15 January 2016

The "Limited" Universe

5 Shevat 5776
Erev Shabbat Kodesh

There are limits to everything in this reality - boundaries we cannot cross. Apparently, even science has its limits...
A deeply disturbing and controversial line of thinking has emerged within the physics community.
It's the idea that we are reaching the absolute limit of what we can understand about the world around us through science.

"The next few years may tell us whether we'll be able to continue to increase our understanding of nature or whether maybe, for the first time in the history of science, we could be facing questions that we cannot answer," Harry Cliff, a particle physicist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research — better known as CERN....
On the other hand, what they are currently discovering fits nicely with Torah sources. Take, for example, the "shattering of the vessels". Just like a power surge blows out electrical devices not designed to handle the higher level of power without being stepped down through transformers, God's initial act of creation had to be "stepped down" through a filtering process to allow our physical world to exist. In this process the vessels created to be filters shattered, according to Kabbalah. Sounds a lot like this...
...[there] is a value that represents the strength of what physicists call the Higgs field, an invisible energy field not entirely unlike other magnetic fields that permeates the cosmos.
As particles swim through the Higgs field, they gain mass to eventually become the protons, neutrons, and electrons comprising all of the atoms that make up you, me, and everything we see around us.
Without it, we wouldn't be here.
We know with near certainty that the Higgs field exists because of a groundbreaking discovery in 2012, when CERN physicists detected a new elementary particle called the Higgs boson. According to theory, you can't have a Higgs boson without a Higgs field.
But there's something mysterious about the Higgs field that continues to perturb physicists like Cliff.
According to Einstein's theory of general relativity and the theory of quantum mechanics — the two theories in physics that drive our understanding of the cosmos on incredibly large and extremely small scales — the Higgs field should be performing one of two tasks, says Cliff.
Either it should be turned off, meaning it would have a strength value of zero and wouldn't be working to give particles mass, or it should be turned on, and, as the theory goes, this "on value" is "absolutely enormous," Cliff says. But neither of those two scenarios are what physicists observe.
"In reality, the Higgs field is just slightly on," says Cliff. "It's not zero, but it's ten-thousand-trillion times weaker than it's fully on value — a bit like a light switch that got stuck just before the 'off' position. And this value is crucial. If it were a tiny bit different, then there would be no physical structure in the universe."
Why the strength of the Higgs field is so ridiculously weak defies understanding.
Read more about this: The 2 most dangerous numbers in the universe are threatening the end of physics

~Shabbat Shalom~

4 comments:

  1. Shabbat shalom. As you said, just as the shattering of the vessels was a result of HaShem making the חלל הפנוי, the open space wherein the universes were created, so have the scientists, albeit often wrong and always changing in theory, have much kater on thank the Ari z"l discovered something similar in terms of the physical universe's creation, the Big Bang theory.

    Not forgetting this physical universe is paralleled by other universes, mainly spiritual universes, everything here has its root in a higher universe, up and up until Infinity, Ein Sof, HaShem Himself which we cannot perceive, since He is abive time, soace and matter.

    Unfortunately, these scientists don't seem to grasp that there are paralleling spiritual universes to our physical one. I don't think many of them will get it when they claim to have gotten to the end of understanding the physical universe and how it works. Beyond that, they also don't realize that Israel is abive nature. Specifically emuna, tefilla, and the Land of Israel are all rooted in the same source with nisim in the higher universes before they split down into multiple things in this physical universe by the time they get here, like a white light diffracting into many shades when filtered through a crystal. See the first few paragraphs of the first section of Likutei Etzot, 'Emet VeEmuna' for how emuna, tefilla of a Jew, the Land of Israel, and miracles are all rooted in one source, meaning each affects the other, and also meaning that each are able to alter the laws of nature, especially when combined.

    One of the reasons why the Jew is abive nature is that the Jewish people make the world as if it is an obligatory reality. It's explained in Likutei Moharan that the error of the philosophers who think that this world is the only absolute reality comes from the fact that when the souls of Israel were introduced to the world, it meant this world had an ultimate purpose since we are the people of HaShem's kingdom, and there can be no king without a people. Therefore, we make it as if the physical universe is an absolute obligatory reality. After all, the whole universe was created for us, as the Sages state.

    Our job as Jews is to connect and elevate this whole universe through attaching ourselves to HaShem, who is infinite, which we do by the Torah and tefilla/hitbodedut. This makes us and everything along with us connected to HaShem, who is the only true obligatory reality (He always exists regardless of anything else existing, and isn't dependent on anything), thus making us and the whole universe which was made for us, an as-if obligatory reality.

    Sorry for the megilla, but I find this all fascinating, and I wanted to enlighten some people here on how important all of our thoughts, words, and actions are, as Jews.

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  2. Amazing, so amazing. I'll never be able to thank Hashem sufficiently for creating me and leading me to Judaism. I'm so grateful. Thank you Devash and Aharon.

    Emunah

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  3. Thanks Devash and to Aharon with his wonderful & informative comment. The world also needs to understand, which will first be when Moshiach comes, that Hashem allows us to know what we need to know and only after Moshiach comes will HE enligten us to many of the mysteries of the world and life. Before then, we know what we know and only after will everything be clarified. nili

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  4. Myrtle Rising17/1/16 10:01 PM

    This was a particularly fascinating eye-opener, Devash. Thank you.
    And thanks to Aharon for his supplement, too.

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