Zone1 Our Fine-Tuned Universe: Accident or Intelligent Design?

[ding]

I'm not a theoretical physicist. I think it's illogical to think that the speed of light would be constant for all viewers.

But them's the rules. At least hereabouts. Other places could work differently.

Why would you believe the laws of nature would be different?

 

[Eman623]

Why would you believe the laws of nature would be different?

I don't recall saying I thought they "would" be different. Only that they "could" be different. If other universes even exist.

In any case, this is not about me or what I think.

 

[ding]

I don't recall saying I thought they "would" be different. Only that they "could" be different. If other universes even exist.

In any case, this is not about me or what I think.

Yes, I know and then you proceeded to argue it one way.

 

[Eman623]

Yes, I know and then you proceeded to argue it one way.

We don't know why the laws of nature are the way they are. Why is the speed of light 186,282 mps? Why not some other speed?

If we knew why, then that could shed light on what it could be in some other universe.

 

[ding]

We don't know why the laws of nature are the way they are. Why is the speed of light 186,282 mps? Why not some other speed?

If we knew why, then that could shed light on what it could be in some other universe.

The sub atomic structure of matter is the way it is because if it were even slightly different the universe would have no structure and there would be no life to be asking this question.

 

[Eman623]

The sub atomic structure of matter is the way it is because if it were even slightly different the universe would have no structure and there would be no life to be asking this question.

I'm not sure that is 100% true and kind of sounds illogical. If the structure were different there would be no structure? No, it would just be a different structure.

This is like the old test question joke: "Define the universe and give three examples"

 

[ding]

I'm not sure that is 100% true and kind of sounds illogical. If the structure were different there would be no structure? No, it would just be a different structure.

This is like the old test question joke: "Define the universe and give three examples"

No, not a different structure. There would be no stellar evolution, no chemical evolution, no biological evolution. George Wald, Nobel Laureate, explains:

I should like now to raise two problems to do with protons and electrons, one involving their masses, the other their electric charge.

Every atom has a nucleus composed of protons and neutrons, except the smallest one, hydrogen, which has only one proton as its nucleus. Electrons orbit these nuclei at distances relatively greater than separate our sun from its planets. Both protons and neutrons have masses almost two thousand times the mass of an electron -- 1840 times when I last looked -- so virtually the whole mass of an atom is in its nucleus. Hence the atom is hardly disturbed at all by the motions of its electrons, and an atom can hold its position in a molecule, and molecules their positions in larger structures. Only that circumstance permits molecules to hold their shapes, and solids to exist.

If on the contrary the protons and neutrons were closer in mass to the electrons, whether light or heavy, then the motions of the electrons would be reflected in reciprocal motions by the others. All structures composed of such atoms would be fluid; in such a universe nothing would stay put. There could not be the fitting together of molecular shapes that permits not only crystals to form, but living organisms.

And now, electric charge: How does it come about that elementary particles so altogether different otherwise as the proton and electron possess the same numerical charge? How is it that the proton is exactly as plus-charged as the electron is minus-charged?

It may help to accept this as a legitimate scientific question to know that in 1959 two of our most distinguished astrophysicists, Lyttleton and Bondi, proposed that in fact the proton and electron differ in charge by the almost infinitesimal amount, 2 x 10 -18e -- two billion billionths e, in which e is the already tiny charge on either the proton or electron. The reason they made that proposal is that, given that nearly infinitesimal difference in charge, all the matter in the universe would be charged, and in the same sense, plus or minus. Since like charges repel one another, all the matter in the universe would repel all the other matter, and so the universe would expand, just as it is believed to do. The trouble with that idea is that yes, the universe would expand, but -- short of extraordinary special dispensations - it would not do anything else. Even so small a difference in electric charge would be enough to overwhelm the forces of gravitation that bring matter together; and so we should have no planets, no stars, no galaxies -- and, worst of all, no physicists.

George Wald: Life and Mind in the Universe

 

[Donald H]

I'm not sure that is 100% true and kind of sounds illogical. If the structure were different there would be no structure? No, it would just be a different structure.

This is like the old test question joke: "Define the universe and give three examples"

You're wise to be cautious. The JWST is finding new evidence of possible other universes (misnamed?) in which laws of physics are not as expected.

Their beliefs may have to be amended to include an infinite number of 'big bangs' being the work of their god.

Or alternatively, new gods could be invented for each new universe discovered. It would depend on whether or not Christians would lay claim to them?

 

[Eman623]

No, not a different structure. There would be no stellar evolution, no chemical evolution, no biological evolution. George Wald, Nobel Laureate, explains:

I should like now to raise two problems to do with protons and electrons, one involving their masses, the other their electric charge.

Every atom has a nucleus composed of protons and neutrons, except the smallest one, hydrogen, which has only one proton as its nucleus. Electrons orbit these nuclei at distances relatively greater than separate our sun from its planets. Both protons and neutrons have masses almost two thousand times the mass of an electron -- 1840 times when I last looked -- so virtually the whole mass of an atom is in its nucleus. Hence the atom is hardly disturbed at all by the motions of its electrons, and an atom can hold its position in a molecule, and molecules their positions in larger structures. Only that circumstance permits molecules to hold their shapes, and solids to exist.

If on the contrary the protons and neutrons were closer in mass to the electrons, whether light or heavy, then the motions of the electrons would be reflected in reciprocal motions by the others. All structures composed of such atoms would be fluid; in such a universe nothing would stay put. There could not be the fitting together of molecular shapes that permits not only crystals to form, but living organisms.

And now, electric charge: How does it come about that elementary particles so altogether different otherwise as the proton and electron possess the same numerical charge? How is it that the proton is exactly as plus-charged as the electron is minus-charged?

It may help to accept this as a legitimate scientific question to know that in 1959 two of our most distinguished astrophysicists, Lyttleton and Bondi, proposed that in fact the proton and electron differ in charge by the almost infinitesimal amount, 2 x 10 -18e -- two billion billionths e, in which e is the already tiny charge on either the proton or electron. The reason they made that proposal is that, given that nearly infinitesimal difference in charge, all the matter in the universe would be charged, and in the same sense, plus or minus. Since like charges repel one another, all the matter in the universe would repel all the other matter, and so the universe would expand, just as it is believed to do. The trouble with that idea is that yes, the universe would expand, but -- short of extraordinary special dispensations - it would not do anything else. Even so small a difference in electric charge would be enough to overwhelm the forces of gravitation that bring matter together; and so we should have no planets, no stars, no galaxies -- and, worst of all, no physicists.

George Wald: Life and Mind in the Universe

Thanks. Very interesting. So if Lyttleton and Bondi are correct (which is by no means proven), then there may be universes where there is no matter. We got lucky in our universe, which is to say in an infinite number of universes, there will be an infinite number in which life develops and an infinite number in which life does not develop.

 

[ding]

Thanks. Very interesting. So if Lyttleton and Bondi are correct (which is by no means proven), then there may be universes where there is no matter. We got lucky in our universe, which is to say in an infinite number of universes, there will be an infinite number in which life develops and an infinite number in which life does not develop.

Based upon paired particle production, all universes should only have radiation which means there's no actual universe with space and time. So yeah, we got lucky. But I don't believe that is based upon the work of Lyttleton and Bondi.

I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of infinity. The implications are mind blowing. Think Rick and Morty.

 

[Eman623]

Based upon paired particle production, all universes should only have radiation which means there's no actual universe with space and time. So yeah, we got lucky. But I don't believe that is based upon the work of Lyttleton and Bondi.

I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of infinity. The implications are mind blowing. Think Rick and Morty.

Paired particle production? Do you mean there is an antiuniverse exactly like ours and came into origin at exactly the same instant, but is one where antimatter predominates? I wonder if antilife exists there?

I don't know how you can discuss multiverse theory without considering the possibility of infinite universes.

 

[Donald H]

Paired particle production? Do you mean there is an antiuniverse exactly like ours and came into origin at exactly the same instant, but is one where antimatter predominates? I wonder if antilife exists there?

I don't know how you can discuss multiverse theory without considering the possibility of infinite universes.

The bible makes it clear that the earth is flat and enclosed under the glass dome of the firmament. And the stars are stickers that sometimes fall off and come to earth.

We either believe or not. There's no halfway for the Satanists.

 

[ding]

Paired particle production? Do you mean there is an antiuniverse exactly like ours and came into origin at exactly the same instant, but is one where antimatter predominates? I wonder if antilife exists there?

I don't know how you can discuss multiverse theory without considering the possibility of infinite universes.

No. That's not what it means.

Pair production is the creation of a subatomic particle and its antiparticle from a neutral boson. Examples include creating an electron and a positron, a muon and an antimuon, or a proton and an antiproton.

Pair production - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"...Our universe is made of four kinds of so-called elementary particles: neutrons, protons, electrons, and photons, which are particles of radiation. (I disregard neutrinos, since they do not interact with other matter; also the host of other particles that appear transiently in the course of high‑energy nuclear interactions.) The only important qualification one need make to such a simple statement is that the first three particles exist also as antiparticles, the particles constituting matter, the anti-particles anti-matter. When matter comes into contact with anti-matter they mutually annihilate each other, and their masses are instantly turned into radiation according to Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc2, in which E is the energy of the radiation, m is the annihilated mass, and c is the speed of light.

The positive and negative electric charges that divide particles from anti-particles are perfectly symmetrical. So the most reasonable expectation is that exactly equal numbers of both particles and anti-particles entered the Big Bang, the cosmic explosion in which our universe is thought to have begun. In that case, however, in the enormous compression of material at the Big Bang, there must have occurred a tremendous storm of mutual annihilation, ending with the conversion of all the particles and anti-particles into radiation. We should have come out of the Big Bang with a universe containing only radiation.

Fortunately for us, it seems that a tiny mistake was made. In 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey discovered a new microwave radiation that fills the universe, coming equally from all directions, wherever one may be. It is by far the dominant radiation in the universe; billions of years of starlight have added to it only negligibly. It is commonly agreed that this is the residue remaining from that gigantic firestorm of mutual annihilation in the Big Bang.

It turns out that there are about one billion photons of that radiation for every proton in the universe. Hence it is thought that what went into the Big Bang were not exactly equal numbers of particles and anti-particles, but that for every billion anti-particles there were one billion and one particles, so that when all the mutual annihilation had happened, there remained over that one particle per billion, and that now contitutes all the matter in the universe -- all the galaxies, the stars and planets, and of course all life..."

George Wald: Life and Mind in the Universe

 

[Donald H]

It's being postulated that our ;Big Bang' is just one of many in a world with no beginning.

The Christian religion needs to act quickly now on claiming an infinite number of 'Big Bangs' as their god's work.

Before Islam claims them as Allah's!

 

[Donald H]

Hasn't it all become quite 'silly' now?

As if the god and his boy jesus was the real thing! LOL

Even the Catholic church is throwing baby jesus out with the bath water now that they've dumped Genesis in favour of Darwin's stuff!

Maybe if women like Meriweather would guit her fear schtick we could settle this make believe clusterfuk for good on this board?

None of the true believing Xtians have the stomach for the debate anymore!

 

[ding]

^^^

 

[ding]

It's being postulated that our ;Big Bang' is just one of many in a world with no beginning.

That's nice. Rick and Morty postulate infinite universes. Maybe in one of those you are a normal person.