If we are anything

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

Book Cover Graphic...................................................viGraphics and Illustrations...........................................viAcknowledgements.....................................................ixAbout the Author.....................................................xiA word from the author...............................................xiiAbout the book.......................................................xivMODERN SCIENCE.......................................................1Physics..............................................................1Classical Mechanics..................................................6Frequency, Resonance and Resonant Energy.............................9Electromagnetism.....................................................15Relativity...........................................................19Special Relativity...................................................23General Relativity...................................................32Quantum Mechanics....................................................45NEW-AGE SCIENCE......................................................62Symmetry.............................................................62Strings..............................................................71Why Gravity is Weak..................................................87EASTERN PARALLELS....................................................90Energy...............................................................90THE SPIRITUAL TEMPEST................................................102In all things conscious..............................................102The unification of science and spirituality..........................105The key in Qi........................................................107Is Qi electromagnetic radiation?.....................................109Experiencing Qi......................................................110Qi Strings and waves.................................................112Ins and outs.........................................................116Spacetime networks...................................................122Fundamental Resonance................................................124Operations in the node...............................................136Consciousness........................................................142Where East Meets West................................................144The Brain............................................................145Triggering Conscious Intent..........................................150Formation of Consciousness and launching the FFR.....................153Chakras..............................................................157The Therapist Mechanism..............................................167Reality Factory......................................................172A Relative Observer..................................................172History in the Making................................................174Tunneling to Freedom.................................................180Young's Free-Will....................................................183Relativity...........................................................190Special Relativity...................................................191General Relativity...................................................195Time and Impermanence................................................200Hidden Symmetries....................................................204Determinism and Free-will............................................204Creationism and Evolutionism.........................................205Karma................................................................210New Beginnings.......................................................212CREDITS..............................................................216AUTHOR'S SUGGESTED READING...........................................217PRODUCTION NOTES.....................................................219INDEX................................................................263

Chapter One

Several years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that consequently what I afterwards based on such principles was highly doubtful: and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation, if I desired to establish a firm and abiding superstructure in the sciences. Descartes, 1637

Physics

Physics is a discipline which deals with concepts such as matter, space and time, as well as the dynamic change within these systems. Woven into these concepts are characteristics and features of matter such as mass, charge, force and energy. The analysis of such features is the experimental aspect of science. This gives rise to theories and mathematical models about how the universe in which we live operates and interacts within itself - although some of the newer theories deal with how the universe interacts both internally and externally.

There are many subfields within physics. The main ones are atomic physics, molecular physics, optical physics, condensed matter physics, high-energy physics, astronomy and astrophysics. Physicists themselves deal with theoretical and experimental research programs. Associated with this is the development of theories and the eventual experimental testing of those theories but sometimes in the pursuit of an understanding of natural phenomena, accidental discoveries happen.

In addition to the subfields of physics, there are theories of physics within the subfields. By virtue of the interconnectedness of all phenomena, and to varying degrees of association, these theories relate all subfields to all theories. They are classical mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism (which includes optics since light is electromagnetic radiation), relativity (special and general) and quantum mechanics. Although all of these theories have been tested in many experiments, with varying degrees of agreement within the group, most are considered to be accurate enough to be accepted. I use the term 'accepted' and not 'factual' as the science community describes any theory with experimental or observational agreement as being only 'Popularly Supported', a far cry from being absolute. So, why not factual: why not absolute? The history of science has shown us that, for the most part - especially when dealing with quantum mechanics - that we cannot truly identify ourselves and our environment as being separate. We cannot point to a particular phenomena and label it as 'this' or 'that' (even the ancient Greek Philosophers knew this) for we are inherently afflicted with a major drawback which is preventing us from doing so to absolute accuracy. That drawback - an obvious benefit from a philosophical standpoint - is that we are observers inside the system itself: we are 'embedded' in the universe. Many believe that we cannot absolutely know everything about the system in which we are immersed, as we are blinded by the obscurity of the world in which we live. As the saying goes: "You can't see the forest for the trees." In this sense, the forest itself, its overall features such as valleys and mountain-tops, are obscured by the parts of the forest which are around us. In the same way, how can we say for sure that light behaves in a particular way if we ourselves perceive all that we see through the same mechanism: the interaction of photons? Further, since almost all interactions at the atomic level and above are performed through the interaction of electrons, and since electrons interact using photons as force carriers, how can we ever be sure that reality is as we perceive it?

You might point out that we can see the universe through observations conducted with telescopes, microscopes, in laboratories and in particle colliders, but once again these are mostly interactions involving light. Even the machines which carry out the experiments or observations - such as the telescopes, microscopes, particle colliders, beam splitters, sensors, computers, monitors and data-recording devices - all of these are ultimately held together by the activity of light. So this immersion and connection of the observer to the experiment or observation is the greatest hurdle in our quest to understand both the universe in which we live, and ultimately ourselves.

An example of this difficulty becomes apparent when we look into the force of gravity and the events which have transpired to bring us to our current understanding of this phenomenon. Newton came up with the notion of universal gravitation in which all bodies are constantly and instantly attracted to each other. His mathematical formulae used to describe 'universal gravitation' are enough to send spacecraft on decade-long interplanetary voyages, using gravity to sling- shot probes, to boost their velocity or to slow them down, and to do so with an accuracy of less than 100 meters after journeys in the order of billions of kilometres. However, some 250 years later, Albert Einstein proposed a new theory of gravitation which needed to observe laws of electromagnetism discovered only two decades earlier, and his previous theory, special relativity, published a decade earlier. This new theory defined gravity as the bending or warping of space and time, brought about from the presence of matter. So how could Newton's theory and mathematical description of the influence of gravity be so wrong? The answer is simple: he was not outside the system observing the events transpiring within, and nor for that matter was Einstein, and after almost a century, we are most definitely seeing cracks in the foundations of general relativity (Einstein's gravity) as well. Reality, it seems, is a little more illusive than what humanity may first have imagined.

With that in mind, and despite important discoveries during the past four centuries, all of the key questions surrounding the make-up of the world as we know it remain unsolved: the true nature of the universe as questioned by the likes of Aristotle in his eight-book series on Physics [Physica] (384-322 BC) where he wonders about matter, force, time, thought and consciousness. This unresolved reality is present even today, and echoes in Newton's words: "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

Surprisingly, we see inconsistencies and conflicts between these theories, which although very effective and accurate in their own right, fail to connect seamlessly with each other. An example of this is classical mechanics. Although it is accurate in describing the motion of objects in everyday experience, such as our interplanetary space craft, at the atomic scale it breaks down and quantum mechanics takes over, also at speeds approaching that of the speed of light, where relativistic behaviors becomes increasingly expressed and must therefore be accounted for. So if we were to attempt to describe some exotic region or structure within our universe, where all of these theories would be required to work concurrently and harmoniously - a Black Hole for instance - we find that they are not readily describable, since Black Holes are very massive (general relativity), very small (quantum mechanics) and very dynamic (special relativity). Therefore our current tools which we use to describe our universe - although sufficient to describe many phenomena - are ultimately not universally applicable. So while being well understood for a long time, for the reasons previously explained, all of these theories are still active areas of research.

Throughout this book, we will predominantly deal with quantum mechanics, new-age theories and more philosophical concepts. However, it is in the best interests of the reader to form initial understandings, or perhaps refresh old ones, of some of the more traditional concepts and theories within science. This will assist us in later chapters, where we will rely upon a more classical approach and where we will start to pull together seemingly disassociated phenomena to form a new classical understanding of the universe. So it is very important for the reader to be exposed to some features of classical physics before we start a revolution with a new view of the universe in the closing chapters.

Classical Mechanics

Classical mechanics is often confused with Newtonian mechanics, partly because of the connection between the laws of motion and what classical mechanics tends to describe: large-scale, everyday observable objects, such as parts within machinery, aircraft, rockets, planets, stars and galaxies. In general terms, it can be looked upon as the physics of the everyday world, and unless you're delving into matter and force, or involved in the adjustments needed to align the platform on which Global Positioning Systems (GPS) rely, or have plans to travel across space at near-light speeds, then with the exclusion of some aspects of electromagnetism, this is the physics which best deals with what happens around us in the world of the very large. The world of the very large has many different manifestations of the same fundamental ingredients as well. Gases, liquids and solids, although apparently different, are in fact natural variations of all the elements. At the very heart of matter, these very different properties relate to the varying amounts of energy held within each material. Steam is a gas, water a liquid, and ice a solid, but even though we are describing the same species of atoms within each entity, the way in which atoms collectively behave with varying amounts of energy forces classical mechanics to adopt different methods and theories with which to describe them at different energy levels. So the mathematics and physical principles we must use to describe the varying states of an element, or actions it suffers, gives rise to specializations within classical mechanics itself such as solid mechanics and fluid mechanics (the latter includes hydrostatics, hydrodynamics, pneumatics, and aerodynamics). Objects which are in motion are described by kinematics and objects which are being subjected to forces are described by dynamics. Classical mechanics shows us that the way in which we must approach a description or perhaps an understanding of a system's behavior rests heavily upon how much energy is held within the system at the time of observation and what it is doing. We need to be mindful of this when we start delving into areas where size, shape, energy and purpose mean everything, and what something may look like, or how it seems to behave from our 'embedded' view point, becomes secondary. Our classical footings will support us in this new view of the universe.

The origins of classical mechanics are deeply rooted in our past but the term 'classical mechanics' was coined only early in the 20th century. Building upon the earlier astronomical theories of Johannes Kepler, in turn based on the precise observations of Tycho Brahe - works which were not so much physics as a data-fitting exercise between celestial observations and the force concepts within the known physics at the time - a system of mathematical physics began to emerge from the work of Isaac Newton and many other contemporary 17th century scholars. Essentially these were the collected works of Christiaan Huygens and Newton, approximately 250 years before the development of quantum physics and relativity.

Even though classical mechanics is ancient, and one which at first glance seems to be a 'done deal', it is an ongoing, developing field. An example is the study of the Shepherding Moons which sweep through the Cassini Divisions within the rings of Saturn. The divisions between some areas containing dust, ice and rock, and others of clear space, are much too sharp and cannot be accounted for in current classical or relativistic terms.

One of the great moments in the early development of classical mechanics was the publishing of Astronomia nova 1609 by Johannes Kepler. Using Brahe's observations of the orbit of Mars, Kepler concluded that the planetary orbits were elliptical, not circular. This flew in the face of previous thought and demonstrated the power of science as a way to describe the natural world.

In addition to the three laws of motion - inertia, acceleration, and action-and-reaction - which assisted in laying the foundations for mathematics and classical mechanics, were three volumes published by Newton on July 5, 1687, entitled Philosophi Naturalis Principia Mathematica. The first, De motu corporum (On the motion of bodies), was itself divided into two volumes and described the new mathematical formulations he had previously created, as well as clear examples of how to use them. The third, De mundi systemate (On the system of the world) pertained to universal gravitation and motion with respect to force laws. The three volumes had been entirely formulated within the framework of the long-established geometric formalism and, in doing so, Newton had removed all trace of his recently developed calculus which he guarded closely. Soon after, however, Leibniz developed the notation of the derivative, which is the preferred method in calculus today, and later, Bernoulli contributed to the integral (Bernoulli differential equation) which is also a preferred method in calculus. Politics and cat-and-mouse antics aside, the Principia has long been, and is still, widely regarded as the greatest scientific work ever written since Newton's law of universal gravitation was the first correct scientific and mathematical formulation of the force of gravity.

In just a few leaps and bounds, Newton had presented a mathematical description of bodies in motion or at rest, gravity, and the laws which govern the two. It was an historic event and a defining moment in the separation of science and spirituality.

Frequency, Resonance and Resonant Energy

Resonance can be described as the tendency for a particular system to oscillate at a certain frequency and at maximum amplitude. This is known as a system's resonance frequency. Every object has a resonance frequency determined by its shape and material density. Most resonance frequencies cannot be predetermined and testing is the only accurate way of establishing what frequency a particular object will have. Even similarly manufactured objects, which look and feel identical, will be slightly different because we cannot locate atoms in identical arrangements. Therefore every macroscopic object is uniquely identifiable by its harmonic properties. Navy submarines use this to its full effect. Although two submarines can be made identical to the human eye, and soundwaves emitted from their hulls might well appear identical to a human ear, the reality is that acoustics, computer software and diagnostics can differentiate one submarine from the next. In the case of submarine warfare, 'contacts' are designated and entered into databases. When one submarine picks up an audio signal of another, it takes only a few seconds for a correct identity to be obtained by the first's onboard computer. There is an identifiable difference because submarines, like all macroscopic objects, are not truly identical. There are imperfections and inconsistencies such as drive-shaft noises, which are attributed to bearing wear, shaft and propeller balancing, hydraulic and pneumatic noises associated with O-ring seals, and even the difference between the torquing of nuts and bolts. The only entities which can be categorised as truly identical to all others in the same species are fundamental particles such as electrons, photons and quarks. But even these, at the edge of existence, are not what they seem.

At resonance frequencies, small periodic driving forces can create large amplitude vibrations. This is because the system itself is storing energy in the form of vibration, and introducing more energy in the form of an external driving force at the correct time will add the energy directly to the amplitude. We see this when an opera singer sings at the correct note associated with the resonance frequency of a crystal glass. Once the glass's resonance frequency has been determined (it starts resonating) the singer begins to increase the loudness (amplitude), vibrational energy is then added to the resonance already contained within the glass. When the glass reaches its natural ability to release the energy back into the air, it must then absorb the energy internally. Soon enough, the glass will reach the limit of the molecular bonds within the crystal, and the glass will shatter.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from If we are anythingby MARK NESTI Copyright © 2009 by MARK NESTI. Excerpted by permission.
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