mass of an object which makes positions differ in its vicinity, then the creation of mass is the creation of spacetime. As in a BBU the mass of particles is not a function of their behavior, here there’s no relation between their mass and the space they find themselves in, to the rate of expansion at the bang. Though the expansion should slow down under the influence of gravity between the clusters of galaxies they eventually formed, this is not observed. To explain the observation that the velocity the clusters recede from us doesn’t decrease in time but remains proportional to their distance at all distances/times, following Hubble’s law, we had to postulate the existence of dark energy to counteract their gravitational attraction so they can keep accelerating away from one another. If this dark energy is distributed uniformly over spacetime, if its density is property of spacetime, then the expansion of the universe requires a continuing creation of energy. A violation of conservation laws, this is at odds with the big bang tale which especially was designed to limit such violation –the creation of something out of nothing– to a one-off affair: after all, what do we need a big bang for if energy keeps being created anytime, anywhere? So because in the bog bang scenario we stripped the mass of particles from its inclination to increase, we have to invent dark energy to make up for it. Peter Woit^[13]:

“ … 70 percent of the energy density of the universe seems to consist of dark energy, a uniform energy density of the vacuum (the cosmological constant). … What is the origin of the vacuum energy density and how can one calculate it?”

If the mass of particles is an interaction-independent, constant quantity, only the cause of interactions, then gravity between galaxies should slow down the expansion of the universe: since we observe an accelerating expansion, we have to invent dark energy to explain this acceleration, just to maintain our belief that mass is only is the cause of events. So though this hypothetical dark energy is designed to cause the desired effect, explain observations, once we step into the cause-and-effect carousel, for any explanation we make up, we need to dream up another, preceding cause. We invented this vacuum energy as an autonomous quantity which itself doesn’t depend on anything as it only had to cause the desired effect. The drawback is that if its existence and density doesn’t depend on anything, if it is a property of spacetime, something which can be observed even from without the universe, so to say, then it can never can be explained itself, let alone be calculated. The advantage of a SCU where it isn’t very useful to try to distinguish causes from effects is that particles and fields don’t have the autonomous –and therefore inexplicable– existence they have in a BBU.

The Planck constant

If a particle owes its properties to all particles it exchanges energy with, to everything within its universe, its interaction horizon, then two particles would be identical at the same point in space and time as their universes then would coincide, be identical. As their exchange frequency would become infinite at infinitesimal distance, it would require an infinite energy to put them on top of each other, so two massive particles cannot be at the same point in space and time^[14]. If when particles contract, their universes increasingly coincide, become more identical, then they become themselves more identical, so the frequencies they exchange energy at converge to within a smaller frequency range, to a more equal, higher value. Though energy comes in discrete quanta^[15], if the frequencies particles oscillate, exchange energy at converge to within a smaller frequency range if more particles contract within a smaller volume, and there are more energy levels within a unit energy range at higher energies, at higher temperatures, then a particle cluster heats up as it contracts. The more particles contract within a smaller volume, the more identical they become, the more their frequencies converge to a higher value, within a smaller frequency range, the more decimals are needed to express the difference in their energy, the higher, the less indefinite their energy is, the higher, the less indefinite the temperature of the cluster is. This is why the peak of the blackbody radiation spectrum of an object (indicating the frequencies it exchanges energy at) shifts to higher frequencies, within a smaller frequency range as its temperature is higher.

When a particle cluster contracts, then so does its gravitational field, spacetime in its vicinity. However, instead of saying that a pre-existing, elastic quantity of spacetime gets sucked in and is contracted, accumulating near the cluster, if it is the increasing mass density of the cluster which makes positions in its vicinity more different energetically, and a volume of spacetime is larger as it contains more physically different positions, then there’s spacetime created as the cluster contracts. Mass, a gravitational field then is an area of contracted spacetime: if we could from outside the field of a black hole observe a photon traveling toward the hole, then we would see the photon decelerate as it nears the hole, even though its velocity remains unchanged according to a local clock and ruler, within the field it moves in.

The smaller the rest energy of a particle is, the less definite its energy is, the less definite its position is, the more all positions are equal or the less defined spacetime is to the particle, the earlier the evolutionary phase it observes its universe to be in, the ‘younger’ it is itself. The smaller the mass of particles is, the less definite their position is, the greater the area which corresponds to the indefiniteness in their position, the less they can be distinguished from one another, the more homogeneously they are distributed over spacetime, the less they can be distinguished from the environment they are supposed to be in, the more all positions are equal to the particles, the less defined their position can be, the smaller, the less definite their mass is … So if spacetime is, looks more exactly the same everywhere as the particles are distributed more homogeneously, as their mass is smaller, and we define spacetime as being larger as it contains more physically distinguishable positions, then spacetime expands at the rate mass is created, as particles contract to clusters and clusters of clusters. To a particle with a higher energy the ‘same’ environment looks different: the higher its rest energy, the higher the frequency it exchanges energy at with other particles, the higher their rest energy is according to the observing particle, the greater its universe is. The higher its rest energy, the greater the radius of its interaction horizon, the less indefinite spacetime is to the particle, the later the evolutionary phase it observes its universe to be in, the ‘older’ it is itself, so particles with a different energy live in universes which only partly overlap. If the universe of particles expands as their rest energy increases, as they contract to clusters, then their contraction, the creation of mass is the creation, the expansion of spacetime: by defining mass in terms of space, we obviously define space in terms of mass.

The heavier and more compact the clusters are, the sharper, the more abrupt the field strength changes and the nearer to the clusters it changes abruptly, and the smaller, the flatter the field gradient becomes in the area beyond and in between the clusters. The flatter the field gradient somewhere is, the more equal energetically all positions are to a particle, the less it can express its mass, be at rest, have a definite position from which to oppose the contraction of the clusters. So by contracting the clusters also make the area in between inhospitable to massive particles, facilitating their further contraction: whereas spacetime becomes more defined nearer the clusters as they contract, spacetime becomes emptier in between, less defined. The more massive and compact the clusters are, the emptier spacetime is in between, the more it acts like an energy barrier to massive particles, the higher their velocity must be to cross it: the flatter the field gradient, the emptier spacetime is, the stronger it repulses masses. As the mass of particles increases as their cluster contracts so their position becomes less indefinite, the energy barrier separating them raises as well, their ‘repulsion’, their opposition to a further contraction, so gravity (that is, the energy exchange between masses powering their mass, the force between them) indeed is an ambivalent force. Though a gravitational field by slowing down in time events inside of it, favors a mass increase of its source above a decrease, so seems to act like an exclusively attractive force, we can as well say that ‘flat’, empty spacetime between masses, in opposing the penetration of massive objects, acts as a repulsive force.

In contrast, in a BBU the contraction of particles to stars and galaxies is just a redistribution of prefab, ready-made particles, of already existing masses over a mathematical kind of space, so here the expansion can only be explained by assuming it to be caused, set in motion by some big-bang kind of event, or be powered by some mysterious kind of (dark) energy. As in a BBU the properties of objects don’t depend on their location, spacetime is conceived of as something which comes for free, unlike a SCU where spacetime is a physical quantity which is created and ‘paid for’ by the creation of massenergy, a spacetime which contracts at places, ‘thickening’ to something which looks, acts like mass, and expanding in between.

According to the Uncertainty Principle, the energy content somewhere cannot be zero and stay nil, its rate of change be zero, so space cannot be and remain completely empty. The UP therefore is thought to mean that spacetime is filled to the brim with virtual particles, particle-antiparticle pairs and photons which continuously appear out of the vacuum, to disappear again after a time inversely proportional to their energy. Since the UP associates a higher energy with a smaller volume, their energy would be higher as we look at smaller scales: though this vacuum energy^[16] should have notable gravitational effects, none are observed.

Gerard ‘t Hooft:

“Veltman … was not to be convinced that what we call empty space perhaps is filled to the brim with invisible particles. He would persist for a long time that he thought this incredible, and he even went swinging with the stick which would beat the theory to a pulp. For shouldn’t al these particles in empty space betray their presence by their gravitational field? You can establish a theory in such a manner that this gravitational field exactly is compensated by other invisible particles or by a mysterious contribution of empty space itself. How nature manages to mask the gravitational effects of invisible vacuum particles so completely that we don’t notice any effect, is a mystery which still is very much in the spotlight. As far as I’m concerned, this problem has to be postponed till we understand the theory of gravity better.”^[17]

Our problems again come from insisting that the mass of particles only is the cause of events: if in a SCU their mass is product and source of gravity between them, if their mass only is as great as can be expressed as gravity and this depends on where they pop up, then so does the energy of the virtual particles. If their mass is smaller as their position is less definite, which it is farther from masses, then they can less act as a source of gravity where spacetime is less defined, as it is emptier: the less definite their position is, the less they can act as a source of gravity.

So instead of saying that for energy to be a source of gravity, to act like mass, it must have a position to act from, we can as well say that for a particle to express its mass, to have mass, it must have a well-defined position –which is impossible in empty spacetime. Since the position of particles is less indefinite near masses, where the gravitational field is stronger, the energy of virtual particles, like the price of real-estate, depends on the location, on where they pop up: they are, in fact, part of the gravitational field, of the mass of its ‘source’^[18]. At present these virtual particles are thought to be distributed uniformly over space and not to change in time, as if their energy, their appearance and disappearance is unrelated to their location, as if their presence, the energy density is an inherent property of spacetime itself. It also is assumed that the energy of virtual particles increases as we look on smaller scales: the more powerful our ‘microscope’ is, the more violent the phenomena we expect to find, as if a large volume can contain less energy than every one of its infinitesimal volumes.

“ … quantum physics predicts that all of space must be filled with electromagnetic zero-point fluctuations (a.k.a. the zero-point field) creating a universal sea of zero-point energy. The density of this energy depends critically on where the frequency of the zero-point fluctuations cease. Since space itself is thought to break up into a kind of quantum foam at a tiny distance scale called the Planck length l_P (~10^-35 m), it is argued that the zero-point fluctuations must cease at the corresponding ν_P. If that is the case, then the zero-point energy density would be 108 orders of magnitude greater than the radiant energy at the center of the Sun.”^[19]

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Since we’ve decided that the energy of a particle cannot be negative, the summing of the energy of these virtual particles results in a problematic high vacuum energy. However, energy is not a quantity which is either positive or negative, something which exists outside interactions, independent from mass: if, as argued, the sign of the energy virtual particles alternates, then their energy adds to nil if we account for their energy sign. The presence of virtual particles only is noticeable near masses because here their oscillation, their energy exchange is more coordinated so near masses the virtual particles behave more like real ones than they do in empty spacetime –if we may call a particle to be more real as its energy is higher, the impact of its existence, as its universe is larger. If the energy density depends on where we look –the higher it is somewhere, the more defined, detailed space is –and vice versa, then we find the highest energy density at the center black holes^[20] and the lowest at the center of supervoids, in empty spacetime, far from masses. On the other hand, if empty space offers a stronger opposition to a massive particle trying to penetrate it as it is emptier, as positions over a larger area are more equal energetically, then we can also say that the energy of empty spacetime is greater as it contains less mass. If, in contrast to a BBU, in a SCU energy has no autonomous existence, apart from mass, if mass and energy are the two sides of a single coin, then it doesn’t even make sense to ask whether the particle is repulsed by empty spacetime or if it is attracted by mass.

Though the uncertainly principle may imply that spacetime is filled to the brim with virtual particles, it doesn’t say anything about a relation between their energy and their location: the problem is that we believe that their existence is unrelated to anything, as if they only can cause effects, power events, but are not themselves produced, powered by interactions. As a result we conceive of spacetime as something which is the same everywhere, as if its nature is unrelated to its inhabitants, to their mass, as something which comes for free and exists even without the presence of mass, but, according to relativity theory, nevertheless is affected by mass, which is quite contradictory. If the energy of particles only is as great as is expressed as gravity, then the gravitational ‘effects’ of virtual particles indeed are observed: in the gravitational field of real objects, so their distribution over spacetime is not homogeneous, contrary to expectations. Alternatively, if in a SCU a clock is observed to run slower as it is more distant, then the lifetime of virtual particles is observed to be longer, their energy to be smaller as they are more distant: if a spacetime area contains less energy as it is observed from a larger distance, if the energy of virtual particles as observed by a real particle depends on its own energy, then the energy density of spacetime is a relative, observer-dependent quantity. The present contradictions arise from our habit to look at things as if from outside the universe, from regarding particle properties or the energy density of spacetime as interaction-independent quantity, from treating the universe as an ordinary object.

If the energy of a particle, its rate of change varies within every cycle, then so does the definiteness in its position, the extent to which spacetime is defined, detailed, the extent to which positions differ physically in the area where we locate the particle, so a massive particle is a mobile modulation of spacetime. If we can only speak of spacetime if different coordinate positions differ physically –which it only is in the near and far neighborhood of mass, if in a universe without mass, to a traveler there would be no space nor time distance between different coordinate points, then it’s clear that spacetime is a dynamic quantity, its nature intrinsically related to mass^[21]. In contrast, as in a BBU particles are the private, mortgage-free owners of their mass, here mass is a static, interaction-independent quantity, so particles shouldn’t show any wavelike behavior, nor should spacetime be affected by mass. Believing particles to be the source of forces, we’ve come to think of them as tiny marbles, which, curiously, show wavelike behavior, whereas it actually is the other way around: what we call a particle is a wave phenomenon showing particle-like behavior. If a gravitational field is an area of contracted spacetime and as seen from outside the field of a particle time passes slower inside of it, then a probe penetrating the field is observed to slow down, as if spacetime becomes more viscous, ‘object-like’ nearer the center of the particle, and, in opposing any intrusion, giving it the tangibility associated with macroscopic objects, classical ‘marbles’. Another mechanism contributing to its tangibility is that when we try to pick up the particle, confining it to a smaller space, we make its position less indefinite, whereupon it reacts by moving faster within that space, resulting in a counter force upon our ‘fingers’, whereas its inertia is powered by its energy exchange, anchoring it to some position in space.

A particle then is an area where the definiteness of positions in a wavelike manner varies in space and time: as much the source as the product of its exchange, it has no surface separating cause and effect, so to say, no border in space or time separating some content from its environment, properties from their expression, so there’s no sharp line where the particle ends and space, its environment begins^[22].

The usual, classical interpretation of the uncertainty principle goes something like this: If we use a photon of a wavelength λ to determine the position of a particle, then we know its position with an accuracy of about Δ x ∝ λ. Since we don’t know how much of its momentum the photon transfers to the particle, the indefiniteness in its momentum in the same direction is Δ p ∝ 1 / λ so the product of both indefinitenesses is Δ x Δ p ≥ some constant. As a particle at present is believed to be only the cause of interactions, its rest energy to be a constant, positive quantity, we assume it to exist at all times somewhere for 100%, so in this view the indefiniteness in its position only refers to an uncertainty about where it is, to the probability to find the complete particle somewhere, as if it is the exact same object at all times, no matter the time scale we look at it, so we in fact treat what essentially is a quantum object as a macroscopic object, as classical marble. However, if in a SCU energy is a quantity which is greater as its rate of change is greater and this rate varies periodically, within every cycle, then so does the definiteness in the position and momentum of the particle. If we take the indefiniteness in its position as a measure of its size or energy- and momentum distribution, a distribution which affects the nature of spacetime, the extent to which it is defined, then the area where we locate it alternately contracts and expands, as does the spatial distribution of its energy and momentum, as if the particle is a localized tide phenomenon in, of spacetime. In contrast, in the present, classical interpretation the definiteness in position and momentum refers to the whereabouts and velocity of the complete particle, as if it is an inert kind of marble the properties of which aren’t affected by anything^[23]. Since the definiteness in the energy and position of particles varies within every cycle, we cannot know in what phase they are as they meet, interact^[24], so we cannot predict the results of any individual experiment, though if we repeat the same experiment many times over, we find a probability distribution of all possible interaction results.

The Uncertainty Principle, in its formulation Δ E Δ t ≥ some constant, says that the energy of a particle cannot have some definite value and remain constant, so its energy is supposed to fluctuate about its ‘textbook’ value ( expectation value): the greater the deviation from this value is, the shorter it lasts. This is linked to the fact that the energy of massive particle decreases (increases) as they emit (absorb) virtual particles to transmit the force between them: since the particles are believed to be only the cause of events, the emission and absorption of virtual particles is thought to be a random, spontaneous phenomenon so their energy fluctuates about its expectation value. Though the energy deficit or surplus last shorter as it is larger, it is unclear why this should be if they only are the source of their emissions and not also the product of what they absorb.

Whereas in a BBU this exchange is thought to be a random process so the energy of the interacting particles fluctuates about its expectation value, but essentially is conserved, as if the exchange is merely a kind of hobby, be it a mandatory one, in a SCU particles alternately borrow and lend all of their energy, at a frequency equal to their energy, so here their energy exchange is the sine qua non of their existence. So whereas particles in a BBU have an autonomous, unassailable, interaction independent existence, as if created by some outside creator, in a SCU they in every cycle create and ‘un-create’ each other over and over again: if we could cut off this exchange, they’d pop out of existence, as definite as a picture on a TV screen vanishes when we pull the plug. Only if we recognize the crucial importance of their energy exchange to their existence can we appreciate how physical laws evolve and are communicated, how particles to survive, to keep exchanging energy, to preserve their energy, force each other to behave according to the same rules of behavior: it is this continuing exchange which knits together the different points in space to a spacetime continuum, to a physical spacetime. However, since we believe that spacetime, that the universe can have properties as a whole, many physicists believe that there exists a minimum distance in the universe, the so-called Planck length l_P:

Gerard ‘t Hooft:

“The most radical view [...] is that space and time only exist as a separate set of points; particles can only be at those points but not in between. Actually, this would be the most logical interpretation, for ‘quantum fluctuations’ would ensure that all points where particles can be automatically stay at least one Planck length apart. But it isn’t that easy, for how do we then explain how these points are related to form the known space and time?”^[25]

.

Though particles indeed can only be at rest relative to one another when separated a half-integer times the wavelength they exchange energy at^[26] and energy is quantized, that does not mean that there is an absolute minimum distance all particles (have to) observe. As argued above, like there is no absolute minimum energy quantity, there likewise is no minimum distance all particles have to obey: the higher their energy, the frequency they exchange energy at, the smaller their minimum distance can be. After all, if according to conservation laws the universe can have no particular properties as a whole, then there can be no unique minimum distance or energy quantity. However, in believing that there is such an absolute minimum distance, in believing that particles only are the cause of interactions, we separate their properties from those of spacetime so both remain incomprehensible.

Our mass concept ignores the fact that ‘all mass is interaction’: in ascribing particles an interaction-independent mass, in considering them to be only the source of forces, the cause of interactions, we isolate the particles, mass from spacetime, as if spacetime is made of some stuff which though it is curved by mass, nevertheless contains other ingredients which are impervious to gravity –which is like being somewhat pregnant. In this view spacetime only serves to accommodate particles, reducing them to fremdkörper in a sterile environment, as if spacetime comes for free and shouldn’t be affected by anything.

Martinus Veltman:

“In Einstein’s theory of gravitation space and time play an overwhelming, dominant role. The movement of matter through space is determined by the properties of space. In this theory of gravitation matter defines space, and the movement of matter through space then is determined by the structure of space. A grand and imposing view, but despite the enormous authority of Einstein most physicists no longer adhere to this idea. Einstein spent the latter part if his life trying to incorporate electromagnetism into this picture, thus trying to describe electric and magnetic fields as properties of spacetime, trying to incorporate electromagnetism into this picture, thus trying to describe electric and magnetic fields as properties of spacetime. This became known as his quest for a unified theory. In this he never really succeeded, but he was not a man given to easily abandon a point of view. However, this view became subsequently untenable, because next to gravitation and electromagnetism other forces came to light. It is not realistic to think that these can be explained as properties of spacetime. The era of that type of unified theory is gone.”^[27]

.

This, however, only holds if the apparently different forces cannot be unified, if they each are powered by their own, independent source, in a BBU, not in a SCU. As in a BBU particles only are the cause of forces, a force is either attractive or repulsive, so to explain any equilibrium between particles we need two different, opposite forces: two independent forces, forces which therefore never can be unified even in principle. Though we speak about electric and magnetic forces, the equivalence principle allows us call any force which brings to expression the inertia, the mass of an object, “gravity”, no matter whether the force is generated by a magnet, an electric current, by accelerating it or by the presence of another mass. If ‘all mass is interaction’, if all forces contribute to the energy exchange between objects, to the mass they have according to each other, then Einstein’s credo that mass and space define each other still holds:

“It would be unsatisfactory, in my opinion, if a world without matter were possible. Rather, the gμν-field should be fully determined by matter and not be able to exist without it.”^[28]

.

Whereas in the above quote matter and spacetime still are thought of as separate quantities, later this evolves into the suspicion that mass itself is a state of spacetime:

“The vision that animated Einstein throughout his later years –a vision I had many an occasion to discuss with him– was a vision of a totally geometric world, a world in which everything was composed ultimately only of spacetime.”

^[29]</blockquote>.

If spacetime has a uniform energy density^[30] which doesn’t change in time, if it is an intrinsic property of spacetime, then it’s hard to see how it can affect itself, how it can cause its own properties to change, its nature. Whereas in a SCU particles create one another, explain each other in a circular way so their properties are self-explanatory, in a BBU particles were caused into existence by something else, something unrelated to their properties so they are interaction-independent. To explain particle properties in a BBU we need to find out why, by what they were created, something which to understand, we in turn need to find the origin of, an origin which also has to be traced back to some cause, a cause which ad infinitum must be reduced to a preceding cause, so I expect every day now someone to invent a new field plus associated particle to explain the Higgs field/particle which was invented to explain particle masses. Unlike a SCU which is a tautological, self-explanatory universe, a BBU cannot be understood ad fundum: in fact, the era for that type of explanation, for causality is over.

Unification; particle properties and physical laws

Forces, properties or ‘charges’ which really are independent can be said to be orthogonal (= perpendicular to each other). The ‘space of flavors’, for example, can be thought of as a 5-dimensional space with five perpendicular axes, each representing a flavor: sweet, bitterness, sour, salty and umami. Like no flavor can be composed out of (or annihilated by) any combination of the other four, we cannot unify different forces if they really are independent, if no rotation or manipulation can turn one dimension or flavor into the other.

Though the three space dimensions are orthogonal and can be associated with different conserved quantities (‘flavors’), they are not independent if they are symmetric, if one dimension by rotation transforms into another, i.e., if the laws of physics are the same to all observers, no matter their motion, when, where and in what direction they look^[31].

If energy is something which varies, equal to its rate of change, then the energy exchange between particles is the propagation of this periodic variation in spacetime, the direction of which alternates at the frequency of the exchange, or proceeds in both directions at once as a wave crest (through) passing a point in one direction is physically indistinguishable from a wave through (crest) passing that point in the opposite direction. If energy as it is exchanged between particles, alternately is converted into mass and back into energy again, if the sign of the charge of particles refers to their energy sign so varies at the frequency they exchange energy at, then their energy exchange is the propagation of a periodic change in the electric field associated with that ‘charge’. So if a propagating variation in an electric field generates a (variation in the) magnetic field, and the vectors of both fields are perpendicular to each other and to the direction the particles exchange energy at, an exchange by means of which they power and express their mass as a force between them, as gravity, then these different fields are aspects of the same thing. If the different fields are interwoven to such an extent that one cannot exist without the other, one generating the other, then they can have no autonomous sources, no separate, independent electric, magnetic and mass ‘charges’. In a SCU these fields are the different, inseparable aspects of a single phenomenon, mass and charge emerging in the interplay between the fields, the energy exchange between particles, as much the product as the source of their interactions. If nature is to use all degrees of freedom three space and one time dimension allow, then particles must be able to distinguish different directions of motion and spin directions relative to each other, if these different spin directions and directions of motion have different, distinguishable effects on their exchange frequency, so the existence of electric and magnetic fields is the consequence of a four-dimensional universe^[32].

As in a BBU particle properties only are the cause of interactions, the different forces each are powered by different, independent kinds of ‘charges’, charges the magnitude of which doesn’t depend on anything, so here forces cannot be unified even in principle, so trying to unify them is trying to fit square pegs in round holes. Only in a universe where particle properties are both source and product of their interactions can we unify what appear to be different forces. To understand how what appear to be different forces are related, or how a single, ambivalent force can give rise to different phenomena, we must find out how particles evolved to their present properties, though if this is a trial-and-error process, it may be impossible to predict their masses from first principles, This opens the possibility that particle masses are different elsewhere, a possibility which is referred to in multiverse theories: if the universe cannot have specific properties as a whole, then this may forbid unique particle masses.

The problem seems to be that, though ‘all mass is interaction’, we nevertheless conceive of mass as an absolute quantity, as something which doesn’t depend on anything, as something the magnitude of which can be measured even from outside the universe, so to say. If any two particles exchange energy at a single frequency^[33], and we may call this frequency the mass they have according to one another, a frequency which depends on the mass of both particles, their distance and relative motion, then a single particle is observed to have a different mass to different observers, in which case the problem of unique masses disappears. Alternatively, if mass has the tendency to increase so particles evolve from an infinitesimal energy in more or less discrete or violent fits and starts to ever-increasing energies and there is no limit to the energy they evolve to, then particles do run through all possible masses in the course of their evolution, so in this sense they indeed don’t have a unique mass, or only temporally.

Most theoretical physicists believe that

“ … there is a single set of simple underlying laws that describe how the universe works, and these laws are uniquely determined. There are no extra parameters that determine the theory; once one gets the right idea about what the laws are, there are no additional numbers that one needs to specify in order to write them down.”^[34]

.

As particles in a SCU are source and product of their interactions, we cannot distinguish the properties of particles from their expression, from their behavior, cause from effect like we can in classical mechanics: it is this ‘elasticity’ between noun and verb, so to say, which is the reason for the uncertainty principle. Instead of saying that the mass of one particle is less expressed as a force at another particle as they are farther apart, that the same laws apply everywhere, anytime, we might as well say that, if in a SCU particles are as much the product as the source of their interactions, they are more different qualitatively as their universes overlap less, as they are farther apart. In a SCU two particles only are exactly identical if they sit on top of each other, if their interaction horizons coincide, if universes are identical, so may say that they become more different as they are farther apart. The less their universes overlap, the more their properties differ, the less they can affect each other, so in this view either their properties or the laws ruling their behavior varies with their distance. Alternatively, as distances and the properties one particle has according to the other become less definite as they farther apart is smaller, we can say that the physical laws coupling their behavior are less compulsory when they are farther apart: the smaller their distance, the more stringent they obey the same laws, the more they force each other to behave according to the same rules. The fact that the CP requires that the universe looks about the same to all observes, when and wherever they look at it, doesn’t exclude the possibility that the mass ratio of particles varies from place to place, though if so, it should vary consistently, i.e., in such a way that its values are recoverable by some transformation. In other words, though violins may be tuned slightly different elsewhere, if we travel to listen to them, we should on arrival find the same tuning as we did at home, so such differences only exist when observed from a distance^[35].

If any two particles exchange energy at a single frequency, then the question is whether they ‘see’ each other as identical particles –even though the magnitude of that frequency may be different to both particles as it also depends on their own mass. As a particle is a superposition of many interactions, it has different ‘identities’: all particles it exchanges energy with have a hand in steering its motion and contribute to its properties. Instead of saying that the particle preserves its energy by moving in such manner that as seen from its mass center, it exchanges energy equally in all directions, at the same frequency, we can as well say that it is forced to move as it does by all other particles as a deviation from its path would affect their energy. As the mass, distance and motion of these particles all affect its exchange frequency we can understand its properties only if we consider all interactions it is involved in simultaneously.

If a particle owes its energy to all interactions with all other particles, if to an observing particle it has a lower frequency, it is in an early phase of its evolution as it is more distant, then the energy we measure it to have, the opposition it offers to an acceleration is powered by all its exchanges over its entire ‘history’ –between quotation marks as in a SCU earlier states don’t really vanish but remain part of any later state. Like its energy is the superposition of all frequencies it exchanges energy at times the number of exchanges at that frequency, its actual behavior is a sum of many ‘behaviors’, its present state is a superposition of ‘histories’ of all evolutionary phases it as yet has run trough.

Notes

1. ↑ Provided the observers are similar or the observing particles have a similar mass and look from a similar gravitational field.
2. ↑ If we were to compare the evolution of the universe with the growth of a tree, then a BBU would be like a kind of tree which first completes its adult root system (creates all its particles) before it starts to grow its trunk, only starting growing branches (stars, galaxies) as the trunk is completed, after which come twigs and leaves. In contrast, a SCU is more like a real tree where all different parts develop in conjunction with each other, ‘at the same time’, so to say, so here new roots keep developing (particles keep creating each other) as the trunk, branches and foliage expand, a tree which to a particle looks to be in an earlier phase of its development as it is younger itself, that is, as its own energy is smaller.
3. ↑ A Different Universe (2005) p 42</blockquote>. It is only quite recently (December 2011) that I’ve come across a physicist (and Nobel laureate at that) advocating an emergentist view on things. All previous (text) books I read about physics exclusively show a reductionist approach to physics, a view which to me seemed deeply flawed: until reading his book I wasn’t even aware that there existed an emergentist view. However, whereas professor Laughlin came to this view from his experience as experimenter, I come from the diametrically opposite direction. Whereas he eventually would have arrived at the inescapable conclusion that particles must be as much the product as the source of their interactions, in trying to find out how a universe might create itself, I had to take this as starting hypothesis of my explorations. That said, the idea that particles are the product and the source of their interactions (a view which is both reductionist and emergentist) actually is the consequence of Mach's principle:

   “On June 25, 1913, as he was wrestling with the formulation of general relativity, Einstein wrote a note of appreciation to Mach referring to his ‘happy investigations of the foundation of mechanics’. He added: ‘For it necessarily turns out that inertia originates in a kind of interaction between bodies …’” J. A. Wheeler in Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam, (1998) p 325</li>

   ↑ Alternatively, if a space distance is a time distance, then we can also say that the laws of physics are different at different times, that they evolve in time together with the particles the behavior of which they’re supposed to rule, with their properties. As the energy of a particle is less indefinite as it is higher, it has to obey more precisely the appropriate laws, or, alternatively, its energy only is high as long as it behaves in a less indefinite manner, as it exchanges energy at a higher, less indefinite frequency, so the difference between the particles is quantitative rather than qualitative.</li>

   ↑ Similarly, a high approach velocity when far apart then is equivalent to a short distance at rest.</li>

   ↑ an inclination which is proportional to the distance –which is Hubble’s law</li>

   ↑ Though it is speculated that the inflationary expansion is driven by a “negative-pressure vacuum energy density”, if this energy distributed uniformly over space, if its energy density is a property of spacetime so its nature it is independent of its size, then it cannot reach a ‘critical mass’, so to say and suddenly cause inflation, start to change itself, that is, its own properties. The assumption this energy can cause events reflects the idea that vacuum energy has no cause itself, as if it is a quantity which doesn’t need to be powered or caused itself, as if it can exist without interacting, communicating that existence, as if spacetime can have properties of its own, as a whole, as if it is an object which but for practical reasons can be inspected from outside the universe.</li>

   ↑ or the point where this is the case can be defined to be its mass center</li>

   ↑ There’s no hypothesis which has wrought as much havoc to physics, which has so completely obstructing its progress as big bang hypothesis.</li>

   ↑ See F.S. Labini c.s.: Scale-invariance of galaxy clustering (arXiv:astro-ph/9711073v1) showing that the distribution of galaxies, clusters of galaxies and superclusters all are described by the same equation (so has a somewhat fractal character). Also see An introduction to Cosmology J.V. Narlikar (3rd ed. 2002) p 253-4, ‘The scale-invariant spectrum’. The observed scale invariance is hard to explain in a BBU: though the cosmic inflation may have produced a homogeneous distribution of particles, this would not automatically lead to a scale-invariant distribution as in a BBU the mass of particles and the objects they contract to doesn’t depend on their distance, as their mass only is the cause of their contraction.</li>

   ↑ If exchanging energy in an infinite wavelength counts as a real exchange, then this radius actually is infinite, though the exchanged energy then is infinitesimal, its interactions petering out at increasing distances without ever becoming exactly zero –which the UP forbids anyhow. If, for practical purposes we ignore any exchange below some energy threshold, then the universe of any interactor is finite.</li>

   ↑ ignoring any newfangled dark energy</li>

   ↑ In Not even Wrong. The failure of string theory and the search for unity in physical law(2006) P 250</li>

   ↑ Pauli principle.</li>

   ↑ Though many physicists believe that the Planck constant h (in E = h& nu;) refers to a fixed minimum energy quantity, a basic ‘building block’ of energy in the universe, it is not. Though h is a discrete energy quantity, its size is a function of the energy: the higher the energy, the smaller the minimum energy value which separates subsequent energy levels –see Planck's law. At present, h = 4.135 667 516(91) × 10^–15 eV. s. As h in calculations often is put to unity, 1, and a future, more accurate measurement yields an additional decimal and we again put h = 1 in our calculations, then we actually increase the magnification of the ‘microscope’ we look at the world with a factor 10, so we see more details, as if a ruler which before only had 1 centimeter marks, now shows millimeter marks. The role of the Planck constant is like that of the number 1 in the series of integer numbers, designated to encompass all values between 0.5 and 1.5, so it is just the minimum energy gap we (and nature itself) can distinguish, a gap the breadth of which decreases at higher energies. Though every decimal we add to h reduces the size of this “unit” number with a factor 10, we can only distinguish smaller details where things have smaller details, where spacetime is defined, detailed on at least the same scale, which it isn’t everywhere. The uncertainty principle in the form &Delta: E Δ t ∝ h then also can be interpreted to say that a higher energy is a less indefinite energy (as opposed to the present convention according to which a higher energy is a less definite energy), and a shorter time to be a less indefinite time if h grows more decimals at higher energies. If (see blackbody radiation) there are more (discrete) energy levels at higher energies, temperatures, and the Planck constant would be the minimum energy quantity of the universe, then the value of h would limit the temperature an object can have in the universe, of the universe itself at the hypothetical big bang. As the universe cannot have any particular property as a whole (or even have a beginning), it can have no maximum temperature, so the Planck constant h isn’t a definite minimum energy quantity but a conversion factor between time and energy, like the speed of light c is between space and time. As a consequence, the Planck length is not the minimum distance in the universe some believe it is: the minimum distance which can be distinguished depends on where we look, and is greatest at the center of black holes, as they are heavier. See http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/838 </li>

   ↑ quantum foam</li>

   ↑ my translation, from: De bouwstenen van de schepping (1992)</li>

   ↑ If the energy of the real particles of the source, its rate of change varies within every cycle, then so does the indefiniteness in their position. If this indefiniteness periodically for a short time exceeds the dimensions of the source they are part of, then we can as well say that the ‘real’ particles of the source in every cycle for a short time act themselves like the virtual particles of the field. Alternatively, we can perhaps say that it are these short, periodic expeditions of the ‘real’ particles we observe as the gravitational field of the source. Being wave phenomena, their energy, its rate of change varies in every cycle, so if they interfere in different, varying wavelengths at different places, then this interference may produce (or be equivalent to the presence of) virtual particles. As these volatile, low-energy virtual particles have no ‘backbone’ to conserve their properties, they aren’t observable like the real particles they are manifestations of, so the question is whether such particles may account for the effects the so-called ‘ dark matter’ is supposed to cause?</li>

   ↑ E. W. Davis c.s. in Review of Experimental Concepts for Studying the Quantum Vacuum Field p 5, see http://www.calphysics.org/articles/Davis_STAIF06.pdf If, as argued above, the Planck length is not a minimum length, then the vacuum energy density actually must be infinite, so there’s something wrong with our suppositions.</li>

   ↑ For reasons mentioned above, black holes only have a singularity at their center in a BBU, not in a SCU.</li>

   ↑ Reversely, if, as will be argued, the speed of light is that velocity at which the ‘cargo’ of a particle cannot be involved, expressed in interactions as it travels, then to such a particle there’s no space nor time distance between the points it has that velocity, which is why according to the photon itself, its voyage takes no time at all.</li>

   ↑ Though it’s useful for calculations to treat the particle as if it only is cause of interactions, it leads to infinite forces between particles at infinitesimal distances, to infinite interaction energies, a problem which except for gravity, is solved by renormalization procedures.</li>

   ↑ Unlike a macroscopic object which only has a momentum if it moves, a quantum particle doesn’t necessarily have to move to have and transmit momentum. Its ‘rest’ momentum then refers to the ‘kick’ a probe particle gets that we send on a collision course: if both particles alternately ‘expand’ and ‘contract’ then the ‘kick’ or momentum transfer is stronger as their distance is smaller, their energy is higher. So the momentum of a quantum particle doesn’t necessarily refer to a motion in space: it is a modulation of spacetime itself.</li>

   ↑ If the position-definiteness and energy of the particles, its rate of change varies within every cycle, then we also don’t know at what distance or energy they interact. If the energy of a particle, its rate of change varies in every cycle, so a neutron for a time in every cycle repeats a rate of change equal to that of a proton or, for a much shorter time, repeats the rate of change characterizing an electron, then the question is whether neutrons of atomic nuclei as they collide (if at low energy collisions they may be regarded as fundamental particles) in a proton- or electron-like phase, protons and electrons may come out of the interaction, besides other particles to ensure that as much energy comes out of the interaction as went in. If, ignoring spin, the observed identity of a particle depends on the frequency it exchanges energy at with the observing particle, a frequency which depends on its rest energy and its motion and distance with respect to the observer, then the identity particles have according to one another may vary, depending on the interaction, a mechanism which may help understand why what kind what kind of particles come out of what collisions. That particles to us have an unchangeable, unequivocal identity is because we measure their properties in a standard procedure, in identical conditions.</li>

   ↑ P 197 Gerard ‘t Hooft, Bouwstenen van de schepping (1992), p 199, my translation</li>

   ↑ As they alternately borrow and lend energy from and to each other, any two particles are in counter phase, relative to each other –discussion to be continued</li>

   ↑ Facts and mysteries in elementary particle physics (2003) p 1 - 3</li>

   ↑ Of pots and holes: Einstein’s bumpy road to general relativity by M. Janssen, p. 72, http://www.nd.edu/~kbrading/Classes/Phil%2093871/Of%20Pots%20and%20Holes.pdf </li>

   ↑ J. A. Wheeler, Geons, black holes, and quantum foam (1998) p 234. As will be discussed elsewhere, Einstein couldn’t develop this vision as his thinking was too much confined by causality to suspect that the speed of light is not a velocity, but a property of spacetime.</li>

   ↑ called ‘cosmological constant’, ‘dark energy’, ‘vacuum energy’ or ‘zero-point’ energy</li>

   ↑ Put differently, if the different properties one particle can have according to the other are related to different, ‘orthogonal’ ways particles can move and rotate with respect to each other, and any such motion by some symmetry transformation can be transformed into another motion, then any property or combination of properties is reducible to another by some such transformation.</li>

   ↑ If static electric fields seem to have no magnetic counterpart, if only a varying electric field generates a magnetic field, then that is because the frequency of the electrons generating a spherical symmetric static field is so high that a the vectors of the accompanying magnetic field flip their direction too fast, in too many different directions to have observable effects –discussion to be continued.</li>

   ↑ an observed frequency which may be different to both particles</li>

   ↑ Not Even Wrong. The failure of string theory and the search for unity in physical law, Peter Woit, (2006) P 2</li>

   ↑ This is not unlike a group of people in the early Middle Ages walking from Amsterdam to Beijing. Though the legislation, customs, language, food etc. are quite different at both places, if the group occasionally lingers at places, intermarrying with locals, to continue their voyage after many years, then by the time their offspring gets to Beijing, they’ll be more or less familiar with the customs, food etc. they find on arrival, so they may very well believe that the laws, customs and food are the same everywhere.</li></ol>

5 Charge, antiparticles and infinities

Though quantum mechanics describes particles as wave phenomena, physicists, mistaking energy for a static quantity, don’t believe that there’s something which does the waving, so the origin of their wave character, why quantum mechanics works remains a mystery. If energy is a quantity equal to its rate of change, a rate of change which only can keep changing without becoming infinite if it alternates an increase with a decrease, if it alternates its sign, then it is as positive in one phase as it is negative in the next. If the charge of particles refers to their energy sign and alternates at a frequency equal to their energy, then any fundamental particle is its own antiparticle. Though photons don’t liberate any energy as they annihilate because they already are energy or because energy is a quantity which is positive nor negative, massive particles do liberate energy as they annihilate: powering each other’s mass by exchanging energy, they need the consent of all particles they owe their mass to as the annihilation affects their own energy, so they would share in the liberated energy^[1].

As a consequence, the phase particles are in as they interact determines its outcome, so in a world where energy is a static quantity, we need particles to be electrically charged to explain this phase dependency, their charge to be a static quantity, positive or negative.

So the question is whether the charge of particles is the constant quantity, either positive or negative physicists at present believe it to be, or if ‘all charge is interaction’: whether what we observe as charge, is an effect produced, powered by some continuous interaction. If in a SCU particles do have a wave character and oscillate their charge- or energy sign, then their energy exchange in some respects is like the rotation of interlocking gears, the teeth of which can be thought to have a ‘charge’ sign opposite to that of the indentations in between. Whereas in a BBU we can say that gears interlock only if the separate gears rotate in opposite directions, as if they have an opposite ‘charge’; in a SCU we can as well say that it is their interlocking –their energy exchange– which powers their rotation. If gravity powers the evolution of particles towards higher energies so favors the interlocking of particles, powering their energy exchange, then gravity itself can be said to power their ‘rotation’, the effects we assume to be caused by static charges.

If any two particles exchange energy at a single frequency so they flip their energy sign at the same time, then they don’t observe a change in the sign of the other particle. Though two identical particles A and B in equilibrium are in counter phase, flipping their sign simultaneously, a third particle C equidistant to both observes them to be in the same phase. If in equilibrium all particle pairs flip their energy simultaneously (never mind that the AB frequency may differ from that of the AC and BC exchange) then particles don’t see each other’s energy- or charge change, so in equilibrium they don’t seem to be charged at all (and ignoring spin).

If the energy sign one particle has according to the other depends on their relative phase, then with every half wavelength (the wavelength they exchange energy at) their distance changes, the energy- or charge sign of the other particle flips, the sign of the force between changing them from attractive to repulsive to attractive etc. If at distances a half-integer times that wavelength they are more in equilibrium than at distances in between, then the probability to find them at such distances is greater, so spacetime between them is somewhat grainy, discrete to the particles.

If the definiteness in the position of particles varies in every cycle, if a massive particle is a modulation of spacetime so spacetime similarly has a wave character and we define an antiparticle as a particle which is in counter phase with its environment, compared to its regular counterpart at the same point in space and time, then such a particle will move in an opposite direction in magnetic fields, as if it has an opposite charge or energy sign. Such antiparticles are artificial objects which easily annihilate with their regular counterparts so it comes as no surprise that the universe consists out of regular particles, that is, particles which oscillate between opposite states. Only if charge or energy would be a static quantity, its sign either positive or negative, particles and antiparticles would be separate objects: in that case they should be equally numerous as the grand total of everything inside of it has to stay nil, as a universe cannot, as a whole, contain one kind of matter rather than the other.

This, however, is not observed, so if these ‘artificial’ antiparticles actually are rare, then this is inconsistent with the fact that in the equations of QED antiparticles play an equally important role and are as numerous, so here ‘particle’ and ‘antiparticle’ refer to the opposite states all particles oscillate between, to their wave character, not to the artificial kind of antiparticles. If there really would be ‘nothing which does the waving’, if energy would be a positive, static quantity, then it is hard to see how particles can communicate their existence, how they can keep all spacetime points up to date about what field strength to assume or detect the presence of other particles, how they would be able to interact at all.

At present massive particles ( fermions) are thought to continuously emit and absorb force-carrying particles ( bosons) like photons, transmitting the electromagnetic force or gravitons which are supposed to transmit gravity. The fermions are thought of as tiny or even infinitesimal ‘marbles’ randomly shooting bosons in all directions, and to absorb bosons from other fermions so their energy fluctuates about its expectation value, deviations obeying the uncertainty principle. Though we can imagine a repulsive force between particles to be caused by a barrage of ‘bullets’, driving them apart, this doesn’t work for an attractive force as the momentum of such bullets would push them apart. If the photons are real, if they carry real energy away from the source particle, but some photons aren’t absorbed by other fermions (to supply them with energy), then fermions would keep loosing energy, especially in empty spacetime, far from other fermions, so to prevent this, these unabsorbed photons would have to return back to base. The problem is that it is unclear how the photons can know when to return, how they can reverse their momentum and find their way back as the source particles usually don’t stay at the same point for long: the photons would have to have GPS on board to determine when to return and find their way back, and cruise control to move at exactly the speed of light c.

If, on the other hand, these photons are virtual, carrying no real energy unless and until they are absorbed, if they only become real at the time they are absorbed and the absorbed energy is to be supplied by the source particle, then this is inconsistent with a finite photon velocity, unless we allow virtual particles to violate this most fundamental law of physics. This problem cannot be solved in a BBU where, as it lives in a time continuum not of its own making, the speed of light has to be interpreted as a velocity. In contrast, in a SCU it doesn’t even make sense to ask what in an absolute sense precedes what: as will be discussed in the next chapter, the speed of light –even though it certainly is a limit to the velocity a massive object can reach– isn’t a velocity but a property of spacetime.

The trouble is that since we believe objects to have an interaction-independent existence, we regard them as actors which autonomously, spontaneously can ‘decide’ to cause events. Because of this we have to assume that an influence travels from the causing object to another object which is to undergo that influence passively, an object which, as it similarly is supposed to have an autonomous existence, cannot prevent the cause-object to act. Though this may be true for influences which travel slower than at the speed of light, it will become clear that in a SCU a light source cannot emit a photon if there’s no customer for it.

Our problem is that we still regard quantum particles in many respects as tiny versions of macroscopic objects, as classical, i.e., causal objects: as things which exist, have properties even if they wouldn’t interact at all. Because of this, we analyze quantum mechanical interactions in a classical way, think about photons as the balls in a pinball machine, its stoppers, flippers etc. representing the fermions they are exchanged by, the difference being that the fermions also move and the photons, besides bouncing against the fermions, also are absorbed and emitted by the fermions.

Infinities

Because we assume that particles only are the source of forces, the electron is thought to be a dimensionless point-particle since the electric repulsion between its parts would blow it apart^[2]. If particles are the cause, but not the product of interactions, then a force either is attractive or repulsive, so the attraction between an electron and proton becomes infinite at infinitesimal distances, corresponding to an infinite ‘bare’ mass and charge. As point-like interactions are associated with infinite interaction energies, it is impossible to calculate, predict particle interactions. Though the uncertainty principle can be though to act as a repulsive force as it prevents the electron to fall upon the proton and forever stick to it, preventing their attraction to actually become infinite, as it doesn’t prevent electron-positron annihilation, this explanation is unsatisfactory. If the UP allows particles only to stick closer together as their energy is higher, then it in fact says that it takes energy to bring and keep opposite charges closer together instead of liberating energy, as if they repulse rather than attract.

To circumvent or explain away the infinities of the point-interactions inherent to a BBU, one has invented a renormalization procedure: the electron is thought to be enveloped in a cloud of virtual electrons, positrons and photons, the positively charged positrons supposedly shielding the bare negative charge of the real electron so that the effective charge and mass it exhibits in experiments becomes finite. Whereas in a BBU this vacuum polarization is thought to be caused by the cooperation of different, autonomous particles, if in a SCU the electron oscillates between opposite states, flipping its energy- c.q. charge sign. As its energy, its rate of change varies within every cycle so it interacts in all possible intermediate states, energies, rates of change, energies, then the electron acts itself as the virtual electrons and positrons and photons it is supposed to be enveloped in.

What’s more, if we may define the size of a particle as the area corresponding to the indefiniteness in its position and this indefiniteness varies within every cycle, then the electron is not a point-particle, so there are no infinitesimal point-like interactions to be worried about, no infinite interaction energies. In a finite-sized particle there only can be a force between its parts if its charge- or energy density is a constant static quantity, if it is only the cause of interactions. In contrast, in a SCU it is the energy difference between adjacent ‘parts’, its gradient where the particle stores its energy/charge: unlike a BBU, in a SCU particles don’t have some content separated by a surface from its environment, cause from effect.

QED describes fermion interactions as proceeding via intermediary, virtual photons, which are thought of as autonomous, bullet-like particles which interact with all ‘virtual’ fermions they encounter on their path, like balls ricocheting between more or less virtual ‘fermion-stoppers’ in a pinball machine, so to say, all of which affect the outcome of the interaction.

J. A. Wheeler:

“Back in 1940 or 1941, Feynman had come up with a new way to look at quantum phenomena that I called ‘sum-over-histories.’ The idea, in brief, is this: In quantum mechanics, if you to want to find out how something at point A influences something at point B, you can get the answer by pretending that all of the ways that A might send a signal to B happen at once; the actual effect is then a sum of all the ‘virtual’ effects from all of the different paths. It is as if a baseball pitcher, instead of throwing a single ball toward the batter, could launch simultaneously a thousand balls that travel a thousand different paths through space and time on their way to the batter. Each of these thousand balls has a ‘history’ as it flies from pitcher’s mound plate. What the batter sees and swings at is the result of all these histories combined. A mind-bending idea, to be sure, but it’s just what happens in the quantum world.”^[3]

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In this classical view on a quantum mechanical process, particles are thought to be only the cause of interactions, so we need intermediary virtual photons to collect and distribute all relevant information about the entire environment of all particles involved in some interaction, about their position, energy, motion etcetera to be able to quantify and predict the outcome of the interaction. In contrast, as in a SCU the fermions continuously exchange energy, information, in the frequency, polarization and its rate of change they at all times are informed about each other’s position, motion, energy and phase so don’t need such autonomous messenger photons; their interaction actually takes place in the change in their exchange. To be able to predict the outcome of an interaction we need to formulate explicitly all factors affecting the interaction in our equations: as the involved fermions interact at all times, in all phases, at all different energies, rates of change at different distances as they near one another, we must add all these different interactions if we are to calculate the interaction result. That the equations of QED lead to extremely accurate predictions, doesn’t make this classical ‘pinball machine’ representation of events true: the information to be gathered and passed on by such ‘messenger’ photons already is present at the particles before any interaction since by continuously exchanging energy, they keep one another updated, any information refreshed at the frequency they exchange energy at.

Whereas renormalisation works in QED because electric forces seem to come in two kinds, attractive and repulsive, as gravity is thought to be exclusively attractive, this trick doesn’t work for gravity, so here gravity between particles would become infinite at infinitesimal distances –if mass indeed would only be the cause of gravity and if particles would be static, point-like objects. However, as the uncertainty principle prevents forces and interaction energies to ever become infinite, this is a fictitious problem kept alive by String theory.

String theory, developed to try to reconcile quantum mechanics with relativity theory and unify gravity with the other forces, was expressly invented to circumvent the infinities inherent to point-like interactions inherent to BBU’s. The idea is that whereas point-particles follow worldlines so they interact at point, if we assume a particle to be a string following a worldsheet, interactions happen at surfaces so interaction energies would become finite. Unfortunately, the theory is founded upon the misconception that particles only are the source of interactions, a delusion aided and abetted by the bigbang tale: instead of a way to solve a problem, string theory is in fact the problem itself, becoming more insurmountable with every new paper devoted to it as it makes the misconceptions it’s based upon even more sacrosanct^[4].

Notes

1. ↑ Though the annihilation of an electron and its antiparticle usually produces two photons moving in opposite directions, as will be argued, all particles the electrons owe their mass to share in the released energy.
2. ↑ The problem of this is that the electron then would have an infinite mass density so it would be a tiny black hole, the problem being that as photons cannot escape from behind the event horizon of a black hole, its charge then cannot be expressed, not to mention that it would decay quite fast, emitting Hawking radiation which also is not observed.
3. ↑ Geons, black holes, and quantum foam P 167-168
4. ↑ Another problem is that spring theory describes a universe with eleven dimensions: if every dimension represents a degree of freedom, and every degree of freedom is associated with a different, conserved particle property or quantum number, a different ‘flavor’, so to say, then instead of unifying gravity with electromagnetism, mass with charge, spring theory in fact makes the mess of properties to be unified even worse.

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it

Terry Pratchett^[1]

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6 Causality, time and the speed of light

Causality requires that we can unequivocally determine the time sequence of events and only applies in a BBU as it evolves as a whole with respect to something outside of it, an outside clock showing cosmic time, the time passed since the bang. The concept of cosmic time therefore is as deeply flawed as the big bang hypothesis it springs from: the naïve illusion that the universe is something which has properties as a whole. In a SCU which doesn’t live in time we obviously cannot determine what precedes what in an absolute sense, fitting a universe where things only have a relative existence, where particles only exist to each other if and as far as they interact.

As a BBU evolves as a whole in time, it looks different in different epochs, so here the Cosmological Principle only says that the universe should look about the same to any observer, wherever he is, that no point in the universe is more unique than any other. However, if we can only speak about a bang if it doesn’t last forever, if the amount of matter and energy created is finite, if the universe is finite, then it has a unique (mass) center: as this is inconsistent with the CP, the CP doesn’t even hold in a BBU.

In contrast, it is because in a SCU the mass of particles and the objects they form is as much the product as the source of their interactions why creation processes in a SCU unavoidably produce a homogeneous and isotropic universe, why the laws of physics are the same throughout the universe, why the CP applies, why no point can be more special than any other: here every particle or observer automatically is at the center of its or his universe. It is because of this that a SCU should look about the same to any observer, from wherever he looks and whenever he looks at it, as long as conditions at the observer –like the strength of the gravitational field he looks from– are comparable and the observers are physically similar. As a consequence, there’s no observer whose observations are truer, so in a SCU it is impossible, even in principle, to determine an absolute time sequence between events.

If atom A emits a photon which is absorbed by B, a transmission which changes the state of both atoms, then A ‘sees’ B change at the time it emits the photon, whereas B sees the state of A change at the time it absorbs the photon. That is, unless we believe that B, after absorbing the photon sends back a message to A to confirm the receipt of the photon, a thank-you-note informing A that it can, as of this moment, start to see B in its new state.

If in a SCU, agreeing with the CP, both A and B are equally right about the time of the transmission, if it doesn’t even make sense to ask what in an absolute sense precedes what, then we must conclude that the transmission in fact is instantaneous, that the photon bridges any spacetime distance in no time at all.

In a SCU which contains and produces all time within, clocks are observed to run slower and show an earlier time as they are more distant, so here a space distance is a time distance: unfortunately, the proportionality constant c has been named the ‘speed’ of light –‘unfortunately’ because it is not a velocity but a property of spacetime. It is the difference in the observed pace of processes at different places inherent to a SCU why a space distance necessarily is a time distance: to ensure that the universe at all times and from every point looks about the same^[2]. In a SCU we see a distant galaxy as it is at present to us, in an early phase of its evolution because clocks are observed to run slower as they are more distant.

As in a BBU it is the same time everywhere so all clocks are observed to run at the same pace everywhere (if they are at rest with respect to the observer), here a space distance is not a time distance: because in a BBU points only are separated in space, not in time, here the speed of light is a velocity, so here we see a distant galaxy as it was in a distant past, in the past.

In a SCU it is not the same time everywhere as objects which are separated in space are separated in time, so their spacetime coordinates differ: a photon bridges any spacetime distance in no time at all, so here we don’t see a distant galaxy as it was in a distant past, in the past, but as it is at present to us.

The concept of time and the interpretation of the speed of light in a SCU is fundamentally different from that in a BBU: as the difference also is very subtle, it is hard to experimentally prove one way or the other^[3].

So whereas in the classical, BBC picture A and B exist independent from each other so what happens at A is independent from B, any information about a change in A’s state, to have physical effects elsewhere, at B, must physically travel from A to B: as this takes time, in a BBU A and B see each other as they were some time in the past.

In contrast, as particles in a SCU keep each other informed about their state by exchanging energy, all relevant information about the state of A and B and their entire environment already is present at both A and B even before the transmission. As the entire environment of A and B participate in the photon transmission so we cannot identify its cause and hence cannot determine what precedes what.

This of course doesn’t mean that two observers communicating with light signals can do so without time delay: though the transmission of light is instantaneous, as the observers are separated in space, they are separated in time, so their clocks don’t show the same time: that we measure the time distance between A and B as a duration doesn’t mean that the transmission takes time. Whereas in a BBU we can, in our imagination, follow the photon cruising from A to B from an observation post outside the universe –like we can follow a plane flying from Tokyo to Texas from outer space, from the Skylab, this is not allowed in a SCU as it doesn’t exist as a whole, as A and B only have reality to an inside observer, exist to the particles they interact with.

In a BBU the existence of particles is a given: as the state of the atoms is not supposed to depend on anything, as their component particles don’t need to exchange energy to keep existing, they aren’t informed about each other state at all, nor can they ‘see’ each other, so here B cannot incite A to produce a photon, has no say at all in the transmission. In a BBU the only thing the particles have in common is their creation at the bang –whereafter they go their separate ways: because BBC assumes that A and B have an autonomous existence, that they are physically independent from each other, we can (delude ourselves that we can) divide the transmission into cause and effect, into three independent events, the spontaneous, i.e., uncaused emission of the photon by A, its voyage, and its random absorption by B, as if what happens at A isn’t related to what happens elsewhere^[4], why in a BBU the speed of light necessarily must be a velocity.

If in a SCU we cannot distinguish the transmission of a photon from A to B from that of an antiphoton from B to A, a wave crest moving from A to B from that of a wave through from B to A, if we cannot distinguish cause from effect, then the speed of light c must be a property of spacetime rather than a velocity, so the photon is not the physical, bullet-like object traveling through spacetime it at present is thought to be.

Though c certainly is a speed limit for massive objects –you obviously cannot cross a space distance in a shorter time than the time distance that space interval corresponds to– terms like ‘velocity’ and ‘causality’ only apply to objects and influences moving at velocities < c^[5].

So what in a BBU appear to be three separate, independent events, the emission of the photon, its journey and its absorption in a SCU is a single event, so here A cannot emit a photon without the cooperation of the atom which is to absorb it. Though we certainly can cause a photon transmission by increasing the probability of a transmission –by switching on the light, for example, by heating the filament of the light bulb, the source particles involved in the emission of photons still do need the cooperation of the particles which are to absorb them to be able to emit photons. It is because there usually are enough particles willing to absorb the photons why the light source seems to be the autonomous cause of the emission, as if processes at the source are completely independent from what happens elsewhere^[6]. However, if we could put the source inside a sphere which would reflect radiation of all wavelengths, without absorbing any of it, then it wouldn’t be able to emit a single photon.

The economics of energy

Photon transmissions between particles then are not unlike financial transactions on the stock market: the deal goes through only if both buyer and seller agree on the price of the shares, their number and the time of the transaction. If one buyer (seller) refuses the deal, as there usually are plenty other buyers (sellers) willing to do the deal, the fact that deals keep being made doesn’t mean that the seller (buyer) can force, cause the buyer (seller) to do the deal, that A can force B to absorb the photon. As the deal requires the buyer and seller to agree, it doesn’t even make sense to ask which of them causes the transaction, what precedes what, the buying or the selling, so the transaction is instantaneous even though the communication between the brokers takes time. Before they’ve even put the phone down after closing the deal, they look differently at the market, aware of their new possession, so they are changed somewhat, acting differently even before the shares and banknotes are handed over. This of course only works if A and B, the buyer and seller both are informed about the supply and demand in the market, about the value of the shares and currencies at the time of the transaction: if they continuously exchange information with all players on the market. So like the brokers, both A and B have ‘foreknowledge’ about each other’s state, about the state of the entire economy, so to say, before any deal is done.

Like a financial transaction doesn’t consist of three separate, independent events, the selling, the transfer of the shares (photon) in one direction and the simultaneous transfer of money (antiphoton) in the other, and the buying, a photon transmission doesn’t consist of three separate, independent events. Though the dealers may independently announce their offer to sell or buy what shares at what price, the deal itself is a single event, the selling impossible without the buying and vice versa. It also is noteworthy that the banknotes and share certificates usually don’t even leave the vaults of the banks they’re stored in, i.e.: we don’t need bullet-like photons, physical objects to travel to effectuate changes in the state of A and B, banknotes, photons to travel in one direction and share certificates, antiphotons in the opposite direction. Like the decision about what shares to buy or sell at what price depends on their perceived value, on the exchange rate of currencies, on the expectation how these numbers will evolve, numbers which are determined by all traders, by the entire economy, the photon transmission likewise is decided upon by all particles A and B exchange energy with, owe their properties to, as well as their incentive to buy and sell.

Though a photon transmission often is described as a propagating electromagnetic field (or the propagation of a change in such field), to be able to speak about propagation requires that we know its direction, that we can determine its cause. Like in the financial market the entire economy is involved in any transaction, the entire environment of A and B participates in the photon transmission: if the mass of the atoms changes by the transmission and this affects their exchange frequency with all other particles, then we can as well say that it is the environment which incites the transmission, which chooses the seller and buyer for the deal. Though we might say that things change as a result of the transmission, we can as well say that the transmission is the capstone, the result of the change^[7].

To be or not to be (seen)

It obviously takes a voyager less time to travel from A to B as he moves faster: however, if according to relativity theory his voyage takes no time at all if he could move at the speed of light, then to such voyager there would be no distance at al between A and B, so his displacement would be instantaneous to him. This is only possible if he doesn’t interact with the environment he travels through, if the voyager and (the objects in) that environment don’t exist to each other –in which case we cannot say that he has a velocity since this requires something with respect to which he moves, something he interacts with.

A particle can ‘move’ at the speed of light if it has no mass, no properties by means of which it can act and be acted upon as it moves, or by moving too fast to express its properties in interactions as it travels, by keeping its position completely indefinite. To the photon its transmission indeed is instantaneous: it is absorbed at B at the exact same time it is emitted at A, so to the photon there’s no distance between A and B at all. If empty spacetime is a diluted form of mass, or mass is an area of contracted spacetime, and to a massless particle mass has no reality, then to such particle there exists no distance^[8].

According to the mass definition here proposed, the mass of a particle is greater as its position is less indefinite, as it remains longer within a smaller area. The smaller its mass is, the weaker its interactions are, the less energy is involved in a displacement, the less definite its position is and vice versa. To a moving particle all points of its path therefore are more equal physically as its mass is smaller and/or it moves faster: the smaller its mass is and/or the faster it moves, the more all positions are equal to the particle, the less definite its position is, the shorter its path is.

As the particle preserves its properties by exchanging energy with everything within its interaction horizon, and the frequency it exchanges energy at decreases as it moves faster^[9], then it can only preserve its (rest) energy by slowing down its clock, so that according to its own, slowed-down clock its exchange frequency remains unchanged –never mind that the rate its clock ‘ticks’ is indistinguishable from that frequency. The result is that at the speed of light all interactions stop, and hence the particle’s clock.

If the position of a particle cannot be perfectly indefinite at a finite velocity, however high, then the speed of light is not a velocity: if the transmission of a photon is instantaneous, then the speed of light c is a property of spacetime, a number which says how many meters space distance correspond to one second time distance.

It is because the transmission is instantaneous why all observers, no matter their own motion, always find the same value for c: their motion only affects the color of the light they see.

Indeed, if massive particles need to exchange energy to exist to each other, then we cannot have that energy interfered with as it is en route –and, anyhow, for a photon to interact at a distance with objects in the traveling environment would require the existence of intermediary particles moving even faster.

This isn’t to say that the environment of A and B doesn’t affect their energy exchange or photon transmission: whereas in the classical, ‘pinball-machine’ version of events the photon is supposed to interact with the virtual particles on its path, to loose (gain) energy as it leaves (penetrates) a gravitational field and be deflected by mass, in a SCU all this environmental information already is present at both A and B and determines how A and B ‘see’ each other, determining the energy of the photon and the time of the transmission.

Though a light beam does appear to be deflected by mass, as it shears a star, for example, to the photon itself its path is perfectly straight: it is spacetime which is curved, though the question is whether, if doesn’t interact en route, we can speak about its path at all. Similarly, though we can predict where and when we can intercept a photon if we know its source and the emission time, that doesn’t mean that it has a velocity.

In the present, classical picture of quantum phenomena, a photon is supposed to interact with the virtual particles on its path, as represented in the so-called Feynman diagrams: in this view all separate interactions, or, in baseball-speak –every one of the “thousand balls that travel a thousand different paths through space and time on their way to the batter” add to the result, determine the actual transmission. The quantum picture, however, is more like stock transactions where the entire economy is involved in any deal: in a SCU all information about the environment the photon is supposed to gather by interacting with the virtual particles on its path (all Feynman diagrams we have to add to predict an interaction), already is present at A and B at the time of the transmission^[10].

That QED can calculate, predict experimental results by breaking the interaction up into separate, independent events involving virtual photons and particles of all possible energies does not mean that it actually happens that way. The fact that QED only works when renormalized, corrected for the infinities which arise from the assumption that particles only are the source of forces^[11] so the force between them, their interaction energies become infinite at infinitesimal distances, already indicates that the classical QED picture isn’t correct.

This means that we cannot really consider mass and energy as separate entities, fermions and photons aren’t the separate, autonomous particles which largely go their own, independent ways they at present are thought to be. In a SCU we therefore don’t see distant galaxies as they were in the past, but as they are at present, to us, so the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBGR) of 2.7 º K we detect wasn’t emitted in the past, but is produced as we speak and is associated with some early phase in the creation, the evolution of matter.

As in a BBU it is the same time everywhere, here we see a distant galaxy as it was in a distant past, in the past because it took its light so much time to reach us. In a BBU particles only have a common origin in the bang and exist independent from each other ever after: as in a BBU their energy is a privately owned, mortgage-free property, they don’t need to exchange energy to keep existing, so here the only force between galaxies is gravity, usually too weak for events in one galaxy to significantly affect events in the other. In this view the contraction of particles to galaxies and the evolution of galaxies therefore is thought to be more or less preordained at the bang, largely independent from what happens in their neighborhood. As in a BBU a star is the autonomous source, the cause of the light it produces, the emission of light precedes its absorption elsewhere, so here the speed of light necessarily is a velocity.

It is because we assume that particles don’t have to exchange energy to exist, that ‘to be’ is a state rather than an activity why we ascribe a galaxy an absolute, autonomous existence why we think we can speak about the galaxy and the past of that galaxy, as if it is something the appearance, properties and behavior of which is independent from its environment, as if it is something we can look at even from without the universe.

As in a SCU particles only exist to each other as far as they exchange energy, within and between the galaxies they form, they participate in processes in each other’s galaxies and stars, here a star is not the autonomous light source it is in a BBU. Therefore galaxies in a SCU don’t have the absolute, autonomous existence they have in a BBU: in a SCU there’s nothing which can be observed objectively, over god’s shoulders, so to say, so here we cannot speak about the galaxy or the past of the galaxy. In a SCU an observer therefore doesn’t see a distant galaxy as it was in a distant past, in the past: in a SCU he sees it as it is at present, to him.

Whereas a galaxy in a BBU is an object which, as its light propagates, in due course can be observed everywhere as the exact same object (ignoring color deviations as result of its motion with respect to the observer), in a SCU a galaxy is the result, the superposition of all interactions its particles are involved in, within and between galaxies, so a galaxy has as many guises as there are interactors it owes its existence to.

The galaxy then isn’t just a superposition of all interactions all of its particles are involved in: if the galaxy’s observed present energy is composed of contributions from all over spacetime, from all distances in space and time, then it also is a superposition of ‘histories’ –between quotation marks as these energy contributions aren’t one-off donations made in a distant past, but are still generated as we speak. Whereas in archaeological layers we find fossils of past objects and events, in a SCU these low-frequency, long-distance contributions to the energy of the particle or galaxy aren’t fossil remains of a vanished past. As in a SCU all possible evolutionary phases co-exist we cannot really say that the present energy of a particle (or galaxy) contains contributions from distant particles as they were in the past, as if once its contribution is acquired, the contact with the ‘donor’ is broken.

The point is that though someone near some galaxy sees it in a later evolutionary phase than a distant observer, in a SCU the distant observer doesn’t see the galaxy as it was in the past as the galaxy is not the absolute kind of object the properties of which all observers should agree on it is in a BBU. As a SCU has no reality as a whole, we cannot ask what causally precedes what: as it cannot, as a whole, follow one time direction rather than the other, we must define what we mean with an ‘earlier’ and ‘later’ time: if here objects only can evolve with respect to each other, then it must at all times contain objects in all possible evolutionary phases. If the lowest frequency contributions to its energy come from the most remote and/or least massive particles, then distance acts like a filter which allows the exchange of energy to pass larger distances as its frequency is lower, the so-called distance-redshift^[12]. As in a SCU objects only can evolve with respect to each other, we can choose to define the evolutionary phase of an object as being ‘earlier’ as its energy is lower: the farther away a galaxy or particle is, the slower we see it evolve, the earlier the phase we see it in.

In a SCU distance in some respects acts like a filter suppressing the higher frequencies in the exchange between particles as they are farther apart –the so-called distance-redshift. The farther apart they are, the less their universes overlap, the less processes in one universe are less related to processes in the other, the weaker the particles interact, the less definite the information they can (or might want to) exchange, the smaller its information content, that is, the lower the frequency they exchange energy at, so they see the clock of the other run slower as they are farther apart, the other to be in an earlier phase of its evolution, not as they were in an earlier time, in the past.

As in a BBU it is the same time everywhere, here a space distance is not a time distance, so all clocks should run at the same pace if they are at rest with respect to the observer. The fact that clocks are observed to run slower as they are more distant, galaxies to be shifted farther to red as they are more distant, in a BBU is explained by assuming that the galaxies recede from us, that the universe expands Following this assumed expansion backwards in time, all matter and energy would appear to converge in a single point, which was the reason for the big bang hypothesis. In a SCU we need no expansion to explain this redshift, even though the continuing creation of massenergy is (indistinguishable from) the continuous creation of spacetime, and hence a kind of expansion. Moreover, whereas a SCU correctly predicts the redshift of galaxies to be proportional to their distance, always, in a BBU gravity between the galaxies should slow down the expansion, so BBU predicts their redshift to decrease in time. As this isn’t observed –the expansion instead seems to accelerate– big bang cosmology had to invent ‘dark energy’ to power this apparent acceleration. In a BBU the expansion is a distance increase between a finite and fixed number of objects: as the clusters of galaxies are thought to accelerate away from each other to eventually disappear from each other’s interaction horizon, an observer in a distant future would only see the galaxies of his own cluster. In contrast, a SCU cannot but keep creating massenergy and spacetime, in existing galaxies and in new ones, so in a SCU future observers should see about the same universe we see.

To summarize:

• In Newton’s time the universe was believed to be created by god so here it is the same time everywhere. According to Newton’s the gravitational force is transmitted instantaneously, but light is not^[13], so here we see a distant galaxy as it was in a distant past, in the past. Created by god, all objects have an absolute, autonomous existence and would be observable even from without the universe.

• In a BBU it also is the same time everywhere: as according to Einstein light moves at a constant and finite velocity, here we also see a distant galaxy as it was in a distant past. As a BBU similarly is created by some unspecified outside intervention, here objects similarly have an absolute, autonomous, ‘Über-Universal’ reality.

• In a SCU, agreeing with quantum mechanics, it is not the same time everywhere, but, as light is transmitted instantaneously, we see a distant galaxy as it is at present to us, that is, in an earlier phase of its evolution as it is more distant. Here (the particles of) objects only exist to each other if and as far as they interact.

Notes

1. ↑ Reaper Man (1991), p 321
2. ↑ That is: as long as the observers are similar and look from similar positions, i.e., where the physical conditions at the observation post, like the strength of the gravitational field, are similar.
3. ↑ As a SCU doesn’t need a cosmic inflation to effectuate a homogeneous, isotropic universe, nor dark energy to cause the observed linearity between the redshift and distance of galaxies, these hypotheses can be considered as proof against BBC. Likewise, the experimental confirmed EPR paradox –where information seems to be transmitted instantaneously– can be regarded as proof for the thesis that the speed of light c is not a velocity, that we live in a SCU.
4. ↑ No wonder that Gerard ‘t Hooft wondered how, if

   “ … space and time only exist as a separate set of points … we then [can] explain how these points are related to form the known space and time?”

   Indeed, as long as we take the existence of particles for granted, assume that ‘to be’ is a static state, their properties acquired at the bang to stay unchanged forever after, a noun rather than a verb, it is hard to see how different points can knit together a physical spacetime continuum rather than a mathematical spacetime, a collection of identical points, how physical laws can be valid everywhere, how they can be communicated, be imposed, how the universe can look about the same everywhere if what happens at A doesn’t depend in any way on what is happening at B, C … Though the emission is thought to be triggered by the virtual particles which are supposed to keep popping up and out of existence near or within the atom, their popping similarly is supposed to be unrelated to anything, i.e., to be uncaused, to be just the consequence of the uncertainty principle, as if their popping in and of existence is a property of spacetime itself, that is, as if spacetime –the universe– is something which can have properties as a whole. The problem of inventing suitable particles or properties whenever we need them to explain, to cause some observed phenomenon, is that we eventually will be confronted with the question as to their origin, their cause –whereupon we invent the next hypothesis, which, eventually needs to be explained itself.

   Remarkably, the spontaneity, the randomness, the causelessness which allegedly ‘governs’ such processes is a characteristic feature of BBC –which is at odds with its pretention to give a rational, a causal explanation of the universe
5. ↑ It is because the photon bridges any spacetime distance in no time at all, because its transmission between points with different spacetime coordinates is instantaneous why all observers measure the same ‘speed’ of light no matter their own motion: because it is not a velocity but a property of spacetime and hence independent of the motion of the observer, even though the observed pace of clocks and length of paths do depend on his velocity. However, even in the macroscopic, classical world the usefulness of causality is limited. Though chaos theory often is thought to say that the antics of a moth at one place can cause a hurricane elsewhere, if an intermediary event can cancel the hurricane, then the moth’s antics only can be a cause in retrospect, if the hurricane actually happens, so cannot be a cause at all. Whereas at velocities < c, a bullet may miss the target B, at the 'speed' of light, a particular bullet only can be shot by A if and when it hits the target since at that ‘speed’ to the bullet there’s no distance between the gun and target, between A and B. As at velocities < c, the probability of a hit decreases with the distance between A and B, the probability of events to be causality related decreases with their distance: the greater their distance, the less events in A’s universe are related to events in B’s universe.
6. ↑ Though we can increase the probability of a photon transmission, it still remains a probability which, however large, never adds to a certainty –which is needed to be able to distinguish between cause and effect. However, if one event certainly leads to the other, if we switch on the light, do we then cause the lamp to shine, or do we just switch on the light?
7. ↑ Also of interest is that both buyer and seller deal to gain from the transaction: as will be discussed in the ‘Evolution’ chapter, as a rule, A and B both benefit from their photon transaction –if we define ‘benefit’ as ‘aiding their evolution towards a higher energy’. Like funds by competition between buyers and between sellers are allocated where they (are expected to) fetch the best price or yield the most interest, in energy transaction those buyers and sellers get to do the deals which best serve the creation, the accumulation of mass.
8. ↑ The fact that such particle wouldn’t be able to interact even with the massive particles A and B by which it is supposed to be emitted and absorbed, supports the idea that all objects within the interaction horizon of A and B participate in the photon transmission: that the photon isn’t the classical, bullet-like object it is thought to be.
9. ↑ Its exchange frequency is observed to increase in its direction of motion, to decrease in transverse directions and to decrease even more in backwards direction, even though as seen from the particle’s mass center, its exchange frequency is the same in all directions –discussion to be continued in the next chapter.
10. ↑ If photons do interact with virtual particles on their path, and the number of interactions is random, and these interactions take time, then we should find a Gaussian distribution of arrival times instead of a time exactly equal (c = 1) to the length of their path –which is to say, unless we believe them to have GPS and cruise control on board to correct for any delay. It is hard to see how, if A sends “thousands of baseballs that travel a thousand different paths through space and time on their way to the batter” B, and all ‘balls’ travel at the same light speed but follow paths of different lengths, they can arrive at the same time at B to affect the actual transmission.
11. ↑ as if they contain an infinite energy supply to power, to increase the force between them when they near one another
12. ↑ The observed frequency obviously also depends on the mass of the observing particle, on the gravitational field at the observer and their relative motion.
13. ↑ which is quite inconsistent. Newton believed light to consist of particles which were attracted by mass (by water, for example, predicting a wrong refraction index for light passing from air to water), suggesting that he felt that light has got something to do with mass, and would even have enabled him, long before Einstein, to predict light to be deflected by mass.

The color of light

Let’s consider a collection of identical particles at rest:

Q--------A--------B--------P

The energy exchange between P and A, and Q and A (and between P, Q and B) contributes to the force between A and B, and adds frequencies to the superposition of frequencies A and B exchange energy at, the energy they have according to each other.

The greater the distance between the particles and/or the smaller their mass, the less definite their distance is, the less definite, the lower the frequency they exchange energy at. As a greater distance is a less definite distance, the position of A is less definite according to P than it is to B, so B locates A within a smaller area than P does. A and P therefore exchange energy in a longer, less definite wavelength than do A and B, so according to P the rest energy of A –their exchange frequency– is smaller than it is according to B –which agrees with the fact that in a SCU clocks are observed to run slower, particles to oscillate at a lower frequency as they are more distant.

The rest energy we measure A to have then is composed of all frequencies it exchanges energy at with every other particle within its interaction horizon: if we accelerate it, we can infer its mass from the opposition it offers to it, an inertia it owes to all these exchanges by means of which it is anchored at the position we displace it from.

If the energy of a particle is a superposition of exchange frequencies, then the definiteness in its position similarly is a superposition of definitenesses, an observer-dependent quantity. Moreover, if the energy of a particle, its rate of varies within every cycle, then the definiteness in its position also varies periodically, within every cycle. Saying that A and P exchange energy at a lower frequency than A and B is equivalent to saying that A’s clock runs slower according to P than it does according to B, so we might say that particles see each other in an ‘earlier’ evolutionary phase as they are farther apart, that is, if we define an ‘earlier’ phase as a state of lower energy^[1].

If the definiteness in the distance between a light source or particle and an observer/observing particle depends on their mass, on the gravitational field they sit in, on their distance and motion, then a change in any of these factors should affect the color of the observed light or the frequency the particles exchange energy at in agreement with relativity theory.

Distance and color

As gravity between particles varies as the inverse square of their distance, its magnitude changes less per unit length as they are farther apart, so a displacement takes more energy at shorter distances than the same displacement when far apart. So if we were to construct a ruler in such a manner that the energy it takes to change the distance between a unit mass and the source of a gravitational field is equal between any two subsequent graduation marks, then such a ruler would –compared with a measurer which is not affected by the field– shrink nearer the source and expand in the opposite direction, away from the source^[2]. If as seen from outside of it, a gravitational field is an area of contracted spacetime, then the physical distance of the observer to the source of the field is greater than their ‘mathematical’ distance –as calculated from their positions with respect to the stars.

If as seen from outside of it, a gravitational field is an area of contracted spacetime, of distance, and a larger distance is a less definite distance, then a light source within the field looks shifted farther to red as the field at the source is stronger. Equivalently, as in a SCU clocks are observed to run at a slower pace as they are more distant then as seen from without, a clock inside the field should run slower, a light source look shifted farther to red as the field it sits in is stronger compared with the field at the observer. This indeed is observed, and is known as gravitational redshift^[3], a redshift which in a BBU is explained as the result of the receding motion of the source, the expansion of the universe. In extremis, our ruler would shrink to zero length at the event horizon of a black hole, so clocks would be observed to be completely frozen in time at that horizon, a light source to be infinitely redshifted as seen from outside the hole’s field^[4].

However, if the field at the observer is stronger than it is at the light source, then he sees its light blueshifted as a clock inside the field runs slower compared to a clock outside of it. Whereas looking from the outside the field in, we see its source as if looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope, looking from inside the field out, from near the event horizon of a black hole to a star in the sky, its field in some respects acts like a magnifying glass in speeding up the observed light- or exchange frequency, as if on nearing the event horizon of the hole, we near the engine-room powering the mass of the star –to which the hole, exchanging energy with the star, contributes indeed^[5].

Motion and color

In this text, the position of a particle was (quite sloppily) defined to be less indefinite as it remains longer within a smaller area, as the forces anchoring it to its position are stronger, as they are more exactly equal from all directions, as neighboring positions are physically more different to the particle, as it takes more energy to displace it.

A higher velocity of a particle then can be interpreted to mean that all positions of its path are more equal energetically to the particle as it moves faster: the faster it moves, the less definite its position is with respect to the objects it moves (or, according to the particle, the less definite their position is), the weaker it interacts with such objects.

The faster it moves, the more equal all points of its path are to the particle and vice versa, the more equal all positions are somewhere, the faster it has to move^[6]. If a higher velocity, a less definite position equals weaker interactions with the environment, then the frequency the particle exchanges energy at with the objects in the environment it travels through should decrease, shift to red, so the particle’s clock should run slower, a light source look shifted farther to red as it passes the observer at a higher velocity. According to special relativity, the time dilation resulting from the motion of the light source (i.e., that a clock is observed to run slower as it moves faster with respect to the observer) the light source should look equally redshifted in all directions, if not for an additional and even larger effect.

Though a higher velocity of the particle is a less definite distance to objects at both ends of its path, if as soon as we accelerate it, we change its exchange frequency, decrease it in backward directions and increase it in forward directions, so a moving light source should look blueshifted as it nears and redshifted as it recedes, which indeed is observed and, together with the effect of the time dilation, is known as the relativistic Doppler effect.

If the frequency particles exchange energy at decreases, is less definite as their distance is less definite, as they are farther apart, then distance acts like a filter which lets pass lower frequencies as the exchange proceeds over a larger distance, or, equivalently, as a machine which slows down such frequencies, the pace of observed events as they occur farther away.

If we define the information content of a photon as greater as its frequency is less indefinite, higher, and a photon shifts to red as it leaves the gravitational field of the (galaxy of the) light source, then it looses information on leaving the galaxy. If when the photon shifts to blue again as enters the field of the observer’s galaxy or planet, then this increased information is added by the receiving galaxy and its environment.

If in a SCU a particle owes its properties to its energy exchange with everything in its environment, then two particles would become identical if their environment is identical, if they could be at the exact same point in space and time. Reversely, the farther apart they are, the less their universes overlap, the more their properties diverge (so the weaker they interact and vice versa), and the same holds for galaxies, then we might say that violins in both galaxies are tuned more differently, more out of sync, so to say, as they are farther apart, as their universes overlap less. This is not to say that they are more different in an absolute sense, that such differences would be observable if we could look from outside the universe in, so to say, but only as seen from within –never mind that a voyager traveling from a galaxy called ‘Amsterdam’ to a distant galaxy called ‘Beijing’, on arrival finds the same laws to hold and the same kind of properties and constants of nature. Anyhow, though the subsequent red- and blueshift in the energy exchange and transmission between (the particles of) different galaxies may serve to hide such differences, in allowing things to be different, locally, it effectively prevents the universe to have any particular property as a whole^[7]. After all, why would the universe need be so large if things are exactly the same everywhere, wouldn’t this be a waste of space and time? Indeed, it only would be the exact same everywhere if it would have a beginning and have particular properties as a whole: if it would be the object Big Bang Cosmology claims it is. The farther apart the galaxies are, the less their universes overlap, the less what happens at one galaxy is physically related to what happens in the other, the less an event at one galaxy affects what happens at the other, the less definite, the less compulsory the information is they exchange, the lower their exchange frequencies are, the slower an observer in one galaxy sees processes proceed in the other, so the distant galaxy looks as if it is in an earlier phase of its evolution. The farther apart, the less they physically are related, the more their universes are different, they less they overlap, the more their properties differ, the weaker they interact weaker, as if they are built from different kinds of stuff and vice versa, so much of what happens at one galaxy will remain unobservable to an observer in the other, will never become real to him.

In a BBU we can speak about the galaxy and the past of the galaxy: as, but for practical difficulties, the galaxy can be observed even from without the universe, all inside observers should agree on what they see, though a larger distance may obscure more details.

In contrast, as in a SCU galaxies are product and source of their interactions, including the galaxy of the observer, here the observed galaxy is, to a different extent, a different object to different observers. It isn’t that they disagree about what they see: the galaxy of the observer is physically less related to the observed galaxy as they are farther apart, so the information about the observed galaxy is less definite so observers at different distances can less compare their observations. The smaller the distance from which the observers look at it, the more their universes overlap with each other and with that of the observed galaxy, the more they agree on what they see. So whereas in a BBU events in the galaxy eventually will become observable everywhere since what happens at the galaxy isn’t caused by the observer’s galaxy, in a SCU, events can occur in some galaxy without ever becoming observable to a distant observer, its effects petering out, redshifting so far that the observer cannot ascertain the nature of the event, identify what happens. In other words, whereas in a BBU we see events proceed at a slower pace as they occur farther away (due to the expansion of the universe) so all information can be recovered by playing a film recording of the distant galaxy at a faster pace, this is impossible in a SCU.

Though we may see a distant galaxy to look redshifted, as if it is in an early phase of its evolution, as if we see it in a distant past, in the past, in a SCU there’s no unique galaxy all observers can agree on: here we see the galaxy as it is at present, to us.

Identity and color

If the exchange frequency between two particles depends on their mass, distance, motion and the gravitational field they sit in, then so would the identity one particle has according to the other –that is, assuming that the charge sign of particles just refers to the sign of their energy, to the phase they are in with respect to each other so we can ignore their charge, and it only is the exchange frequency which determines the observed identity and ignoring things like spin.

If their exchange frequency shifts to blue (red) as they near (recede from) one another at a relativistic velocity, then to an observing particle, an electron approaching at sufficiently high velocity would look like a much heavier particle, like a neutron or proton, for example. Conversely, a neutron receding at the same speed then would look like an electron to the observing particle, so the identity of a fundamental particle would be an observer-dependent quantity.

The question then is whether, if particles owe their properties to one another and any two particles exchange energy at a single frequency, that means that they observe each other as being identical^[8], regardless the identity, the properties we measure them to have at rest.

If so, if all particles ‘regard’ each other as being identical^[9], but their distance, spin and motion all affect their exchange frequency in a different manner, the identity they have according to each other, then we might perhaps say that they choose such distances, orbits, spins and velocities relative to one another that despite the different species they belong to according to us, they see each other as identical particles?

If so, then it might be possible, given the degrees of freedom 3 space and 1 time dimension allow –and hence what conserved properties and symmetries we may expect, the different kinds of motion particles can execute relative to one another– to predict particle species and their mass ratio from first principle: how particles would have to behave with respect to each other to be able create and preserve such properties, and the conditions (such as density and temperature) they create as they create one another. However, if there’s no limit to the distance they can exchange energy then their properties contain contributions from objects at all distances, in all possible phases of their evolution –which of course only is possible if the speed of light isn’t a velocity but just a property of spacetime.

Notes

1. ↑ In a SCU it doesn’t even make sense to ask where it is earlier or later in an absolute sense, according to god’s watch, so to say, so we cannot really say that they see each other at an earlier time as they are farter apart.
2. ↑ The position of the graduation marks also would be less indefinite, the marks sharper, more distinct nearer the source, to become less definite where the field is weaker, so here they become indistinct, smeared out as positions become more equal physically as the field is weaker, as spacetime is emptier.
3. ↑ However, at present the photon is thought of as a classical object which looses energy as it ‘climbs’ out of a gravitational field –which is quite absurd if we consider an excited atom emitting a photon which, on leaving the gravitational field of the atom, then would give back part of the energy it got from the atom.
4. ↑ Never mind that, unlike a BBU, in a SCU a black hole doesn’t have an event horizon (nor a singularity at its center).
5. ↑ The question being whether, if we could climb down the hole, we would go back in time and then would see the star in an earlier, cooler phase of its evolution so we wouldn’t see it blueshifted.
6. ↑ It would move at the speed of light if we could envelop its path in a tube which would perfectly isolate the particle from interacting in transverse directions. In that case all positions of the central axis of the tunnel would be identical to the particle so the length of the tunnel would be zero according to the particle, so it would have to ‘move’ at the speed of light.
7. ↑ Lee Smolin:

   “The use of spontaneous symmetry breaking in a fundamental theory was to have profound consequences, not just for the laws of nature but for the larger question of what a law of nature is. Before this, it was thought that the properties of the elementary particles are determined directly by eternally given laws of nature. But in a theory with spontaneous symmetry breaking, a new element enters, which is that the properties of the elementary particles depend in part on history and environment. The symmetry may break in different ways, depending on conditions like density and temperature. More generally, the properties of the elementary particles depend not just on the equations of the theory but on which solution to those equations applies to our universe. This signals a departure from the usual reductionism, according to which the properties of the elementary particles are eternal and set by absolute law. It opens up the possibility that many –or even all– properties of elementary particles are contingent and depend on which solution of the laws is chosen in our region of the universe or in our particular era. They could be different in different regions. They could even change in time.”

   From The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science and What Comes next (2006) P 61-62

   A clause like “eternally given laws of nature”, by the way, is revealing as it shows how scientists, be it unwittingly, still look at the universe as something which has been created by some outside intervention, as if its laws have been handed down from ‘above’ like the Ten Commandments to Moses.
8. ↑ Or, as their energy is composed of many exchange frequencies, they have a ‘multiple identity’, so to say, a different identity to different particles.
9. ↑ which agrees with the credo that no observer/interactor can be more unique than any other?

Exploding things, such as dynamite or the big bang are unstable. Theories of explosions, including the first picoseconds of the big bang, thus cross Barriers of Relevance and are inherently unfalsifiable, notwithstanding widely cited supporting “evidence” such as isotopic abundances at the surfaces of stars and the cosmic microwave background anisotropy. One might as well claim to infer the properties of atoms from the storm damage of a hurricane.

Robert B. Laughlin^[1]

Evolution [under construction]

The four pillars Big Bang Cosmology (BBC) rests upon are:

1. the expansion of the universe

2. the evolution of stars and galaxies

3. the Cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR)

4. the formation of elements like hydrogen and helium

The first point I think, is sufficiently addressed in previous chapters: since a SCU cannot stop creating itself, creating massenergy and spacetime, the fact that it expands is in no way proof that we live in a BBU.

Used to things having a beginning and end, it’s hard to conceive of a universe which, as it doesn’t exist as a whole, obviously cannot have a beginning as a whole: however, since in a SCU things only exist to one another if and as far as they interact, exchange energy, inside things can have some kind of beginning with respect to each other. However, since there’s no time, no clock outside a SCU, we cannot say what precedes what in an absolute sense, so here terms like ‘beginning’ and ‘end’ don’t refer to an absolute time sequence as they do in a BBU. Whereas in a BBU particles seem to appear ready made from one moment to the next and causally precede galaxies, in a SCU particles evolve as they contract to stars and galaxies, adjusting their properties to enable that contraction, so here particles don’t precede galaxies nor vice versa.

If we follow the evolution of particles back in time, then they’d start with an infinitesimal rest energy, that is, if we define a state of lower energy as an earlier state. As the wavelength of such a particle is infinite, we cannot know when the wave began and when it will end, meaning that it always has existed and always will exist, be it that the effects of its existence then also are infinitesimal, unobservable^[2]. Since the UP forbids both the energy of a particle E and its rate of change dE/dt to stay constant, a particle cannot be in a state in which its energy is zero forever, so it’s impossible to not exist for all eternity, so the uncertainty principle actually implies that it’s impossible for the universe to not exist (even though it’s impossible to exist as a whole), to stop creating itself. As to be, to exchange energy, to have mass, every particle must anchor itself to neighbors in all directions, since every particle is at the center of its own universe, the creation of a single particle requires the creation of particles everywhere, meaning that the universe is infinite, even though the interaction horizon of every particle is limited, as its exchange frequency with objects drops over distance. Though they create each other at the same time, as they do so at different places, they observe each other to have a lower energy, to be in an earlier phase of their evolution and evolving at a slower pace as they are farther apart. Since the frequency it exchanges energy at with objects in the world it pops up in also depend on its own energy, to the particle their mass is smaller as its own energy is smaller, so its universe comes into existence, evolves as it is created and evolves itself, however long ‘the same’ objects already exist to other, higher-energy particles when the new particle appears. If the new particle observes stars and galaxies in very low frequencies, in a very early evolutionary phase, if the phase it observes its world in depends on its own energy, its own phase, then any observer sees about the same universe as long as the observers are similar physically and look from within similar conditions, so a SCU is a kind of Steady State Universe (SSU). Since we consist of particles which already have evolved for some time, we always see galaxies in a phase in which our presence as observers is possible. So though we might expect the universe to contain galaxies of every possible age at all distances, this is not the case if to an observing particle its world is only created as it starts to exist itself, if it observes its universe to be as old as it is itself. If we associate lower exchange frequencies between the observer and a galaxy with an earlier evolutionary phase, a frequency which is lower as their distance is less definite, as they are farther apart, then any observer will see galaxies in an earlier phase of their evolution as they are more distant, so the fact that we do observe this in no way is proof that we live in a BBU as point 2 is supposed to prove.

If mass keeps being created in galaxies, then you’d expect galaxies on average to contain more mass and have a heavier black hole at their center as they are older, which is inconsistent with a steady-state SCU. However, if the observed mass of an object, the exchange frequency with the observing particle also depends on its own energy, then that must mean that the mass which is already present in the galaxy before the new particle pops up somehow remains outside its interaction horizon or is too far redshifted to make much difference –which seems to be the purpose of black holes at the center of many galaxies. The smaller its own energy is or the more distant the hole is, the lower their exchange frequency is, the smaller the force between them is: as if the hole is a magnet which however strong it is cannot pick up a cork. The force between them, their exchange frequency only increases when the corks, the low-energy particles, evolve to higher energies, metamorphose into magnets themselves. So we might say that their energy, their oscillation frequency differs so much that they can scarcely engage each other in interactions, as if they are made out of a different kind of stuff, or that their physical distance in space and time is so huge, that their universes scarcely overlap, even though they are part of the same galaxy. Anyhow, Feynman’s ‘all mass is interaction’ already states that mass isn’t an absolute but a relative quantity so to the new particles the energy of the objects within their universe depends on their own energy, as does the radius of their interaction horizon (a radius which also depends on the energy of the observed). Any observer then sees about the same universe if the observer and the conditions at the observation post are similar, consistent with a steady-state kind of universe.

If particles in the course of their evolution towards higher energies subsequently are part of stars, neutron stars or black holes etc., to eventually end(?) up in the black hole at the center of their galaxy, and empty spacetime is the nursery where the particles start their evolution from virtual, low-energy particles to real ones, towards higher energies, then a galaxy is a perpetuum-mobile-like machine which at its periphery creates the matter it eventually ‘consumes’ at its center. If the energy of a particle is a superposition of all frequencies it exchanges energy at over large distances in space and time, then its state similarly is a superposition of evolutionary phases^[3]. A two-way traffic of energy, of information over a large space distance, the exchange also is a two-way communication over a large time distance, so its evolution towards higher energy is a process which proceeds over a large area in space and time. Whereas a BBU first had to go to school to learn how to create itself from one moment to the next conjures a finite number of ready made particles which subsequently start to contract to galaxies, in a SCU particles evolve as they form stars and galaxies.

In creating each other(‘s properties), particles create the appropriate rules of behavior, laws of physics, so by exchanging energy they power and preserve their properties and communicate the associated laws of physics. Though every property/law originates in some of the degrees of freedom time and three space dimensions allow^[4], associated with some conserved quantity and quantum number; if particles cannot precede galaxies nor the other way around, then the evolution of stars and galaxies must be part of the design and creation process of particles, the calibration of properties, parameters and constants in the laws of physics. Though they ultimately are as much the product as the source of their interactions, we obviously only can speak about particles if their properties don’t vary continuously with the conditions they find themselves in. To exist as real particles they must secure each other’s properties, restrict each other’s behavior, so they can respond to changes in their environment by adjusting their behavior (velocity, direction of motion) rather than their properties. This means that their energy, spin etc. must be quantified so a change of state or identity requires a discrete quantity of energy, so particles only are stable within a certain range of temperatures and pressures, disintegrating or changing their identity when subjected to conditions exceeding their ‘product specifications.’ If particles evolve in a trial-and-error process, then whatever combination of properties, of kinds of behavior, particle species, mass ratios, spins, etc. which works in certain conditions eventually will produce those particles and conditions. So whereas the BB scenario presupposes the existence of some calculator who after completing his calculations pressed the button to start his universe, in a SCU every step of any such ‘calculation’ is tested in practice, so every potency or combination of possibilities which obey conservation laws will be realized somewherewhen, for however long it lasts.

Time then only starts for the particles-to-be as soon as they manage to set up a mutual energy exchange, trapping themselves in a process which becomes more irreversible as their energy increases, as their properties become less indefinite^[5]. To an observing particle time only starts when one moment physically differs from the next without changing back again to an earlier state: if its world starts to change or it changes itself, its ‘perception’ of its world. So time is what happens when particles start to create one another, start to exchange energy, when the changes they effectuate become irreversible: since a gravitational field tends to preserve a random mass increase of its source above a decrease, it is mass which provides this crucial irreversibility. It is mass itself which in its tendency to keep increasing, creating itself not only powers time, but, in making neighboring positions physically different, also creates space^[6]. As a higher, less indefinite energy of particles implies less indefinite positions and motions, a higher energy already, in itself, ‘contains’ more specific rules of behavior, more constraints on their behavior, more restricted positions and motions. The lower their energy, their exchange frequency is, the less definite, defined their nature, their properties, position and behavior is, the weaker their interactions are, the more independent they are from each other, the less they have in common, the less reality they have to each other, the less they can be said to obey the same laws of physics, the less they belong to each other’s universe, to the same spacetime continuum. As their freedom to act as they like decreases as they contract within a smaller volume, their behavior becomes more restricted, coordinated, so the associated laws of physics become more defined or have to be obeyed more strictly at higher rest energies: if particles are the product and source of their interactions, then so are the laws of physics. To fit within a smaller volume, to contract and increase their energy, particles have to adjust, to coordinate their oscillations in a more orderly, more regular fashion, just as their spatial distribution has to become more symmetric and regular, less indefinite if they are to contract and increase their exchange frequency. To get rid of some of the freedom of behavior which interferes with a further contraction, they radiate away energy in the associated lower, less definite frequencies, so their energy, the resulting superposition frequency can increase^[7]. Though this radiation when absorbed by other particles can aid and thwart their evolution towards a higher energy, if the long run particles do evolve, then the radiation they emit as they do, must, on average, eventually, aid the evolution of all particles in the chain, if only to ensure a continuous supply of successors, particles which in turn are to undergo the same transition. So if when particles in every transition to a higher, less indefinite energy emit radiation in lower frequencies, a radiation which as it is passed down the chain is stripped of its higher frequency components so the remaining, lowest frequencies are absorbed by the least massive particles at the start of chain, or even creating such particles, then this creation, evolution pays its own way, so galaxies indeed create at the periphery the particles they ‘consume’ at their center.

To be continued soon …

Notes

1. ↑ A Different Universe. Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down P 211-212. He continues:

   “… The political nature of cosmological theories explains how they could so easily amalgamate with string theory, a body of mathematics with which they actually have very little in common. String theory is the study of an imaginary kind of matter built out of extended objects, strings, rather that point particles, as all known kinds of matter –including hot nuclear matter– have been shown experimentally to be. String theory is immensely fun to think about because so many of its internal relationships are unexpectedly simple and beautiful. It has no practical utility, however, other than to sustain the myth of the ultimate theory. … Far from a wonderful technological hope for a greater tomorrow, it is instead the tragic consequence of an obsolete belief system –in which emergence plays no role.”

2. ↑ Alternatively, as its position is completely indefinite and a space distance is a time distance, its position in time also is completely indefinite. As it exchanges energy in very low frequencies with the environment and a lower energy is a lower rate of change, to the particle one moment differs less from the next, so we can also say that to the particle time passes slower as its energy is lower.
3. ↑ Alternatively, if the energy of the particle in every cycle varies, repeating all rates of change up its present value, and every different rate of change can be associated with a different evolutionary phase, then it repeats all phases in every cycle itself –somewhat reminding of how embryos as they develop in shorthand repeat the evolution of its species. If the part of its earlier phases as part of the lifetime of a particle decreases in time means that the share of the associated lower frequencies in its energy keeps decreasing, then its energy would increase simply because time passes?
4. ↑ and the different ways different particle species can interact and combine
5. ↑ If a particle with an infinitesimal energy > 0 already exists for an infinite time, if its evolution to a higher energy proceeds slower at lower energies, then it has no definite ‘birth date’.
6. ↑ To an observing particle its universe then ends where the frequency it exchanges energy at doesn’t depend anymore on its position, far from other masses, where its exchange frequency becomes infinitesimal and it looses its mass, stops to exist itself, that is, in a mathematical space which has the property that all positions are completely identical and hence can contain no mass. Only when, where positions differ from each other physically, that is, if it does contain mass, we can speak about a physical space. This means that in a mathematical space or in a space without mass concentrations there is no false vacuum which might provide the energy to power the hypothetical chaotic inflation which is supposed to have caused the uniformity of the cosmic microwave background radiation.
7. ↑ If a less definite, lower frequency can be associated with lower temperature, then they heat up as they contract, increasing their exchange c.q. oscillation frequency by radiating away energy in these ‘cooler’, higher-entropy frequencies.

ABBREVIATIONS

BB Big Bang

BBC Big Bang Cosmology

BBU Big Bang Universe

CMBR Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

GR General Relativity

IH Interaction Horizon

IP Indefiniteness Principle (=Uncertainty Principle)

QM Quantum Mechanics

MW Milky Way

OI Outside Intervention

QCD Quantum Chromo Dynamics

QED Quantum Electro Dynamics

SCU Self-Creating Universe

SR Special Relativity

UC Uncertainty Principle

About me

I studied chemistry at the Eindhoven University of Technology, stopped halfway between BS and MS, and, by self-study, familiarized myself with physics to what perhaps is an undergraduate to BS level.

I started my study of physics with Richard Feynman’s magnificent Lectures on Physics, and remember to have read, in no particular order:

Inward Bound: Of matter and forces in the physical world - A Pais (1986)

The elegant universe -B Greene (1999)

Introduction to high-energy physics, 3rd ed. - H Perkins (1987)

Gauge theories in particle physics 2nd ed. - I. J. R. Aitchison; A. J. G. Hey (1988)

The Ideas of Particle Physics - G. D. Coughlan; J. E. Dodd; B. M. Gripaios 2nd ed. (1991)

Quantum mechanics 3rd ed. - L I Schiff (1955)

Quantum Field Theory - D M Kaku (1993)

Lie Algebras in Particle Physics - H Georgi (1982)

Quantum Electrodynamics – R Feynman (1962)

Elementary Particle Physics and the Laws of Physics - R Feynman, Steven Weinberg (1986)

The Character of Physical Law - R Feynman (1967)

Theory of fundamental processes - R Feynman (1962)

The Meaning of Relativity, 6th ed. - A Einstein (1967)

A first course in general relativity - B F Schutz (1985)

General relativity from A to B - R Geroch (1978)

A short course in general relativity - J Foster, J D Nightingale (1979)

Essential relativity revised 2nd ed. - W Rindler (1979)

The Elusive Neutrino - N Solomey (1997)

The force of symmetry – V Icke (1997)

Warped Passages, Lisa Randall (2005)

Cosmology: a very short introduction, Peter Coles (2001)

From Quarks to the Cosmos, L M Lederman, D N Schram (1989)

Cosmic Clouds, James B Kaler (1997)

The search for Infinity, G Fraser, E lillestol, I Sellevag Yukawa (1994)

Wrinkles in Time, G Smoot en K Davidson (1993)

Dreams of a Final Theory, S Weinberg (1993)

Towards the final laws of physics, S Weinberg (1990)

The Quark and the Jaguar, M Gell-Mann (1994)

The elusive neutrino, Nickolas Solomey (1977)

A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime, J A Wheeler (1990)

What remains to be discovered, John Maddox (1998)

Histoire et légendes de la supraconduction, S Ortoli & J Klein (1989)

Vacuüm is niet niks, F W Saris (2001)

Uncertainty, the life and science of Werner Heisenberg, DC Cassidy, 1992

The Universe in a Nutshell, S Hawking (2001)

The Arrow of Time, P Coveney, R Highfield (1990)

Einsteins Spuk, A Zeilinger (2005)

Turn Right at Orion: Travels Through the Cosmos, M C Begelman (1990)

Schrödinger, life and thought. Walter Moore (1989)

Gravity’s Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe, M Begelman, M Rees (1995)

Kosmologie - A Achterberg (2002)

De wetenschap van de kosmos – C Waelkens (2007)

De bouwstenen van de schepping - G ’t Hooft (2002)

An Introduction to Cosmology - J V Narlikar (2002) [read in September 2011]

A Different Universe (2005) – Robert B. Laughlin [read in December 2011]

Geons, black holes, and quantum foam (1998) J. A. Wheeler [December 2011]

Not even Wrong: The failure of string theory and the search for unity in physical law (2006) Peter Woit [January 2012]

The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of Spring Theory: The Fall of a Science and What comes Next (2006) Lee Smolin [April 2012]