S2/EP8: Triads and Forces – Part 5

Hi, I’m Gary

Welcome to a series of podcasts on achieving a peaceful and mindful state through mental  awareness exercises, and further, gaining understanding into the laws of world creation and world maintenance, specifically as described within the works of George Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way

Each episode in this series focuses upon a particular element of this teaching, and aims to bring simple understanding to what was frequently hidden in plain sight within the various subject areas of the Fourth Way.

PICKING UP FROM WHERE WE LEFT OFF IN OUR LAST PODCAST…

We were talking about Triads and the three forces, as described by the fellow in Texas…

This podcast begins after the Universe started to make neutrons, the third force. We learned, previously, that when neutrons are created in the cores of suns, they only have fifteen minutes to live, unless they are able to find a proton and start dancing. If they do, they filled up their dance card for a third of a googol number of years. Whew! Finally safe. Thereafter, the first 25 elements could be made. Then, when the suns started to produce iron, the 26th element, they exploded.

One scientist humorously says, “We watch these Star Wars’ movies, and they have these death stars; things that kill suns. But we now know that all we have to do is throw an iron skillet at it.”

Who would have thought that the production of iron would kill the sun? But it does. When a sun starts to produce iron, the nuclear explosions in its core cease, and the mass of the sun causes the sun to collapse and explode.

The entire sequence only occurs in massive suns.

I will walk you through it. Massive suns live approximately ten million years. They spend about 90% of that life fusing hydrogen into helium. When the hydrogen starts to run out, the helium starts fusing into carbon, which takes around a million years. When the carbon starts to run out, things start to speed up. The carbon begins to fuse into neon, which continues for about a thousand years. Then, neon fuses into silicon, which only lasts for about 1 year. And, finally, the silicon fuses into iron, which takes about one day. At this stage, the sun literally resembles an onion; each shell contains heavier elements. Hydrogen is the lightest and is the furthest out, then there is a shell of helium, then carbon, then oxygen, then neon, then silicon, and finally there is an iron core. And, very soon after the sun starts to make iron, it goes supernova. Kaboom!

We used to think that the other elements were created when suns went supernova. That is, that the elements that were in the shells that surrounded the iron core, were slammed into each other when the suns exploded, with such force, that all the other elements in the periodic table were created.

But, within the last few years, scientists have realized… that is not how it works. There is a show, available online, called How the Universe Built Your Car. It explains that we need copper for our car, for the wiring. Copper is the 29th element. Since suns can only make the first 26 elements, how the heck do we make copper, if not by supernovas?

It turns out that copper is made in what are called second-generation suns. Suns that are made from the debris of first-generation suns that went supernova. The second-generation suns contain all the elements that were produced in the first-generation suns. The most abundant of which is hydrogen, but scattered throughout the suns, are also iron, silicon, magnesium, and potassium, etc., all of the other elements that were created in those first-generation suns.

What happens next is really cool. In the outer regions of these second-generation suns there are iron nuclei that have twenty-six protons and twenty-six neutrons. With twenty-six protons, the iron nuclei has quite a positive charge; and, if another proton comes along and says, “Can I join you?” the twenty-six protons say, “Nah. No way. Our massive positive charge won’t let your puny positive charge come anywhere near us.” Thus, no other protons were able to fuse with the iron nuclei and create heavier elements.

But the Universe has a trick, she says, you know we cannot get any more protons to stick to that iron nucleus because they keep being repelled by the twenty-six protons that are already there. So, let’s take a neutron, which does not have a positive charge, and collide it with that iron nucleus… perhaps, we can get it to stick. Thus, an additional neutron gets fused to the iron nucleus.

Then, another neutron collides and fuses. Then another, and another, and another, and another, which is great for the neutrons, since they only have fifteen minutes to live. 

The iron nucleus still has its twenty-six protons, but it now has thirty, forty, or fifty neutrons stuck to it as well. Then, something amazing happens… called “beta minus decay.” Miraculously, one of the neutrons decays into a proton, an electron, and an antineutrino. The electron and the antineutrino are liberated, leaving the proton behind, which turns the iron into cobalt – an element with 27 protons in its nucleus. When another neutron suffers beta minus decay, the cobalt becomes nickel. Another one… and voilà, copper.

Eureka!

Because of this trick the Universe began to make elements heavier than iron. With every beta minus decay, the nucleus added one more proton, and the Universe added one more element. From 26 iron, we got 27 cobalt, 28 nickel, 29 copper, 30 zinc, 31 gallium, 32 germanium, 33 arsenic, 34 selenium, 35 bromine, 36 krypton… and then someone wrote Superman.

Why do those neutrons still suffer beta minus decay? After all, they found protons to dance with. And, you said that, if they married a proton, they would gain the life of the proton. So, why do some of them decay?

It is because they are extras. It is like the guy with three wives; sooner or later, two of them implode. So, when twenty-six protons are bonded with twenty-six neutrons, things are good. But, when you start getting extra girls in the model you start having difficulties, cat fights, and mental breakdowns. 

Technically, it is because the extra neutrons do not have their own protons to bond with. 

It seems that, in a nucleus, the attractive forces between neutrons and protons, due to the so called strong nuclear force, results in each proton and each neutron being less massive than they would be as free particles. Bound systems, like stable nuclei, become bound by exporting energy during formation, and this loss of energy results in a lower total mass. Free neutrons decay because they are more massive than the total mass of the proton, electron, and antineutrino that results from their decay. And, since atoms seek stability, that instability results in beta minus decay.

Woosh, another big scientific chunk!

OK, that works for the middle part of the periodic table, but to make the really heavy elements, like gold, platinum, and lead, requires something even more amazing. That is, you cannot just beta minus decay your way into gold. In order to make gold, you first need two really massive suns to go supernova and become neutron stars.

You have heard of neutron stars, right?

A neutron star is the core of a collapsed sun that initially had so much mass, so much gravity, that when it collapsed, the electrons and protons got squeezed into each other and became neutrons.

What is left is a core of tightly packed neutrons. It is so tightly packed that a teaspoon full of a neutron star weighs as much as Mount Everest.

The reason this happens is because of space. Atoms are mostly empty space. A model that the fellow in Texas likes to use is this – Question: “If we took a hydrogen atom and enlarged its proton to the size of a dime, how far away do you think the electron would be?” Answer: “6/10 of a mile… or six football fields away.” Wow that is pretty far away! Let’s keep it simple and say 1/2 mile away. Making our atom of hydrogen, with its electron orbiting the dime, 1 mile across…. Can you imagine a mile-wide spherical ball with only a dime in the middle? If you can, you will understand why atoms are mostly empty space.

Using this model, and knowing that when the core of a massive star collapses the protons and electrons are squished into each other and become neutrons, we can imagine that, when the electron, which is a half-mile away from the dime, gets squished into the dime it becomes, let’s say, a nickel. And, then, over there, is another mile-wide spherical ball of hydrogen that also had its electron squished into its dime; and, it too becomes a nickel. And, that mile-wide hydrogen sphere over there was also squished into a nickel, and that one, and that one, and that one…. And, then, that nickel, which originally lived way over there, a mile away from me, got shoved very close to my nickel; and, that one over there got shoved over here too, and that one, and that one, and that one. And, all the nickels got shoved over here by me. Holey Moley, my original mile-wide sphere, which only had a dime in it, now contains a quadrillion zillion nickels. Wow, I am rich… and, I am also very heavy. No wonder a teaspoonful of a neutron star weighs as much as a mountain… all the nickels are virtually in one area. 

Most neutron stars spin hundreds of times a second and are called pulsars. They spin really fast because when a spinning body pulls its mass closer to its center of gravity, it spins faster and faster; just like a spinning ice skater spins faster and faster when they pull their arms in.

I know it is a silly model, but it does help us to understand why neutron stars are so heavy.

The gravity of a neutron star is so immense, that if you were on the surface of a neutron star, which you couldn’t be, but if you could, and if you climbed to the top of an eight-foot step ladder, which you couldn’t, but if you could, and jumped off… when you hit the surface of the neutron star, you would be traveling at six million miles an hour. Here on earth, things accelerate at thirty-two feet per second per second. On that neutron star, it is six million miles per hour after only eight feet!

You may ask, “Why don’t the neutrons in a neutron star decay after fifteen minutes? After all, they are not dancing with protons?

Good question. We know that time flows slower as mass increases. Therefore, the neutrons’ lives would get extended because their neutron stars have mucho mass. But, probably, not by a significant amount, but by some. However, even if it was a significant amount, they would still decay, which would eventually cause the demise of the neutron star. Then, what is the actual answer? The actual answer is reincarnation. Wow! Really? Reincarnation? Yes, what happens is that the neutrons do decay into protons, electrons, and antineutrinos, but the gravity is so immense that they almost instantly fuse back into neutrons. This death and rebirth cycle reconstitutes the neutron star.  It reincarnates.

OK, back to answering the question of how gold is made.

Most solar systems in the Universe are binary systems.

Most solar systems have two suns… some have more.

If one sun goes supernova and becomes a neutron star and the other sun goes supernova and also becomes a neutron star, those two neutron stars would be orbiting each other; and, over time, they would get closer, and closer, and closer, and closer, and closer. Until finally, the two neutron stars would collide, in what is called a kilonova. When they do, there is an incredible explosion that creates chunks of neutron nuclei; nuclei so large, that when 79 of their neutrons beta minus decay into protons, you get gold.

Recently scientists were able to witness two colliding neutron stars, and when they looked at the debris field, they were amazed at how much gold they saw. It was like, oh my God, earth-size chunks of gold.

So, the first group of elements is made in a sun, up to iron. The middle group (like copper) is made with the help of a trick. And, finally, the third group of really heavy elements (like gold) is made when two neutron stars collide.

That is creation. Creation in the language of physics. 

However, in Gurdjieff’s model, creation occurred because our Endlessness was trying to overcome the Merciless Heropass, that is, the flow of time itself, which was diminishing the volume of the Most Holy Sun Absolute. Therefore, His aim was to, hopefully, have things independently arise in the Universe and flow back into the Holy Sun Absolute.

But, before we tackle more of Gurdjieff’s scenario, and try to recreate the Universe by changing the law of seven, let’s try to understand a bit more about the process of creation itself. 

We will start with the strong nuclear force and then discuss how galaxies are made. The fellow in Texas likes to call the former, the Velcro effect.

He says, “Imagine that protons are like prickly Velcro and that neutrons are like soft Velcro. Then, inside suns, when a prickly proton collided with a soft neutron they would stick! After that, if a second proton and neutron, which were also stuck to each other, collided with the first proton and neutron, the second soft neutron could stick to the first prickly proton, and the second prickly proton could stick to the first soft neutron, and make helium, two prickly protons stuck to two soft neutrons. Protons normally repel; but, because of the intermediate guys called neutrons, additional protons can now occupy the same nucleus, and create heavier elements.”

In physics, it is called the Strong Nuclear Force. A force that causes neutrons to hold protons together. The fellow in Texas calls that, “Industrial Velcro.” 

Because of this, more protons and neutrons can be added to the nucleus.

OK, let’s talk a bit about supermassive black holes. Supermassive black holes are a million to a billion times bigger than our sun and are found in the center of galaxies. And, the orbital speeds of the outermost stars in those galaxies, which is called Sigma, is always at a speed that is relative to the size of the supermassive black hole. Therefore, the supermassive black hole must have come into existence before the stars formed, otherwise, there would not be a relationship between the Sigma of the outermost stars in the galaxy and the size of the supermassive black hole at its center.

Do you know how gravity works, curved space? According to Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity: mass tells space how to curve; space tells mass how to move.

If space was two-dimensional, it would be similar to a trampoline. Put a bowling ball on a trampoline and the trampoline will depress. The mass of the bowling ball will tell the trampoline how to curve. Then roll a marble across the trampoline, and the curve of the trampoline will tell the marble how to move. Thus, mass tells space how to curve; space tells mass how to move.

Scientists have also discovered that the mass of a supermassive black hole is approximately 1/200 the mass of its galaxy.

Why are supermassive black holes 1/200 the mass of their galaxies?

The scientists did not know…. But that got the fellow in Texas thinking.

If all galaxies started out as globular clusters (spheres) and rotated – via angular momentum, which flattened them into discs like our milky way, how much of the flattened disc would equal 1/200 the volume of the sphere.

If a globular cluster (a sphere) – like a spinning ball of pizza dough flattened into a disc, logically, when the sphere flattened, there would be a lot more dough in the central region of a disc than there would be at the outer edge. 

The fellow in Texas asked, “How big would a central column of the collapsing dough (that became the supermassive black hole in the center of the disc) need to be, in order for the supermassive black hole to end up being 1/200 the mass of the sphere?”

Here is what he found out: 1/200 the volume of a sphere that had a diameter of 34 inches, would be contained in a 2-inch wide column at the center of that sphere.

Or a central 2-inch wide column of a 34-inch wide ball of pizza dough would contain 1/200 the mass of that ball of dough.

A 34-inch wide spinning ball of pizza dough can flatten, and a central 2-inch wide column of that collapsing ball would scrunch down and produce an 2-inch wide flattened area that contained 1/200 of the mass of that spinning ball of dough.

So, a spinning globular cluster of hydrogen collapses into a disc, and the collapsed central area (approx. 5.77% of that disc) becomes a supermassive black hole with a mass that is 1/200 the mass of the cluster.

Wow!

There, however, is another possibility: The fellow in Texas thought, if I blew up a massive sphere of concrete with TNT, debris would go in all directions. Certainly, a bunch of the concrete would be vaporized, but chunks of concrete would also survive. Therefore, it may be that supermassive black holes came first, because they were chunks of the Holy Sun Absolute that were blown into space at the time of the Big Bang. That is, chunks of the original black hole spewed into space and dimpled the fabric of spacetime. Hydrogen then  gathered in these spherical dimples, became suns, and created galaxies. Each black hole chunk created a dimple of corresponding size, which could only hold a requisite amount of hydrogen. An amount that was 200 times more massive than the black hole chunk that created it. If that is the case, then… hold the pizza.

Woosh, another big scientific chunk!

OK, great. That pretty much explains the model of creation according to Physics, including creation and the interaction of the three forces. 

IN THE NEXT PODCAST, we shall return to the changing of the Law of Seven.

Thank you for listening, and, if you’d like to know more about the subjects and exercises we’ve been covering in these podcasts, including the book and guide that underpins all of this, and how we work with it, you can find us at The Dog Pub Dot Com. That’s T H E D O G P U B DOT COM

Goodbye until next time.