The Magical Play of Creation According to Modern Physics

1. The Magical Play of Creation According to Modern Physics Dennis BlejerSchool of Practical Philosophy and Meditation, Boston

2. Abstract The Creation is a magical play known as the Lila (sport) of the Absolute. Modern physics is consistent with this point of view. The revolution in physics that took place during the 20th century dramatically changed the view of a purely mechanistic (machine-like) and deterministic universe to one full of magic and potentiality. This talk will present the magical mystery of relativistic and quantum physics through illustrative examples.

3. Outline • Newtonian Physics • Relativistic Physics • Special Relativity • General Relativity • Cosmology • Black Holes • Big Bang • Dark Matter & Energy • The Anthropic Principle and Fine Tuning

4. Psalm 9 I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvelous works.

5. Outline • Newtonian Physics • Relativistic Physics • Special Relativity • General Relativity • Cosmology • Black Holes • Big Bang • Dark Matter & Energy • The Anthropic Principle and Fine Tuning

6. Three-dimensional Space and Time Z Y “Absolute, true, and mathematical time, in and of itself and of its own nature, without reference to anything external, flows uniformly and by another name is called duration.” (Newton) X

7. St. Augustine on Time (~400 A.D.) “What then is time? If no one asks then I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know.”

8. Time • We don’t know what time is (St. Augustine), but we do claim to know how to tell time • We tell time with the use of clocks • What is a clock? • A clock is essentially a counter • Einstein’s light clock – using light to tell time

9. Outline • Newtonian Physics • Relativistic Physics • Special Relativity • General Relativity • Cosmology • Black Holes • Big Bang • Dark Matter & Energy • The Anthropic Principle and Fine Tuning

10. Minkoski, 1908 “The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies there strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.” (Spacetime continuum)

11. Addition of Velocities • Why does a javelin thrower run before throwing the javelin? • Because velocities add: by running he imparts a velocity to the javelin that adds to the velocity he imparts when releasing • The speed of light, however, is unaffected by the motion of the source or receiver

12. Einstein 1905 Measurements on the speed of light show that it is independent of the relative motion of the observer and the source Einstein questions Newtonian assumptions about space and time and shows that space-time metrics depend on the relative motion of the observers

13. Stationary Light Clock Observed by an Observer at Rest, or a Moving Light ClockObserved by a Moving ObserverA light beam bounces up and down between two mirrors

14. Light Clock Observed by a Moving Observer, or a Moving Clock Observed by a Stationary Observer (c is constant) v ∆t′ = ∆t/√(1-v2/c2) • Time Dilation: ∆t′ = ∆t/√(1-v2/c2) • For v2/c2 = ¾ (v = 0.87c) , ∆t′ = 2∆t

15. Time Dilation, Einstein, 1911 "If we placed a living organism in a box ... one could arrange that the organism, after any arbitrary lengthy flight, could be returned to its original spot in a scarcely altered condition, while corresponding organisms which had remained in their original positions had already long since given way to new generations. For the moving organism the lengthy time of the journey was a mere instant, provided the motion took place with approximately the speed of light".

16. Time Dilation of Muons The muon is an unstable elementary particle with a half-life of 2.2 µs Rossi and Hall (1941) compared the population of cosmic-ray-produced muons at the top of a mountain to that observed at sea level. The muon sample at the base was only moderately reduced. The muons were decaying about 10 times slower than if they were at rest with respect to the experimenters.

17. Lorentz ContractionRelativity, Gravitation and Cosmology, Ta-Pei Cheng, 2010A pole carrying runner runs through a barn • A stationary observer sees the time sequence of events as: (1) AF, (2) BF, (3) AR, (3) BR • The pole is shorter than the barn • The runner sees the time sequence as: • (1) AF, (2) AR, (3) BF, (4) BR • The pole is longer than the barn • Events are not simultaneous

18. Minkowski Spacetime Invariant • In the Newtonian conception of space and time measuring sticks and clocks are invariants • In relativistic physics the invariant is Pythagorian distance in 4-dimensional spacetime s = √(∆R2 – c2∆t2) • s = square root of the distance between two spatial points squared minus the distance light would have traveled squared

19. Outline • Newtonian Physics • Relativistic Physics • Special Relativity • General Relativity • Cosmology • Black Holes • Big Bang • Dark Matter & Energy • The Anthropic Principle and Fine Tuning

20. Equivalence Principle Introducing Stephen Hawking, J. McEvoy and O. Zarate, 1999

21. Equivalence of Free Fall in a Gravitational Field and an Inertial Frame of Reference Astronaut in free fall in a uniform gravitational field There is no experiment the astronaut can perform in empty space to determine which situation he is in Astronaut floating in space

22. Light Bends in a Gravitational FieldGravity, J.B. Hartle, Addison Wesley

23. Bending of Light in a Gravitational Field • Light bends in a gravitational field • Sir Arthur Eddington verifies in 1919 during an eclipse of the sun • Headlines exclaim “Light caught bending” • Gravitational time dilation • Clocks run more slowly in stronger gravitational fields than weak ones

24. Cassinihttp://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/18268 Bruno Bertotti of the University of Pavia and colleagues in Rome and Bologna measured how radio waves sent from the Earth to the Cassini satellite and back again were deflected by the Sun (B Bertottiet al.2003 Nature425 374). Their results, which are accurate to 20 parts in a million, agree with the predictions of general relativity.

25. Einstein Ring: A special case of gravitational lensing caused by the exact alignment of the source, lens, and observer resulting in a ring-like structure (Wikipedia)

26. Outline • Newtonian Physics • Relativistic Physics • Special Relativity • General Relativity • Cosmology • Black Holes • Big Bang • Dark Matter & Energy • The Anthropic Principle and Fine Tuning

27. Psalm 19The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork 20th Anniversary Image of the Carina Nebula, HST, NASA HST NASA

28. Outline • Newtonian Physics • Relativistic Physics • Special Relativity • General Relativity • Cosmology • Black Holes • Big Bang • Dark Matter & Energy • The Anthropic Principle and Fine Tuning

29. Birth of Black Hole www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blackhole If the collapsed star is greater than about three times the solar mass, then nothing that we know of in nature can withstand the force of its gravity, and it crumples inexorably into a black hole. It's a mysterious place where gravity has become so powerful that the velocity that an object would need to escape its grip is greater than the 670,000,000-mile- per-hour speed of light, which means that not even light can escape. Hence its simple but deeply evocative name, black hole.

30. Static Black Hole The Schwarzschild radius is the radius of a sphere that contains an amount of mass so great that no known force can stop gravitational collapse to a point of infinite density, i.e., a black hole The Photon Sphere occurs at 3/2 the Schwarzschild Radius. It's the only place where light rays can have (very) unstable orbits around the black hole. At the photon sphere the speed you would have to go to stay in orbit is c, the speed of light, some 3 x 108 meters per second. http://www.gothosenterprises.com/black_holes/static_black_holes.html

31. Falling into a Non-rotating Black Hole Introducing the Black Hole, R. Ruffini and J. Wheeler, Physics Today, 1971

32. Rotating Black Hole • Two photon spheres • Ergosphere • Inner and outer event horizons • Ring singularity Within the ergosphere, spacetime is dragged along in the direction of the rotation of the black hole at a speed greater than the speed of light in relation to the rest of the universe. Wikipedia http://www.gothosenterprises.com/black_holes/rotating_black_holes.html

33. Light Near a Rotating Black Hole http://www.engr.mun.ca/~ggeorge/astron/lkjh.gif Behavior of light near a Kerr black hole. The hole is rotating anti- clockwise. The rays drawn in red just barely avoid capture by the hole.

34. RotatingBlack Holes 10 January 2008 — A new study using results from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatoryprovides one of the best pieces of evidence yet that many supermassive black holes are spinning extremely rapidly. The whirling of these giant black holes drives powerful jets that pump huge amounts of energy into their environment and affects the growth of galaxies. "We think these monster black holes are spinning close to the limit set by Einstein's theory of relativity, which means that they can drag material around them at close to the speed of light," said Rodrigo Nemmen da Silva, lead author of a paper on the new results. "Conditions around a stationary black hole are extreme, but around a rapidly spinning one would be even worse," Nemmen said.

35. Supermassive Black Holes This illustration shows the extreme activity astronomers believe occurs near a supermassive black hole. Matter that is spiraling inward forms a disk swirling around the black hole, and high speed jets of energetic particles are ejected from the poles. The detail shows a computer simulation of the inner region where matter orbits just outside the black hole. The rotation of the disk surrounding the black hole causes one side to brighten. Credit: MIT/NASA/JohnsHopkins/U.Illinois

36. The giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4261 is one of the twelve brightest galaxies in the Virgo cluster, located 45 million light-years away • Visible light image shows hundreds of billions of stars • Radio image shows two jets spanning 88,000 light years • Hubble image shows giant gas and dust disk that fuels a possible black hole

37. Milky Way’s Black Holehttp://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/milky-way/the-milky-ways-black-hole

38. The Motion of a Star Around the Central Black Hole in the Milky Way http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0226c/ Year Infra Red Image

39. Stars orbiting Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky WayUCLA Galactic Center Group website Caption: The orbits of stars within the central 1.0 X 1.0 arcseconds of our Galaxy. Estimates of orbital parameters are only possible for the seven stars that have had significant curvature detected. The annual average positions for these seven stars are plotted as colored dots, which have increasing color saturation with time. Also plotted are the best fitting simultaneous orbital solutions. These orbits provide the best evidence yet for a supermassive black hole, which has a mass of 4.1 million times the mass of the Sun. 13 years worth of data.

40. Sombrero Galaxy: In the Virgo Cluster, about 28 million light years awaySmithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Chandra's X-ray image (in blue) shows hot gas in the galaxy and point sources that are a mixture of objects within the galaxy and quasars in the background. Hubble's optical image (green) reveals the bulge of starlight partially blocked by a rim of dust, which glows brightly in Spitzer's infrared view. It may have a black hole of approximately 1 billion solar masses at its core.

41. Chandra Reveals 1000s of Black Holes (March 18, 2007) NASA’s Chandra X-Ray observatory in orbit is racking up quite a record of groundbreaking discoveries this year. After enabling the verification of Dark Matter earlier this year, Chandra discovered over 1000 Black Holes in a patch of the sky about the size of a paperback book held at arm’s length. Each of the colored dots in the field left (taken in the constellation Bootes) is a direct image of a black hole that lies at the center of a remote galaxy (hence the name “Active Galactic Nuclei” [AGN]). http://www.allthebestbits.net/

42. How do 2 Black Holes say hello? - With a gravitational wave

43. Evidence for Gravitational Waves The figure (from Weisberg and Taylor (2004)) shows the cumulative shift of periastron time for PSR 1913+16. This shows the decrease of the orbital period as the two stars spiral together. Although the measured shift is only 40 seconds over 30 years, it has been very Accurately measured and agrees precisely with the predictions from Einstein's theory of General Relativity. The observation is regarded as indirect proof of the existence of gravitational waves. Indeed, the Hulse-Tayor pulsar is deemed so significant that in 1993 its discoverers were awarded the Nobel prize for their work.

44. Einstein equations indicate possibility of black hole formation at the LHCApril 5, 2010, Miranda Marquit One of the concerns that has been voiced about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), is that it could result in the formation of black holes that could destroy the world. While most scientists dismiss claims that anything produced in the LHC would destroy the planet, there are some that think that black formation could be seen with LHC collisions of sufficiently high energy..

45. Worm Holes http://www.daviddarling.info/childrens_encyclopedia/Build_a_Time_Machine_Chapter4.html Worm Holes: In science fiction, we often read that a worm hole will connect two places in the universe. The hero in the fiction will go through the worm hole and travel to a distant place in a short time. To our best knowledge, worm hole exists theoretically. However, there are some big drawbacks as a ``tunnel''. The two ends will appear to be black holes to the outsiders. After you travel through the worm hole, you can see what happens outside, but you cannot get out of the black hole at the other end before you are crushed by the singularity.

46. Worm Holeshttp://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/schww.html The Schwarzschild metric admits negative square root as well as positive square root solutions for the geometry. The complete Schwarzschild geometry consists of a black hole, a white hole, and two Universes connected at their horizons by a wormhole. The negative square root solution inside the horizon represents a white hole. A white hole is a black hole running backwards in time. Just as black holes swallow things irretrievably, so also do white holes spit them out. White holes cannot exist, since they violate the second law of thermodynamics. General Relativity is time symmetric. It does not know about the second law of thermodynamics, and it does not know about which way cause and effect go. But we do. The negative square root solution outside the horizon represents another Universe. The wormhole joining the two separate Universes is known as the Einstein-Rosen bridge.

47. Outline • Newtonian Physics • Relativistic Physics • Special Relativity • General Relativity • Cosmology • Black Holes • Big Bang • Dark Matter & Energy • The Anthropic Principle and Fine Tuning

48. Hubble Diagrams - Expansionhttp://www.eso.org/~bleibund/papers/EPN/epn.html • Distance vs. redshift for Type 1a • Supernovae • The further away the faster the supernovae are moving • v = H*R, H ~ 7*10e-11/yr • Implies 1/H years ago (14 billion) the universe was a point! • Big Bang – term used by Fred Hoyle in derision for this notion

49. Expanding SpaceCosmic Jackpot, Paul Davies Space is in the universe rather than the universe being in space The Big Bang happened everywhere, not at one point in space The Big Bang was the explosion of space, not an explosion in space

50. The Evolution of the Universe