ZERO POINT
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Microcosm/MacrocosmScientific and Mystical View on the Origin of the Universe,the Nature of Matter & Human Consciousness
Section II - Chapter 1
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| The newest creation stories of modern science offer
a bizarre, seemingly incomprehensive, model of cosmic origins. If
modern theories are correct, then at the beginning of time, the whole of
the currently vast universe emerged within/without from a point of an infinitesimal
dimension out of the nothingness of the quantum vacuum. The mythic
dimensions of modern science bear profound relationships to the mystical
dimensions of the ancient wisdom teachings.
Modern scientists date the so-called big bang, the original cosmic explosion which initiated the creation of the universe, to approximately 12 to 20 billion years ago. Evidence of the big bang comes from two primary sources: i) the current expanding state of the universe suggested by the red shift in the light spectrums of distant galaxies, caused by their movement away from us; and ii) the residual background cosmic radiation detected by radio-astronomers, an after-glow of the initial cosmic fireball. Scientists since the 1950's have extrapolated backwards in time from the current expanding state of the universe, to trace its origin back to a big bang creation event, where all the matters and energies were concentrated into one massive exploding supersun like body. In 1965, Steven Weinberg published a popular book The First Three Minutes depicting the astrophysical processes occurring during the big bang, which created the matters and energies which eventually became the universe. However, during the second half of the twentieth century scientists penetrated even further back into the origins of time and traced the big bang explosion back into the first instant of creation from a point source–a singularity condition. This first point is where the universe first emerged at the levels of the planckian units in physics–beyond which we cannot measure according to the uncertainty principle. Somehow, all the matters and energies, time and space, of the universe emerged from such a singular point at the beginning of time. In modern physics, this infinitely small point is referred to as a “singularity.” At a singularity, the laws of physics and the distinctions of space and time, energy and matter, break down, and everything appears to pass into infinity (and/or into nothingness). In physics, this nothingness is the quantum vacuum. Physicists have arrived at very complex enigmas while trying to understand singularities and their origins within the quantum vacuum. Space is not empty, but full. One scientist explains that: “All of physics is in the vacuum” –an opinion shared with mystic Madame Blavatsky. Nothingness somehow is not simply nothing, but is “full” of all latent energies, particles and forces. The quantum vacuum–a seeming nothingness–is also the infinite plenum. |
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1a. How Everything Adds up to Nothing
According to the Laws of the Conservation, mass and energy can be converted into each other, but overall quantities must be conserved. However, if we imagine all of the matter/energy of the Universe returning at the beginning of time into a primordial state, then different forces and elements could cancel each other out without violating the laws of the conservation. Positive electrical charges would be cancelled by negative electrical charges; quantum spin properties of right and left spinning charges would cancel each other; as might other quantum properties. Lastly, anti-matter would cancel out matter, at least to some extent. The idea of creation out of nothing in modern science is sometimes attributed to the physicist, Edward Tryon, who in 1973, had a vision:
Whereas the ideas of cancelling out positive and negative charges, spin components, matter and anti-matter, and so on, were established, Dr. Tryon extended this idea to consider the effects of gravity and gravitational collapse. Tryon suggested that gravity, or space/time curvature, might be taken as a negative force capable of cancelling out the positive energies contained in the residual matter and energy, which remained after other components had been cancelled out. Ultimately then, the universe might all add up to zero. In a popular science article, Strauss (1985) explains: Prof. Tryon reasoned if something could be found which negates the amount of energy in the universe in the same way that a negative electric charge cancels a positive one, then the total energy balance might be described as a kind of nothingness. To rephrase it, the universe adds up to zero. ... the cancelling source might be the potential energy locked up in the pull of gravity. For various reasons, the energy connected with gravity is typified by physicists as a negative energy. While the ability of potential gravity to create a zero-sum effect in the universe was not proven then (or now), the idea of a universe which essentially cancelled itself out is pregnant with suggestions of how it came into being. ... a number of physicists ... have been attempting to describe the mathematics of the probability of the universe springing out of nothingness. ... “I believe it won't be very long now–perhaps measured in decades–until people have a relatively complete theory of how the universe grew out of nothing,” says Columbia University physicist Heinz Pagels. “And then they can spend the next 300 years arguing over interpretations of that.” (1985)
In modern science, a central issue concerns whether or not there is enough matter and energy in the universe to slow down the current expansion, and set into motion a phase of universal contraction. It is the principle of gravity and the presence of matter that could potentially close the universe. It is because of the widespread feeling among scientists, in their search for unity, that the universe is expected to be closed, that scientists search for the missing dark matter which would eventually set gravitational collapse into motion. The 1998 confirmation of the mass of neutrinos has been hailed as one such discovery which could tip the scales towards the eventual closure of the universe–as neutrinos are the most abundant particles in the universe. One possible scenario for the fate of the universe is that it will eventually begin an era of universal contraction. This could entail the accumulation of denser and denser black holes, eventually collapsing into a final dreaded singularity, the Omega Point–of infinite space/time curvature at the end of time. This scenario is sometimes called the “big crunch,” to contrast with the “big bang.” This is the omega point, as omega is the final letter of the Greek alphabet. If the universe is closed, then it began with a white hole singularity and will end in a black hole singularity. It all might add up to nothing at the beginning of time and at the end of time. Expanding within/without from a singularity at the beginning of time, the universe could eventually contract without/within to a singularity at the end of time. The root principles of creation and dissolution are within the strange quantum vacuum the apparent nothingness and plenum which sustains the universe. The universe, the One, or 1, emerged from nothingness/plenum, the zero, 0, the infinite root principle of creation. |
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1b. The Singularity
The expansion of the universe begins with the emergence within/without from the primordial nothingness of a dimension-less point source of incomprehensible minuteness. At the big-bang singularity, matter and energy, space and time, emerge out of the nothingness/plenum of the vacuum and into manifest creation. Modern big bang cosmology is based on Einstein’s general theory of relativity, in which mathematically, there is nothing preventing a singularity condition where the measure of space/time curvature passes to infinity. As space/time curvature passes to infinity, the dimension of the universe diminishes to an infinitely minute point. The general theory of relativity allows for and predicts such unusual singularities. However, the prediction of a singularity is inconsistent with the basic principle of quantum physics–the uncertainty principle. Einstein’s general theory is classical in that it does not incorporate the uncertainty principle. The uncertainty principle states that certain pairs of measurements, such as position and momentum of a particle, cannot be known with an arbitrary degree of accuracy. Instead, the amount of uncertainty about the position multiplied by the uncertainty about the momentum of a quantum is always greater than or equal to Planck’s basic constant ‘h.’ The fact that Planck's constant is a small positive number imposes limits on the exact measurements of matter, energy, time and space beyond which we cannot go. # And so the general theory of relativity, which describes the law of gravity, predicts singularities, whereas quantum theory forbids them. The time and dimensions of the big bang singularity are arrived at through quantum theory because the measurements of science become meaningless and undefined at the level of the singularity. In quantum physics, the basic Planckian unit of measurement of distance, or extension, beyond which we cannot go according to the uncertainty principle, is 10-33 centimetres. This is the boundary of the singularity, a condition beyond which we cannot penetrate. This 10-33 centimetres is inconceivably minute, billions of times smaller than the diameter of a proton. The point of creation arises at this level where material differentiation begins from out of the void. Scientists also ascribe to this point emergence a Planckian measurement of time, 10-43 seconds, which is the time required for light to travel the Planckian distance. This is the fundamental unit of the measurement of time. The big bang singularity is thus a hypothetical point of emergence of universal creation at the level of the planckian units. This singularity is 10-33 cm in diameter, and this was the size of the universe at 10-43 seconds into creation. This is an inconceivably minute point emerging at an inconceivable brief first instant of time. This is where the unfolding of the infinite begins from within/without–at a point, essentially a zero point. This is a bizarre and beautiful conception of the emergence of the universe from within the depths of the Deep. This is the point to which scientific theorizing and study has brought modern inquiries into universal origins. The newest creation stories of modern science offer a bizarre, seemingly incomprehensive, model of cosmic origins. If modern theories are correct, then at the beginning of time, the whole of the currently vast universe emerged within/without from a point of an infinitesimal dimension out of the nothingness of the quantum vacuum. The mythic dimensions of modern science bear profound relationships to the mystical dimensions of the ancient wisdom teachings. -------------------------- From Jonathan Cott’s Visions & Voices, 1987 Jonathan Cott: Cosmologists have speculated that at the first explosive moment of the birth of the universe, everything that exists–or ever will exist–was contained within a single spark of energy, smaller than an atom’s nucleus and ruled by a single primordial law. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner: One dot–a point of light. Perhaps the fact that contemporary cosmologists talk about a dimensionless point of light from which all being sprang and that the Kabbalists long ago came up with precisely the same image (in the fourteenth century, Moses de Leon spoke of “a hidden supernal point” whose “primal center is the innermost light, of a translucence, subtlety, and purity beyond comprehension”) means that this awareness comes from something we all carry within us. We’re walking Torahs ... if we could just shut up and listen to it. As Rabbi Dov Baer of Mezritch said: “I shall teach you the best way to say Torah. You must cease to be aware of yourselves. You must be nothing but an ear which hears what the universe of the word is constantly saying within you.” (page 209) |
| Footnote #1: In classical physics, particles were thought to have a definite position and momentum at any point in time. Heisenberg developed the “uncertainty principle” in the late 1920’s, and this states that one cannot determine both the position and momentum of a particle to an arbitrary degree of accuracy. Instead, the more closely one measures the position, the greater the uncertainty about the momentum, and vice versa. Heisenberg compared the uncertainty principle to the man and women in a weather house, where “if one comes out, the other goes in.” The uncertainty principle specifies that the product in the measurement of the position and momentum of a quantum must always be equal to or greater than Planck’s constant, called h. ‘h’ has a small but positive value (6.63 x 10-27 erg seconds) and is a measure of discreteness in quantum processes. If h=0, then the position and momentum of a quantum could both be known simultaneously. The uncertainty relationship is depicted by the formula ^p x ^m > h. If the value of either ^p or ^m approaches 0, then the other property passes to infinity. Thus, if we try to specify the position of a quantum to an infinitely precise point, then the uncertainty about its momentum approaches infinity. |
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