CWL

Space Bursts Provide Insight to Theory of Everything

Light from some of the universe’s most energetic explosions is allowing scientists to probe the nature of space-time, according to new observations of so-called gamma-ray bursts from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Ikaros spacecraft. Photons released by these bursts help place limits on a unified model of all of the forces of nature — what scientists call a “theory of everything.”

Using the Gamma-Ray Burst Polarimeter (GAP) onboard the spacecraft, a team of Japanese scientists have made the most precise measurements of energetic gamma-ray burst photons to date.

“This result puts a fundamental constraint on quantum gravity, a dream theory reconciling Einstein’s theory of relativity and quantum theory,” Kenji Toma, of Osaka University, said in a statement.

“Animals are gentle, and kind.”

In Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species, biologist Lynn Margulis argued later that symbiogenesis is a primary force in evolution. According to her theory, acquisition and accumulation of random mutations are not sufficient to explain how inherited variations occur; rather, new organelles, bodies, organs, and species arise from symbiogenesis. Whereas the classical interpretation of evolution (the modern evolutionary synthesis) emphasizes competition as the main force behind evolution, Margulis emphasizes cooperation. She argues that bacteria along with other microorganisms helped create the conditions that we require for life, such as oxygen.

Margulis believes that these microorganisms make up a major component in Earth’s biomass and that they are the reason current conditions on earth are maintained. She also believes that the DNA in the cytoplasm of animal, plant, fungal and protist cells, rather than resulting from mutations, resulted from genes from bacteria that became organelles. She claimed that bacteria are able to exchange genes more quickly and more easily, and because of this, they are more versatile, which is why life was able to evolve so quickly.

cultureofcuriosity:

Rumor has it that astronomer Fred Hoyle’s Steady State Theory was inspired by the 1945 ghost movie Dead of Night. The movie consists of a series of ghost stories, but the final scene contains a twist: the movie ends just like it began. The plot was circular, with no beginning or end–which, Hoyle and his colleagues proposed, was how the Universe worked. Instead of having a beginning or end, the Universe simply “was.”

Another brilliant example of art influencing science. Full article here. 

Love this, another way of explaining what I was talking about earlier.

Tracking Ocean Sulfur Could Help Test Gaia Hypothesis

A few months ago I posted an article on the cwl blog explaining the Gaia theory, it’s essentially a theory that states there could be an underlying system of control covering the Earth, a system that acts to the survival of the planet. Here’s a nice accompanying article by Wired delving into a new research published which attempts to prove or disprove the Gaia theory:

Geologists at the University of Maryland have published research that could help prove or disprove Gaia theory — the notion that the Earth is one single self-regulating system.

The concept dates from the 70s and was initially formulated by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. It proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings comprise a single system that maintains the conditions for life on Earth. It was initially met with skepticism from the scientific community, and remains somewhat controversial, but is now an important area of research in Earth systems science and biogeochemistry.

If the Gaia hypothesis is correct, then a number of signals should be observable in the Earth’s natural cycles and systems. One of those is that a sulfur compound made by organisms in the ocean should be stable enough in water to allow its transfer into the air, so it can then be returned to land. A team of geologists, geochemists and marine biologists led by Harry Oduro has developed a method of tracking the movement of sulfur through ocean organisms, the atmosphere and the land, potentially yielding evidence as to how strong this cycle is.

Oduro and his colleagues tracked two compounds — dimethylsulfoniopropionate (or DMSP), which is produced by plant plankton and seaweed in the ocean, and dimethylsulphide, which has a distinctive cabbage-like smell, and is produced when marine microbes break down DMSP.

By examining the differences in the isotope ratios between the compounds over time, the researchers were able to trace unique combinations of an element’s radioactive isotopes, keeping track of them to determine the rate at which the microbes metabolize DMSP into dimethylsulfide, and therefore get clues as to how fast it’s transferred from the ocean into the atmosphere.

Full Article

‘Crackpot’ Theory of Everything Reveals Dark Side of Peer Review

Image: Erik Andrulis of Case Western suggest everything around us oscillates between excited and ground states as objects pivot around the center of these lifelike gyres, or spinning spirals. Credit: R.T. Wohlstadter | Shutterstock

A “theory of everything” from a scientist at Case Western Reserve University got a lot of attention for positing that inanimate objects, from planets and water to strands of DNA, are alive. Not only is the assertion bunk, but the scientific and media phenomena surrounding the study reveals how sometimes crackpot ideas can get traction.

The paper, by CWRU biochemist Erik Andrulis, was published in the journal Life, and says all physical phenomena can be explained by “gyres.” Gyres, according to his theory, transform energy, matter and information to create the physical systems we’re all familiar with, such as the phase transitions of water and the chemicals life is made of. It also includes a few that aren’t familiar, like quantum gravity (a theory which hasn’t been invented yet).

Essentially, objects — atoms, cells, molecules, chemicals and so on — are packets of energy and matter that are described by gyres – spinning spirals. Gyres are defined by the singularity at one end and the changing shape of the spiral at the other. Everything around us oscillates between excited and ground states as they pivot around the center of these lifelike gyres. He doesn’t say that everything is alive, exactly, though he says gyres have “lifelike characteristics.”

It isn’t clear exactly how this works, though, because he never explains it — at least not in a way that is testable.

Gyres and energy

For example, at one point in the paper, Andrulis says large objects like planets can be described as “macroelectrogyres,” and that repulsive and attractive forces in the solar wind cause the planet to make its closest approach to the sun (called “perihelion”) and to drift farthest away from the sun (called “aphelion”). That is, expulsion of “macrophotons” repels the “macroelectrogyre” (the planet) into a higher energy state, resulting in a perihelion. The planet dissipates energy and falls into a lower energy state, resulting in aphelion.

Most astronomers and physicists would tell you that perihelion and aphelion are simply the points in an orbit where a planet is closest and farthest from the sun, respectively. The shape of the orbit determines where those points are. Newtonian mechanics does a good enough job of explaining it: As planets accelerate toward the sun they also move perpendicular to the direction of attraction, and trace out elliptical paths. Sometimes (as in calculating the wobbling motion of Mercury’s orbit) one has to take relativity into account. But none of that has much to do with the solar wind.

Crackpot science?

It’s also possible that the theory actually says something rather different, but it is hard to decipher from the paper. (Andrulis has not responded to phone calls, nor has he answered questions sent by email, though he has said he would.) Even referring back to the definitions of terms that Andrulis uses in the paper, many of his logical steps don’t seem to make much sense.

Or in the words of astrophysicist Ethan Siegel at Lewis and Clark College (and author of the blog Starts With a Bang), “Crackpottery doesn’t even begin to describe just how dreadful this is, and how much shame should be heaped upon CWRU for this.”

Read on..

Gaia Hypothesis

Living organisms create the optimum conditions for their own existence, and in so doing create the superorganism: Gaia.

Here’s a little fun hypothesis reading for everyone, and remember this is a mere hypothesis and not something to be treated as fact. Pick at any inconsistencies and errors you find like you normally would with any educated guess. Merely entertain this idea if you choose to, if not? Fair enough:

What is the hypothesis of Gaia? Stated simply, the idea is that we may have discovered a living being bigger, more ancient, and more complex than anything from our wildest dreams. That being, called Gaia, is the Earth.

More precisely: that about one billion years after it’s formation, our planet was occupied by a meta-life form which began an ongoing process of transforming this planet into its own substance. All the life forms of the planet are part of Gaia. In a way analogous to the myriad different cell colonies which make up our organs and bodies, the life forms of earth in their diversity coevolve and contribute interactively to produce and sustain the optimal conditions for the growth and prosperity not of themselves, but of the larger whole, Gaia. That the very makeup of the atmosphere, seas, and terrestrial crust is the result of radical interventions carried out by Gaia through the evolving diversity of living creatures.

Encountering the Earth from space, a witness would know immediately that the planet was alive. The atmosphere would give it away. The atmospheric compositions of our sister planets, venus and mars, are: 95-96% carbon dioxide, 3-4% nitrogen, with traces of oxygen, argon and methane. The earth’s atmosphere at present is 79% nitrogen, 21% oxygen with traces of carbon dioxide, methane and argon. The difference is Gaia, which transforms the outer layer of the planet into environments suitable to its further growth. For example, bacteria and photosynthetic algae began some 2.8 billions of years ago extracting the carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen into the atmosphere, setting the stage for larger and more energetic creatures powered by combustion, including, ultimately, ourselves.

That is how James Lovelock discovered Gaia; from outer space.In the 1960’s, during the space race which followed the launching of Sputnik, he was asked by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Nasa to help design experiments to detect life on Mars. The Viking lander gathered and tested some Martian soil for life with no results. Lovelock had predicted as much, by analyzing the atmosphere of Mars: it is in a dead equilibrium. By contrast, the atmosphere of Earth is in a “far from equilibrium” state- meaning that there was some other complex process going on which maintained such an unlikely balance. It occurred to him that if the Viking lander had landed on the frozen waste of antarctica, it might not have found any trace of life on Earth either. But a sure giveaway would be a complete atmospheric analysis… which the Viking lander was not equipped to do. Lovelock’s approach was not popular at Nasa because Nasa needed a good reason to land on Mars, and the best was to look for life. Viking found nothing on Mars, but Lovelock had seen the Earth from the perspective of an ET looking for evidence of life. And he began thinking that what he was seeing was not so much a planet adorned with diverse life forms, but a planet transfigured and transformed by a self-evolving and self-regulating living system. By the nature of its activity it seemed to qualify as a living being. He named that being Gaia, after the Greek goddess which drew the living world forth from Chaos.

“The name of the living planet, Gaia, is not a synonym for the biosphere—that part of the Earth where living things are seen normally to exist. Still less is Gaia the same as the biota, which is simply the collection of all individual living organisms. The biota and the biosphere taken together form a part but not all of Gaia. Just as the shell is part of the snail, so the rocks, the air, and the oceans are part of Gaia. Gaia, as we shall see, has continuity with the past back to the origins of life, and in the future as long as life persists. Gaia, as a total planetary being, has properties that are not necesarily discernable by just knowing individual species or populations of organisms living together… Specifically, the Gaia hypothesis says that the temperature,oxidation, state, acidity, and certain aspects of the rocks and waters are kept constant, and that this homeostasis is maintained by active feedback processes operated automatically and unconsciously by the biota.”

Even the shifting of the tectonic plates, resulting in the changing shapes of the continents, may result from the massive limestone deposits left in the earth by bioforms eons ago.

“You may find it hard to swallow the notion that anything as large and apparently inanimate as the Earth is alive. Surely, you may say, the Earth is almost wholly rock, and nearly all incandescent with heat. The difficulty can be lessened if you let the image of a giant redwood tree enter your mind.The tree undoubtedly is alive, yet 99% of it is dead.The great tree is an ancient spire of dead wood,made of lignin and cellulose by the ancestors of the thin layer of living cells which constitute its bark.

How like the Earth, and more so when we realize that many of the atoms of the rocks far down into the magma were once part of the ancestral life of which we all have come.” The root question of Gaia’s critics, and a central point in his theory concerns the difference between a planetary environment which might only be the aggregate result of myriad independent life forms coevolving and sharing the same host, and one which is ultimately created by life forms deployed, so to speak, to accomplish the purpose of the larger being.

Is the idea of Gaia only a romantic and dramatized description of the terrestrial biosphere and its effects, or is there a planetary being, whose life cycle must be counted in the billions of years, which spawns these evolving life forms to suit the purpose of its being. Do our kidney cells ask each other these sorts of questions? While your white blood cells thrive and reproduce, going about their business,they are indisputably serving the life of the larger body which you use, though whatever consciousness they experience in their realm is certainly far from that which you, the larger being, the whole, experience.

Recent scientific work, such as in the field of complex systems, have begun to give us the impression that this opposition of terms, the larger caused by its constituents, or the costituents created by the larger, may be one of those oppositions which are the constructs of our own minds, and must be dropped if we are to understand the truth, which is neither the one nor the other, but more difficult to comprehend and more fascinating to behold. Perhaps there is awareness appropriate at every level. Perhaps that is a property of life.

And what might be the nature of its evolution, this planetary being called Gaia? Anthropocentrists to the last, we might assume that the production of the human species is a great step upward for Gaia, a sort of rapidly evolving brain tissue. Or that she prepares the earth as a cradle and crucible of consciousness evolving. Other analogies come to mind: are we part of her arsenal of interplanetary spores?

And what might constitute a life cycle for such a being- might it be as strange as that of the slime mold ? What stage would Gaia be in now? Is our species part of her maturity or an incubation period ? Is Gaia herself somehow part of a larger living being, perhaps on a galactic scale ? If so how do the cells of this larger being remain in communication? Will we eventually be able to experience something of the awareness which Gaia has ?

Lovelock points out that Gaia, being ancient and resourceful enough to have carried out these successive changes of the planet in spite of asteroid collisions and other setbacks, is herself probably not endangered by the relatively momentary depradations of the human species, as it befouls and cripples the bio-dynamics of its environment. Rather,the danger is to the human race, not only from our own actions, but also by Gaia’s reaction to them.

The Revenge of Gaia

In James Lovelock’s 2006 book, The Revenge of Gaia, he argues that the lack of respect humans have had for Gaia, through the damage done to rainforests and the reduction in planetary biodiversity, is testing Gaia’s capacity to minimize the effects of the addition of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This eliminates the planet’s negative feedbacks and increases the likelihood of homeostatic positive feedback potential associated with runaway global warming. Similarly the warming of the oceans is extending the oceanic thermocline layer of tropical oceans into the Arctic and Antarctic waters, preventing the rise of oceanic nutrients into the surface waters and eliminating the algal blooms of phytoplankton on which oceanic foodchains depend. As phytoplankton and forests are the main ways in which Gaia draws down greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, taking it out of the atmosphere, the elimination of this environmental buffering will see, according to Lovelock, most of the earth becoming uninhabitable for humans and other life-forms by the middle of this century, with a massive extension of tropical deserts. [1]

Hollow Earth Theory Debunked

Pictured Above: An image many hollow Earth believers like to push on their sites as proof of this theory’s “credibility”.

Before anything, this photo is actually from the Apollo16 moon mission that was taken on the beginning days of the Astronauts’ departure for their mission. The image provided (titled AS16-118-1885) with this post is the original image in high resolution which you can also find a link to via NASA here.

People who believe in the Hollow Earth theory believe the hollow point’s center, the hole, is located right on the north pole based on the observations from the image above or any blurred shots of the northern hemisphere. But upon closer inspection using detailed imagery from various sources, you can actually see that the supposed outline they claim is the outline of the hole is in fact, the coastal lines that occur due to waters as illustrated in the images below:

Image Credit: bautforum

Moving on, another important aspect to note would obviously be gravity. Wouldn’t a dent of such nature show up on recent images from spacecraft and technologies with the ability to see how much gravity is distributed throughout the entire world and thus show up on these images? What would these conspiracy theorist say then?

That those in control of these technologies are editing the photos to hide “the truth” from the public? Fat chance. Here’s a recent image from a said gravity satellite that compiled many bits of data to come up with this realistic depiction of how gravity varies throughout the Earth. As noted, no hole anywhere to be found

[BBC: Gravity satellite yields ‘Potato Earth’ view]

So the originating image that reignited these outlandish claims has not only been debunked with pure facts and realistic data but there have also been recent and even old images that show how this was likely the theory of a drunk person google imaging tiny resolution pictures of Earth.

As cute and as interesting of a tall-tale as this may seem, let’s refrain ourselves from posting these silly hollow Earth theory images that constantly make me cringe and sometimes shed a tear for lady science. I’ve said imagination and creativity is more important, but when you actually have undeniable and absolutely certain data that says what you just forged is completely false, that’s when you throw the theory in the dump and work on something new.

Science: Who knows I lost count / Conspiracy Theories: 0

Splitting Time from Space—New Quantum Theory Topples Einstein’s:

Was Newton right and Einstein wrong? It seems that unzipping the fabric of spacetime and harking back to 19th-century notions of time could lead to a theory of quantum gravity.

Physicists have struggled to marry quantum mechanics with gravity for decades. In contrast, the other forces of nature have obediently fallen into line. For instance, the electromagnetic force can be described quantum-mechanically by the motion of photons. Try and work out the gravitational force between two objects in terms of a quantum graviton, however, and you quickly run into trouble—the answer to every calculation is infinity. But now Petr HoYava, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, thinks he understands the problem. It’s all, he says, a matter of time.

More specifically, the problem is the way that time is tied up with space in Einstein’s theory of gravity: general relativity. Einstein famously overturned the Newtonian notion that time is absolute—steadily ticking away in the background. Instead he argued that time is another dimension, woven together with space to form a malleable fabric that is distorted by matter. The snag is that in quantum mechanics, time retains its Newtonian aloofness, providing the stage against which matter dances but never being affected by its presence. These two conceptions of time don’t gel.

The solution, HoYava says, is to snip threads that bind time to space at very high energies, such as those found in the early universe where quantum gravity rules. “I’m going back to Newton’s idea that time and space are not equivalent,” HoYava says. At low energies, general relativity emerges from this underlying framework, and the fabric of spacetime restitches, he explains.

HoYava likens this emergence to the way some exotic substances change phase. For instance, at low temperatures liquid helium’s properties change dramatically, becoming a “superfluid” that can overcome friction. In fact, he has co-opted the mathematics of exotic phase transitions to build his theory of gravity. So far it seems to be working: the infinities that plague other theories of quantum gravity have been tamed, and the theory spits out a well-behaved graviton. It also seems to match with computer simulations of quantum gravity.

HoYava’s theory has been generating excitement since he proposed it in January, and physicists met to discuss it at a meeting in November at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. In particular, physicists have been checking if the model correctly describes the universe we see today. General relativity scored a knockout blow when Einstein predicted the motion of Mercury with greater accuracy than Newton’s theory of gravity could.

Can HoYYava gravity claim the same success? The first tentative answers coming in say “yes.” Francisco Lobo, now at the University of Lisbon, and his colleagues have found a good match with the movement of planets.

Others have made even bolder claims for HoYava gravity, especially when it comes to explaining cosmic conundrums such as the singularity of the big bang, where the laws of physics break down. If HoYava gravity is true, argues cosmologist Robert Brandenberger of McGill University in a paper published in the August Physical Review D, then the universe didn’t bang—it bounced. “A universe filled with matter will contract down to a small—but finite—size and then bounce out again, giving us the expanding cosmos we see today,” he says. Brandenberger’s calculations show that ripples produced by the bounce match those already detected by satellites measuring the cosmic microwave background, and he is now looking for signatures that could distinguish the bounce from the big bang scenario.

Read More on HoYava’s New Theory of Gravity, Reshaping Space and Time

Splitting Time from Space—New Quantum Theory Topples Einstein’s:

Was Newton right and Einstein wrong? It seems that unzipping the fabric of spacetime and harking back to 19th-century notions of time could lead to a theory of quantum gravity.

Physicists have struggled to marry quantum mechanics with gravity for decades. In contrast, the other forces of nature have obediently fallen into line. For instance, the electromagnetic force can be described quantum-mechanically by the motion of photons. Try and work out the gravitational force between two objects in terms of a quantum graviton, however, and you quickly run into trouble—the answer to every calculation is infinity. But now Petr HoYava, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, thinks he understands the problem. It’s all, he says, a matter of time.

More specifically, the problem is the way that time is tied up with space in Einstein’s theory of gravity: general relativity. Einstein famously overturned the Newtonian notion that time is absolute—steadily ticking away in the background. Instead he argued that time is another dimension, woven together with space to form a malleable fabric that is distorted by matter. The snag is that in quantum mechanics, time retains its Newtonian aloofness, providing the stage against which matter dances but never being affected by its presence. These two conceptions of time don’t gel.

The solution, HoYava says, is to snip threads that bind time to space at very high energies, such as those found in the early universe where quantum gravity rules. “I’m going back to Newton’s idea that time and space are not equivalent,” HoYava says. At low energies, general relativity emerges from this underlying framework, and the fabric of spacetime restitches, he explains.

HoYava likens this emergence to the way some exotic substances change phase. For instance, at low temperatures liquid helium’s properties change dramatically, becoming a “superfluid” that can overcome friction. In fact, he has co-opted the mathematics of exotic phase transitions to build his theory of gravity. So far it seems to be working: the infinities that plague other theories of quantum gravity have been tamed, and the theory spits out a well-behaved graviton. It also seems to match with computer simulations of quantum gravity.

HoYava’s theory has been generating excitement since he proposed it in January, and physicists met to discuss it at a meeting in November at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. In particular, physicists have been checking if the model correctly describes the universe we see today. General relativity scored a knockout blow when Einstein predicted the motion of Mercury with greater accuracy than Newton’s theory of gravity could.

Can HoYYava gravity claim the same success? The first tentative answers coming in say “yes.” Francisco Lobo, now at the University of Lisbon, and his colleagues have found a good match with the movement of planets.

Others have made even bolder claims for HoYava gravity, especially when it comes to explaining cosmic conundrums such as the singularity of the big bang, where the laws of physics break down. If HoYava gravity is true, argues cosmologist Robert Brandenberger of McGill University in a paper published in the August Physical Review D, then the universe didn’t bang—it bounced. “A universe filled with matter will contract down to a small—but finite—size and then bounce out again, giving us the expanding cosmos we see today,” he says. Brandenberger’s calculations show that ripples produced by the bounce match those already detected by satellites measuring the cosmic microwave background, and he is now looking for signatures that could distinguish the bounce from the big bang scenario.

Read More on HoYava’s New Theory of Gravity, Reshaping Space and Time

Splitting Time from Space—New Quantum Theory Topples Einstein’s:

Was Newton right and Einstein wrong? It seems that unzipping the fabric of spacetime and harking back to 19th-century notions of time could lead to a theory of quantum gravity.

Physicists have struggled to marry quantum mechanics with gravity for decades. In contrast, the other forces of nature have obediently fallen into line. For instance, the electromagnetic force can be described quantum-mechanically by the motion of photons. Try and work out the gravitational force between two objects in terms of a quantum graviton, however, and you quickly run into trouble—the answer to every calculation is infinity. But now Petr HoYava, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, thinks he understands the problem. It’s all, he says, a matter of time.

More specifically, the problem is the way that time is tied up with space in Einstein’s theory of gravity: general relativity. Einstein famously overturned the Newtonian notion that time is absolute—steadily ticking away in the background. Instead he argued that time is another dimension, woven together with space to form a malleable fabric that is distorted by matter. The snag is that in quantum mechanics, time retains its Newtonian aloofness, providing the stage against which matter dances but never being affected by its presence. These two conceptions of time don’t gel.

The solution, HoYava says, is to snip threads that bind time to space at very high energies, such as those found in the early universe where quantum gravity rules. “I’m going back to Newton’s idea that time and space are not equivalent,” HoYava says. At low energies, general relativity emerges from this underlying framework, and the fabric of spacetime restitches, he explains.

HoYava likens this emergence to the way some exotic substances change phase. For instance, at low temperatures liquid helium’s properties change dramatically, becoming a “superfluid” that can overcome friction. In fact, he has co-opted the mathematics of exotic phase transitions to build his theory of gravity. So far it seems to be working: the infinities that plague other theories of quantum gravity have been tamed, and the theory spits out a well-behaved graviton. It also seems to match with computer simulations of quantum gravity.

HoYava’s theory has been generating excitement since he proposed it in January, and physicists met to discuss it at a meeting in November at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. In particular, physicists have been checking if the model correctly describes the universe we see today. General relativity scored a knockout blow when Einstein predicted the motion of Mercury with greater accuracy than Newton’s theory of gravity could.

Can HoYYava gravity claim the same success? The first tentative answers coming in say “yes.” Francisco Lobo, now at the University of Lisbon, and his colleagues have found a good match with the movement of planets.

Others have made even bolder claims for HoYava gravity, especially when it comes to explaining cosmic conundrums such as the singularity of the big bang, where the laws of physics break down. If HoYava gravity is true, argues cosmologist Robert Brandenberger of McGill University in a paper published in the August Physical Review D, then the universe didn’t bang—it bounced. “A universe filled with matter will contract down to a small—but finite—size and then bounce out again, giving us the expanding cosmos we see today,” he says. Brandenberger’s calculations show that ripples produced by the bounce match those already detected by satellites measuring the cosmic microwave background, and he is now looking for signatures that could distinguish the bounce from the big bang scenario.

Read More on HoYava’s New Theory of Gravity, Reshaping Space and Time

Splitting Time from Space—New Quantum Theory Topples Einstein’s:

Was Newton right and Einstein wrong? It seems that unzipping the fabric of spacetime and harking back to 19th-century notions of time could lead to a theory of quantum gravity.

Physicists have struggled to marry quantum mechanics with gravity for decades. In contrast, the other forces of nature have obediently fallen into line. For instance, the electromagnetic force can be described quantum-mechanically by the motion of photons. Try and work out the gravitational force between two objects in terms of a quantum graviton, however, and you quickly run into trouble—the answer to every calculation is infinity. But now Petr HoYava, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, thinks he understands the problem. It’s all, he says, a matter of time.

More specifically, the problem is the way that time is tied up with space in Einstein’s theory of gravity: general relativity. Einstein famously overturned the Newtonian notion that time is absolute—steadily ticking away in the background. Instead he argued that time is another dimension, woven together with space to form a malleable fabric that is distorted by matter. The snag is that in quantum mechanics, time retains its Newtonian aloofness, providing the stage against which matter dances but never being affected by its presence. These two conceptions of time don’t gel.

The solution, HoYava says, is to snip threads that bind time to space at very high energies, such as those found in the early universe where quantum gravity rules. “I’m going back to Newton’s idea that time and space are not equivalent,” HoYava says. At low energies, general relativity emerges from this underlying framework, and the fabric of spacetime restitches, he explains.

HoYava likens this emergence to the way some exotic substances change phase. For instance, at low temperatures liquid helium’s properties change dramatically, becoming a “superfluid” that can overcome friction. In fact, he has co-opted the mathematics of exotic phase transitions to build his theory of gravity. So far it seems to be working: the infinities that plague other theories of quantum gravity have been tamed, and the theory spits out a well-behaved graviton. It also seems to match with computer simulations of quantum gravity.

HoYava’s theory has been generating excitement since he proposed it in January, and physicists met to discuss it at a meeting in November at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. In particular, physicists have been checking if the model correctly describes the universe we see today. General relativity scored a knockout blow when Einstein predicted the motion of Mercury with greater accuracy than Newton’s theory of gravity could.

Can HoYYava gravity claim the same success? The first tentative answers coming in say “yes.” Francisco Lobo, now at the University of Lisbon, and his colleagues have found a good match with the movement of planets.

Others have made even bolder claims for HoYava gravity, especially when it comes to explaining cosmic conundrums such as the singularity of the big bang, where the laws of physics break down. If HoYava gravity is true, argues cosmologist Robert Brandenberger of McGill University in a paper published in the August Physical Review D, then the universe didn’t bang—it bounced. “A universe filled with matter will contract down to a small—but finite—size and then bounce out again, giving us the expanding cosmos we see today,” he says. Brandenberger’s calculations show that ripples produced by the bounce match those already detected by satellites measuring the cosmic microwave background, and he is now looking for signatures that could distinguish the bounce from the big bang scenario.

Read More on HoYava’s New Theory of Gravity, Reshaping Space and Time