Does Matter pass through Time?

The world is not what it seems to be. An object which we see as a stable entity subsisting in time is a mere illusion. Nothing can survive through time, except energy. Our senses and brain cannot perceive the reality that everything around us, including ourselves, disappears instantly as one moment passes and promptly appears as the next moment arrives.

Nature is like a movie. What we see on the movie screen as something rolling continuously is the projection of images turned on at the speed of twenty-four pictures per second, with a gap of blackness between two consecutive pictures.  Since our eyes cannot catch up the appearing and disappear of these twenty-four pictures in one second, we see as though they are progressing uninterruptedly.

When Edison invented movie, he did not realize that he had copied the dusty blueprint of time hidden secretly for thousands of years. Had he realized and followed precisely the blueprint, he had to build a super-movie capable of turning on 10⁴⁴ pictures instead of twenty-four flashing by per second. However, that was not all. What would make Edison terrified was that he should also design the screen capable of appearing and disappearing together with the pictures at the pace equal to the speed of light.

So that is how nature works. Our material world is nothing but a mere projection of four-dimensional events on a three-dimensional screen. This gigantic movie screen is nothing but our precious space flashing on and off at the speed of light in between two opposing four-dimensional oceans of energy. This flashing space together with all materials within makes us perceive that time is running.

Within the Planck distance (10^-33 cm), matter barely exists. At this quantum level, the matter is between the state of existence and non-existence in the sense that its existence s reduced to a mere possibility.

The matter appears and disappears following the rule of E = mc² or dynamically E²= m²c⁴ + p²c², the interplay between its positive and negative components, which is completely reversible. Energy manifest itself as vibration, expressed by E = hv. We can describe the whole process diagrammatically ^a) as shown in Figure-1.

It is the underlying reality of the wave and particle duality, the deep secret of the quantum mechanics that perplexes physicists for more than a hundred year now.

Technically, we called the state between existence and non-existence possible (Figure-2). Now we know why in quantum reality nature behaves probabilistically and non-continuously.

Our misconception on the deterministic and continuous features of nature as has been presumed in the classical and relativity theories was due to our inability to perceive this underlying quantum reality.

Note:

a)      In reality, energy does not flow in time. It is the constant creation and annihilation of matter (and space) to and fro energy which gives us the impression that time is passing by.

Does Matter pass through Time?

Energy Reality and the Creation of the Universe

Everybody knows about energy but rarely is aware of its true nature. People used to regard energy as something abstract, the same way as they do for the power, force or its kinds. What they concern most about energy is its function, not its reality. We learn from the school that energy is a mathematical abstraction that has no existence apart from its functional relationship to other variables or coordinates that do have a physical interpretation and which can be measured¹.

The kinetic energy of a given mass has no other reality than as a function of its velocity. We know the potential energy from its position and the rest energy from its mass. What people know about energy is only superficial. They only see ripples moving across the surface of the ocean, not the water beneath. As we will see the energy is not at all an abstract thing. On the contrary, it is the only real substance from which everything is derived. Energy is omnipresence; eternal (in relativity term), neither can be created nor destroyed.

Energy and Its Bodily Form

From the relativity theory, if it is adequately understood, we can know the true nature of energy. Einstein's equation E = mc² [and the energy conservation] pointed out that matter was nothing but a different aspect of energy. The relativity also unified other fundamentals, i.e. the space and time into a single entity called spacetime. The relativity, therefore, reduces the fundamentals in two namely the spacetime and energy.

Einstein ingeniously connected the two through the influence of energy on the spacetime resulting in the curvature of the latter. From this idea, he revealed the nature of gravity. It was a success story, but that was not enough. What Einstein supposed to do was taking a little step further unifying the spacetime and energy.

What Einstein failed to grasp was a fundamental [metaphysical] principle: a substance does not come into existence without its bodily form. Nature abhors nudity.  Just like the three-dimensional spherical structure is the bodily form of water in a drop of water, the [four-dimensional] spacetime is the bodily form for the energy.

There is no energy without spacetime and no spacetime devoid of energy. Science fails to recognize this very nature of  energy because physicists are more familiar with the energy's manifestation on the surface, not the underlying energy. Energy in its actual reality is more like an [four-dimensional] ocean of energy. As a three-dimensional being, we can only perceive the manifestation of energy on a three-dimensional hypersurface (space) ^a) in the form of fields and forces.

The spacetime is nothing but the structural quality of energy. The dimensionality of the spacetime is not its intrinsic property but the manifestation of the energy's degree of freedom. The higher the energy's potency is, the higher its spacetime's dimensions are. There should be a broad spectrum of energies of different potencies exist out there in nature, as indicated by the discovery of theoretical higher dimensional spacetimes in some more recent theories.

Another energy's feature, which physicists seem to be reluctant to deal with, is its opposing components which are revealed by the relativistic energy equation E² = m²c⁴ + p²c². As we will see, these two opposite energies, the positive and negative, play an essential role in the creation of material things and space.

Multidimensional Time

The physicists seem to have been forced to deal more and more with higher dimensional spaces. Kaluza and Klein were the first who believed that the gravity and the electromagnetic waves put together could be adequately described if the spacetime had five dimensions instead of the standard four. Under the superstring theory, physicists even proposed higher dimensions: ten and more recently eleven.

As did Kaluza and Klein, physicists presumed that all the extra-dimensions beyond the fourth curled into tiny, undetectable loops. This idea has brought us into many bizarre things such as doughnut-like and Calabi-Yau spaces² which give us a hundred thousand possible solutions. One should have used Oscam razor to cut off those ugly curly dimensions long time ago and put back more elegant extended extra-dimensions in their places.

We cannot perceive the extra-dimensions because they are time dimensions. The term spacetime given to the unification of the space and time is misleading. The term gives us the impression that such a union has already different space and time dimensions since the beginning. On the contrary, in its originality the dimensions of the spacetime were equivalent. The union of the space and time at that stage is more like four-dimensional time (its dimensions were time-like).  The time dimensions were not yet divided. Neither space nor "Now" was there, nor was a material thing and even light. It was in total darkness and chaos.

At this condition, we better name the union of space and time 'eon,' the "eternity" (Figure-1a). It was only when the opposing energies had segregated from each other (the spacetime split in two) that we can call it spacetime (Figure-1b). As the energies separated, an interface (space) naturally appeared. As such, the [time] dimensions along the interface were transformed to become spatial.

The physicists totally missed this scenario and jumped instead using the undivided whole spacetime for representing the real worlds. The following statement reflects Einstein's standpoint³:” The non-divisibility of the four-dimensional continuum of events does not at all, however, involve the equivalence of the space coordinates with the time coordinate. On the contrary, we must remember that the time coordinate is defined physically wholly differently from the space coordinates". This kind of vicious-circle thinking has brought us to the troubles that we have now in physics.

Grand Relativity Theory

In order to preserve causality and order, physicists have been forced to assign "artificial" light cones, as the fundamental structure, at every point within the spacetime. Within such a world, the simultaneity of Nows, even for two neighboring events, is totally beyond the grasp of the system.  Einstein was worried so much about this, as his friend Rudolph Carnap recounted ⁴:” Einstein said the problem of the Now worried him seriously …  That the science  cannot grasp the experience of Now seemed to him a matter of painful. So he concluded that there is something essential about the Now which is just outside the realm of science”.

The reason why physicists denied the existence of [universal] "now" is because it was against the principle of the relativity of simultaneity. We can avoid this dilemma if we are considering it under a multidimensional time framework. Events which happen non-simultaneously in a particular time dimension could be simultaneous in another higher dimensional time. We can always find a higher time dimension in which events happen simultaneously (flat hypersurface) whereas they were not so in a lower time dimension (Figure-2).

For example, a ten-dimensional spacetime can be equally described as a three-dimensional space having seven-time dimensions or as nine-dimensional spacetime having one-time dimension. The former has its physical law broken into many while the latter has less. We can always try to explore a higher and higher dimensional spacetime until we get one unified law.

The spatial and time dimensions are transformable to each other depending on how we regard the spacetime as a system. Whether we consider the system as a lower dimensional hypersurface having many time dimensions or as a higher dimensional hypersurface having one temporal dimension, the physical laws remain the same. We can only unify of physical laws can only be done at such a higher dimensional [flat] hypersurface (spacetime) where all events are taking place simultaneously. We may call this postulate the grand relativity principle.

Ghostly Rotating Universe

Under the general relativity theory, the arrangement of light cones can be quite irregular rather than uniform. In an extreme situation, they may form closed time-like curves. Penrose⁵ ruled this situation out as simply unphysical as it violates causality. However, his worry was unfounded. The two opposing energies do not create matters [and space] permanently but perpetually create and annihilate those  particles. Particles are created and annihilated perpetually at the pace equal to the speed of light as expressed by E = mc² or dynamically by E² = m²c⁴ + p²c^{2  b)}.  The interactions between the two energies are manifested as a flux of [four-dimensional] electrical currents (Higgs fields?) across through the surface generating quantum sparks (“quarks”) at the surface, analogous to the flashing pixels appear and disappear on a giant TV screen.

As the two energies are repulsive, they are "flowing" in the opposite directions to each other, forcing the surface rotates around an axis lying on its plane (Figure 3a). The electric currents which flow across through the surface induce [three-dimensional] magnetic fields which propagate traversing the surface.  It makes the surface rotate following the right-hand rule, around an axis perpendicular to the surface (Figure 3b). This rotation causes circular movements of heavenly bodies i.e., the solar system, galaxies, super-galaxies and spin of both macroscopic bodies and quantum particles.

The interface, the boundary which separates the two energies, is volatile ^c) like a mirage having virtual existence. The constant interactions of the two energies make the existence of the interface seem persistent. Penrose was very close to this idea when he discussed the Galilean relativity. However, he considered this idea as unphysical ⁶⁾:” It may seem alarming that our very notion of physical space seems to be of something that evaporates completely as one moment passes, and reappears as a completely different space as the next moment arrives."

What he stated was, in fact, correct except that space does not appear and disappear in time but, on the contrary, it is the appearance and disappearance of the space which creates time passage.  Had he done otherwise, he would lead us on the right track to reality.

The separation of the spacetime does not take place instantaneously but gradually. The "area" of the separation is stretching out across the spacetime just like a big crack propagates in a solid body. The former represents a static universe while the latter represents the expanding universe (Figure-4). It is the underlying reality of the expanding universe as against the Big Bang theory.

Notes:

a) We use the notations of space, hypersurface, and hyper-interface, or surface and interface interchangeably.

b)     At the quantum level these equations are completely reversible

c)   The relativistic expression (m²c⁴ + p²c²) involves complex numbers so that there is no clear cut separation (interface) between those two separated energies, in the sense that the interface appears only instantly and disappears immediately after.

References:

1.   Abbott and Ness, V.: Thermodynamics”, Schaum’s Outline Series, Mc Graw-Hill, New York, 1967, p. 1

2.     Greene, B.: "The Elegant Universe," Vintage Books, New York, 2003, p. 207-208.

3.   Einstein, A.: "The Meaning of Relativity," Fifth Edition, Princeton Science Library, New Jersey, 1988, p. 31

4.     Barbour, J.:" The End of Time," Phoenix, Second Impression, London, 2001, p. 14

5.     Penrose, R.:" The Road to Reality," Vintage Books, London, 2004, p. 408-409.

6.     Ibid, p. 387

Energy Reality and the Creation of the Universe

Hypersurface, the Extrinsic View of the World

Any application of the law to a discrete portion of the universe or even something else more prominent such as the possible multiverses requires the description of a system and its surroundings. A system can be any region of space, the whole universe itself or any region of multiverses selected for study and set apart [mentally] from everything else, which then becomes the surroundings.

There are two ways on how we can geometrically describe the world, i.e. intrinsically or extrinsically. Let us take an example on how we describe a lower dimensional object such as a surface. We can describe the properties of surfaces without reference to the space in which the surface is embedded as intrinsic properties. We can imagine that in this particular case the properties of the surface are analyzed from two dimensional flat being living in such surface, whose universe is determined solely by [two] surface parameters. In this intrinsic geometry a pair of isometric surfaces, a cone and cylinder, for example, are indistinguishable.

These surfaces appear to be quite distinct to an observer examining them [extrinsically] from a reference frame located in the space in which the surfaces are embedded. Geometrically, an entity that provides a characterization of the shape of the surface as it appears from the enveloping space is the normal line to the surface^[1].


Now let us turn to examine the concepts from the geometry of higher dimensional metric manifolds which are of our primary interest. Many of the concepts are straightforward generalizations of ideas introduced in the study of surfaces embedded in the three-dimensional [Euclidean] manifolds. For the visualization purposes, we wish to put forward the relative depictions of the n-dimensional world viewed intrinsically as standing alone n-hyperspace and viewed extrinsically as an n-hypersurface embedded in (n+1) or higher dimensional hyperspace (Figure-1).

An n-dimensional flat hypersurface can be entirely embedded in an (n+1) dimensional hyperspace, but as the hypersurface is curved, it needs much spacious ambient. Now, under what circumstances an m-dimensional variety (hypersurface) can be embedded in the n-dimensional Euclidean manifold (hyperspace)? The answer is that the m-hypersurface can be wholly embedded in hyperspace without restraint on whatever direction it might curve if and only if such a hyperspace has at least n = ½ m (m+1) dimensions. We call the latter as an allowable embedding hyperspace to a particular hypersurface.

It means that there are a total of [1/2m (m+1)-m] normal lines to the "surface" of such a hypersurface. In a dynamic condition where the hypersurface moves relative to the ambient hyperspace this-extra dimensions are identified as extra [temporal] dimensions, not the ones which curled in tiny looped as the string theory hypothesizes.

Einstein had developed the relativity theory both special and general relativity theories based on intrinsic geometry. It is the weakness of the relativity theory which ignores the surroundings representing more than 99% of the whole reality we are longing to recognize. No wonder the Big Bang theory, the derivation of the relativity theory, can only take into account 5% out of the total matter and energy affecting the known universe.


Intrinsically, we consider the independent variables of the metric tensor of Einstein four-dimensional spacetime as just mathematical variables having no physical significance. However, when we see the world extrinsically, those variables of the metric tensor are nothing but the manifestation of the underlying coordinates – the dimensions of the embedding hyperspace.

We can achieve the unification theory if we describe the world as a curves hypersurface at least in term of parameters of its minimum allowable embedding hyperspace.

The concept of brane, the representation of the world as a hypersurface is already in the right track except for the concept of its ambient hyperspace. The brane is not like a piece of paper floating around in thin air, but more like an interface of higher dimensional watery like substances – higher dimensional of positive and negative pure energies (Figure-2).

Hypersurface, the Extrinsic View of the World

How does E = mc2 work at Planck level

We do not need to go to a faraway land only to get to the frontier of the material world we live in. We are indebted to Planck (1900) who enabled us to discover this frontier beyond which nothing exists but energy. Everybody can reach this boundary just right from where he or she stands on, going deep inward into the center of micro-realm, to the Planck level at the distance of 10^-33 cm or period of 10^-44 second below which neither space nor time has any meaning.

Planck himself was not aware of the broader physical meaning of his finding. In fact, we can derive those values from his constant, h = 6.6 x 10^-34 joule-seconds, the measure of a unit of action which is a little bit weird and uncommon. So, why then we are facing such an odd unit? What Planck had discovered was not merely a measure of a unit of action which is an abstract thing but the real size of four-dimensional discrete energy (quantum). Energy is like water phase consisting of discrete four-dimensional “molecules”, the smallest constituent of the underlying four-dimensional sea of energy.

"Shortly" after Planck momentous discovery, Minkowski (1908) revealed the four-dimensionality of the macro-world. The unification of these theories would lead us to conclude that the four-dimensionality of the spacetime is just the manifestation of the degree of freedom of energy which itself is four-dimensional. We have, then, a very consistent geometrical pattern of the four-dimensional world, both microscopically and macroscopically, from the tiniest thing like four-dimensional quanta to the largest ones such as the four-dimensional spacetime as a whole. 

But still, nobody grasps the important implication of this quanta’s four-dimensionality. The fundamental particles, the smallest building blocks of the universe, which are the derivative of these quanta as dictated by the energy equation E= mc² should be also four-dimensional. Being discrete both spatially and temporarily, this little stuff is short-living.  The persistence of everything we see around us is just the appearance of the underlying perpetual creation and annihilation of fundamental ephemeral things, an action that takes place at the Planck level. 

As the macro-world is made of these ephemeral kinds of stuff, the same thing happens in the macro-realm. At any instant, our physical space appears and disappears in the same rhythm with what happens in the micro-realm.   How could this happen? The notions of creation and annihilation are just the terms we use to describe the transformations of energy into matter and vice versa.  Down to the Planck level the energy equation, E= mc² is highly reversible in which matter and energy flashing to and fro at the pace equal to the speed of light.

The appearance and disappearance of the whole thing from the space as a whole down to the minuscule particles at the deepest level of reality give us a feeling that something passes by. And this something is what we call time.   The past, present, and future are just a series of continuous process of formation and dissolution just like a single water wave moves across the surface of the water; the peak of the wave is the now, the flat horizon behind it is the past and ahead is the future. This is the true nature of time that people are searching for a long time. Had everything persisted there would be no time at all.

Now what we perceive as one and the same persistent particle is, in fact, a series of similar but different particles appear and disappear rapidly at the speed of light. The constant c is nothing but the rate of the perpetual creation and annihilation of the quanta, the building blocks of the universe. Among this process what we can directly measure is the rate of the perpetual creation and annihilation of the photon which is equal to the speed of light. This is the underlying fact why nothing can move faster than the light, otherwise, there would be something running ahead of its very own existence.

How this creation and annihilation physically take place? The relativity energy equation E² = m²c⁴ + p²c² implicitly shows that the energy inherently consists of the opposites: the positive and negative energies. As they are repulsive they both tend to segregate separating from each other. At Planck level, the interplays of these two (the exchange of 4D-electric currents?) across the interface (thin 3D-surface) create quantum sparks (“quarks”), analogous to the sparks appear and disappear on our TV screen. These quantum sparks are what we perceive as fundamental particles perpetually appear and disappear at a gigantic 3D- TV screen -- our dear physical space.

Multidimensional Reality (Part I)

The mathematicians used to say that there is no branch of science in which the tyranny of authority has been felt more strongly than in geometry1. We would instead say that this statement is no longer valid but in physics. The relativity theory under the giant name as of Einstein together with its derivative, the Big Bang, dominated the thought and shaped the development of physics and cosmology for around one hundred years up to now.

However, its endless conflict with quantum mechanics has put the physics in crisis as we see today. There were a few brave physicists to whom the relativity theory did not seem convincing, but the hands of authority were so heavy that it is almost impossible to put forward their different ideas to fix up the theory. Notwithstanding, let us scrutinize the fundamental concepts of the relativity theory aimed at improving the theory in concordance with quantum mechanics.

Spacetime as the Geometrical Quality of Energy

The special relativity theory deals with an idealized four-dimensional spacetime whose energy hidden behind the scene. As such, everything is in rest or steady motion forever. There is no force or friction which might accelerate or decelerate the motion. Even gravity is abhorred to exist. Such a world should be completely flat. In this particular circumstance, because of the energy's passive role, the spacetime appears as though it is an independent reality.

The general relativity theory, on the other hand, deals with a more real-world whose energy is lively on the go. The spacetime can be no longer flat but somewhat curved here and there due to the effect of gravity and forces exerting in those particular parts. The spacetime is not independent of energy. The spacetime is not like a container and energy something that fills the container. The energy and spacetime are respectively more like water substance and the spherical form in a drop of water. Undeniably, the spacetime by itself does not have the existence on its own; it fades away into shadow to become merely the geometrical quality of the energy. Einstein2 has inaccurately interpreted that the spacetime was the geometrical quality of the fields instead of energy.

Geometrical Intrinsic View of the General Relativity Theory

The fault of the relativity theory is that it treats the spacetime's geometry properties intrinsically, without due reference to the surroundings in which the spacetime might be embedded. It ignores the majority part of the reality: the surrounding. Take, for example, Einstein's metric tensor, wh Intrinsically, this tensor is mathematically explained as a function of ten independent variables without further explanation about what these variables physically could be.

As we may recall, a curved m-dimensional spacetime (m-hypersurface) can only be embedded in the n-dimensional [Euclidean] manifold if the embedding manifold has at least n = ½ m (m+1) dimensions. We know that a curved two-dimensional surface can be easily embedded in three-dimensional space, but a curved three-dimensional space can only be freely (no constraint in any direction) embedded in a hyperspace if and only if the latter has six dimensions. Had the embedding hyperspace been four-dimensional, space would be completely flat.

A further generalization is straightforward. A curved four-dimensional spacetime requires at least 10-dimensional surrounding hyperspace, and so on up to infinity, the Absolute realm, whose surrounding has no meaning. Only then, we can talk about a system without surrounding, not the one which the general relativity assumes. Even when the general relativity assumes that the spacetime's surrounding is an absolute void, the following question naturally arises: how many dimensions the void has for it could embed the four-dimensional spacetime? Are they none, ten, infinite or else?

You know now that even long before physicists formulated the string theory, the general relativity theory has tacitly demonstrated that the reality was at least ten-dimensional, which the theory has, alas, overlooked it. However, the so-called "extra" dimensions are well extended, not curled into tiny loops such as prematurely hypothesized in the string theory. How come, then, we cannot see those extra dimensions? The bold answer is that those extra dimensions are temporal. To everybody's amazement, time is indeed multidimensional.

(to be continued)

References:

1.     Sokolnikoff, L.S.: "Tensor Analysis," John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Second Edition, New York, 1964

2.  Einstein, Albert: "The Meaning of Relativity," Princeton University Press, Fifth Edition, Princeton, N.J. 1954.

Multidimensional Reality (Part I)