Why it is Impossible for the Universe to be Finite

PSI Blog 20220913 Why it is Impossible for the Universe to be Finite

 

While they are shocking for most cosmologists, the Webb photos of elderly galaxies existing over 13 billion light years distant are not the only indications the universe is not finite.

 

Here I list five reasons the universe cannot be finite.

 

First we need to get some definitions straight. Today’s cosmogonists imagine a finite, expanding 4-D universe of limited extent, while we assume the universe is 3-D with unlimited extent. In a previous essay on “Time is Motion,” I dispensed with Einstein’s objectification. If you still think time is the fourth dimension, you may wish to stop reading now.

 

This list cannot be completely comprehensive because the listing itself would be infinite. Nonetheless, the explanatory success of Infinite Universe Theory is demonstrated in this short list as it is in all my work in scientific philosophy. Be reminded it is impossible to know for sure whether the universe is finite or infinite. We can only assume one or the other. Here is the form of infinity that underlies The Ten Assumptions of Science, neomechanics, and Infinite Universe Theory:

 

The Eighth Assumption of Science, infinity (The universe is infinite, both in the microcosmic and macrocosmic directions).

 

Now, on to some of the reasons the universe cannot be finite—

 

1.    The formation of anything in the universe requires ingredients from the environment.

 

Everything in the infinite universe consists of ingredients derived from the environment (Photo by Thomas Le on Unsplash).

As I pointed out in "The Scientific Worldview," what happens to a portion of the universe depends equally on what is inside it and what is outside it. Thus, you cannot build a wooden house without the lumber to build it with. The relationship between the wooden house and the forest is undeniable. So it is with everything else. There is nothing in the universe that does not consist of ingredients. Similarly, when we imagine a finite universe, we are forced to either imagine it is surrounded by nothing or that it is a self-contained 4D ball. In either case this imagined universe has no environment to supply its ingredients. This is a major conundrum for cosmogonists, who have called upon the supernatural directly, or its modern-day, magical substitute, “Dark Energy,” to create their finite universe out of nothing.

 

2.    The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed.

 

Actually, “energy,” whether dark or otherwise, does not exist. “Energy,” like momentum and force, is a mere calculation describing the motion of matter. We use the calculation and the word to describe what happens when the motion of air molecules impacts turbine blades to produce the motion of turbines to produce the motion of electrons that supply our electricity. The First Law of Thermodynamics is more properly written like we do in our claim it is the Fifth Assumption of Science, conservation (Matter and the motion of matter can be neither created nor destroyed). If cosmologists actually assumed the First Law of Thermodynamics was correct, they would have to give up notions of the Fifth Assumption of Religion, creation (Matter and motion can be created out of nothing). If they properly assumed conservation, they also would have to give up notions of energy as matterless motion. They would realize energy was just a calculation. They wouldn’t be stupefied like the celebrated regressive physicist Richard Feynman who once admitted:

"It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge what energy is. We do not have a picture that energy comes in little blobs of a definite amount. It is not that way."

Cosmogonists have not changed their minds since.

 

3.    The Second Law of Thermodynamics has a complement.

 

You may have heard about the “Heat Death of the Universe,” which is still being bandied about by certain cosmogonists. This is based on a misuse of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLT) by those who assume the universe is finite. The SLT correctly states that all isolated systems eventually undergo increases in entropy or disorder. In simpler terms, that means the ingredients (contents) within something eventually will diverge from that something. An isolated house eventually will fall down, with its various parts being scattered about. The same happens the minute we are born: we lose hair, teeth, stature, and what not as we age, with our constituents diverging into the environment.

 

But the SLT describes only half of what actually occurs in the Infinite Universe. Just look around you. For every system falling apart there seems to be another coming together. For every dying plant or animal another arises to take its place. In Infinite Universe Theory we generalize this observation as a complement to the SLT. It is the Sixth Assumption of Science, complementarity (All things are subject to divergence and convergence from other things). In the Infinite Universe every departure from an “isolated system” becomes an arrival for another.

 

4.    Newton’s gift to Einstein

 

The SLT and complementarity  fit precisely with Einstein’s famous reiteration that all things in the universe are in motion with respect to other things. Deep down, the SLT is really just a reiteration of what I call the “Law of the Universe,” Newton’s First Law of Motion. The formation of any “isolated system” amounts to a mere hesitation for bodies described by that law. It states that a body in motion stays in motion unless it collides with something. Unfortunately, Newton’s use of the word “unless” is a tipoff that he assumed finity. That was further indicated by his idealistic suggestion motion could occur perpetually through what he termed “absolute space.” I have made this a bit clearer by calling what I think he meant as “perfectly empty space.”

 

Now, although Newton’s First Law has otherwise been tremendously useful, there is no evidence for either perpetual motion or perfectly empty space anywhere in the universe. In light of my assumption of infinity, I modified the First Law, changing the speculative “unless” to the “until” suggested by the data. Of particular note is the fact Einstein followed closely in Newton’s footsteps, as did most physicists, assuming finity, as implied by the “unless.”

 

Newton actually led the way to the Big Bang Theory, claiming light was a particle. Einstein did too despite all the evidence for the wave nature of light and Sagnac’s experimental proof of the existence of the aether.[1] In his acclaimed “revolutionary” Special Relativity Theory denying the existence of aether Einstein imagined light to be a massless particle containing perfectly empty space traveling perpetually through perfectly empty space. Without this set of ad hoc assumptions, which I call his “Untired Light Theory,” the Big Bang Theory would have been dead in the water. Without it, the cosmological redshift would not have been interpreted as evidence for an expanding, finite universe.

 

5.    The absence of perfectly empty space proves nonexistence is impossible.

 

The Infinite Universe can do much, but it cannot produce perfectly empty space. That is because perfectly empty space is purely imaginary, as I explained fully in "Religious Roots of Relativity." In short, it is one end of the “perfectly empty space-perfectly solid matter continuum.” Both ends of that continuum are idealizations we use to describe the reality between. Again, those end-point idealizations cannot possibly exist. Thus, logically, if perfectly empty space (nothingness) cannot exist in the observed universe, we must assume it cannot exist in any portion of the universe we cannot observe. The upshot is that there is no point at which reality in the form of matter in motion ceases to exist, only to be replaced by imaginary perfectly empty space. The universe exists everywhere for all time. A finite universe is impossible. The data are compatible only with an Infinite Universe.

To read this on Medium click on:

https://medium.com/@glennborchardt/5ed03385f86a?source=friends_link&sk=eaa1b56009e40bfbf6881a9b71024b1d

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[1] Sagnac, Georges, 1913a, The demonstration of the luminiferous aether by an interferometer in uniform rotation: Comptes Rendus, v. 157, p. 708–710. Sagnac, Georges, 1913b, On the proof of the reality of the luminiferous aether by the experiment with a rotating interferometer: Comptes Rendus, v. 157, p. 1410–1413.