A few weeks ago, I was watching a documentary about problems relating to the size of the Universe and current theories of physics. The argument basically goes like this. Imagine you see a number of people, all of whom are splattered with the same orange paint. It is reasonable to assume that at some point all of these people were in the same place where they all got covered with this paint, for example by a paint ball exploding. If you take the location of the people, and the direction in which they are travelling, it should then be possible to plot their course backwards, so that you can discover where this event happened. The same argument is true, of the Universe; if the galaxies are the equivalent of the paint splattered people, then because they all originated in the Big Bang, then tracing back their location and trajectory they should all end up back at the same point. The problem is that they don’t!
The programme then continued the analogy to offer a solution to this problem. If we think about the people, and assume that they too are varying distances from the origin, we can easily think why this might be. Some or all of the people may have run away from the initial event. In other words we only have to consider that they were travelling at different speeds. The problem is that in analysing the Universe, astronomers use the speed of light, and according to Einstein the speed of light is constant. Now, of course, Marxists have no fetish for constants and absolutes. The whole basis of dialectics is that nothing is absolute. Yet, we have good reason to believe that for all intents and purposes the speed of light IS constant. So, we need a good reason to accept the premise of the programme, which was that in the early moments of the Big Bang, the speed of light was greater than it is today.
I was thinking about that when I first saw the programme, and thought of what seemed to me an obvious alternative. I’d intended writing about it at the time, but I’ve had way to many other things to do to be able to get round to it. But, the other night, there was an Horizon programme on BBC with Alan Davies entitled, “How Long Is A Piece of String?”, which reinforced the ideas I’d had earlier, and so, with a few minutes to spare, I thought I’d set them down, for what they are worth, especially today as the Large Hadron Collider starts operation again.
One of the first problems that struck me with the comparison of the people all being at different locations on a map with the galaxies exploding away from a central Big Bang was one of dimension. The people on a map all head of two-dimensionally from a given point, whereas matter and energy exploding away from the Big Bang went out in three dimensions. The importance of that is obvious if you think about the geometry of two dimensional or three dimensional objects. The importance is even greater when you take into consideration the other things we know about the fabric of space – in particular that it is not flat, but is curved by gravity. Think about a balloon. If you mark two dots on its surface on opposite sides, then these two dots can begin in the same place. But, as you inflate the balloon the distance between them expands not just because they are moving away from each other, but also because the surface of the balloon is curved. The actual distance travelled is only a fraction – the radius of the sphere – compared to the distance between the two measured on the surface. And, because we can only measure distances in the Universe based upon the distance travelled by light from them, and because this light does not travel in a straight line, but has to follow all of the contours of space this is a more appropriate analogy it seems to me, than simply distances measured between objects on a flat piece of paper.
This is where the question of how long is a piece of string comes in. The programme demonstrated that if you cut a piece of string it is impossible to get a definitive measurement of its length. Marxists have long been familiar with this argument, because as stated above, the basis of dialectics is that there are no absolutes. If you go to a more accurate degree of measurement, you will always get a different result. In fact, I can remember, my old man as an engineer being a bit disparaging about woodworkers, because, as he said, for a woodworker being accurate up to a 16th of an inch was adequate, whereas for an engineer it was necessary to be accurate in thousandths of an inch. Today, with the development of even greater precision in measurement, and the ability to slice and dice with laser accuracy, let alone the development of nano-technology, even accuracy to within thousandths looks crude.
The concept is tied up with that of fractals. Fractals are shapes, which are themselves made up of smaller versions of themselves, which can be endlessly repeated. Snowflakes are an example, but in fact there are many such objects found in nature which share this property, which seem possibly also to be linked to the mathematical phenomenon of Fibanacci numbers. Now, if you take the piece of string its length will depend upon how accurately you measure it! Use a wooden ruler and you will get one length; use a laser measure, and you will get another. But, its weirder than that. Consider the coastline. If you want to know the distance between A and B then you can measure it roughly on a map, and using the map scale arrive at a distance. But, a more accurate map, will show that in fact, there were more kinks and curves than previously shown, and following these in and out, makes the actual distance travelled greater. The more accurately you measure the greater the distance, because if you get down to measuring each grain of sand on the beach that has to be gone round, already you are extending the distance considerably, measure each atom of each grain of sand, and so on. The whole point about fractals is that none of these surfaces are flat, and so it is always possible to go down another level and find a kink that has to be gone round.
Now if we apply this to the fabric of space then not only do we know from Einstein that it is curved, but we also know that it is dimpled. Each massive object like a galaxy or a black hole causes the fabric of space to be pulled down like placing a heavy object on a stretched out piece of rubber. So, it could be thought of more like a golf ball, except that in each dimple there would be other dimples caused by more localised gravity from stars, planets etc. So, when we measure the distances between ourselves and these other objects the light has not travelled in a straight line. If you consider a circle with two points on its circumference the shortest distance between them will always be a straight line drawn between them through the circle. But, if we consider the fabric of space as being like the rubber of the balloon then it is not possible to draw such a line through the balloon. At best it is possible to draw a line only through the tiny thickness of the rubber. Inside that is not the fabric of space, but sub-space.
Consequently, the distances measured between ourselves and these other objects in the universe must reflect this shape of the Universe, must reflect the fact that light travels a much greater distance, as a direct consequence of the expansion of the Universe and of its shape than is the actual distance travelled by these objects from their original source in the Big Bang.
Anyway, that’s my thoughts on the matter. I’m sure that far greater minds than mine have considered this, and it would be interesting to hear other thoughts on the matter.
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