Particle Religion

This is just plain fun! When I saw the article about Dr. Michio Kaku saying that the existence of primitive semi-radius tachyon particles is proof that there is an intelligent creator, I could not resist delving into this bold idea.

For those who don't know the gentleman, Michio Kaku is a Japanese American who is a professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York and CUNY Graduate Center. He has written several books about physics and has appeared on the Science Channel is several of their series on physics and cosmology. He's also seen on the BBC, The Discovery Channel and the History Channel. He certainly gets around and is well respected as an expert on string theory. He is also known for popularizing science.

In this latest article, Kaku claims that the universe is a Matrix that's governed by laws and principles that could only be created by an intelligent being. He goes on to claim that chance is no longer valid because it doesn't make sense in light of the laws and principles of the Matrix.

Needless to say this caused a big furor among religious leaders and scientists. In other words it did nothing to prove that God actually exists. This is no surprise. However, I thought it would be interesting to delve into the science surrounding this bold claim.

First of all, Kaku is a theoretical physics and partly responsible for String theory, the branch of quantum physics that claims to have solved the super symmetry problem of particle physics by proposing that particles can be thought of as having little one-dimension energy strings that vibrate in ways that relate to mass, charge and spin properties. String theory has led to the concepts of Branes and higher dimensions, specifically 11-dimension super symmetrical hyperspace. Kaku thinks that the mind of God resonates as cosmic music through hyperspace, which means that God is a mathematician.

Tachyons are theoretical particles that do something that other particles cannot do, which is go faster than light. In fact, they never go below the speed of light. This is inconsistent with Einstein's relativity theories. Tachyons have what is called. Space-like four-momentum, while normal particles have time-like four-momentum. This means that tachyons can exist in the past, present and future at the same time. In other words, they could allow for time travel. This also means that tachyons violate the sacred causality principle of physics, which states that effects must always have a cause, but if something comes from the future, then what caused it? That's the dilemma concerning tachyons.

Okay, let's look at the primitive semi-radius tachyon. This doesn't make sense, and some physicist believe that Kaku was misquoted or that he didn't use that term at all. The article also claimed that Kaku had done experiments on these semi-radius tachyons, but there is no source for that claim. Kaku also has claimed that the cosmic background microwave map of the universe reveals our universe's baby picture, which it does, and that it is similar to the way that mathematics proves the existence of the mind of God.

Dimensions
There is some evidence that this article about Kaku is a hoax that appeared two years ago on Spanish web sites and has recently emerged on English-speaking web sites. This puts the entire report in question.

Types os Strings
Tachyons are hypothetical particles. However, there is a tachyon explanation for the Big Bang. Tachyon fields in equations of state often end up as a mass squared term, which is an indication of instability. Therefore, if a tachyon field existed then it would have caused instability, better known as a Big Bang, and this spontaneous breaking of symmetry – defined as the four types of interactions in nature being unified – ended up being broken to form gravity as a separate force. In other words tachyons caused the Big Bang. This idea is part of the Super symmetry theory, which links gravity to the other fundamental forces of nature.

I don't think this proves the existence of God, but it could be interpreted that way. There is no doubt that mathematics is a sign of intelligent design, but it's still not a proof. The idea that the universe is a massive computer simulation, better known as a Matrix, is not a new idea. It is one of the theoretical ideas to show that an intelligent being is in charge of everything. Unfortunately, there still isn't any proof for this.

Let me state for the record that I do believe in God, but I am looking at this claim as a scientist. Remember: Science explains how things work; Religion explains why.

Thanks for reading.