Yet AnotherTOE

<b>How much bigger is the super-universe than our universe? </b>

{Oops! I thought I had already defined "GF"; it is somewhere in this pile of graphite glyphs on papyrus; not having a working computer at home sucks! Anyway, GF stands for "Great Foam", which is the bubble-bath like structure of great walls of galaxies revealed by our latest 3D sky surveys. edited 2/14/07}

If the æther is structured like the GF, maybe the Plank length (L<font size="1">P</font id="size1">) is determined by the size of the bubbles (great voids in the GF and their scaled-down equivalent in the æther). Let V<font size="1">b</font id="size1"> represent the average volume of a bubble, then the Plank length is a multiple of V<font size="1">b</font id="size1">^(1/3); my wild guess is that the multiple is <i>e</i> (2.71828...). If V<font size="1">b</font id="size1"> for the GF is 10^25 meter and V<font size="1">b</font id="size1"> for the æther is 10^(-35) meter, that gives us a scale factor of 10^60---at least for the here and now. However, the red shift, being greater at greater distances, suggests that the scale factor varies with time, location or both. Our measures of time and distance are referenced to the Plank length and the speeds of light and gravity, so we cannot perceive any variation in those values; we can only perceive that the ratios that relate those constants to their super-universe counterparts may be variable.

If the scale factor is forever increasing with the passage of time, that sounds a little bit like BB, but with some huge differences. I don’t buy the notion of a finite universe. If the extent of the æther is infinite, then running the expansion backwards doesn’t necessarily reduce it to a singularity.

As for collapsing due to gravity in a <i>gnaB giB</i>, that is based on Einstein’s assumption that the range of gravity is infinite. I think he calculated that a universe having a mass &gt; 10^80 AMU would ultimately collapse; I wonder what number he would have gotten if he set the force of gravity inversely proportional to the distance cubed instead of squared.

Also, it has been said that, if the universe were infinitely large, the whole sky would be as bright as the sun. That assumes an infinite range for light. I doubt if S-waves can propagate to infinity thru a solid foam full of liquid and gas bubbles without some absorption.

Conceivably, the scale factor may vary from one region to another. There could be regions where the bubbles of the GF are larger than elsewhere, compared to the bubbles in the æther. From our point of view, the æther’s bubble size (and Plank’s length) are necessarily constant everywhere and forever --- since they determine our measures of everything else. But from a super-universe point of view, our æther may look like a bubble bath in some regions and Gillette foamy in others.

I can see you all, now, poo-pooing this whole thread. I appologize for not expressing it in more elementary language, but the ideas are flooding into my brain faster than I can communicating them. Besides, I am presently limitted to five hours a week at the keyboard and internet. Please let me know I am not just talking to the æther.
A simple "Bah! Humbug!" is better than this deafening silence.

<font size="3"><b>Where do the P-waves come from?</b></font id="size3">

They are a direct result of the expansion, i.e., the increasing scale factor. As the GF expands relative to the æther, the bubbles (great voids) of the GF grow larger and their walls grow thinner. Eventually, a bubble wall is stretched so thin that it breaks, and the two bubbles on opposite sides of the broken wall become one. When that happens, a pair of P-waves rediates in opposite directions perpendicular to the plane of the broken wall. Our æther is expanding relative to the sub-univers's æther, so the bubble wallls of our æther are continually stretched to their breaking point, also.

I know little about the dynamics of froth---except that I like it on my beer. But my intuition says the joining of two bubbles into one would not create S-waves with anywhere near the energy of the P-waves---it might even be zero energy to S-waves.

<font size="3"><b>Does the increase/decrease of scale factor determine the direction of time?</b></font id="size3">

That would imply that bubbles in the foam can be split by the convergence of equal and opposite P-waves (from the viewpoint of an observer in a super- or sub-universe relative to which the backwards-time universe is contracting). Maybe there are zones within which the directions of time reverses because the expansion/contraction reverses.

No major reveation since my last post. I'll just think out loud for a while:

In the beginning was the void. This moment was a phase shift in which voids first appeared within the infinty of non-void. (The phase shift is comparable to a boiling point in a liquid.) So voids appeared and drifted until two of them met and joined into one. Then you had two sizes of voids, then three, and so on. Each time voids joined, they sent out a pair of P-waves thru the non-void. The P-waves thus generated were of different classes (magnitudes?) depending on the classes of the voids that joined.

From a non-void point of view, the voids were expanding; from a void point of view, the non-void was shrinking.

Eventually, a P-wave encountered a void; perhaps the P-wave was split into two or more P-waves of different classes; perhaps it merely changed direction; in either case, the void was affected in a manner which gave rise to the phenomenon of equal and opposite reaction.

Successive encounters between P-waves and voids gave rise to the phenomenon of time.

Many such events occurred; many classes of voids and P-waves evolved; the non-void became a seething cauldron full of voids and P-waves. Each class of void had its own characteristics for interacting with each class of P-wave. Different voids reacted to the proximity of other voids, due to the effect of each other on the P-waves; and thus the phenomena distance and speed arose.

these characteristics gave rise to the phenomena of mass & charge with their gravity & electrostatic forces, as well as all the other kinds of particles and forces.

Out of time; to be continued:

Did I lose you way back at the word “solid”? Please don’t think in terms of your experience with solids. Your hand cannot pass thru an object whose solidity is on the same scale as the solidity of your hand. When I say the æther is a solid, I do NOT mean that it isn’t porous. I simply mean that it has a certain amount of rigidity and elasticity; otherwise it could not transmit S-waves (e/m and gravity waves).

I think of the æther as resembling an aero gel in a vacuum. If the æther is a scaled down version of the great foam (GF), then everything that can be said about the GF is equally true of the æther--- scaled down by a factor of perhaps 10^60. The æther’s bubble walls are made up of scaled down galaxies held together by a scaled down version of gravity---which is proportional to the inverse square of distance at short range and inverse cube at longer range.

We almost certainly have not yet extended our gaze far enough into the heavens to detect the scaled up equivalent of a quark in the super universe. There probably ain’t no such thing within a trillion trillion light years of us. If there is a beginning of time, as we know it, then light from that distance won’t arrive here for a very long time.

In my model, the expansion of a greater foam, relative to a lesser foam is what drives the process known as time in the universe which exists between the two scales of foam. Time as we know it, began the first time two bubbles in our æther merged into one, sending P-waves out past all the other bubbles in the æther. When the P-waves interacted with variations (attractors that we think of as particles) in the foamy fabric of the æther, all the forces of nature came into being in our universe. At some point in time, or perhaps in some infinite past, voids appeared among the variations in the æther; those voids expanded relative to the æther; their walls became stretched and broke merging adjacent bubbles within the greater foam within the lesser foam. This sequence, for all we know may have repeated an infinite number of times before our universe came into being, and it may continue infinitely into the future. Whatever form may have existed at our scale of existence before bubbles first appeared is outside of time as we know it.

I am now struggling with the puzzle of the relationship between a quark and the æther. All I can surmise thus far is that a quark is some sort of attractor in the chaos of the foamy structure of the æther, and that different sorts of quarks each have their own effects upon the P-waves in the æther. Some fuse P-waves, some split them, some scatter or absorb them.

I hope I don’t sound dogmatic. All this is, of course pure conjecture.

If I may be permitted to philosophize:

If you shuffle a deck of cards enough times, you will occasionally by pure chance shuffle them into perfect order. Assuming that the æther is infinite in expanse and has the form of a foam with random distribution of bubble sizes, it follows that any arbitrarily described variation of a foam structure exists somewhere in that infinite expanse. For now, let’s simply call such a variation an anomaly. If it is possible for some anomaly to conduct P-waves at a different speed than the average, then P-waves may be bent, scattered, fused or split. If acting upon a P-wave results in an equal and opposite action upon the anomaly, this may in some cases give the anomaly a certain longevity, making it into an attractor. Let’s further suppose that such an attractor exists for every type of particle in the universe. To qualify as a particle, the attractor must have a non-zero probability of occurring by random accident, a non-zero longevity (or half life), and a significant effect upon other particles.

Suppose that the foam is expanding; and by that I mean that the fraction of total volume occupied by bubbles, rather than bubble walls, is increasing. It follows that the bubble walls are being stretched. If the walls have a certain elasticity and limited strength, then it is inevitable that a wall between two bubbles will occasionally rupture. When that happens, the substance within the ruptured wall will accelerate outward, gaining momentum, and transmitting that momentum to the surrounding foam in the form of a positive-pulse P-wave, which will expand outward in the plane of the ruptured wall, it’s magnitude diminishing in proportion to distance from the center. As the material which had been in the ruptured wall spreads into the remaining adjacent walls, those walls pull harder on their surroundings, resulting a shortening of the bubble formed by the merger of the two former bubbles. This shortening results in a pair of negative-pulse P-waves which radiate in opposite directions perpendicular to the plane of the ruptured wall. Each of these P-waves will continue undiminished in intensity until acted upon by some anomaly in the foam.

<font color="pink"><font face="Comic Sans MS">Just another reminder: This thread stopped being a theory, way back. Theories have a prayer of some day being proved or falsified. When you talk about infinite distances and times outside the range from beginning to end, you are dealing with philosophy or religion, not science.

Okay; I see the big hole in my bubble theory philosophy, and I have a plug to fill it. As you probably noticed, with one foam expanding relative to the next finer one, there must be a center of the expansion, and relative velocities between the two increase with distance from the center. At some distance from the center the relative velocity reaches light speed. Relativity theory may resolve that problem in a mathematical way, but then the existence of the æther become irrelevant.

Here’s the plug: Instead of adjacent bubbles merging when the wall between them ruptures, suppose new walls are forming across the middles of bubbles to make two bubbles from one? That’s right; time reversal! Each universe is expanding in its own time, but contracting from the perspective of the outer and inner universes. The beginning of our time is the end of time in both adjacent (scale-wise) universes. Looking outward at the GF, we see walls of galaxies being stretched to the breaking point because the space around them is increasing (measuring space as the number of bubbles, and time as the passage of P-waves thru them). Looking inward at the æther, we see pairs of P-waves applying their energy to create new walls.

If the process of bubble fission/fusion is uniform everywhere, then the expansion/contraction has no center. That’s one problem solved and many new questions arise. For example: If the future in another universe has already happened from the perspective of our universe, and vice versa, does that mean our future is predestined? Do super-universe and sub-universe particles shrink relative to the particles of our universe? Was there a time when the characteristic bubble size of the GF was equal to that of the æther? What would the universe have been like then? What might it have been like before that? Are backward-time universes composed of antimatter?

P.S.: For the last week, or so, I have been continuing this topic at Cosmology/BigBang and Alternatives/ size of the universe . It began with gravity but quickly shifted gears into cosmology. </font id="Comic Sans MS"></font id="pink">