"Science has missed something essential; it has seen and scrutinised what has happened and in a way how it has happened, but it has shut its eyes to something that made this impossible possible, something it is there to express. There is no fundamental significance in things if you miss the Divine Reality; for you remain embedded in a huge surface crust of manageable and utilisable appearance. It is the magic of the Magician you are trying to analyze but only when you enter into the consciousness of the Magician himself can you begin to experience the true organisation, significance and circles of the Lila." -- An excerpt from The Valley of the False Glimmer by Sri Aurobindo.
In their search to explain the mechanics of creation, the world's leading theoretical physicists have determined that there are four fields of force in the universe. Scientists have been able to reduce and classify these fields in categories according to the strength of the force that they carry, and the particles with which they interact. The first of these categories is the Gravitational Force. It is the weakest of the four forces and has two special properties; it is able to act over large distances and is always an attractive force. The gravitational force is present in large bodies such as the Sun, Moon and Planets. The second category is the Electromagnetic Force which operates over short distances and interacts with electrically charged particles. While it is much stronger than the gravitational force, this force operates on the very small scale of atoms and molecules which possess two kinds of electrical charges, positive and negative, that tend to attract or repel one another. The third category called the Weak Nuclear Force, is responsible for radioactivity and is found in many nuclear decay processes that involve neutrinos. In 1979, scientists were able to develop a theory which successfully unified the weak nuclear force with the electromagnetic force as they had earlier been able to unify the forces of electricity and magnetism. It is now called the Electro-weak force. The fourth category, called the Strong Nuclear Force, binds particles together into combinations. Matter is mostly made up of protons and neutrons which in turn are made up of quarks. The strong nuclear force holds the quarks together in the proton and neutron and hold protons and neutrons together in the nucleus of an atom.
While these four forces account for the theoretical dynamics of matter they do not appear to interact with each other in a manner sufficient to suggest a single unified field theory which could explain the natural ordering of the universe. This problem has forced scientists to continue their search for an as yet unidentified 5th field in nature which they hope will provide the basis for this long sought unification. Their search for this mysterious 5th field has led them to speculate about a sub-quantum reality described by the ancient sages as the Luminiferous Ether. It was believed to be an invisible medium that would fill all space and convey extremely subtle effects over large distances. To the world of science, this metaphysical possibility was not considered viable because physicists were not convinced that etheric forces played any significant role in physical interactions. But, upon closer investigation, they have come to believe that the Etheric may hold the key to the elusive 5th field. Leading theoreticians now conclude that this invisible sub-quantum field, capable of being the ground state of the universe, would be free of matter as well as the effects of gravitation. Since it resembles empty space, they appropriately named it the Quantum Vacuum. However, following more recent discoveries, they were forced to revise their notion of an etheric void in favor of new theories which suggest that the Quantum Vacuum is a highly charged cosmic medium; an energy-filled plenum whose subtle order measurably influences the space-time motion of the material universe. Scientists now agree that it was the Quantum Vacuum which gave birth to the observable universe. And they also believe that the 5th field which they are seeking is the interactive face of that plenum. A number of physicists now suspect that the dynamics of that interactive face hold the key to joining the fields of gravitation, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces in a Grand Unified Field Formula.