Member

WHY GOD COULD NOT CREATE THE UNIVERSE WITH A DIFFERENT DIMENSION EVEN IF IT WANTED TO or perhaps anything else. Perhaps the universe must be the way it is. It seems that what is omnipotent is mathematics, elementary arithmetic, just counting. Yet even mathematics is not powerful enough to create a universe--there are just too many conditions, conflicting. Existence is impossible. Beyond that for there to be structure is quite inconceivable. But the universe does exist, there are galaxies, stars, even the possibility of life. That life is possible merely allows it to exist but only with the greatest good fortune does it actually occur. Intelligence is vastly less likely, ability and technology far more improbable. That we are, what we are, seem so strange, inconceivable, that we are left merely with wonder--and, as we seem unable to realize, the need for the deepest care, responsibility and gratitude. We have been given by the unbelievable benevolence of chance, no life, but life with the most wondrous part of the universe, the ability to think, to know, to create, to wonder--and thus the demand that we use our most awesome gifts to protect them, to protect and preserve the world in which they exist, and the life, likely so rare if not unique in the universe, which has received these astounding favors of chance, that has been given by nature its most exalted constituents. What we are requires that we enhance what we are, what we are part of, to see, understand and be grateful.

An exploration of the precise conditions required for the existence of humans in the universe. ...the author does an admirable job delineating the laws of physics without becoming too bogged down in complicated jargon, and he maintains a sense of wonder about the unique and random nature of the universe. He repeatedly celebrates our highly improbable achievements as a species, marveling at our ability to use the language of abstract mathematics to unravel the mysteries of existence. ... the prevailing tone of the narrative is clear and confident, marked by a meticulous attention to detail. An...often fascinating journey through the history of the universe and mankind. -- Kirkus Discoveries

Quantum mechanics, its properties including wavefunctions, complex numbers and uncertainty, are necessary and completely reasonable and understandable, with no weirdness. Classical physics is impossible. Much uncertainty comes from Fourier analysis. Waves and particles and collapse of wavefunctions are meaningless. Their seeming appearance in analyzed. Reasons and limitations of superposition are considered. Gravitation is an example of nonlinearity. All objects interact so nonlinearity is universal. How quantum mechanics then fits in is shown. Dirac?s equation comes from Poincar? group. Physics is necessarily impossible in any space but that with dimension 3+1. Spin-statistics is a property of rotation groups.

Geometry through its fundamental transformations, the Poincare group, requires that wavefunctions belong to representations. Massless and massive representations are very different and their coupling almost impossible. Helicity-1 gives electromagnetism, helicity-2 gives gravitation; no higher helicities are possible. Basis states, thus the fundamental fields, are the potential and connection. General relativity is derived and is the unique theory of gravity, thus the only possible quantum theory of gravity. It is explained why it is. Because of transformations trajectories must be geodesics. Momenta are covariant derivatives and must commute. Covariant derivatives of the metric are zero.

Excision of errors and confusion about quantum mechanics -- and stimulation of thoughtful and adventurous readers are pre-eminent rationales of this entire work; these requiring definitions and analysis of underlying concepts of quantum mechanics, of quantum field theory -- why probability is given by the absolute square, what wavefunctions are and are not and why, and many others -- and also examination of some from the philosophy of science. People's beliefs about quantum mechanics are often just the reverse of what fundamental principles give, seen most spectacularly with the EPR 'paradox'. The puzzles, the mystical, the bizarre, come merely from negligence, from blunders, including the outlandish belief that the universe must be explained using classical physics. Careless, unthinking physicists, and gullible journalists who naively accept their confusion as statements about nature, cause so much misunderstanding and nonsense about physics. Among the many examples considered are the non-existence in quantum mechanics of waves and particles, so of wave-particle duality; the reason that general relativity must be the quantum theory of gravity; the mystery of the cosmological constant: why people believe in it though it would be obvious to a high school student that there cannot be any, it must be zero; the absurdity (and wild incorrectness) of much of the discussion about the vacuum; the required locality of quantum mechanics and the impossibility of action-at-a-distance; and many others. Many blunders, not only about physics, come from abuse of language, the use of words, phrases, sentences without content, with connotation but no denotation, of names --- quantum mechanics, particles, waves, and so on -- that deceive and misrepresent, of questions that ask nothing. It is not only in physics that answers to questions without meaning smother and hide.