The Universe Is An Equation With A Remainder.
Various news services are reporting today (here's the NY Times) that a new study by cosmologists suggests the improbable: that "dark energy" really is one of the shaping forces of the Universe.
"Dark energy" has until recently been considered little more than an update of "ether" "phlogiston" or "life essence," a convenient anomaly conjured to explain why the universe's numbers don't fit our projections. Basically, it's what keeps the weak force of gravity from sucking the universe back together again. Ever since it was discovered that the universe is expanding faster and faster over time, rather than slowing under the influence of gravity, another force has been needed to explain this. Hence, dark energy. A universal fudge of sorts.
Even stranger, the strength of the dark energy seems to conform to Einstein's most famous fudge, the "cosmological constant." Later derided by him as his biggest mistake, it was Einstein's efforts to tally his theories with the work of later physicists and cosmologists. But it seems he was right.
Nutty, nutty, nutty.
This research also bolsters the arguments of string-theory advocates, whose models predict that otherwise barren stretches of space contain massive amounts of energy vibrating in eleven dimen...
Ok. Ok. Ok. I've recently been taking mostly good-natured potshots at organized religion, since I myself am not a particulary pious person. Also, God gets used as an excuse a lot. But I ask you: what is the weirder story:
Some super-being made the Universe as humanity's playground and birthright, and two thousand years ago his son got nailed to a tree for saying how good it would be to be nice to each other for a change (with apologies to Douglas Adams). Now, that super-being and his son watch us all from another dimension, and when we die our deeds will be measured against their teachings and the good apples get a gold star.
Or: The three-dimensional physical universe sprang into being randomly as a mere manifestation of a larger host of dimensions numbering eleven in total (or maybe sixteen), and through a staggeringly improbable set of coincidences, physics, chemistry and chance combined to produce a universe neither too hot nor too cold, with just the right number of unfolded dimensions, neither too big nor too small, with juuuust the right amount of energy that some of it can lump together into stars and galaxies and yappy bichon dogs. Oh, and the numbers don't add up like they should.
I guess it's all a matter of what you choose to put your faith in.
on
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Why would you consider it the
Why would you consider it the "right" number of dimensions, matter, etc?
Without getting TOO far off the intent of your post, I consider God a tool, for lack of a better term, to help people come to grips with the randomness of the universe, and their own insignificance within it.
I trust astronomers and astrophysicists to explain stellar mechanics to me, not a theologian.
I find the second theory less
I find the second theory less improbable.
Kathy, so do I, for sure. But
Kathy, so do I, for sure. But neither one of them passes the common-sense test nonetheless.
GL, the "right" number of dimensions is obviously the number of dimensions in which we exist. Whatever number that is.
I love advanced sciency stuff!
Johno, you made a leap so
Johno, you made a leap so many perfectly rational people seem to have a difficult time making: when it comes to origins of the universe, both scientific and theological explanations require quite a bit of faith.
I, myself, find the idea of a self-existent creator more rational than a self-existent mass of matter. Others don't. In either case, the beginning of existence is something that will probably always remain beyond our full comprehension.
TL, I agree that it's
TL, I agree that it's unlikely we will ever know the beginnings of existence.
The problems facing advanced physics from a lay-person-epistemiology point of view, lay in the fact that all our explanations are ex post facto. With religion, you get a creation story that provides initial cause and purpose. A creator made us. With physics, you have to argue backwards from the standpoint of "we're here, so things MUST have worked out," which is a weaker, and to many, less satisfying mode of attack.
J,
J,
Yyyyyyyyeees, except that oftentimes people put the cart before the horse, particularly when considering the development of human life.
THAT argument often goes that it is very curious that the Earth is just the right distance from the Sun, not too hot or cold; and the Moon just the right distance from Earth to favorably affect tidal action; and the atmosphere is just dense enough to be right for humans, these things seem awfully coincidental to have happened without Divine influence.
Problem is that all life on ths planet developed according to the environment at the time. It's the right atmospheric mixture of gasses for humans because humans evolved to thrive in it. Same for temperature, same for radiation, etc. Lifeforms that didn't do well under present conditions are long dead.
GL is talking about the
GL is talking about the anthropic principle. Because we evolved here, we must of necessity be perfectly suited to life in this universe. The colossal and stupendous chain of coincidence that led to our existence is not a privileged set of occurences. You have to be careful not to think of either the universe or us as being a cause of the existence of the other. There are no doubt many ways that the universe could have been arranged, and ended up with life. We can marvel at how everything is for us "just right" but it's dangerous to draw conclusions from that fact.
Science is very good at figuring out what and how, but much less so at why. There may not be a scientifically accessible answer to why.