The more you learn, the less you know . .

Having recently completed a 2nd-year higher–ed module in astronomy and cosmology, awaiting my score with eagerness but little confidence, I have a much better understanding of the big things in the universe (from stars upwards) – how they are born, live and die, interact with each other, and are used to learn more about the big picture. I have also covered special and general relativity, scaling, the event history of the big bang and various models of the expansion and the likely outcome of the universe. But I can’t say I have yet understood much of that part. The algebra at this level is linear and straightforward – (1/Hubble constant) gives the age of the universe. The next level requires much more maths, so to me it means that the study is moving away from an intuitive understanding, and more an interpretation of the algebra.
It is as if some cosmologists live in the real world (the ones who don’t “do” dimensions) and others manipulate maths in an attempt to explain the so-far inexplicable.
The most interesting outcome of the module for me was the summary of ongoing mysteries. The nature of dark energy and dark matter; why, after the big bang and the annihilation of matter with antimatter, was some matter left over; the process of inflation in which the universe expanded many orders of magnitude in a minute space of time, in order to explain the horizon problem; and the failure to reconcile gravity with the other fundamental forces (there were more, I am writing this from memory). Another is the ‘pressure waves’ which cause galactic spiral arms to ‘orbit’ the centre in an unexplained way.
I have also read Prof Hawking’s book The Grand Design, very illuminating and from which I took two key points. The first is the credibility he gives to the possibility of 10^500 universes being created each with different laws, those that survive any length of time being the ones whose laws of physics are mutually sustainable. The figure of 10^500 is as near infinity without saying infinity. One feature of a good theory is elegance, but this is as elegant as a blunderbus (in my respectful opinion). Come back God, all is forgiven! (That will be a prayer, then . .)
The second is his sudden diversion to explain that there are only four big dimensions, three in space and one in time (3s+t) – there cannot be a fifth (4s+t), otherwise gravity would exert a smaller pull than it does (instead of the inverse square law, the inverse cube law would apply). This is where I feel that, in my present naivety, I can make a challenge. I think:
- General relatively says that there is a fifth large dimension (total 4s+t) in the observation of the curvature of space-time. Just like the bobbles on the surface of an orange may suggest to an ant walking on it that there may be an up-down dimension to add to forward back and left-right. And its infinite surface is not so infinite after all
- Dimensions can depend on scale. Not just their perception/measurement, but their existence, depends on size
- The discovery of dark matter on the galactic scale (some 90% of the mass of a large galaxy like our own as measured by its gravitational effects on its own stars and neighbouring galaxies is dark, ie unexplained, matter) suggests that, instead, there is a phenomenon that known matter on the galactic scale exerts less force than the 3s+t model allows
- The discovery of dark or “missing” energy looks to me like the kind of balanced rotation (in the 4s+t toroid concept) that is continuously accelerating all masses in the ‘medium’ of space, and giving the observed mutual attraction of gravity.
So I think I have made some progress in 2010, but have yet to find out how much.