Planck time is the smallest measurable interval and equals t^-43 second. In that first instant of the Big Bang, the universe consists of pure energy at a temperature of 10^32 Kelvin. It is smaller than an atom, and so in this first instant the cosmos exists as a quantum event, which means that this inconceivable intensity of energy is not actually a point but a probability cloud – the original wave function. An interval later, at 10^-35 second after the Big Bang, inflation expands three-dimensional space faster than light by a stupefying factor of 10^50! But before this happens, the entire content of the Big Bang – all the energy that will eventually express the hundreds of billions of galaxies of the universe – exists in a space smaller than an atom and therefore subject to quantum uncertainty. So, at t^-43 second, everything that ever will be is There as pure energy. What might ‘time’ mean in this First Instant just prior to inflation? The ‘quantum jitters’ happening at t^-43 second are now visible, writ large in the cosmic microwave background as the irregularities among the incandescent galactic filaments and vast vacuoles devoid of stars. Within that quantum event at t^-43 second are all the possible ‘universes’ that could ever exist (the renowned ‘sum-over-histories’). The peculiar nature of energy, of light, is that it has no rest mass, hence is time-free. Einstein’s famous thought experiment about riding on a beam of light reveals that a photon arrives at its destination instantly – with no passage of time for the photon – and no distance traveled from the photon’s perspective. Therefore, at t^-43 second, when all that ever-will-be is light, is every thing and every place that will be already happening? Are we, in truth, There now, at t^-43 second, still entangled with Everything? Is our whole mythology of Light – as emblem of consciousness and the Good and the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel, etc. – our ongoing inward entanglement with and experience of t^-43 second – in the eternity just before inflation creates space – the utter darkness of the void – into which we have been falling since – faster and ever deeper?
Posted on: Thu, 29 May 2014 02:33:39 +0000
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