Humans have gazed into the skies for many millennia, being very curious to find out their exact place inside this universe with no apparent limits. At this moment, considering the latest astronomical data, we can establish our position accurately: first, our galaxy is one of the billion galaxies that float within a huge observable space of about 1026m. Second, our planet does not have a special position inside the galaxy, among the other billions of stars and their planets; our Solar system is located on the inner edge of one of the spiralshaped arms, far away from the center, and this thing had positive implications for life. Our "home address" in the Universe may now be formulated exactly: Planet Earth, Solar System, Orion Arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo Cluster, Laniakea Supercluster.
The same thirst for knowledge and exploration was manifested recently in the other direction, namely toward the microscopic world. This complex realm may be extremely fascinating as well, especially if you are looking for the building blocks of life, the living cells. Going deeper, at 10-11m we reach into the quantum world, where atoms - the smallest structures of matter - are all located. At 10-15m we meet the elementary particles, the primary constituents of the raw matter. As said earlier, they do not represent a dimensional limit; my Prime Theory [1] introduced the existence of a "truly elementary" granularity of matter, quite possible to lie below the theoretical limit of 10-35m (the Planck length). In this dimensional vastness, the human size is placed somewhere in the middle, around the value of 1...2m; therefore, as humans, we got the extraordinary opportunity to "look" through our senses in both "directions" as well.
Here is a series of principles, premises and assumptions related to the spatial and material framework of the granular physics [1], i.e. of that primary mechanics that helped me to describe exhaustively the movement, transformation and evolution of all things lying inside our universe.
a) We are living in a material Universe that "works" deterministically, obeying a pack of clear laws and rules, at any minute and any scale. This principle shall extend and apply to both universe models, namely the open and closed ones. Essence, the primordial material [3] that has been previously introduced by my theory, is the sole constituent of the structured matter and of the spatial fluid [1]; in its actual granular form, this material features a perpetual state of motion.
b) The granular (subquantum) space is governed by the simplest laws of nature, the truly fundamental ones; they are the source of all the other laws acting at higher dimensional levels. Here are a few of these basic laws:
• All granules are moving in a straight line, at the absolute speed C (a superluminal speed).
• All granular collisions are perfectly elastic (conservative).
• Both granular impulse and kinetic energy are constant in time.
• The sum of all granular impulses in the universe is quasi-null.
c) Whatever is the universe's birth model we would consider, a distributed one as in my article [3], an explosion of a singularity (Big Bang) as in modern physics - or even a continual existence, a clear fact holds true: about 14 billion years ago, the granular density of space was much greater than the current one. The three-dimensional geometric framework (that place where the primordial essence has turned into a granular spatial fluid) had a very small radius at the beginning, of about a few million light years. This high granular density of space has some major implications:
• Space undergoes a continuous process of expansion. Considering its initial size specified above, we may easily assume that the spatial granules were contiguous at first (even "compressed") and their primordial elastic energy was totally turned into kinetic energy.
• As the initial granular density was very high, the granular fluxes have spontaneously produced some special elementary particles (quarks), which quickly combined with each other; subsequently, these new formations attracted smaller particles (electrons) and thus the first atoms of Hydrogen and Helium have all been created. There was more matter (named as such by the current physics) than antimatter in the beginning; as matter and antimatter annihilated immediately in equal amounts, the surplus of matter continued to exist in a steady state, forming in fact the primordial material to fuel the first stars.
• The spontaneous creation of elementary particles has stopped at a given moment, when the granular density of space has surpassed a certain threshold value (see for more details The formation of elementary particles [7]).
• The granular fluxes (the so-called gravity) have immediately started to concentrate the remaining atoms and thus the first chunks of matter were formed; these chunks have rapidly increased in size and mass, gravitationally accreting more gases from around. The directional granular fluxes, as a "force" that determines the shape and stability of all elementary particles, are the basic constituent of any other known field; therefore, the granular fluxes are being indirectly responsible for all the various connections between particles and atoms.
d) Any material body, any field, the Universe itself have formed in processes that obey laws of deterministic nature, expressing the intrinsic causality of all movements and transformations. The "action" of these laws was constant (as it was already stated in the first paragraph); just the absolute value of their parameters has changed over time. As all of these series of changes were natural, as some specific laws of physics may apply since the universe's birth, the existence of a creator or of any other form of divinity is no longer required. Due to an inherent nonuniformity of the original granular distribution, certain unevenness was also present in the distribution of matter at larger scales, adding a supplemental, macroscopic randomness to all of these processes.
Time, as origin, is a derived physical quantity; it results from a few special characteristics of the granular structures that made up the matter. The granular material and its fluxes have, among other specific parameters, a constant absolute speed; this thing will affect the behavior of all elementary particles and of the structures they formed. Consequently, any movement, vibration, rotation or oscillation, or any global movement these structures would have at a certain moment, it will be subject to some speed and acceleration constraints. This internal "pace" of matter (also of its connecting fields) will be reflected and averaged at macroscopic level, dictating a certain speed for any movement or a certain time interval for any event [15]. Now is very clear why the laws of relativity [4, 6], applied in the broader context of the Theory of the Absolute ([2], Chapter 3), justify the variable rate of the passage of time for a generic material body moving at different absolute speeds (see my related articles [9] and [12], Mass-energy equivalence and Relativity). An absolute time, having a maximum flowing rate value, is a specific constant of our universe at a given moment; this kind of time depends on space's intrinsic characteristics - practically on the absolute granular speed and the current granular density. It seems natural from this perspective to consider space (the geometric framework) and the granular matter (fluxes) as being fundamental physical quantities. They form together a continuum, a special fluid that may be even called space-matter; however, we will keep using the classic term space for the sake of simplicity. The inner "rhythm" of the structured matter is therefore caused by the properties of space and by the absolute velocity at which a material body moves. The unevenness of the local granular fluxes, a phenomenon known as gravity, also affects time, slowing down its rate by the asymmetry induced to any interaction between the components of matter.
As described in my first book (Prime Theory [1]), the granular matter has self-distributed uniformly within the three-dimensional space and created in this way a granular fluid, i.e. a continuous medium with special properties. A large part of this primordial matter shortly aggregates into various elementary particles, which have formed subsequently the atoms of the ordinary matter. Atoms joined together later and formed by accretion processes some distinct cosmic structures, such as gaseous clouds and stars. The gravitational aggregation of these raw materials (the H/He atoms) has thus created many billions of stars - large nuclear fusion reactors where immense temperatures and pressures are forcing atoms to combine into heavier chemical elements, up to and including the Iron.
If seen together, the accretion and fusion processes represent in fact a re-concentration of a part of the universe's primordial energy - which is, as it was already stated, only of mechanical nature. It is all about the energy of the granular spatial fluid and about the material structures it formed. Thus, small stellar volumes can store important masses, i.e. very large amounts of energy. The superdense stars may have, after several million or billion years of fuel combustion, totally different destinies. Depending on their mass, some of them may explode (go supernovas) and others will eventually turn into black holes. In case of star explosions, huge energies are concentrated and transferred within very short time intervals, and this makes the more powerful fusion reactions to produce even heavier chemical elements. All these new elements, simple or composite, are scattered throughout the space and they are forming this way the raw material for other generations of stars, for their planets and moons. The accretion process, which is mostly due to gravitation, may clamp together these new materials (from gaseous clouds and cosmic dust) selectively, depending on their state and atomic mass. This will produce a certain separation of that raw matter into some different types of atoms and molecules; anyway, in the end, large quantities of chemical substances may be located around the stellar cores. Subsequently, the newly born cosmic bodies will revolve on quasi-circular orbits, colliding and blending these chemicals (previously segregated over mass) into diverse and complex mixtures. Many of these phenomena occurred when matter still had enormous temperatures and pressures, causing special chemical reactions and producing complex substances, alloys and compounds that could not be formed otherwise. The particular dynamics of these stars and protoplanets is very important to us; this is in fact the way, sometimes slowly, sometimes violently, the most complex molecular structures, the indispensable ingredients of Life have all been built.
We have seen how the energy of the spatial fluid concentrates and transforms simple chemical elements into heavier elements during the nuclear fusion reactions in every stellar core, while releasing a part of this energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation. The photons emitted in this process cover almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum, but many of them are in the visible region. This thing is also very important, as over the lifetime of a star, an important stream of energy is sent to all its planets, warming them and therefore catalyzing the chemical reactions on their surfaces.
The mechanical energy (that energy possessed by the universe's granular matter since the beginning) is constant over time, but it can take different forms. Ordinary matter, as structures of quantum-scale elementary particles, was made at first of the simplest chemical elements (H and He); it will accumulate more complex elements later, once the fusion reactions were ignited in stars. Everything was controlled by a single force, the gravitational one, whose intensity varied over time; its action was very simple, but the creative effects on matter were extraordinary. Its action explains why, almost paradoxically if we consider the entropy and the second law of thermodynamics, some increasingly complex material structures have been created naturally. The structures of matter - particles, atoms and cosmic bodies (representing in fact concentrations of the same primordial granular energy) have continuously passed through various transformations, but they all eventually reached relatively stationary and predictable states. Those gaseous clouds and the cosmic dust resulting from supernovae allowed the emergence of other generations of stars and of some new formations, the protoplanets, which clearly have "benefited" in their entire future evolution from the multitude of chemical elements generated in the nuclear reactions described above.
The large number of new chemical elements allowed even more complex structures to form. Different energy values and configurations of the atoms, given by the discrete energy levels of the electrons in their orbitals, made possible several types of chemical bonds. These are the physical premises for the complex molecules to appear (structures containing more types of chemical elements, each type having some new physico-chemical properties). Anyway, the laws of quantum mechanics set the upper limit of complexity (atomic mass) for stable elements, but the diversity resulted from combining more than 118 known chemical elements is practically infinite. We have to mention here the Carbon and its special ability to create chains (called concatenation); of all elements, it can form this way the largest number of possible combinations.
Gravity, as it was already stated, is the force that concentrates matter (increases the density of stored energy), allowing the complexity of all things to increase over time. And, in the end, this is the simple reason why the first cells, the first living organisms emerged spontaneously. Life, by continuous adaptation to the environment, has also evolved across millions of years and increased the complexity of all living organisms (Figure 1). However, if we anticipate a little and define the particular force that acted in this case, we may mention the "need" of any being to adapt to its surroundings and to the influence of all natural factors, including the mass-extinction events. In case of ordinary matter, the creation of stable heavier elements is no longer possible, and therefore this kind of increase in complexity has stopped; however, in case of normal life (evolving with no artificial interventions), the increase in complexity will continue naturally. On the other hand, the intelligent life-forms - humans for now - can produce huge complexity leaps when they use their research, innovation and technology achievements.
Figure 1 - Complexity of the material structures
My mechanistic model of universe, which is entirely based on the laws of granular dynamics, is completely causal and deterministic regardless of the scale it would be seen and analyzed. It fully describes all the mechanisms of reality and offers coherent explanations on all the events that have led to the actual cosmic landscape; therefore, the lack of fundamental information on the fabric of reality is now surmounted by the new characteristics and rules of the granular matter and space, allowing us to build the theoretical foundation of any possible material entity. The rate of macroscopic time, for example, is established at granular level; there is also the source of the absolute and relative seen in the motion of any particle or material body, as it was fully described in my previous book [2]. All ordinary matter has therefore a common origin, and so the same features - regardless of its state or position in the universe. The granular flows will bind and shape matter continuously, concentrating in fact that primordial energy and converting it in various ways. Once we understand this "given" of nature at both quantum and subquantum scales, the formation and evolution of all cosmic bodies will seem absolutely natural as the causality is truly involved; in fact, the existence of any material structure, whatever complex, may be explained using this causality, a bit of randomness and a certain amount of time. The really huge number of elementary components (particles and atoms), the really vast space, the really long time and the nonlinear interactions can naturally generate the most improbable structures and configurations of things. The energy of several fields may concentrate and connect many particles and atoms in larger assemblies that could remain stable under certain conditions. Therefore, some entities with many new properties could emerge in a spontaneous and natural way. If all these processes are seen globally, a new and important notion may be associated to our universe's dynamics: self-organization. In this way, the granular dynamics determines and makes possible, at all scales, the natural emergence and transformation of the complex objects through processes of variable dynamics - while the total energy involved is conserved over time.
The primary granular mechanisms, being the basis of the emergence, interaction, motion and transformation of the structured matter, generate observational uncertainty only at microscopic level. If we could know the values of all state variables that describe an isolated system at a given time (and if space would be uniform), its future evolution would become completely predictable. Seen as unitary macroscopic system, its global state may be expressed as a "summation" of all states variables. Therefore, the properties of the macroscopic system are in fact consequences of the primary mechanisms and of the speed limitations existing at the lowest scales. And here are some implications of this thing, seen from my new Granular dynamics' perspective:
• The superluminal, absolute speed C, along with the presumed granularity and uniformity of space, are all setting the maximum possible speed for any granular structure (particles, photons of any frequency) to the speed of light, c.
• For the same reasons, any granular construction is subjected to the consequences of the principles of relativity, and thus it cannot move simultaneously in space and time (the local time depends on its absolute movement and on its interactions) at the same "speed".
• The dynamic mass [9] of objects increases, as their global velocity approaches relativistic values, due to the reorientation of elementary impulses inside their particles; in the same way, an asymmetry of the local granular flux (an intense gravitational field) produces the similar relativistic effects by "increasing" the mass on a certain direction.
• The laws of granular mechanics and their parameters remain unchanged over large time intervals, as the granular density is quasiconstant (anyway, the global variations cannot be observed inside a fully connected system). Therefore, all interactions between the elements of matter, the fields and their effects at a distance will have constant intensities on those intervals.
The stability of matter, imposed by the level of granular density, may be maintained further for several billion years, whether our universe is open or not and despite its accelerated expansion.