Enter commentOne of the potential candidates into the revelation of the Theory of Everything is the superstring. Superstrings are envisaged as inconceivably minuscule, constantly vibrating strands of pure energy. Everything in the universe, from subatomic particles to entire galaxies is composed of superstrings, according to this theory. Superstrings, if they exist, must measure only 10-32 mm in size, a distance known as the Plank length, which is so small that the quantum effect of gravity can no longer be ignored. This of course overcomes the previously mentioned problems of quantum field theories. Comparing the atomic and subatomic sizes, if we can look inside the atom, we shall see that it is a cloud of electrons some 10-7 mm in size, with a nucleus in the order of 10-12 mm. To give a virtual perception of these orders of magnitude I shall provide the following example: in one gram of radium around 37,000,000,000 atoms are subjected to radioactive decay every second. The half-life of radium, that is the time in which half of the atoms of radioactive nuclide will undergo at least one disintegration, is 1620 years. Now, superstrings are infinitesimally smaller than the atom. For example, the equatorial radius of the Earth is 6378.17 kilometers. The ratio of the size of the Earth to that of the atom is of the same order of magnitude as the ratio of the size of the atom to that of the superstring. Unlike the zero-dimensional points or particles in the earlier physics, strings are extended, one-dimensional objects. By eliminating problems associated with the presence of point-like particles, string theories allow the computation of space-time dimensions from first principles. When a string oscillates in space and time it sweeps a two-dimensional surface. This surface is known as the world sheet and it replaces the world line of a particle, creating a two-dimensional spacetime, where the division between space and time depends on the observer. Strings can be open and closed, and their different modes of vibration correspond to the existence of specific elementary particles. In the generic quantum theory there are quantum states with a negative norm known as ghosts, which create extra unphysical states in the string spectrum. The original, so-called bosonic, string theories required a 26-dimensional spacetime for these extra unphysical states to disappear. However, bosonic string theories were found to be unstable. It was subsequently established that the ghost states decouple from the spectrum if two conditions are satisfied: the number of spacetime dimensions is reduced to just 10 and the supersymmetry is observed; that is, there must be equal numbers of bosons and fermions in the spectrum. This supposition became known as the superstring theory. At one time it seemed as if there were five distinct superstring theories and that finally only one of these will be proven as the authentic Theory of Everything. The very latest theoretical work however has indicated that all five superstring theories are connected to one another as if they are each a special case of some more fundamental theory. It is known as M-theory. There is one more twist to the M-theory. Apparently in essence it is an 11-dimensional theory that appears to be only 10-dimensional at some parts in its space of parameters. In this case it should have a membrane, as opposed to a string, as its fundamental entity. Edward Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton University, who was largely responsible for the development of this concept, explains: “M stands for Magic, Mystery or Membrane, according to taste”.There are, however two new hurdles which physics must overcome, if the validity of the string theories is to be legitimized. One is the experimental verification of the mathematical derivations and second is the problem of extra dimensions. All of the current quantum field theories have been confirmed by experimental data. This is not the case with the string theories. Does it mean that they belong to the abstract ideas of philosophy and not to the real world of physics? Richard Morris in his book Dismantling the Universe (1984) seems to disagree: “…a correct theory is one that can presumably be verified by experiment. And yet, in some cases, scientific intuition can be so accurate that a theory is convincing even before the relevant experiments are performed”. A Nobel laureate Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1902 – 1984) gives the aesthetic aspects of nature even greater significance by declaring: “It is more important to have beauty in one’s equations than to have them fit the experiment”.The problem of extra dimensions was also resolved through the revelations of pure mathematics. In 1921 a little known Polish mathematician, Theodor Kaluza (1885 – 1955), who was born in Ratibor, Germany, realized that the unification between gravitation and electromagnetism could be achieved by making a paradigm shift in our perception of the space-time continuum. It required a new type of five-dimensional geometry in place of the conventional, with the usual three dimensions of space plus one time dimension. However, it was apparently impossible to accommodate this fifth dimension into our established perception of reality, as it was extremely difficult to imagine what this dimension would look like and how it would fit into the existing spatiality.It was not till 1926 when a former student of Kaluza, Swedish physicist Oscar Klein (1894 – 1977) proposed an ingenious solution to the perception of this fifth dimension. He suggested that a particle moving a short distance along this fifth axis would return to where it began. According to Klein it is in effect a “circular” dimension, “rolled up” to a very small size. Experimental physics does not rule out the possible existence of even larger numbers of such “curled up” dimensions, provided their size is smaller than 10-15 mm, the limit of present-day accuracy of measurement. And as before, there seems to be a possibility of a somewhat artificial similarity between the extra dimensions in string theories with the numerals, which were revered in the old religious beliefs. This time there appears to be a strange coincidence between the value of higher dimensions in the string theories and in the hidden meaning of the symbolic names of Jewish Cabbala. Apparently gematria of the most sacred name yod-hey-vav-hey - that is of God - is twenty six, and Cabbala also proclaims that the universe was created through ten utterances, the ten sephirot.Thus, the perception of reality in modern physics and cosmology displays at times albeit arbitrary similarity with different religious beliefs. In recent years, however, there has been an emergence of a number of hypotheses, based on alternative interpretations of quantum mechanics, which defy not only our common sense and understanding of what is “material” and what is not, but even reality of the existence of the world itself. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, already mentioned, is a possible consequence of what is known as the collapse of the wavefunction that is one of the processes by which quantum systems apparently evolve. There is an alternative way of perceiving the wavefunction collapse, known as the Everett many-world interpretation. In essence, in the Copenhagen interpretation, the mathematics of quantum mechanics allows the probability of prediction of several alternative events to take place. In the many-world interpretation, all these events occur simultaneously, therefore creating a possibility for many, possibly of an infinite number, of universes to exist simultaneously. These universes may or may not interact with each other. The terms parallel universe or multiverse are sometimes used to describe this phenomenon. There is also the many-minds interpretation, which postulates that it is only the observers’ minds that are split, instead of the entire universe. Yet another hypothesis proposes the formation of our universe from a “bubble” of a multiverse. It is known as the theory of Inflationary Cosmology. The 2002 Dirac medal in physics and cosmology was awarded to Alan Guth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to Paul Steinhard of Princeton University and to Andrei Linde of Stanford University for the development of this theory. In an interview with Jim Holt, a journalist with The New Yorker, Andrei Linde stated: “When I invented chaotic inflation theory, I found that the only thing you need to get a universe like ours is a hundred-thousand of a gram of matter. That’s enough to create a small chunk of vacuum that blows up into the billions of galaxies we see around us… If somebody had told me that twenty-five years ago, I would have thought he was crazy, but that’s what we’re getting this medal for. It represents the acceptance of our theory by the general community”. Inflationary cosmology and several alternative current hypotheses are based on different interpretations of the nature of dark matter in the universe. For example, Robert Caldwell of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire advanced in 2003 the idea of so-called “phantom energy”. In his view dark energy is likely to become stronger, expanding space at an ever-increasing rate and creating a “big rip”, which will result in the destruction of all the atomic structure in the universe when the phantom energy exceeds in strength the electromagnetic force. Another assumption, put forward by Fred Adams of the University of Michigan, considers the scenario when the dark energy stays constant. Our observable universe in this case will ultimately consist only of dead stars surrounding a massive black hole.Black holes were originally thought of as a singularity, or a region of space-time where all known laws of physics break down and nothing can escape their infinitely strong gravitational force. Black holes cannot be seen by distant observers because light is trapped inside by this very strong gravitational field. The boundary of a black hole, which separates events that cannot be seen from outside from those which can, is called an event horizon. But the latest hypothesis suggests that ultimately even black holes will evaporate, so that in the end every single particle in the universe will exist in complete isolation inside its own horizon. Nothingness spreads around us, but should we find something non-material, a psyche, or a soul in this nothingness? Quoting Carl Gustav Jung (1875 – 1961): “Sooner or later, nuclear physics and the psychology of the unconscious will draw closer together, as both of them independently of one another and from the opposite directions, push forward into transcendental territory”.This brings us to the fundamental question which almost ended the life of Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828 – 1910), a question which remains unanswered to this day, and it seems will be answered not by science, but in dogmas of blind faith of different religions, as these are interpreted in a dissimilar way by each living human being. As Tolstoy writes in his Confession (published in Geneva in 1884): “My question, the question that brought me to the edge of suicide when I was fifty years old, was the simplest question lying in the soul of every human being, from a silly child to the wisest of elders, the question without which life is impossible; such was the way I felt about the matter. The question is this: What will come of what I do today and tomorrow? What will come of my entire life? Expressed differently, the question may be: Why should I live? Why should I wish for anything or do something? Or to put it differently: Is there any meaning in my life that will not be destroyed by my inevitably approaching death?”Somehow I do not feel that Lord Bertrand Arthur William Russell’s (1872 – 1970) agnostic view provides a viable solution to the meaning of life, and I quote from his treatise What I Believe (1925): “I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young, and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is none the less true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting”. Mainlander’s vision that non-existence is better than existence provided one of the theological doctrines of the creation of the universe of his vision, which is destined to complete obliteration. The seeds of this idea were evident not only in Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy, as he mused on the meaning of life: “The objective value of life is very uncertain, and it remains at least doubtful whether existence is to be preferred to non-existence…”, but even for a much more affable Voltaire the problem of existence and non-existence was also a predicament: “On aime le vie; mais le n�ant ne laisse pas d’avoir du bon”, i.e. “We like life, but all the same nothingness also has its good points”, and also: “Je ne sais pas ce que c’est que la vie �ternelle, mais celle-ci est une mauvaise plaisanterie”, or “I do not know what eternal life is, but this present life is a bad joke”. Boltzmann’s concept of entropy can be seen as the scientific foundation for several of the above doomsday scenarios. This presents us with the enigma which Marais attempted to resolve: if all humans are mortal, and if a material world is either unreal or doomed, what is the fate of a human psyche, of the human soul? Our limited ability to perceive reality complicates this issue further. A disciple of Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951) in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus deliberates on this ambiguity: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Logic pervades the world: the limits of the world are also its limits. So we cannot say in logic, ’the world has this in it, and this, but not that’. We cannot think what we cannot think; so what we cannot think we cannot say either”. But even logical contradictions never compelled billions of people practicing the most diverse and contradictory religious beliefs to waver in their faith. As Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullian (160 – 230), who was probably the very first Christian apologist, proclaims in his De Carne Christi: “Prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est; certum est, quia impossibile”, that is “It is thoroughly credible because it is absurd; it is certain because it is impossible”. Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Plank (1858 – 1947), celebrated for his creation of quantum theory, and awarded in 1918 the Nobel Prize for his outstanding contribution to science was of the opinion that there are some fundamental aspects of nature which are beyond our perception, and I quote: “Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And it is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of the mystery we are trying to solve”.It seems to me that each one of us will find the answer to the question of the very essence of soul, the question presented to us by Marais, only when we die, and obviously only if we do have a soul. ******A Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering since 1988, Dr. Aleksander Samarin is an Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Science, University of Technology, Sydney.         3 replies since May 26 2005, 10:11 PM 0 User(s) are reading this topic (0 Guests and 0 Anonymous Users) here...