In an interesting panel discussion called the 2011 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate: The Theory of Everything, many interesting theoretical and philosophical observations were made by the panelists on theoretical physics, mostly on string theory.
The thing that struck me the most, however, as the discussion went along, was how the concept of energy was central to all aspects of the discussion. Finally, with about seven minutes to go, a lady in the audience asked the obvious question, which Brian Green answered (see 1:32:0 in the video).
“What causes the vibrations of the strings?” she asked. Brian’s answer was as simple as it gets: “I don’t know,” he confessed. This is a question of where in the universe is the energy to move the strings coming from? The question is profound, not because we need to know, we don’t, but because it reveals the fundamental paradigm of the legacy system of physical theory (LST), which is important to understand, if we want to understand the nature of the trouble with physics: Energy is required to move.
The motion of massive entities requires energy and the motion of massless entities requires energy, and the ultimate source of that energy must be assumed to exist, in the LST paradigm. In an earlier observation by another panelist, it was noted that the understanding of theoretical physicists working on the unification of the forces of the LST community’s standard model with gravity is that these four forces are really one force at some very high energy.
My reaction to the view points of the panelists, which are really different views on the correct path to seeking the answer to the question, “Why is there something, rather than nothing,” as Brian Green put it, was almost visceral, because I’m convinced that the energy paradigm, as I’ll call it, is so misleading.
If we assume that motion itself is an entity in it’s own right, without regard to changing the locations of massive or massless objects, then we are actually, in a sense, inverting the LST energy paradigm, from energy, which is the inverse of motion, to motion: A new paradigm based on v = Δs/Δt, rather than the old paradigm based on E = Δt/Δs, changes everything profoundly.
The amazing fact that this change immediately places our thoughts in the realm of fundamental magnitudes, dimensions and “directions” of geometry and algebra, as found in the ancient tetraktys, and enables us to convert units of motion (s3/t3) into units of mass (t3/s3) that occupy relative locations in space and time, and units of mass into units of momentum (t2/s2), which is mass changing relative locations of space and time, and units of mass into units of energy (t/s), which converts mass back into motion, presents us with a wonderland of units of motion, combinations of units of motion and relations between units of motion that literally teases us out of thought, with its transcendent beauty and intriguing mysteries.
The fact that all of this comes out of unit motion at high speed, instead of out of unit force at high energy, is very encouraging.
The trouble with physics is the failure to recognize that the energy of the universe comes from the motion of the universe. It would be a great step forward to remedy this error, even though it won’t answer the real question, “Where does the motion of the universe come from?”