Copernicus showed how apparent motion in the heavens indicates actual motion of the earth. In this blog, I present a postulate that apparent motion in quantum phenomena (light, electrons and quarks) indicates actual motion of the universe we live in.
2nd Rule (Freedom of Action):The observable universe is a 3-manifold (or hyperplane) moving through the light of 4-space.
Static Hyperplanes
When I try to picture a traditional hyperplane (or a manifold), I imagine a book. A book is an object of three dimensions when closed, but when it is opened, when its insides are exposed to the light of day, the book becomes a “many-folded” surface or, in other words, a manifold. Each page is a plane and these planes, stacked together, form a hyperplane or lattice within which a story can be told. Throughout this section I will refer to books, hyperplanes and manifolds interchangeably.
Upon the surface of each page, we find the elemental building blocks of language—letters, numbers, symbols and strokes that, when organized, represent human speech, scientific formulas, and mathematical equations. By organizing these symbols in a coherent way upon the lattice like surfaces of a book, we make records that represent our thoughts over a given period of time. Once complete, the record caught in the lattice does not change. It remains static. Its contents are fixed and determinate.
We humans store our books in libraries and archives, and just as we organize symbols into words, and words into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into chapters, so we also organize the books in our libraries and archives. We order them according to systems, like the Dewey decimal system. We then hire people to ensure that all the books stay in order.
As it turns out, scientists tell us that the spacetime structure of the observable universe (in a certain respect) looks like a well-ordered library or archive—a vast collection of books. Each book represents a complete and comprehensive record of all the energy, matter and space in the observable universe at a given moment. It represents a static and determined configuration of all things at a specific point in time. Each book represents an unchanging hyperplane.
Consequently, were we to withdraw the oldest book from this library called the observable universe, we would hold in our hand a book of exceedingly minuscule size. Were we to open this little book from the universal library and read it, we would find a tiny little space containing what appears to be an impossibly vast amount of energy. We would also note the way the energy was configured and that configuration would appear in every way as it was at the moment of the big bang 13.7 billion years ago.
If we were to take the idea of the hyperplane to its most literal conclusion, we would not only say that the little book we hold appears exactly as all things did at the moment of the big bang, we would say that the book was in very deed the universe at the moment of the big bang.
The library full of books is a metaphor similar to the line and the pointescope described in the commentary for the 1st Rule. Both metaphors help us understand Einstein's spacetime structure, which consists of three spatial dimensions bound together with a single temporal dimension. As previously mentioned this structure is sometimes referred to as 3d + 1d.
Dynamic Hyperplanes
But if we think of our observable universe as moving through 4-space, Einstein's spacetime structure must give way to something else. In a moving universe there are not an infinitude of static hyperplanes making up the observable universe. On the contrary, a single dynamic hyperplane will suffice as described by 4d - 1d--in other words, a 3-space.
If the observable universe (our 3-space) moves, then surely it must move in some direction. It may also be moving in multiple ways, as the earth does. I should probably reiterate that when I say the observable universe moves, I’m talking about a single, dynamic hyperplane moving through 4-space. I would not go so far as to say that the hyperplane we call our observable universe is the only hyperplane moving through 4-space. Indeed, if we assume our hyperplane is moving, the cause of its motion must be related to 4-dimensional gravitational relationships with other hyperplanes in 4-space. Whatever the case, in order for the hyperplane to move at all, there must be a space and dimension greater than three, and I would argue that the 4-space described in the previous commentary is that place.
We can also use the PF axis to describe this fourth dimension, but in doing so, we must strip away all of the temporal qualities of the PF axis. The PF axis no longer describes an ordering system for spatial hyperplanes, on the contrary, now it describes a hyperplane’s vector through 4-space. For the sake of simplicity we will call these two new directions the P direction and the F direction. I am not describing spacetime (3d + 1d). On the contrary, I’m describing a hyperplane moving through 4-space (4d - 1d).
So our new world view requires that we begin thinking of a new “up” (P) and a new “down” (F). This shouldn’t be hard. We’ve done it before—a few hundred years ago.
When Copernicus declared that the earth moves, he effectively gave the world a few new directions. It is true that the people of the earth always had an up and down, but these directions were relative to the observer. A person pointing up at the stars from a reference point on the North Pole, for instance, was really pointing down in relation to a person standing on the South Pole. Similarly, while east west north and south work well upon the surface of a sphere, they do not necessarily function well in a volume of space through which a sphere might move.
The directions Copernicus gave us described the vector of the earth in its motion around the sun. He also provided a direction associated with the vector of the earth’s rotation around its center. These were new and unfamiliar directions to people of the 16th century, but they are common knowledge to us today. They describe circular movement. We have even come to think of this motion as falling, and since such motion results from gravity, a person might understandably say that the direction the earth is moving is down!
I would argue that the universe is no different. Though it may be overly simplistic, I am going to suggest that the observable universe moves through 4-space along the PF axis in the direction F.
As the observable universe descends along this axis, it passes through light, a 4d phenomenon which fills the vastness of 4-space as a sea. Because the whole observable universe (3-space) moves as a unit, we are unable to detect any evidence of our motion. To amend the words of Einstein, “A universe in free fall would not feel its own weight!” Unaware of our passage through 4-space, we observe the 4d phenomena through which we pass as a field. We fail to see that what we call a field is simply a 3d cross-section of a 4d whole sliding through the surface of moving 3-space.
For we who live on the moving hyperplane, we see the universe through a very constrained lens. Phenomena of 4 dimensions stream through the hyperplane and, try as we might, we find these phenomena inexplicable. Yet we do our stalwart best to describe the behavior from a 3-dimensional point of view. In doing so we inadvertently obscure the 4-dimensional whole. In the words of Boetheus, a philosopher of the 2nd century, "Men take that which is one and undivided and mistakenly subdivide and remove it from a state of truth and perfection to a state of falseness and imperfection." We "make divisions of that which by nature is one and simple, and in attempting to obtain part of something which has no parts, succeed in getting neither the part--which is nothing--nor the whole which [we] cannot comprehend."
So, we remain in the darkness of 3-space, maintaining that the universe could not possibly move through 4-space. In Ptolemaic fashion, we recoil at the notion of a universe that moves at the velocity required to explain the perceived constant velocity of light. Grasping for a more stable stance, we revert to the reasonable notion that our all-encompassing universe is at rest and that light, like the Dome of Fixed Stars, moves at its constant and unchanging rate of speed in relation to the whole universe.
Univercentricity
This notion, like Ptolemy's geocentric theory, rests upon observational evidence that lends itself to a univercentric interpretation. But it is worth noting that the very same evidence proposed by Ptolemy to prove that the earth was at rest, was the very evidence Copernicus used to prove that the earth moved. Copernicus made very few observations of his own. Most of his data was taken from the records of those who came before him and who believed that the evidence they gathered supported a Ptolemaic model.
These days we turn to evidence of the Michelson Morley experiment and its many variations over the years to prove that light moves at a constant velocity in relation to all things. We have proven, that no matter how quickly I pursue a beam of light, the beam maintains a true and constant velocity of "c" in relation to me. This evidence has been interpreted by us to mean some astonishing things. As my velocity approaches the speed of light:
I shrink in the direction of my travel;
my time dilates or lengthens;
the combination of my shrinking and time dilation makes it impossible for me to determine if I'm moving at all;
I can therefore assume that my inertial frame of reference is central and stationary
Certainly, this is one way of interpreting the constancy of light's velocity. We could sum it up this way:
My velocity increases->Spatial lengths shrink,->temporal lengths expand,->light's speed remains constant->I am at rest.
But if we are to consider the validity of Occam's razor, which is sometimes paraphrased "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best," it seems to me that the simplest solution to light's apparent constant velocity in relation to everything else is that everything else is moving in relation to light. In other words, light only appears to move. Light is at rest and we observers in the observable universe are in motion through 4-space. We perceive the light is moving, because we cannot detect the evidence of our motion through 4-space.
Let's briefly consider another example I will expand on later. In our particle accelerators me smash fundamental particles together in order to coax heavier generations of fundamental matter into existence. In the process of codifying the unstable matter that arises from these particle acceleration experiments, we have constructed a useful classification system for fundamental matter called the Standard Model of Particle Physics. In the standard model we refer to three generations of particles. Each generation of particles is identical in every way with the first generation with one exception. The second generation particles are much more massive than the first, and the third generation are much more massive than the second. In short, the only substantive difference between the generations is mass. It is also worth noting that 2nd and 3rd generation particles are exceedingly unstable and tend to decay into 1st generation particles very quickly.
Now our assumption from 3-space when a 2nd generation particle or two arises from the collision of two first generation particles, is that something new and different has come into existence. We never consider that perhaps we are just detecting a greater portion of the 1st generation particle as it is yanked from 4-space through the surface of 3-space only to return to equilibrium in a brief instant. From a 4-space perspective, 2nd and 3rd generation particles have no meaning. The detection of greater mass immediately after the collision only tells us that a greater portion of the fundamental particle has been dragged through the surface of 3-space.
I'll remind the reader that Kaluza's 4d light theory was disproved when theorists determined that his postulate would require an electron more massive than had been observed. Once again, the theorists who disproved Kaluza came at the problem from a 3-space perspective. Kaluza suggested that light was a 4-d phenomenon, what he may have failed to recognize (along with those who "disproved" his work) was that the electron is also a phenomenon of 4 dimensions.
What is clear, is that we will require a new way of thinking and interpreting nature if the observable universe is a dynamic hyperplane moving through 4-space.
Freedom of Action and Accountability
Living on a dynamic hyperplane has its benefits--nicest of which is freedom of action.
In the static and determinate universe described by spacetime, all human acts (past, present and future) exist simultaneously. Einstein struggled with this principle because he knew that the perception of free will was something important to human beings. Yet he was convinced, based partly upon his discovery of spacetime, that the human sense of free will and of one's existence in the present was "a persistent illusion." Many of the great scientists and philosophers who have followed Einstein hold to the determinist doctrine that human free will has more to do with psychology than reality. If spacetime serves as the actual underlying structure of the universe, then the sense of human freedom is indeed illusory. In spacetime, our future exists already. We just haven't gotten there yet.
But if the observable universe exists as a hyperplane moving through 4-space, I would argue that our sensation of living only in the present arises because the universe exists only in the present. In other words, time is not a navigable medium, and as such, neither the observable universe nor its constituents have the ability to go backward or forward in time. Those 4d entities attached to the hyperplane have the ability to exist outside of the moving hyperplane (in 4-space), but they cannot visit the past or the future.
All that lies above and below the moving hyperplane is 4-space. Past configurations of the universe are not stored above the hyperplane in the P direction, nor are future configurations awaiting in the F direction. The only records of the past are stored in the moving hyperplane itself--in books, monuments, genealogies, court proceedings, meeting minutes, journals, tree-rings, ice cores, sedimentary rocks, burial mounds, memories. You get the picture.
To be sure there are aspects of the observable universe which are determinate in nature and therefore predictable. We know well enough where the earth will be located tomorrow at this time. Nature seems to provide a universe that takes care of itself on the large scale, but when we approach the local scale, a new dynamic arises. At local levels, the configuration of the universe is neither determinate nor static. On the contrary, the closer we get to our own vicinity, the more probabilistic and dynamic the configuration of the universe becomes. The way the future unfolds nearby is at least partially dependent upon us--the things we choose to do and choose not to do. Up close, we become responsible for the way our universe is configured.
03-19-2008 01:54 AM 
