Physics

This note is in response to Nityananda's wild incursions into the hallowed realms of science. It describes the Vedic theory of the physical universe. It is simple to understand; all you need is basic knowledge of Newton’s laws and high school math.

To start with, there is Matter and Space. Energy, Entropy and Time will be explained subsequently.

Matter is stuff that we can touch and feel. It has mass. Matter makes up molecules, atoms and all the subatomic particles that are still being discovered. Matter itself has not yet been isolated.

Space is the stuff that we cannot touch or see. Space is everywhere where matter isn’t. Think of space as a fluid that can’t be seen. It has volume but no mass. It offers no resistance to anything passing through it. In some situations, space will appear to be elastic, i.e., compressible and stretchable, but it really is not. In the universe, there is a lot more space than matter. Space should not be confused with vacuum; space can contain vacuum.

Matter exists in points of space and usually does not move about. The distance between points can be measured and we can imagine a 3D coordinate system based on some frame of reference. The coordinates mark specific points of the space. The distance between the coordinate markers will stretch like an elastic ruler when the space is stretched. There are no other dimensions.

A key point is that Matter and Space interact. Matter “consumes” Space. Think of matter as a drain hole in the 3D universe that constantly sucks in space. The more mass there is in a clump of matter, the faster it attracts and consumes space. This explains Gravity.

Let us visualize this process first using an analogy, and we will explain it more accurately later. As space gets sucked in, imagine that it flows towards the matter like a fluid. Matter in that fluid goes with the flow, much like a cork moving in a stream of water. Imagine that there is a heavy mass and a lighter one nearby. The heavy mass sucks in space and that action brings in the lighter mass. The two masses seem to get “attracted”. We call this Gravity. Note that if there are two clumps of matter, both consume the space between them in proportion to their own mass and cause the attraction. The lighter mass is also attracting the heavier one. This is consistent with the observed Law of Gravitation.

F = G . m₁ . m₂ / r²

This formula calculates the Force of attraction between two bodies. It is also the force that two bodies exert on each other when they are in contact and cannot come any closer. We call this Weight.

Let us continue to use the analogy of fluids to explain the r² term in the denominator. The distance between the center of masses of the two clumps of matter is denoted by r. Imagine a virtual sphere with a radius ‘r’ centered around one of the bodies, like the outer black line in the diagram. The surface area of this sphere is 4 π r². All the space that is getting sucked into the body must go through this area. Now imagine another sphere inside it with the same center, but with a radius of r/2, like the inner red line. The surface area of this sphere is π r², one-fourth of the outer sphere. Given that the volumetric rate of space passing through the two surfaces is the same, it follows that the velocity of space at the inner surface is 4 times the velocity at the outer surface. Any matter embedded in this space will have the same velocities. This again is consistent with the observed velocity profile of objects falling toward the Earth and with the inverse square formula above. The flow of space accelerates as it gets closer to the center of the mass. To summarize, all bodies of matter in the universe consume space and exhibit a gravitational “force” on other nearby bodies. However, according to this theory, gravity is not a real force, but just the side effect of space getting consumed.

But where does all that space go after it is consumed by matter? The consumed space is “reborn” somewhere else and is uniformly regenerated throughout the universe. When space appears between two bodies, the distance between them increases. This matches the observation that the universe is expanding. Also, the further apart two bodies are, the more space there is between them, and space is generated faster between them. Hence bodies far away appear to be accelerating away faster. This phenomenon brings together nearby bodies and drives apart distant bodies. This fits in with Hubble’s observations, which almost won him a Nobel prize. However, the observed velocities of galaxies will not always fit a simple equation that uses the Hubbell's constant because there may be other random galaxies in between that are consuming the generated space.

Light, an electromagnetic wave, is the only pure form of energy. Light comes in a wide range of wavelengths, mostly invisible to humans. Light propagates through space in pretty much a straight line. However, gravitational lenses have been observed where light bends. This observation has a simple explanation. Large masses cause space to flow towards them and this causes light passing through to be bent in the direction of the flow. Imagine a boat trying to cross a flowing river. Even if it maintains a steady heading across the river, an external observer in a helicopter would see the boat move in an angled path. If the river flow was faster in the middle, the path of the boat would be curved. To get to a point directly across the river, the boat would have to follow a curved path. The same thing happens in space since space flows faster when it is closer to the mass. Thus, Gravitational Lensing is easy enough to be understood by a village boatman.

Light propagates at a certain speed in space. People often ask if it is possible to travel faster than the speed of light. Of course, it is possible. While there is a limit to how fast matter and energy can travel through space, there is no limit to how fast space itself can move. And when a blob of space moves, it carries along everything embedded in it. Imagine a cork floating in a bucket of water; it cannot move fast relative to the bucket, but the bucket itself can be loaded onto an airplane, and now the cork is moving pretty fast.

The mass of a chunk of matter will vary depending on how fast it is moving through space. When matter whizzes through space, it causes more space to impinge on it and hence more space is absorbed. This effectively increases the mass as predicted by Einstein’s famous equation. When space is force-fed into matter, the mass must increase to maintain the equation. As a consequence, the mass of a bit of matter can be increased by spinning it in a circle at speeds approaching that of light. When the spinning mass is made to move in a spiral, it can pull space and any spaceship contained in that space at warp speeds. Because the frame of reference is moving fast, people in the spaceship would not feel any excessive gravitational forces. This mode of transportation has been well documented by others. Unfortunately, politicians have blocked its development since it would reduce the number of taxpayers on Earth.

Black holes occur when the speed of the space consumed by the body exceeds the velocity of light. This is like a boat trying to go upstream in a river whose flow exceeds the maximum speed of the boat. Imagine a sphere around the body. At some radius of that sphere, the velocity of space falling in will equal the velocity of light trying to come out. That sphere is called the Event Horizon and light will never come out of it. Conversely, when light moves with the flow of space, it follows that the effective speed of light increases, like the ground speed of an aircraft moving with a tailwind. However, the relative speed of light, as observed by a point in space, will be constant. It is very reassuring to know that the space consumed by a Black hole will pop up somewhere else, just like space consumed by any other mass.

Another scenario where the velocity of space exceeds that of light occurs very far away, at the edge of the “visible” universe. The further away we get, the faster space is moving away. At some point, the velocity of space will exceed that of light. We cannot see beyond that range because light from there will never get to us. A sphere with that radius is another Event Horizon.

When scientists observed that the universe was expanding, they calculated the rate of expansion. Then they located the most distant stars and extrapolated backwards to determine when the size of the universe would have been exactly zero. This was deemed to be the age of the universe according to the Big Bang Theory. Nobody has a theory for what happened before that point of time, which seems quite silly. Our theory has a different explanation. There could be billions and billions of galaxies beyond the Event Horizon that we cannot see. Thus, we do not have enough information to compute the age of the universe, other than to say that the minimum age is as computed according to the Big Bang Theory. The universe has no beginning and no end. Also, it always seems that we are at the center of the universe because most other galaxies are moving away. In reality, we really are at the center of the universe, because that is the way it is.

Electromagnetic waves are the only form of pure energy, as they emanated from Shiva's third eye. All other forms of energy are secondary where stored energy is released or converted to a different form. Kinetic, potential, chemical and nuclear are all forms of secondary energy.

Matter is just condensed energy. Anti-matter is like matter, just a different kind. It too has a mass that converts to energy. When energy condenses, it forms equal amounts of matter and anti-matter. The conversion of matter to energy and vice versa is described by the famous equation:

E = m . c²

This formula is derived easily. Energy travels at the speed of light: c. As Newton postulated, the kinetic energy of mass moving at the speed of light is 1/2 . m . c². This accounts for half the energy. The other half comes from an equal mass of anti-matter that is required to convert matter to energy. It has been difficult for scientists to convert mass into energy simply because anti-matter is hard to come by in our part of the universe. In most cases, anti-matter spontaneously combines with matter to emit a flash of energy. In the reverse direction, energy condenses to matter relatively rarely, and hence there is a lot more energy permeating space than there is matter. This may explain why people spend a lot of energy on things that don't matter.

The energy in electromagnetic waves can condense into matter. Matter can store additional energy depending on its mass and form. Thermal and Kinetic energies are the most common examples. Other forms include Nuclear and Chemical energy. Energy is sacred and cannot be destroyed. But it can be converted into different forms.

Hence, the universe fundamentally consists of Space and Energy, which are mutually interdependent. They correspond to the yoni /lingam or the yin/yang. Energy needs space to travel. Space enters condensed energy and is reincarnated somewhere else. The universe goes on. There is no need for extra dimensions and fancy math to explain things.

The way electromagnetic energy moves through a medium also has a simple explanation. The observed speed of light varies depending on the medium. Light moves fastest through space but is slower through other mediums. This is because other media consist of atoms, which are particles of matter. Like other matter, these particles absorb space and cause light to bend, like gravitational lensing in a small scale. Light passing through such media will follow a wiggly path that is longer than a straight line and hence will take longer. This causes the observed speed of light to be slower. Atoms with higher mass will induce more bending and will reduce the speed more than lighter atoms, as will a denser packing of atoms. The term 'speed' was deliberately used instead of the usual term 'velocity' because the instantaneous direction of traversal varies.

Light travels in a straight line through uniform media. Snell's law describes the path in non-uniform media and states that the light path bends when the refractive index of the media changes. The refractive index of a media is directly related to the speed of light in the media. Fermat correctly explained Snell's Law by stating that light was simply following the path that took the least elapsed time. Unfortunately, he did not explain why the light was in such a hurry. That explanation had to wait a couple of centuries for Darwin to discover the natural laws of selection of the fittest. The presence or absence of light at any instant is a signal, like a bit of information. The earliest arriving information is the best and is naturally selected; all duplicated information arriving later is useless and fades to extinction. Alternative theories have postulated parallel universes, but how many universes do you see around you? Also, the three dimensions that we observe are quite enough.

The concept of Time is also easily explained. There is no grand celestial clock that keeps time in the universe. Instead, each point in space has its own independent clock. Each clock's time depends on the rate at which information arrives at a point. Energy, and consequently information, from all over the universe arrives at each point at different times. Each clock's tick counts the information. More the information, the faster the clock runs; less information and time slows down at that point. There are billions and billions of ticks in each human nano-second. Even though each point has its own unique clock, the clocks for all the neighboring points will advance at roughly the same pace. This leads to the perception that time is synchronized in an area; the differences in clock speeds are too small to measure.

As explained by Bramha to Kakudmi, time passes at different rates in different areas. If there was a way to block all information arriving at a point, perhaps with something akin to a perfect Faraday cage, then time would stand still in the space inside the cage. It would be a Stasis box. A person entering it could emerge billions of years later without having aged or having gained any wisdom.

Entropy increases as the universe expands and shuffles itself. This is related to the amount of information, which is also increasing. It follows that the amount of information arriving at any point is increasing, on average. Hence time is speeding up. Things that took a long time eons ago are now happening more quickly.

Time will slow down near a large mass. As described earlier, when there is a large mass, the surrounding space will accelerate toward it. Light (aka information) propagating in that space is also accelerated. However, less light will reach a point in space that is close to the mass. Imagine two points near a large mass, at different distances from it. Imagine light propagating towards the mass, from one point to the other. Space at the point closer to the mass will be moving faster. Light from the point further away will be chasing after the other point which is racing away. Of course, light moves fast, and it will reach its target, but the rate at which light arrives at that point will be reduced. Hence time slows down there. The passage of time is a function of the mass of the star system in which it is measured. Our concept of time is influenced by the mass of our solar system.

Distances will be affected by a large mass. To an observer who is far away from the rapid flow of space into a heavy mass, light moving along with the flowing space will appear to speed up. Since they are far away and not in the speeding space, time does not slow down for the observer. However, to maintain the illusion of the speed of light being constant, the distances near the mass will seem to shrink. It is reasonable to think that space and its dimensions get compressed around the mass. In other words, when light is being pushed to go faster, the definition of distance must be changed so that a distant observer will perceive it at the standard speed. This also is consistent with the popular view that gravity warps space-time.

We have explained Energy, Matter and Time. The big question that hasn't been answered is, where did Space originally come from? It is widely believed by all those who know that Space is like a gas that was expelled by Shiva after a period of festivities that lasted eons. It is even thought that there are multiple clumps of space and that there may be subspaces within spaces.

If you got this far, I hope you were amused, this will be the basis for my video to compete with Nityananda. I shall call myself Nutyananda and plan on sitting on a highly decorated throne (commode), bare-chested, with mystical white spots painted on my chest, while I lay forth my discourse on this subject. However, the theory hangs together remarkably well. The fact that it cannot be proved should not affect its acceptance by the faithful, since there is plenty of supporting evidence provided by the observations made for the currently popular theories.

All in fun...