
One-electron universe - ColinWright
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe
======
amvp
Reminds me of this short story: The Egg by: Andy Weir
<http://galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html>

Instead of electrons, everyone in the universe is the same person.

~~~
chadgeidel
For all of you complaining about "spoilers" - an interesting bit of research
was published last month that indicates "spoilers" actually increase enjoyment
of the story. [http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/08/spoilers-dont-
sp...](http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/08/spoilers-dont-spoil-
anything.ars)

~~~
nitrogen
I don't think that's universally true; there are some movies that I think
would be absolutely destroyed by knowing the ending.

~~~
nkassis
Fight club is a good example of this.

------
egypturnash
I wish I could find a scan of Dr. Watchstop ( [http://www.amazon.com/Dr-
Watchstop-Adventures-Time-Space/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Dr-Watchstop-
Adventures-Time-Space/dp/0913035858) ),specifically the "Single Electron
Proof" story based on this idea. In it, Dr. Watchstop builds a machine capable
of disproving this theory by utterly destroying an electron without creating a
positron. He fires it up in the second-to-last panel of the strip; the last
panel, of course, is blank. Short and silly, but fairly smart and _gorgeously_
drawn.

------
scotty79
Does anyone know if we still believe that there are more electrons than
positrons in the universe (also more matter than antimatter)?

Do we have a way of checking if distant galaxy is made of matter or
antimatter?

~~~
Udo
We can invalidate the idea of antimatter galaxies indirectly. While a
hypothetical antimatter galaxy puts out the same light as a matter one and
probably looks exactly like normal matter from the outside, there is a
telltale signature: it would put out additional gamma rays. Space is not
empty, even intergalactic space is filled with atomic particles (albeit in a
weak concentration). This means that an antimatter region somewhere out there
would react at the boundary with an adjacent matter region and this reaction
would put out radiation that we can measure. In some instances, there would
even be very violent gamma flashes from colliding galaxies.

While such a boundary may still exist outside of our observable range, the
size of that area makes it pretty unlikely because everything we can see so
far is pretty much uniform. We can see about 13.8 billion light years in
either direction (note that this is a view not only through space but also
back through time to the beginning of the universe), and we haven't come
across such a phenomenon within that area.

In short: it's possible but this stuff would have to be extremely far out and
if it's happening at all it may well be beyond our cosmic horizon.

~~~
iwwr
There's also the possibility of a much larger universe filled with "cells" of
matter and antimatter. While there would be annihilation at the boundaries, it
would be very tenuous, as the radiation would push both regions apart (in the
same way a drop of water survives on a hot pan by floating on a cushion of
vapor).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cosmology#Alfv.C3.A9n_an...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cosmology#Alfv.C3.A9n_and_Klein_cosmologies)

Not endorsing this theory, just illustrating some possibilities.

~~~
Udo
Putting aside this theory (which I believe is bogus): It's absolutely possible
that huge cells exist, but the radiation pressure would have to be very high
to actually push those regions apart and we'd probably still still see lot of
stuff colliding. Even if the boundaries are huge and uniform, the effects
should be visible. Apart from the radiation we would also observe boundary
galaxies that are stripped of their gas and dust clouds. As you suggested, it
might very well happen somewhere out there beyond our horizon, as we really
have no idea how big the universe actually is.

~~~
vorg
There wouldn't be any real interaction between such cells, would there? From
the perspective of ourselves, in our observable Universe, perhaps the detail
of such other cells can't ever be measured in the same way scales smaller than
the Planck distance and time can't be measured. That is, quantum effects occur
at the largest scale as well as the smallest.

~~~
Udo
> There wouldn't be any real interaction between such cells, would there?

That's a difficult question to answer without a simulation. All we know is how
the visible portion of the universe is structured. The matter seeding works a
bit like a procedural terrain generator (where quantum fluctuations introduce
a chaotic and self-similar structure) and then gravity and expansion do their
thing, so we end up with a universe that is filled with a uniform web of
filaments made up of galaxies. Both simulation and observation agree with this
model. The primary interaction mechanism at this scale is gravity.

Now if there are pockets of antimatter in there, they'd either be separated
from normal matter early on in the process (leading to huge gaps between the
cells) or they would visibly communicate with their nearest neighbors when
they annihilate stray matter. I don't know which would be more likely. But
either scenario is observable if it happens within our field of view, and so
far that doesn't seem to be the case. There might be something like this
hidden in the ultra-deep field close to the edge of time, but it currently
doesn't look like it.

~~~
cygx
> if there are pockets of antimatter in there, they'd [...] be separated from
> normal matter early on in the process (leading to huge gaps between the
> cells)

Thanks to inflation, I suspect that something like this might indeed be
possible. Any cosmologist around who knows enough about ΛCDM to give an
educated guess?

------
snarfy
It kind of reminds me of Mach's principle

"There is a fundamental issue in Relativity theory. If all motion is relative,
how can we measure the inertia of a body? We must measure the inertia with
respect to something else. But what if we imagine a particle completely on its
own in the universe? We might hope to still have some notion of its state of
rotation. Mach's principle is sometimes interpreted as the statement that such
a particle's state of motion has no meaning in that case."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machs_principle>

------
glimcat
Feynman's also the one quoted as playing with the idea of what it would be
like if 3 + 1 spacetime was instead 2 + 2 (i.e. 2-D space, 2-D time).

~~~
Qz
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_time>

I always love to throw this one at my friends once we get started talking
about numbers/dimensions/philosophy.

------
orenmazor
I dont even know if there's a line between troll and inspirational out-of-the-
box thinking, but if there is, Feynmann dances all over the place and probably
laughs about it from beyond the grave.

I love that dude.

------
sp332
Unfortunately, the idea that a positron is an electron going "backwards" only
works for electromagnetic interactions. Gravity and the strong & weak
electromagnetic forces seem to be the same going "forward" in time for both
electrons and positrons. If the positrons were going backward in time, they
should react "backwards" to everything.

~~~
thegrossman
Gravity is attractive even if you run physics backwards in time. To see that
this is the case, consider the following scenario:

You've got a ball at rest 500 meters up, and you drop it. It falls downwards
at 9.8 m/s^2. After 10 seconds, it's traveling 98 m/s towards the ground and
has falled 490 meters (10 meters above the ground).

 _Now freeze time and reverse it!_

What do you see if you reverse the "movie"? Well, the ball changes direction.
It's still 10 meters above the ground, but is now heading upwards at 98 m/s.
It continues up, but slows down at -9.8 m/s until it finally comes to a stop
500 meters up.

In other words, running the movie backwards looks like just like the normal
laws of physics -- attractive gravity and all. Weird, huh?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Say what? Your _gedanken_ simply proves that you've assumed that gravity is
attractive when time reverses.

If you place a ball on an inclined plane then it rolls downwards to a position
of lower potential energy, (under a Newtonian consideration) the gravitational
force acting to accelerate the ball.

If you reverse time, unless you know how gravity acts in reverse then how do
you know that the ball will roll up the hill rather than stay in place or roll
down.

You're saying gravity remains attractive, ergo that if you reverse time the
ball still rolls down, the universe still expands, etc..

~~~
kmm
A ball will not roll uphill, even when time is reversed. Gravity really is
time-reversal invariant. But when you reverse time, you do have to invert all
velocities. So the inverse of your experiment of a ball rolling down an
incline is a ball starting at the bottom of the incline with a certain
velocity pointing upwards, that'll roll upwards until it comes to a stop, just
as it would do in normal time.

~~~
evo
I'm curious--if the ball rolling down an incline were instead a photon falling
through an event horizon, would the time-reversal involve breaking various
physical laws? (Does it fall into the "physics doesn't apply inside of a black
hole" disclaimer?)

~~~
kmm
No, the physics are still valid in the event horizon. It's just the
singularity at the exact centre of the black hole that is problematic.

Interestingly, if we ignore only the point at centre, it can be shown that an
object that falls in a black hole, goes right through it and is ejected at the
other side. All in finite proper time. This situation is non-physical because
it takes an infinite amount of time for the photon to reach the event horizon.
Even if we could reverse the photon inside the black hole, it would still take
an infinite amount of time to crawl back out. So even in theory, black holes
are still inescapable.

------
rudepeklo
I had a similar idea once, only with people - the theory was that each person
is the reincarnation of the same one. So anything you do to someone else, you
basically do to your future or past self.

Edit: just noticed the link from amvp, guess that's the same. I have to read
that story, thanks.

~~~
lobo_tuerto
That seems to be the buddhists premise.

~~~
danieldk
None of the buddhist traditions that I know of states that every (human) being
is the incarnation of the same 'person'. Also, this would contradict with the
scriptures, which describe many enlightened beings (who ended their cycle of
rebirth).

On a more abstract level, reality could be seen this manner in Buddhism.
Buddhism teaches the doctrine of dependent arising, which states that all
phenomena are interdependent. As such there is no distinct/independent self or
other.

------
brain5ide
Surely, you're joking, Mr. Wheeler :) However, it would be interesting to see
the process of annihilation explained in terms of this one.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I imagine it as the moment when the line turns back in time :).

~~~
brain5ide
I think of it as the same particle(electron) arriving at the same point of
space at the same time but going in a different direction (in time). Pretty
mangled up. And where does all the energy come from then?

~~~
billswift
It is just a change of interpretation; rather than saying the annihilation
causes the release of energy, you could say the change of motion (forward time
to reverse time) causes the release of energy. The effects are the same either
way, remember Eliezer's dictum, "It all adds up to normality."

------
MarkPNeyer
an electron is not a thing, it is something that happens under the right
conditions. just like everything else.

~~~
_delirium
Now that's getting to be a more metaphysical than physical question. =]
Primacy of events over objects _is_ a possible metaphysical position, but I'm
not sure it's the right one...

~~~
MarkPNeyer
an object is seen as being distinct and different from other objects, with its
own unique history.

the best physical understanding of the universe that we have at the present
moment says that all properties of all objects are entirely dependent on ...
all properties of all objects. so the idea that an object is distinct doesn't
make sense. consider: how large is an atom? quantum mechanics tells us that
the wave functions of the atom's constituent particles extend throughout the
entire universe, which means that every atom is the size of the entire
universe.

additionally, our understanding of the nervous system tells us that the only
information we get about the world comes from the firing of all of our nerve
cells - discrete events that happen or do not happen. because our
understanding of reality is nothing more than than a lossy compression of all
sensations humans have ever experienced, if you see reality as being the sum
total of all human experience, it's fair to say that it's a stream of events,
in which our minds are going for a swim.

~~~
powertower
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum>

We create the whole of our reality (the sum of our existance).

------
Florin_Andrei
So, if you cut the thread off in two places because one electron and one
positron annihilate each other, wouldn't that unravel the whole thing?

(kind of tongue-in-cheek)

------
siphr
I have a similar theory, of which the idea is, INF ... multiverse ... universe
... earth ... atom .. electron ... multiverse ... repeat ... INF

------
EREFUNDO
Maybe electrons do not really exist. Maybe none of you exist at all and this
is all a dream.

------
rsanchez1
That would've been my reaction as well: Of course positrons are hidden in the
protons (or something).

------
rytis
... and that electron is God? Now all suddenly fits into places :)

~~~
tintin
Ofcourse religion is misused for taking power and therefore a lot of people
don't like to think about it. But I find it always a little strange that a God
theory is more 'strange' than a single electron theory.

In the end it seems we still know nothing:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron> but we know how to take advantage of
them (welding, cathode ray tubes, electron microscopes, radiation therapy,
lasers and particle accelerators).

~~~
krig
God omnipresence fits in the 'single electron' theory only if God is an
electron, an electron being a subatomic particle with a negative charge.

I suppose that is fine if that's what you mean by God, but none of the usual
connotations or implications of God-hood would apply. The God-electron would
have omnipresence, but no omnipotence or indeed any other of the qualities
usually ascribed to gods (other than the obvious, the negative energy those
ideas tend to bring with them).

~~~
tintin
Well I did not agree with the 'God being a single electron'. I just observed
that a theory like the single electron is nominated for being 'interesting'
while other theories are being nominated as 'not possible'.

Edit: The egg theory is even on top of this thread...

~~~
krig
I didn't mean to dismiss your question, it's a reasonable one to ask.

The reason for considering this theory interesting is because it is at least
nominally a scientific theory, whereas a God theory is not a scientific theory
and thus not interesting to science.

Why is a God theory not a scientific theory? Let me attempt to explain..

A scientific theory starts with experimental observation (in this case, the
observation that all electrons have the same mass and charge) and attempts to
explain that observation. This explanation should be 1) testable, and 2)
predictive. That is, it should be possible to disprove the theory through
further experiments, and the theory should lead to further conclusions about
how the world works that would then be provable through experimentation as
well.

Now, it is doubtful that the one-electron theory is actually testable, which
moves it from the realm of serious theories to merely interesting
hypotheticals. This is similar to the idea of everything in the world being
part of a computer simulation, for example.

Now, God theories in general have multiple issues that make them unscientific.
For example, if you claim that God is an entity that is 'beyond time', you
need to define in scientific terms what it means to be beyond time. Another
issue is that you would need to come up with some experiment that would prove
that God does not exist. Even if you were to formulate a definition of God
that would satisfy these requirements, it is doubtful that many believers
would agree with that definition. Thus, 'God theory' in general doesn't
describe a scientific theory at all, and so it is fundamentally not related to
science.

edit: I should also say that such a God theory is usually not interesting for
another reason: Since it doesn't describe the god of any major religion, no
one is really very interested in seeing it disproven. It's easy to invent a
cosmic entity and come up with an experiment that proves that it doesn't
exist, but what's the point?

~~~
ChuckMcM
I point out, for illustration, the theory of dark matter/energy and string
theory. Both of which have started out as hypothesis with few if any testable
ways to observe them. At a Google tech talk Murray Gell-Mann, whose lab was
where the idea of string theory arose, indicated that he was not very
impressed with the idea and suggested it was completely untestable.

The challenge I see in God theory is that it is that people go off and start
from some concept they learned in primary school and poke holes in that image.
Rather than actually taking a scientific approach and asking what the nature
of God might be, given the data they _do_ have access to.

Note that this is completely distinct from theology, or the study of
religions, rather it is an attempt at understanding God (which is often
referred to as enlightenment).

As Dawkins and others have pointed out however, the God 'meme' has been used
forever in human cultures to assert power over one group by another. Thus
there is a lot of mental baggage around taking God seriously (think
confirmational bias on steroids).

Example, I once talked to an engineer who would not even posit the existence
of 'a' God because for them it meant there was a hell and they were afraid to
think about what it would mean to spend eternity in such a place.

From that example you can see the confluence of what they were taught by a
religion as a control mechanism (obey us or go to hell) versus his ability to
ask critical questions. I suggested that a 'God' might exist and their might
not be a hell. He found that pretty heretical but it gave him a way to ask the
question without wincing.

My wonderings are around the source of sentience and the implementation of
free will. Generally the debates of philosophers rather than scientists but
one in which the presence of a 'God' (in the scientific sense) could be
hypothsized as the difference between sentient and non-sentient. I thought it
would be fun to write a short story where confirmational bias was the result
of God knowing what you wanted the outcome of your experiment to be and making
it so, leading too a lot of angels in therapy because they had made it work
like you wanted and then you were all irritated that it wasn't reproducible or
something.

Your approach could be used:

 _Now, God theories in general have multiple issues that make them
unscientific. For example, if you claim that God is an entity that is 'beyond
time', you need to define in scientific terms what it means to be beyond
time._

Ok, so we'll put this 'God' entity thing in a dimension that is orthogonal to
time like one of the 11 in string theory.

 _Another issue is that you would need to come up with some experiment that
would prove that God does not exist._

You do have to work on some experiments, and being falsifiable is a slam dunk,
but given that we're talking about something that has a will (or is will) its
hard. I've often suggested that I can read the phone book for Perth Austrailia
and see an indication that a Tom Smith exists, but if I can't get to
Austrailia or contact it in anyway I'm hard pressed to prove he exists, even
though he has a home address and everything. This is the current challenge
with Dark Enery/Matter as well which is coming up with ways to actually see
it. And we can't so we look for ways it would influence the stuff we can see.
You can make the same argument for God, look for ways that if God exists
things might be different. (caveat confirmational bias etc etc).

 _Even if you were to formulate a definition of God that would satisfy these
requirements, it is doubtful that many believers would agree with that
definition._

There is no rule that says for a theory to be legitimate it has to be believed
by everyone :-) Many solid theories started out being believed by no one but
the theorist themselves.

 _Thus, 'God theory' in general doesn't describe a scientific theory at all,
and so it is fundamentally not related to science._

I don't think you succeed in your claim that God theories are 'unscientific'.
I would agree with the claim if you said that _some_ theories put forth about
the nature of God are unscientific but that does not preclude the existence of
a scientific theory about the nature of God.

To have a theory about God, you have to first accept, for the sake of
argument, that God might exist. Then you can start looking ways to put
boundaries around what God might or might not be, sort of like how collision
analysis of partcles is telling us where the Higgs boson isn't. I caution you
though, if you start looking for God you run the very real risk of being
found.

~~~
krig
I certainly agree with the skepticism in regards to some aspects of string
theory, and my impression is that skepticism is widely held. However, I don't
think your interpretation of the extra dimensions of string theory is correct
when you suggest that it would be possible to insert a God into them. The
extra dimensions of string theory are tiny and curled up, not additional time-
dimensions.

The other major flaw that I see in your argument is that you don't define God.
If you posit that God exists, you need to define what that means, and what
that God is. I put it to you that any such definition you could come up with
would render the concept of God mundane and not divine, and thus would be
irrelevant to any believer. You are of course welcome to disprove me on that
point.

My point is not that people need to believe in the conclusions of the theory
or even the theory itself, but that people would disagree with your definition
of God to such an extent to render any such theory meaningless.

edit: I should also say that it is absolutely true that any theory that cannot
be disproven experimentally is not a valid scientific theory but merely a
hypothesis. All of the examples you give are hypotheses that, at some point,
either an experiment was conceived to test them, or that still remain
hypotheses. This doesn't mean that untestable hypotheses are worthless, but
they do not qualify as scientific theories (yet).

~~~
ChuckMcM
I see your point on the string theory, I was claiming that as long as you have
an untestable hypothesis you can construct and arbitrary route to get there.
So pre-supposing an additional dimension which is orthognal to space time,
would create a space which existed in all time.

"The other major flaw that I see in your argument is that you don't define
God."

That is intentional actually, it reflects the challenge that any two people
have when they try to define God, as a species there is lots of variability
there. But it does not preclude one from creating a definiton, and then
creating an untestable hypothesis around that definition (which is the basis
of my rebuttal)

One could define 'God' to be a system, mechanism, or phenomena that exists in
a dimension orthogonal to space time which is aware of and can interact with
beings and matter which exist in the space time that we inhabit. But your
later comment is more on the mark.

 _"I put it to you that any such definition you could come up with would
render the concept of God mundane and not divine, and thus would be irrelevant
to any believer."_

This speaks to the question of 'who cares'? Which is to say that you have to
be very careful not to conflate what a religion defines as God (or a god in
the case of multi-theism) vs a physics theory which is about the nature of
something which could explain observed phenomena associated with 'God'.

In attempt to disentangle the two, consider that we don't have a physics
theory of 'consciousness' either, although we have good information about
brain chemistry and construction. We can show that 'something' is missing
because its possible to create a nearly exact simulation of a brain's physical
and chemical signalling makeup and such constructions do not demonstrate
consciousness. Such experiments tend to disfavor hypothese which hold that
consciousness is an emergent property of the brain's construction or
composition.

And to be clear here it is not my intention to create an 'escape through
rhetorical trickery' (as I was once accused by a dogmatic believer) rather I
think about these things as a means of trying to understand or to quantify my
own feelings and experiences.

You remark _"My point is not that people need to believe in the conclusions of
the theory or even the theory itself, but that people would disagree with your
definition of God to such an extent to render any such theory meaningless."_
seems to imply that for a theory of God to be correct that other people would
have to believe the theory and agree with the definition.

I don't think this prequisite holds.I think the only thing you need to have a
solid theory is to be able to make predictions and a way to run experiments to
test those predictions. So the cosmological theory of God would show how the
phenomena labelled as 'God' can do what it does. And then there would a
philosophical discussion about whether or not the 'entity' known as God is an
emergent property of the mechanism or something else entirely.

I am strongly reminded of Marvin Minsky's lament about 'Artificial
Intelligence' where the study of AI has been unfairly criticized for 'not
making any progress.' In his report on the progress of AI [1] he says
"Artificial Intelligence, as a field of inquiry has been passing through a
crisis of identity. As we see it, the problem stems from the tendency for the
pursuit of technical methods to become detached from their original goals so
that they follow a developmental pattern of their own." He observes that once
we know how to do something we just go off and do it and as an engineering
exercise it no longer meets the more meta definition of 'Artificial
Intelligence.'

So we have computers that play chess (which was once considered a strong
indicator of artificial intelligence) and we dismiss it as directed graph
analysis. Etc.

My point is that one can create a hypothesis about _how_ God exists (one that
satisfies popular properties of God like 'everywhere and everywhen at once')
only to find that once its clear then its no longer 'divine or miraculous.' I
was always amused by the ancient aliens hyphothesis (effectively a God theory
in my mind) since if it was aliens doing things we already know how to do
which were considered miracles by people who didn't know how to do them were
we all duped?

Once you understand the physics of how God could exist then the question
becomes one of motiviation and philosophy. This is why I carefully separate
'religion' which is a series of commandments which generally apply to
'believers' with built in penalties that apply to 'heathens' with the question
of whether or not God might exist.

[1] <http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/PR1971.html>

