Theories

Let's start with theories. There is a wonderfully diverse library of theories out there that attempt to understand the workings of the universe, each getting progressively more difficult to understand. For the purpose of this post, we'll look at three: Newton's Gravitational Pull, Einsteins Relativity (Space-Time) and String Theory. And yes, I've linked to wikipedia, because despite what many would say about the quality of information there, I find it to be a wonderful place to gain an understanding if you're smart enough to weed out the useless junk, and do subsequent background work on what you learn.

I'm not going to even try to explain the subtleties of these theories. However, in short:

Gravity is a theory of attraction. It explains how planets stay in orbit, and generally why things stay grounded on planets and dont go floating away. But as a force, it is undefined. It predicts that something is pulling us towards the Earth, but cannot define what that thing is.

Space-Time is a theory of, for lack of a better word, repulsion. It explains the same things as gravity (and indeed, some might consider it a more thorough definition of gravity), but utilizes the idea that instead of gravity pulling on us, particles of space are pushing objects towards objects of enormous mass. A planet, for example, would make a deep imprint on Space-Time, thus creating a sloping surface into which an object "falls", or more appropriately, is pushed. Interesting, but it faces the same downfalls as gravity in that this force is undefined. There are also a great deal of contradictions it faces, which I encourage anyone who wants a better explanation of these to read the website "Space, Time and Relativity", a fairly in-depth review of everything that's been said about the whole business of current theories. Complete with references to published articles, for those who like that kind of thing.


String theory is...well, it's quantam in nature, and if you understand quantam physics, you're light years ahead of me. However, from what I've read, the theory is completely untestable. The scale of testing it would require is enormous, going far beyond the hadron-colliders the world currently has in use. For this reason alone I'm going to step away from it.

So, why did I start with theories? They are a very general way of looking at things if you dont go too deep into each, and more importantly, they are just that - theories. More to the point, I needed to explain why I won't be including them in any level of importance for the time being. Not only are they vastly complex, but most are not proven. In fact, none are completely proven, which is why they stay in the realm of theory and haven't become fact (though you wouldn't know it, the way we teach gravity like a religion).

That having been said, I suppose I should define my approach a little better. Unfortunately, I will have to take into account some portions of theories to better acknowledge the occurrences in space. And since gravity is what I know best, it is what I'll be using at first. But like any scientific study, I have no doubt my ideas will expand to encompass a multitude of ideas and models.

As a side note, I was recently introduced to a video series by the late astronomer Carl Sagan. These are old videos, granted, but the way in which the universe is explained and presented is a wonderful starting point. That is to say, it shows what's there and what it is doing, not necessarily why it's doing that. Look him up.