It's clear that if the Big Bang...

[Guest]

It’s clear that if the Big Bang had been just one part in a million more powerful, the cosmos would have blown outward too fast to allow stars and worlds to form. Result: No us. Even more coincidentally, the universe's four forces and all of its constants are just perfectly set up for atomic interactions, the existence of atoms and elements, planets, water and life. Tweak any of them and you never existed.

 

Such life-friendly values of physics are built into the universe like the cotton fabric woven into our currency. The gravitational constant is perhaps the most famous, but the fine structure constant is just as critical for life. If it were just 1.1 or more of its present value, fusion would no longer occur in stars. Or consider the electromagnetic force. The great physicist Richard Feynman said “All good theoretical physicists put this number up on their wall and worry about it. Immediately you would like to know where this number for a coupling comes from…Nobody knows. It's one of the greatest beaver dam mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with nounderstanding by man. You might say the "hand of God" wrote that number, and "we don't know how He pushed his pencil." …we don't know what kind of dance to do on the computer to make this number come out, without putting it in secretly!”

 

It amounts to 1/137 when the units are filled in, and facilitates the existence of atoms and allows the entire universe to exist. Any change in its value and none of us are here.

 

[Guest]

 

[Winchester]

There's a chance that this isn't the first universe or the only universe so the argument you're advancing doesn't hold.

[dUSt]

 

There's a chance that this isn't the first universe or the only universe so the argument you're advancing doesn't hold.

​Depends on how you define "universe".

[Ice_nine]

according to that video, the "chance" of this universe arising in a multiverse is like 10^56-10^120. That's a big ole number.

Who knows? The universe is a trippy place.

[Guest]

There's a chance that this isn't the first universe or the only universe so the argument you're advancing doesn't hold.

What Ice_nine said.

[Guest]

[Ash Wednesday]

 

[Guest]

 

[Ash Wednesday]

Thanks Josh. I always liked hearing lectures from Fr. Spitzer.

He's repping Gonzaga...go Spokane! woop woop

[Guest]

It was a good listen. It's under an hour but says near to three for some reason.

[CrossCuT]

Do you even multiverse? 

[Guest]

[Guest]

Do you even multiverse? 

How many universes then would you need to make it at all probable that one of them could be like our universe? String theorists posit a number of 10 to the power of 500. It might help to see that number written out. It is 1 with 500 zeroes after it.

 

Here goes: 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

 

Now that is an awful lot of universes, particularly since the estimate for the total  number of atoms in the entire observable universe is no more than 10 to the power of 80.[10]

 

Now it must be understood that there is no hard evidence at all for the existence of any other universes and, if they exist, we would never be able to see them or have any contact with them. Can this then be considered a scientific idea if it cannot be tested by experiment or observation? Davies states, “It can be validly objected that a theory which rests on entities that are in principle unobservable cannot be described as scientific.”[11]

 

Well might William of Occam turn uneasily in his grave! This 14th century English friar proposed the idea (known as Occam’s Razor) that one should not multiply causes needlessly. The simpler of two competing explanations is generally to be preferred, unless that simpler explanation can be confidently ruled out.

 

In fact, I think I heard old William chuckle the other day, unless it was thunder. He must have been reading his copy of New Scientist, dated 28 October 2009.[12] An article entitled ‘Multiplying universes: How many is the multiverse?’ put forward the latest thinking from cosmologists Andre Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin, suggesting a number of 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 10 million universes. Unlike the String theorist figure of 10 with 500 zeroes after it, this new figure could not possibly be written out. Interestingly, the article itself gets the number wrong, greatly underestimating its size – they evidently couldn’t believe it either! It is a number so utterly vast as to defy any sensible comment!

 

Having said that, is it possible that this is either a little cosmological joke (ho, ho, ho!) or have they produced something very close to a mathematical proof for the existence of God? Either way, I cannot imagine that the New Atheists will fall over themselves in their rush to comment!

 

 

[tinytherese]

 

Bazinga!