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Despite what you
sometimes see in popular science literature, theoretical physics does
not deal with the
observed universe
directly. Instead, it delivers
theories
to experimental physics whose job is then to establish if the
observed universe
constitutes a
model
of the theories by checking the
predictions
of a theory against
properties
of the observed universe.
At the most fundamental level there are
three empirically established properties
of the observed universe:
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Four-dimensionality of spacetime. |
| Existence of a metric on
spacetime. |
| Lorentzian signature of the
metric. |
It is difficult to overestimate the
importance of these properties on which virtually every human
endeavor (including physics, chemistry and biology) is based, and a
necessary (but not sufficient) condition for a theory to qualify as
fundamental
is to provide
theoretical
justifications
(explanations) for these fundamental
properties. Yet within the contemporary (Einstein-Heisenberg)
paradigm there are none, so they have to be incorporated into two main theories
of the paradigm (quantum mechanics
and
general relativity)
as
axioms.
For this reason, in particular, the two theories are considered just
effective,
not fundamental, which motivates, in
part, the enterprise known as the search for
quantum gravity.
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In practice
physicists often use somewhat different terminology - theories themselves are called
models
of the observed universe, whose
viability
can be quantified by the number of theoretical
justifications
for empirically established
properties and
the number of
testable predictions.
The monocosm (model), whose technical
aspects are given in the above paper offers a very specific
cosmological model
of the observed universe, with the following characteristics:
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| It provides theoretical justifications
for the fundamental properties above. |
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| It incorporates a generalization of
standard quantum mechanics and thus inherits the predictive power of the
latter. |
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| It predicts a
spatially closed universe. |
|
| It predicts a
non-geodesic flow
along preferred directions. |
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The above paper is
copyrighted and downloads are permitted for personal study only. For any
other use please contact the author and/or the publisher.
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