Terence Witt

I came across “Our Undiscovered Universe” from two-page ads in some very prestigious magazines, like “Discovery” and “National Geographic” with the intriguing claim that the book is all about the following question that has baffled theoretical physicists for thirty years: “Why does the universe exist?” The author claims his entirely new paradigm will reveal many of nature’s secrets to a depth and clarity never before imagined. Very curious, I got his book to glimpse these secrets myself.

The quality of the book impressed me: nicely laid out, handsomely printed, and divided into four very logical parts. Each part ends with general conclusions. Each succeeding part starts off with a list of prerequisites learned from the previous part. After the main text, there are seventeen appendixes; the first one being predictions based on Null Physics. The author, Terrence Witt obviously put a tremendous effort into developing Null Physics and in organizing his book. His work has been copyrighted seven times since 1980, showing how many times he has revised and broadened his work.

Witt explains Null Physics in part one of his book, relying almost entirely on logic. In subsequent parts, he relies on mathematics developing algorithms of his own to quantify the observed phenomena of the universe. Probably the math works out fine. Since all mathematics purporting to explain nature are carefully checked against observation, I would expect that they all, no matter what theory they are based on, work out reasonably well. I’m not a mathematician, so I can’t judge the accuracy of Witt’s mathematics. My window to understanding the universe would have to be based on his logic in part one.

Witt’s Null Physics has only one axiom: “Existence sums to non-existence.” This axiom sounds like it is already cast into technical language. The sentence understood in ordinary English provides, for me, no meaningful insight into what existence is. Witt starts off asking his reader to choose one side of a contradiction: “Either the universe came from somewhere, or it never came from anywhere.” Witt opts for the universe not coming from anywhere. But there is big jump from that position to the statement “Existence sums to non-existence.” Witt apparently doesn’t recognize anything as real other than the physical universe. He argues that the universe didn’t come from anywhere: “The universe has existed forever and will continue to exist for eternity.” In his view, the universe is not only eternal; it “is already infinitely large.”

Witt also discusses causality, using as an example the chicken and the egg. I think the folklore question “what came first: the chicken or the egg” is really a riddle most likely meant to show the validity of cause and effect. Witt takes a strange view of it, actually using it to explain why there is no causality in his view of the universe. The universe just happens to exist – period. There’s no beginning to it, no end, no limit to its size, no cause for anything that occurs in the universe. His universe is a self-contained unit, having all the components of the physical universe within itself, not requiring any outside agents to effect any phenomena in the universe. “It cannot have any causation because the state preceding each event is perfectly homogeneous. Chickens cause eggs and eggs cause chickens continuously over time.” He criticizes the Big Bang theory for introducing a first cause. The Big Bang, he claims, “is the egg that never came from a chicken.”

Witt claims that no one has a clue why the universe is here. I think he’s wrong. There are other schools of learning that claim to know why the universe is here. Both philosophy and theology, especially theology based on divine revelation, argue that God created the universe. For the moment, it doesn’t matter if they are correct or wrong; what does matter is that other scholars have, indeed, claimed to know why the universe exists. Let’s say that I am an unbiased and ignorant observer, ignorant in that I am unfamiliar with any speculation about the origin of the universe. Then I encounter Witt’s Null Theory along with arguments that God created the universe. Without any doubt, I would accept that God created the universe. A supreme non-physical, spiritual being, eternal and omnipresent, as well as all-powerful, creating the physical universe, arranging it and guiding it makes a lot more sense to me than Witt’s argument. His argument about causality alone would raise doubts in my mind. Our collective outlooks on both science and law enforcement are both fueled by cause and effect. If law enforcement encounters a crime scene, nobody brushes it off as a chance event. They will always conduct a search for the person who caused the event. In science or medicine, if something is observed to happen, scientists and doctors will always launch a search for the cause of what happened.

All in all, I found “Our Undiscovered Universe” thought provoking. Terrence Witt presents an overview of current cosmological theories and tries to resolve what he sees as inconsistencies in current thinking. For those interested in mathematics, he includes much math to illustrate how Null Physics explains observed phenomena. Witt claims his Null Physics is free of the inconsistencies that mar current theories. Terrence Witt caused me to reconsider my own perceptions about the universe and to be aware of how others view the universe. I enjoyed the mental exercise his book stirred up in me. I think this book is well worth the reading; but, to understand the full ramifications of Null Physics to observed phenomena, one would have to be a mathematician.… (más)

This is a beautiful book that significantly enhances my shelf, as seen from a distance. Illustrations are in color and equations numerous. Flipping thru the pages gives the non-scientist a warm fuzzy feeling of being near real knowledge. And this is the problem created by this book. It Looks and feels great, until you read it with a belief that your understanding of physics will increase. Beware that if you are not already a physicist so you can discriminate between science and assumption or a mathematician who can choose between the real equations that work and those that may look real but have no basis, false knowledge will absolutely result.… (más)