A Theory of Everything: Is it Possible?

I was watching a program on Nova (TV) the other day about the universe, and it made me think again about how vast and complex our universe really is. There seems to be no end to it -- at least we can't find an end. And even "empty space" is much more complex than we thought. It's certainly not empty and we're still not sure what all it contains in the way of "strange" particles.
     Einstein showed us that space is curved by matter and that helped clear up a few problems. But it also created a few new ones. Are we ever going to be able to completely explain everything about the universe? It always seems that when we finally explain something that has puzzled us for years, the solution creates more problems. Somehow I think this will continue on indefinitely. I'm convinced, in fact, that we'll never be able to explain everything. We may come close, and things will no doubt continue to get more and more complicated, but there will always be problems left to solve. In a sense it would be a shame if we did discover a theory that explained everything. It would mean we would have no new problems to work on. Somehow I don't think we'll ever have to worry about this; I don't believe it will every happen.
     Furthermore, I'm just as convinced that there is other life in the universe beyond Earth -- in fact, I'm also convinced that much of this life is advanced (as advanced as we are). We are finding large numbers of planets around nearby stars, and with 200 billion stars in our galaxy, there has to be millions and likely billions of planets out there. And beyond our galaxy there are hundreds of billions of other galaxies with just as many stars as our galaxy. The probablity that some of them have advanced life in them is overwheming. After all, all you need is the proper conditions for life to form; they include water in liquid form, a satisfactory atmosphere and moderate temperatures. If I had to guess I'd say there are  millions of advanced civilizations out there somewhere. Anyway, it's interesting to think about.

Can Dreams Make You Smarter and More Creative?

To answer this we have to look at what sleep is, and what it involves. To most of us it seems that we lie down at night, lose consciousness, then wake up in the morning, and that's all there is to it. But there's actually a lot more to it than this. One of the reasons we know this is because of a machine called the electroencephlograph that records EEGs, or "brain waves." If the electrodes from this machine are attached to your head they give a record of the "neuron firing" that is going on in your brain as you sleep. And this record gives us impotant information.
     Your brain generates several types of waves. They are referred to by the first letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, beta, gamma and theta. These waves tell us that your body goes through five stages when you sleep -- all the way from light sleep, through deep and very deep sleep to what is called REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. And it's during REM sleep that you dream.
     We refer to the above as "stages" of sleep, and your body goes through these five stages in about 90 minutes. Since you sleep for 7 or 8 hours you pass through four or five of these stages every night, and during each of the REM stages you dream for about ten minutes. This means you dream for about an hour every night; the only dream you ever remember, however, (assuming you do remember it) is the last one just before you wake up.
     So, what is the importance of dreaming, and is it good for anything? It might surprise you, but it can be helpful in your life. Research has shown that sleep is particularly important in consolidating new learning. In other words, if you "sleep" on something that you just learned, it will help you remember it. In essence, it will drive it deeper into your memory. The important thing, however, is that as much of your sleep as possible be REM sleep. Indeed, the more REM sleep you get after learning something, the better you will recall it later.
     But not only does REM sleep help you learn faster, it is also helpful in relation to creativity. It's well-known that people who go to sleep after trying unsuccessfully to solve a problem, frequently wake up with the solution.
     Can you take advantage of this? Indeed, you can. You can, in fact, learn to use REM sleep to both increase your creativity and to learn faster. Four steps are important in accomplishing this.
   1. Write down your problem, or summarize what you want to learn better.
   2. Review and think about it before you go to bed.
   3. Think about it again when you are in bed, just before you go to sleep. Let it sink into your
        subconscious.
   4. When you wake up in the morning, write down your dream before you forget it.

Do Music Lessons at a Very Young Age Help Students Academically later on in School?

One of the things that parents of young children frequently ask themselves is: What can I do to make sure my children are as successful as possible at school and university? Is there, in fact, anything I can do? Children's brains develop very rapidly during the first few years of their life, and the environment and so on they are exposed to at this time definitely has an effect on how well they do in later life. An entire industry has, in fact, grown up around the idea that we can, in fact, do things that will help. Hundreds of thousands of "Baby Einstein" books and other items are sold every year. And for a few years it was thought that if young children were exposed to Mozart sonatas it would make them smarter. In addition, software called "Fast ForWord" was also developed that claimed to give children an advantage when they went to school. Studies eventually showed that most of these things had little effect. But the one thing that was definitely helpful was musical training at an early age. Listening to music was not as effective as some had hoped, but playing and practising a musical instrument at an early age had a definite effect on the developent of the brain. Scientists are still not sure exactly why this is so, but they are in agreement that there is an effect. In fact, it doesn't matter what instrument you play; the piano, violin and guitar all seem to have the same effect. Studies have shown that the key is concentration on the acoustical sounds as they are played. For some reason this helps with the development of language comprehension and in the development of cognitive skills such as memory.

Barry Parker, Ph. D.  author of "Learn form Yesterday, Live for Today, Hope for Tomorrow"

What Lies Beyond the Edge of Our Universe?

Ir might seem that we can see out to the "end" of the universe with our largest telescopes. But we can't. It's important to remember that because light has a finite speed (186,000 miles per second), as we peer out into space we are actually looking back in time. Even when we look at the surface of the sun, we see it as it was eight minutes ago, because it takes eight minutes for its light to reach us. As we look at nearby galaxies we see them as they were millions of years ago -- not as they are today. Because of this, and the fact that the universe (according to the Biog Bang hteory) has a finite age, we only see out to a distance of 42 billion light years. There is, in fact, no way we can see beyond this distance. Does this mean there is "nothing" beyond this distance? No, it doesn't. It's quite likely that there is more universe -- more galaxies, more stars, more planets, and more aliens beyond it. But they are  in another universe as far as we are concerned.

How many of these "other universes" exist? There may well be an infinite number; astronomers still do not know.

Barry Parker, Ph. D., author of "Learn from Yesterday, Live for Today, Hope for Tomorrow"

Does a Universe Without Any Life in it Make Any Sense?

An interesting question. Would a universe without any life in it make any sense? It doesn't seem like it would. Why would it be here? What would its role be? We can take this one step further. Considering how unbelievably large our universe is, does it make any sense that we are the only life in it? We know that life will evolve naturally if the conditions are right. All you need is proper temperatures, a reasonable atmosphere with oxygen and water, and life would eventually appear. It would be a long way from advanced life as we know it, but still it would be life. Furthermore, we know that this life would evolve and develop into a higher form. With survival of the fittest this only makes sense. But I'll admit it's a long ways from very primitive forms of life to an advanced form like us, but time is on the side of the advancing forms. Millions, even  hundreds of millions of years are but a blink of the eye when we're talking about the universe. What does all of this mean?

We have discovered dozens of planets in our tiny corner of the universe, and some of them have conditions that are "almost" satisfactory for life. If we extrapolate this to the rest of our galaxy with it 200 billions stars we should have at least hundreds of millions of planets, and if only one in a thousand have conditions satisfactory for life we'll still have thousands of planets that could contain life.
And I'm talking only about our galaxy. There are at least 200 billion galaxies out there. It's unlikely that we will every be able to communicate with the life in other galaxies because of their tremendous distances, but that doesn't mean that they're not there. And, of course, there is the possibility that one day we'll discover a way to get through to them. Anyway, it gives you a lot to think about.

Barry Parker, author of "Learn from Yesterday, Live for Today, Hope for Tomorrow

Was the Universe Created Just for Us?

One of the really interesting questions in science and religion is "Was the universe created just for us?" Years ago when the Bible was written, and for many years after, it was blasphemous to even pose the question. Everyone believed the universe was created for us -- there was no question about it. Furthermore, we were the center of the universe -- everything revolved around us in more ways than one. As astronomy developed and we learned more and more about our universe, however, it became obvious that we were not the center of the universe, and it now seems very unlikely that the universe was, indeed, made just for us. The main reason we can say this is that we now know how big the universe is, and we know we are a mere speck in it. Furthermore, as far as I'm concerned (and I'm sure most astronomers would agree with me) the probability that there is intelligent life somewhere else in the universe is very large -- close to 100 percent.

We also have to ask that if God created the universe just for us, why did He make it so big? It is, indeed, so big, that we haven't really found an edge to it yet. And there's the problem that if we did find an "edge" we would have to answer the question "What is on the other side of this edge?"
To give you an idea how big our universe is, consider the following. We live in a galaxy we call the Milky Way, and it has approximately 200 billion stars in it (about equal to all the grains of sand in all the beaches on Earth), with our Sun being an average-sized, relatively cool star. And the overall universe has at least 200 billion galaxies in it (one for each of the stars in our galaxy). Of course, we're not sure  how many galaxies there actually are out there -- but we know it is at least 200 billion. And that makes it a pretty big place. This brings  us back to the question: Was the huge universe created just for us? It 's hard to believe that it was. Let me know if you think differently, or have a good argument for the fact that it was.


Barry Parker:  Webpage: Barryparkerbooks.com. My most recent book is "Learn from Yesterday, Live for Today, Hope for Tomorrow"

Another Important Question: What Happens if We Do Find Intelligent Life in Space?

If we do, indeed, find intelligent life in space, what impact will it have on us? In particular, what will it mean for religion? Will it make any difference? Somehow I think it will have some impact. I'm convinced there are probably millions of civilizations out there somewhere that are just as advanced as us, and if we find one relatively close to us it will be proof that my assertion is true. So, what do we need for a civilization like ours? First of all we need a reasonably sized "habitable zone." This is the zone around the star where the temperatures are satisfactory for life most of the time. Our habitable zone ranges from about the orbit of Venus out to that of Mars. and luckily for us, we're right in the middle of it. We also need a planet that is about the size of earth. If it's too large, gravity will overwhelm anything there. It can be about three times as large as Earth and still be habitable. We have, indeed, found a few planets that satisfy these criterion. One of the best is Gliese 58id; it orbits a relatively small star (compared to our sun) called a red dwarf, that is about 20 light years away from us. The major problem is that it is like our moon in that it keeps the same face pointed at its star, and under normal conditions this would cause severe temperature problems. There are indication, however, that it has an atmosphere that might allow water to stay liquid and if so, some form of life could exist there. It's not likely to be an advanced form, but even a primitive form would give us hope that there's other life out there, some of which may be intelligent. It's interesting that Stephen Hawking has recently stated that if we do find life out there, we should keep quiet. I'm not sure I agree. But, of course, Hawking has also said recently that he doesn't believe there is a heaven.

Barry Parker, author of "Learn from Yesterday, Live for Today, Hope for Tomorrow. Website: barryparkerbooks.com

The "Ultimate Questions" About Life and the Universe

As a scientist I've often thought about some of the "ultimate questions" (as I like to refer to them) related to life and the universe. They are questions that are very difficult to answer, and indeed, most of them may never be answered. Nevertheless, they're worth thinking about seriously. (Some of them have to do with religion, and I don't want to step on anyones feet. If it appears that I have, I appologize)

I'll list several of the major ones I can think of, and I'm sure there are many more. I'll also comment on some of them, and will write longer blogs related to them later.

Here goes:

1. Are we really at the center of the universe?
      By this I mean: Was the universe created just for us?  This, of course, was the belief many years  
      ago, and many people still believe it.

2. Why is the universe so big (if it really was created just for us)? Indeed, does it even have an end?

     We are really a very insignificant speck in the universe. There are more stars in our observable
      universe than there are grains of sand in all the beaches in the world. And many of these stars
      have recently been shown to have planets.

3.  Does a universe without life make any sense?

     To me it doesn't. If there were no life in the universe -- what would it be here for?  Are we the only
      life in it? It seems unlikely.

4.  Is it possible that the universe just came into being on it own?

     We know for a fact that it is 15 -20 billion years old. So what was here before it existed? Also, is it
     possible that there is no "supreme being"  (i.e. God) behind the making of the universe? It seems
     impossible, but we have to ask if it is possible (by the way, I'm not an atheist).

5.  What would the discovery of other advanced life in the universe do to our views on life, religion,
     and the universe? What would it mean? What would their beliefs and religions be like?

6.  Are the "God" of the Bible and the "Supreme Being" that created the universe the same?

    You can no doubt think of many other questions of this type and I'd like to hear them. I think this is a good start, however.


  Barry Parker, author of "Learn from Yesterday, Live for Today, Hope for Tomorrow"
                        Website: Barryparkerbooks.com

Getting the Most Out of Life

An amazing number of people just drift through life, dragging themselves through each day with little energy, joy or excitement. And needless to say, that's not the way to live. You should get as much joy out of life as possible. You should live it to the fullest. and there's a lot of things you can do to achieve this. I discuss most of them in my recent book "Learn for Yesterday, Live for Today, Hope for Tomorrow." The title is quite apt in this modern age with all the pressures we have from the fast pace of life. "Live for Today" is an excellent motto -- it implies that you should strive to live life to the fullest each day. And live one day at a time -- don't worry about what is going to happen in the future. That's not to say you shouldn't prepare for the future -- you should. But the critical thing is to be happy today, and completely free of stress. Read more about it in my book.