Saturday, October 30, 2010

Vid: The prequel to the Big Bang?

A friend points to a popular overview of current ideas in theoretical physics on pre-Big Bang cosmology, check out "What Happened Before the Big Bang?" a recent episode of the BBC's Horizon series.

It's on YouTube in six parts, featuring Michio Kaku, Neil Turok, Lee Smolin, Andre Linde, Roger Penrose, and Laura Mersini-Hougton



What do you think? Is this science or wishful thinking?

To comment, go here.

See also:

More demolition teams trying to blow up the Big Bang

Big Bang exploded?: Seriously, is there room for reasonable skepticism about the Big Bang?

For Roger Penrose: "When I say it, it's science; when he says it, it'sreligion!

For Lee Smolin: Can the laws of physics evolve?

and

Like clouds in our coffee ... all these other universes

For Neil Turok: So Stephen Hawking is coming to Canada, sort of

Friday, October 29, 2010

Theory of Everything: Putting failure to find such a theory to good use

Sure. Why waste a failure?

In "The imperfect universe: Goodbye, theory of everything" (New Scientist, 10 May 2010, Magazine issue 2759), Marcelo Gleiser mourns,
FIFTEEN years ago, I was a physicist hard at work hunting for a theory of nature that would unify the very big and the very small. There was good reason to hope. The great and the good were committed. Even Einstein, who recognised that our understanding of reality is necessarily incomplete, had spent the last 20 years of his life searching for a unified field theory that would describe the two main forces we see acting around us - gravity and electromagnetism - as manifestations of a single force. For him, such a mathematical theory represented the purest and most elegant expression of nature and the highest achievement of the human intellect.

Fifty-five years after Einstein's death, the hunt for this elusive unified field theory continues. To physicist Stephen Hawking and many others, finding the "theory of everything" would be equivalent to knowing the "mind of God". The metaphor is ...
subject to you buying an online subscription to New Scientist.

Maybe it's worth it. I mean, so rich a source of authentic pop culture rebranded as science, how can you resist? If you want to know what politicians and pundits fund and defend and why they do, read NS - on someone else's dime, to be sure.

Why is a theory about the Theory of Everything so important? As soon as you think you've worked everything out, it all changes again. Personally, I'd rather have a sound theory of something in particular.

Gleiser argues, says endorser Stuart Kauffman,
... that there is a profound link in Western science between monotheism and the scientific search for a Theory of Everything. He argues persuasively that we must give up this dream. This may augur a profound transformation in our understanding of the world.”

—Stuart Kauffman, Fellow of the Royal Society, Canada, Author of Reinventing the Sacred


Oh, I see now. Failure to find a theory of everything is repackaged as a reason to give up monotheism. And what if a theory of everything had indeed been found? ... why, wouldn't that be a reason to give up monotheism too?

So, really ...

I can't develop a Theory of Everything because no way could I hope to explain why these people don't get the reason the public doesn't take them seriously. Thus, mine wouldn't be a Theory of Everything.

Comments? Go to Uncommon Descent to comment.

(Note: Also, re Gleiser, back in 2005 he was into the "Who designed the designer?" schtick - as if any series could not just end, as a road ends in a highway.)

Extraterrestrials: They're not there, but they must be !

Extraterrestrials: They're not there, but they must be !

Chris McKay, a planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, reviews Paul Davies's latest book, The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence/Are We Alone In The Universe? , which argues that we should expand the hunt for intelligent life:

McKay considers why we should look closer to home — perhaps even in our DNA.
Although supporting the current quest, Davies recommends bold and sometimes bizarre avenues of exploration. For example, if migratory Galactic civilizations passed this way some time ago, they might have posted an alien message in our DNA or depleted our region of the Universe of some resource, such as (undiscovered) magnetic monopoles. Perhaps they left a device in the Solar System as a calling card, and are patiently waiting for us to discover and activate it. There are many places to look, many ways to expand the search.

Davies devotes pages to what will happen if a signal is received and how we should respond. Most readers will find these questions remote and hypothetical — not least because once a signal is received, events are likely to be quickly taken out of the hands of the astronomers.

The greatest joy of The Eerie Silence is the ending, in which Davies gives his own perspective. He splits his personality into three: scientist, philosopher and human. As a scientist, he is sceptical that we will detect extraterrestrial life, yet he finds that possibility plausible as a philosopher and longs for it to be true as a human. Read at least this page, even if you do not have time for the rest of this excellent book.

- Chris McKay, Is there anybody out there? (Nature, 464, 34 (4 March 2010) doi:10.1038/464034a)
Why does all this remind my of a woman wittering alone at home by the telephone (Why doesn't he call? Why doesn't he text?) waiting for a familiar knock on the door and checking her e-mail every two minutes. No one can cure anyone else of this romantic disorder just by talking sense to them. Usually, women cure themselves when they are ready by asking a simple question: What would happen if I just forgot about him and lived my life and was happy?

Well, he's already forgotten her, so ....

But she, at least, knew for sure that he existed.

So, now, what's the matter with Paul Davies? SETI? Why can't they just let go?

And don't tell me that this is all just about finding bacteria on another planet. That's like the lonely, pacing woman claiming she's really only worried about him. Sure.

Comments? To comment,go to Uncommon Descent.

Here's more on extraterrestrial life:

Extraterrestrials: The recent pilgrimage to Darwin's shrine

Does our solar system occupy a unique position in the universe or just an ordinary one?

Rare? Solar systems like ours are rare?

Astronomer argues that we can test whether Earth is fine-tuned as a science lab

Serious push to find more exoplanets

Exoplanets: Will intelligence be common or rare?

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Multiverse: Recent studies suggest that some alternative universes "may not be so inhospitable" - assuming they exist

In "Looking for Life in the Multiverse: Universes with different physical laws might still be habitable" Scientific American Magazine (December 16, 2009) By Alejandro Jenkins and Gilad Perez make clear what is and is not accepted in science (as they understand it) and why:
The laws of physics-and in particular the constants of nature that enter into those laws, such as the strengths of the fundamental forces-might therefore seem finely tuned to make our existence possible. Short of invoking a supernatural explanation, which would be by definition outside the scope of science, a number of physicists and cosmologists began in the1970s to try solving the puzzle by hypothesizing that our universe is just one of many existing universes, each with its own laws. According to this"anthropic" reasoning, we might just occupy the rare universe where the right conditions happen to have come together to make life possible. Amazingly, the prevailing theory in modern cosmology, which emerged in the1980s, suggests that such "parallel universes" may really exist-in fact, that a multitude of universes would incessantly pop out of a primordial vacuum the way ours did in the big bang. Our universe would be but one of many pocket universes within a wider expanse called the multiverse. In the overwhelming majority of those universes, the laws of physics might not allow the formation of matter as we know it or of galaxies, stars, planets and life. But given the sheer number of possibilities, nature would have had a good chance to get the "right" set of laws at least once. Our recent studies, however, suggest that some of these other universes-assuming they exist-may not be so inhospitable after all. Remarkably, we have found examples of alternative values of the fundamental constants, and thus of alternative sets of physical laws, that might still lead to very interesting worlds and perhaps to life. The basic idea is to change one aspect of the laws of nature and then make compensatory changes to other aspects.

Our work did not address the most serious fine-tuning problem in theoretical physics: the smallness of the "cosmological constant," thanks to which our universe neither recollapsed into nothingness a fraction of a second after the big bang, nor was ripped part by an exponentially accelerating expansion. Nevertheless, the examples of alternative, potentially habitable universes raise interesting questions and motivate further research into how unique our own universe might be.
Well, the supernatural may be "outside the scope of science," but universes whose existence is not demonstrated, which are imagined principally to get out of a jam with the evidence from this universe, are reasonably doubted, despite thought experiments. The tentative tone here is well justified. It should be used more often.

See other multiverse and fine tuning stories:

Multiverse:

Cosmology: If you needn't worry about paying the rent Friday, you can worry about this stuff

Cosmology: Science's leader in things that don't make sense

Cosmology: Crisis of the month: gravitation

Cosmology: Multiverse - getting comfortable with a zillion of everything that is unique.

Cosmology: I seem to have yanked particle physicist Lawrence Krauss's chain

Cosmology: Wow. It takes guts to wage warwith Stephen Hawking. He appeared in Star Trek

Cosmology: Arguments against flatness (plus exposing sloppy science writing)

Cosmology: If the universe has free will, where do I go to file a claim for damages?

Fine tuning:

New podcasts on fine tuning of the universe

Also: Gravity doesn't make sense? Hold on to that thought!

Multiverse: Getting comfortable with a zillion of everything that is unique?

Can the laws of physics evolve?

Like clouds in our coffee, all these other universes

Major media, imagining themselves sober, think there are many universes, not just double vision

The Big Bang exploded; seriously, is there room for reasonable skepticism about the Big Bang?

Could God live in an infinite sea of universes? It depends.

Will the cosmic multiverse landscape ensure the triumph of intelligent design?

Now, remind me again why we need multiverse theory in the first place?

Multiverse theory: Replacing the big fix with the sure thing?

American Physical Society reacts to physicist Hal Lewis's accusation: APA "...has accepted corruption as the norm"

You'll recall Hal Lewis, 67-year veteran of the American Physical Society, whose departing comments included,
As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d'ĂȘtre of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.
His concern that money was now driving the research agenda could be well-founded - money has that effect.

Now APS has replied:
... relatively few APS members conduct climate change research, and therefore the vast majority of the Society’s members derive no personal benefit from such research support.

On the matter of global climate change, APS notes that virtually all reputable scientists agree with the following observations:

•Carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere due to human activity;
•Carbon dioxide is an excellent infrared absorber, and therefore, its increasing presence in the atmosphere contributes to global warming; and
•The dwell time of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is hundreds of years.

On these matters, APS judges the science to be quite clear. However, APS continues to recognize that climate models are far from adequate, and the extent of global warming and climatic disruptions produced by sustained increases in atmospheric carbon loading remain uncertain. In light of the significant settled aspects of the science, APS totally rejects Dr. Lewis’ claim that global warming is a “scam” and a “pseudoscientific fraud.”
Excuse me. I have now morphed from concerned to confused. If "APS continues to recognize that climate models are far from adequate, and the extent of global warming and climatic disruptions produced by sustained increases in atmospheric carbon loading remain uncertain," what exactly is "settled" about the science? I doubt anyone disputes the basic properties of carbon dioxide, as such. The question is, how much does it matter? That unsettled part is what most people, facing big, legislated lifestyle changes, care about.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Exoplanets: The planet with 100% life has 0% existence?

A recent news story featured an astronomer whose personal feelings about the chances for life on a recently discovered planet orbiting a star other than our sun were - 100%:
Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent," said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, during a press briefing today.

"I have almost no doubt about it.”
He might have done with a few doubts about planet Gliese 581 g, which has a 37-day orbit around a dim, red dwarf star. The
latest story is that other astronomers can’t establish that Gliese exists.
Two weeks after one team of astronomers announced finding the habitable planet Gliese 581 g, another team says it can find no evidence of the world in its data.

Last month, a team of astronomers announced the discovery of the first alien world that could host life on its surface. Now a second team can find no evidence of the planet, casting doubt on its existence.

[ ... ]

But it might be too early to claim a definitive detection. A second team of astronomers have looked for signals of Gliese 581 g in their own data and failed to find it.

"We easily recover the four previously announced planets, "b", "c", "d", and "e". However, we do not see any evidence for a fifth planet in an orbit of 37 days," says Francesco Pepe of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland. He presented the results on Monday at an International Astronomical Union symposium in Turin, Italy.

Although the Geneva team cannot find evidence for the new planet, they cannot exclude the possibility that Gleise 581 g exists. "We are not trying to prove the nonexistence of a planet," Pepe says. "It's really difficult to prove that something does not exist. We are just saying we do not see a significant signal that is really different from noise."

- Rachel Courtland, "First life-friendly exoplanet may not exist", 1(3 October 2010)
Well, as we, and they, all know, one cannot prove that a physical thing really does not exist. One simply reaches the point where one considers its existence too improbable to spend more time looking.

If Gliese is not found, the episode will demonstrate one important thing: Many people badly need to believe in life on other planets, and many more people are eager to hear them tell about it. The legendary caution of science stands no chance against the onslaught of such yearnings.

See also Exoplanets: The recent pilgrimage to Darwin's shrine.

Does our solar system occupy a unique position in the universe or just an ordinary one?

Rare? Solar systems like ours are rare?

Astronomer argues that we can test whether Earth is fine-tuned as a science lab

Serious push to find more exoplanets

Exoplanets: Will intelligence be common or rare?

100 per cent chance newly discovered planet has life

How do we know? Faith in faith alone, the astronomer explained:
"Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent," said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, during a press briefing today.

"I have almost no doubt about it."
Well, that settles it, I guess.

James M. Kushiner points out, at Mere Comments blog, re "Odds of Life on Nearby Planet '100 Percent,' Astronomer Says":
Did you hear about the astronomer, who said, get this, that the odds of life on nearby planet are 100 Percent? What was he thinking? What do astronomers know about biological life, and, besides, if the odds are 100 percent, then there are no odds--at least if I go to Arlington Race Track and find a horse that has a 100 percent chance of winning, they probably won't be taking bets on him. No odds there.

[ ... ]

I am not saying this planet could not support life. I am just wondering what are the chances that any given astronomer would peg a planet with so many unknowns or uncertainties with a probability of having life on it at 100 percent? Of course, if a news story is in play with a possible headline, I'd up those chances considerably, whatever they are.

If you want to read science, don't read the news.
Read more here. Kushiner is editor of the science and popular culture mag Salvo, pictured above.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Science fiction author asks, why are atheists who write space operas supposed to know best whether God exists?

Lawyer Hal G.P. Colebatch observes, re atheist science fiction:
A magazine I frequently write for (not this one) recently published a review of a book of essays advocating atheism. The reviewer pointed out with some enthusiasm that a large number of the contributors were science-fiction writers.

This left me somewhat nonplussed. I publish a good deal of science fiction myself, I have also read quite a lot of it, and I am quite unable to see why writing it should be held to particularly qualify anyone to answer the question of whether or not there is a God.

I don't know if it is an actual requirement for the job, but certainly a number of astronauts are believers and Buzz Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon, is a lay preacher.

I would be inclined to take their feelings about Cosmology with more respect than those of even the best-published science-fiction writer. (The American Spectator, 10.7.10)
Well, at least the astronauts have been there. It’s not just the Saucer City Chronicles all over again.

I tend to be wary of all genre fiction, and am delighted by examples of non-convention bound writing that prove me too pessimistic. But I’d be curious to know why atheists are attracted to science fiction (not necessarily with happy results, by any means), and why there is so little good science fiction out there from a theistic perspective. Any thoughts? Go to Uncommon Descent to comment.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Physicist resigns from American Physical Society, after 67 years, and scorches earth

Hal Lewis* reminisces for Society president, Curtis G. Callan, Jr. of Princeton University, charging:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence---it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d'ĂȘtre of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

Lewis is motivated by the Climategate attempt at censorship of dissenting views on manmade global warming:


It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

The really big scandal, in my view, is that Climategate wasn’t treated as a scandal, just business as usual.

But now, what say you physicists among us: Were the good old days really better? Has love of money been the root of all evil? Go to Uncommon Descent to comment.

*bio: Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, former Chairman; Former member Defense Science Board, chmn of Technology panel; Chairman DSB study on Nuclear Winter; Former member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Former member, President's Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; Chairman APS study on Nuclear Reactor Safety Chairman Risk Assessment Review Group; Co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; Former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board; Served in US Navy in WW II; books: Technological Risk (about, surprise, technological risk) and Why Flip a Coin (about decision making)