Notes In The Margin

A Piperguy48 Production

Physics, Cosmology Philosophy & Writing 

• an exposition of many caveats and mea culpas.
• something I can only deal with in metaphor.
• arrogance personified (obviously).
• the big IT (from here on IT means ideas).

This goes beyond things I should not even be contemplating.

• No quantum mechanics.
• No Planck numbers.
• No cosmological constants.
• No strings.

I have troubles enough with general relativity.

Why plunge into into realms I do not wish to (should not) go?

I’m humbled by my ignorance, laid low by what I do not understand. I question my right to put those words at the top of this piece.

Like Hellen Keller without Annie Sullivan to guide her hands to her face, the potential exists but not the realization.

 Nonetheless, I’ll try.

Why is there something rather than nothing?

(Leibniz 1646-1716)

The why remains shrouded. There has been some progress with the how; general relativity, quantum mechanics, string theory, dark matter/energy.

But how does a layman approach a universe that has (has not) a beginning and has (has not) an end and no logical reason for either that makes sense?

With extreme caution, many assumptions, and many doubts.

Energy, space, time, gravity: without those 4 pillars for the universe (matter) to rest upon there can be no universe as I know it. Without those pillars, there exists just the potential for an infinite number of possibilities, or universes. Before or beyond that I cannot comprehend. As yet that potential has no existence until some imbalance occurs. IT cannot exist. My logic says so. The axiom “Nature hates a vacuum” comes into clearer focus. After that, my mind says steady-state but Hubble says inflationary. Once that potential is released (realized) as energy, the ball starts rolling; a bang of sorts. Might even be Big.

And we are left with an exponentially inflating universe to contend with.  Inflating?  Yes.   But accelerating?  Deeper waters and dangerous currents. 

Potential requires an imbalance of energy between two points. Something before or after any single non-dimensional point?  — cosmologists differ, not so much on the after, as defined by the speed of light, but on the before.  The jury is still out.  I have neither the math nor the physics nor the philosophy to decide.

But I am willing to concede this: a point is a region in space/time that has no dimensions (contradictory), but the restraints of my understanding demand that I begin somewhere (non-contradictory).  I start with a point of no dimensions.  I add another point.  What then?  I have a two-dimensional line of infinite points between A and B.  Here we have stepped into Euclidean geometry.  I add a third point C and suddenly I have coordinates in a three-dimensional plane, an infinite number of them.  I apply energy to that line A-C resulting in vibration, a wave riding through a fourth dimension (time) along which to travel and a medium (gravity?) to carry IT.  Inflation.

Nothing exists beyond potential.  Potential implies the possibility of another non-dimensional point, a differential between them, and a means of resolving that potential.  A difference in the quantum state of those two points.

So how do I get from this muddled mess to my concept of an idea?

There will be a lot of ellipses in the next part.

Before the idea, there is nothing.  Assume a point, as above, between my ears. Then assume another point.  A potential builds up between two synapses (points) in my brain (a two-dimensional line). The potential is resolved (energy and vibration) and an ever-expanding, ever-accelerating idea is born carried on a line to a third point (now a three-dimensional plane).  IT can go anywhere (space-time).  Remember, those coordinates are infinite.  Or, IT can go nowhere (zero energy).  If IT is to exist, IT needs to be made manifest (created, built, recorded, placed in a three-dimensional plane).  If IT is to continue to exist IT must expand (inflation, be shared) and be propagated (gravity).

I attempt to ride with IT like a surfer shooting the curl of the perfect wave.  I put together the words that seem to embody the essence of that idea.  I jot IT down on paper or blog about IT. 

No idea where IT came from.  No idea where IT’s going.

And there you go.  You’ve got IT.

Bob’s yer uncle.