Q: About the relations bitween the inflation and matter's properties

[Cosmicon]

My question goes like this:

Did the inflation following the Bing Bang caused matter to emerge as it is in our universe? In other words, was it the inflation itself that gave matter - electrons, neutrons and protons - its properties (physical size, quantums, velocity, mass), or perhaps the two are not connected?

Would appreciate a detailed answer.

 

[twofish-quant]

Probably not, but no one knows exactly.

The thing about cosmic inflation is by assuming that the universe expanded very, very quickly for a very short period of time, you end up explaining about four or five things that were hard to explain otherwise. Also we do know that at the time inflation occurred things were hot enough so that neutrons and protons could not exist.

The problem with this all is that no one knows exactly what caused inflation. Something happened to cause a lot of energy to go into the expansion of the universe. In the early 1980's when the idea was first proposed people tried to think of exactly what might have caused inflation with the hope that it might help us understand how matter behaves at extremely high energies. But none of those models worked, so the idea now is to think that *something* caused inflation, but we aren't sure what. There are some really crazy ideas that people are using to try to explain inflation.

One is that inflation (and the big bang) happened when two universes collided causing energy to be released along three dimensions. Another is that we are really living in an 11 dimension universe, it just happened that inflation occurred along three dimensions, but not along the other eight... There are probably a dozen other ideas that people are thinking about.

 

[Cosmicon]

So, if the inflation really is an indicator for the existence of the Multiverse, then the energy released in the process of the inflation, and the properties of matter itself is unique to "our universe". This might sound metaphysical, but doesn't it implies that the wholeness we live in is fundamentally a specific game with defined settings which can be utterly altered?
I can't help but burst out and say: WHAT IS THE MEANING BEHIND ALL OF THIS?

 

[twofish-quant]

First of all, you have to remember the *if*. The job of a theorist is to start with a crazy idea and then come up with a way of disproving that this actually happened. But yes, one consequence of the idea of colliding universes is that we live in a superspace in which the fundamental constants are basically random to each universe. One idea is that we live in the universe that we do because in most universes there can't be intelligent life.

I can't help but burst out and say: WHAT IS THE MEANING BEHIND ALL OF THIS?

Don't know. You just have to keep in mind that all these ideas might be wrong. So the game is to think, how would a universe that was produced by two other colliding universes look *different*.

 

[Cosmicon]

First of all, you have to remember the *if*. The job of a theorist is to start with a crazy idea and then come up with a way of disproving that this actually happened. But yes, one consequence of the idea of colliding universes is that we live in a superspace in which the fundamental constants are basically random to each universe. One idea is that we live in the universe that we do because in most universes there can't be intelligent life.

I can't help but burst out and say: WHAT IS THE MEANING BEHIND ALL OF THIS?

Don't know. You just have to keep in mind that all these ideas might be wrong. So the game is to think, how would a universe that was produced by two other colliding universes look *different*.

Speaking of crazy ideas, one striked me a few hours ago today.
What *if*, our universe is, as a whole entity, behaves as an electron in terms defined by the quantum theory. That is, to say that it's location is ever-changing, maybe even spins around a different mega-body, and perhaps, dare I say, has a typical amount of energy in it - Mega Quantum?

P.S : you mentioned before that "One idea is that we live in the universe that we do because in most universes there can't be intelligent life." I don't understand how the two components of this sentence are connected. Explanation would be useful.

And by the way, when does the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva is planned to be active again? Any results from the previous experiments have been publicized so far? If so, what are they?

 

[Bodicea]

Speaking of crazy ideas, one striked me a few hours ago today.
What *if*, our universe is, as a whole entity, behaves as an electron in terms defined by the quantum theory. That is, to say that it's location is ever-changing, maybe even spins around a different mega-body, and perhaps, dare I say, has a typical amount of energy in it - Mega Quantum?

QUOTE]


In other words its big, moving and from a suitable distance wouldn't look any different to , or behave any differently to an electron... Thats pretty much how many of the rational people would see it.

 

[twofish-quant]

What *if*, our universe is, as a whole entity, behaves as an electron in terms defined by the quantum theory. That is, to say that it's location is ever-changing, maybe even spins around a different mega-body, and perhaps, dare I say, has a typical amount of energy in it - Mega Quantum?

That's been suggested. The trouble with that idea as that as far as we have been able to figure out, electrons have no internal structure. Also, it could well be that the universe is infinite which means that it's hard to see how that fits into a finite space.

It's not that hard to come up with wild and crazy ideas. The hard part is to come up with ways of testing wild and crazy ideas. So if the universe is like an electron, what would that mean...

P.S : you mentioned before that "One idea is that we live in the universe that we do because in most universes there can't be intelligent life." I don't understand how the two components of this sentence are connected. Explanation would be useful.

One basic problem with with a lot of the theories of physics is that they don't explain why certain numbers are what they are. Why is the fine structure constant 1/137? Why are there three dimensions? Etc. Etc. One idea is that when a universe forms, that these numbers are generated randomly, and it's only in a small fraction of the universes that you have constants that end up being ones that allow intelligent life. So if the fine structure constant is 1/10 or 1/1000, there wouldn't be life.

The trouble I have with that idea is how do you know that if the fine structure constant were 1/10 that there *wouldn't* be intelligent life?

 

[Cosmicon]

I am not familier with the constant you were discussing about. What is the meaning of this number 1/137 in reality in our universe? But then again, if that notion you came up with, of randomality in the laws of physics as compared to the infinitum of numbers themselves, then the only conclusion is that there is no meaning at all, and everything is just a mix of properties in a TOTAL CHAOS OF COINCIDENTALLY SYSTEMATIC CONFIGURATIONS.
A game with no purpose at all?
Or perhaps there is a greater meaning?

Philosofical as it may sounds, no logic mind can evaluate this theory as sustainable. After all, reasons and outcomes constitute all that exists, right?

 

[twofish-quant]

My background is in physics. I deal with experimental data. The hard part is going from (totally crazy idea) to (some experiment that can support or refute that idea). If you just think about crazy ideas all day, it becomes unhealthy. You have to keep your feet close to the ground, and realize that this crazy idea might be *totally wrong*.

The reason there is interest in the anthropic principle is that there are a lot of weird numbers that almost balance out but not quite. For example, there is the totally amount of matter that there seems to be in the universe divided by the critical mass necessary to get the universe to stop. You end up with something like 0.7. If it was 0.0 or 1.0. or even 2.0, then people would have a good feeling that there was some basic symmetry. But 0.7?

People are looking at the a lot of the basic numbers that describe the universe, and they seem pretty random. One idea is that they *are* random and you have lots of different universes with different physical constants, and it turns out that only a small fraction are suitable for life.

Again, it's only an idea. One that's interesting and that people are working on and arguing about, but you can't take ideas like that too seriously.

 

[twofish-quant]

One thing that you have to do (and which physicists do constantly) is to

1) come up with a crazy idea, and
2) come up with fifty ways of disproving that idea with data.