Time doesn’t work the same way for matter and anti-matter (Amjor,Jurkiewicz, & Loll, 2008). Strange as it seems, the Feynman diagram of an electron hitting an anti-electron hits shows the latter enters the collision going backwards in time (Figure 4.8). Despite this, both the electron and anti-electron are entering the interaction not leaving it.
Does this reversal of time reverse causality? Minkowski took Einstein’s theory to mean that objects move on a time dimension, in a block theory of time where every event that ever was or will be can be paged like a book (Barbour,1999). Minkowski’s model has one time dimension, so an entity going backwards in time reverses causality, but the anti-matter particle in Figure 4.8 isn’t doing that. The anti-electron is entering the collision, just as the electron is, with no causal reversal, so Minkowski’s model doesn’t explain how anti-matter time works. If time is an absolute dimension, to reverse time is to travel back in time, which would deny the causality of physics.
Einstein concluded that every object in the universe has its own clock, so there is no space-time canvas upon which objects exist. A processing model explains this by saying that every point in the quantum network runs at its own rate, so time can vary.
Time then ticks by for matter it completes clockwise cycles, but time for anti-matter ticks by as it completes anti-clockwise cycles. Anti-matter then exists in anti-time as matter exists in time, where anti-time is our time running in reverse. It follows that to a matter being, anti-matter runs time in reverse, but to an anti-matter being, our matter runs time in reverse. If matter exists by processing and anti-matter exists by anti-processing, in both cases time passes as processing cycles complete.
Anti-matter can only run time in reverse if it is virtual. It follows that Feynman diagrams need two time axes, one for matter and one for anti-matter. A virtual time based on processing has two flavors, based on the processing direction. Thus, not only does every entity in our universe have its own clock, it also has its own clock direction.
But if time is virtual, can we rewind it, like an Internet browser with a Back button? We can’t, but even if we could, a browser back button can only undo your last act. It can’t undo interactions, like online registrations, as this would require both parties to undo, and with six degrees of separation, rolling back six events for one person could affect the entire web! Rolling back your time would then require the entire network to roll-back!
Neither time nor anti-time can be reversed, because a physical event is a reboot that can’t be undone. Anti-matter exists in anti-time between physical events, but it can no more undo its physical events than matter can. Time then can’t be reversed, rewound or fast-forwarded, whether by matter or anti-matter, so there is no time travel.
Matter and anti-matter are equivalent opposites, so while our atoms have negative electrons, an anti-matter universe would have positive electrons but to its inhabitants, the laws of physics would be exactly the same. Why then do we only see matter all around us? Did the big bang produce:
1) No anti-matter, for some unknown reason?
2) Matter and anti-matter equally, but the anti-matter in our universe is hidden?
3) Matter and anti-matter equally, but matter somehow overcame the anti-matter?
Physics dismisses the first option by its equations, and the second because no anti-matter meteors, planets, or stars have ever been seen. The current view is that the big bang made equal amounts of matter and anti-matter, but then matter somehow overcame anti-matter to give our universe. That no evidence supports this belief is called a mystery of physics:
“The lack of anti-matter is a deep mystery that cannot be explained using the Standard Model.” (Oerter,2006) p101
Figure 4.7. Rotation in and on space
What then does a processing model conclude? A clockwise rotation in a space is anti-clockwise from the other side (Figure 4.7a), but a first-up rotation on a surface stays that way however it is viewed (Figure 4.7b). If our universe began with one photon, then it had to first vibrate up or down on the surface of space. And if it chose, say, to vibrate up first, then all its offspring would follow suit.
It follows that our universe became matter not anti-matter based on how its first photon chose to vibrate. Light then evolved into matter only, not matter and anti-matter as the standard model assumes, so the anti-matter the standard model is trying to explain away never was. The first choice of the first photon made our universe matter, and from then on, anti-matter was a path not taken. Nothing about our universe explains why it is made of matter not anti-matter because that choice was made before it began.
This model explains why charge accompanies matter and why neutrinos accompany electrons, but there is yet another property of our world that the standard model records but doesn’t explain. Dirac’s equations predicted anti-matter before it was found, but why do matter entities have evil twins of the same mass but opposite charge? The standard model added an anti-matter column to fit the facts, but that matter has an inverse is one of the most baffling findings of physics. If matter is a substance, then what is its anti-substance? And why do the two instantly annihilate each other?
Again, processing can explain what particles can’t. To recap, mass as a process overload that repeats implies the processing remainder that is charge. An electron as a head-head photon collision implies the head-tail collision that is a neutrino. Likewise, that matter arises from processing one way implies that the same processing can run in reverse. In particular, if a fundamental process sets a clockwise circle of values, the same values can be set in an anti-clockwise direction. Essentially, processing implies anti-processing, but what does that mean?
For light, if we assume a clockwise process, a photon first goes up on the surface of our space and then goes down. In contrast, if we assume an anti-clockwise process, the photon will first go down and then go up. This then implies two types of photons, namely first-up and first-down, and they are not equivalent.
For an electron, we have so far assumed it is made of first-up photons, that run a clockwise process, but what if this process was reversed? The result will be the same amount of net processing, or mass, but an opposite remainder charge, as observed for an anti-electron. An anti-electron has the same mass as an electron but a positive charge, so it can be an electron processing in reverse. This model then not only predicts anti-electrons, but also that they will annihilate any electrons they meet. Anti-matter then is to matter as neutrinos are to electrons – a necessary byproduct.
Figure 4.6. Lepton photon structures
Figure 4.6 summarizes the basic leptons by their photon structure, as follows:
1. Matter. First-up extreme photons collide to give either an:
i. Electron (Figure 4.6a) First-up heads collide to give mass and a negative charge remainder.
ii. Neutrino (Figure 4.6b)First-up heads mostly cancel first-down tails to give a tiny mass but no charge remainder.
2. Anti-matter. First-down extreme photons collide to give either an:
i. Anti-electron (Figure 4.6c)First-down heads collide to give mass and a positive charge remainder.
ii. Anti-neutrino (Figure 4.6d) First-down heads mostly cancel first-down tails to give a tiny mass but no charge remainder.
All the basic leptons of the standard model then arise from the same photon structure.
The processing that explains matter also explains charge, but what about the electron’s brother, the neutrino? Electrons are critical to our world, as without them there is no chemistry and so no life, but our universe also contains a little nothing that until recently we didn’t even know existed. The sun floods our earth with vast numbers of them each day, but they mostly pass through it like ghosts. Neutrinos seem quite pointless, so why did nature make so many of them?
The standard model expected neutrinos to have no mass at all, because they have no charge, but their tiny mass was how we detected them in the first place. When asked why neutrinos have a non-zero mass but exactly zero charge, the current answer is that it just does, but we knew that already.
Figure 4.5. A neutrino channel overload
But if photons colliding in-phase give an electron, they can also collide out-of-phase to give a neutrino. Figure 4.3 shows two extreme photons colliding to give a neutrino, where two points overload but only one successfully reboots. This again overloads all the channels of one axis, but while a head-head photon collision gives an electron bump, a head-tail collision gives the little nothing we call a neutrino. Now instead of the neutrino being a useless building block, it is a necessary byproduct of an electron-type collision.
Why then isn’t the mass of a neutrino exactly zero? If the quantum network was perfectly synchronized, it would be, but as concluded earlier, the universal flow of light doesn’t synchronize it perfectly (2.4.4). The photons in Figure 4.5 are thus slightly out of synch, so the heads and tails don’t exactly cancel out, but the remainder does, so there is a tiny mass but no charge. Over many channels, the small asynchronies vary, so neutrinos vary in mass but always have zero charge. If an electron is a bump on space, a neutrino is a smudge, whose tiny mass comes from the imperfect synchrony of light in our universe.
Table 4.2 below summarizes the above in terms of the photons that meet, and their effect on the finite bandwidth that a channel axis can accept. Electrons and neutrinos then overload a point of space in different ways to give different results, based on:
1. Total processing. If the total processing fills the axis bandwidth, the entity produced is stable.
2. Net processing. The net processing after opposite displacements cancel defines the mass.
3. Remainder. The net remainder after opposite displacements cancel defines the charge.
Note that a tail-tail meet isn’t possible because it implies a prior head-head meet.
In summary, extreme light at the highest frequency can overload a point axis to give a standing wave. In the initial plasma, which was pure light, these collisions had to happen occasionally, to give either electrons or neutrinos depending on the collision phase. Electrons and neutrinos are then brother leptons because they both overload one-axis, though one is something and the other almost nothing. Electrons and neutrinos were then the first matter, both made from light stuck in a network glitch, so we aren’t made from stardust but from the first light.
Current physics defines charge as what causes electrical effects, and electrical effects as those caused by charge, a circular definition that doesn’t add anything to our understanding. Equally, the standard model takes charge to be a fundamental property, like mass, and so doesn’t even try to explain it.
Figure 4.3. An electron channel reboot
In contrast, a model that derives mass from processing expects to do the same for charge. To recap, Figure 4.3 shows two extreme photons meeting at a point, where mass is the net positive processing that repeats in the collision. If so, there will be negative processing that never runs, as shown by the dotted lines. A quantum network has to keep its processing books in order, so let the charge of an electron be its constant processing deficit. If the net processing that repeats is mass, and the processing left over is charge, then charge is a necessary byproduct of matter.
This definition of charge fits its properties, as a processing remainder can:
1. Be positive or negative, as charge is.
2. Cancel its opposite, as opposite charges do.
3. Have a constant value, as an electron’s charge is.
If mass is the net processing that runs and charge is the remainder that doesn’t run, then a matter entity inevitably has mass and charge by the operation that creates it. Mass and charge are thus related in a way that the standard model doesn’t recognize.
The current view is that an electron is a particle with a tiny mass and a negative charge that exists at a dimensionless point, but how can an entity with no size have properties like mass or charge? A particle implies a substance, but a particle with no size can’t have a substance. The standard model picture of an electron as a particle with mass and charge but no size seems seriously flawed. It also doesn’t explain why particles that have mass also have charge.
Instead, let an electron be processing in some form, as in the last chapter where light was processing passed on by a network. Our networks transfer data by communication channels, so we can take the quantum network to be the same. In computing, a channel is what transfers information, just as different channels on your TV present different shows.
It follows that when light rays pass through a point in space, many channels transmit them. If one channel is what passes on one photon with one polarization, there are many channels for each point. Most computer channels are duplex, as they transfer in both directions, so we assume the same here. Finally, each channel has a finite capacity, or bandwidth, which this model expects to be the quantum process defined earlier (3.3.1). Based on this logic, one channel can then:
1. Accept one photon with one polarization coming from one direction.
2. And at the same time accept a photon with the same polarization from the opposite direction.
3. Up to a bandwidth of one quantum process per cycle.
One channel is then represented by a line through a point, plus a plane cutting the line to represent the polarization it can accept. Hence, if two photons with the same polarization enter a point from opposite directions, the same channel can handle both, up to its bandwidth of one quantum process. Since one photon is a quantum process spread over many points, light rays in general don’t collide, as physics observes.
Yet this model suggests an exception, when the photons meeting in a channel are of the highest possible frequency. In this case, each photon is distributed over only two network points, with a wavelength of two Planck lengths, and no higher frequency is possible, as a photon in one point would be empty space. An extreme photon distributes one quantum process over two points, each handling half of it, so two such photons meeting head-on in a channel will overload it. Two photons that each present half a quantum process will overload its bandwidth of one quantum process. Instead passing right through each other, extreme photons that meet head on will then collide in a physical event!
Figure 4.2. Extreme light rays meet head-on on an axis
What then is the expected result? Photons spin on their axis of movement, so the photons causing the overload will just restart in another channel, but this can’t occur if every channel overloads. It follows that if rays of light with extreme photons filling every axis channel meet head-on, every channel on the axis will overload at once (Figure 4.2), as there are no free channels for the photons to restart in. This then predicts that extreme light rays meeting head-on will collide irrevocably. Such an event is clearly unlikely, but it must have occurred in the early plasma by the quantum law of all action, that everything possible eventually happens (3.6.3).
Figure 4.3. An electron channel overload
Figure 4.3 shows the result for one channel, with every channel the same, where the photon head refers to its leading half, and its tail refers to its following half. Two heads, of half a quantum process each, overload the channel bandwidth, so both photons restart next cycle. Two new photons then set off in opposite directions, but now their tails collide in another overload that restarts the photons again. This recurring overload repeats every cycle because every axis channel is the same. The network that once hosted only waves now has a repeating processing bump, which we call an electron.
The resulting entity is stable, because any photon arriving on that axis finds all the channels taken, while a photon arriving at right angles passes right through it using different channels. An electron in these terms is a repeating overload, like a stuck record that endlessly repeats.
Figure 4.4. A standing wave on water
Is such a repetition physically possible? Experiments show that electromagnetic waves can repeatedly interact to form static states (Audretch,2004, p23), as frequent observations can maintain a quantum state if the time delay is short (Itao,Heizen, Bollinger, & Wineand, 1990). Feynman’s PhD partitioned the electron wave equation into opposing advanced and retarded waves but he didn’t pursue it. Other theories that let waves oppose include Wheeler–Feynman’s absorber theory where retarded and advanced waves give rise to charge (Wheeler & Feynman, 1945), Cramer’s transactional theory based on retarded and advanced waves (Cramer, 1986), and Wolff‘‘s suggestion that electrons are in and out spherical waves (Wolff,M.,2001). If electro-magnetic waves collide to form standing waves as other waves do (Figure 4.4), an electron could be a standing wave created when extreme photons collide.
This approach contradicts the standard model in several ways. Instead of a particle of matter with no size, which makes no sense, an electron now occupies a point of the quantum network that has a size, just as a screen pixel does. Instead of having no structure, an electron is now a one-dimensional collision. Instead of matter being inert, it is now light constantly stuck in a never-ending loop. Matter is now frozen light, a standing electro-magnetic wave that is static but still pulses at the speed of light. And as this only applies to the channels of one axis, an electron is now one-dimensional matter.
When a computer hangs in an infinite loop that a restart doesn’t fix, we call it a glitch, but for the quantum network, the matter glitch was an evolution not an error.
If our universe began as a cauldron of massless high energy light, how did matter arise? Electrons and neutrinos are the smallest matter entities, so they are the most likely candidates for the first matter.
The standard model of physics took over a century to build and summarizes:
“… in a remarkably compact form, almost everything we know about the fundamental laws of physics.”(Wilczek, 2008), p164.
It is currently considered by physicists to be:
“…truly the crowning scientific accomplishment of the twentieth century.” (Oerter, 2006), p75.
The standard model considers all reality to consist of particles, which it divides into matter particles, called fermions, and force particles, called bosons (Table 4.1). Physics currently attributes all matter to fermion particles and all forces to boson particles, where fermions collide with each other but bosons don’t.
Matter particles divide into leptons like theelectron and neutrino, and quarks that can be up or down.Both have unstable higher generations for some unknown reason. Up and down quarks combine into the protons and neutrons of the nuclei that with electrons form the atoms of ordinary matter. Apart from neutrinos that whizz around for no reason, and anti-matter that was expected but is nowhere to be found, it all seems fairly tidy, but as Woit notes:
“By 1973, physicists had in place what was to become a fantastically successful theory … that was soon to acquire the name of the ‘standard model’. Since that time, the overwhelming triumph of the standard model has been matched by a similarly overwhelming failure to find any way to make further progress on fundamental questions.” (Woit, 2007), p1.
For example, some of the fundamental questions that the standard model doesn’t answer include:
Why don’t protons decay as neutrons do?
Why is our universe made of matter not anti-matter?
Why do neutrinos have a tiny but variable mass?
Why do leptons and quarks have three particle “generations” then no more?
Why do electrons half spin?
Why do particle masses vary enormously but charges don’t?
Why do neutrinos always have left-handed spin?
Why do quarks have one-third charges?
Why does the force binding quarks increase as they move apart?
What is the dark matter and dark energy that constitute most of our universe?
It isn’t just that these questions are unanswered but that over fifty years has seen no progress at all in answering them. The great hopes of string theory and super-symmetry have led nowhere, so the next fifty years will be the same unless there is a change. The alternative now proposed is based on processing not particles. To succeed, it must explain not only what the standard model does but also what it doesn’t, as listed above. As will be seen, a processing model does just that.
Current physics consider matter to be fundamental, so breaking it down should eventually reveal fundamental particles, and it did. Electrons and quarks are examples and even a photon, which has no mass or charge, is said to be a fundamental particle. This method of breaking apart matter to find out what it is made of requires billion-dollar particle accelerators, but it began with the atom.
Initially, atoms were thought to be indivisible, like little solid billiard balls, until Lord Rutherford showed they weren’t by firing alpha particles at a piece of gold foil, when they mostly went straight through and only a few bounced back. It turned out that 99.9999…% of the mass of the atom is in its nucleus, and the rest is just a cloud of tiny electrons whizzing about.
Bohr then suggested that the atom is like a solar system, but held together by electrical forces not gravity. This worked for a while but electrons, which are matter, routinely pass right through each other in a way that planets don’t. Two different electrons can also occupy the same orbit, which again planets can’t, and while planet orbits are elliptical, electron orbits are perfectly spherical. The atom isn’t like a tiny solar system! The modern view is based on what is called the standard model of physics, which summarizes everything physicists have learned about matter.
The previous chapters explained space, time, and light as follows:
1. Space. Space is a null process running at a point, so it is something that outputs nothing in our terms.
2. Time. Time is processing cycles completed, so if the network slows down, time can dilate as Einstein says.
3. Light. Light is space distributed passed on by a network, so one process gives the entire electro-magnetic spectrum.
Figure 4.1. If a photon is space stretched out, what is matter?
If space is null processing, time is processing completed, and light is space distributed, can the same model explain matter? (Figure 4.1) If it can’t, the results so far are mere curiosities. In the last chapter, light was the first existence, so the big bang exploded light not matter, but how then did matter arise? This chapter proposes that pure light alone created the first matter, but first let us consider how physics describes matter.
