Before String Theory

I mentioned earlier that I’ve wanted to try and get some (basic) understanding of String Theory over the coming holiday period. I wondered if a survey of the topic might help me gain a better understanding of the underlying assumptions, tools, theories and techniques which forms a substrate on which String Theory is built upon. Like any highly specialized field, String Theory has been constructed on top of a vast array of mathematical concepts, mechanics, and physics.

Gerard 't Hooft Institute for Theoretical Physics Universiteit Utrecht) offers a menu of subjects (topics) which look to be a prerequisite in understanding and competence in order to make sense of this theory. Here is that list.

• Languages
• Primary Mathematics
• Classical Mechanics
• Optics
• Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics
• Electronics
• Electromagnetism
• Quantum Mechanics
• Atoms and Molecules
• Solid State Physics
• Nuclear Physics
• Plasma Physics
• Advanced Mathematics
• Special Relativity
• Advanced Quantum Mechanics
• Phenomenology
• General Relativity
• Quantum Field Theory
• Superstring Theory

First Light, God's handiwork in Creation and the Big Bang

Jack Dikian

July 2011

Ever since I was a young boy I’ve been fascinated by the biblical statement "Let there be light" (Genesis 1:3). I still remember the curiosity and what must have been a child's wide eye - learning the scripture at school and church.

Much later I became interested in cosmology theory, Big Bangs, string landscapes and all the time holding on to my earlier notions of a first dawn, a first light.

Much has been written (speculated rather) about how the universe might have unfolded a few seconds after the big bang. Consider the Planck epoch (up to 10–43 seconds after the Big Bang) dealing with an unimaginably small period of time after the big bang where, perhaps, forces as we know them today might have been indistinguishable (viz a viz unification). Or consider the Inflationary epoch, a period between 10–36 seconds and 10–32 seconds after the Big Bang where it’s thought the universe went through rapid expansion and provided for the early seeds of structure to be laid down.

It isn’t until the Photon epoch however (between 10 seconds and 380,000 years after the Big Bang) when neutral atoms begin to form and the universe begins to became transparent to visible light.

First Light

So the early universe was dense, hot, and shared little resemblance to what we have today. Photons would be reflected and scattered randomly in a largely "opaque" universe. As the universe continues to cool over the first 380,000 years or so, electrons and nuclei began to form atoms and photons are no longer strongly interacting with stable atoms. At this point photons begin to travel through the universe more freely as the universe became transparent to light, and so there is light.

Interestingly, these photons are still traveling today and can be detected as the "cosmic microwave background radiation”. Almost 1% of the static we notice on our television screens when we are switching between channels (all those in-between channels) is remarkably the noise of the early universe - the after glow.

What's Real - Grand Design

Jack Dikian

Thoughts and Comments

The Grand Design

Bantam books 2010

According to one internet based dictionary, “Real” is being or occurring in fact or actuality; having verified existence; not illusory; "real objects"; "real people -not ghosts" etc…

When philosophy is leaned-upon, things become, expectedly a little more murky. Despite the seeming straightforwardness of the realist position, in the history of philosophy there has been continuous debate about what is real. In addition, there has been significant evolution in what is meant by the term "real".

Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality is completely ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc. Philosophers who profess realism, therefore, also typically believe that truth consists in a belief's correspondence to reality.

Model-dependent realism as discussed by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in their 2010 book The Grand Design is a scientific method of exploration based on how well a model does at describing the physical reality of the situation. Among scientists, this is not, necessarily a controversial approach. This, however, implies that it is somewhat meaningless to discuss the reality of the situation and, rather, the only meaningful thing you can talk about is the usefulness of the given model. One quote from this book…

"There is no picture- or theory-independent concept of reality. Instead we will adopt a view that we will call model-dependent realism: the idea that a physical theory or world picture is a model (generally of a mathematical nature) and a set of rules that connect the elements of the model to observations. This provides a framework with which to interpret modern science."

The authors seem to have developed a theory familiar to philosophers since the 1980s, namely 'perspectivalism'. Perspectivism is the view developed by Friedrich Nietzsche that all ideations take place from particular perspectives.

So according to Hawking and Mlodinow, not only does science fail to provide a single description of reality, they say, there is no theory-independent reality at all. Here, we are told not to expect a unifying theory of everything, rather a set of theories (such as M-theory) that overlap at their boundaries. They argue that the scientific obsession with formulating a single new model may be misplaced, and that by synthesising existing theories we may better provide a picture of unification (my words).

Also, according to the authors, enough is known about M-theory to see that God is not required to answer for the existence of all, instead the existence of a multiverse, à la string theory will suffice.

The authors point out that the laws of nature seem to be tuned incredibly precisely to allow life to exist. Tweak them every so slightly, and there might not even be suns and planets, let alone living things. So the vast majority of those different universes would be uninhabitable.

The author’s argument against divine creation is based on string theory and one associated interpretation, multiverse – however, both strings and multiverse are ideas lacking, obviously, empirical evidence and consistent interpretation.

A thoroughly lucid and accessible book, nicely illustrated and thought provoking.