Modern Cosmology

Modern Cosmology 2

Findings are pouring in, ideas are bubbling up, and research to test those ideas is simmering away. All of this has made for one of the most exciting times for modern Cosmologist. But there is one dark note in all this: All of the many different ideas cannot all be correct. All the ideas under discussion are not even consistent with one another. Before we attempt to make some sense of all this we must first take some of these ideas and compare them to understand the differences.

HOT BIG BANG STANDARD MODEL

In 1915 when Einstein was finishing the development of the General Theory of Relativity, the theory's prediction of an expanding universe was in conflict with firm philosophical beliefs of the day. Thus Einstein introduced a fudge factor, the cosmological constant, to force the universe to be static. When in 1929 Hubble showed that the universe really was expanding Einstein immediately dropped the cosmological constant, calling it "the biggest mistake of my life."

Up until the early 1960's, though, a vestige of the idea of a static universe remained in the steady-state model of cosmology. Championed by Sir Fred Hoyle and others, this model posited that although the universe was expanding, matter was being created everywhere in the universe so that the overall density of matter in the universe remains constant. The mechanism for the creation of this matter was never found.

As data began to accumulate on the large scale structure of the universe, the steady-state model began to be in increasing difficulty.

One of the most important of these appeared in 1965 when Penzias and Wilson at AT&T Bell Labs discovered an all pervasive isotropic microwave radiation, corresponding to what would be emitted by a body with a temperature of -270 0C. This radiation is widely interpreted to be a remnant of the big bang, and is usually called the cosmic microwave background radiation.

After Penzias and Wilson's work, the Standard Hot Big Bang model described here "carried the day" and little more was heard from the proponents of the steady-state model.

There was a big bang some 15 billion years ago, when the size of the universe was zero and the temperature was infinite. The universe then started expanding at near light speed.

The sequence of events in this model is:
Time t = 0 (about 15 billion years ago)
Radius r = 0.
Temperature T = Infinite.
Density = mass per volume = Infinite.
t = 0.01 seconds
T = 100,0.00,000,000 0C.
Energy is mostly radiation.
t = 2 seconds
T = 10,000,000,000 0C.
Density = 100 million kg per cubic meter.
Proton-antiproton and neutron-antineutron pairs begin forming.
t = 3 minutes
T = 1,000,000,000 0C.
Protons and neutrons begin forming hydrogen and helium.
t = 20 minutes
About 25% of the protons and neutrons in the universe are now helium.
t = 10,000 years
T = 10,000 0C.
Density = 0.000,000,000,000,000,01 kg per cubic meter.
Most energy is now mass, not radiation.
Condensation into stars begins. A photograph from the Hubble space telescope of a birthplace of stars appears below.
t = 15 billion years (now)
T = -270 0C. (This temperature is from the Penzias and Wilson experiment described above.)
Density = 10-27 kg per cubic meter.

In the Standard Hot Big Bang model, each part of the mass-energy of the universe is gravitationally attracted by all the other mass-energy of the universe, so the rate of expansion is expected to be slowing down.

A crucial question was whether this decrease in the rate of expansion is sufficiently great that at some point the expansion would stop and reverse.

If yes, then at some point in the future the size of the universe will again be zero with infinite density and temperature, the Big Crunch. We call such a universe closed. In this case the geometry of the spacetime is similar to the surface of a sphere.

If no, the universe will expand forever. We call such a universe open. In this case the geometry is similar to the surface of a saddle.

A variation of Big Bang cosmology is called the Big Bang/Big Crunch. If the universe is closed it will end in a Big Crunch. But the conditions of the Big Crunch are identical to the conditions of the Big Bang. Thus the end of this cycle of the universe is the beginning of the next.

One problem is the moment of the Big Bang presents problems for physicists. The problem is that the language that we use to describe the universe, i.e. mathematics, breaks down when things become zero and when an infinity is reached. These conditions are called singularities. The mathematics works fine for any time after the Big Bang but not for moment of the bang itself. So the very expansion of the universe, well supported now by observational evidence in itself tends to impose some limits on our possible knowledge of creation unless we can find a way around this problem. In mathematics if we divide any finite quantity by zero the result is infinite. Another cases is zero divided by zero is undefined, by which we mean you can't do it.

Up until about a decade ago most people accepted the Standard Hot Big Bang model of cosmology. It accounted for a great deal of data regarding the large scale structure of the universe. Some problems were known, and then the list started to grow. These included:

The flatness problem: Why is the matter density of the universe so close to the unstable critical value between perpetual expansion and recollapse into a Big Crunch?

The horizon problem: Why does the universe look the same in all directions when it arises out of causally disconnected regions? This problem is most acute for the very smooth cosmic microwave background radiation.

The dark matter problem: Of what stuff is the Universe predominantly made? Analysis of the gravitational interactions of galaxies shows much more matter than we can see. Nucleosynthesis calculations suggest that this dark matter of the Universe does not consist of ordinary matter - neutrons and protons?

Then in 1998 Perlmutter et al. published data that showed that, contrary to expectations, the rate of expansion of the universe is actually increasing. They measured the brightness and redshift of supernovae. The brightness is a direct measure of their distance away from us, and the redshift measures the speed of the supernovae away from us. Thus Perlmutter was taking the same sort of data as Hubble did 70 years before, but this time for supernova, which are much further away from us then the Cepheid variable stars that Hubble used.

Figure source:

HOT BIG BANG STANDARD MODEL WITH INFLATION

The early universe was nearly homogeneous,or the same in different places. Our most direct measure of this uniformity comes from observing the microwave background radiation that was emitted when the universe was roughly 300,000 years old. The intensity of this radiation is a direct measure of how dense the universe was at that time. Looking at this background radiation coming to us from different directions shows that the largest density differences from one point to another were about one part in 100,000. If the universe had been less homogeneous it would not have given rise to the smooth distribution of galaxies we see filling the sky. If it had been exactly homogeneous, however, then clumps of matter like galaxies would never have emerged at all. The big bang model offers no explanation for why the universe emerged in this nearly,but,not perfectly homogeneous state.

The second initial condition has to do with something called curvature. General relativity says that the universe can be closed, i.e. curved inward like the surface of a ball, open, meaning curved outward like the surface of a saddle, or flat, meaning it has no curvature. These different kinds of curvature cause the universe to evolve in different ways; a closed universe will eventually stop expanding and recollapse, while an open universe will tend to fly apart more and more quickly. For the big bang model to work the universe at the time of Planck density must have been almost precisely flat; the curvature couldn't have exceeded one part in 10^59.

Another set of problems with the big bang model has to do with the production of exotic particles at high energies. According to our current physical theories we believe that in the hot, dense environment prevalent in the early universe a number of exotic particles would have been produced. The current universe is far too cold to produce the reactions required to make these particles, but if they had been produced in the early universe we would expect some of them to still be detectable today. Although these particles could only have been produced in the first very small fraction of a second after Planck density we would nonetheless expect so many of them to have been produced that they would be quite abundant today. Any particle left over from the early, hot stages of the universe is called a relic particle. The big bang model predicts that we should see such relics, but we don't.

A solution to this problem came in the form of Inflation. The basic idea of inflation has to do with the rate at which the universe is expanding. When I use the term "rate" in this context I don't mean a speed. In an expanding universe the distances between galaxies are increasing, and the rate of expansion essentially refers to how long it takes for all of those distances to double.

In the standard big bang model the universe experiences power law expansion, meaning the doubling time gets longer as the universe expands. For example, in our current power law expansion distances in the universe were roughly half their current value about 10 billion years ago, but they won't be twice their current value until about 30 billion years from now. By contrast, if the doubling time stays constant then the expansion is referred to as exponential. Inflationary theory says that before our current power law expansion there was a brief period of exponential expansion.

Exponential growth can be much faster than power-law growth. In the simplest models of inflation the universe would have expanded by a factor of over ten to the ten million in a fraction of a second. Basically, our universe expanded faster than light which does not violate special relativity at all since it is space itself that is increasing in size.

In general relativity the rate at which the universe expands depends on the average energy density in the universe. If the density is high the expansion is rapid and the doubling time is small. The actual relation is that the doubling time is proportional to one over the square root of the energy density.

In general the expansion rate slows down as the universe expands because the average density decreases. If there are 1000 galaxies in some region of space and all distances double then the volume of space occupied by those galaxies will increase eight times. Since the galaxies have the same total mass as before their density will decrease by eight times. If the mass of galaxies were the only form of energy in the universe then every time distances doubled the doubling time would increase by a factor of the square root of eight. In short a universe whose energy consists entirely of mass will experience power law expansion.

Inflation doesn't require precise exponential expansion. Rather there is a set of mathematical criteria for how close to exponential the expansion needs to be during inflation, i.e. how much the doubling time can change each time distances double, in order for inflation to still have the consequences described below. Given a scalar field with a high enough energy density these conditions will be met and the expansion of the universe can be considered quasi-exponential. In general, however, the energy density of a scalar field is not perfectly constant as the universe expands. Rather it decreases more rapidly the smaller it is, such that eventually when it becomes small enough the universe enters a stage of power-law expansion.

So in order for inflation to have occurred it suffices that some scalar field exists and at some point in the past it had a very large energy density. While it is true that we have never to date observed a scalar field, physicists believe for a variety of theoretical reasons that many of them probably do exist and that we will start to see them in our next generation of particle accelerators. We could then ask why there was a scalar field? Recall that the "initial conditions" for our universe were set by physics that we don't know occurring above the Planck scale that we cannot study directly yet.

All we require for inflation is that somewhere there was one region, no matter how small, where the largest contribution to the energy came from a high-energy scalar field. If that happened then that small region would inflate, almost instantly growing much larger than all the other regions around it. Very soon this inflationary region would occupy nearly 100% of the total volume.

At the same time inflation not only answers the objection of why our universe appears so homogeneous. It also supplies an answer of what happened to the relic defects and particles like monopoles.

VARIABLE SPEED OF LIGHT MODEL

Basically, this variant on modern cosmology starts with the same basic Big Bang conditions with or without inflation except there is one major difference. That difference is found in the speed of light no longer being a constant.

In the seventies, two of Lebedev's physicists, A. D. Linde and D. A. Kirzhnits, using Fradkin's formalism, proved how with the decrease of temperature the universe passes through a phase transition that produces the breaking of the unified electroweak force into the electromagnetic force and the weak-nuclear force. But Kirzhnits was also the first to show that a particle possessing the tensor mass such that m1 < m0 can travel superluminally. Today we call these particles tachyons. However, VSL is based upon a concept a bit different from the older theories of tachyons. With VSL you still have regular C limited particles possessing normal mass. It is the velocity of light itself that is seen to change either over time, or scale, or both.

Basically, under these models, and there are several that have been proposed, C has varied over time either due to a changing vacuum state, due to brane world conditions, or to some other exotic solution. Popularized in modern times by such men as Lee Smolin, Joao Magueijo, Myself, and others this addition to the Big Bang model has some modern observational evidence in its favor. However, it remains outside the mainstream model employed and does not in itself attempt to over throw the basic premise of Special Relativity. Basically, this model solves one major problem which deals with the transfer of information across the cosmos and relates to the original Big Bang horizon problem.

Bell�s Inequality and EPR Problems

The apparent contradiction in fact discloses only an inadequacy of the customary viewpoint of natural philosophy for a rational account of physical phenomena of the type with which we are concerned in quantum mechanics. Indeed the finite interaction between object and measuring agencies, conditioned by the very existence of the quantum of action, entails ... the necessity of a final renunciation of the classical ideal of causality, and a radical revision of our attitude towards the problem of physical reality.
-Bohm

The fact that Bell's Inequality is broken is considered by some to imply that one or both of these assumptions, locality or reality, must be false. But for any system where the lightcone is expanded locality becomes an extended playing field and causality itself takes on extended meaning. Bohm�s original pilot wave theory is but one of the different expanded lightcone theories out there.

Some have proposed that the EPR problem must be seen as an ultimate attempt on the part of Einstein to prove the incompleteness of quantum mechanics, while circumventing the quantum postulate by measuring a physical quantity without interaction. But turning this around on itself, and from the perspective of modern experiments the EPR problem speaks to the incompleteness of quantum mechanics and to the completeness of Einstein�s Special Theory of Relativity when it comes to a proper description of all information transfer within this universe. At the same time it also raises questions as to how far we can measure a physical quantity without interaction and how much we really understand cause and effect, so crucial an element to our comprehension of time itself.

The EPR problem has forced Bohr to change his interpretation from an interactional to a relational one. Thus, it is not only the interaction between the microscopic object and the measuring instrument (for particle 1) that is thought to be instrumental in defining the `element of physical reality' of particle 2, but also the correlation of the quantities of the two particles:

relation = interaction + correlation

Einstein realized that this relationalism introduced a feature of nonlocality into the Copenhagen interpretation which stood in opposition to his strict locality from Relativity. But this is only because of the defining in a certain way of equality of frames of reference. If, following modern conjecture, the specific frame of reference encountered in the EPR problem is a frame where time and space do break down, then there is no specific reason to invoke an equality of frames of reference which would then mean the EPR case circumvents the implications of relativity when it comes to the exactness of locality measurement.

It was Einstein's conviction that the EPR experiment can be understood in a local way if the state vector is not considered a description of an individual object but of an ensemble. Then the discontinuous change of the particle 2 state vector can be understood as a selection of a sub-ensemble, which does not seem to imply any real influence on particle 2 by the measurement of particle 1. Indead, in many ways the modern concept of a quantum foam would find that Einstein�s conviction was at least partly correct and that what we have at play here is sub-ensembles being selected together to form the end result. But this is only part of the solution to what is actually going on at the particle and sub-particle level.

When you examine such issues as brane lensing you encounter cases where from the brane perspective one can have actions, though limited to our normal understanding of C appear to be non-local to each other in one frame of reference, ie that of the local brane itself, but, which, from another frame, ie that of the more macro-scale, are actually connected by the same lightcone state. Brane lensing in the reverse direction can generate a similar appearance of odd definitions of locality where the reverse would hold true(1). Yet, in each reference situation there is upon closer examination no actual altering of the local velocity of light from the norm. Which then begs the question weither there actually is a variable C or is the problem more one of our definition of frame of reference.
-(1)seeFor more on this

STRING & BRANE WORLD COSMOLOGY

String Cosmology deals mostly with pre-Big Bang conditions in an attempt to answer questions about the early energy condition of the universe.

Pre-big-bang scenario: the general picture

Basically, these models concern themselves with how our vacuum state initially got started. One of todays hottest subjects when it comes to Physics is M-Theory. But even inspite of String Theory solving a lot of problems(ie. Entrophy of Blackholes) it still in its current form commonly called M-Theory for Membrane or Magic has many problems of its own. String Theory from it's start has always been based upon another theory called SuperSymmetry. With SUSY type theories all matter particles have their counter-part in force carriers. The idea being that Fermions can transform into Bosons and back. The problem is that nature,as we know it, has no observational evidence for the Supersymetry partiners.
Another problem to some people is the added extra dimensions. These again have no direct observational evidence in nature, even though, some of the current modifications and extensions to the original String Theory have proposed experimental means of testing such.

Brane Cosmology deals with the same, but also goes a bit further in an attempt to explain not only what is outside of our Universe in what we termed hyperspace, but, also, where the Strings and membranes themselves come from. Both of these models employ dimensions beyond our standard model four of three spatio and one temporal from General Relativity. Into this mix I might also add Lee Smolin's much popularized Loop Quantum Gravity since under that model an attempt is made to determine what the Strings and Membranes themselves are formed from. Basically, both String Theory and LQFT are attempts to unite General Relativity with Quantum Field Theory.

LOOP IN TIME COSMOLOGY

First proposed by Richard Gott, this model basically follows the Big Bang Model with Inflation, except that it attempts to answer where the basic building blocks of space-time came from via a loop in time. For more information I would suggest reading Gott's book, "Time Travel within Einstein's Universe". The Model in some expanded versions shows up under Brane Cosmology with other versions of loops in time or cycle type creation models.

Basically, all these models are based upon modern physics theories. All of these models make an attempt to answer one of more problems raised by the study of cosmology, modern theory, modern observational evidence, or experimental evidence. While many of these models predict different results all of these models share a general background model basis we call the Standard Model of particle physics. They also all attempt to provide answers that fit the modern observational and experimental evidence to date.

Basically, Modern Cosmology has come a long way from the old days of religious myth. But we modern Cosmologists share one thing in common with the creators of those old Myths: We have a wonder of the Cosmos within us and a desire to explain were we and everything around us came from. Today we rely on experimental and observational support for our theories. Yesterday man relied upon explinations that made sence to our limited knowledge we had at the time. Today our knowledge has increased manyfold to the point we can peer back in time across the Cosmos towards some of the earliest moments of creation and leep beyond even that with the power of mathamatics and logic. Cosmology at its heart is about change. I have no doub't that in time as we learn more even some of these many different modern models will themselves give way to even more interesting models.

We study an every changing and evolving process made up of many still untold processes. We peer back in time and attempt also to predict forward in time on grand time scales that are hard to fathom. But this is the job of a modern Cosmologist to study the great unknown and attempt as once only religions were allowed to do the answer to such questions as where did I come from and is this all there is?

Your's

Doctor Paul Karl Hoiland

SOME QUESTIONS

IS THE SPEED OF LIGHT CONSTANT?

No. The speed of light is different in different substances. For example the speed of light in water is 3/4 of the speed of light in a vacuum. This is usually expressed as the refractive index of water being 4/3.

Is the speed of light in a vacuum constant?

In some ways that depends on what you mean by constant. There are at least 3 possible meanings to this.

1. Is the speed of light the same in all directions at any one location? This is what is tested by the Michelson Morley experiment and the answer is "yes" for inertial frames of reference. For non-inertial frames of reference the answer is generally "no" as demonstrated by the Sagnac experiment.

2. Is the speed of light in vacuum the same at all times? Yes, because it is defined that way. It is defined to be 299,792,458 m/s. However if it was defined differently it might conceivably vary by ~1 part in 10^10 per year but if it did so it would have to be related to variations in other "constants". It is also very possible it has varied over the time of the Cosmos in general and may actually be slowing down over time. It is also possible that exotic vacuum states allowed by quantum theory may have a different velocity of light within them. However, this being the case these exotic states do not mean the principles of Special Relativity are broken since its already known C is different in different mediums.

3. Is the speed of light in vacuum the same at all places? In terms of common conception the answer is no. Light is observed to bend when it travels very close to the sun. Such bending is due to a variation in the speed with distance near massive bodies.

4. There is another aspect to the non-constancy of the speed of e/m waves which is worth mentioning also. At the point of emission the speed of e/m waves are actually 1.732c (sqrt(3)c) because in the wave equation the time part of the wave is balanced against the 3 spacial dimensions at once. It is only after a wave has travelled at least one wavelength or more and can be approximated by a 1D plane wave that it slows down to c.

WHY IS VSL POPULAR IN SOME CIRCLES?

Part of the reason VSL has become popular in certain circles is because it answers the question of how observable casually disconnected regions of the cosmos can have communicated with each other. It also provides an answer to certain observations that seem to show we have photons with energies higher than those predicted under normal relativity and quantum theory. However, I'd be remise if I did not mention that those same observations have a still unsolved debate going as to weither or not the observational findings are correct. Also, some of us who hold to VSL have proposed that it also provides a solution to how possibly entanglement as observed in lab experiments might actually work inspite of casual disconnection of events. Here again it must be mentioned that this is not the only solution and much debate still exists on what type of information is actually being transfered in entanglement cases.

Generally, I myself have always favored a version of VSL that preserves the main implications of Special Relativity, that being Lorentz Invariance. But here again the debate and the models are wide open as recent articles on theoretical Lorentz Symmetry breaking that have appeared in modern Physics journals and in the research sharing archive systems like Lanl testify to. Basically, if Lorentz invariance is preserved then locally in any directly observable frame from our point of view Einstein stands as totally correct. So the version of VSL that I have tended to promote in no way debates the correctness of Einstein in general everyday situations.

DOES RELATIVITY OR THE MICHELSON MORLEY EXPERIMENT DISPROVE THE EXISTENCE OF AN ETHER?

1. No. What the M-M experiment proved was that matter was not a seperate entity from the luminiferous (light carrying) ether but that matter was as bound to the ether as electromagnetic waves were. General Relativity is an ether theory as is the Zero Point field from QM. However, the ether in both is different from that employed by Newton. Our modern ether is the vacuum itself and this ether has no visual counterpart to an absolute frame of reference. We may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. As Einstein, in later comments put it, �the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable�. [From "Ether and the Theory of Relativity" an address delivered on May 5th, 1920, in the University of Leyden by Albert Einstein.]

What is the Standard Model?

"In particle physics, the description of the world in terms of fundamental particles and their interactions, which are mediated by the exchange of gauge bosons." [see Q is for Quantum by John Gribbin]. The Standard Model is a collection of sophisticated and respected theories of certain phenomena in nature: among them, what we call, the four forces of nature � the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and gravity. It has been exceedingly difficult to conceptually unify these forces within the conventional framework.

NOTES FOR REFERENCE

Defining a Cosmological Model

The requirements for a model

A cosmological model requires the following four basic concepts:

� A paradigm, ie a basic concept of how the Universe might be or function

� A distribution function for matter: a statement or mathematical expression for the way in which mass (matter) is spread out in the Universe

� A theory of gravitation: usually based on the gravitational theories of Newton, Einstein and Mach

� A system of dynamics, these days based on relativity, giving the physics of the ways in which objects move in the Universe and the Universe expands.

A good cosmological model should:

Explain or take into account

� Redshift (Hubble's Law). It is observed that the light from distant objects has a longer wavelength (is redshifted) and correspondingly lower quantum energy, and that the redshift is roughly proportional to distance. This is generally taken as evidence for an expanding universe.

� The observed structure of the Universe (galaxies etc). Modern analysis of astronomical observations reveal a hierarchical clustered structure. Examples of levels of clustering are, in sequence, the Earth-Moon system, the Solar System, our (Milky Way) Galaxy, and the Local Supercluster of galaxies.

� The relative abundances of chemical elements, particularly the light ones (hydrogen, deuterium, helium, lithium).

� The existence of a dark sky (Olbers' Paradox), and the existence, temperature and isotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation.

and make predictions which are

� Useful (otherwise the model is of no value)

� Falsifiable (ie able to be confirmed or refuted by astronomical observations).

TACHYONS

Tachyons are associated with imaginary mass. Because

m_0 c^2
E= -----------
___________
\/1 - v^2/c^2

the denominator becomes imaginary if v > c. However, if the mass is observed as being imaginary, then E is real again. From a mathematical point of view Lorentz transformations are easily extended in Minkowski space to address velocities greater than c.

Imaginary mass sounds very much like an unphysical mathematical construct. But is this really so? For the Higgs mechanism we need just that, tachyonic mass. This is a fact rarely emphasized, i.e. the conceptual issues and the physical interpretation. The general interpretation since no physically detected version of a tachyon has been found is to consider them artifacts of the math involved. But this is an assumption that may not stand up to indirect evidence from Field theory itself.

If we introduce a scalar complex field with a potential, then only if we require m^2 < 0 do we get the famous Mexican hat potential making the vacuum degenerate and allowing for non-zero vacuum expectation values for all the particles. So already here we realize that our Higgs field and Lagrangian are not to be interpreted in a standard QFT manner. It appears as though the cornerstones of the standard model rely on unobservable features: scalars and tachyonic mass. When you extend this into String Theory with SUSY you again encounter Tachyons.

In 1974 bosonic string theory was plagued by tachyonic excitations of the ground state. The introduction of space-time SUSY by Wess and Zumino cured this problem with tachyon condensation. Recent string/M-theory developments re-address the tachyon issue within the context of D-branes. The tachyon can have a potential. The fact that it is a tachyon means that you're expanding about a maximum of the potential. However, the potential could have a minimum which would be a tachyon free vacuum. This is believed to be the case for a number of open string tachyons, but at the present is unproven by experimental evidence and only supported by theory.

The speed of propagation along a string itself is dependent upon the total energy stored in the String, Psub0 defined by

Csubstring = sqrt(fg),

where, f and g are functions of the total energy. Basically, the String tension is modified by the total energy stored and as such the tension is no longer a scalar, invariant for all observers which translates to the String�s frame being different from the frame of the external observer. But even the external frames, while sharing an invariant speed of maximum propagation, are themselves variant when it comes to the separation distance between two frames due to the �warp factor� bringing about a brane equal to gravitational lensing. Thus, some of the better theories we have today(String Theory, M-Theory, Brane Theory, Loop Quantum Gravity, etc, as well as aspects of the Standard Model seem to imply we cannot always judge every action-reaction by what we in the macro-world can judge observationally which further implies our ideas of cause and effect need to be slightly modified.

The constancy of the speed of light is not a necessary condition for "evolutionary science" to be valid. This makes sense, in light of the fact that "evolution science" was strictly Newtonian until early this century, and Newtonian physics does not permit a constant speed of light, either cosmologically or otherwise. However, the constancy of the speed of light does have implications for Cosmology since certain prime aspects of our interpretation of observations are based upon the assumption that C is constant and that we can observationally compare frames. So no matter how the current VSL debate turns out it will have implications for both Physics and for Cosmology.

UNDERSTANDING UNCERTANITY(A TRIP INTO EXOTIC GEOMETRY)

The uncertainty relations from quantum mechanics, when interpreted as a physical axiom, prohibit any local and realistic interpretation, because their immediate consequence is a spreading of wave packets that rather runs against the whole construction of a conventional approach based upon relativity. But from a 5D perspective if we have action/reactions that can transpire in manifolds we are restricted in our ability to directly observe then it is possible to maintain a local and realistic interpretation simply because our definition of local becomes relative itself.

Since the relations are a cornerstone of quantum theory it seems that we have in the most modern theories a natural progression of quantum theory towards unification with the more conventional approaches. Whither or not such unification will ultimately expose new and unique methods of travel remains for theory and experimental evidence to show us. But the geometry of spacetime has its own secrets that it is waiting to show us.

Richard Feynman

There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe that there ever was such a time. ... On the other hand, I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics. ... Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, `But how can it be like that?', because you will get `down the drain' into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

Perhaps in modern times we are beginning to see how it can be like that.