The gender of the universe:
Does the universe have a gender? Which sex would it be? We humans brand everything male or female or maybe gender neutral, but what if gender extended right down from the Newtonian universe to the quantum universe? Our cars are ‘old girls’, airplanes and ships are emblazoned and adorned with female images, trains gendered by their names, and even countries have gendered names being the Motherland or the Fatherland. Our world is the Goddess/’bio-spheric’ spirit of Gaia. As we investigate further into the depths of the universe, we may find that our understanding of gender reaches much deeper than we thought.
The universe is awash with gender, ascribed to it by humans with our planets named for male or female Gods; the moon is Luna and the sun -the masculine Sol. Even stars, constellations, and galaxies (when not under sexless NGC numbers) have gender through names like Centaurus, Orion, and Andromeda. Galaxies could be clusters of stars drawn together not just by gravity, but through the attractive force of gender and sex, as material is thrown across the cosmos to fertilise new stars, solar systems, and ultimately, life. And as humans are made from star dust, it may not just be a natural tendency to ascribe gender randomly, but a biological imperative to impart gender to the universe, because we humans have an intrinsic feeling that the universe is an gendered entity. The only thing which precludes us from acknowledging and pursuing this theory is our own scientific and cultural bias and lack of deep cosmological understanding.
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Put forth, here, is a new radical theory of the physical universe:
1. The universe has a gender.
2. This gender arises from the fact that all atoms and their constituent parts (from quarks, electrons, protons, neutrons, etc) also have gender.
3. The quantum nature of the particles allows for gender to be ascribed to the universe and that while gender may or may not change, the gender affects the properties and nature of the Newtonian universe.
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1. The universe has a gender:
Whether the universe is male or female, we may never know. But why should this be so? The universe may have a gender stemming from its emergent constituent parts which also have a gender, thus conferring upon the universe a distinct gender. As human genders have differing structural and genetic natures, so the sex of the universe could be visualised through the universe being flat or curved, due to its ‘genetic’ make-up.
Two recent studies discovered distinct characteristics of the universe: its sound and its colour. If the universe was likened to an animal, it could be a large flat, beige whale in a multiverse singing a universal song in order to attract a mate or navigate its way. Procreating could involve two universes (or branes) colliding together to produce a baby universe in a Big Bang. Such speculation may be too far, but you get the picture: the universe may not be a sexless entity.
2. The gender of the universe arises from the fact that all atoms and their constituent parts also have gender:
Baryons and mesons are made up from varying numbers of quarks, the particles of which have a spin (a quantum property which imparts magnetic nature) of a whole or half integer. The spin, charge, or other inherent qualities may representative of differing genders. Quarks, with their flavours (Charm, Strange, Up, Down, Top, and Bottom) could be the gender imparters, akin to the hypothetical graviton which imparts gravity, and the equally hypothetical Higgs which imparts mass upon particles. The amount and combinations of quarks could be the gender initiators.
So while quarks make up electrons, protons, and neutrons, which in turn make up atoms, which in turn make up atoms within all elements; materials such as Oxygen could be male, while Helium could be female, for instance. Some elements already produce ‘daughters’ within isotopes from radioactive decay, but the make up of elements within genes could be the initial factor when creating a human baby’s gender. So emerging from the gender of quarks could be the determined outcome of a human’s sexual world.
3. The quantum nature of the particles allows for gender to be ascribed to the universe:
Even within quantum theory, strings may be male or female. Their ‘vibrational’ natures may be representative of their gender imparting a gender upon all things in the universe. A rival to String Theory is Loop Quantum Gravity, where there are no particles or strings, but finely-weaved gravity fields of loops which ‘fold’ in varying ways to create the familiar quantum structures. The directions in which the loops fold could also be gender indicators.
But can particles change gender? What could affect universal genders? There are five main candidates: 1. neutrinos, 2. vacuum energy, 3. Higgs field, 4. anti-particles, and 5. Superposition.
1. Neutrinos may be trans-gender as while they are known not to interact with other particles; they do change in nature while in flight through the cosmos due to high-energy collisions. Maybe the gender neutral electron-neutrino changes either into a male or female muon-neutrino or a tau-neutrino, which may affect gender in local regions.
2. The universe is not completely empty, with vacuum energy constantly pumping out new particles, their origin and nature unknown. But if vacuum energy spills out an equal number or disproportionate number of male and female particles, then that could stabilise or upset the balance of universal gender. Gravity (gravitons) and dark energy may also be opposite genders one attractive, one repulsive, each having a different function due to their gender.
3. The theorised Higgs field may also impart mass upon particles depending upon their gender, thus also compensate to balance gender in the universe. Proportioning gender through mass, or vice versa, could explain the ratio of certain particles to others.
4. Anti-particles (such as the anti-electron or positron) probably do not differ in gender, but anti-matter does not exist in the same quantities as normal matter. For whatever reason, anti-matter did not evolve at the same rate as normal matter tough gender issues may not be the cause.
5. In superposition, particles can exist in simultaneous states, maybe as both male and female, until a measurement fixes their gender. Just by exploring the universe, humans may be altering the gender of their cosmic surroundings: the Gender Principle.
Lastly, even if spin, or charge, or matter/anti-matter nature is not a characteristic of atomic gender, this does not preclude the idea of gender. After all, these terms are human constructs and could actually be describing gender characteristics. If particles are gender neutral, then why do they not have gender? This brings up the deeper question about life and inorganic particles. Can inorganic particles have gender? Does gender mean having to be alive? We humans assume that gender means having physical sexual organs. While not being sexual in nature, particles may be asexual or procreate in a transformational manner through fusion or fission, since energy cannot be destroyed or created; only transformed. But if that transformation is gender driven, where more female particles create an electron or a proton, etc, then the state of the universe may be a reflection in the change of gender throughout its existence. The emergent properties of particle gender could be the reason for the structure of the universe.
The whole universe may be alive in ways human cannot measure or fathom. So with alpha male particles, Earth mothers, and daughter isotopes floating around the universe, will there ever come a time when we will know whether the universe is male or female? Who knows, but it is worth finding out.
Universe sound:
http://phschool.com/science/science_news/articles/cosmic_melody.html
Universe colour:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2013-the-universe-is-not-turquoise-its-beige.html
