It's amazing that two crucially important aspects of health care reform in the U.S. have barely gotten notice in the recent debate. The first elephant in the room is that our society is unhealthy and getting worse. Is it a wonder that health care delivery costs are going up when 35% of the populace is overweight? It's perfectly predictable!
We live in a free society. No one should be forced to do anything. However, unhealthy eating habits, smoking, excessive alcohol intake etc, burden the nation’s healthcare system and our society at-large. A person leading an unhealthy lifestyle should pay a higher insurance premium. Conversely, a person leading a healthy lifestyle (such as ideal weight, no smoking), should get a rebate or a lower premium. This would present a powerful incentive for people to lead healthy lifestyles, resulting in a lower health care cost burden for society. A car insurance analogy would be the case of a 16 year-old driver paying 3x the premium because they represent 3x the financial risk. The exact same logic applies for an obese person, particularly a smoker.
Additinally, companies that produce unhealthy products such as energy drinks (full of sugar), tobacco, alcohol, fatty-foods, etc. should pay an excise tax. Come on people! Childhood obesity is rampant. What kind of example are we setting for our kids! Recent non-partisan studies conclude that obesity costs our nation $120B (that’s with a B) a year from heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and lost productivity. This plan goes directly at the heart of healthcare reform and not just insurance reform, and would save huge costs because this is where huge costs originate. We live in a free country, but those freedoms should not be allowed to hurt others or burden society at-large. Health decisions tied to financial incentives are guaranteed to resonate with Americans. These initiatives could realistically be expected to save $100B per year, and result in a much healthier populace.
The second elephant in the room is out-of-control legal costs burdening our health and legal systems. Tort reform, such as mandating that lawsuit losers must pay the winners’ court costs, or capping awards for pain and suffering will not only reduce the number of trial lawyers trolling for clients, but will reduce the practice of defensive medicine. Medical practitioners use defensive medicine to prescribe unnecessary procedures in order to avoid lawsuits, not to enhance health. Estimates are that reducing the practice of defensive medicine along with lower malpractice premiums and excessive court judgments should realistically save $50B per year in unnecessary outlays.
These two elephants taken together save approximately $150B per year, enough money to expand coverage AND pay down the federal budget deficit.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Friday, December 25, 2009
Treatise on an Entropic, Infinitely-Dimensional Continuum, and the Origin of Our Universe
I. INTRODUCTION
What existed before the “Big Bang?” How did the physical laws of the universe come to be? Everyone has asked themselves these questions at one time or another. This treatise proposes answers to these questions and more. It is consistent with current state-of-the-art knowledge in physics, specifically in the areas of dark matter, dark energy, and the origin of our universe. Although not mathematically robust, it presents qualitative solutions to many of the most baffling questions. Of course these hypotheses raise questions while at the same time proposing solutions. This will continue to be the case for the next 200-2000 years (if the human species survives that long) until humans can overcome limited intellectual and natural resources to scientifically prove these theories. The hypotheses promulgated in this document arose from observations on the evolution of physics, knowledge of natural laws, and extrapolation.
II. CONTINUUM AND EVOLUTION OF UNIVERSES
An infinitely-dimensional Continuum spawned our universe 14 billion years ago. This event corrected instabilities created by entanglement of dimensions, and has occurred countless times before and after. Continuum drives everything, everywhere, and every-when. It is not composed of matter or energy, but of infinitely-dimensional entropy. Entropy is the propensity for matter and energy to randomly dissipate without doing work, or it can be thought of as a natural, random conspiracy against organization. The infinite dimensions within Continuum are not anchored, and therefore can become entangled as ripples of instability propagate within. These ripples of instability are in the form of waves, which are the “language” of Continuum, and therefore the “language” of all universes and all creation. Instabilities originate from entropic dimensional interactions, and also are influenced by feedback loops from the evolution and aging of existing universes. These feedback loops are specifically the result of vacuum energy, sometimes referred to as dark energy. Current M superstring theory mathematically predicts that eleven dimensions exist in our universe. If this state-of-the-art theory is correct, it was the result of eleven dimensions becoming entangled within Continuum somewhere around 14 billion years ago. This tension was relieved with the creation of countless strings of energy that were embedded in the event horizon of our budding universe. New instabilities are continually experienced in the Continuum again and again as inherent dynamism exerts itself. Since universes are in other dimensions, they cannot experience one another directly, but are under constant influence by Continuum and visa-versa, and thereby can influence other universes indirectly. Since the inherent state of Continuum is entropy and the dimensions are not anchored, there is propensity for reduced entanglement after tension and instability are relieved through the universe creation process. However, feedback loops created from universe(s) evolving and dying results in new dimensional entanglement and instability within Continuum. Our universe, for example, is predicted to expand into oblivion in 100 billion years or so. This process will cause ripples of instability in Continuum, thereby resulting in the spawning of new universes.
Initial conditions are specifically mapped by the tension and dimensional instability in Continuum into a new universe. The specific initial conditions needed to relieve tension and instability within Continuum are critically important because these conditions determine the number of dimensions, the number and type of strings created in a new universe, and the amount of vacuum energy. Initial conditions thereby irrevocably contain the blueprint for all subsequent physical laws. Initial conditions also contain perturbations or tiny non-uniformities that result in granularity. Granularity is the non-uniform expansion of a universe which eventually results in coalescence into galaxies, stars, solar systems and other structures as the universe expands and cools. Granularity allows a spawning universe to temporarily overcome entropy in order to produce structure. Of course this is only temporary because as universes evolve, age, and eventually die, entropy wins out.
Time has no meaning within Continuum, but entropy requires at least one time dimension in a budding universe. Since at least two dimensions must become entangled in order to spawn universe creation, one is always a time dimension, and the rest are space dimensions, although there is no reason there cannot be multiple time dimensions. Time is the first dimension to appear in a spawning universe because it is the dimension that imparts dynamism to a universe. Without time, a universe would be static and could not evolve and allow entropy to work its magic. The number of space dimensions is determined by the initial conditions at universe creation, and therefore could result in wildly different physical laws. This implies that many universes are bizarre, even hostile places that may relieve inter-dimensional stress in Continuum, but never spawn life of any sort. Entropy ensures that universe creation is a purely random event, and may or may not be conducive to intelligent life, or life of any sort. The number of dimensions and the initial conditions of a budding universe determines all physical laws, and thereby how the universe will age. Some universes could be short-lived. Others could be unimaginably long-lived. Our universe is purportedly around 14 billion years old, but since spacetime was so warped in the event horizon of our budding universe, time had little meaning. Our universe could be much, much, older. Even eternally old! Time has zero meaning within Continuum. It obtains meaning sometime after universe creation.
III. THE EVOLUTION OF OUR UNIVERSE AND PHYSICAL LAWS
Our universe was created in an infinitely small, energetic event horizon packed with strings of energy that began spontaneously expanding around 14 billion years ago with a specific set of initial conditions in order to relieve stress or instability within Continuum, specifically within eleven entangled dimensions if current M superstring theory is correct. These initial conditions laid out the blueprint for all physical laws in our universe, and contained tiny perturbations that led to subsequent granularity. After our universe began to expand and cool, granularity resulted in coalescence of galaxies, stars, solar systems, and all structures. Without these tiny perturbations emanating from the Continuum, our universe would expand uniformly and be devoid of structure. The effects of entropy are manifest throughout our universe. It is predicted to rip itself apart and disappear in 100 billion years or so. Entropy at work! The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that we can only know probabilities for location of an electron if we are simultaneously measuring its angular momentum, and visa-versa. The very foundations of quantum mechanics are based on uncertainty and randomness. If you try to measure something at the quantum scale, you inherently change it so you can’t measure it! That uncertainty and randomness is entropy at work! String theory is the epitome of entropy at work. If state-of-the-art string theory is correct, our universe is seething with unimaginably small (around 10-33 cm) strings of energy moving about randomly, vibrating at various harmonic frequencies, thereby imparting all mass and force in the process.
One of the most important physical laws in our universe is the speed of light. Why does light always travel at 186,000 miles per second and no faster or slower in a vacuum? Why does an atomic mass unit always weight 1.6605 * 10-24 g? Why is the acceleration of gravity exactly 9.84 m/s2 at the surface of the earth? We are so used to these immutable laws that we mostly don’t question why? It’s because 14 billion years ago the initial conditions that resulted in these physical laws were precisely required to alleviate inter-dimensional tension and instability within Continuum.
Our universe is wonderfully and delicately balanced, with all physical laws interacting in a symphony that results in everything we see and experience. Our universe evolved from the moment of the “Big Bang” to harmonize all physical laws. Hypothetically if one important physical law was changed, it would upset the balance of all forces and require a new harmony to be achieved, possibly resulting in a dramatically different place. Therefore a universe with different initial conditions, different numbers of dimensions, amount of vacuum energy, etc. would be expected to have different physical laws, and through the harmony imposed through universe evolution, could be a radically different place than our universe. Can you imagine light traveling at 10 m/s, or radically different matter because protons and electrons have different structures, or gravity much stronger or weaker? Of course life may have never evolved in some of these universes, or it would be so foreign that we could not comprehend it, just as humans cannot understand multi-dimensionality. We have four dimensions that we experience every day: three in space and one in time. Current M superstring theory predicts a total of eleven dimensions, of which we can experience only four. The others operate at the quantum scale, and are required to unify the four force categories in our universe (strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravity). It is conceivable that some universes have only one space dimensions (an infinitely long string), or more than eleven space dimensions, but all universes have at least one time dimension because time is required for dynamism to exist. One time dimension is required for an unknown number of space dimensions.
The fact that our universe ended up being conducive to development of life-forms was completely a random happenstance event. Just as life in our universe requires random events to come together and produce conditions for primitive bacteria to get a foothold, universe creation is a purely random event that may or may not produce conditions that allow life to spawn. Short-lived hostile universes may not produce intelligent life or any life at all, while universes such as ours contain favorable conditions for life to get a foothold, although prevalence is still a question.
Humans cannot easily comprehend dimensions greater than four. It may be that a second time dimension would allow a hypothetical person to “see” all history throughout the time course of a universe. The second time dimension contains all information about every event that ever happened to everything and/or everyone. Don’t bother lying! Another possibility is the existence of a greater than 11 space dimensions that are currently predicted by state-of-the-art physics in our universe, or more than 4 spacetime dimensions that could be experienced by intelligent beings. It’s possible that some universes contain orthogonal space containing interacting dimensions. If a person existed in this hypothetical universe, in addition to “seeing” normal three-dimensional space, they may “see” flat cross-sections of first-order orthogonal beings and structures. If another orthogonal space dimension existed, a hypothetical person might only “see” a straight string component of a second-order orthogonal being. It’s also conceivable that time dimensions are created for every so-many space dimensions, so that a universe that has 15 dimensions would require 2 time dimensions due to entropic constraints. A very strange place indeed, but maybe not strange at all for being that evolved there!
IV. DARK ENERGY AND IT”S LINK TO CONTINUUM
Dark energy currently represents a huge gap in current understanding of our universe. It is sometimes referred to a vacuum energy. It was imparted to our universe as a result of the initial conditions required to alleviate tensional instability within Continuum around 14 billion years ago. “Dark” simply means humans do not understand it. Dark energy is the force that is causing our universe to accelerate its expansion beyond what state-of-the-art physics predicts. Hence in 100 billion years or so our universe is predicted to accelerate to the point that every galaxy, star, planet, human being, molecule, and quark will be stretched and torn apart, a process that has happened many times already in many universes. Dark energy represents the link between our universe and Continuum. It represents the influence or pull of Continuum on our universe, and thereby is the link or our universe to countless others.
Dark matter may also represent the influence of Continuum on our universe. Matter that we can see by definition is creating or reflecting light. Dark matter causes excess gravity such that stars with such velocity that they should be spinning out of galaxies into the open void of space are instead held within galaxies. This excess unknown matter creates extra gravity that holds the outer stars in place. Galaxies generally are thought to have a black hole at their core. These are the ultimate arbiter of entropy. They randomly “disappear” any matter or energy that comes within range of their enormous gravity. They are one of the enforcers of Continuum’s entropic state. They also give off a wisp of Hawking radiation so that even the mightiest black holes will they themselves dissolve eventually through the effects of entropy. Black holes are strong enough to interact with Continuum, and thereby create excess gravity, and an explanation for dark matter.
What existed before the “Big Bang?” How did the physical laws of the universe come to be? Everyone has asked themselves these questions at one time or another. This treatise proposes answers to these questions and more. It is consistent with current state-of-the-art knowledge in physics, specifically in the areas of dark matter, dark energy, and the origin of our universe. Although not mathematically robust, it presents qualitative solutions to many of the most baffling questions. Of course these hypotheses raise questions while at the same time proposing solutions. This will continue to be the case for the next 200-2000 years (if the human species survives that long) until humans can overcome limited intellectual and natural resources to scientifically prove these theories. The hypotheses promulgated in this document arose from observations on the evolution of physics, knowledge of natural laws, and extrapolation.
II. CONTINUUM AND EVOLUTION OF UNIVERSES
An infinitely-dimensional Continuum spawned our universe 14 billion years ago. This event corrected instabilities created by entanglement of dimensions, and has occurred countless times before and after. Continuum drives everything, everywhere, and every-when. It is not composed of matter or energy, but of infinitely-dimensional entropy. Entropy is the propensity for matter and energy to randomly dissipate without doing work, or it can be thought of as a natural, random conspiracy against organization. The infinite dimensions within Continuum are not anchored, and therefore can become entangled as ripples of instability propagate within. These ripples of instability are in the form of waves, which are the “language” of Continuum, and therefore the “language” of all universes and all creation. Instabilities originate from entropic dimensional interactions, and also are influenced by feedback loops from the evolution and aging of existing universes. These feedback loops are specifically the result of vacuum energy, sometimes referred to as dark energy. Current M superstring theory mathematically predicts that eleven dimensions exist in our universe. If this state-of-the-art theory is correct, it was the result of eleven dimensions becoming entangled within Continuum somewhere around 14 billion years ago. This tension was relieved with the creation of countless strings of energy that were embedded in the event horizon of our budding universe. New instabilities are continually experienced in the Continuum again and again as inherent dynamism exerts itself. Since universes are in other dimensions, they cannot experience one another directly, but are under constant influence by Continuum and visa-versa, and thereby can influence other universes indirectly. Since the inherent state of Continuum is entropy and the dimensions are not anchored, there is propensity for reduced entanglement after tension and instability are relieved through the universe creation process. However, feedback loops created from universe(s) evolving and dying results in new dimensional entanglement and instability within Continuum. Our universe, for example, is predicted to expand into oblivion in 100 billion years or so. This process will cause ripples of instability in Continuum, thereby resulting in the spawning of new universes.
Initial conditions are specifically mapped by the tension and dimensional instability in Continuum into a new universe. The specific initial conditions needed to relieve tension and instability within Continuum are critically important because these conditions determine the number of dimensions, the number and type of strings created in a new universe, and the amount of vacuum energy. Initial conditions thereby irrevocably contain the blueprint for all subsequent physical laws. Initial conditions also contain perturbations or tiny non-uniformities that result in granularity. Granularity is the non-uniform expansion of a universe which eventually results in coalescence into galaxies, stars, solar systems and other structures as the universe expands and cools. Granularity allows a spawning universe to temporarily overcome entropy in order to produce structure. Of course this is only temporary because as universes evolve, age, and eventually die, entropy wins out.
Time has no meaning within Continuum, but entropy requires at least one time dimension in a budding universe. Since at least two dimensions must become entangled in order to spawn universe creation, one is always a time dimension, and the rest are space dimensions, although there is no reason there cannot be multiple time dimensions. Time is the first dimension to appear in a spawning universe because it is the dimension that imparts dynamism to a universe. Without time, a universe would be static and could not evolve and allow entropy to work its magic. The number of space dimensions is determined by the initial conditions at universe creation, and therefore could result in wildly different physical laws. This implies that many universes are bizarre, even hostile places that may relieve inter-dimensional stress in Continuum, but never spawn life of any sort. Entropy ensures that universe creation is a purely random event, and may or may not be conducive to intelligent life, or life of any sort. The number of dimensions and the initial conditions of a budding universe determines all physical laws, and thereby how the universe will age. Some universes could be short-lived. Others could be unimaginably long-lived. Our universe is purportedly around 14 billion years old, but since spacetime was so warped in the event horizon of our budding universe, time had little meaning. Our universe could be much, much, older. Even eternally old! Time has zero meaning within Continuum. It obtains meaning sometime after universe creation.
III. THE EVOLUTION OF OUR UNIVERSE AND PHYSICAL LAWS
Our universe was created in an infinitely small, energetic event horizon packed with strings of energy that began spontaneously expanding around 14 billion years ago with a specific set of initial conditions in order to relieve stress or instability within Continuum, specifically within eleven entangled dimensions if current M superstring theory is correct. These initial conditions laid out the blueprint for all physical laws in our universe, and contained tiny perturbations that led to subsequent granularity. After our universe began to expand and cool, granularity resulted in coalescence of galaxies, stars, solar systems, and all structures. Without these tiny perturbations emanating from the Continuum, our universe would expand uniformly and be devoid of structure. The effects of entropy are manifest throughout our universe. It is predicted to rip itself apart and disappear in 100 billion years or so. Entropy at work! The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that we can only know probabilities for location of an electron if we are simultaneously measuring its angular momentum, and visa-versa. The very foundations of quantum mechanics are based on uncertainty and randomness. If you try to measure something at the quantum scale, you inherently change it so you can’t measure it! That uncertainty and randomness is entropy at work! String theory is the epitome of entropy at work. If state-of-the-art string theory is correct, our universe is seething with unimaginably small (around 10-33 cm) strings of energy moving about randomly, vibrating at various harmonic frequencies, thereby imparting all mass and force in the process.
One of the most important physical laws in our universe is the speed of light. Why does light always travel at 186,000 miles per second and no faster or slower in a vacuum? Why does an atomic mass unit always weight 1.6605 * 10-24 g? Why is the acceleration of gravity exactly 9.84 m/s2 at the surface of the earth? We are so used to these immutable laws that we mostly don’t question why? It’s because 14 billion years ago the initial conditions that resulted in these physical laws were precisely required to alleviate inter-dimensional tension and instability within Continuum.
Our universe is wonderfully and delicately balanced, with all physical laws interacting in a symphony that results in everything we see and experience. Our universe evolved from the moment of the “Big Bang” to harmonize all physical laws. Hypothetically if one important physical law was changed, it would upset the balance of all forces and require a new harmony to be achieved, possibly resulting in a dramatically different place. Therefore a universe with different initial conditions, different numbers of dimensions, amount of vacuum energy, etc. would be expected to have different physical laws, and through the harmony imposed through universe evolution, could be a radically different place than our universe. Can you imagine light traveling at 10 m/s, or radically different matter because protons and electrons have different structures, or gravity much stronger or weaker? Of course life may have never evolved in some of these universes, or it would be so foreign that we could not comprehend it, just as humans cannot understand multi-dimensionality. We have four dimensions that we experience every day: three in space and one in time. Current M superstring theory predicts a total of eleven dimensions, of which we can experience only four. The others operate at the quantum scale, and are required to unify the four force categories in our universe (strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravity). It is conceivable that some universes have only one space dimensions (an infinitely long string), or more than eleven space dimensions, but all universes have at least one time dimension because time is required for dynamism to exist. One time dimension is required for an unknown number of space dimensions.
The fact that our universe ended up being conducive to development of life-forms was completely a random happenstance event. Just as life in our universe requires random events to come together and produce conditions for primitive bacteria to get a foothold, universe creation is a purely random event that may or may not produce conditions that allow life to spawn. Short-lived hostile universes may not produce intelligent life or any life at all, while universes such as ours contain favorable conditions for life to get a foothold, although prevalence is still a question.
Humans cannot easily comprehend dimensions greater than four. It may be that a second time dimension would allow a hypothetical person to “see” all history throughout the time course of a universe. The second time dimension contains all information about every event that ever happened to everything and/or everyone. Don’t bother lying! Another possibility is the existence of a greater than 11 space dimensions that are currently predicted by state-of-the-art physics in our universe, or more than 4 spacetime dimensions that could be experienced by intelligent beings. It’s possible that some universes contain orthogonal space containing interacting dimensions. If a person existed in this hypothetical universe, in addition to “seeing” normal three-dimensional space, they may “see” flat cross-sections of first-order orthogonal beings and structures. If another orthogonal space dimension existed, a hypothetical person might only “see” a straight string component of a second-order orthogonal being. It’s also conceivable that time dimensions are created for every so-many space dimensions, so that a universe that has 15 dimensions would require 2 time dimensions due to entropic constraints. A very strange place indeed, but maybe not strange at all for being that evolved there!
IV. DARK ENERGY AND IT”S LINK TO CONTINUUM
Dark energy currently represents a huge gap in current understanding of our universe. It is sometimes referred to a vacuum energy. It was imparted to our universe as a result of the initial conditions required to alleviate tensional instability within Continuum around 14 billion years ago. “Dark” simply means humans do not understand it. Dark energy is the force that is causing our universe to accelerate its expansion beyond what state-of-the-art physics predicts. Hence in 100 billion years or so our universe is predicted to accelerate to the point that every galaxy, star, planet, human being, molecule, and quark will be stretched and torn apart, a process that has happened many times already in many universes. Dark energy represents the link between our universe and Continuum. It represents the influence or pull of Continuum on our universe, and thereby is the link or our universe to countless others.
Dark matter may also represent the influence of Continuum on our universe. Matter that we can see by definition is creating or reflecting light. Dark matter causes excess gravity such that stars with such velocity that they should be spinning out of galaxies into the open void of space are instead held within galaxies. This excess unknown matter creates extra gravity that holds the outer stars in place. Galaxies generally are thought to have a black hole at their core. These are the ultimate arbiter of entropy. They randomly “disappear” any matter or energy that comes within range of their enormous gravity. They are one of the enforcers of Continuum’s entropic state. They also give off a wisp of Hawking radiation so that even the mightiest black holes will they themselves dissolve eventually through the effects of entropy. Black holes are strong enough to interact with Continuum, and thereby create excess gravity, and an explanation for dark matter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
