Universal questions? Maybe...

When I was talking to an immediate much younger family member who had been pontificating about physics I mentioned it would be interesting to figure out what the very basic building block of the universe actually was. It became obvious that in the secondary schools things do not go much further than atoms and if you’re lucky might burble on a bit about neutrons, protons and electrons. But only if the teacher had experienced a good night’s sleep and had not argued with the partner! Today we know that even the aforementioned items can exist of quarks. However, following the train of thought, are these existing of more smaller parts? And if so, what are the forces they are subjected to? Since, atoms etc exist there has to be some force to compel the forming of greater, more weightier, particles. Moreover, are these particles in some sort of eternal dance, combining, separating, re-combining for ever and ever? Then again what about energy? What is the E from E=MC². In this equation, the increased relativistic mass (m) of a body times the speed of light squared (c²) is equal to the kinetic energy (E) of that body. Meaning that mass can be exchanged for energy. Humanity has done some limited mass conversion – nuclear energy production, bombs and power reactors producing electricity. Apparently not all mass is converted. But you would need to be a physicist to even begin to get to grips with the concept. I am no physicist, but it still allows me to ask the question and ponder. I don’t think the Universe is as complicated as we think. We just have not found some of the answers, nor have we asked all of the questions. You will hear a lot about a Big Bang. Most people visualize a nice gigantic explosion, bits flying all over the place and here we are. It is a fait d’accompli. After all, we have to have a beginning, don’t we? But what if Prof Hoyle is correct when he thought the Universe was static? That I don’t think he meant to be standing still, never moving but a void full of movement, energy conversions, collisions on a gigantic scale. Renewing constantly over the aeons, literally over infinity. It also creates wonderful vistas of other interesting questions. Such as if the Universe is eternal, are we also? Meaning our constituent parts will disassociate, That is to say we die as we are now but in the aeons they could well come back together again (and again and again and again!). As I surmised in another post, have you ever thought you did something and felt you had done that once before, although not in this life-time. Interesting, meta-physical chats. It also means there has never been a Big Bang. Energy and matter are eternal, are in a dance, continually combining and separating. Well, as I said I am no physicist, the answers will elude me unless that family member at school will eventually figure it out. To this end you know, it is good to talk. It is good to think of what others might feel are stupid things. The problem is that too many scientists are locked in some sort of research and are loathe to think beyond the boundaries of that. Well, it is difficult because there is a paycheck involved and could anyone say bye-bye to that? Nevertheless we need people who ARE prepared to think outside the box. Unfortunately, you won’t find them so easy today within our present educational system. That is more concerned with whether you are a woman, a man or a thing. AWWW.