Open

Before I begin, I'd just like to remind anyone who may be reading that some, possibly all, of the ideas I post here are just that--ideas. I don't necessarily personally believe they are the absolute truth. It's more like I enjoy exploring more adventurous possibilities that other people may or may not have thought of before, and yet are reasonably plausible. Other times I might simply be exploring a theory contrary to the current mainstream ideas on the bleeding edge of science. It helps me and people like me put things into perspective.

So, today I wanted to write about some of the things on the bleeding edge of science in general, and current mainstream theories. It just seems to me that there are a lot of new discoveries in science, almost daily. Particularly in the realm of astronomy. Nearly all of these new discoveries raise more questions than they answer. The leading experts, of course, do their best to present their own ideas about what certain things are--most are probably very close to truth--but in most cases are based on certain other theories that as yet have not themselves been proven true. Think unified theories, like quantum mechanics and the various string theories.

So the question I pose to anyone reading is, what if our basis of reasoning is fatally flawed? Could Einstein have been wrong? Of course he could have, but we can't disprove him yet either. So, let's assume for the sake of argument that Einstein was wrong. For starters, we'll say that the speed of light is not constant. What does this do to our current understanding and ideas of the world around us? Well, for one, who cares about "faster-than-light travel" now? Why, if the speed of light can be variable, would you need to go faster than it, if it were essentially unlimited? It sounds rather ridiculous, but science can only base itself on what it already knows, not what it doesn't yet know. If, in the next century, a scientist were to discover somehow that light can travel at different speeds than what is currently known, it would change everything and there's nothing anywhere that says this would be an impossible discovery. Only impossible based on our current knowledge.

Another point--a little more down to Earth--one could make, is on gravity. Gravity is one of the least-understood and most taken-for-granted forces in the universe. We all know gravity binds mass together, yet nobody can really definitively say how. It's strong enough to hold entire galaxies together. Yet gravity is at the same time weak enough that you and I can stand upright, jump, take a flight to the other side of the world, all without being crushed under the immense power of it. This is nothing new; it's something that many scientists have been puzzling over for years. There are currently dozens of theories on gravity, but even the greatest minds have not quite nailed it down.

For instance, imagine if gravity were less like a force and more like a quantum property. Think of gravity, rather than a field that pulls objects with mass together when in close enough proximity, as more like quantum strings connecting everything in the universe. Every single object, from quantum particles to the largest black holes, has one of these quantum strings connecting each other, no matter what distance apart they are. Obviously there would be exponentially more of these strings than objects in the universe, since every object is connected to every other object. So, you might be wondering now, "if that were true, then why doesn't everything in the universe come crashing together, falling in on itself until the only thing left was one impossibly massive object?" Who says that's not happening?

For sake of argument though, let's break it down a bit further. One reason a supporter of my imaginary gravitation theory could give is that because each object is directly influenced by every other object, it could be possible that objects that are not gravitating together--or even moving apart--could be being influenced more heavily by any object in the universe with sufficient enough mass to cause the observed effect. Essentially, the universe as a whole would be a delicate balance of every object effecting each other, adding some perceived order to the chaos. In fact, the strings themselves could explain the whole "dark matter" mystery. A theorist would no longer need "dark matter" to explain some of the phenomena of gravity scientists are scratching their heads at today.

Yes, it's a very unlikely and incomplete theory, probably even quite ridiculous, but based on principals of theories we give much credit to today. That's just it, though. Some scientist somewhere could discover tomorrow that the truth is equally ridiculous. In my blog I write about things along these lines, but they're all things that I've put a lot of thought into over the years, pieced together, taken apart, and analyzed inside and out. I don't expect anyone to think of them as what is, but more as what could be. An open mind is definitely a necessity when reading my blog.

To finish up, I'd like to thank those who have taken the time to read this and all my past and future posts for stopping in and allowing yourself to imagine the universe in some of the fantastic ways I like to imagine it. Please continue to have an open mind about everything around you, and definitely come back to see what I'll come up with next. :)