Note: today I distinguished universe and cosmos. In the universe are countless cosmos, as well as there are countless galaxies in a cosmos.
Index:
1. Originated from the nothing?
2. Do we need a "cosmical anti-gravity" and a "cosmological constant"?
3. Why is the universe expanding always faster?
4. From where are the seeds of galaxies coming?
5. Which phenomena are linked to (yet) missing gravitational forces?
6. Cosmologist Linde: "Now I know, how God created the Universe!"
7. For a dynamic universe and the immanence of the forming forces
1. Originated from the nothing?
The article "The world out of nothing?", refering to the title theme "GOD'S BIG-BANG" of the German news magazine DER SPIEGEL, edition 52/1998, crosses with a recent manuscript of mine: "What happened before the big-bang?". The main difference between the two essays is in my conviction that a) nothing can be explained starting with nothing and b) the already known forces suffice for the understanding of the most important astronomical observations. It cannot be wrong to try first to use existing knowledge. This needs, in my opinion, no further justifications, as long as we move on secured ground. I would, however, like to introduce a limitation: since we are not in a position to know it, we cannot exclude the possibility that the known universe is just a part of the whole. This limitation does not contradict the laws of nature, as the SPIEGEL article rightly points out (page 173): "According to the new model, the universe expands just after its birth with superluminal velocity, producing the seeds of the galaxies. In this 'inflationary model', it seems plausible that other universes, different from ours, were created and continue to be created." Wide universes for possible are therefore held in the present-day cosmological debate, however one has retained the idea that universes "originate". Although comprehensible to a mortal, this way of thinking misses in my opinion - the central point. Till recently physicists have entertained the idea that "our" universe could some day collapse. Astronomers and cosmologists were eagerly searching after the mass capable of stopping the universal expansion and turn it into contraction. And what would happen if this were really take place? Should then a new big-bang start, provided the cosmic plasma reached a critical density allowing the build-up of anti-matter? Would in this case come into being "out of nothingness"? Or would it not better to say that "The universe is that large - but finite - quantity of matter which passed through a common big-bang?" Under "matter" we understand here the overall summa of energies/particles, no matter in which state they are. And after the new big-bang the world will - most probably - appear such as we know it today, since the same matter is involved. Although nobody can know this with certainty - quite apart from the fact that most of the recent knowledge doesn't support this - I consider it a very reasonable conclusion, as well as an answer to the question: "hat was before the big-bang?" It is in accord with the law of conservation of energy and doesn't need the arbitrary action of "nothingness".
2. Do we need a "cosmical anti-gravity" and a "cosmological constant"?
The universe is governed by two forces: the gravity and the centrifugal force. The gravity belongs to matter and is a one-sided directional force. If only the universal attractive were to exist, the existence of structured cosmos would be impossible. It is therefore plausible that a complex universe has gone through a common big-bang, thus allowing for the undisputed existence of centrifugal forces. According to the most recent astronomical measurements, these forces cannot be overcome by gravitation. The journal "Science" has called this result "the most significant result of 1998". With much improved observational techniques, one believes that "the universe is expanding with steadily increasing velocity" (DER SPIEGEL), so that everything fits suddenly together: the 15 billion years age of the universe and the age of the oldest stars of the globular starcluster. "Since several months, we cosmologists are walking on the clouds", says Matthias Bartelmann from Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. Could they not have done this already long time ago? Indeed, since Isaac Newton we know that gravitation is a universal effect and that its action decreases like one-over-square of the distance, being distributed equally in space. This means that with the increase of the volume of the universe, the gravitational interactions decrease (or, the density of the force-lines is diluted), in complete analogy with light: a purely geometrical law. The centrifugal force imprinted during the big-bang acted from the beginning against gravity. (The so called "inflationary phase" just after the big-bang is ignored for the moment for two reasons: first, it is speculative and second, it plays no role in the following expansion phase.) Goes the mass away, the expansion velocity reducing attraction diminishes. The observable expansion velocity develops simply as the resultant of two opposed forces. Did the cosmologists overlook that all measured galactic red-shifts and the associated recession velocities pertain only the moment of observation? Have they, consequently, calculated a smaller age? According to present knowledge it is excluded that the expansion velocity could some day reverse direction. More probably, the influence of gravity on the expansion velocity will be increasingly smaller. This diminution of the reciprocal attraction can be attributed to an anti-gravity of the space, characterized by a purely spatial constant. This however, would suggest something new, which doesn't exist. What is actually meant, is a constant, extra force originating in the "vacuum". It is my conviction, that neither the "nothingness", nor the purely mathematical cosmological constant are really necessary. Changes in the recessional motion are only in the first approximations constant and isotropic. Mathematical constants in general and geometrical ones in particular, are in my opinion an expression of a schematic and non-realistic way of thinking, rejected - among others - by Einstein, too. I was told that the "nothingness" were just a metaphor for the unknown (to cosmologists). Scientists, however, should not talk in metaphors, since their task has to be spreading of knowledge, rather than of riddles. The following honest statement in SPIEGEL is then more useful "This action-at-a-distance is, for the time being, not understood". Very correct, indeed. In this situation, one more realistic attempt to explain the facts, seems wholly justified.
3. Why is the universe expanding always faster?
But what could happen, if our cosmos would fall, increasingly faster, into pieces? Would everything disappearing in the void and would die from "thermal death"? We don't know. However, when other universes were to exist beyond ours, as entertained by the Russian-Californian researcher Andrej Linde - just because one cannot exclude them -, then it would be unavoidable that parts of our universe will sometime interact with these universes. Yes, maybe these universes are already responsible for the steady increase of the expansion velocity of the known universe! As long as there is not only a weakening of the general gravitation, but also an acceleration of the expansion, the universe surrounding us would easily explain the phenomena and reduce, "anti-gravity" to the true gravity due to "outside universes", which thus manifest themselves. And somewhere sometime other Big-Bangs may happen. In under this aspect, the whole universe would be without boundaries in space and time, and our universe would be just a part of it. I think, many open questions, like: "what happened before the Big-Bang?", "who created the world?", "from where are galaxies coming?", "why is the expansion velocity increasing?", will this way disappear by themselves. In this view neither, "God" or "nothingness" would anymore be necessary - metaphors implying arbitrary interpretations and therefore not satisfying cosmologists like Gerhard Börner. When talking at congresses on cosmology, Andrej Linde works miracles by unveiling innumerable universes, he provokes "frenetical applause" and clowning. According to SPlEGEL he thus covers up the dubiousness of his theory. Of course, some degree of "craziness" - in the positive sense of the word - is necessary, in order to make unaccustomed approaches acceptable. This is so, in science as well in life generally. The outcome could be "a spiritual Big-Bang", so that in retrospect one may wonder how many problems the old cosmology had.
4. From where are the seeds of galaxies coming?
If through a big-bang all previous configurations of matter - from elementary particles to clusters of galaxies - were to get lost, then one would rightly can say that we will never know at detail what was before the big-bang, also not if the present universe originated from one, two, or more part-universes. If however, just almost all previous configurations were to get lost, perhaps because the big-bang started before a fully homogeneous plasma was established. Than the "seeds of galaxies" would be remnants or "echos" of a previous cosmos and the non-homogeneous is necessary. And, perhaps, the universe didn't originate from one point? I think that nothing imposes upon us this built-in, unsupported assumption (Fred Hoyle), if one doesn't presuppose that the cosmos came into being "out of nothing", or else "by a patronize wink of God" (both suppositions failing to explain something anyway.) Would it not be more probable that - after a collision between huge amounts of matter - the cosmos started from a huge cloud with many "seeds", a cloud which was so large that it made an inflationary phase superfluous? Börner: "Normal spacetime geometry solutions.... suggest that although the universe could have originated in a hot big-bang, it had at the start already a finite radius"(*). Anyway, I see for the moment no reason to assume that the new configurations of matter known to us were different from the previous ones. Seen in this light, the inflation theory would be just a solution of despair. Attempting the performance to join a presupposed singularity with the observed inhomogeneity of the cosmos. Faced with such utterly speculative ideas Börner remarks that: "Here appears in a most pregnant form the position of some physicists, who - out of their enthusiasm for possible thoughts - are inclined to confound their expectations with the reality".
(*in: "Vom Urknall zum komplexen Universum", Piper series, Munich, 1993).5. Which phenomena are linked to (yet) missing gravitational forces?
In what the mostly unknown "dark matter", supposedly holding together the visible stars, as well as the galaxies is concerned, one makes, possibly, the error of taking only condensed matter into account. This one is perceived through its "mass", which is the reason why mass is supposed to be the cause of gravity. In turn, one encounters difficulties if one tries to conceive gravity without mass. "Mass", however, is no thing, but just a physical quantity, namely the measure of inertia of a body, which is felt through its mechanical resistance. Since, however, this measure is proportional to the quantity of matter, it can also serve as a measure of the associated gravity, too. This one is a complementary property of matter, as already pointed out by me elsewhere. And when matter is defined through the measure of its energy - since the value, or even the very existence of ist mass is unknown - then is energy could well deliver the measure of the force of gravity and then the gravitational constant will belong to energy. Mass and energy arc just manifestation forms, i.e. something existing only relative to something else, which thus allows measurability. I would prefer to talk about "matter" when it goes on something acting, meaning all real physical forces and material constituents, since I hold the conviction that all that exists, is both subjected to and exercises gravity. This belongs in my view to the unity of the four fundamental forces and of all cosmological events as well, not least the equivalence of mass and energy, is an expression of this unity, too. I hold this view as the least arbitrary - out of all possible - assumption. Light doesn't propagate without being influenced by strong gravitational fields. The fact that solid, or gaseous objects act upon light, does not exclude that (always escaping) "elements" of matter like photons and neutrinos are doing the same, even when - due to their weakness - their effect is observable only at the scale of galaxies. If free energies and free particles like neutrinos - quite independently of the problem of mass - do sensibly contribute to gravity, is a matter of further research. Anyway, one has (in this case, too) to test known phenomena before speculating about "thought up" ad hoc "explanations". The problem of the scientist is once again the time-lag between their way of thinking and their knowledge, which usually confuses them. Since they are looking always outwards, they are searching there (i.e. outside, their deficiencies first there). I hope, I could show against it, like rationally widened points of view problem quite informal, without arbitrary assumptions, to the disappearance brings.