Matter Moving At Near The Speed Of Light*

This has been added to the cosmology theory as described in the compound posting on this blog, "The Theory Of Stationary Space". First, here is a brief description of the theory in two paragraphs.

My cosmological theory has the universe as not-quite-parallel strings of matter aligned mostly in one direction in four-dimensional space, although there could be many more than these four dimensions. The direction in which these strings of matter are primarily aligned is the one that we perceive as time, along which our consciousnesses move at what we perceive as the speed of light. We can only see perpendicular to the bundles of strings of matter comprising our bodies and brains. There was an original two-dimensional sheet of space, amidst the multi-dimensional background space, disintegrated in one of it's two dimensions as one pair of it's opposite sides came into contact. Due to charge migration, to seek a lower energy state, one side was positive in charge and the other was negative. This brought about the matter-antimatter mutual annihilation that we perceive as the Big Bang. The energy in the disintegrating dimension, from the tension between adjacent opposite electric charges, was released. The remaining dimension then consisted of very long strings of infinitesimal cross-section, that we perceive as the particles of matter today. Some of the energy released by the disintegrating dimension went into "welding" the charges of the remaining dimension together as strings of matter. We perceive these strings as particles because our consciousnesses are moving along the bundles of strings composing our bodies and brains, at what we perceive as the speed of light, and we can only see at right angles to our strings.

So, the basics of my theory is a two-dimensional sheet of space, which formed amidst the multi-dimensional background space by the same kind of opposite charge induction, disintegrating in one of it's two dimensions as one pair of it's opposite sides came into contact to create the matter-antimatter explosive mutual annihilation that we perceive as the Big Bang, which began the universe, and which scattered the remaining one-dimensional strings of matter out across space to form the universe that we see today. The strings of matter from the original two-dimensional sheet were scattered across four dimensions of the background space.



Here is something really interesting that requires some special explanation. We know that the speed of light is, according to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, the maximum possible velocity. It is extremely difficult to accelerate matter to anywhere near the speed of light because, according to Relativity, it's mass increases with velocity so that the mass would be infinite at the speed of light.

What is so interesting is that there are many particles of matter moving at near the speed of light, but they all have one thing in common. Ordinarily, only particles with an electric charge move anywhere near the speed of light.

It is not an issue of mass. Cosmic rays, which are actually particles and not electromagnetic radiation, contain alpha particles that move near the speed of light. An alpha particle is basically a helium atom nucleus, two protons and two neutrons so that it has a positive electric charge. But an alpha particle has nearly four times the mass of an ordinary hydrogen atom, which has no net electric charge, and we do not usually detect hydrogen atoms moving anywhere near the speed of light.

It does not seem to matter whether the charge of the high-velocity particle is positive or negative. Cosmic rays include alpha particles and protons, which have a positive electric charge, but also electrons with a negative charge. But this only applies to fermions, or the massive particles that make up atoms, and not to virtually mass-less particles like neutrinos.

Cosmic rays are not the only source of charged particles moving at high velocity through space. There is also the "solar wind", the stream of particles from the sun. But, like cosmic rays, the particles in the solar wind inevitable have an electric charge. These particles are deflected by the earth's magnetic field, and collecting in the sky above the magnetic poles. The resulting glow is called an aurora, or the northern or southern lights.

There are particles with mass and a neutral electric charge, the neutron. Neutrons are a vital component of every atom except the light isotope of hydrogen. Neutrons can be made to move at high speed, in fact nuclear fission depends on high-speed neutrons to split atoms in a chain reaction.

But neutrons are actually compound particles, formed by crunching an electron into a proton during the nuclear fusion that takes place in stars. If a neutron is on it's own, outside of a nucleus, it will break down into a proton and an electron, the radioactive process known as beta decay, in an average time of about fifteen minutes.

The acceleration of the neutrons during fission also depends on electric charge, the splitting of an atomic nucleus that is held together by neutrons against the mutual like-charge repulsion of the positively-charged protons in the nucleus. The two new nuclei, after the split, have fewer total neutrons than the one large nucleus before the split, and also less binding energy then the one original nucleus, and the excess neutrons fly off while propelled by this excess energy.

But other than these neutrons during nuclear fission, matter moving at very high velocities invariably consists of particles with an electric charge. It does not matter at all whether the electric charge is positive or negative but whole atoms with a net charge of zero, even the lightest atoms, are virtually never measured at moving anywhere near the speed of light under ordinary circumstances.

The question is: Why? I find that this really requires some special explanation. Particles of matter travel at near the speed of light, but ordinarily only if they have an electric charge. We cannot say that there is "energy" in the electric charge that drives the particle to high speed. There is no energy in electric charge. In my cosmology theory, it takes energy to hold like charges together against their mutual electrical repulsion, and it is this energy that shows up as the mass of the particle in the well-known Mass-Energy Equivalence, but that energy is not available to accelerate the particle as well as to hold it together.

But remember that matter originated, in my cosmology theory, with a two dimensional sheet of space that was within, but not contiguous with, the multi-dimensional background space. Everything in the universe, matter and space, is composed of near-infinitesimal negative and positive electric charges. A perfectly alternating checkerboard pattern of negative and positive charges, in multiple dimensions, is what space is. Like charges usually repel but can be held together by energy and this is what matter is.

The charges which composed the multi-dimensional background space put pressure, by opposite-charge attraction and like charge repulsion, on the two-dimensional sheet and this caused charge migration in the two-dimensional sheet, positive charges migrating to one side of the sheet and negative to the other side, because it brought about a lower-energy state. But this also caused a mutual opposite-charge attraction between the negative and positive sides and when they came into contact, the resulting matter-antimatter mutual annihilation is what we refer to as the Big Bang.

One dimension of the two-dimensional sheet disintegrated in the explosion and the remaining dimension is what we perceive as particles of matter that are actually strings in four dimensional space. We are not able to see the fourth dimension because that is the one in which the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains are primarily aligned, but we perceive it as time.

This means that the dimension of the two-dimensional sheet that disintegrated, in what we perceive as the Big Bang that began the universe, was about electric charges, negative on one side and positive on the other side. The remaining dimension, which is our matter of today, was in the neutral middle. Strings perfectly aligned in this dimension is what we perceive as matter at rest, with no velocity. This is where negatively and positively-charged strings can pair up, by mutual attraction of opposite charges, to form the atoms of ordinary matter which have an overall neutral charge, since the negative and positive charges balance out to zero.

Matter must consists of charged particles or it wouldn't exist. The very definition of matter in my cosmology theory is strings, from the one remaining dimension of the two-dimensional sheet, is like charges that are held together by the energy released from the disintegrating dimension of the sheet, which we perceive as the Big Bang, with this energy showing up as the mass in the well-known Mass-Energy Equivalence. But atoms formed as the "zero unit" of matter where negatively and positively-charged particles paired up with a resulting net neutral charge.

But since this matter made of atoms is mostly all aligned in the same dimension of what was the original two-dimensional sheet, and since what we perceive as an object in motion is really a bundle of strings that is at an angle other than parallel to that of ours, matter made of atoms inevitably seems to us to be either stationary or moving at relatively low velocities. It is only charged particles that we perceive as moving anywhere near the speed of light.

So in the cosmology theory, what we perceive as velocity is just the angle of alignment of the bundle of strings in four-dimensional space that we perceive as a three-dimensional object. It is really our consciousness that is moving along the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains, at what we perceive as the speed of light. If a string, or bundle of strings, was aligned at a right angle to our bundle of strings, we would perceive it as moving at the speed of light because our consciousness would flash past it in an instant. It would seem to us to have infinite mass, according to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, because all of it's mass would appear to us as concentrated at one point as our consciousness flashed past it.

The second dimension of the two-dimensional sheet, the one where the negative and positive charges of the sheet met in the mutual matter-antimatter annihilation that we perceive as the Big Bang, was at a right angle to the remaining dimension, the one in which the bundles of strings comprising ordinary matter is primarily aligned. When we perceive an object as moving at the speed of light, that really means that it's string or bundle of strings is at a right angle to ours. Since our dimension is the one where negative and positive electric charges paired up to form matter with a net neutral charge, the other dimension of the former two-dimensional sheet from which matter originated, is the one of charged particles.

That is, plainly and simply, why we ordinarily perceive only charged particles as moving at extremely high velocities, and not ordinary matter made of whole atoms. I cannot see this explained any other way.

We can see the close relationship between the speed of light and electric charge in Einstein's famous formula, E = MC squared. The formula is about the convertibility of mass and energy and how a small amount of mass contains a vast amount of energy. E means energy, M means mass and C, for constant, means the speed of light. But the speed of light is squared, or multiplied by itself, in the formula.

The way to explain the working of this formula is that a nucleus is a collection of like-charged protons held together against their mutual repulsion by binding energy. When the nucleus is split, by a high-energy neutron, the now-released like charged protons seek to get away from each other by the most direct possible route. We perceive it as moving away from one another at the speed of light, hence the formula.

But why do the now separated like charges move away from one another at the speed of light and why should the speed of light have anything to do with the interchangeability of mass and energy?

The answer is that the speed of light is a right angle, actually representing the second dimension of the original two-dimensional sheet which formed matter. Like charges bound together in a bundle of strings, suddenly released, will bend at a right angle to one another in opposite directions. These right angles are one of the two speeds of light in the formula E = MC squared. The other, and the reason that the speed of light is squared, is that our consciousness is rushing by on the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains at what we perceive as the speed of light, and this is why we perceive strings of matter at a right angle as moving at the speed of light. But this is why it is ordinarily only charged particles that move anywhere near to what we perceive as the speed of light.