the universe really. Is there another copy of you in a parallel universe? Is it true all around
2.2. Is the universe really expanding?
In thinking about this whole story, I started from the premise that the truth, no matter how incredible it may seem, is what remains if you discard all the impossible. It is possible that this remainder admits of several explanations. In this case, it is necessary to analyze each option until there is one that is sufficiently convincing.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Why is everyone so sure that the universe is really expanding? IN scientific literature the reality of the expansion is almost never discussed, since professional scientists who know the problem in its entirety have practically no doubts about it. Active discussions of this issue often break out on various Internet forums, where representatives of the so-called "alternative science" (as opposed to "orthodox") again and again try to "reinvent the wheel" and find another, not related to the removal of objects, explanation for the observed in the spectra galaxies redshift. Such attempts, as a rule, are based on ignorance that, in addition to redshift, there are other evidence in favor of the reality of cosmological expansion. Strictly speaking, the stationarity of the universe would be much bigger problem for science than its extension!
Modern science is a densely woven web of interconnected results, or, if you like, a building constantly under construction, from the base of which it is no longer possible to pull out a single brick without the whole building collapsing. The expansion of the Universe and the picture of the structure and evolution of the Universe and its constituent objects created on its basis is one of such basic results of modern science.
But first, a few words about the Dopplerian interpretation of redshift. Shortly after the discovery of addiction z from the distance arose - and this is quite natural - the idea that the redshift can be associated not with the removal of objects, but with the fact that along the way from distant galaxies, part of the photon energy is lost and, therefore, the radiation wavelength increases, it "turns red". Adherents of this point of view were, for example, one of the founders of astrophysics in Russia, A. A. Belopolsky, as well as Fritz Zwicky, one of the most innovative and fruitful astronomers of the 20th century. For such an explanation z Hubble himself bowed from time to time. Soon, however, it became clear that such processes of energy loss by photons should be accompanied by blurring of source images (the farther away the galaxy, the stronger the blurring), which was not observed. Another version of this scenario, as shown by the Soviet physicist M.P. Bronstein, predicted that the reddening effect should be different in different parts spectrum, that is, it must depend on the wavelength. By the beginning of the 1960s, the development of radio astronomy also closed this possibility - for a given galaxy, the redshift turned out to be independent of the wavelength. The famous Soviet astrophysicist V. A. Ambartsumyan summarized the situation with different options interpretation of the redshift in this way: “All attempts to explain the redshift by any mechanism other than the Doppler principle ended in failure. These attempts were caused not so much by a logical or scientific necessity as by a well-known fear ... of the grandiosity of the phenomenon itself ... ".
Let us now consider several observational tests supporting the picture of the global cosmological expansion of the Universe. The first of them was proposed back in 1930 by the American physicist Richard Tolman. Tolman discovered that the so-called surface brightness of objects would behave differently in a stationary and expanding universe.
Surface brightness is simply the energy emitted per unit area of an object per unit time (per second, for example) in some direction, or more precisely, per unit solid angle. In a stationary Universe, in which the cause of the redshift is some unknown law of nature, leading to a decrease in the energy of photons on the way to the observer (“aging” or “fatigue” of photons), the surface brightness of an object should decrease in proportion to the value 1 + z. This means that if the galaxy is at such a distance that for it z= 1, then it should look twice as faint compared to the same galaxies near us, that is, at z= 0.
In the expanding Universe, the dependence of brightness (meaning bolometric, that is, the total brightness summed over the entire spectrum) on redshift becomes much stronger - it falls off as (1 + z)4. In this case, an object with z= 1 will no longer look 2, but 16 times dimmer. The reason for such a strong decrease in brightness is that, in addition to the decrease in photon energy due to redshift, additional effects begin to work with the actual removal of galaxies. So, each new photon emitted by a distant galaxy will reach the observer from an increasing distance and spend everything on the road. more time. The intervals between the arrivals of photons will increase and, therefore, less energy will fall on the radiation receiver per unit time and the galaxy observed by us will seem weaker. In addition, in the case of a real expansion, the dependence of the angular size of the galaxy on z will be different than for the stationary Universe, which also leads to a change in its observed surface brightness.
Tolman's test looks very simple and clear - indeed, it is enough to take two similar objects at different redshifts and compare their brightnesses. However, the technical difficulties of its implementation are such that they were able to apply this test only relatively recently - in the nineties of the XX century. This was done by the famous American astronomer Alan Sandidge, a student and follower of Hubble. Together with various colleagues, Sandage published a whole series of articles in which he considered the Tolman test for distant elliptical galaxies.
Elliptical galaxies are remarkable in that they are relatively simple in structure. In the first approximation, they can be represented as giant conglomerates of almost simultaneously born stars with a smoothed, without any features, large-scale brightness distribution (the brightest galaxies in Fig. 16 belong to this type). Elliptical galaxies have a simple empirical relationship that ties together their main observational characteristics—the size, surface brightness, and spread of stellar velocities along the line of sight. (Under certain assumptions, this relationship is a consequence of the assumption that elliptical galaxies are stable.) Different two-dimensional projections of this three-parameter relationship also show a good correlation, for example, there is a relationship between the size and brightness of galaxies. Hence, comparing elliptical galaxies of the same characteristic linear size on different z, you can implement the Tolman test.
This is exactly what Sandage did. He examined several clusters of galaxies at z ~ 1 and compared the surface brightnesses of elliptical galaxies observed in them with data for similar galaxies near us. To make the comparison correct, Sandage had to take into account the expected evolution of the brightness of galaxies due to the "passive" evolution of their constituent stars, but this correction is currently determined quite reliably. The results turned out to be unambiguous – the surface brightness of galaxies varies proportionally to 1/(1 + z)4 and, consequently, the Universe is expanding. The model of the stationary Universe with "aging" photons does not satisfy observations.
Another interesting test was also proposed a very long time ago, but was implemented only relatively recently. A fundamental property of the expanding universe is the apparent slowing down of time for distant objects. The farther away from us in the expanding Universe are clocks, the slower we think they go - at large z the duration of all processes seems to be stretched in (1 + z) times (Figure 22). (This effect is similar to the relativistic time dilation in special relativity.) Therefore, if one finds such a "clock" that can be observed at large distances, one can directly verify the reality of the expansion of the Universe.
Rice. 22. Pulses emitted by a distant object at redshift z at intervals of 1 second, will reach us at intervals of 1 +z seconds.
In 1939, the American astronomer Olin Wilson published a note in which he noted the surprising constancy of the shape of the light curves supernovae(see the example of Tycho Brahe's supernova light curve in Fig. 4 and also Fig. 23) and suggested using these curves as a "cosmological clock". A supernova explosion is one of the most powerful catastrophic processes in the Universe. During such an outburst, the star, at a speed of ~104 km/s, sheds an envelope with a mass comparable to that of the Sun. At the same time, the star becomes brighter by tens of millions of times, and at its maximum brightness it is able to outshine the entire galaxy in which it flared up. Such a bright object is naturally visible at very large cosmological distances. How can supernova light curves be used as "clocks"? (They can also be used as a "standard candle", but I'll talk about that a little later.) First, not all supernovae are the same in their observational manifestations and light curves. They are divided into two types (I and II), and those in turn are divided into several subtypes. In what follows, we will only discuss the light curves of type Ia supernovae. Secondly, even for this type of stars, the light curves at first glance look very diverse and it is not at all obvious what can be done with them. For example, Figure 23 shows the observed light curves of several nearby Type Ia supernovae. These curves are quite different: for example, the luminosities of the stars shown in the figure at maximum brightness differ by almost three times.
Rice. 23. Light curves of SN Ia: the top figure shows the observed curves, the bottom one summarizes them into one, taking into account the correlation between the shape of the light curve and the supernova luminosity at maximum. The horizontal axis shows the days after the maximum brightness, and the vertical axis shows the absolute magnitude (a measure of luminosity). According to the Calan-Tololo Supernova Survey
The situation is saved by the fact that the variety of shapes of the observed light curves is subject to a clear correlation: the brighter SN at the maximum, the more smoothly its brightness then decreases. This dependence was discovered by the Soviet astronomer Yuri Pskovskiy back in the 1970s and later, already in the 1990s, was studied in detail by other researchers. It turned out that, taking this correlation into account, the light curves of SN Ia are surprisingly uniform (see Fig. 23) – for example, the spread of luminosities of SN Ia at the maximum light is only about 10%! Consequently, the change in brightness of SN Ia can be considered as a standard process, the duration of which in the local reference frame is well known. The use of these “clocks” showed that in distant supernovae (several dozens of SNs with z> 1) changes in apparent brightness and spectrum are slowed down by a factor (1 + z). This is a direct and very strong argument in favor of the reality of cosmological expansion. Another argument is the agreement between the age of the Universe, obtained in the framework of the expanding Universe model, and the age of actually observed objects. Expansion means that over time, the distances between galaxies increase. By mentally reversing this process, we come to the conclusion that this global expansion must have begun sometime. Knowing the current rate of expansion of the Universe (it is determined by the value of the Hubble constant) and the balance of densities of its constituent subsystems (ordinary matter, dark matter, dark energy), one can find that the expansion began about 14 billion years ago. This means that we should not observe objects in our Universe with an age exceeding this estimate.
But how can you find the age of space objects? Differently. For example, with the help of radioactive "clocks" - methods of nuclear cosmochronology, which allow you to estimate the age of objects by analyzing the relative abundance of isotopes with large periods half-life. The study of the content of isotopes in meteorites, in terrestrial and lunar rocks showed that the age of the solar system is close to 5 billion years. The age of the galaxy in which ours is located solar system, of course, more. It can be estimated from the time required for the formation of the amount of heavy elements observed in the solar system. Calculations show that the synthesis of these elements must have continued for ~5 billion years before the formation of the solar system. Therefore, the age of the regions of the Milky Way surrounding us is close to 10 billion years.
Another way of dating the Milky Way is based on estimating the age of its oldest stars and star clusters. This method is based on the theory of stellar evolution, well supported by a variety of observations. The result of this approach is that the age of various objects in the Galaxy (stars, globular clusters, white dwarfs, etc.) does not exceed ~10–15 billion years, which is consistent with modern ideas about the start time of cosmological expansion.
The age of other galaxies is, of course, more difficult to determine than the age of the Milky Way. We do not see individual stars near distant objects and are forced to study only the integral characteristics of galaxies - spectra, brightness distribution, etc. These integral characteristics are made up of the contributions of a huge number of stars that make up the galaxy. In addition, the observed characteristics of galaxies strongly depend on the presence and distribution of the interstellar medium in them - gas and dust. All these difficulties can be overcome, and modern astronomers have learned to reconstruct the histories of star formation, which should have led to the currently observed integral characteristics of galaxies. At the galaxies different types these histories are different (for example, elliptical galaxies arose during a powerful single burst of star formation many billions of years ago, stars are born in spiral galaxies at the present time), but no galaxies have been found in which the onset of star formation would exceed the age of the Universe. In addition, there is a quite definite, expected for a really expanding Universe, trend - the farther z we climb into the Universe, that is, we move to ever earlier stages of its evolution, so, on average, we observe younger objects.
Important arguments supporting the expansion of the Universe are also the existence of the CMB, the observed increase in its temperature with increasing redshift, as well as the content of elements in the Universe, but I will talk about this a little later. To finish my story, I want, perhaps, the most clear evidence of the expansion of the Universe - images of distant galaxies (see an example in Fig. 24).
One of the most spectacular results of the work of the Hubble Space Telescope (Hubble Space Telescope), undoubtedly, are wonderful pictures of various space objects - nebulae, star clusters, galaxies, etc. Observations from space do not interfere earth atmosphere, which blurs images, and therefore HST images are about ten times sharper than terrestrial ones. These very sharp images (their angular resolution is about 0. "" 1) in the 1990s for the first time managed to see in detail the structure of distant galaxies. As it turned out, distant galaxies are not like those that we observe around us. As the redshift increases, the proportion of asymmetric and irregular galaxies, as well as galaxies in interacting and merging systems, increases: if at z= 0, only a few percent of galaxies can be attributed to such objects, then to z= 1 their share increases to ~ 30-40%.
Rice. 24. A fragment of the Hubble Space Telescope's Ultra-Deep Field (image size 30"" x 30"") Most of the galaxies visible in the figure have z~0.5:1, meaning they refer to an era when the universe was about half its age.
Why is this happening? The simplest explanation is related to the expansion of the Universe - in earlier epochs, the mutual distances between galaxies were smaller (at z= 1, they were two times smaller) and, consequently, the galaxies should have disturbed each other more often with close passages and more often merge. This argument is not as unambiguous as those mentioned earlier, but it clearly indicates a well-defined, corresponding to the picture of the expanding Universe, the evolution of the properties of galaxies with time. So, the expansion of the universe is confirmed by various, completely unrelated, independent observational tests. In addition, the non-stationarity of the Universe inevitably arises when theoretical studies its structure and evolution. All this allowed the famous Soviet theoretical physicist Yakov Zeldovich to conclude back in the early 1980s that the Big Bang theory, which is based on the expansion of the Universe, “is as reliably established and true as it is true that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Both theories occupied a central place in the picture of the universe of their time, and both had many opponents who argued that the new ideas embedded in them were absurd and contradictory. common sense. But such speeches are not able to prevent the success of new theories.
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The universe is full of mysteries and inexplicable phenomena. Its sheer size is already a mystery in itself. And, in the end, no one knows what the Universe is. In this review, we have collected the most incredible mysteries that still haunt scientists today.
1. How old is the universe
At the dawn of the 21st century, despite all the inventions and scientific and technological progress, the age of the universe remains a mystery. According to the latest estimates of experts, the age of the universe is 13.8 billion years.
2. How galaxies form
There are so many discussions about how galaxies formed, but no one really knows for sure. Scientists do not know what happened after the Big Bang: small particles began to slowly combine and gradually form stars, star clusters and galaxies, or whether the Universe was originally a structure in the form of clumps of matter, which later split into galaxies.
3. Rectangular Galaxy
It's called the "Emerald Galaxy" and was recently discovered by an international team of astronomers from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia. precious stone was discovered using the Subaru telescope by Japanese astrophysicist Lee Spitler. It is believed that unusual shape is the result of a collision between two galaxies.
4. The universe before the Big Bang
Did anything exist before the Big Bang? This is something that people will probably never know.
5. How life appeared on Earth
Scientists know that the Earth was devoid of life when the solar system formed. However, whether the first forms of life arose on Earth or elsewhere is a huge mystery that is the subject of serious scientific debate. Previously, scientists believed that all life could have arisen spontaneously, but some scientists believe that complex organic molecules could have originated in space and were brought to Earth by comets or meteorites.
6. Dark matter
No one knows exactly what dark matter is, which is supposedly 22% in the universe. Because it (presumably) does not emit or interact with electromagnetic radiation, direct observation of dark matter is impossible. The conclusion about its existence was made on the basis of the behavior of astronomical objects and gravitational effects.
7. How big is the universe
Everyone knows that the universe is huge. Although the size of the observable universe is about 13.8 billion years, the distance to the edge of the observable universe is about 46 billion light years. This is because the universe is constantly expanding and constantly getting bigger all the time the light was coming towards the earth.
8. Black holes
The concept of black holes goes back to the 1780s, when John Michell and Laplace proposed the existence of "dark stars" whose gravity was so strong that it attracted even light emission. However, people still don't know much about black holes. For example, in 2014, scientists discovered galaxies with three supermassive black holes in the center (and it was previously assumed that there could be only 1 black hole in the center of the galaxy).
9. Gamma-ray bursts
One of the most big secrets astronomy over the past three decades is the nature of gamma-ray bursts (the most powerful bursts of energy in the universe). Scientists can detect them and observe them, but they still have no idea why they appear randomly and why they happen at all.
10. Dark energy
According to the most commonly accepted theory, dark energy should act in opposition to gravity. It is she who makes up approximately 68% of the universe and causes its expansion. In all other respects, what it is is a complete mystery.
11. Was there a Big Bang
Our universe, according to Einstein's theory, is about 13.8 billion years old and was formed from an infinitesimal point during the Big Bang. Although most scientists today accept this model, the scientific community still cannot explain what happened at this small point before the explosion and why it happened.
12. Are people alone in the universe?
This is another great mystery, which many thinkers and scientists have tried to solve throughout the history of human civilization, but so far have not found an answer to it. It's also a question of whether people will even be able to realize a completely different life - after all, maybe right now a different type of life is watching people, and they don't even understand it.13. The origin of life
This is without a doubt one of the oldest questions and the biggest mystery in human history. Although there are theories out there that try to explain this by complex chemical reactions, in fact, scientists do not have a clear unambiguous explanation of life.
14. Is everything around true
Since people began to think analytically, this question has been lurking somewhere in the subconscious. And it consists in the following: is what people see what it really is.
15. What is gravity really
Gravity played a large role in the creation of the universe in its modern form. Thanks to gravity, pieces of matter “stuck together” into planets, moons and stars. Because of gravity, when a person drops something, the object falls down instead of up. But what kind of power it really is is unknown. Although scientists can observe and understand how gravity "behaves", they have no idea why it exists. For example, if gravity is the force that causes all matter to be attracted to all others, why inside atoms are mostly empty space.
And in continuation of the unearthly theme - incredible.
I will try to state my view on the question, but for obvious reasons it does not claim to be true. How to define reality? Essential, objective, existing independently of human knowledge and perception. From the point of view of objectivity - each person lives in the "matrix" or in virtual reality, we see the objects around us not as they really are - it's just that each person is physiologically arranged on average in the same way as any other, so objects for we are similar. But my perception of, for example, red is different from your perception of red. But in reality there are no colors, there is only electromagnetic radiation reflected from objects.
On the other hand, we do have a set of sensations, visual, tactile, olfactory - these are receptor signals, electrical impulses perceived by the brain. And our sense organs, like any system, have limitations in sensitivity, range, resolution, for example. And this thought greatly haunts me, because after spending thought experiment, where reality is simulated using high-tech devices that provide such high accuracy, such plausible signals to our senses that our brain may well begin to think that it is in the only objective reality. Again, this is a thought experiment, it does not touch on the technical aspects, it does not touch on deeper issues related to the structure of the brain. He simply says that in a rough approximation there is no prohibition on the existence of absolute virtual reality, but this issue needs to be explored further. What comes next? To be honest, I am incompetent in matters of neuroscience, but definitely not everything is simple with this - for example, there is a memory. If there are cognitive contradictions between past experience and current reality - what consequences can there be? What will turn out to be stronger, is this contradiction capable of taking a person's consciousness out of the balance area and making it "wake up", as in the matrix? I don't know, and in general this is a very poorly studied thing, although people are working on it.
Returning to the main question - I believe that our universe is not virtual reality. The accumulated knowledge and experience show that objects in outer space are real, many of them are well studied, we know their characteristics - mass, for example. Simulation of massive objects is a very difficult thing, it is necessary to take into account a lot of parameters. And on the scale of the universe - almost infinity. And most importantly - we are gradually expanding our knowledge of the world in terms of the depth of the scales we know - from elementary particles to superclusters of galaxies - this is also a stone in the direction of the simulation idea.
Why does our world look like this and not otherwise? How is it really set up? Why does what we call miracles happen in it, and why do physical laws not always work? Is it possible to learn to control reality and the events that take place around us? There is only one theory that explains all this: the so-called material world simply does not exist.
What happened when there was nothing
People thought about the origin of the Universe in ancient times. Theologians believed that it was created by the Creator several thousand years before our era. But archaeological and paleontological findings prove that the Earth and life on it are at least millions of years old. Much closer to the truth, apparently, was Aristotle, who argued that the Universe has neither beginning nor end and will exist forever ...
For a long time, the Universe was considered static and unchanging, but in 1929 the American astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that it was constantly expanding. Therefore, it did not always exist, but arose as a result of some processes, he reasoned. This is how the theory of the Big Bang appeared, which gave rise to stars and galaxies billions of years ago. But if nothing existed before the Big Bang, then what led to it?
In 1960, physicist John Wheeler developed the "pulsating universe" theory.
According to it, the Universe has repeatedly gone through cycles of expansion and reverse contraction, that is, there have been at least several such Big Bangs over the entire period of its history. Another theory implies the existence of a proto-universe: first matter should have appeared, and then the Big Bang had already thundered.
Finally, there is a hypothesis of the emergence of the Universe from quantum foam, which is affected by energy fluctuations. "Foaming", quantum bubbles "inflate" and give rise to new worlds. But again, this did not explain the main thing: what existed before the formation of any matter?
The well-known astrophysicists James Hartle and Stephen Hawking tried to resolve the scientific paradox by proposing another theory in 1983. She said that the Universe has no boundaries and its structure is based on the so-called wave function, which determines the various quantum states of particles of matter. This makes possible the existence of many parallel Universes with different sets of physical constants.
Non-physical picture of the world
The main drawback of all scientific models of the formation of the Universe is that until now they have been based on the so-called physical picture of the world. But there may be other worlds! Worlds where the laws of physics don't work.
We are accustomed to the fact that we are surrounded by matter - an objective reality given to us in sensations. And after all sensations at everyone the, individual! Let us recall the same Plato, who believed that there is a world of ideas (eidos), and matter is just a projection of these ideas ... So we come to the most important thing: we are surrounded not by matter at all, but by ideas, images!
Consider the phenomenon of autism. The child, being born, perceives the world precisely in the form of images and sensations, and not in the form of a collection of objects. Over time, he learns to see the world as complete picture to establish connections between various items and concepts.
Autistic people can perceive reality, but cannot analyze it.
But they are able to assimilate a huge amount of "primary" information, which is inaccessible to most of us.
So, the Swedish Iris Johansson, who, suffering from autism, nevertheless managed to adapt to the “normal” world and even get the profession of a teacher and psychologist, is able to feel the so-called “ vital energy". As a child, living in a peasant family where cows were kept, she always saw which of the calves was not destined to survive.
In her youth, Iris worked at a hairdresser and learned, by doing women's hairstyles, to restore the energy potential of clients if he was depleted. Clients left the hairdresser's, feeling an unusual burst of energy. Thanks to this, Iris became a very popular master. Ordinary people are not capable of such miracles.
Illusion Proof
What about magic and religion? Eastern philosophers are convinced that the material world is an illusion, maya. The ancient Slavs divided the world into Reality, Nav and Rule: the world of matter, the world of spirits and the world of the Higher Beginning that controls reality. But what if, with the help of certain rituals, we can influence reality?
Any psychic will tell you that when inducing damage or unconventional treatment of a person, the impact is at the energy level. But here is the specific mechanism of what is happening at this moment, even the most advanced magician will not explain to you. He only knows that in order to obtain a certain result, a certain ritual must be performed. After all, the magician works with ideas, and not with the physical picture of the world.
So how do you make ideas work for you? First of all, you must be aware of the fact that there are parallel realities, the number of which, perhaps, tends to infinity. And they are not “out there”, but surround us. Only we do not notice the process of "transition" from one reality to another. Or we notice, but perceive it as a miracle. Let's say something disappears and then reappears.
Seeing something unusual, we immediately take the vision for a hallucination, while, most likely, we managed to look into one of the many parallel worlds. By the way, we are accustomed to perceive reality as something stable and orderly, but people with some brain disorders are able to see it for what it really is, which is usually perceived by us as nonsense and gives reason to twist a finger at the temple.
materialization phenomenon
The once brilliant physicist quantum mechanics, Hugh Everett suggested that any thought or action leads to a choice that shapes the so-called reality. At the same time, "unrealized" options continue to exist, as it were, in parallel.
For example, you took the same road, got stuck in traffic, and were late for a job interview, as a result of which you did not get it. We went another one - we arrived at the place on time, and the interview was successful. Is it possible to “step over” from one “branch” of multiple realities to another? That's what we do when we're trying to make our lives better.
Vadim Zeland illustrated this very well in his series of books “Reality Transurfing”. He explains why strong desires often do not come true. If we really want something, then excess potential arises, and reality begins to restore balance. No wonder there is a saying: "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans."
IN last years there was a stir around the Simoron system. In essence, we are offered a variant of the so-called positive thinking, but with the use of various kinds of ritual actions. How it works? A person “shatters” the boundaries of the usual picture of the world (simoronists call it PKM) and falls on the “wave” that is more desirable for him.
For example, Simoronists call for more frequent jumping into another world. How? Very simple - jump off a chair or bed, saying to yourself: I'm jumping for new job, behind new apartment, for your soul mate and so on.
Matter versus chaos
But why do we need an objective reality at all? Wouldn't it be better to be in a world of illusions, since they can be manipulated as you like?
The fact is that the material world is a kind of protection from chaos. Imagine that you are on a tiny island in the middle of an endless sea. At least you have solid ground under your feet, and if you throw yourself into the waves, they will carry you who knows where.
Most likely, once people really saw the world as chaotic as it really is. And they themselves created the so-called physical reality in order to avoid unwanted metamorphoses. In essence, such a theory explains everything: UFOs, and the appearance of ghosts, and telepathy, and clairvoyance ... Indeed, in the "true" world there are no boundaries, and anything can happen in it.
But if our world is illusory, then there must be some primary principle that gave birth to it. This is the mystery of God. If all this is indeed the case, then who created him himself? It is unlikely that there will be at least one scientist or philosopher who can answer this question, since, most likely, our limited consciousness simply cannot comprehend the answer.
The universe is a rich and complex place, but its geometry is remarkably simple. Perhaps it will force us to make the next big revolution in the physics of thought.
Our universe is actually very simple. It represents our cosmological theories, which are unnecessarily complex. This idea was expressed by one of the world's leading theoretical physicists.
This conclusion may seem counterintuitive. After all, to fully understand the true complexity of nature, you have to think bigger, study things in more detail, add new equation variables, and come up with "new" and "exotic" physics. Eventually, we will know what dark matter is and get an idea of where these gravitational waves hiding - if only our theoretical models were more advanced and more... complex.
"That's not entirely true," says Neil Turk, director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada. In his opinion, the Universe, on its largest and smallest scales, tells us that it is actually very simple. But to fully understand what this means, we will have to revolutionize physics.
In an interview with Discovery News, Turk noted that the most big discoveries recent decades have confirmed the structure of the universe in cosmological and quantum scales.
"On a large scale, we mapped the entire sky - the cosmic microwave background - and measured the evolution of the universe as it changes with expansion ... and these discoveries show that the universe is amazingly simple," he said. "In other words, you can describe the structure of the universe, its geometry, and the density of matter... you can essentially describe everything with a single number."
The most exciting outcome of this reasoning is that describing the geometry of the universe with one number is actually easier than numerically describing the simplest atom we know, the hydrogen atom. The geometry of the hydrogen atom describes 3 numbers that arise from the quantum characteristics of an electron in orbit around a proton.
“It basically tells us that the universe is smooth, but it has a small amount of fluctuation that this number describes. And it's all. The universe is the simplest thing we know."
On the other hand, something similar happened when physicists were doing research in the Higgs field using the most sophisticated machine ever built by humanity, the Large Hadron Collider. When physicists made the historic discovery of a particle in the Higgs field in 2012, the Higgs boson, it turned out to be the simple type of Higgs that is described in the standard model of physics.
“Nature found a way out with the smallest solution and the smallest mechanism you could imagine to give them particle masses, electrical charges and so on and so forth,” Turok said.
Physicists from the 20th century have taught us that once you get higher precision and lower the probe deeper into the quantum realm, you will find a zoo of new particles. As experimental results generate by the bounty quantum information, theoretical models predicted more outlandish particles and forces. But now we have reached a crossroads where many of our most advanced theoretical insights about what lies "behind" our current understanding of physics are turning to experimental results that support their predictions.
“We are in such a strange situation where the Universe is talking to us, telling us that these very simple at the same time theories that have been popular (over the last 100 years of physics) are becoming more and more complex and arbitrary,” he said. .
Turok pointed to string theory, billed as the "ultimate unified theory”, which presented all the secrets of the universe in a neat package. Also looking for evidence of inflation - the rapid expansion of the Universe just after the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago - in the form of primordial gravitational waves etched into the cosmic microwave background (CMB), or "echoes" of the Big Bang. But while we're looking for experimental evidence, we keep grasping at proverbial straws; the experimental data simply do not agree with our intolerably complex theories.
Our Cosmic Origins
Turks' theoretical work is centered around the origin of the universe, a subject that has garnered much attention in recent months.
Last year, BICEP2, which uses a telescope located on south pole, to study the CMB, announced the discovery of primary gravitational wave signals from the echoes of the Big Bang. In fact, this is the "Holy Grail" of cosmology - the discovery of gravitational waves that were generated by big bang. This could confirm certain inflationary theories of the universe. But, unfortunately for the BICEP2 team, they announced the "discovery" prematurely and the Planck Space Telescope (which also monitors the CMB) showed that the BICEP2 signal was caused by dust in our Galaxy and not by ancient gravitational waves.
What if these primordial gravitational waves are never found? Many theorists who have pinned their hopes on a Big Bang followed by a rapid period of inflation may be disappointed, but according to Turk "it's a very powerful clue" that the Big Bang (in the classical sense) cannot be the absolute beginning of the universe.
"The biggest challenge for me was describing the Big Bang itself mathematically," Turok added.
Perhaps this cyclic model of universal evolution - where our universe breaks down and bounces back again - may better fit the observations. These models do not necessarily generate primordial gravitational waves, and if these waves are not detected, perhaps our inflationary theories should be discarded or changed.
As for the gravitational waves that are predicted to be generated by the rapid movement of massive objects in our present universe, Turok is confident that we are reaching the realm of sensitivity, that our gravitational wave detectors will detect them very soon, confirming yet another Einstein-Time prediction.
"We expect gravitational waves to emerge from black hole collisions within the next 5 years," he said.
Next revolution?
From large scales to small ones, the universe appears to be "scale-free". And this finding actually suggests that the universe has a much simpler nature than current theories suggest.
“Yes, this is a crisis, but this is a crisis in at its best Turk said.
Thus, in order to explain the origin of the universe and come to terms with some of its most puzzling mysteries, such as dark matter and dark energy, we may need to look at our cosmos in different ways. This requires a revolution in physics.
“We need a completely different understanding of fundamental physics. The time has come for radical new ideas,” he concluded, noting that this is a great time in human history for young people to make a mark in the field of theoretical physics. They will most likely change the way we view the universe.
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