Stephen Hawking's explosive new theory

I read an article in an English newspaper by Roger Highfield, who is the Science Editor for the Telegraph. Apparently Stephen Hawking has proposed a new theory in cosmology.

In this theory, the early universe can be described by a mathematical object called a wave function and, in a similar way to the light particle, the team proposed two years ago that this means that there was no unique origin to the cosmos: instead the wave function of the universe embraced a multitude of means to develop.

This is very counter intuitive: they argued the universe began in just about every way imaginable (and perhaps even some that are not). Out of this profusion of beginnings, like a blend of a God’s eye view of every conceivable kind of creation, the vast majority of the baby universes withered away to leave the mature cosmos that we can see today.

Professor Hawking is a very famous for his work in applied mathematics and theoretical physics. For a while, I was under the impression that he was also the announcer for the NOAA National Weather Alert System, but I have been told that this is incorrect.

Many of the theories of physics have filtered into the thinking and belief systems of the contemporary culture. Combined with interpretations of Eastern Religious views, New Age ideas that have their roots in the late 1800's, and a sort of refurbished Gnosticism, these ideas gleaned from physics add something of an empirical feel, a solid structural underpinning to a new world view. A world view that is probably incomprehensible to older people as well as people with a somewhat provincial perspective.

It is not for to me to give this world view a name, nor to judge it's accuracy or validity. I do wish to convey how startlingly different this new paradigm is from the perspective that precedes it.

This article about this new theory, provides me with a chance to explain a couple of premises that are commonly found in this new paradigm. While I will attempt to describe the physics, understand that I am not a physicist, nor is the physical theory what I am trying to convey. Rather it is a world view, that is comfortable with, and takes as a given that the basic nature of reality flows naturally from strange underlying principals, the aspects of several, I will try to explain.

By quantum lore, when a particle of light travels from A to B, it does not take one path but explores every one simultaneously, with the more direct routes being used more heavily.

This one sentence from the article has an enormous significance. I believe it refers to the double slit experiment. The double slit experiment is one of the most interesting things you could ever spend 10 minutes learning about.

In the double-slit experiment, a beam of light is aimed at a barrier with two vertical slits. After the light passes through the slits, the resulting pattern is recorded on a photographic plate. When one slit is covered, a single line of light is displayed, aligned with whichever slit is open.

Intuitively, one might hypothesize that if both slits were open, the resulting pattern would display as two lines of light, aligned with the slits. What occurs in practice, however, is that light passing through the slits and displayed on the photographic plate is entirely separated into multiple lines of lightness and darkness in varying degrees. The result illustrates that interference is taking place between the waves and particles going through the slits in what a layman might expect to be two non-crossing trajectories.

If the beam of photons is slowed enough to ensure that individual photons are hitting the plate, one might expect there to be no interference and a pattern of light would be two lines of light, aligned with the slits. The results of the experiment, however, indicate the presence of interference. Somehow, the single particles are interfering with themselves. On the face of things, this might seem impossible: we expect that a single photon will go through one slit or the other and will end up in one of two possible light line areas.

That expectation, however, is invalidated by the results of the double-slit experiment. What actually occurs is that each photon not only goes through both slits, but also simultaneously traverses every possible trajectory en route to the target. Research into this phenomenon has demonstrated that other elementary particles, such as electrons, exhibit the same behavior.
from WhatIs.com emphasis mine

It doesn't matter how we do the measurement, the result is the same: when we don't know which slit the photons are going through, we get a wave interference pattern. When we do know which slit each photon traveled through, no interference pattern. We will discuss this result in more detail below, but right now we just want to stress that this is not a theory, it's an experimental fact which has been verified many times. Sensible or not, measuring the photon's path changes what it does.
from Quantum Mechanics The Young Double-Slit Experiment

The strangeness of this can scarcely be overstated. What the physics seems to indicate is that a beam of light takes multiple paths toward it's destination. But only when it isn't being watched very closely.

Previously, people thought in Aristotelian terms. Something is, or it is not, it can not be both. One path taken precludes the possibility of another path being taken at the same time. Physics apparently demonstrates that at the level of very very small, this is not the case. The same chunk of light, the same photon, can and does go through both slits at the same time.

Previously, people presumed the existence of an objective world. It was taken as a given that the motions of inanimate things are independent of and not affected by our mere observations. Natural process were believed to occur the same way irregardless of the presence of an observer. Apparently, physics now demonstrates that by some mechanism or another, light which normally goes through both slits, will change it's behavior depending on how closely we are observing.

These things are not theories. These are observed facts, and the theories are mere potential explanations. The theories are abundant, and desperate attempts to explain why the world works this way.

Previously, people understood that while the future might be variable, the past was fixed. What happened, happened. Events did not both happen and not happen. There was one true history. While reports might be wrong, testimonies might be inaccurate, memories might be mistaken, the events of the past were inviolate. They were as they were.

This brings me to Professor Hawking's theory. Astronomers have observed the structure and motion of the universe to the limit of their instruments. Hawking's theory is an attempt to explain why the universe, at the level of very very big, looks the way it does. What he is suggesting is that one explanation that best fits the observed facts so far, is that the history of the universe not static, not one single chronology. Rather that the history of the universe is all possible histories that it could have had.

We know that whatever is within the realm of possibility in the future could happen. What a wave function theory of the universe suggests is that history is broken. If an event could have happened during the expansion of the universe, it did happen, even if it precludes other events, that also must have happened if ever they were possible.

Physicists apparently work with ideas like this all the time. They stay sane by confining their exploration of behavior like this to things either very very small, or things very very big. It's important for them to stay sane. They often have concerns about tenure and other issues. They are not just playing at madness however. They have the math to back this kind of stuff up. Things really are this way, or not, or both they are and are not. Really.

There is a paradigm, a perspective that rightly or wrongly incorporates ideas like this new theory into a more and more pervasive world view. The people that hold this perspective do not confine their understanding of the way things work to the very very big and the very very small. They apply these ideas to all scales. While they don't have the math, they have the hands on and practical, though anecdotal evidence, that what the mystics, the Buddhists, the Ouija board spirits, the madmen and the physicists seem to be saying, is more or less about right.

I have seen this world view called woo. The application and use of woo is often called many different things, but I think it would be fun to call it woo wei.