Living Physics = Orthodox Physics + Life

Is the Universe dead or alive?
Is the Universe a dead, lifeless, inert machine, and life a random add-on?
OR
Is the Universe a conscious, communicating organism, and Life a fundamental principle of nature?

This site attempts to answer this question objectively.

The results are presented in two books:

Book 1:

Three-in-One Book

This book is three books in one, each of which is worth the price:

1. OVERVIEW of the facts, theories, world-views and paradigms over 2,500, including ERRORS and SKELETONS in the cupboard of science.
2. Hidden in the Middle Ages, we find an old but potentially NEW PARADIGM which may be the BRIDGE to science of the future.
3. The very latest developments in the UNIFICATION of physics, which provide UNITY as the basis for science of the future.

Objective of this Book

This book was originally written to present the development of physics right through to the Theory of Everything (the modern equivalent of Einstein's Unified Field Theory but in 11 or more dimensions). The possibility that the Universe can be described by a single set of equations is so powerful and has such wide implications, that I felt it had to be made available to a wider audience, including other physicists, scientists, professional people and the medical profession, even interested lay persons. Physics is normally seen as reductionist, yet a process of synthesis has been going on since the time of Newton, and this is reaching fruition. We are beginning to discover the unity of creation scientifically. This has tremendous significance for the life sciences, medicine, philosophy and religion.

The point is that there could be a direct connection between the unity of the Universe and the unity of life. This could explain why living organisms do not fall apart into a random heap of separate components.

As I wrote the above book, I was also doing research into the physics of complementary medicine (I have an hypothesis that the Theory of Everything is the mathematics of living organisms.) As my work progressed, I became convinced that there is another force in nature, the life force or spirit. I then began to find objective evidence for this force. When I tried to present this evidence scientifically, I found it was almost impossible because it was outside the perceptual boundaries (paradigm) of present science. I tried writing this up as a book and this was so difficult it has gone through 4.5 re-writes (Book 2 below). Finally in 2001, I discovered in the history of religion and philosophy that the scientific method was actually developed in the 1220s within the framework of Christian Neoplatonism.

This was extraordinary. I don't use the following language in the book, but here was a cover-up. The modern scientific method had originally been developed within the framework of Christianity, and research undertaken over several hundred years which laid the foundations of modern science. Then Copernicus and Galileo expropriated these and claimed them as their own. It also led to a much deeper insight into why science is the way it is and why it may be wrong. So what started out as an exercise in presenting orthodox knowledge, began to expose the short-comings, even errors in the scientific method, and unwritten and untested assumptions behind science.

So the section on the physics of the Middle Ages added a second dimension to the book because Christian Neoplatonism presents a model of the mind, which had been rejected by Galileo because it was not needed for his mechanical paradigm, but it later comes into quantum mechanics!

Furthermore, this introduced a third purpose into the book: it provides a new framework, a new worldview, within which to incorporate the new physics in the second book.

Thus this site is dedicated to research into true physics, including the unwritten assumptions of physics, the physics of complementary medicine, the life force, spirit, the living Universe and God.

The author was educated at Oxford and worked at the University of Bologna, CERN, University of Virginia, etc, and published 52 papers on physics, artificial intelligence and medicine. He is an experimental particle physicist, healer and researcher into energy medicine.

The first book presents the principle facts, ideas and theories of physics from 500 BC to 2000 AD. Five periods are identified: i. The Ancient Greeks and Christianity: 500 BC to 1200 AD; ii. Mediaeval physics: 1200 AD to 1540; iii Physics of the Reformation: 1540 to 1750; iv Classical physics: 1750 to 1900; v Twentieth century physics: 1900 to 2000. The book presents the decision-making tree of physics over 2,500 years and shows how the new physics grew out of the old, what was rejected/lost/covered up, and what evidence and reasons were used to support the new. Evidence for errors in the decision-making tree of physics are found, especially associated with Galileo.

The book also presents some philosophical comment on the facts and theories of physics as perceived by physicists themselves and by the general public in reaction to their work. The subject of greatest interest to the author is Life, and especially what is consciousness, what is the mind and how it comes into quantum mechanics, whether spirit exists, and so on. So at each stage, some reflection is made upon the facts and theories as they are presented. It is particularly interesting to note that the early physicists had a theory of the mind which was based upon orthodox Christian metaphysics, which enabled them to develop the scientific method in the first place, which enables one to make sense of the role of the observer in quantum mechanics, and which provides a new framework for understanding string theory (the Theory of Everything or the Unified Field theory). Physicists at Padua, especially Galileo, rejected this theory of the mind, excluding it from physics in subsequent centuries, and substituted the unwritten and unproven assumption that mathematics was the only abstraction, thereby biassing physics ever since.

An important part of the book is the presentation of the process of unification in physics, which started with Newton who unified celestial and terrestrial gravitation. In the 1870s Maxwell unified electricity and magnetism. In the twentieth century, electromagnetism was unified with the weak nuclear interaction in the 1970s. This process of synthesis continued with the unification of the electroweak interaction with the strong nuclear interaction and gravitation in 11-dimensional matrix-string theory. The development of one set of equations for all the dimensions, all the spaces, all the energy, all the forces and all the matter in the Universe is seen as such an important intellectual achievement for humanity, that some effort is made to present the steps which made it possible. There is a serious attempt to make this development in physics accessible to the interested reader at the level of Scientific American or slightly above. No mathematics is used, but the key principles and concepts are presented.

The development of a single unified theory is not only an enormous intellectual achievement, but it has repercussions in the life sciences and medicine, where the unity of creation is mirrored in the unity of every living organism, which overturns the second law of thermodynamics and creates order out of chaos. The book does not delve in to these issues, but lays the foundations for a more serious discussion of these in a second book.

The Ideas of Physics provides an overview of Western knowledge,. Complete with original references, the likes of which is not available anywhere, and which is also concise and a joy to read. More importantly, it provides the basis for the development of the new paradigm of Living Physics, which is the subject of the next book.

The Ideas of physics can be ordered from Richard J Ellis, Headley Mill, Bordon, Hants GU35 8RJ, UK; tel +44 (0)1420 488 337 Greenwich Mean Time, or email ellis@thelifeforce.org. The price is £30 plus postage and packing.

Copyright © Richard J Ellis, 2003.

This site was last updated on February 9th, 2003.