What makes up the universe is not known. This question has been difficult for physicists to think about. Jeffrey Eischen and I have described an updated way to think about matter. We propose that matter is made of fragments of energy, not particles or waves.
The conversation is via the following images.
Five elements were thought to be the building blocks of reality in the past. IkonStudio/iStock is a stock photo.
From five to one.
The ancient Greeks thought of five building blocks of matter, from the bottom to the top. The rotation of the stars was explained by the matter of aether. These were the first elements that could be used to build a world. For nearly 2,000 years, their conceptions of the physical elements did not change.
The idea that all matter is particles was introduced about 300 years ago. The underlying and often invisible form of magnetism, electricity and light was introduced one hundred fifty years after that by James Clerk Maxwell. The public decided on the particle and wave as the two building blocks of matter, because the particle and wave were the building blocks of mechanics and electromagnetism. The particles and waves became the building blocks of matter.
The particle theory was developed by Sir IssacNewton. The CC BY-ND is Christopher Terrell.
The ancient Greeks had five elements, but this was a huge improvement. Light can act like a particle or wave in a series of double-slit experiments. The theories and math of waves and particles allow scientists to make incredibly accurate predictions about the universe, but the rules break down at the largest and tiniest scales.
Einstein proposed a remedy in his theory. Einstein was able to better explain certain physical phenomena using the mathematical tools available to him at the time. He eliminated particles and waves as he proposed the warping of space and time.
A colleague and I have demonstrated a new theory using newer mathematical tools. The theory of the warping of space and time was not based on the particle and the wave, but on a building block that is more fundamental. Waves and particles are not the same thing, because a particle is a source of matter that exists at a single point. It made sense for there to be an underlying connection between them.
A new building block of matter can model both the largest and smallest objects. The CC BY-ND is Christopher Terrell.
There are fragments of energy.
Our theory starts with the idea that energy always flows through time and space.
Think of energy as lines that fill up a region of space and time, never beginning, never ending and never crossing one another.
The idea of a universe of flowing energy lines inspired us to look for a single building block. If we could find and define a thing, we could use it to make predictions about the universe at the largest and tiniest scales.
We wanted a building block that had the features of both the particle and wave, but also spread out over space and time. The answer was a building block that looked like a concentration of energy, like a star, and had energy that was highest at the center and smaller farther away from the center.
We were surprised that there were only a few ways to describe the amount of energy that flows. We found one that works in line with our definition of flow. It was named a fragment of energy. The distance function and intensity are what it's defined as for math and physics buffs.
We used the fragment of energy as a building block to build the math needed to solve physics problems. It was time to test it out.
Einstein added universality.
General relativity was the first theory to predict the slight rotation of Mercury. Wikimedia Commons has a picture of Rainer Zenz.
Einstein used two legendary problems in physics to prove general relativity: the ever-so-slight yearly shift in Mercury's orbit and the tiny bending of light as it passes the Sun.
There were two extremes of the size spectrum. General relativity was able to solve the problem because neither wave nor particle theories could. The theory of general relativity warped space and time to cause the trajectory of Mercury to shift and light to bend in exactly the amounts seen in astronomy.
If our new theory was to be able to replace the particle and wave with the more fundamental fragment, we would have to be able to solve these problems with our theory.
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The Sun and Mercury were modeled as a stationary fragment of energy and a slow moving fragment of energy, respectively, for the precession-of-Mercury problem. The Sun was modeled the same way as the photon, but it was a tiny fragment of energy. We got the same answers as those predicted by the theory of general relativity when we calculated the trajectory of the moving fragments. We were shocked.
A new building block is capable of accurately modeling bodies from the enormous to the minuscule. The fragment of energy building block was strong when particles and waves broke down. The fragment could be a single universal building block from which to model reality and update the way people think about the building blocks of the universe.
The Conversation is a news site that shares ideas from academic experts. Larry M. Silverberg is a professor at North Carolina State University.
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Larry M. Silverberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article.
