Natural Forces and God

by Patrick Quanten MD

One of the greatest truths about the character of the physical universe, which has come increasingly into the spotlight during the past twenty-five years, is the unity of its laws and patterns of change. Today, the study of the smallest particles of matter is inextricably linked to the quest for a cosmological understanding of the Universe and the organisation of matter within it. This cosmic link between the large and the small also features in the fate of the vacuum. The theory of gravity that Einstein created can be used to describe the overall evolution of the physical universe. Firstly, it provided a natural mathematical description of universes which are completely devoid of mass and energy - "vacuum" universes. No ether was necessary even if electrical and magnetic fields were introduced to curve space. But then this theory also permitted a new force field to exist in Nature, counteracting or reinforcing the effects of gravity in a completely unsuspected way, increasing with distance so that it could be negligible in its terrestrial effects yet overwhelming on the cosmic scale of the Universe's expansion.

Einstein's development of the theories of special and general relativity was one half of the story of the development of modern physics. The other half is the story of quantum physics, pioneered by Einstein, Max Planck, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr and Paul Dirac. For all its ambivalence, the quantum theory is fabulously accurate in all its predictions about the workings of the atomic and subatomic worlds. The quantum picture grew out of the conflicting pieces of evidence for the wave-like and particle-like behaviour of light. These schizophrenic behaviours were only explicable if energy possessed some revolutionary properties. First, energy is quantised: in atoms it does not take on all possible values but only a ladder of specific values whose separation is fixed by the value of a new constant of Nature, dubbed Planck's constant. In other words, energy levels change in small packages of energy, small units, not on a continuum. Second, all particles possess a wave-like aspect. They behave as waves with a wavelength that is inversely proportional to their mass and velocity. The heavier the mass, the smaller the wavelength; the faster the particle, the smaller the wavelength. When that quantum wavelength is much smaller than the physical size of the particle it will behave like a simple particle, but when its quantum wavelength becomes at least as large as the particle's size then wave-like quantum aspects will start to be significant and dominate the particle's behaviour. As objects increase in mass, their quantum wavelengths shrink to become far smaller than their physical size. It is at this point that they become solid particles. This is how "matter" is materialised out of nothing, out of thin air, out of an energy field.

Also, when we say that a particle is behaving like a wave, we should not think of this wave as if it were a water wave or a sound wave. It is more appropriate to regard it as a wave of information or probability, like a crime wave or a wave of hysteria. If such a wave passes through a population, it means that we are more likely to find hysterical behaviour there. Likewise, if an electron wave passes through your laboratory it means that you are more likely to detect an electron there. But the wave function is not observable. It allows you only to calculate the result of a measurement in terms of the probabilities of different outcomes. It might tell you that 50% of the time you will find the atom to have one state, and 50% of the time, another. And this is exactly what the results of successive measurements tell you: not the same result every time but a pattern of outcomes in which some are more likely than others.

Notice the similarity of this scientific finding with the differing results of medical studies? Repeated studies show a variety of results.

Werner Heisenberg showed that there were complementary pairs of attributes of things which could not be measured simultaneously with arbitrary precision, even with perfect instruments. This restriction on measurement became known as the Uncertainty Principle. One pair of complementary attributes limited by the Uncertainty Principle is the combination of position and momentum. Thus we cannot know at once where something is and how it is moving with arbitrary precision. The uncertainty involved is only significant for very small things with a size comparable to their quantum wavelength. The larger things become the more solid they appear and the more it appears we can accurately measure both at the same time. This Uncertainty Principle occurs because the act of making a measurement always disturbs the thing being measured in some way, which changes it in a different way than if we were to "look" at it from a different aspect.

Forces of Nature

Only four distinct forces of Nature have been found acting in the relatively low-energy world in which we live. The action of each of these forces is sufficient to understand almost all the things that we see around us. The quartet of forces includes gravity and electromagnetism, which are both familiar to us in everyday life, but they are joined by two microscopic forces which have only been explicitly isolated during the twentieth century. The "weak" force lies at the root of radioactivity whilst the "strong" force is responsible for nuclear reactions and the binding together of atomic nuclei. Each of these forces is described by the exchange of a "carrier" particle which conveys the force.

The force of gravity is carried by the exchange of a mass-less particle, the graviton, and so has an infinite range. Gravity is unique in that it acts on every particle. The force of electromagnetism also has an infinite range because it is carried by the exchange of another mass-less particle, the photon of light. It acts on every particle that possesses electric charge. The weak interaction is different. It acts upon a class of elementary particles called leptons, such as electrons, muons, tauons and their associated neutrinos, and is carried by three very massive particles, the so-called intermediate vector bosons. These particles are about 90 times heavier than the proton and the weak force they mediate has a finite range 100 times less than the radius of an atomic nucleus.

The strong force is more complicated. The strong force acts on every particle that carries the "colour" charge and is for this reason sometimes called the "colour force". This "colour" charge has nothing to do with the usual meaning of colour as a hue determined by the wavelength of light; it is just a particular attribute (like electric charge) which is conserved in all the processes that we have observed, carried by their internal constituents known as quarks. The colour force is mediated by the exchange of particles called gluons which have masses about 90 times less than bosons and so the strong force has a range about 90 times greater. It is equal to the size of the largest atomic nucleus, a reflection of the fact that it is this force that binds it together.

A universe that rests upon four fundamental laws governing different populations of particles appears like a house divided against itself. The unity of Nature reveals itself in a host of different places and provokes us to show that these forces are not really different. An analogy might be found in the behaviour of water. We see it in three different forms: liquid water, ice and steam. Their properties are different yet they are all manifestations of a single underlying molecular structure for a combination of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Despite appearances there is an underlying unity.

The quantum vacuum is now viewed as a sea composed of all the elementary particles and their antiparticles continually appearing and disappearing. There will, for instance, be a ferment of electrons and positrons. Pairs of electrons and positrons will appear out of the quantum vacuum and then quickly annihilate each other and disappear. If the time they exist before annihilating back into the vacuum is so short that the Uncertainty Principle is not obeyed, then these electron-positron pairs will be unobservable. Hence, they are called virtual pairs. But they truly exist! Now we can think of our quantum vacuum as containing a collection of virtual pairs of electrons and positrons, and their presence creates an important change in the quantum vacuum. Opposite electric charges attract and so if we put an electron down in the vacuum of virtual pairs the positively charged positrons will be drawn towards the electron. The electron has thus created a segregation of the virtual pairs and the electron finds itself surrounded by a cloud of positive charges. Its effect is to create a positively charged field around the bare negative charge of the electron. An approaching electron will now not feel the full negative electric charge of the electron. Rather, it will feel the weaker effect of the shielded charge and be scattered away more feebly than if the vacuum polarisation was absent.

This effect changes if we alter the energy of the environment and the incoming electron. If it comes in rather slowly, then it will not penetrate very far into the shielding cloud of positive charges and it will be deflected weakly. But, if it comes in with a higher energy, it will penetrate further and feel the effect of more of the full negative electron charge within. It will be deflected more strongly. Thus we see that the effective strength of the electro-magnetic force of repulsion depends upon the energy at which it takes place. As the energy increases the interaction appears stronger.

Notice the similarities on the effect of the environment on our health. Not all people living in the same conditions will be affected in the same way by these conditions. The effect that is seen is determined by the individual and his/her attitude towards the environment.

The same study can be made of the strong interaction that affects particles, like quarks and gluons, which carry the colour charge. As with the electrons, the overall effect will be to make the strong interaction between quark and anti-quark pairs effectively stronger at higher energies. However, the presence of the gluons also affects the pattern of colour charge. Virtual gluons have the opposite effect and tend to smear out the central colour charge. When scattering occurs from a more extended, less point-like object it tends to be weaker. The winner between these two opposed tendencies depends on how many varieties of quark there are to pop up in virtual pairs. If the number is as low as the six that we observe in Nature, then it is the gluon smearing that wins out and the strong interaction is predicted to get effectively weaker as we go to higher energies.

This property implies that if one continues to extrapolate to indefinitely increasing energies there would be no apparent interaction at all - the particles would be free. It was predicted in 1973 and is now confirmed. These important effects of the quantum vacuum enable us to see how the puzzling obstacle to unification of the forces of Nature might be overcome. The force strengths do indeed differ significantly in the low-energy world where life like ours is possible, but if we follow the changes expected in those forces as we go to higher and higher energies, they can become closer and closer in strength until a particular energy is reached where the strengths are the same. Unification exists only in an ultra-high-energy environment, such as would have existed in the early stages of the Universe.

The joining together of the forces of Nature is made possible by the variation in their strengths as the temperature rises. This process sees a coming together first of the electromagnetic and the weak forces to create a single electroweak force when temperatures reach about 1015 degrees Kelvin. If we carry on charting the strengthening of this force together with the weakening of the strong force, then a second unification is implied when temperatures reach a level of about 1027 degrees Kelvin. Above this so-called "grand unification" temperature there is a single symmetrical force, but below it there is a breaking of this symmetry to create the different strong and electroweak forces.

Notice the similarities between the forces of Nature and the spiritual belief in a singular Cosmic Energy. The forces of Nature join up at a higher energy level to become one, from which all creation stems. God, the source of all creation, divides into the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Christianity

In the earliest Christian traditions there is, accordingly, no ready-made inherited position about the creation of the world out of nothing. There is considerable freedom to develop this idea gradually during the first and second centuries, for nowhere in the New Testament writings is the doctrine of creation out of nothing explicitly taught. It began to be discussed seriously by theologians in about 160AD as a result of the challenging questions raised by Gnostic philosophies.

In Gnosticism the question of "why" and "how" the world was created were of great significance, not because the Gnostics were especially interested in cosmology but because of their negative view of the world. They needed to have some explanation as to why this defective, immoral world came into being, and how it could result from the actions of the one true and perfect God. Gnostics maintained that the world was created of a group of more limited lesser beings ("angels") who either did not know the true God or were in rebellion against Him. They view matter and the physical Universe as something possessing only a partial reality which disturbed the true plan of the Universe. The ensuing process of salvation had as its primary goal the destruction of the defective material world. It was the complex evolution of the debate between the Gnostics and their opponents (and the whole spectrum of intermediate positions) in the early Church that led to the emergence in the early Christian Church of a clear doctrine of the creation of the Universe out of nothing in the writings of Basilides, Valentius and Irenaeus.

In less than a generation, a surprising change in attitude had occurred. In the middle of the second century, the early Christian Church had no interest in any specific doctrine of the creation of the world and would have been happy to accommodate a picture of the world forming out of pre-existing material with the Genesis account. Basilides' careful argument turned things around. Creation ex nihilo was adopted as a central doctrine and the theories of world formation out of anything other than nothing were rejected as heretical challenges to the omnipotence of God and an adherence to the heretical theories of the godless philosophers. The resulting doctrine emerges from a synthesis of three convictions: that creation occurs "out of nothing", that God is the supreme Creator, and the rejection of the tempting old idea that God acts in a way that is analogous to human creative action.

From the modern perspective it is easy to wonder why early theologians seem to make such heavy weather of all this. It is, however, important to remember that one reason for their slowness is simply that they were not looking for such a doctrine. Parts of their doctrine were constructed occasionally when needed to defend specific theological points. It was synthesised into a fully worked-out form only when it was needed to counter the theological consequences of rival Greek views about the world being fashioned from pre-existing matter. Creation out of Nothing is one of the by-products of the early Christian Church's disputes with the ideas of Greek philosophy.

One must also remember the confusing background of Platonic philosophical ideas which were still very influential. The Platonic view of the world was that there exists an unseen realm of ideal "forms" which are the perfect blueprints of the things that we see in the material world. This makes the idea of nothing a very difficult one to entertain.

As we try to reconstruct the past history of cosmologies in an effort to establish whether creation out of nothing could have occurred, we encounter a striking feature. If matter and radiation continue to behave as they do today, and Einstein's theory continues to hold, then there will be a past time when the expansion of the Universe must have encountered a state of infinite density and temperature. Whichever way they looked at this, whatever objections they came up with, it appeared as if the argument for singularity - the Universe having originated from one particular time and place - was gaining strength all the time.

Roger Penrose looked at the problem in a new way and considered the collection of all possible histories that were possible for all particles of matter and light rays. He showed that if Einstein's theory is true and gravity is always attractive, then so long as there is enough gravitating matter and radiation in the Universe, at least one of that collection of histories must have had a beginning - it cannot be continued indefinitely into the past. This deduction was remarkable in many respects. It managed to come up with such a strong and general conclusion because it gave up the idea that it was the infinite density - the "Big Bang" itself - that characterised the beginning of a universe. Instead, it employed the simpler and more relevant idea of a history with a beginning - that the universe of space and time had an edge. Also, it is only demanding that one past history has a beginning, not all of them.

The interesting thing about the singularity that is predicted by these theorems is that there is no explanation as to why it occurs. It marks the edge of the Universe in time. There is no before; no reason why the histories begin; no cause of the Universe. It is a description of a true creation out of nothing!

The central assumption is that gravity is always an attractive force. But, the rapid progress in our understanding of particle physics theories and the way in which the forces of Nature are linked together has shown that we would expect Nature to contain forms of matter which respond repulsively to gravitational fields. Whereas up until the late 1970's it was widely accepted that all matter in the Universe should exhibit gravitational attraction and the assumption of the singularity theorems hold good, since 1981 exactly the opposite has been believed: that it is unlikely and undesirable that all matter displays gravitational attraction. Indeed, the recent observations of the acceleration in the expansion of the Universe today, if correct, demonstrate that there exists matter which displays gravitational repulsion.

The logic of the singularity theorems, and therefore the creation out of nothing, is that if their assumptions hold then there must be a singularity in the past. If the assumptions do not hold, as we now believe it most likely, then we cannot conclude that there is no beginning, only that there is no theorem.

Pictures of the Future

The vacuum energy of the Universe may prevent the Universe from having a beginning, may influence its early inflationary moments and may be driving its expansion today, but its most dramatic effect is the domination of the Universe's future.

The vacuum energy that manifests itself as Einstein's lambda force stays constant whilst every other contribution to the density of matter in the Universe - stars, planets, radiation, black holes - is diluted away by the expansion. If the vacuum lambda force has recently started accelerating the expansion of the Universe, as observations imply, then its domination will grow overwhelmingly in the future. The Universe will continue expanding and accelerating for ever. The temperature will fall faster, the stars will exhaust their reserves of nuclear fuel and implode to form dense dead relics of closely packed cold atoms and concentrated neutrons, or large black holes. Even the giant galaxies and clusters of galaxies will eventually follow suit, spiralling inwards upon themselves as the motions of their constituent stars are gradually slowed by the outward flow of gravitational waves and radiation. All their stars will be swallowed up in great central black holes, growing bigger until they have consumed all the material within reach. Ultimately, all these black holes will evaporate away, producing a universe that contains a sea of non-interacting, fairly structureless collections of stable elementary particles and radiation. Or perhaps they do not evaporate completely, but leave a tiny relic of stable matter, or something more exotic, like a wormhole connection into another universe. Nobody knows.

The most fascinating thing about the cosmic vacuum energy is that, ultimately, it wins out over all other forms of matter and energy in the struggle to determine the shape of space and the rate of expansion of the universe. No matter what the structure of the universe in its earlier days before the vacuum energy comes to dominate, all ever-expanding universes approach a very particular accelerating universe. It is distinguished by being the most symmetrical possible universe.

All the accelerating universes become the same. They retain no individual distinguishing features. They have lost all memory of how it began. This inexorable slide towards the same future state signals that there is a loss of information taking place when the universe starts accelerating. The expansion is so fast that the information content of signals sent across the universe gets degraded as fast as possible. Everything looks smoother and smoother; all differences in the rate of expansion from one direction to another are expunged at a rapid rate; no new condensations of matter can appear out of the cosmic matter distribution; local gravitational pull has lost the last battle with the overwhelming repulsion of the lambda force.

Frank Tipler and John D Barrow showed that all evolution heads inevitably for a state of uniformity characterised by the accelerating universe. Information processing cannot continue for ever; it must die out. There will be less and less utilisable energy available as the material Universe is driven closer and closer to a state of uniformity. If the vacuum energy exists but there is insufficient matter in the Universe, then the Universe seems destined for a lifeless far future.

In our modern Western culture people are less and less connected; they are drifting apart faster than the generations appear. Information processing is peaking and accelerating at such a pace that many scientists are already saying that this cannot continue. Let's not forget that the "internet bubble" has already burst! The word, as a communication tool, is fast striving towards uniformity: words are more and more written phonetically, with figures and other signs being used within the written language. The colour and individuality of the old writers is being replaced with a uniformity and dullness, sameness, in the modern literature. Political parties are no longer distinctive: their "different" programmes all look and sound pretty much the same. There is a general move to "unite", Europe, the world. We talk about "international law", "human rights", "world peace" and "global problems" (such as global warming, terrorist threat, etc) as if all people are the same, have the same needs and the same duties, and should all behave in the same way. As diversity creates the tension which creates movement, then it stands to reason that "sameness" will create a state of lifelessness.

The Universe may once have appeared out of the quantum vacuum, retaining a little memory of its energy. Then in the far future that vacuum energy will reassert its presence and accelerate the expansion again, this time perhaps for ever. Globally, the self-reproduction may inspire new beginnings, new physics, new dimensions, but, along our world line, in our part of the Universe, there will ultimately be sameness, starless and lifeless, for ever, it seems.

And it is exactly this accelerated spin towards sameness that we see in our modern society that makes me wonder how far we have already travelled down that road. Are the signs around us not already pointing in that direction? Are we not encouraged to be the same, think the same, have the same appreciation of "justice"? And are we not already experiencing a lessening in communication between people with differences? Although access to information has spiralled, we seem to know less; we seem to be less individual. Differences between cultures are evening out; differences between political parties are far less obvious; differences between the sexes are for all intense and purposes eliminated. Ever-increasing larger groups of simile are formed, in which the same rules apply.

The Universe may once have appeared out of the quantum vacuum, retaining a little memory of its energy. Then in the far future that vacuum energy will reassert its presence and accelerate the expansion again, this time perhaps for ever. Globally, the self-reproduction may inspire new beginnings, new physics, new dimensions, but, along our world line, in our part of the Universe, there will ultimately be sameness, starless and lifeless, for ever, it seems.

All of the Universe, great and small, all moved by the same forces!

All aspects of life, scientific and religious, all governed by the same entities!

All differences, seen and unseen, all parts of the same unity!

May 2006