The 1st paragraph here was published in the American science magazine Discover a couple of months ago - the other paragraphs will be submitted shortly. In the meantime, they're here for TTI folk.
The articles “Black Holes Made Here†and “Cracking The Da Vinci Code†[June] brought something to mind: One hundred divided by 5 equals 20, and 100 divided by 10 equals 10. Since 7.5 is halfway between 5 and 10, 100 divided by 7.5 should be halfway between 20 and 10, that is, 15 instead of 13 1/3. Keith Devlin in “Cracking The Da Vinci Code†writes that the “new number system†(introduced to the West by young Italian mathematician Leonardo Pisano – also known as Fibonacci - in 1202 from the arithmetic system completed in India 500 years earlier) “eventually provided the basis for the European emergence of modern science and engineering in the 16th and 17th centuries.†So, do the results of 100 divided by 5, 7.5, and 10 indicate a basic imprecision in mathematics that—although mathematics has served us astonishingly well thus far—could have subtle adverse consequences for our understanding of science? To unveil what Karen Wright describes on page 62 as “an elusive theory of everything that combines observations of the quantum world with the large-scale world of gravity,†do we need to rely less on mathematics and more on our abilities of intuition, imagination, and visualisation? After all, Albert Einstein valued these abilities very highly when applied scientifically. And in the 1930s, mathematician Kurt Godel proved that there are truths that logic alone cannot prove.
We’re accustomed to thinking 1 goes into 100 a hundred times. But 1 is 2/15 of 7.5, and therefore goes into 100 how many times? 15/2 x 15/1 ie 112.5 times. This must mean even our belief that 1+1=2 is in doubt. From a traditional point of view, saying 1 and 1 are not 2 proves my simple maths is obviously mental sleight-of-hand. But if we seriously and scientifically want to be openminded, we must pause for a moment and ask how 1+1 could possibly equal anything other than 2. The answer is that if everything in space, and in time, is connected; any thing in the here and now would not be separate from something an inch away, on the other side of the universe, a second removed in time, or in the year 2211. Thus, 1 thing + 1 thing would not be 2 things (it would only appear to be).
The structure of space-time would then resemble the way objects on the screen of a computer, TV or movie appear separated, but are intimately connected. The Unified Field sought by physics may, at the deepest level of reality, be an illusionary goal. There might only exist a set of interconnections between all points in spacetime which is so incredibly intricate that it means 1+1 would merely seem to be 2 and the unified field would only appear to be an actuality. At a more superficial level, mathematics would not contain any discernible imprecision, the unified field would not be an illusion, and the former will indeed be used to prove the existence of the latter. After that, science will discover it has not revealed ultimate reality, but merely taken another step towards doing so. Then it will begin to explore the sub-quantum universe in which there is only One (an echo of unified field theory, and another version of the Theory of Everything) and 1+1 cannot be 2.
Anyway, where could the complex mathematics behind our cosmic computer, or cosmic video, have come from? If you believe the universe, and life, somehow evolved from a quantum fluctuation in nothing; the only way intricate mathematics could exist prior to our cosmic computer’s origin would be via time-travelling intelligent living beings and their artificially-intelligent computers. These beings couldn’t travel to nowhere, but must occupy another electronic cosmos which, if it already has advanced inhabitants, would make time travel unnecessary, but not impossible.* If you’re religious, you might interpret these intelligences as God (if everything is connected, they would actually be a single intelligence; and there would only be one God, who would not be inanimate or male or female, but One.
* Suppose any atomic particle is composed at the most fundamental level of "lines" of minute electromagnetic pulses which are arranged in a Mobius strip. This would be consistent with Einstein's theory that mass and energy are interchangeable. It would also explain the subatomic property science calls spin. This is described as l/2 (for particles of matter … and the supersymmetry theory developed in the 1970s says these are indistinguishable from the force-carrying particles). This means the matter particles must be turned through two complete revolutions to look the same - just as one must travel twice around the surface of a Mobius strip to reach the start again. The 3rd, 4th and 5th dimensions of a fermion (matter particle) or boson (force-carrying particle) interact with each other ie any particle can interfere with itself (a familiar statement of quantum mechanics). Interaction of a 3D object with its 4th dimension - impossible to avoid - accounts for its passage through time (from the past, through the present, to the future).
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The articles “Black Holes Made Here†and “Cracking The Da Vinci Code†[June] brought something to mind: One hundred divided by 5 equals 20, and 100 divided by 10 equals 10. Since 7.5 is halfway between 5 and 10, 100 divided by 7.5 should be halfway between 20 and 10, that is, 15 instead of 13 1/3. Keith Devlin in “Cracking The Da Vinci Code†writes that the “new number system†(introduced to the West by young Italian mathematician Leonardo Pisano – also known as Fibonacci - in 1202 from the arithmetic system completed in India 500 years earlier) “eventually provided the basis for the European emergence of modern science and engineering in the 16th and 17th centuries.†So, do the results of 100 divided by 5, 7.5, and 10 indicate a basic imprecision in mathematics that—although mathematics has served us astonishingly well thus far—could have subtle adverse consequences for our understanding of science? To unveil what Karen Wright describes on page 62 as “an elusive theory of everything that combines observations of the quantum world with the large-scale world of gravity,†do we need to rely less on mathematics and more on our abilities of intuition, imagination, and visualisation? After all, Albert Einstein valued these abilities very highly when applied scientifically. And in the 1930s, mathematician Kurt Godel proved that there are truths that logic alone cannot prove.
We’re accustomed to thinking 1 goes into 100 a hundred times. But 1 is 2/15 of 7.5, and therefore goes into 100 how many times? 15/2 x 15/1 ie 112.5 times. This must mean even our belief that 1+1=2 is in doubt. From a traditional point of view, saying 1 and 1 are not 2 proves my simple maths is obviously mental sleight-of-hand. But if we seriously and scientifically want to be openminded, we must pause for a moment and ask how 1+1 could possibly equal anything other than 2. The answer is that if everything in space, and in time, is connected; any thing in the here and now would not be separate from something an inch away, on the other side of the universe, a second removed in time, or in the year 2211. Thus, 1 thing + 1 thing would not be 2 things (it would only appear to be).
The structure of space-time would then resemble the way objects on the screen of a computer, TV or movie appear separated, but are intimately connected. The Unified Field sought by physics may, at the deepest level of reality, be an illusionary goal. There might only exist a set of interconnections between all points in spacetime which is so incredibly intricate that it means 1+1 would merely seem to be 2 and the unified field would only appear to be an actuality. At a more superficial level, mathematics would not contain any discernible imprecision, the unified field would not be an illusion, and the former will indeed be used to prove the existence of the latter. After that, science will discover it has not revealed ultimate reality, but merely taken another step towards doing so. Then it will begin to explore the sub-quantum universe in which there is only One (an echo of unified field theory, and another version of the Theory of Everything) and 1+1 cannot be 2.
Anyway, where could the complex mathematics behind our cosmic computer, or cosmic video, have come from? If you believe the universe, and life, somehow evolved from a quantum fluctuation in nothing; the only way intricate mathematics could exist prior to our cosmic computer’s origin would be via time-travelling intelligent living beings and their artificially-intelligent computers. These beings couldn’t travel to nowhere, but must occupy another electronic cosmos which, if it already has advanced inhabitants, would make time travel unnecessary, but not impossible.* If you’re religious, you might interpret these intelligences as God (if everything is connected, they would actually be a single intelligence; and there would only be one God, who would not be inanimate or male or female, but One.
* Suppose any atomic particle is composed at the most fundamental level of "lines" of minute electromagnetic pulses which are arranged in a Mobius strip. This would be consistent with Einstein's theory that mass and energy are interchangeable. It would also explain the subatomic property science calls spin. This is described as l/2 (for particles of matter … and the supersymmetry theory developed in the 1970s says these are indistinguishable from the force-carrying particles). This means the matter particles must be turned through two complete revolutions to look the same - just as one must travel twice around the surface of a Mobius strip to reach the start again. The 3rd, 4th and 5th dimensions of a fermion (matter particle) or boson (force-carrying particle) interact with each other ie any particle can interfere with itself (a familiar statement of quantum mechanics). Interaction of a 3D object with its 4th dimension - impossible to avoid - accounts for its passage through time (from the past, through the present, to the future).
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