Friday, January 12, 2018

The Ultimate Atom


Democritus, a Greek philosopher before Socrates, was the first to suggest the existence of the atom about 2,400 years ago. He thought that everything was composed of "atoms", which were the invisible components of the Universe (Universe then was thought to be Earth centered and smaller than it is now). These atoms were indestructible, consisted of all kinds of different shapes and sizes, and there was an infinite number of them. In between atoms there was supposedly an empty space of nothingness, (a Void if you will). He thought atoms have always been and would always be in motion. Regarding mass, which he would have equated to weight, Democritus said, "The more any indivisible exceeds, the heavier it is", meaning that the more there is to an indivisible atom, the heavier it is.
Democritus was no doubt a genius to envision such a thing in his age of existence. It was said that he was a jolly man, kidding and poking fun, and more interested in finding out about our physical existence than anything else. He was pretty much ignored by his fellow philosophers in Athens, and Plato disliked Democritus' philosophies so much that he wanted all of his books burned.
It is amazing to see how much of what he believed is still relevant now! Even though the first modern interpretation of atoms, the Bohr model, was found to be composed of even smaller parts (electrons, protons, neutrons, etc.) and atoms were “divisible”, Democritus' atoms still persisted as the subatomic components of the elemental atoms. And his ideas of mass in physical objects containing “indivisible exceeds” relates to the quantity of subatomic particles within an atom. He also said there was a 3D empty space in which all of this “stuff” could move around, and this stuff was continually moving around in it.
Now there has been and still is, a big debate about what space is. Some have argued that if space exists, it is something and cannot consist of nothing. If it can be measured, then it has to be something. Others have thought differently. During the 20th century, great advancements have been made in understanding space. With Einstein’s theory of general relativity, we see that there is a connection between space and time, and that there is really a forth dimension to our 3D space, and we now call it space-time instead of just space. But, even though we know that there is a connection between space and time, and gravity, and the speed of light, and we know that mass and energy are connected with the speed of light, and we can predict the behavior of these things very well with mathematics, we still do not know why and how these things are connected.
Now, I am an old man well into my senior years, and I am a retired engineer with an average intelligence and meager mathematics degree, one who could spend what few years I have left soaking up sun on a southern beach somewhere. I have worked hard all of my life to provide and support my family, and I have managed to save up enough money and assets to modestly get by for a while. I'm not interested at this stage of my life in becoming rich or famous. So with this sentiment, I want to humbly present what I believe to be answers to some of the scientific questions that still remain unanswered.
The key to understanding goes back to what Democritus was thinking. We want to think there is ultimately simplicity and order in what we see in our physical world. We would like to think there is a theory that would encompass all of the physical behavior that we see, and one that could be basically understood by most everyone, not just a handful of mathematicians and scientists. As Stephen Hawking said in his book “A Brief History of Time” “.. if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists.”
Democritus talked about matter and space. He and some present day scientists still think of these as two separate things. But what if space and matter is the same “stuff” in different forms? What if matter is just compacted space, and it is only through this compaction that we can see it? What if the components of space exist as invisible physical objects, and those elemental objects that Democritus would call atoms are all that the Universe consist of ? All of space, all matter, and anything associated with our Universe would consist solely of these invisible objects. There would be nothing else in the Universe, not even an empty void of nothingness anywhere (or nowhere if you like). This is exactly what I propose! Everything in the Universe consists of “space bubbles”. Then you might say, what about energy, and time, and gravity, and inertia, and the speed of light, all of the properties of the Universe? Well, there is an invisible forth dimension to our Universe as well, that is the source of all the properties and actions of the Universe! It is invisible space expansion. Each space bubble has a creative source within it that creates new Universe space. This is space that has never existed in the Universe before and comes from something outside of our Universe. The expansion of these bubbles and their interaction with each other competing for room to expand, is what causes our physical reality. Time passes because of this, exhibition of energy exists because of this, gravity and inertia exist because of this, electromagnetic forces exist because of this, and the speed of light limitation exists because this is the rate of bubble expansion.
So there you are in a nut shell. One type of thing causes all that we see as our Universe. If the source of the expansion within each bubble “runs out” all existence will cease! There will be no time nor even a history that the Universe ever existed! Every second is brand new and will never occur again. Be thankful for our existence and humbly coexist with all of it!

I have written a little book about this called “Are We Just Bubbles? An Alternate View of Existence” and there is more detail in how this all works if you are interested. They are available on Amazon or Lulu publishers on demand.  Here is a link https://www.amazon.com/Just-Bubbles-Alternate-View-Existence/dp/1329590414/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1463563351&sr=1-3&keywords=Are+We+Just+Bubbles 

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