Reflections on Infinity

written by Bradley Walker

FOREWORD A
The quote that currently feels most relevant is this: The two most important days
in your life are the day you were born and the day you discover why. (This quote is often
misattributed to Mark Twain, but there is no need to falsely name an author, we can simply
accept it as a nice anonymous quote.)
I have spent most of my life feeling like I was meant to discover something and
share it with the world, but I had no idea what that something could be. So I basically
tried to learn a bit about *everything*, and hoped that eventually I would find my true
calling, something I could devote the rest of my life to, focusing intently on that one topic
and becoming an expert
However, I recently was fortunate enough to have that day you discover why, the
day where my Path and my Purpose finally became clear. I found the something I was
meant to discover and share with the world. Surprisingly, it did not require the decades of
intense isolated obsession towards a single goal that I always assumed would be
necessary. Instead, all the various topics that I had studied over the years suddenly came
together in a single moment of creative insight, as if everything finally *clicked*.
I have always described myself as a Jack of all trades, Master of none, meaning
I am pretty good or fairly knowledgeable with a wide variety of different subjects, skills,
hobbies, philosophies, etc., but I am certainly not an expert at anything specific. That
Jack of all trades, Master of none self-description usually carried a negative connotation
with it, because I often felt frustrated or disappointed with myself for wasting time by
reading about *ALL* the things that interested me instead of *choosing* a specific subject
to focus on.
I now realize that my Path so far has strayed exactly where it was meant to stray.
If I had not acquired a broad range of thoughts in my head, which my wife refers to as
the endless filing-cabinet of random information, then I would not have been able to

make the connections that led to my recent epiphany. If I had been too focused on a
single subject of research, or too set-in-stone with my philosophical beliefs or my
perceptions of reality, then I would have missed what the Universe was trying to show
me. Fortunately, I have mostly just followed my heart and gone with the flow, and it
seems to have finally led me to my Purpose.
My Path has not always been an easy one, but it was the one I apparently needed
to have. To quote the poet Robert Frost, Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the
one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. To quote my best friend Joe,
Sometimes we choose the wrong path so that we may accidentally find the right course.

FOREWORD B
I am extremely grateful for Teachers who have taken the time to explain or convey
things to me in a way I can understand and remember and be inspired by. This includes
my parents, a few school teachers, several good friends, and many various scientists,
philosophers, poets, authors, artists, musicians, etc. I try to repay their kindness by now
attempting to be a Teacher for others, while also always continuing to be a Student.
The best Teachers are not those who have memorized the most information, but
those who have found ways to communicate effectively with the general public. When an
expert relies entirely on big words or fancy equations, the layman does not grasp the
concept and even wonders whether the expert truly knows what he is saying. A relevant
quote is: If you cannot explain it to a child, you do not understand it well enough yourself.
(This quote is often misattributed to Albert Einstein, but there is no need to falsely name
an author, we can simply accept it as a nice anonymous quote.) Richard Feynman, the
late Nobel Laureate in physics, said something similar. Feynman prided himself on being
able to devise ways to explain even the most profound ideas to beginning students. He
was once asked by a Caltech faculty member to explain why spin-one-half particles obey
Fermi-Dirac statistics. Rising to the challenge, he said, "I'll prepare a freshman lecture on
it." But a few days later he told the faculty member, "I couldn't do it. I couldn't reduce it to
the freshman level. That means we really don't understand it."

One of the best examples of a great Teacher finding simple ways to explain
complex topics comes from Carl Sagans 1980 PBS series Cosmos: A Personal
Voyage, from the episode "Journeys in Space and Time". In that episode, Sagan
discusses the red-shift and blue-shift measured in interstellar objects, time-dilation
caused by near-light-speed travel as explained by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity,
and time-travel and its hypothetical effects on human history. Sagan explains all these
abstract concepts by simply riding his bicycle in the Italian countryside and using some
very primitive special-effects to show what his perspective might look like if he was
traveling near light-speed. Its beauty is in its simplicity. To this day, when I discuss these
concepts, my wife immediately visualizes Sagan on his bicycle, and she only saw the
episode a single time several years ago. That is the power of a great Teacher.
With that in mind, as I write this book, I will try my best to make the ideas accessible
to a wide audience. This requires finding a happy medium, a balance, a Middle Way,
between the precise technical jargon and complex equations that the scientists would
want to see, and the simpler explanations and diagrams and metaphors that the common
citizen would quickly grasp and be captivated by. The Purpose of this book is not to make
the reader an expert in any specific field, but to quickly familiarize the reader with a variety
of mathematical and scientific topics so that they will understand my proposed theory.

CHAPTER 1
Why are we here? What is the true nature of Reality? What is Time? Can we
ever glimpse the smallest structures of the atomic world, or peek behind the curtain of a
massive black-hole to discover its hidden secrets? Do worm-holes and higher
dimensions and time-travel really exist, or is that all just creative science-fiction? Does
the Universe have a beginning in Time, or has it always existed? Will the Universe come
to an end in Time, or will it exist forever? Does the Universe have boundaries in Space,
or does it truly stretch out towards Infinity?
These are the questions that have captivated me for the last few years. I think most
people have pondered such things at some point. I believe that asking Big Questions is

one of the most important parts of the Human Experience. But can we ever find the
answers to those questions? Well, we can sure try
Recently, I was reading a physics book, when, in a flash of creative insight, I was
suddenly envisioning a model of the Universe that seemed to be consistent with
everything I knew about physics up to that point. I dove deeper into the book, expecting
either to learn something new that would shatter my imaginary model, or to see a diagram
of my imaginary model and realize that someone else had already thought of it. To my
surprise, the rest of the book contained many facts that seemed to fit my model, and even
posed a few of those Big Questions that seem to be answered by my model.
In the following chapters, I will try to quickly familiarize the reader with a variety of
mathematical and scientific topics so that they will understand my proposed theory for a
new unified physical model of the Universe. As a disclaimer, I fully admit that many of the
ideas to be discussed will be strange and counterintuitive. Most of these ideas utterly
confused me when I first heard them. But that strangeness is also what captivated me,
for the same reason that I loved reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through
the Looking-Glass by Charles Dodgson AKA Lewis Carroll. I also fully admit that my
proposed theory for a new unified physical model of the Universe might be incapable of
the usual scientific standard of making testable predictions, since the theory deals with
extra dimensions that our evolution has left us mostly unable to perceive or comprehend,
and because the theory involves areas of SpaceTime that our scientific instruments may
not ever be able to fit into or survive a trip through. So this theory may forever remain in
the realm of philosophical conjecture. But maybe a creative experimental physicist will
someday find a way to prove or disprove the theory, and either way it will advance our
collective understanding of the Cosmos. Most importantly, the reader will have become
familiar with a variety of mathematical and scientific topics, and hopefully will have gained
a new appreciation and fascination for the Universe in which we live

CHAPTER 2