Lommel, Pim van. “About the Continuity of Our Consciousness”, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, 2004; 550: 115-132
…Near-death experiences (NDE) occur with increasing frequency because of improved survival rates resulting from modern techniques of resuscitation. The content of NDE and the effects on patients seem similar worldwide, across all cultures and times. NDE can be defined as the reported memory of the whole of impressions during a special state of consciousness, including a number of special elements such as out-of-body experience, pleasant feelings, seeing a tunnel, a light, deceased relatives, or a life review.… in 1988 we started a prospective study of 344 consecutive survivors of cardiac arrest in ten Dutch hospitals with the aim of investigating the frequency, the cause and the content of an NDE. … Results: 62 patients (18%) reported some recollection of the time of clinical death. …Several theories have been proposed to explain NDE. … With a purely physiological explanation such as cerebral anoxia, most patients who had been clinically dead should report an NDE. All 344 patients had been unconscious because of anoxia of the brain resulting from their cardiac arrest. Why should only 18% of the survivors of cardiac arrest report an NDE?

…So we have to conclude that NDE in our study, as well as in the American and the British study, was experienced during a transient functional loss of all functions of the cortex and of the brainstem. How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death, with a flat EEG? Such a brain would be roughly analogous to a computer with its power source unplugged and its circuits detached. It couldn’t hallucinate; it couldn’t do anything at all. As stated before, up to the present it has generally been assumed that consciousness and memories are localized inside the brain, that the brain produces them. According to this unproven concept, consciousness and memories ought to vanish with physical death, and necessary also during clinical death or brain death. However, during an NDE patients experience the continuity of their consciousness with the possibility of perception outside and above one’s lifeless body. Consciousness can be experienced in another dimension without our conventional body-linked concept of time and space, where all past, present and future events exist and can be observed simultaneously and instantaneously (non-locality). In the other dimension, one can be connected with the personal memories and fields of consciousness of oneself as well as others, including deceased relatives (universal interconnectedness). And the conscious return into one’s body can be experienced, together with the feeling of bodily limitation, and also sometimes the awareness of the loss of universal wisdom and love they had experienced during their NDE.

…We have to conclude that localized artificial stimulation with real photons (electrical or magnetic energy) disturbs and inhibits the constantly changing electromagnetic fields of our neuronal networks, thereby influencing and inhibiting the normal functions of our brain. Could consciousness and memories be the product or the result of these constantly changing fields of photons? Could these photons be the elementary carriers of consciousness?

Some researchers try to create artificial intelligence by computer technology, hoping to simulate programs evoking consciousness. But Roger Penrose, a quantum physicist, argues that “Algorithmic computations cannot simulate mathematical reasoning. The brain, as a closed system capable of internal and consistent computations, is insufficient to elicit human consciousness.” Penrose offers a quantum mechanical hypothesis to explain the relation between consciousness and the brain. And Simon Berkovitch, a professor in Computer Science of the George Washington University, has calculated that the brain has an absolutely inadequate capacity to produce and store all the informational processes of all our memories with associative thoughts. We would need 1024 operations per second, which is absolutely impossible for our neurons. Herms Romijn, a Dutch neurobiologist, comes to the same conclusion. One should conclude that the brain has not enough computing capacity to store all the memories with associative thoughts from one’s life, has not enough retrieval abilities, and seems not to be able to elicit consciousness.

With our current medical and scientific concepts it seems impossible to explain all aspects of the subjective experiences as reported by patients with an NDE during their period of cardiac arrest, during a transient loss of all functions of the brain. But science, I believe, is the search for explaining new mysteries rather than the cataloguing of old facts and concepts. So it is a scientific challenge to discuss new hypotheses that could explain the reported interconnectedness with the consciousness of other persons and of deceased relatives, to explain the possibility to experience instantaneously and simultaneously (non-locality) a review and a preview of someone’s life in a dimensionwithout our conventional body-linked concept of time and space, where all past, present and future events exist, and the possibility to have clear consciousness with memories from early childhood, with self-identity, with cognition, and with emotion, and the possibility of perception out and above one’s lifeless body.

We should conclude, like many others, that quantum mechanical processes could have something critical to do with how consciousness and memories relate with the brain and the body during normal daily activities as well as during brain death or clinical death.

I would like now to discuss some aspects of quantum physics, because this seems necessary to understand my concept of the continuity of consciousness. Quantum physics has completely overturned the existing view of our material, manifest world, the so-called real-space. It tells us that particles can propagate like waves, and so can be described by a quantum mechanical wave function. It can be proven that light in some experiments behaves like particles (photons), and in other experiments it behaves like waves, and both experiments are true. So waves and particles are complementary aspects of light (Bohr). The experiment of Aspect, based on Bell’s theorem, has established non-locality in quantum mechanics (non-local interconnectedness). Non-locality happens because all events are interrelated and influence each other.

Phase-space is an invisible, non-local, higher-dimensional space consisting of fields ofprobability, where every past and future event is available as a possibility.Within this phase-space no matter is present, everything belongs to uncertainty, and neither measurements nor observations are possible by physicists. The act of observation instantly changes a probability into an actuality by collapse of the wave function. Roger Penrose calls this resolution of multiple possibilities into one definitive state “objective reduction”. So it seems that no observation is possible without fundamentally changing the observed subject; only subjectivity remains.

The phase-speed in this invisible and non-measurable phase-space varies from the speed of light to infinity, while the speed of particles in our manifest physical real-space varies from zero to the speed of light. At the speed of light, the speed of a particle and the speed of the wave are identical. But the slower the particle, the faster the wave-speed, and when the particle stops, the wave-speed is infinite. The phase-space generates events that can be located in our space-time continuum, the manifest world, or real-space. Everything visible emanates form the invisible.

According to Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose, microtubules in neurons may process information generated by self-organizing patterns, giving rise to coherent states, and these states could be the explanation of the possibility of experiencing consciousness. Herms Romijn argues that the continuously changing electromagnetic fields of the neuronal networks, which can be considered as a biological quantum coherence phenomenon, possibly could be the elementary “carriers” of consciousness.

Quantum physics cannot explain the essence of consciousness or the secret of life, but in my concept it is helpful for understanding the transition between the fields of consciousness in the phase-space (to be compared with the probability fields as we know from quantum mechanics) and the body-linked waking consciousness in the real-space, because these are the two complementary aspects of consciousness. Our whole and undivided consciousness with declarative memories finds its origin in, and is stored in this phase-space, and the cortex only serves as a relay station for parts of our consciousness and parts of our memories to be received into our waking consciousness. In this concept consciousness is not physically rooted. This could be compared with the internet, which does not originate from the computer itself, but is only received by it.

Life creates the transition from phase-space into our manifest real-space; according to our hypothesis life creates the possibility to receive the fields of consciousness (waves) into the waking consciousness which belongs to our physical body (particles). During life, our consciousness has an aspect of waves as well asofparticles, and there is a permanent interaction between these two aspects of consciousness. This concept is a complementary theory, like both the wave and particle aspects of light, and not a dualistic theory. Subjective (conscious) experiences and the corresponding objective physical properties are two fundamentally different manifestations of one and the same underlying deeper reality; they cannot be reduced to each other. The particle aspect, the physical aspect of consciousness in the material world, originates from the wave aspect of our consciousness from the phase-space by collapse of the wave function into particles (”objective reduction”), and can be measured by means of EEG, MEG, MRI, and PET scan. And different neuronal networks function as interface for different aspects of our consciousness, as can be demonstrated by changing images during these registrations of EEG, MRI or PET scan. The wave aspect of our indestructible consciousness in phase-space, with non-local interconnectedness, is inherently not measurable by physical means. When we die, our consciousness will no longer have an aspect of particles, but only an eternal aspect of waves.

With this new concept about consciousness and the mind-brain relation all reported elements of an NDE during cardiac arrest could be explained. This concept is also compatible with the non-local interconnectedness with fields of consciousness of other persons in phase-space. Following an NDE most people, often to their own amazement and confusion, experience an enhanced intuitive sensibility, like clairvoyance and clairaudience, or prognostic dreams, in which they “dream” about future events. In people with an NDE the functional receiving capacity seems to be permanently enhanced. When you compare this with a TV set, you receive not only Channel 1, the transmission of your personal consciousness, but simultaneously Channels 2, 3 and 4 with aspects of consciousness of others. This remote, non-local communication seems to have been demonstrated scientifically by positioning subject pairs in two separate Faraday chambers, which effectively rules out any electromagnetic transfer mechanism. A visual pattern-reversal stimulus is used to elicit visual evoked responses in the EEG registration of the stimulated subject, and this was instantaneously received by the non-stimulated subject resulting in an analogous neural event with a similar brain wave morphology, or transferred potentials, as revealed on the EEG.

How should we understand the interaction between our consciousness and our functioning brain in our continuously changing body? As stated before, during our life the composition of our body changes continuously, as during each second 500,000 cells are being replaced in our body. What could be the basis of the continuity of our changing body? Cells and molecules are just the building blocks. In assessing all the theories mentioned above, it seems reasonable to consider the person-specific DNA in our cells as the place of resonance, or the interface across which a constant informational exchange takes place between our personal material body and the phase-space, where all fields of our personal consciousness are available as fields of possibility.

DNA is a molecule, composed of nucleotides, with a double helix structure. In humans it is organized into 23 pairs of chromosomes, defines 30,000 genes, and contains about 3 billion base pairs. About 95% of human DNA has a still unknown function, for which reason it is called “junk DNA,” non-protein-coding DNA, or introns, and the 5% protein-coding called exons. The more complex a species is, the more introns it has. Simon Berkovich assumes that this “junk DNA” could have an identifying purpose, comparable to a kind of “barcode” functionality. According to his hypothesis DNA itself does not contain the hereditary material, but is capable of receiving hereditary information and memories from the past, as well as the morphogenetic information, which contains the way the body will be built with all its different cell systems with specialized functions. Person-specific DNA is in this model the receiver as well as the transmitter of our permanently evolving personal consciousness.

According to Erwin Schrödinger, a quantum physicist, DNA is an a-statistic molecule, and a-statistic processes are quantum mechanical processes which originate from phase-space. In his theory DNA should function as a quantum antenna with non-local communication, and also Stuart Hameroff considers DNA as a chain of quantum bits (qubits) with helical twist, and according to him DNA could function in a way analogous to superconductive quantum interference devices. In his quantum computer model the 3 billion base pairs should function as qubits with quantum superposition of simultaneously zero and one.

Following a heart transplant, the donor heart contains DNA material foreign to the recipient. In a few recent books it has been reported that sometimes the recipient experiences thoughts and feelings that are totally strange and new, and later it becomes obvious that they fit with the character and consciousness of the deceased donor. The DNA in the donor heart seems to give rise to fields of consciousness that are received by the organ recipient. Unfortunately, until now scientific research on this has not been possible due to the reluctance of the transplant centers.

In trying to understand this concept of quantum mechanical mutual interaction between the invisible phase-space and our visible, material body, it seems appropriate to compare it with modern worldwide communication. There is a continuous exchange of objective information by means of electromagnetic fields for radio, TV, mobile telephone, or laptop computer. We are unaware of the vast amounts of electromagnetic fields that constantly, day and night, exist around us and through us, as well as through structures like walls and buildings. We only become aware of these electromagnetic informational fields at the moment we use our mobile telephone or by switching on our radio, TV or laptop. What we receive is not inside the instrument, nor in the components, but thanks to the receiver, the information from the electromagnetic fields becomes observable to our senses and hence perception occurs in our consciousness. The voice we hear over our telephone is not inside the telephone. The concert we hear over our radio is transmitted to our radio. The images and music we hear and see on TV are transmitted to our TV set. The internet is not located inside our laptop. We can receive what is transmitted with the speed of light from a distance of some hundreds or thousands of miles. And if we switch off the TV set, the reception disappears, but the transmission continues. The information transmitted remains present within the electromagnetic fields. The connection has been interrupted, but it has not vanished and can still be received elsewhere by using another TV set (”non-locality”).

Could our brain be compared to the TV set, which receives electromagnetic waves and transforms them into image and sound, as well as to the TV camera, which transforms image and sound into electromagnetic waves? This electromagnetic radiation holds the essence of all information, but is only perceivable by our senses through suitable instruments like camera and TV set.

The informational fields of our consciousness and of our memories, both evolving during our lifetime by our experiences and by the informational input from our sense organs, are present around us,and become available to our waking consciousness only through our functioning brain (and other cells of our body) in the shape of electromagnetic fields. As soon as the function of the brain has been lost, as in clinical death or brain death, memories and consciousness do still exist, but the receptivity is lost, the connection is interrupted.

According to our concept, grounded on the reported aspects of consciousness experienced during cardiac arrest, we can conclude that our consciousness could be based on fields of information, consisting of waves, and that it originates in the phase-space. During cardiac arrest, the functioning of the brain and of other cells in our body stops because of anoxia. The electromagnetic fields of our neurons and other cells disappear, and the possibility of resonance, the interface between consciousness and physical body, is interrupted.

Such understanding fundamentally changes one’s opinion about death, because of the almost unavoidable conclusion that at the time of physical death consciousness will continue to be experienced in another dimension, in an invisible and immaterial world, the phase-space, in which all past, present and future is enclosed. Research on NDE cannot give us the irrefutable scientific proof of this conclusion, because people with an NDE did not quite die, but they all were very, very close to death, without a functioning brain.

Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology 2004

What follows is an excerpt from a television program aired on October 7th, 2009 by German television station ZDF. It takes a skeptical viewpoint in trying to debunk God and Faith. They also address an interesting scientific experiment which tries to research what happens in the brain during deep meditation in which the state of oneness is experienced by the believer. The program brings this up in an attempt to give a natural explanation of a deep devotional experience. The problem is however that the program misses the deep mystery of consciousness, especially the duality of a brain wave field created by the matter of our neurons and how in this experiment synchronized wave patterns produce a perception of being at one with the underlying reality of our universe, which in turn is also based on a matter/wave duality.

When our brain wants us to focus on certain parts of our visual perception, neurons in the prefrontal cortex fire in unison and send signals to the visual cortex to do the same in order to become synchronized, directing our focus of attention. Source

During meditation we do not focus our sensory perception, still our brain waves become nearly completely synchronized by which the boundaries between inside and outside dissolve.

Science and religion has a hard time understanding the paradox of Jesus the God-Man, uniting two perfect natures in one person, fully divine and fully human, one in essence.

The skeptical view:

Abenteur Forschung
Brain Research Brain and God

Is faith measurable?
Every year millions of believers go on a pilgrimage to Lourdes in the hope of a cure, and all united in the belief in the power of a miracle. In 1858 in the grotto Massabielle the Virgin Mary appeared several times to the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous. A vision, a fantasy, a perceptual illusion? Researchers are on the trail of the phenomenon. They want to find out exactly what happens when such a phenomenon occurs, and how faith can actually be created. Visions or apparitions are a particularly intense form of spiritual experience. Faith is apparently widespread in many different cultures as a universal principle. Does Faith have a material basis?Researchers are now looking in the brain for measurable traces of faith and religiosity. Experiments suggest that certain areas are more active in the brain during religious experiences than others.

What happens during a vision?
 Is the brain of a believer distinct from that of non-believers, and how does our brain work, while we believe? During an observation brain researcher observe nuns during prayer in MRI. The aim is to find out what events occur in the brain during intense spiritual meditation, prayer, and if that leaves specific traces, so to speak, religiosity has a “place in the brain.” The comparison is striking: The brain of a person in prayer is different from a non-worshipers. The result: The activity of the brain during prayer varies by region. Fast passive is the center, with which we orientate ourselves in space and perceive. It is surprising that this region is supplied much less with blood during the prayer than, say, in resting subjects who do not pray. Some researchers see in this shut down of orientation the reason why prayer is often perceived as closeness to God.

The art of meditation
The Interest of science for Buddhist monks. In Buddhism meditation has for 2000 years placed meditation at its center. Many experienced monks train their brains in their lives often more than 10,000 hours. They describe their feelings as “one with the environment”, the borders to the outside world seem resolved.

That makes researchers interested. As neurophysiologists measure the brain waves of a monk in meditation, they are surprised: The brain waves vibrate remarkably uniform at a certain frequency. Die researchers draw the following conclusions from it: stimuli from our sense organs lead to nerve cells which continue to corresponding brain centers, there arises the perception of our surroundings. During the meditation changes the pattern. The derived excitation now shows nearly synchronized waves. A condition which probably completely changes the perception.
This provides the explanation for the brain researcher of what the monks during meditation experience: that the boundary between interior and exterior dissolves. This creates the feeling of being in complete harmony with the environment.

A matter of faith
Some scholars see in these results also a clue for the explanation of religious phenomena. As potential triggers they suspect specific excitation patterns in the brain. Some even go so far that they think they can selectively induce such visions. A converted helm is the ultimate tool for their experiment: It generates a weak magnetic field, and aims to stimulate such a small target area of the brain. The subjects should describe directly, which results in internal images. Some indeed report religious phenomena, others see mysterious luminous phenomena in the sky, UFOs or even extraterrestrial visitors. Again the images are determined by the individual cultural background. For example only those who have a strong religious commitment report corresponding appearances.

Source: ZDF Abenteur Forchung

Michio Kaku explaining superstring theory:

“The mind of God is music resonating through ten dimensional hyperspace.” - Michio Kaku

Wholeness and the Implicate Order:

In the enfolded [or implicate] order, space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of dependence or independence of different elements. Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible, from which our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order. These ordinary notions in fact appear in what is called the “explicate” or “unfolded” order, which is a special and distinguished form contained within the general totality of all the implicate orders (Bohm, 1980, p. xv).

All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force…
We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind.
This Mind is the matrix of all matter.

Max Planck, physicist
considered to be the founder of quantum theory

In March 1905 , Einstein created the quantum theory of light, the idea that light exists as tiny packets, or particles, which he called photons.

The work of relating the remarkable experiments and the abstract mathematical and theoretical formulations that constitute quantum physics to the experience that all of us share in the world of everyday life fell first to Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in the course of their collaboration in Copenhagen around 1927. Bohr and Heisenberg had stepped beyond the world of empirical experiments, pragmatic predictions of such phenomena as the frequencies of light emitted under various conditions and the observation that a discrete quantities of energy must be postulated in order to avoid the paradoxes to which classical physics inevitably led when it was pushed to extremes, and found a new world of quanta of energy, entities that fit neither the classical ideas of particles nor the classical ideas of waves, elementary particles that behaved in ways highly regular when many similar interactions were analyzed yet highly unpredictable when one tried to predict things like individual trajectories through a simple physical apparatus.

Not only did laboratory experiments disclose the fact, but the new theories predicted the consequences that elementary particles are neither wave nor particle, that knowing the position of a particle prevents us from knowing its direction and velocity (and vice-versa), that the very fact of detecting whether a small object such as a photon or electron passes through an apparatus by one path or another can change the end result of the experiment when that small entity reaches a detection screen. Wikipedia

The best way of describing is with probability formula as the path integral approach.

Which led to Einstein’s claim, “If it [the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics] is correct, it signifies the end of physics as a science.”

Einstein was displeased with this indeterministic outcome and his attitude is best summed up in his famous phrase, ‘God does not play dice’.

In the paper “Biological Extension of the Action Principle: Endpoint Determination beyond the Quantum Level and the Ultimate Physical Roots of Consciousness” Attila Grandpierre relates this phenomenon to proto-consciousness as the basis for biology. Journal-ref: NeuroQuantology, 2007, Vol. 5, pp. 346-362

excerpts:

Page 6 of paper

For example, Zukav (1980, in the chapter “Living?”, pp. 45-66) argues that “Something is “organic” if it has the ability to process information and to act accordingly. We have little choice but to acknowledge that photons…do appear to process information [in the two-slit experiment] and to act accordingly, and that therefore, strange as it may sound, they seem to be organic” (ibid., pp. 63-64).

Page 11 of paper

The whole universe appears as a gigantic and throbbing thread of inevitably propagating and complexifying chain reaction of interactions, including all the known and yet unknown forms of interactions, elevating the universe to higher and higher levels of organization, creating spontaneously self-active systems of activity. In this way, the principle of interactive perception becomes the basis of the upward organization of the whole universe. We propose that the quantum orientation observed in the two-slit experiment is a direct manifestation of the perceptive interaction of quanta.

Page 14 of paper

By our proposal, these many-body effects are based on quantum orientation, which relay on virtual interactions, and correspond to an elementary form of consciousness. In this way, the above arguments all indicate that consciousness (perhaps a better term would be proto-consciousness) must be present at the most fundamental levels of matter and universal vacuum fields.

It is a widely acknowledged view in biosemiotics that life and consciousness are coextensive (Hoffmeyer, 1996, 2001). Therefore, we can also formulate the above indicated (proto)biological interpretation of the two-slit experiment in the following way. The elementary quanta of physics are coupled to the vacuum and manifest an elementary or proto-consciousness. The means of proto-communication are the virtual interactions. The presence of the consciousness aspectis one reason to regard these virtual interactions as transcending physics and corresponding to biology. Moreover, these virtual interactions are immediate, representing instantaneous interactions (not necessarily quantum entanglement). This is another reason to regard virtual interactions as proto-communication, as expressions of proto-consciousness.

We found the following properties of proto-consciousness: perceptive interactions, selfreferential activity, quantum orientation, spontaneous timing, spontaneous targeting, and spontaneous upward organization.

Paper by Atilla Grandpierre

The first story is found in Genesis 1.1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The Hebrew word “bara” is a verb and is usually translated as “create”. To really understand what this word means let us look at another passage where this word is used.

1 Samuel 2.29 - Why do you scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling? Why do you honor your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people Israel?’ The word “fattening” in the passage above is the Hebrew word “bara”. The noun form of this verb is “beriya” and can be found in Genesis 41.4 - “And the cows that were ugly and gaunt ate up the seven sleek, fat cows.” The word “fat” is the Hebrew word “beriya”.

The word “bara” does not mean, “create” (Hebrew actually has no word that meaning “create” in the sense of something out of nothing) but “to fatten”. If we take the literal definition of “bara” in Genesis 1.1 we have - In the beginning God fattened the heavens and the earth.
source: Ancient Hebrew Research center

As science is learning that the Big Bang is not something out of nothing, but reality out of the zero energy field or the finite out of the infinite.

Jesus is a translation of the Hebrew name Yeshua or its longer version Yehoshua.

In Jewish mysticism the Hebrew letters have a mystical significance:
The name of Jesus in Hebrew would be Yeshua, hebrew letters Ayin - Vav - Shin - Yud

Yud = the infinite point

Shin = the eternal flame

Vav = connection

Ayin = divine providence

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DISCLAIMER 
The objective of this site is to look at what unites. Not to put forward ahat devides. Views presented here are not be taken as support or judgement about the whole of certain teachings.

In our past physicist believed in a mysterious background medium that filled unoccupied space and through which light and radiation travels. This was labeled “ether” or “aether“. In Newtonian physics all waves are propagated through a medium, e.g., water waves through water, sound waves through air. When James Clerk Maxwell developed his electromagnetic theory of light, Newtonian physicists postulated ether as the medium that transmitted electromagnetic waves. Ether was held to be invisible, without odor, and of such a nature that it did not interfere with the motions of bodies through space. The concept was intended to connect the Newtonian mechanistic wave theory with Maxwell’s field theory. However, all attempts to demonstrate its existence, most notably the Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887, produced negative results and stimulated a vigorous debate among physicists that was not ended until the special theory of relativity proposed by Albert Einstein in 1905, became accepted.

It was Einstein who established that a void is a void and that the mysterious aether did not exist because there was no measurable physical effect.
Einstein was also responsible for the definition of a cosmological constant as part of his theory of general relativity to achieve a stationary universe. Einstein included the term in the equations for general relativity because he was dissatisfied that his equations do not allow for a stationary universe. Gravity would cause a universe which was initially at dynamical equilibrium to begin to contract. To counteract the contraction, Einstein added the cosmological constant.

After the discovery of Hubble redshift and the introduction of the expanding space paradigm Einstein abandoned the concept and called it the “biggest blunder” of his life.

The knowledge of science has taken a considerable leap forwards in these areas. Science discovered that a void is not empty and as a result a contradicting term has arisen called the physical vacuum.
Furthermore it was established that the redshift was not linear but instead quantitized.

The physical vacuum by Barry Setterfield

Then, late in the 19^th century, it was realised that the vacuum could still contain heat or thermal radiation. If our container with the vacuum is now perfectly insulated so no heat can get in or out, and if it is then cooled to absolute zero, all thermal radiation will have been removed. Does a complete vacuum now exist within the container? Surprisingly, this is not the case. Both theory and experiment show that this vacuum still contains measurable energy. This energy is called the zero-point energy (ZPE) because it exists even at absolute zero.

The ZPE was discovered to be a universal phenomenon, uniform and all-pervasive on a large scale. Therefore, its existence was not suspected until the early 20^th century. In 1911, while working with a series of equations describing the behaviour of radiant energy from a hot body, Max Planck found that the observations required a term in his equations that did not depend on temperature. Other physicists, including Einstein, found similar terms appearing in their own equations. The implication was that, even at absolute zero, each body will have some residual energy. Experimental evidence soon built up hinting at the existence of the ZPE, although its fluctuations do not become significant enough to be observed until the atomic level is attained. For example [2], the ZPE can explain why cooling alone will never freeze liquid helium. Unless pressure is applied, these ZPE fluctuations prevent helium’s atoms from getting close enough to permit solidification. In electronic circuits another problem surfaces because ZPE fluctuations cause a random “noise” that places limits on the level to which signals can be amplified.

The magnitude of the ZPE is truly large. It is usually quoted in terms of energy per unit of volume which is referred to as energy density. Well-known physicist Richard Feynman and others [3] have pointed out that the amount of ZPE in one cubic centimetre of the vacuum “is greater than the energy density in an atomic nucleus” [4]. Indeed, it has been stated that [5]: “Formally, physicists attribute an infinite amount of energy to this background. But, even when they impose appropriate cutoffs at high frequency, they estimate conservatively that the zero-point density is comparable to the energy density inside an atomic nucleus.” In an atomic nucleus alone, the energy density is of the order of 10⁴⁴. (An erg is defined as “the energy expended or work done when a mass of 1 gram undergoes an acceleration of 1 centimetre per second per second over a distance of 1 centimetre.”)

Estimates of the energy density of the ZPE therefore range from at least 10⁴⁴ ergs per cubic centimetre up to infinity. For example, Jon Noring made the statement that “Quantum Mechanics predicts the energy density [of the ZPE] is on the order of an incomprehensible 10⁹⁸ ergs per cubic centimetre.”Prigogine and Stengers also analysed the situation and provided estimates of the size of the ZPE ranging from 10¹⁰⁰ ergs per cubic centimetre up to infinity. In case this is dismissed as fanciful, Stephen M. Barnett from the University of Oxford, writing in Nature (March 22, 1990, p.289), stated: “The mysterious nature of the vacuum [is] revealed by quantum electrodynamics. It is not an empty nothing, but contains randomly fluctuating electromagnetic fields, with an infinite zero-point energy.” In actual practice, recent work suggests there may be an upper limit for the estimation of the ZPE at about 10¹¹⁴ ergs per cubic centimetre (this upper limit is imposed by the Planck length, as discussed below).

In order to appreciate the magnitude of the ZPE in each cubic centimetre of space, consider a conservative estimate of 10⁵² ergs/cc. Most people are familiar with the light bulbs with which we illuminate our houses. The one in my office is labelled as 150 watts. (A watt is defined as 10⁷ ergs per second.) By comparison, our sun radiates energy at the rate of 3.8 x 10²⁰ watts. In our galaxy there are in excess of 100 billion stars. If we assume they all radiate at about the same intensity as our sun, then the amount of energy expended by our entire galaxy of stars shining for one million years is roughly equivalent to the energy locked up in one cubic centimetre of space.