Fact, Fiction, Future: Origin

The origin of our universe has been a great debate for centuries, from Demacritis to Hawking.  Many ideas have spawned over these centuries of our origin, including religious ideas from Fundamentalists and scientific from people like Einstein and Fred Hoyle.  However, we have still yet to identify the manner of which we were created, if at all.  The current model of the beginning of the universe is the Big Bang Theory.  It's evidence is substantial, to the point where many are considering more than just theory, but there are many contestants who would disagree.  This brings us to our first idea, the Electric Universe, which is the only operating theory that counters the Big Bang and has not been disputed yet.

1)  The Electric Universe:  According to EU advocates from thunderbolt.com, thebigbangneverhappened.com, K10 Labs, and some input from Facebook EU supporters, I have compiled a list of arguments.  EU theorists claim that the very red shift that helps prove the Big Bang leads to its very demise.  Red shift occurs when objects move away from the observer, causing the light to redshift.  It acts similar to the Dopler effect and sound, where when something comes closer it gets louder which is blue shift with light, and when it moves away it disipates which equates to red shift with light.  Hubble discovered this red shift and formulated Hubble's constant in which the universe is expanding at equal speeds around the entire universe, allowing us to accurately measure the age of objects by measuring the red shift of some of the brightest events in the universe, supernovae.  However, EU theorists say that this red shift is not universally equal, and therefore falsely identified as due to the expansion of the universe.

EU theorists in other words say no Big Bang occured.  EU theorists believe in a static universe, but they don't stop there.  EU theorists, according to their support sits thunderbolt.com, the-electric-universe.info, and their Facebook supporters they also deny General Relativity and claim electromagnetism to be the supreme force of nature.  General Relativity uses gravity to explain attraction amongst bodies, stellar formation, and galactic structures.  EU theorists claim that instead, electromagnetism is responsible for these occurances, and their proof is quite convincing to the untrained eye.  Displaying plasma helixes in the core of our galaxy and arks on our Sun, EU theorists say their evidence is abundance.  They also claim that the Sun is not powered by nuclear fussion of hydrogen atoms, but through electromagnetic forces on the surface of the Sun.  Their evidence is the supposed lack of neutrinos being emitted by the Sun when measured in 1967.  Also, replacing gravity in galaxies with plasma flows, they state that our galaxy is bound by these flows.

Now, is this idea Fact, Fiction, or Future?  Well, believe it or not, your answer will Fiction.  Here's why, remember their red shift argument?  Well, the equation that calculates the age of stellar objects through red shift has an 11% error, and the less than 1% outliers we observe fall nicely into this error.  In other words, calculatory error explains these phenomena, so EU theorists have now lost their ability to explain away the theory they are attempting to replace.

But what about those plasma arks?  Well, they are easily explained with the use of rotating plasma spinning in the accretion disk of a supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy, and I don't think I need to explain a solar ark, being that's found in about every astronomy book you could purchase (even ones meant for first graders I've found it in).  But if you want to know, here's why.  These solar flares are due to variations of tempurature and energy emmission on the solar surface, and these flares correspond regularly with the recurring sunspot cycle.  This explanation was compliments of National Geographic's Visual Encyclopedia.

Finally those neutrinos.  This irresponsibility in researching is probably why this theory has been completely thrown out by the physics community.  Based off of 1967 measurements, the amount of neutrinos present due to solar fussion was not enough, and they argued this disproved the fussion theory.  However, in the more accurate 2000 measurements, the value was just what was predicted, so this argument is not only wrong but outdated.  Part of being a proper theory is being able to keep up with time, and EU cannot do this.  Not only this, but the method they propose would create solar wind with different polarity than we observe, so the argument was pretty much useless.  Finally, those plasma flows have never been observed, so again they have no evdence to support their theory.

Now, why would someone create such a theory?  Well, for two reasons.  One is an attempt to be iconoclastic and gain recognition for denouncing the main stream.  This can lead to misguided efforts to denounce even the most correct laws of nature.  Second is due to misinformation.  After being misinformed of the mechanics we believe to occur in our universe, a different theory was sought after.  The unfortunate victim of this was our dear friend Nichola Tesla whose discoveries were used to create the Electric Universe Theory.  I love you Tesla, but your discoveries I will not abuse.

2)  Parallel Universes:  Now to our second phenomenon in our quest for the origin of our universe, parallel universes.  Parallel universes were formulated by Hugh Everett III in his Princeton dorm after pondering over Schrodinger's Cat and the Measurement Problem.  Schrodinger's Cat in short shows that particles can be a wave and a particle when not being measured, otherwise known as wave-particle duality.  Wave-particle duality is a form of superposition, which is when something is in two seperate states at one time.  The Measurement Problem arises when you measure this object in superposition.  What happens is this measurement apparently causes the wave created by this superposition to collapse into a particle, but for no explainable reason.  The explanation provided by Schrodinger came to be known as the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, and in short states that it occurs for unexplainable reasons, but the reasons are not important except for the fact that it happens, so we continue to make observations and discoveries acknowledging that happens but not why.  Everett was not happy with this and formulated the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (MWI).  MWI states that this wave function, as it is called, does not collapse but seperates into parallel universes once the observation is made.  This happens because by observing, the observer itself becomes part of the system, and therefore becomes part of the wave function.

Let's say There is a cat in a box that has a 50/50 chance of being dead or alive.  The minute you check to open the box, you seperate into two universes, one where you see it dead, and one where you see it alive.  Of course the actual theory is a bit more complicated, but you get the basic picture.  It explains the measurement problem by eliminating the problem altogether, and not having the wave function collapse.

There is increasing support for MWI as well.  Recently, UCSB discovered macroscopic superposition, in which they induced a metal plate into a state of motion and rest at the same time.  It would look like taking a picture of a man standing and then sprinting with a prolonged shutter time.  Oxford proved the theory mathematically, and a cold spot in the Cosmic Microwave Background is believed by a University of North Carolina professor to be the reminants of the superposition of another universe.  Finally, Stephen Hawking and Hartle formulated a Big Bang scenerio that included Everett's theory in an attempt to provide a method of creation without God.  But, I must remind you that this does not disprove God, but just shows natural occurances could still cause the Big Bang.

So what do we call MWI?  Well, as much as I would love to call it fact, it is more future.  We have gathered a good amount of evidence, but it is no where near proven.  Really its only criticism is the lack of influence it has on the model of our universe.  If parallel worlds existed, they are theorized by the majority to be linear, which in short means they do nothing to our universe.  In other words, they say because it is not influential on our view of the universe, they've applied Occam's Razor and eliminated it.  However, David Deautsch has advocated that parallel universes may be influencing our universe through calculations using Bohm's equations.  Michio Kaku and other String Theorists have created M-Theory which creates a type of parallel universe known as branes ("bubble model").  So, it is a prospective idea, but not proven.

3)  Big Bang:  This brings us to our last origin idea, the Big Bang itself.  Yes, it is FACT in my opinion, and many others, and here's why.  The Big Bang has been virtually proven by three main things.  The first is the existance of a Cosmic Microwave Background, the afternoise of the Big Bang.  No other theory explains this phenomenon.  Hubble's red shift discovery also shows that our universe is expanding, furthering support that there was a beginning, and the red shift has already been shown to also have no flaws.  Finally, the existance of certain elements in certain levels predicted by the Big Bang Theory extends its proof to almost unquestionable accuracy.  Though some predictions are a bit rough, the overall prediction is quite accurate.  The only problems that have arisen are mysterious flat rotation curves around galaxies due to some mysterious extra gravity.  This could be solved with a more complete theory of gravity and through better observations.  The last mystery is the accelerating expansion.  This acceleration means nothing to the Big Bang, but does for the manner in which we "banged".

Currently, the Big Bang states that the universe was created from a singularity that underwent time reversal.  This is not a black hole singularity, but resembles one of a white hole, which is the reverse of a black hole.  The reason we use this model is because it makes minimal assumpions of anything prior to the Big Bang, avoiding making mistaken assumptions.  Most think this model will be overthrown by a better more inciteful model because many now believe something more did occur prior to the Big Bang.  However, we'll just avoid assumptions for now.

Thanks for reading this session of Fact, Fiction, Future, and I hope you enjoyed this read.  See you next time!