Kick the rock, Sam Johnson, break your bones,
But cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones.
Epistemology by Richard Wilbur

The Christian Bible tells us that in the beginning was the word. The Egyptians believed that the god Thot created the world from the sound of his voice. Persians and Hindus believed that the universe was created by a sound that emerged from a primordial abyss and became light. Many civilizations believe in the divine origins of sound and that sound has the power to communicate with the invisible world.

Physicists tell us that in the beginning was the big bang. That some 15 billion years ago the universe began with a huge explosion - an instant of infinitesimal duration, occupying an infinitely small volume of space, but containing an infinite density of energy. In a split second of creation, everything, including time and space and all matter, emerged from nothing. 

A vast cloud of hydrogen was created – the same energy that was used in the hydrogen bomb. The amount of hydrogen used in an HBomb would fill a small pudding basin. The amount released by the big bang is unmeasurable and stars release the energy of millions of HBombs every second.

From this cloud of hydrogen, the stars were created and from the stars came all the elements that we need for life and for everything that exists in the universe. We are all made of stardust. 

But it is the death of stars that gives us life. When a star runs out of the hydrogen which fuels the nuclear fire that has kept it burning for hundreds of years, it cools, shrinks and starts to collapse under its own weight, crashes inwards and explodes. The event is over in a thousandth of a second. They call it a super nova – a burst of light that is so bright that it outshines the galaxies and is one of the most breathtaking sights of the universe. 

The inside of a dying star is made up of layers like an onion – layers of sulphur, calcium, carbon, helium, lithium and other elements with a dense core of molten iron at its heart. As stars explode and blow themselves apart, millions and millions of tons of stardust are hurtled into space. At the heart of this nebula new worlds are created. Gas and dust form microscopic clumps which come together to form new stars, solar systems and planets, in a dance that lasts millions of years. If you are lucky enough to see a super nova you will be witness to the moment of creation. 

If the dying star is big enough it will go on collapsing until it becomes a black hole – an area of the universe which has a gravitational pull so strong that nothing can escape unless it is capable of travelling faster than the speed of light. The star will continue collapsing within the black hole until all the matter in it is compressed into an area of zero volume and infinite density, known as a singularity. It is believed that a singularity preceded the big bang.

The universe is expanding – distant galaxies are rushing away from each other at high speed. Imagine a piece of bread dough with raisins in it, left to rise in a warm place. As the dough rises the distances between the raisins increases. In the same way, as the universe expands the distance between the galaxies increases.

The elements in Stardust are known as particles and everything in the universe is made of particles - human beings, animals, plants, the air around us, the oceans, the skies, the sun and the moon, the wind and the rain. 

The three main particles are called protons, neutrons and electrons, which together with a great deal of empty space, form Atoms. The protons and neutrons form what is called the nucleus of the atom, at its centre, with the electrons orbiting the nucleus at high speed. At around 400bc, Greek philosophers considered the universe to be composed of minute, invisible particles of matter which they called them atoma meaning indivisible and from which the word atom has come.

Protons and neutrons are made up of more fundamental particles called quarks. The protons, neutrons and the quarks belong to a class of particles called fermions. Fermions have systems for passing messages between themselves – messages that cause them to act in various ways. These systems can be likened to our own message systems of telephone, fax, e.mail and post. In the same way that not everyone uses all four message systems, some may use only the telephone, others may use only the post, yet others will use telephone and fax and still others will use all four systems, fermions will select the most appropriate system for their needs at the time.

These four message carrying systems are the four forces of nature – the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force and the gravitational force. Scientists have tried to find a common element that will unify these forces in the same way that we might say that telephone, fax and e.mail are all united by the need of a telephone connection. They have been successful in unifying the electromagnetic force, and the strong and weak nuclear forces, but in the same way that post does not fit in with our model, the force of gravity did not fit any scientific model.

As well as fermions, there are other particles called bosons. The job of bosons is to act as messengers in the same way that we might carry a message. Every particle in the universe is either a fermion or a boson – is either a message-carrying system or it is the messenger.

A way of illustrating this is to think of the force of gravity. Gravity holds us to the surface of the earth because bosons (in this case called 'gravitons') carry messages to and from the atoms in our bodies and the atoms in the earth, instructing them to draw closer to each other. And the bosons will be carrying the same message whether the object is a human being or a chair.

The everyday things that we think of as solid, dead, unchanging matter, are not so at all. They, like us, are mostly empty space, containing an unimaginable number of unimaginably tiny particles, whirring around together, and can be neither pinned down nor measured. To give you an idea of the size of an atom, the full stop at the end of this sentence contains about 4 billion of them.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is certainly one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. He made a profound impact on astronomy, physics, and mathematics with his elucidation of the three laws of motion and the development of the law of universal gravitation. For more than 250 years his theories held sway in the scientific world. It seemed to explain a vast range of phenomena, from the very small to the very large. However, gradually, towards the end of the 19th century, physicists began to make discoveries that brought into question some of Newton’s theories.

In the early years of the 20th century, one man, Albert Einstein (1879-1955) with extraordinary intellectual insight and ability, heralded the birth of modern physics. He produced two revolutionary theories - his general theory of relativity, which accounted for the discrepancies in planetary motion, and quantum mechanics, which began to explain atomic and subatomic phenomena. These two theories can explain most, if not all, life as we observe it. General relativity provides theories about the largest things in the universe; quantum mechanics’ theories are about the smallest. Unfortunately, they are incompatible i.e. if one is right the other is wrong.

Quantum Mechanics is the study of atoms and particles, their interrelationships and what makes the universe a cohesive whole. Quantum comes from the Latin quantus meaning ‘how much’ and mechanics is the branch of science concerned with equilibrium and/or motion. Quantum mechanics has given us atomic energy, lasers and microchips and has contributed more than any other discovery in history, to doubling the size of human knowledge. Most of the ever increasing and accelerating changes in the developed world are due to quantum mechanics.

Physicists working in this field have proved that a particle never has a definite position and a definite momentum at the same time. A scientist is able to measure very precisely the position of a particle, but can never at the same time measure its momentum. Or it can very precisely measure its momentum, but then can never at the same time measure its position. Like a seesaw, as one measurement becomes more precise, the other becomes less precise. So it is impossible to find out where a particle is AND its speed and direction. This knowledge is not simply unknown, it is unknowable. This theory is known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Theory of Relativity 

According to Einstein’s theory of relativity which was published in 1915, space is not three-dimensional and time is not a separate entity. Both are intimately connected and form a four-dimensional continuum – ‘space-time’. We can never speak about space without also speaking about time and vice versa. Neither is there a universal flow of time – different observers will experience time passing differently according to where they in relation to the observed event. So two events seen to be occurring simultaneously by one observer, are likely to occur in different sequences to another observer. 

Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2 showed that energy and mass are equivalent - that by multiplying mass by the speed of light (186,000 miles – 7 times round the earth - per second) it could be converted into energy and that by multiplying energy by the speed of light, it could be converted into mass. 

This means that a small amount of matter can be transformed into a huge amount of energy. In other words Einstein discovered the secret of the stars. He also discovered the means of making the atom bomb.

Einstein strongly believed in nature’s inherent harmony. His deepest wish throughout his working life was to find the underlying unifying element that would explain everything in the universe – the ‘theory of everything’.

Superstring theory

Although he did not live to see it, superstrings could be that unifying element. Superstring theory, which emerged in the 1980’s, proposes that what were previously thought of as point-like particles with zero dimension, are in fact tiny 1-dimensional strings of energy and that the different types of particles - quarks, photons, electrons etc – are all simply strings with individual but different vibrational patterns, producing different notes, in the same way that a violin or a cello will produce a wide range of sounds.

String theory claims that everything at its most microscopic level consists of combinations of vibrating strands and so provides a single explanatory framework which is capable of encompassing all forces and all matter in the universe. It has already revealed astonishing insights into the nature of space, time and matter and has also brought about a harmonious union between the previously incompatible quantum mechanics and general relativity. So, for the first time in the history of physics, string theory has the potential to be the theory of everything that Einstein searched for.

Many people think that the human intellect is simply a mass of chemical interactions in our brains that does not reach beyond the confines of our bodies. Modern physics shows beyond doubt that this narrow understanding of the potential of the human psyche and our perceptions is not only wrong, but quite ridiculous. We can transcend the boundaries of our physical forms. Everything – absolutely everything, in the universe is inextricably linked by the forces of nature. 

String theory shows us that the microscopic level of our universe is a richly intertwined multidimensional labyrinth within which the creative forces of the universe endlessly twist and turn, vibrating rhythmically, making music in an endless dance of life.

In the beginning was indeed the word.

Geraldine Upfold

March 2004

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