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29/01/2009 09:40Island Universe in the Invisible OceanPage 1 of 6file:///Users/ahsan119/Sites/Subspace/xSpace.html
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Island Universe in the Invisible Ocean
 
| Posted on 18th of May, 2007 |
 
I. The Night Sky
 This is Ambleside, Lake District in the evening. Please join me in this wonderful time you will remember for the rest of your life.Instead of the Cosmos, you may be thinking, why are we visiting the countryside? If you are a skilled astronomer, you alreadyknow what we are doing here. Keep your Binoculars handy. Let’s climb a little mountain just next to the beautiful Lake Windermerenear the exotic village of Ambleside. While on the top of the hill, you can see the surroundings appear to be sleeping in the mist of darkness. Great Atlantic Ocean is not far from this location, you can smell its existence in the air, though invisible. Our topic of thisepisode is somewhat like the Invisible Ocean. Keep yourself warm and have some coffee. Away from the cities, in the darkness of night, here’s the Grand Natural Observatory. Don’t look for any building; it’s not the one you are thinking about, just look up in theSky. You notice that there are at least 100,000 stars and fuzzy objects right in front of you. Look thru binoculars, another billionstars, fuzzy galaxies, colorful clouds, and possibly some planets i.e., Saturn will show up after a random survey. In the normal cityyou don’t see that much stars in the night sky. Further the well-developed and larger the city, fewer the stars you will see. This isthe problem of Light Pollution as famously referred to.What do you know about what you are observing? The stars you see are sometimes hundreds of times larger than the Sun. Andthe Sun is a million times larger than the Earth. These stars look so small because they are located at the incredible distances. Togive you the sense of distance, the normal stars visible by naked eye are normally located between 8 to 50 light-years. A light yearis the distance in kilometers traveled by light (300,000 km/s) in one whole year; about 9.5 Trillion kilometers. Or, in other words,whatever happens to the star located at 50 light-years, we come to know after 50 years when its light reaches at Earth. Astronomersdirectly experience the past of theUniversedepending upon how much farther they look. Likewise, the width of a normal galaxy is 100,000 to300,000 light-years. The nearest andslightly larger than our own Milky Way galaxy, Andromeda, is located at 2.9 Million light-years from us.
II. The Space from Atom to Universe
 But the most wondrous thing inthe Universe is the one which is the most mysterious and we even don’t consider it a thing. That’sthe Space. The 99% emptiness found everywhere; between the galaxies, stars, and planets. It even continues to dominate in everyatom of the Universe, including yours and mine. After studying the structure of atom, we come to know that even atom’s contentsare also 99% empty space and the rest of mass of atom does not show up to be a tangible thing. That makes the Space 100% of everything found in the atom and throughout the Universe. An intelligent mind cannot ignore this fact though it takes time torealize the Emptiness as a thing. This realization is the key to all of the locks of scientific and philosophical questions.
III. The Creation of Spacetime
  Albert Einstein, the most brilliant mind of all times, realized this fact and formulated the Space and Time into a single entity called4-dimentional Spacetime where the fabric of Spacetime can be curved and behaves differently in different situations and to theobservers relative to their motion and location in the Universe. The Global Positioning Satellite system is the experiment of timedilation most of us do regularly as the evidence of curved Spacetime. Laws of Spacetime can be summarized as following: Speed of light is constant ‘through’ the space no matter how you measure it. An astronaut traveling at 150,000 km/s will still measure thespeed of light at 300,000 km/s either traveling into the incoming light beam or getting away from it. Time slows down if youaccelerate or you are in the strong gravity. Time will speed up if you are away from source of gravity i.e., Earth. Light bends nearthe source of gravity due to the curvature of Spacetime. Because these relativistic effects have been proven again and again since
 
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they were predicted, Theories of Relativity are the basis of major scientific developments and technologies. However, according toEinstein, Spacetime was created with the creation of Universe, the Big Bang. The Space we experience is just the collectivegravitational field of the whole Universe.
IV. Before the Big Bang: Theories of Relativity
 Due to the validity of Theories of Relativity, most of us are trained not to imagine any time and space before the Big Bang, thoughinterestingly the Theories themselves do not impose this restriction. This is purely a matter of perspective. Theories of Relativitybreak down even at the nanosecond before the Big Bang. Asking what was before the Big Bang is like asking what lies north of theNorth Pole? There is a reason why Theories of Relativity break down at this level. These theories are designed to illustrate thedynamics of Spacetime, not what exists outside it. Its something like the game of basket ball. Though the stadium may be very big,the basket ball and the players are not allowed to cross the court's boundary line which is considered as a foul. All rules apply inthis boundary line, not outside. If a player says that because all rules seem to apply in the court so there cannot be a whole stadiumexisting outside the court and because we are playing basket, there cannot be any other game existing outside the court whoserules are different than ours, is that right approach? This statement is made by the player, rules actually imply the existence of something large, in which the court is situated i.e., whole Universe of which the court is also a tiny part. In this example, the court'sboundary line is the Spacetime. Thus the Theories do not actually deny the extra-Universal space, they just do not talk about andwork there and it is not correct from any angle that the Theories deny the existence of different Spatial Dimension outside orbeneath the Spacetime. The Theories just explain how does the Spacetime behave in certain situations and that it had a beginning.In other words, the Theories are the dynamics of whatever was created out of Big Bang's primordial nucleus, independent of wherewas it located, what rules applied in that Dimension, and furthermore, who made it? In contrast, most of the the later explanationsof the Theories deny the existense of any Existence outside or beneath the Universe. It is thus not appropriate when manyphysicists deny the existence of something which they do not understand according to the current understanding and try to demoterelatively counter-intuitive phenomena. History is the evidence, the definition of counter-intuition has been rewritten many timesi.e., people were not ready to imagine a moving Earth because it was counter-intuitive.In contrast, many physicists those are not comfortable with absolute nothingness, which even should not make sense according tothe originally supposed general relativity, proposed various models in which they consider the Big Bang as the 'local' Zero Time of our Universe. According to these models, there is a limitless chain of bangs and crunches, that is one universe at one time; the BigBang was a result of previous universe's Big Crunch, and that our Universe may cause another Big Bang after collapsing on itself inthe future. In other models, there are many universes existing, perhaps with their own physical laws, side by side as bubbles. Thesemodels predict the existence of underlying parent space on which other universes are floating. In relation to all objects in a givenuniverse, this parent space is the only limitless entity. Unfortunately these models have been always targeted by science-fictionwriters, who found 'valuable' concepts for the success of their plays. If a spaceship cannot achieve the speed of light or evengreater, it loses the market demand. This is achieved by using the parent space of all universes, which is not bound by the speed of light. Another obvious integral part for the success of the plays is the 'intergalactic alien civilizations', which for unknown reason arealways uglier than humans. Thus this sort of pseudo science normally harms the rational predictions of prospective hypotheses of existence and causes skepticism against them. Instead of applying fully consistent equations derived from actual Universe, which isindeed near-impossible task currently, we normally want the Universe to behave according to our equations. “We are used to the idea that events are caused by earlier events, which in turn are caused by still earlier events. There is a chainof causality stretching back into the past. But suppose this chain has a beginning. Suppose there was a first event. What caused it?This was not a question that many scientists wanted to address. They tried to avoid it, either by claiming, like the Russians, thatthe universe didn’t have a beginning or by maintaining that the origin of the universe did not lie within the realm of science butbelonged to metaphysics or religion. In my opinion, this is not a position any true scientist should take. If the laws of science aresuspended at the beginning of the universe might not they fail at other times also? A law is not a law when it only holdssometimes. We must try to understand the beginning of the universe on the basis of science. It may be a task beyond our powers,but we should at least make the attempt.” – The Universe in a Nutshell, Stephen Hawking.
 V. The Biased Perception
 If you happen to visit the 16th century when Copernicus introduced the Heliocentric System (planets orbiting the Sun) opposed towhat usually people used to think was true, Geocentric System (planets orbiting the stationary Earth explained by earlierphilosophers, Aristotle and Ptolemy), you could see the scientific and religious communities were not only skeptical but charged himwith life-long imprisonment. They thought it silly to even consider Earth as a planet and moreover not in the central place. Galileowho later proved that the Sun has really the central place by observing the planets through the telescope, specially Jupiter alongwith its moons orbiting it, and the phases of Venus clearly indicating the Sun to be at center, was also put under threat by theauthorities who thought its illogical to think what these gentlemen said.Not too far, Sir Fred Hoyle, English mathematician and astronomer in the late 20th century, commented on the Big Bang model of Universe: 'On philosophical grounds too I cannot see any good reason for preferring the Big Bang idea. Indeed it seems to me inthe philosophical sense to be a distinctly unsatisfactory notion, since it puts the basic assumption out of sight where it can never bechallenged by a direct appeal to observation.' - Measuring the Universe, Kitty Ferguson.
 
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Every age brings its own challenges so we must be able to investigate them without any biased knowledge and background. Onlythe unconditional approach reveals the nuts and bolts of the Universe.
 VI. Current Theories about Invisible and Limitlessness
 Though, the Theories of Relativity have provided many answers to historic questions, we must understand that the theories arenever complete rather they manipulate the dynamics of particular domain, they always leave many questions unanswered. AlbertEinstein himself was later working on to develop a more comprehensive theory of the Universe and Existence which could explain allquestions including philosophical. But his dream was left incomplete and he transmigrated into ‘another dimension’. If he could havecompleted his Theory of Everything, we would have known the basic scientific idea where did he transmigrate, though we haveindicative results from other scientific theories such as Quantum Mechanics and Superstring Theory. They talk about the ExtraDimensions and the Space & Time before Big Bang but mostly in a different manner, not solving the wider range of questions. Forexample, our universe may not be the only one; there are other parallel universes or outside ours (if it is so, then what is theparent Space on which these universes are floating?). Or, one universe collapses on itself triggering another ‘Bang’ for a newuniverse, creating the unlimited chain of universes (in this case, what happens to the already expanded Spacetime? Will the ‘NewBang’ create its own Spacetime overlapping the previous one or will the previous Spacetime also collapse along with other objects?Fact is that we don’t have any explanation for the former Spacetime to collapse in so-called the Big Crunch). You cannot rule outthese possibilities, but many questions are not solved. There should be a comprehensive explanation to those questions which arenot yet explained.
 VII. The Phenomenon of Life
 In the episode of Mysterious Universe, Life in the Universe, we tried to analyze the current theories about the phenomenon inwhich life could have started at various places in the Universe. We came know that the predictions of co-incidental theory are notin line with observation. Contrary to co-incidental theory, life is not spread beyond Earth. It is not a common phenomenon, rather itis not even rare; it’s the only one which happened on Earth, though ingredients of life are scattered everywhere in the Space.Combination of a few elements doesn’t animate itself and gradually becomes Einstein.
 VIII. The Unanswered Questions
 Out of many unanswered questions, these are on top: A) Source of Big Bang: When there was no 4-dimentional Spacetime existed in the beginning, where the super-dense nucleus of Big Bang was located? And, from where did the nucleus come from? And, why?B) Expansion of the Universe: Why did it expand faster than the speed of light where nothing can exceed the light limit inside it? If there is no Spacetime outside the Universe, then the Universe is expanding into what?.C) Voids and Extra-Universal Regions: In astrophysics, the Spacetime is considered as the gravitational field of the Universe. Weknow that the gravity follows the 'inverse squared law', as the distance from source of gravity increases, the force of gravitydramatically decreases; furthermore, the underlying gravity takes over. If a spacecraft leaves the Earth's gravitational field, Sun'sgravity takes it over. Earth has no known influence on farther celestial objects nor they have upon Earth except the closer ones i.e.,Sun, Moon, nearby Planets, asteroids and commets. Following the same line, What happens beyond the external regions whereUniverse’s gravitation field ends? And, what are those 'voids', the vast empty regions of space where the clusters of galaxies do notseem to have the influence upon each other? If they are not part of Universe's gravity then what's that? Recent theories predict thestaggering 96% of Universe possessing unknown Dark Matter (invisible matter which has the same gravitational attraction as visiblematter) and the Dark Energy (which works as anti-Gravity in the space). Even if this is the built-in property of the space,theoretically it is existing where the Universe is prevailing. Same issue comes again: Whats beyond the edge of this Universal gravityfield?Lets imagine a famous example against the idea that it is non-sense to think whats outside, beneath, and before the Universe. According to 'Inflation Theory of Big Bang', an ant is sitting on one of the small colorful dots which you have painted on a black balloon. Now blow it up, an ant will see that every other dot is receding from her. Farther the dot is, faster it will recede. Now antstarts crawling on the balloon's surface. Given enough time, ant will return to its original dot after navigating the whole balloon. Sofor an ant there is no edge of the balloon, though it had a beginning and it is expanding, and every dot is receding from her. Inthis scenario, the ant is us, her dot is our Milky Way Galaxy, and other dots are other galaxies those are receding from us accordingto the Hubble's Law. The black balloon is the Spacetime. So, for us Universe has no edge, and it is non-sense to imagine any edgeof Universe. Now, the question is, does this analogy proves that this is non-sense to consider anything outside the Universe? Theno-edge system is the limitation of traveling in this example, not the structure of a balloon. Is any round object limitless in nature? Against this analogy, lets consider Earth. You start walking from your city westwards. Given enough time, you will come to the samepoint after travelling about 40,000 km. Now this doesn't mean that Earth has no edge, what about other directions which we areignoring? upwards and downwards. If Earth has no edge, then we could never lift the spacecraft off into Space and reach the
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