Unity, from ether to space
FEBRUARY 3, 2019 (updated on July 9, 2023)
“We are the children of the ether, as the fish are the children of the water.” [1]
Table of contents
The concept of a holographic universe is present in the narratives of many ancient traditions. These report the existence of an unmanifested substance preceding the manifested creation. It can take different names according to traditions. But it always has the same characteristics: it fills space, creates or even perpetually recreates matter, permeates everything, unifies everything.
Classical physics once considered the existence of a substance that would fulfil such a unifying function: ether. The purpose of this article is to examine how theories of physics have evolved the concept of ether over time. And the implication this has had on our representation of the world.
My experience tells me that everything is connected (see My story). The links that made my experience what it was, and how those links were created, are explained in the article Is the universe deterministic?. I am indeed explaining how information circulated in what some would call the ether, or in what Nassim Haramein calls space. My purpose here is to see how this physicist has somehow rehabilitated the concept of ether, which underlies his unified field theory.
Ether in ancient traditions
The founding texts of Hinduism, the Upanishads, speak of a primordial substance called Prakriti. From this substance all physical existence originates and returns. According to these texts, there is also a second level of manifestation, the ether. It is described as an invisible substance present in everything. As it densifies through material manifestations, ether becomes visible. It produces movement, which is then identified with prana.
For the Amerindians, ether is the grandmother spider. Since the world’s origins, she has woven the web of the universe, ensuring its unity. This metaphor is also known in Buddhist philosophy as Indra’s net. This is a multi-dimensional net, each knot of which is adorned with a jewel that is reflected in the others. Thus, each jewel contains the reflection of all the others, ad infinitum… as in a holographic universe. For Buddhists, Indra’s net illustrates the concept of vacuity, the dependent appearance of phenomena [2]. For them, everything has an influence on everything, even if we don’t realize it because the threads of the universal web are invisible.
The ether, from classical to quantum physics
Classical physics has taken up the concept of the ether, but has diverted it. On the one hand, physicists wanted to have a representation of forces that are exerted at a distance, such as gravitation. And on the other hand, the medium supposed to propagate light. In so doing they have distanced themselves from the original context of the ether by giving it a very questionable status since they have made it material. While not including it in the equations…
In fact, from Newton to Einstein to relativistic quantum physics in 1930, physicists have had contradictory attitudes towards ether. They said successively that it had to exist, then that it did not exist, then that it could exist but that the equations would exist without it, so it was not necessary to take it into account. Except that in the last two cases, by keeping the original reference to the ether, the idea that things are separated from each other was induced. And this idea has fundamental implications for the way we view our relationship to ourselves, to others and to the universe.
Quantum field theory
In 1930, relativistic quantum physics developed. The quantum field theory resulting from these advances aims to introduce the concepts of Restricted Relativity proposed by Einstein into quantum mechanics.
The quantum world becomes a sea of dynamic energy. It is swarming with ephemeral particles in perpetual creation and dissolution. From then on, the vacuum is no longer empty – as previously thought – but filled with electromagnetic energy fields. These retain residual energy when the temperature drops to absolute zero [3]. An energy called zero-point energy or vacuum energy. It represents the energy that remains when all other forms of energy have been removed.
It is, in short, a form of energy reminiscent of the properties of the ether, even if it is not named as such. We’re talking about quantum vacuum fluctuations. The calculation shows that the total zero-point energy is infinite. How, therefore, can it be used in calculations?
Thanks to a renormalization process that makes this infinite value finite. However, although the zero-point energy is no longer infinite, it is still gigantic since its density is 1093 g/cm3. That’s 10 followed by 93 zeros…!
In parallel with these developments, other discoveries were made at the cosmological level: in 1922, the Russian physicist Alexander Friedmann published the seminal article demonstrating the expansion of the universe. And in 1998 two international teams of physicists [4] highlighted the fact that this expansion was accelerating. In order to describe the force that accounts for this phenomenon, they are led to suppose – without so far having detected it – the existence of a new energy: dark energy. It behaves as a force that opposes gravitational attraction, thus explaining the acceleration of the expansion of the universe.
Dark energy and Einstein's cosmological constant
“Historically, the only (hypothetical) form of energy behaving as [dark] energy was the cosmological constant, proposed in another context by Albert Einstein in 1916. (…) Einstein’s original motivation, however, was far removed from the motivation for the current interest in [dark] energy. Indeed, in 1916, when the expansion of the universe was not known, Albert Einstein considered that the universe should be static, so he had to introduce a new force opposing gravitational attraction. The ideal candidate was found with the cosmological constant, which, under certain very special conditions, could exactly counterbalance the attractive effect of the gravitational force.” [5]
When the expansion of the universe was discovered, Einstein went back to adding this parameter. Nevertheless, some physicists believe that dark energy would correspond to the average energy density of the vacuum on cosmological scales, a density modelled by the cosmological constant postulated by Einstein.
In practice, it is not so simple because the estimated value of dark energy is 10-29 g/cm3, a difference of 122 orders of magnitudes compared to the energy of the quantum vacuum (1093 g/cm3). This prediction is also known as the vacuum catastrophe, the worst prediction ever made in physics. And it has destroyed any hope of linking the quantum and cosmological scales by a form of energy with properties close to those of the ether.
Cosmological constant = quantum vacuum energy
In 2011, however, Nassim Haramein demonstrated that the value of the quantum vacuum energy density and the cosmological constant were both correct. Simply, they are apparently unequal because they are expressed on two different scales. You can read the article Quantum Gravity and Schwarzschild Proton to understand how they are related, and ultimately, the fact that dark matter does not exist [6].
In the world of Nassim Haramein, finally, everything seems to happen as if ether exists. Remember that originally, for physicists, ether was supposed to make light waves travel. On the one hand these physicists therefore presupposed the uniform rectilinear movement of light in the vacuum. And on the other hand they needed a material ether to try to account for this movement.
Everything is connected
Nassim Haramein shows that, in fact, the true movement of light is not what we perceive (see the article Movement and Perception). In that sense, we could say that light doesn’t travel. Then of two things one: either we realize that it does not travel, and consequently the question of the material ether has no reason to exist. Either we are deluded by our observations – because we ignore the dynamics really at work in the universe – and we believe that light travels. Since we do not detect the presence of the material ether, we come to the incorrect conclusion that things are not connected.
But this inference is wrong not because things are indeed unrelated, but because the starting postulates – light travels and ether is material – are incorrect.
Nassim Haramein considers that everything in the universe is connected. However, he doesn’t talk about ether. He doesn’t need to. He simply says that everything is connected by space, the only element common to all scales. Since he shows that light does not travel, he cuts off all speculation about the ether. He also avoids referring to the whole explanation just mentioned.
In the end, he proposes a theory of unification that does not call upon the material ether of certain physicists while revealing the immaterial ether of ancient traditions!
Key points
- The energy of the quantum vacuum, or zero point energy, is infinite.
- [vacuum catastrophy] There is a difference of 122 orders of magnitudes between the estimated value of dark energy (10-29 g/cm3) and the value of renormalized quantum vacuum energy (1093 g/cm3).
- These values are both correct but seemingly unequal because they are expressed on two different scales.
Notes & references
[1] WILCZEK Frank, Prix Nobel de Physique, 2017
[2] For a better understanding of the concept of addiction, you can also consult the article Indeterminism and entanglement.
[3] Absolute zero represents the lowest temperature that can exist, set by convention at -273.15°C.
[4] The Supernova Cosmology Project, led by Saul Perlmutter, and the High-Z supernovae search team, led by Adam Riess, will earn them the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011.
[5] According to WIKIPEDIA.
[6] See also the article by physicist Amira Val Baker of the Resonance Academy, The vaccum catastrophe, 2019.
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