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#4334 -
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
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Interview with Dr. Ramesam Vemuri, conducted by Paul Marvelly for
Advaita Academy
http://advaita-academy.org/interviews/Dr-Ramesam-Vemuri.ashx
Paula: Before the Big Bang, what existed and how did the present
shape of the world come about?
Ramesam: Perhaps it is first essential to know what we understand
by the words ‘Big Bang’ before proceeding to know what
was there prior to it.
The words ‘Big Bang’ give us an impression of a huge
explosion. So we want to know what it was that exploded. The fact
is there was no explosion, no Bang!
The name ‘Big Bang’ was coined in a derisive sense by
Professor Fred Hoyle to a concept that opposed his own theory
about the universe. The amusing thing is that the name Big Bang
stuck to this concept, but it was Hoyle’s theory that was
discarded!
So the Big Bang was essentially a concept. It was a concept
derived based on Einstein’s theories. If we work back in
time, the size of the universe, using Einstein’s equations,
we end up with an extremely small, extremely heavy and extremely
hot point, which appears to have expanded into the universe we
have today by gradual cooling. The Big Bang in a way refers to
this rate of expansion of the universe.
Though this theory has been able to explain a lot of physical
phenomena associated with the universe, physicists have been
always very uncomfortable with this theory when it comes to
describing the properties of that point source, which is supposed
to have expanded. The technical name for the point source is
‘singularity’. No known physical laws are applicable
here; that is to say that meaningless infinities are obtained as
answers if we try to estimate the physical parameters at
singularity.
Further, the theory was unable to explain the shape of the
universe. Therefore, physicists have always been on the lookout
for a more convincing theory. Alan Guth in the eighties thought
of a very rapid phase of expansion immediately preceding the Big
Bang, and this was described as the ‘inflationary’
phase of the universe. Assumption of an inflationary phase could
explain certain features of the universe – the shape, the
graininess, and so on.
So what existed before the Big Bang was inflation. Though this
concept of inflation has got a wider acceptance amongst
physicists, doubts are still being raised if it really did
happen. Some of the objections for the theory of inflation are:
‘Highly improbable conditions are required to start
inflation. Worse, inflation goes on eternally, producing
infinitely many outcomes, so the theory makes no firm
observational predictions.’
Now, if we reframe your question to what it was that
‘inflated’, we have no definitive answers. Steinhardt
from Princeton and Turok from Cambridge, who is now at Perimeter
Institute in Canada, came up with a theory that matter cannot be
compressed infinitely to a point; in other words, singularities
cannot exist in nature. After reaching a certain minimum size, it
will rebounce and begin again to expand. So they conceived that
our universe expanded from a pre-existing minimum size universe.
This gives the possibility of alternate expansions and
contractions of the universe. This is christened as ‘cyclic
model’ of the origin of the universe. Later on, they
reformed the theory extending the concepts from ‘String
Theory’. And they said that our universe is a 4-dimensional
Brane floating in 5-D space and colliding with another Brane once
in a trillion years. Brane is a fancy name for
‘membrane’ – an imaginary object or surface of 0
to 9 number of dimensions in String Theory.
Because of the fact that the cyclic model is so much in
resemblance with what the Eastern religions conceived of about
the universe – repeated creations and dissolutions –
this theory received some criticism as being influenced by
religious thought. There are other theories also based on the
‘strings’ that postulate multiple universes or
multiverse.
Michio Kaku compares the multiverse to a bubble bath. Each bubble
represents a universe. ‘There are multiple universes
bubbling, colliding and budding off each other all the
time,’ he conceives. One big advantage of a multiverse
concept is that it solves the problem of why the laws of physics
in our universe seem to be fine-tuned to allow life and us
sitting comfortably here. ‘If you change the mass of the
proton, the charge on the electron, or any of an array of other
constants, we’d all be dead.’ Why is this so? Did
someone create this special universe for us? ‘The multiverse
explains the problem without resorting to the supernatural. If
there are infinite universes, each one can have different
physical laws, and some of them will have those that are just
right for us.’
Then there is a suggestion that the universe is made up of
Planck-size, space-time atoms, which keep on coming together,
form universes, break up and bounce off. However, it did not get
much acceptance. More recently a lone physicist came up with an
idea of the application of Lie groups to answer the origin of the
universe.
Whatever may be the theory, what we have to appreciate is that
they are all basically conjectures, concepts. All concepts are
thoughts. We may have more faith in a particular concept because
it satisfies certain logical and other predictive criteria we may
have set as a priori conditions. As Robert M. Pirsig said in his
famous book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, ‘The
ancients had their ghosts to explain things and we have atoms
now!’ or something to that effect.
Therefore, if the Big Bang is a concept, what could exist prior
to this concept? Will it not be another concept, devised and
designed through some logic that you feel comfortable to be with
and convincing at a given point of time?
The ancient sages also conceived of different models to explain
the origin of the universe. Some of these look pretty
unconvincing and even hilarious to us. But the point to be
remembered is that the sages too in the end said that the whole
issue of a universe being there at all, or someone creating a
universe, itself is a ‘conception’; simply, an
imagination. No ‘thing’, including a universe, is
actually ever there. These are the Nondualists of ajativada,
‘nothing is ever born’ school.
I may say in passing that the latest view of theoretical
physicists is that space and time are not truly properties of the
universe at a fundamental level. The space and time emerge
somehow ‘like food between the stove and dining table.’
Of course, I should admit that the physics and math involved is
far too beyond me. But these concepts are quite nearer to what
Vedanta says.
Recently, I heard David Christian’s talk at TED. He tells
the tale of the entire universe in 15 minutes, from the Big Bang
13 billion years ago to present day, albeit in a different
context.
Read the entire interview here:
http://advaita-academy.org/interviews/Dr-Ramesam-Vemuri.ashx