NEW SCIENTIST 16 May 2020. The front cover displays "A FIFTH FORCE OF NATURE, Momentous hints emerge of a whole new world of physics". Page 30 carries the article "May the fifth force be with you". The author, Daniel Cossins, rehearses today's consensus physics and recent history leading to the familiar four fundamental forces:
(1) Electromagnetism; (2) The Strong Nuclear Force - binding protons & neutrons; which is 1 million times stronger than (3) The Weak Nuclear Force - which governs changes in subatomic particles and thus radio-activity, e.g. Hydrogen converting to Helium; and finally (4) Gravity - both Newton's and Einstein's gravity.
These four fundamentals are the pillars of The Standard Model, which is the basis of our understanding of all physics. And it works. The model works well enough to enable humans to make atomic bombs, mobile-phones, microwave ovens, supercomputers, space-flights and all of today's most advanced machines and products. But - gravity refuses to fit into the model because as yet no one has discovered a "quantum" or particle of gravity. The other three forces can be understood by analyses of their quanta, their tiny particles, and by their fields.
Fields are the influences the particles broadcast (without known distance limits). The particles and fields are sometimes called "wavicles" because they appear to us as particles and simultaneously as "pure-energy" wavelengths. The broadcasts from or to the particles, their energetic signals, are how we are able to observe them and prove their existence, to ourselves.
All except gravity. So far, no "gravitons" have been found. The field of gravity, which I think of as an ocean to denote its three dimensions, is self-evident from Newton's apple (A Newton is 100 grams - the weight /mass of a small apple), to the huge swirling Milky Way Galaxy - billions of stars orbiting the galactic centre (a black-hole?) thought to be held together by gravity. Swirling galaxies baffle physicists. They should clearly and obviously accord with our commonsense and fly apart. The gravitational mass of the Milky Way is too small to hold onto the billions of stars that spin around it. Centripetal/Centrifugal force (think of Wall-of-Death motorbikes or a ball whirling round on the end of a piece of string) demands that the stars should fly away into outer space. But they don't.
Many theories have been advanced to explain both the lack of enough mass to cement galaxies and the lack of gravitons. Imaginary Dark Matter (27% of the universe) might exist in all galaxies, adding huge amounts of gravity; but no one knows what it is. Its opposite, Dark Energy, (68% of the universe) is also imagined to exist. Equally invisible and undetectable, this imaginary "stuff" is allegedly the energy that drives the expansion of the entire universe, making immense galaxies disappear from our sight at light-speed, over the universal horizon 46.5 billion.light.years*** (b.l.y.) away. Ordinary matter - like us - is just 5% of the mass of the universe.
(***NB - the universe is only 13.7 b.l.y old. The observed horizon is 46.5 b.l.y. distant This is impossible if, as Einstein proved "Nothing travels faster than light". Somebody has got their sums or rules wrong. Not to be defeated, "Science" has invented "Inflation" complete with force-particles, "inflatons", which sophistry enables a 13.7 b.l.y. old universe that started as a dot at The Big Bang to expand at 3.4 times the speed of light - to its present horizon. Strange; and probably not both can be true.)
Thus, we have reached the limits of our present understanding. And we haven't even started on Life and Consciousness.
In the same New Scientist issue Roger Penrose's marvellous essay The Nature of Reality is re-printed under the headline What Is Reality?
I am also currently reading Marcus Chown's book The Ascent of Gravity, probably the 50th or so summary of physics that I've read since 1958. This one is recent, comprehensive, very readable, and up to date.
All of these authors are brilliant physicists and mathematicians - and masters of clear English. From their essays I have formed a vague understanding of the works of Newton, Einstein, Maxwell, Faraday and many other geniuses (genii?). I've written an amusing Time-Travel novel with Newton as the central character.
And thus I have formed ideas about
Life, The Universe and Everything that might trigger new directions out of the cul-de-sac that science has arrived in. About 20 years ago I produced a set of slides that wrestle with the Big-Questions; and then get tied in knots.
Briefly, we humans are so far as we know, the pinnacle of creation - forged by the four fundamental forces. We are made of the stuff of the universe, which in turn is made of electromagnetic energy /plasma. Which in shorthand is "Light". We are creatures of light. We are dissipative creatures who consume and process 70 tons of food (made with sunshine) and manifest intelligence, which occasionally produces reason, during our blink-of-an-eye allotted lifespan. In the past 20 years, since compiling those slides, I have considered gravity, and come up with a novel idea.
It seems to me that the universe is full, full to bursting, with electromagnetic energy - with "light". There is nowhere in the universe that is not criss-crossed by light waves. They propagate or reflect from every speck of matter and every filament of plasma. We detect them with our eyes and astrophysical instruments. They enable us, with our receptive brains (made from light) to see all of creation. Wherever we locate such instruments - even in the most remote and emptiest space-time - we see the entire universe, thanks to the ever-present criss-crossing light waves. The sources constantly change - stars explode, galaxies migrate, TV channels broadcast new programs and mobile-phone conversations evolve; but, the light-waves-particles fill the universe.
The consensus up to about 1970 was that light "C" is mass-less, though Einstein ascribed energy (and so mass) to photons, and always propagates, in a vacuum, at 300,000 km per second. We cannot catch light ever travelling at a different speed. It attempts to travel the shortest distance between two points - which logically is a straight-line. That shortest-route, in our universe, transpires to be a curved path through space-time around gravitational masses, such as the Sun; or the Earth.
But, since 1970 there are more and more discoveries that light has some slight mass, and that it's "speed" varies through different mediums. Follow the Label "Gravity" at the end of this essay to see these examples. If, if, if, light has some mass, however slight, it does not need to be explained as following curved-space-time; it can be more simply explained as being attracted by matter/mass (or regions of energy).
If a tiny mote of energy, a photon, has mass, it will act like all other matter and obey the laws of gravity. As a beam of photons passes a large body, it will bend towards it. Huge masses, like stars or black-holes will attract photon-beams, even passing at the 300,000 km /sec, into orbit.
So, if gravity is not curved-space-time, what is it?
Empty-space is not empty. It is chock full of radiation /electromagnetism /light waves and particles / thousands of diverse particles and fields (oceans). All these entities are moving at great speed. They cross, collide, deflect, bounce off each other. This constant activity creates heat and pressure. Light fills the universe with immense pressure.
Where might we look to avoid the pressure of light? The answer is, it is dark inside matter. Professor Casimir found that between matter, some wavelengths and so particles are missing. He demonstrated this with flat porcelain plates and found that the pressure from outside the plates is greater than the pressure between (inside) the plates. The plates stuck together. The same phenomenon happens when two tall sided ships get close on a choppy sea. The waves between the ships are small; the waves outside are large - and push the ships together. Matter can shield its "inside" from all the wavelengths of light. Taken layer by layer, the light is cumulatively blocked by ever denser matter. The universal pressure outside is immense and ubiquitous. The pressure inside is reduced by each layer. The heart of a planet is very dark. It tends to become a vacuum. Ultimately, as layers of matter are added, the object becomes a black-hole.
I think this is the driving force of gravity. It operates between all objects, large and small. The external pressure from all the electromagnetic and other forces that propagate in the universe - which we can and do detect and study - the shorthand being the pressure of light - is what provides the "weight" of gravity. The larger an object, the deeper the darkness, the stronger the inner vacuum, the stronger the gravity. It works quite well - theoretically.
The fifth-force is, I conjecture, The Life Force. We humans including scientists are surrounded by life-forms. We are life-forms. They form mysteriously. No one knows how. They, and we, are made from light and particles and atoms and molecules and cells etc. Trillions of minuscule organised things cooperating with sufficient intelligence to form a human - and so create the mobile-phone. These forms are intelligent. The cooperation is intelligent. The motes and particles are probably intelligent. We are faced with the Life-Force at all times - but we deny that a force brings stuff together to make these organisms. We much prefer the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, extrapolated from a cooling iron stove, that tells us we are all doomed to a cold dark soup at the end of the universe. May I say, in the light of the evidence of 7 billion active humans and trillions of living cells, and after 60 years of following the science - Bullshit. We and our universe are not doomed to disintegrate; we move towards greater integration. There is a Life-Force, that organises energy in a myriad of ways and countless forms.
Similarly black-holes suck in energy - and then recycle it. The universe is a dynamic system. Just as we gobble down food, made from sunshine, invent things, excrete the food re-formed, and create babies to ensure our legacy - so all the objects in the universe are cyclical.
Dark Matter, is I guess, another vacuum force - in galaxies. The basic stuff of the universe, plasma, light etc, forms particles and atoms. We don't know how. It does however form matter. My guess is that as Einstein proved it takes a vast amount of energy to form an atom (e=mc2) and that energy is gathered from space-time; as this happens (continually) there is a momentary partial vacuum in the stuff of the universe; which rushes to fill the vacuum - and so pulls on all matter. Dark Matter is the lack of stuff - not a new particle. It helps glue galaxies together.
Dark Energy, is I guess, a similar mechanism in reverse. In inter-galactic space as virtual particles form for milliseconds, (Fred Hoyle|) they deplete the ocean of light (electromagnetic field) and reduce the ocean's gravitational force and the three other forces that might otherwise form matter. This creates a letting-go of the cohering forces in inter-galactic space-time and expands space-time. We observe this as expanding the horizon of the observable universe. It could of course be merely a trick of the light.
What mystery have I neglected to address? Watch this Space-Time.
******
Coincidentally - Or as Jung would have it, synchronistically, my friend Michael asked me to contribute to an initiative for people becoming aware of their mortality, to put their lifetime conclusions on record. Mine include the Fifth-Force. Is this the last word in physics? The biggest, deepest scientific mystery is the existence of consciousness, intelligence and life.
BEFORE WE GO
“Brain damage aside, most of us grow in
awareness and consciousness as we age. An infant dying in hospital or at home
knows little of it and has no fear. A child, such as me aged six, miraculously
saved by penicillin, is more aware of pain, briefly, but has no fear of death.
Teenagers are far too busy and self-assured of immortality to be afraid at
their sudden or lingering demise; they simply resent the interruption to their
headlong flight and mating opportunities. As young parents we are far too
responsible, important, overworked, and still immortal, to register any emotion
other than impatience when facing a premature end. After middle-age, say
sixty-five, we have the haunting suspicion that we are “like other men” and
might, just might be destined to meet-our-maker in the next decade or two – or
three. It is in this phase that I personally consider the afterlife, based of
course on the evidence of this present life. Not as a clever academic exercise
for a debate nor guided by “faith” and rituals contrived by shepherds and
philosophers thousands of years ago – but as a serious, unavoidable, personal
evolution that will shut down my incredible autonomous bodily processes –
hopefully the senses and mind last - and liberate my life-force to embark on
its next journey.
So, Yes, I do believe we each are a
manifestation of the intelligent energy that powers the limitless universe. We
are animated by The Fifth Force; the Life-Force, which is immortal. The other
four forces are the ones that science explores and puzzles over, from which we
design and construct our wholly extraordinary and brilliant bodies. The wailing
protest “I never asked to be born!” is an error.
So what of the others – you lot? We are
all connected. We all communicate all the time. We all influence all events –
but as Obama says “It is the ones who turn up who make the policies”. We are
all guilty, to coin a 1960’s mantra; and we are all mightily, hugely
praiseworthy. We affect and join to the whole world, past, present and future,
through love. This is sometimes scrambled and perverted by horrible experiences
into hate; which quickly destroys itself. From seventy-seven years of
reflection, I find that true love is founded on, is based on, is immortalised
by – friendship. Deeper than love, with all of love’s overlying confusing
biological imperatives, is friendship. Friendship endures. Friendship
transcends time. My wife, Pauline, and I are friends and have been since we
met, aged fifteen. I am friends with my children. I am friends with my friends.
My friends know beyond doubt that in need I will help. The majority of the
human race – all seven billon of us, will and do help in emergencies. Without
love and friendship, we none of us would exist. When I shuffle off this, rather
admirable, some might say handsome, mortal coil, I will see you all in the next
dimension.
Noel Hodson – 18th May 2020.”
