Imagine, if you will, a time before numbers. A time when people had not yet created symbols to represent quantity and order objects in the world. In this primordial, prehistoric world we might ask if numbers still existed, waiting to be discovered. If so, how might Nature itself count?
Well, Nature does indeed count for itself. All we have to do to prove this is look at the periodic table and notice that atoms have an increasing number of particles in their nucleus. Hydrogen has one, Helium has two, Lithium has three, and so on. Given this then, how did Nature learn to count using particles?
The easiest way to understand Nature’s calculator is to look at what happens on a vibrating string. When a cello is bowed, it produces a particular pitch with a specific frequency of vibration. But it also creates ‘sympathetic vibrations’ called harmonics that are multiples of the fundamental frequency, such as 2 times as fast, 3 times as fast, 4 times as fast and so on. The same thing happens when atoms form – light harmonics intersect at different harmonic frequencies to form what we call particles and atoms. This is how Nature counts – with waves – and is the idea behind quantum string theory.
But, the bigger puzzle with all this is how Nature avoids creating fractional waves and thus fractional atoms. Why aren’t there harmonics that form, for instance, at 2.5, 3.71 or 5.238 times the fundamental frequency? Well, the answer for this is found in how everything physical – all things we call ‘matter’ – are made up of whole number light harmonics while everything else is suppressed and kept from becoming matter. This, of course, means that in the natural world, real (fractional) numbers do not exist!
Ok, ok, the truth is they do exist, but not materially. What I mean is they exist in the gaps between whole number harmonics and thus between material particle structure. So-called ‘real numbers’ then exist in space itself and not in material structure. We can understand how this works by grasping the true relationship between energy and space.
Nature counts by first creating a space ‘plenum’ (a pressurized container) that weaves light into harmonic particles. For this to happen, space must be structured into a cubic lattice or loom. But not with little lines separating the cubes, like an ice tray, instead with a cubic spacing of tiny vortices. Like the massive black holes at the center of every spiral galaxy, there is an infintessimally small black hole at the center of each of these cube regions. In this way, space can be described as perforated, as if someone took a pin and poked holes everywhere in space to let it breathe. In quantum mechanics, this is called a Schwartzschild lattice and the breathing process is known as zero-point energy.
Now, as light moves through this structured cubic space (of infinitesimal pinpricks), it flows around these holes – first one side, then the other – forming waves as it does so. It also resonates off the edges or ‘event horizons’ of the quantum holes, forming harmonics that weave particles called neutrinos, which then weave into larger particles, such as electrons, neutrons and protons. And as pressure is applied (inside stars), each of the atomic elements resonate and fuse together into different frequencies of matter. We call this capturing process ‘nuclear fusion.’ Nuclear fission is then the process of taking atoms apart, as is so dramatically demonstrated by atomic bombs.
This is how Nature counts. Structured space weaves light into particles using harmonic waves at the event horizon of tiny black holes! From this, it is not metaphysics to say that everything in the universe is a symphony of light. Numbers are merely symbols for these physical harmonic properties and are thus a kind of symbolic music.
For instance, consider what is happening in the division 1 / 81 = 0.012345679. Somehow, a fundamental frequency when divided by 3-squared-squared refracts all of the digits except for the octave identity 8. Numbers are harmonic, too.
Space, on the other hand, is anti-harmonic. The spiraling vortices in the space lattice can be defined identically to those that form in galaxies, hurricanes and the chambered nautilus. That is, the space between harmonic structure is a golden spiral, also known as a Spira Mirabilis.
We can approximate this ‘marvelous spiral’ by adding ascending pairs of harmonics like this:
1 + 1 = 2
1 + 2 = 3
2 + 3 = 5
3 + 5 = 8
5 + 8 = 13
8 + 13 = 21
…
This sequence { 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, …} is called the Fibonacci series and demonstrates how space and energy are interrelated and codependent. Space and energy are actually two sides of the same coin – spirit and physical, infinite and finite, circle and spiral, immortal and mortal. This primordial duality is inseparable.
We can prove the singularity of harmonic and golden proportions by dividing adjacent Fibonacci proportions with one another (a ‘second-degree derivative of the harmonic series), which then converges toward the irrational golden ratio constant of 1.618033… that lies at the center of the spiral.
f(0) = 1 / 1 = 1
f(1) = 2 / 1 = 2
f(2) = 3 / 2 = 1.5
f(3) = 5 / 3 = 1.666(6)
f(4) = 8 / 5 = 1.6
f(5) = 13 / 8 = 1.625
f(6) = 21 / 13 = 1.615384 [615384]
…
f(12) = 144 / 89 = 1.617877528089888…
…
f(∞) = f(∞-1) / f(∞-2) = 1.61803398874989484820458683436563811…
The reason this is so important is the closer these Fibonacci harmonic proportions get to the golden ratio, the less they vibrate and the deader they get. In this way, the harmonic series has its own natural damping container that binds atomic structure together and keeps things from exploding apart. The Fibonacci series is the rational numerical representation for the vortex at the infinite center of every atom. It keeps fractional waves (or ‘real’ numbers) from emerging into atomic structure. In short, the Fibonacci series represents irrational space while the harmonic series represents rational material structure, yet both form a singular whole.
Fact is, Nature counts everything we see into existence. And it counts by weaving light harmonics together inside the spinning loom of space. The only question left after we accept this as our physical reality is what exactly lies beneath?
Max Planck, the man who invented quantum theory, said it this way:
‘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.’
Beneath space and light lies the archetypal realm – an immaterial or ‘spiritual’ place perhaps, yet just as real as real numbers are to mathematicians.
