The Big Bang Never Happened

■ MATTER ■students toward the purely formal aspects of science and awayfrom the outstanding contradictions of the standard approaches.As in cosmology, slowing technological advance has brokenthe link between science and technology. Until the end of WorldWar II, the need to understand the nucleus and its forces kepttheorists speculating about practical work. But once it becameclear, with the development of the A-bomb and the H-bomb, thatthe existing empirical knowledge of nuclear reactions is adequatefor military purposes, the pull of technology ebbed and theorywas free to float skyward into a mystical search for unity withwhat Heisenberg termed "the Central Order."THE SEARCH FOR AN ALTERNATIVEIt would be satisfying if at this point I could present an alternativetheory to fundamental physics which resolves the contradictionsof the conventional ideas. Unfortunately, no such theoryexists as yet. What do exist, though, are various clues as to how toapproach such an alternative, and substantial reason to believesuch an alternative is possible.We can define a set of criteria that a new theory must meet. Itmust resolve the long-standing contradictions of particle theories.It must explain what particles are and how they exist withoutblowing themselves apart. How can they be real entities, withsize and dimensions, not perfect, infinitesimal particles? How arethey created and destroyed? How are they controlled by thewaves described in Schrodinger's equations? How can they havea finite, specific mass, and why do they have the mass that theydo? Why do some particles decay while others don't, and why dothe unstable ones have the lifetimes observed?Equally important, such a theory must resolve the contradictionsamong the various theories in use today, especially betweenquantum mechanics and relativity. Unless one believes inmagic, Aspect's experiment clearly demonstrates that some formof communication faster than the speed of light occurs. The factthat it at present seems impossible to put this signaling to usetechnologically is irrelevant to the physical process taking place—nature, after all, isn't organized for the convenience of human367