Chapter 3: Physical Laws - Cosmic Software

Physical laws and their fundamental constants rule the material universe on all of its organizational levels: Its waves, subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, solar systems, and galaxies. What kinds of physical laws are there? What does one know now about the fundamental constants? How accurate are they? Why do they exist? Where is this cosmic information sitting? Where has it been written down? And where is it stored? What is needed to make the different codes (or mathematical languages), wherein these physical laws are written?

Physicist Heinz R. Pagels writes: Imagine "that the universe is a giant computer and what we see is the ‘hardware.’ The design of this computer physicists are discovering - these are their theories which tell us what programs can be run on the computer and can be checked by experiments. The physical laws are the invariances - the unchanging elements - in every possible program." (1982:338).

"I think the universe is a message written in a code, a cosmic code, and the scientist’s job is to decipher that code. This idea, that the universe is a message, is very old. It goes back to Greece, but its modern version was stated by the English empiricist Francis Bacon, who wrote that there are two revelations. The first is given to us in scripture and tradition, and it guided our thinking for centuries. The second revelation is given by the universe, and that book we are just beginning to read. The sentences within this book are the physical laws - those postulated and confirmed invariances of our experience. ... Newton, who held unorthodox views his whole life, also had a vision of a cosmic code - for him the universe was a great puzzle to be solved." - Pagels, H. (1982:343, 344).

"Quantum theory emphasizes information, its representation, and its transformation. Since computers also transform information, an interesting image for the quantum universe is that of a giant computer - an information-processing system. In this metaphor of the universe as a cosmic computer the material things in the universe, the quantum particles, are the ‘hardware.’ The logical rules these particles obey, the laws of nature, are the ‘software.’ The universe as it evolves can be viewed as executing a ‘program’ specified by the laws of nature although it is not a deterministic program like those in digital computers." - Pagels, H. (1982:354).

"Suppose, for the sake of argument, that scientists find the master law of the universe, the basic software of the cosmic computer. Then, although physics as we know it will come to an end, there will remain at least two frontiers of research. One is ‘the frontier of complexity’ - the boundary of knowledge about the complex ways in which matter organizes itself into living and nonliving forms. It is one thing to know the basic laws of physics and quite another to deduce their complex consequences. Another frontier might be called ‘the frontier of simplicity.’ The master law of physics will probably be rather simple (otherwise we cannot find it). ... By viewing the laws of the universe as software I foresee the possible merger of physics with information science, a branch of mathematics." - Pagels, H. (1982:355, 356).

Cosmic Computer Programs

What would this cosmic computer be able to know and to do? What kinds of programs would the cosmic computer need, in order to make the material universe and to keep it going?

Heinz R. Pagels: "It has programmed into it all the laws of physics, as we know them today. The program contains the standard model of quarks, leptons and gluons along with some input numbers obtained from experiments like the masses of the quarks and leptons and their interaction strengths of the gluons. The cosmic computer has also programmed into it Einstein’s equation, the laws of statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. The basic parameter that governs the physical processes is the temperature of the gas of interacting quantum particles that fills the whole space of the universe. Temperature, because of its proportional to the average energy of the colliding particles, establishes which new quantum particles can be created out of pure energy, a minimum threshold energy is required." - Pagels, H. R. (1985:240)

Physical Principles and Concepts

The cosmic computer must also know about all the physical principles and concepts. Here are a few, as stated by B. N. Taylor, Electricity Division, Center of Basic Standards, National Bureau of Standards, Washington, D.C., in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia, (1985) Vol. 25 pp. 816-826).

Conservation laws and symmetry. Conservation laws in physics state that certain measurable quantities called physical properties, do not change in the course of time within an isolated physical system. Common examples are the conservation laws of electrical charge, mass-energy, and linear and angular momentum. The existence of conservation laws is directly related to the symmetry of the laws of nature; i.e., to their invariance or changelessness under various symmetry operations such as rotations, translations, and reflections of the spatial and temporal coordinates." p. 816.

Conservation of mass and energy. Perhaps the best known result of the special theory of Einstein’s relation, which states that the total energy (E) of an isolated system is equal to the mass (m) times the square of the velocity (c) of light: E = mc². The total energy includes the kinetic energy of the particle so that the mass represents the increased mass caused by the motion; i.e., relativistic effect. Two separate conservation laws of classical physics that of mass and that of energy, are thus united into a single conservation law - that of mass-energy.

"Particles held together by mutual attractive forces - e.g., neutrons and protons bound together in the atomic nucleus - have a total mass smaller than that of their separate masses, whereas particles repelling each other have a larger mass. Indeed, the stability of the nucleus is based upon the fact that energy must be supplied to separate it into its parts." p. 818.

The subatomic particles. Atomic mass and atomic number. The nuclear particles (nucleons) are much heavier than the electron, the proton being 1,836.1 times as heavy and the neutron being slightly heavier than the proton. Many other subatomic particles are known..." p. 818. Then there are the strong interactions, magnetic properties, the Yukawa interaction, and absolutely conserved charges.

Physical Constants

What is known now about the physical constants? Why do they exist? And how accurate are they?

B. N. Taylor: "Throughout all of the formulations of the basic theories of physics and their application to the real world, there appear again and again certain invariant quantities called the fundamental physical constants. These quantities, all of which are associated with specific and universally used symbols, are of such importance that they must be known with as high an accuracy as possible.

"They include the speed of light in vacuum (c); the elementary charge (e), which is the magnitude of the charge on the electron; the mass of the electron (m_e), the Planck constant (h); and the fine-structure constant, symbolized by the Greek letter alpha (α).” p. 824.

"There are, of course, many other important quantities that can be measured with high accuracy - the density of a particular piece of silver, for example, or the lattice spacing (the distance between the planes of atoms) of a particular crystal of silicon, or the distance from the Earth to the Sun." (1985) Vol. 25 p. 824.

Definition, Importance, and Accuracy. Why are these fundamental constants, mentioned above, so important? And how accurate are they?

B. N. Taylor: "The constants named above, five among many, were listed because they exemplify the different origins of fundamental constants. The speed of light and the Planck constant are examples of quantities that occur natural in the mathematical formulation of certain fundamental physical theories, the former in James Maxwell’s theory of electric and magnetic fields and Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, and the latter in the theory of atomic particles, or quantum theory.

"For example, in Einstein’s theories of relativity, mass and energy are equivalent, the energy (E) being directly proportional to the mass (m), with the constant of proportionality being the velocity of light squared (c²) - i.e., the famous equation E = mc². In this equation, E and m are the variables and c is invariant, a constant of the equation." (1985) Vol. 25 p. 824.

Elementary charge and electron mass. The elementary charge and the electron mass are examples of constants that characterize the basic, or elementary, particles that constitute matter such as the electron, alpha particles, proton, neutron, muon, and pion. Additionally, they are examples of constants that are used as standard units of measurements." P. 824.

How accurate are these fundamental constants?

B. N. Taylor: "Many of the fundamental constants can be measured with an accuracy of a few parts of a million. By accuracy is meant the relative size of the uncertainty that must be assigned to the numerical value of any quantity to indicate how far from the true value it may be because of the limitations in experiment or theory or both. In practice, an accuracy or uncertainty of one part per million (abbreviated ppm) is rather respectable. It corresponds to determining the length of a United States football field (100 yards, or about 91 metres) to within the thickness of two of these pages (of the Britannica), (one page is about 0.0022 inch, or 0.00087 millimetre, thick).

"There are several quantities, that have been measured with uncertainties approaching one part in 1,000,000,000,000 (one in 10¹²); this uncertainty corresponds to determining the distance from New York City to San Francisco to one-tenth the thickness of this page." (1985) Vol. 25 p. 825.

Measuring the magnetic moment. Fine structure of atomic hydrogen. The term fine structure refers to the differences between certain states, or levels, of energy in atoms. ... The energy differences, or fine structure, could then be accurately calculated from the field and frequency. The accuracy of 5-10 ppm achieved by Lamb has not been surpassed by the 1970s." - The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (1985) Vol. 25. p. 826.

Cosmic Hardware and Software

How can we summarize now our findings about the cosmic computer?

The cosmic computer is made-up of two basic parts: its hardware and is software. Its hardware is the energy/matter of the universe in its different forms: its radiation-wave (photon) or its rest-mass-wave (subatomic particle). The cosmic software contains all the physical laws that are needed to make and to operate the material universe and all its parts. It is operational information. One can compare this with the operational information contained in the DNA of plants, animals, and mankind. Without this genetic information, written down and stored in their DNA, these living creatures cannot arise and cannot live. But the physical laws of the inorganic world and the genetic information of the living world, are written in two entirely different languages. One cannot reduce the genetic information to the laws of chemistry and physics, as often wrongly claimed by certain self-organization-experts.

The cosmic software would include then also everything, human physicists have found out about our physical world and its laws: all the information about physics, contained in the university libraries of the world. Modern physics is split-up now already into many different narrow fields of research. Often the right hand does not know anymore, what the left one is doing. About other fields of research, highly specialized physicists often know only very little. Some of the world’s brightest minds are working all their life, trying to find and to unlock some of the secrets of the physical world. But they never are able, to learn everything. They do not have enough time. Their life is far too short.

But our material universe can only have been made and kept going till now by someone, who knows all the physical laws. He must know all the physical laws, which one needs, to make and to operate the physical universe. If he knew only a few of the physical laws, like the human physicist, living now on this earth, the universe would collapse, and it would never have come into being. First, the Creator had to think-out and to make each one of these physical laws. Then he had to write down in a mathematical language the programs, which he needed, to start the universe and to keep it going. No human scientist is able to make even the simplest physical law! And of those physical laws, which do exist, he is able to understand only a few.