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Creation of the Universe. Did God participate?
The curiosities of quantum theory (see Innerface vol. 11, No. 5) have many of our physicists in a non-materialistic dither. In seeking to make sense of their own quite extraordinary and quite brilliant experimental results, they have proposed apparently outrageous explanations.
One such proposal is that the whole of our universe, as we perceive it, is actually a hologram--in reality a four-dimensional system operating in compliance with a set of physical laws on a 3-dimensional boundary of space-time.1 And perhaps it could be so, even is so, if it operates under the control of deity consciousness functioning via a non-local dimension outside our local space-time.
[non-local is the name given to a dimension not in our space-time which messages can traverse instantaneously. It is also the 'home' of particles in a state of super-positioning such as an electron that is neither wave nor particle but a combination 'wavicle.' Its existence was predicated by Irish physicist, John Bell, and demonstrated experimentally by French physicist, Alain Aspect. See Innerface vol. 11, No. 5]
Another proposal by Raphael Bousso utilizes a 2-D boundary so that our innate perception of the world as having 3 spatial dimensions would be an "extraordinary illusion." But is it really so extraordinary? For when looking at any normal scene, the image our minds perceive, though apparently in 3-D, is actually a flat 2-D image upon the retinas at the back of our eyeballs.
It is a truly remarkable feat of our brain that we can quite unconsciously make that 2-D to 3-D transformation, even to judging relative distances and estimating the speed of different objects at a variety of distances.
This remarkable ability is obviously an innate function of mind that extends way back into the evolution of the animal and insect worlds of the past--and is an essential survival attribute for both predator and prey. And it all must be constructed from information stored in our memories of previous related experiences.
So what are the new experiments that merit our praise and appreciation? Those that currently interest us have been mainly conducted to discover how far certain strange quantum phenomena can be preserved as the size of the object under study is increased from the sub-microscopic to take in the "real" world, the one we can actually touch, feel, see, and smell.
One of the key apparent differences between the familiar classical world we inhabit and the strange quantum world is the phenomenon of "superposition"--the ability of quantum objects to exist in two different states such as wave and particle, but at the same time.
Previously we have described this behavior for photons, electrons, and even atoms, and molecules.3 Now it has been demonstrated for large spherical molecules called fullerenes consisting of 70 carbon atoms that form a ball .
To do so, fullerene molecules were fired, one at a time, at two diffraction gratings (see below). Initially the target simply showed where each single molecule hit. But as the number increased to about two thousand, the detector began to show a perfect pattern of interference stripes.
As with electrons, etc., in the same type of experiment3, it was concluded that each of the fullerene molecules must interfere with itself. So where was the information that permitted formation of the striped interference pattern?
A possible answer to this problem was revealed by varying the temperature of the fullerene molecules prior to them passing through the first grating. Hot matter radiates thermal photons over a wide spectrum of wave lengths. Below 1700o C, the fullerene molecules are unlikely to radiate wave lengths in the visible range. But at 2200o C each molecule should radiate at least three such photons. Outside this temperature range photon emission fell away, as did the diffraction pattern--which is consistent with the hypothesis that these emitted photons carried the information utilized to form the bar pattern.
The hypothesis was strengthened by double slit experiments (see ref. 4) that modified the wave length of the photons emitted by electrons passing through slits. The photon's wave length determined whether or not the interference pattern was washed out.
But that leaves us with an even harder question. How can a mere photon possibly carry such information? Answer--we do not know.
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