Pre-ambling
The Vacuum
Light
Particles
Dark Energy
Dark Matter
Black Holes
Checking the Map
Pre-ambling
This little tome is a field guide to using science as a way to structure and add context to the most fundamental questions we can possibly ask:
· how does the universe work?
· how did it begin?
· is it by design or just chance that we are part of it?
· if it is by design, then why does it work the way it does?
We are inspired by physical theory, but this is not serious physics. To a physicist (who are all quite serious, as we know), this is mostly speculation. And they are mostly correct. Our purpose here is to see where our imaginations lead us, as we wander in that fantastical, foreboding forest called physics theory.
What follows is extrapolation well beyond the well-worn trails in that forest. This is strictly an “inside your head” expedition, no pen and paper required, no equations. We will introduce a slew of ideas from physics, cosmology, and mathematics. The trick will be to focus on the physical notions, and not those theoretical details that fill bulky reference books. Carrying all that weight around would just inhibit where our imagination can take us, as we push on with our quest.
There are references at the end of this guide that point to where I found inspiration for these ideas. And the sources all have a legitimate standing in the scientific literature. I have reinterpreted and extrapolated (a lot!), but here I’m just taking existing puzzle pieces, twisting them a bit, and constructing what I see as the big picture. All in an effort to construct a trail map, so we can see the forest through the many trees.
Let’s begin by setting up some basics.
The Vacuum
We need to bring forward key notions from physics and cosmology to start with. Try not to be too critical in assessing these, just stash them in your backpack, as raw material.
The first, and possibly the most fundamental, concept to imagine is the Vacuum. With a capital V because it sure deserves one. A heads up: the model for the Vacuum may seem simple enough, but it isn’t. In general, models with plenty of structure are the most fruitful, as models become the play dough of the imagination. And as yet, I haven’t got a full narrative to describe the Vacuum. But here we go.
We know from experience that the Vacuum is a very dynamic thing. It bends with gravity. It is the source of particles in high energy accelerators. It can exert a force all on its own, just by holding two conducting plates very close to each other (Casimir force). It conducts electromagnetic radiation (EM waves) and gravitational waves, without any loss of energy, while enforcing a speed limit on everything else. Apparently, it is expanding. And somehow it hosts Black Holes. There is a lot going on, down the trail in our forest marked ‘Vacuum’. That includes just about everything we might imagine, if our model holds true.
Physicists regard developing a model of the Vacuum, or emergent, quantum spacetime complete with gravity, as the Holy Grail. We are going to assume their quest is valid. We will simply assume that some components of the structure they want to theoretically derive are pre-existing. Any forest deserving exploration has to start with some sort of pre-existing trees.
We imagine here that the Vacuum is a discrete, quantum system, structured as a network. This system is comprised of elements of quantum spacetime, which can be energized into different states. Only when combined in their energized state does the Vacuum form, creating a coherent time vector, and local space dimensions (hence “spacetime”). We will be describing the Big Bang with just this model.
The Vacuum: Quantum Foam
What do all these words describing the Vacuum mean? And how to imagine this as a model? Let’s start with something visual. In its lowest energy, or ground state, the Vacuum reduces to “quantum foam”. Imagine bits and pieces of what is physically “here” and “there”, “now” and “then”, all jumbled up. A word to use in your descriptive narrative is incoherent. There is no direction up, down, or sideways; no past, present, or future; and crucially, no order to events. But the foam is definitely some sort of physical “thing”. As we will see, the foam is crucial to every physical process we will be imagining. In our Big Bang narrative, the foam is just about the only pre-existing “thing”.
Foam is the word physicists typically use to describe this lowest energy state of the Vacuum, but I think froth may be easier to visualize. This froth is a domain of discrete quantum elements, all in their ground state, and each acting completely on its own. As a collection, or a “domain” (another good word for your narrative), they express spacetime noise: no physical directions, locally or globally; no consistent time vector to order events; and, no structured quantum events to even try to order.
A curious feature of quantum mechanics, a particularly serious realm of physics, is that this quantum foam can often be effectively ignored. General references don’t make much use of the foam. It does feature prominently in particle physics and quantum field theory, of course. There its role is often somewhat obscured. Somehow or other it provides a source of energy for particle creation, but only within the bounds of Heisenberg uncertainty. Or it hosts a sea of antiparticles. Very mysterious indeed. In our wanderings, we will find clues to help us visualize the nature and properties of quantum foam.
All quantum behaviour plays out totally embedded in this quantum background. For us, quantum foam is crucial. It plays a role in particle creation, gravity, mass, wave propagation …you name any quantum process, and it’s involved, because it is literally everywhere (and from its perspective, all at once, since the foam knows no time).
So, everything we will be describing happens within a bath of this quantum foam. At the scale of ourselves and all we can normally perceive, the foam is invisible. But everything means just that, so all our visualizing must include this frothy background. One reason why it has been safely ignored in serious physics is that foam does not support its own time vector. And quantum mechanics, through fundamental processes described by the Schrodinger equation, explicitly requires a time vector.
Let’s call the elements of this froth “QESTs”, for short (“Quantum Elements of SpaceTime”). Tough to imagine, especially that “no time” aspect. My imagination really wants to order things. This is part of wanting to establish a narrative for the picture. Back to our forest analogy, we discover that all the trees are embedded in a tangle of low bramble. But it’s feathery stuff. Walking through it is effortless, and we don’t leave any footprints.
The Vacuum: Entanglement
What turns these frothy QESTs into a Vacuum that we can actually visualize, and allows measurement of time and space? Our model uses entanglement energy.
Entanglement is a generally accepted, fundamental notion from quantum physics. Entanglement has, in general, everything to do with quantum states when two or more quantum elements are involved. What isn’t generally accepted is how we’re applying it here, to the states of quantum elements of foam. When entangled, foam becomes the Vacuum. With these few assumptions behind us, perhaps you can begin to make out the path in the forest that takes us to the Big Bang.
Taking stock, our focus is on Vacuum entanglement and quantum foam. Together, these aspects of quantum theory are fundamental to our model of spacetime. In the references, you will find articles that describe how spacetime can be ‘pulled apart’ into separate pieces, if these pieces are completely disentangled from each other. Proof of this draws on General Relativity, String Theory, Quantum Mechanics, and Conformal Field Theory (also, I’m sure, on other areas of which I am simply not aware).
But what we use here is precisely the converse of what they have shown. That is, if you start off with separate pieces of spacetime, add entanglement energy, then what you wind up with is a unified, larger spacetime. We will apply this property to quantum foam, which by its very nature is disentangled. We’ll start with the Big Bang. That will set the stage for all that follows.
To get a picture of how things work at the quantum level, conjure up a set of “quantum” elements (which really includes anything in our universe). Whatever you picture, the elements will have a discrete nature, and any of their properties must come in discrete amounts. Visualize entanglement as acting to combine the individual quantum elements into something composite, something different, with properties expressed collectively that are new. Everything in this picture is still discrete, still quantum. But the composite, entangled elements act to form something new.
So, entanglement energy applied to individual QESTS acts to raise each QEST to a higher energy level, or state, with a specific value. They can only get to this higher energy state if they combine to form what I picture as a network. This quantum network forms the very fabric of our Vacuum spacetime. Don’t ask what that actual energy value of the QESTs might be, once part of this network. Physicists will start to argue about vacuum energy, and then disagree wildly. We will simply require that it is extremely high. Creating spacetime doesn’t come easily.
Back to visualizing. We go from a scene of frothy, individual QESTs, to one where some are elevated to a higher energy level, combined as a network. This can be restated as a higher energy level is accessible to two or more QESTs only if they act together. The energy must come from some external energy source; It doesn’t happen spontaneously. By acting together, QESTs express a local spacetime (and much more). It takes an immense, but still finite, number of entangled QESTs involved to express even the smallest distance in our Vacuum. How they manage to do this is the secret to gravity, as we will see.
A large portion of the entanglement energy that came from the external source is now ‘captured’ jointly by the QESTs involved. If some process acts to disentangle these QESTs, then that energy will be released. Conservation of energy is a guiding principle, in all our wanderings (especially around Black Holes). This energy release will feature prominently when we get to another of those dark regions found along our path: the forest realm of Dark Energy.
The Vacuum: Big Bang Origins
We can pause here in our wanderings to have a first try at visualizing the Big Bang. Let’s imagine a set of disentangled QESTs, together forming a quantum foam. We can label this set as the “pre-Big Bang domain”. Some, or even all, of the QESTs may possess an initial charge. That charge doesn’t form any sort of discrete, coherent field, as it is totally distorted by the froth. Being mutually repulsive, the froth will act to distribute any such charge, instantaneously. If charge is present, the energy is not high enough to produce any local spacetimes, such as entangled groups (we will go down that trail marked Particles, a little later).
We can always modify this assumption of initial charge, if the model requires. But it is easier to imagine particle and Black Hole formation, if we assume some charge is present. Let’s also assume that our pre-Big Bang domain contains an immense number of disentangled QESTs, probably countably infinite in number.
So far, we haven’t any Vacuum, just this immense set of slightly charged, disentangled QESTs. Where all this came from is a question reserved for later. We will also reserve for later the origin question for the next part of our model: a source of external charge. Lots of charge!
Note that we are not asking for an external electromagnetic (EM) or gravitational field. Such processes require time and space to propagate, which they would do at a finite velocity (as described by Maxwell’s equations for EM). Our domain has no coherent time or space to start with. So, static charge is all we have.
Now imagine this massive charge interacting with the domain of QESTs. Remember this domain has no space or time, and no measurable size. The charge sees the entire domain, all at once. If the charge is strong enough, some individual QESTs become entangled. This is a quantum property we are assuming QESTs possess.
The Vacuum that they form arises essentially instantaneously (there is no pre-existing Vacuum to impose a speed limit). Any charge energy that the domain started with, or possibly any “surplus” energy from the external charge, will remain. Some source of remaining charge is essential to the processes that our model will describe, including particle and Black Hole creation.
Our brand new Vacuum, at this point in the narrative, wouldn’t seem anything like the universe we observe today. To fix this, we will look at properties from today’s cosmology, and see if they might fit our model.
As an example, consider the property of Vacuum expansion. To fit this process to our model using as few new assumptions as possible, we simply observe that our model already allows for new Vacuum: it’s the same process that produced it in the Big Bang. All we need is a source of intense energy (such as Dark Energy), and a supply of quantum foam, which we already have. The foam remaining from the Big Bang will prove a modelling essential, beyond Vacuum expansion. It literally grows more of the forest we explore, such as particles and Black Holes.
We do need to be more specific about conditions before and after Vacuum creation: only a small fraction of the supply of quantum foam is involved in Vacuum entanglement. The way I visualize this is that the QEST network forming the Vacuum is extremely stiff and highly structured, but also everywhere not dense. The property of being highly structured seems reasonable, if we assume it’s the same Vacuum throughout the universe. In technical terms, the same Minkowski metric applies. As a consequence of extreme stiffness, a low density network will suffice, so relatively few QESTs are required for Vacuum formation. “Low density” is in the sense of the number involved, relative to the foam. It still takes an immense number of entangled QESTs to express any measurable distance in the Vacuum.
We can now visualize a more detailed picture of conditions after Vacuum formation. There is an almost inexhaustible supply of quantum foam embedded in a stiff Vacuum structure. This foam holds excess charge, as do the QESTs entangled in the Vacuum network (VN, for short), but to a much lesser extent. Any charge held by the foam would appear static, from the perspective of the entangled QESTs. Showing how charge behaves in the Vacuum provides an important illustration of our model in action.
The Vacuum: Quantum Time
The Vacuum, as we imagine it to this stage in our wanderings, would seem to us to be static. The foam, which is invisible anyways, has distributed any charge it holds. The VN is also static, holding excess charge from the Big Bang. We need to introduce a clock into this picture, one quantum ‘tick’ after another, to allow change: to form time.
Entanglement freezes the charge in the QESTs forming the VN into a discrete field. It does so by maintaining charge persistence (as well as the VN’s dimensional structure…this is gravity in action). As entangled elements, maintaining charge is the most important new property exhibited by our QESTs. Persistence prevents charge (and structure) from dissipating instantaneously into the foam.
A key challenge to our imagining now presents itself: this persistence must itself have a quantum nature. Because persistence comes in discrete chunks, the VN will be held static, but only over each chunk. We can visualize how change occurs: as sequence of discrete ‘snapshots’. What emerges from the VN is coherent, quantum time.
The time quantization we imagine here is analogous to "spacetime foliation" in the ADM formalism of General Relativity (Ref 10). The formalism is not a quantum theory, but its use of time slices, or foliation, reveals how the dynamics of General Relativity evolves from instant to instant. Our entanglement clock achieves this evolution in a quantum manner.
Remember that what we are visualizing is a property of the VN only, not the embedded foam. Persistence is expressed in the VN over discrete intervals, or quantum ‘ticks’. It is the accumulated intervals of many ‘ticks’ of the quantum clock that drives what we perceive as time. No such coherent ‘ticking’ happens in the foam: it knows no time, and no space.
If we pause now to impose a constraint in our model of time, it will prove very useful, later on. It will help us visualize how the energy that we perceive as light is held in the VN (this includes all EM, plus all energy moving at light speed). The constraint must be general, so it applies to any quantum of energy held in the VN.
It’s simple to state, but hard to visualize: relative to any energy quantum, that energy must persist in the same QEST over multiple ‘ticks’ to register the passage of time. We know from the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that some time must pass to allow us any measurement of energy. Our constraint enforces this, as a property of the VN.
The discrete, coherent ‘ticking’ of the VN expresses space as a dynamic, changeable property. Space itself is dimensional coherence, and persistence, in the VN’s network structure. Space is determined by the relative orientation of the entangled QESTs. This orientation can, and will, change between ‘ticks’, as a function of the energy stored in the VN.
Visualizing the interdependence of time and space, with their shared origin in entanglement, will lead us well along the trail to gravity.
The Vacuum: The First 'Tick'
The first ‘tick’ of the quantum clock set the stage for everything we perceive in our current universe. It was literally the moment of creation. As we expand our view of the forest, the biblical notion of ‘let there be light’ will seem quite appropriate. But we might add ‘and let there be particles, Dark Matter, and Black Holes’.
We capture these features in our model as initial conditions arising from the Big Bang. The set up of the VN’s network structure occurred in an instant, before the first ‘tick’ of the quantum clock. That first ‘tick’ froze whatever initial conditions were held in the VN’s structure. It did not freeze conditions in the quantum foam.
We can visualize some of those conditions by adding an assumption to our model. We shall assume that only a portion of the initial charge driving the Big Bang was used as entanglement energy to build the VN’s structure.
The possibilities for the remainder are:
(1) to be held in the VN as charge;
(2) to be held in the VN as excess entanglement energy;
(3) to go into the foam and be rendered as charge; or,
(4) to go into the foam and be rendered as entanglement energy.
Each of these, and their combinations, will add some significant new trails to our map of the forest.
Let’s try to sketch out some of these trails now.
The first possibility is that of excess charge held in the VN. By interacting with the quantum foam, the network can hold this charge. It forms a photon of light (EM). Transmitting that photon over subsequent ‘ticks’ is done in a manner which preserves the time of formation of the photon. This effectively removes the charge as a local excess in the VN.
The second possibility can have three outcomes. The first is to use quantum foam to express some of the entanglement energy as a Dark Matter particle. The second is to bundle the entanglement energy, in much the same fashion as charge is bundled to produce a photon of EM. Only in this case the result is a graviton. The third outcome alters the structure of the VN. QESTs become so locally entangled they block the normal transmission of charge. Charge enters but does not come out. A Black Hole is formed.
The third possibility alone would result in charge being dissipated to the foam. This effectively occurs throughout the foam, in an instant. So, no local effects arise as initial conditions in the VN.
The third and fourth possibilities, acting in combination, produce particles. The energy in particles is isolated from the VN’s network of entangled QESTs, but not by transmission across the network. They form a local spacetime, orthogonal to our VN (more about that word “orthogonal”, later). Once again this freezes the time of the first ‘tick’, but in an entirely different manner to a photon or graviton. Quantum foam acts in concert with the local spacetime to hold the energy outside the VN. We perceive the result as the static properties of a particle, such as charge, mass, and spin.
The fourth possibility could result in the entanglement of QESTs to extend the Vacuum network. We can rule out this as an initial condition. This energy would already have been expressed as QESTs entangled in the VN. However, if sufficient excess charge arose in subsequent ‘ticks’, this condition might act to expand the VN.
We will see that other processes beyond this fourth initial condition can produce sufficient entanglement to expand the VN. These processes arise in the accretion of Black Holes. We will call the entanglement energy released from this source Dark Energy.
The Vacuum: Magnetism as Stored Entanglement
The total energy in the VN is fixed, and this same energy is conserved between ‘ticks’. In our model, the QESTs in the VN have only two ways to store this momentarily static energy: as charge, or as entanglement energy. The latter includes entangling QESTs outside the VN, with those in the VN. In so doing, these added QESTs become a means of temporarily storing energy, not as charge, but as entanglement. They become part of spacetime, and so are expressed over spatial dimensions (as magnetism). They are sustained by charge, so as charge in the VN decreases from ‘tick’ to ‘tick’, they will act to restore that charge.
This sets up a resonant feedback, precisely tuned to the oscillation of charge held in the VN. The more charge, the more change in stored entanglement. We see this as a higher frequency in alternating electric and magnetic fields: electromagnetic radiation. The energy in this radiation is proportional to the resonant frequency that it produces, by itself. We will see that a similar process occurs with particle creation, except the newly entangled QESTs form their own spacetime.
Magnetic fields are created only by charge moving in the VN, and do not exist otherwise. In our wanderings, we will never encounter a trail marked 'Magnetic Monopole'.
The Vacuum: Gravity as Local Feedback
Our model of gravity focuses on the entangled QESTs that form the VN, and especially how these interact to produce a dynamic spatial structure. What clues do we have that can help us in building this model?
One of the most striking properties of the Vacuum itself is how it contrasts with the foam. The Vacuum faithfully transmits photons of EM (and gravitons) over billions of light years, at a constant velocity, if we account for local factors enroute (and VN expansion). It does so while maintaining the absorption spectra encoded at the time of the EM’s origin. And we see this property in every direction we point our telescopes, and as far back in time as our telescopes can reach.
Contrast this with the foam. These same QESTs, not entangled with the VN, do contribute to EM propagation, but only through ‘tick’ to ‘tick’ generation of magnetic fields. They do not host the quanta of charge defining a photon. This charge must be transmitted by the VN with complete precision and coherence, to enable such a lossless transmission.
It does all this, while still being responsive in a spatially dynamic way, to any local energy held in the VN.
This suggests the network structure of the VN (whatever its detailed configuration may be) is spatially symmetric. All QESTs must express this spatial symmetry in the same way. They all must respond to mutual local entanglement in the same way, in all directions. And, absent any other energy influence, they do this consistently from ‘tick’ to ‘tick’. The most direct way we can model this is through local feedback.
Before exploring this path in the forest, let’s pause to marvel a little at this revealed structure. All these entangled QESTs, all with the exact same structure, all acting with the same dynamics, and all from the very first ‘tick’ of the quantum clock. This is in compelling agreement with our Big Bang model: all QESTs in the VN share the same instant of entanglement.
Taking stock, the way we have chosen to model gravity’s consistent spatial properties is through local entanglement feedback. We can try to visualize how any measurable distance will require countless entangled QESTs to act together in a coherent, symmetric fashion. In doing so, they ‘express’ space. Charge and EM propagate along chains of QESTs, giving us the perception of both space and movement, as the entanglement clock ‘ticks’ away.
The nature of this local feedback must result in perfect entanglement energy regulation in the VN. Our model of the VN allows both entanglement and charge energy transients to occur. This sets up a dynamic: the QESTs try to maintain their orientation through strong, symmetrical feedback, while energy gradients are occurring in and around them.
From our model of particles, we encounter such sources of energy that influence the Vacuum QESTs in a static manner (we can include Black Holes here, as well). An equilibrium is established between the VN’s local entanglement feedback, and this static energy. We perceive this as a local gravitational field.
Once again, everything is discrete in nature, and refreshed by the ‘ticks’ of entanglement clock. Gravity also appears to us as an attractive force, proportional to every source’s energy (as static mass, in the case of particles). The combined static energy of two particles act to increase the amount of local feedback required to maintain the network structure, creating a tension, or force, in the Vacuum.
How all this plays out is described by the tensor equations of General Relativity. Note how our model allows the entanglement clock to keep ticking away at a constant rate, through all of this.
The perceived gravitational effects on time are through the distortion of the QESTs expressing space. Recall that time is experienced in the VN only if energy persists in the same QESTs, from ‘tick’ to ‘tick’. Now we see that gravity, by altering spatial structure, must alter perceived time as well. Time and space are completely interwoven.
Acceleration acts in the same way as do particles: anything altering the local QEST feedback alters Vacuum structure. If we attempt to accelerate a charge held in the VN, we approach a quantum limit, where we can go no faster. We are trying to force an overlap of charge in the network, essentially attempting to add the same energy to multiple QESTs, across ‘ticks’.
Such efforts to accelerate would eventually invoke an energy conservation response in the VN. If we exceed whatever the entanglement energy limit is for individual QESTs involved in local feedback, then the Vacuum structure itself is disrupted. A Black Hole would be created.
We see that energy conservation in the Vacuum forbids this. The Vacuum tries to enforce a quantum speed limit. There is no ‘faster than light’ laneway in our forest.
Light
We know from experiment that perceived light, or any form of EM, has unique properties. It transmits in the Vacuum at the same velocity, regardless of the observer’s velocity. It appears to be made up of electric and magnetic fields that oscillate together at fixed frequency. The energy it transmits comes in discrete chunks, or “photons”, with an amount determined by this fixed frequency.
That’s a lot to try to capture with our model of the forest. But let’s see what we can deduce, from what we’ve discovered so far.
A first clue is one coming from Special Relativity. It tells us that, relative to a quantum of EM energy translating through the VN, no time passes. We can model this with the help of the constraint we introduced earlier: if that quantum of energy is not held in the same QEST across more than one quantum ‘tick’, then it registers no time.
But this constraint must apply to all the energy expressed by EM, and this comes only in discrete amounts. As we visualized in the discussion of magnetism, EM is a self-reinforcing, oscillating (or resonant) pattern of energy, held as charge in the VN. This charge generates magnetism as stored entanglement energy, in the foam. So, we already have most of the structure we need.
But not all. The entire pattern of charge must translate out of the QESTs that hold it, and do so in a coherent fashion. This suggests an entire resonant cycle moves together to occupy new QESTs, from one ‘tick’ to the next.
What we have described is a photon. To maintain a constant velocity, the same number of QESTs must be involved in holding this resonant cycle. The photon is a packet of energy translating through the VN, with no apparent time passing relative to the packet itself.
All this is pretty hard to visualize. We need to imagine something that is both dynamically resonant, but also establishes itself as a highly structured, discrete pattern in the VN. The particular feature of the foam, that it experiences no time, is fundamental here: the resonance establishes instantaneously, from the perspective of the VN.
As we suspected, our model will rely on quantum foam. This will be even more evident, as we wander other trails in the forest.
Particles
How can our model explain the physical properties of a particle, such as an electron? The electron has no measurable size, although its charge forms a field in the VN. It must have some internal structure, since it exhibits intrinsic angular momentum. In the presence of other charge, it absorbs and emits photons, which influence the charge field. We know from experiments with particle accelerators that electrons (along with positrons) can be created from very high energy photons.
This direct relationship with photons, and lack of size in the VN, gives us clues for our model. We visualize photons as bundles of charge held in the VN, and through their wavelength, they do exhibit measurable size. How can the charge in a photon be absorbed by an electron, and yet have this size disappear?
We turn to entanglement, and once again, quantum foam, to find an answer.
The most fundamental assumption in our model is that entanglement energy can produce a coherent spacetime from quantum foam. This is the process we visualized as a global event in the Big Bang. Now suppose that initial conditions in the first ‘tick’ following VN creation allowed this to occur locally. A local spacetime emerges from the quantum foam.
We can visualize the initial conditions: both excess charge and entanglement energy are held locally in the VN (and perhaps some background charge in the foam). To restore the local VN energy balance, our model allows that the foam can temporarily hold the charge as magnetism, so the initial condition is better visualized as magnetism expressed in the foam just after the first ‘tick’, and excess entanglement in the VN.
The latter may create a local spacetime, if a sufficient amount of entanglement energy is available. The foam can then provide a very dynamic balancing act to relieve the local energy imbalance in the VN. With the next ‘tick’ of the quantum clock, it creates a local spacetime with entanglement energy, and it relieves the temporary magnetic field by storing it as charge in that spacetime.
Within a local spacetime, all of our model assumptions should apply. If there is an excess of local charge, it can be bundled as a photon. If there isn’t such an excess, then just the local spacetime structure is maintained (a very ephemeral result, which we see as neutrinos, with no charge but a small mass from entanglement energy).
A bundled photon can propagate in this local spacetime. It propagates with a different quantum clock. This is how the charge and entanglement energy are frozen from the quantum clock in the VN (we see this as static mass).
As the particle exhibits no size in the VN, it must express only a local space. Quantum theory has a label for such a structure: an orthogonal Hilbert space.
How is the electric field of such a dynamic structure held in the VN as static charge? This is where we have to visualize what the geometry of a local spacetime might be (and we keep in mind that any such geometry might also be relevant in visualizing the global geometry of the VN).
The simplest geometry that I can visualize is a cavity resonator. The photon could circulate, or reflect, within such a geometry, in a lossless manner (no energy transfer is possible, without a shared quantum clock).
We know from physical theory that such resonators establish electric fields at their boundaries. In our model, the electric field is discrete charge held by locally entangled QESTs. The net result is a local, resonant, charged structure, that appears to the foam as charged, entangled QESTs. The foam will not dissipate this charge. But QESTS in the VN can express it, if the energy is low enough.
If the local structure is exposed to a photon transmitting through the VN, absorption could occur. This is enabled by the photon’s instantaneous magnetic field, held in the foam This field is common to the local structure and the VN, so a transfer can occur (all the photon energy must transfer over a single ‘tick’, to keep the energy isolated in time).
Conversely, if the local structure is accelerated, the foam sees moving charge and responds with a magnetic field. The VN responds by creating and transmitting a photon.
The quantum properties of protons, with partial charge and strong forces between their component quarks, reveals that local spacetimes can have a rich geometric structure.
If the local spacetime forms connected lobes, we can visualize a single photon circulating between them, at light speed in the local time frame. The fraction of time spent in each lobe would be captured on the boundary QESTs as partial charge.
Trying to separate these lobes (or ‘quarks’) would require an increasing amount of energy, as their entanglement structure is being stretched. Physicists call this the strong force. We see from our model that it is gravitational in origin.
The strong force also acts at longer distances, binding protons and neutrons in the nucleus. We can visualize this as QESTs entangled as a two dimensional loop in local spacetime. Again the strong forces results from local gravitational effects.
We can also visualize the process of observation of a particle. In our model, this is not the mysterious collapse of a wave function, but rather re-entanglement of the particle with the observer's local spacetime. A wave function describes all possible states of a particle, evolving from ‘tick’ to ‘tick’ in time. In our model, we visualize this occurring in the local spacetime of the particle, not the VN.
We can visualize the path of a photon, circulating in a local spacetime with a specific orientation. This path will appear on the boundary QESTS as a rotation. The VN captures this as angular momentum, centered at a point with no measurable size, in a charged region.
All these properties appear static to us because they occur outside our VN’s spacetime. Measuring any property in the VN requires re-entanglement, a process which physics models as collapsing of a wave function. We see this as rendering instantaneous, static values in the observer's local spacetime, through re-entanglement.
Dark Energy
As we visualized the Big Bang, the VN was formed by quantum foam absorbing entanglement energy, prior to the first ’tick’ of the VN’s quantum clock. The entanglement energy spread through the foam instantaneously. That instant became our first opportunity to visualize Dark Energy.
If sufficient excess entanglement arises in subsequent ‘ticks’, such an instant will be repeated. And it will act to expand the VN.
As we will soon see from our model of Black Holes, such conditions do arise in our present time. They are a result of ongoing dynamics involving quantum foam in the interior of all Black Holes. The source of Dark Energy is entanglement energy released by QESTs from the VN to the foam.
How does this energy escape the interior of a Black Hole? Our model provides a solution: before the next ‘tick’, the quantum foam disperses, instantaneously, all such released entanglement energy back to the VN. In the same manner as with our Big Bang model, more VN is created. The excess energy involves no charge: it is purely Dark Energy.
Dark Matter
Through indirect evidence, cosmologists theorize that more than 5 times the energy expressed as normal particle matter is present in the universe as Dark Matter. Physicists do not have an agreed model for Dark Matter, but have some generally agreed properties. Three that are key clues for us are: first, it is particulate, so does not transmit at light speed; second, it exerts gravitational effects; and third, it does not interact with light.
Extrapolating from our model of particles, we can visualize Dark Matter almost the same way. But first we have to elaborate on the nature of the graviton.
We saw with our model of EM that charge transmitting in the VN can only do so with help from QESTs in the quantum foam. They become entangled with the VN and absorb charge (as magnetism), but only for an instant. This allows resonance to set up, and propagate EM across ‘ticks’ of the entanglement clock.
A similar process occurs with the graviton, which propagates at light speed. In this case, the momentary entanglement in the foam absorbs only entanglement energy. No charge is involved.
Physicists do not have a separate name for this field, so we will just call it part of the graviton.
Now we can clearly see the modelling approach that leads to the forest path for Dark Matter. A large local concentration of entanglement energy in the VN creates a graviton field. This is strong enough to create, through entanglement, a local spacetime, orthogonal to the VN. This field in turn acts to create a graviton in the local spacetime.
So, our model holds that Dark Matter is a particle consisting of a graviton, propagating in a lossless cavity resonator formed from local spacetime. By analogy with normal matter particles, we can visualize that the geometry for these local spacetimes can vary, creating a family of Dark Matter particles, each with different mass, but all with no charge.
The field expressed by QESTs on the boundaries of the cavity resonator are purely entanglement. A Dark Matter particle isolates entanglement from the VN’s spacetime, but an entanglement field remains. This is felt by the VN, where QESTs react as they must: they contract through local feedback, expressing gravity.
Our model for Dark Matter is simpler than for matter particles, in that the only form of energy involved is entanglement (no charge). This may explain the relative abundance of Dark Matter in the universe, especially, as we will see, around Black Holes.
Black Holes
Using features of our model as we visualize it so far, we can venture a long way down the trail in our forest marked ‘Black Holes’.
The dominant effect in Black Hole creation (and growth, which is also called accretion) is the presence of an excess of (or addition to) local entanglement in the VN. We have evidence of this from gravitational wave detectors. These “see” the local effects of gravitons, which our model holds to be purely entanglement energy, transmitted by the VN. The gravitons arise from large interactions of matter, including mergers of Black Holes.
What can we deduce from our model when large quantities of entanglement are felt locally within the VN? The local QESTs will act to reduce this energy by shortening their expression through entanglement feedback, thus sharing the excess with more and more neighbouring QESTs. These neighbouring QESTs are already entangled, and shortened, if matter accretion is involved.
This structural shortening will have an effect on the transmission of photons, and gravitons, out of a nascent Black Hole. More of the compressed QESTs in the VN will have to be traversed by a photon, to transmit over what would be an equivalent distance in the ‘normal’ Vacuum.
Eventually a limit is reached: if enough QESTs are added to those involved in transmitting photons, entanglement feedback will act to compress space to a point where photons do not escape. We see this effect as the Black Hole’s event horizon.
We can also visualize what happens inside this horizon. Eventually a limit is reached where the QESTs are forced to release their entanglement energy into the quantum foam. This removes QESTs from the Vacuum, but conservation of energy still requires this energy to persist, over each ‘tick’ of the entanglement clock.
Our model provides a solution: before the next ‘tick’, the quantum foam can disperse, instantaneously, all such released entanglement energy back to the VN. In the same manner as with our Big Bang model, more VN is created. The excess energy involves no charge: it is purely Dark Energy.
Cosmologists have observed a perplexing feature about Black Holes that our model might help explain. Everywhere they look, there are too many really large ones (“supermassive”) to attribute to accretion, within the time they have existed.
Our model may offer some insight into this apparent mystery. It allows that entanglement energy can be removed from the VN, in the form of particles of Dark Matter. If these are trapped at the event horizon, entanglement energy can accumulate.
The gravitational effects of these particles are expressed back to the VN, outside the Black Hole. This establishes positive feedback in the external VN: more entanglement energy increases local gravity, which draws more QESTs to the horizon, resulting in more Dark Matter. The Black Hole appears to grow faster, at the horizon surface. This effect may act to limit growth of the VN, interior to the Black Hole.
Quantum foam, through its roles in expressing Dark Energy and forming Dark Matter, again features prominently in our view of the forest.
Checking the Map
Is our map of the quantum forest consistent with physical evidence? Two examples of such evidence are the red shift arising from Vacuum expansion; and, the constant speed of light in non-accelerated reference frames.
As we visualized the photon, our model would predict this latter evidence. Both EM and gravitons are transmitted in the VN, always engaging the same number of QESTs with each ‘tick’ of the entanglement clock. That clock is uniform and consistent throughout the VN. As the observer’s frame is not accelerating, the VN structure is not changing. So, all such observers will measure the same value for the speed of light.
The evidence of Vacuum expansion red shift is also consistent with our model. In the case of EM, with each ‘tick’ of the entanglement clock, a magnetic field acts to isolate the photon's energy in quantum foam.
But Dark Energy drives VN expansion, instantaneously with each such ‘tick’. When the magnetic field restores charge back to the VN, it sees more QESTs. The wavelength of the photon increases, without any change in velocity.
Our model predicts a similar effect with the graviton. In this case, it is entanglement energy that is stored in the quantum foam, then restored to the expanding VN, with each ‘tick’.
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