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Sep 13, 2010 10:10 AM | 173
Editor's note (9/14/10): This post has been slightly modified.
I've always thought of Stephen Hawking—whose new book The Grand Design (Bantam 2010), co-written with Leonard Mlodinow, has become an instant bestseller—less as a scientist than as a cosmic, comic performance artist, who loves goofing on his fellow physicists and the rest of us.
This penchant was already apparent in 1980, when the University of Cambridge named Hawking Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, the chair held three centuries earlier by Isaac Newton. Many would have been cowed into caution by such an honor. But in his inaugural lecture, "Is the End in Sight for Theoretical Physics?", Hawking predicted that physics was on the verge of a unified theory so potent and complete that it would bring the field to a close. The theory would not only unite relativity and quantum mechanics into one tidy package and "describe all possible observations." It would also tell us why the big bang banged and spawned our weird world rather than something entirely different.
At the end of his speech Hawking slyly suggested that, given the "rapid rate of development" of computers, they might soon become so smart that they "take over altogether" in physics. "So maybe the end is in sight for theoretical physicists," he said, "if not for theoretical physics." This line was clearly intended as a poke in his colleagues' ribs. Wouldn't it be ironic if our mindless machines usurped our place as discoverers of Cosmic Truth? Hilarious!
The famous last line of Hawking's monumental bestseller A Brief History of Time (Bantam 1988) was also a joke, although many people didn't get it at the time. A final theory of physics, Hawking declared, "would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we should know the mind of God." Hawking seemed to imply that physics was going to come full circle back to its spiritual roots, yielding a mystical revelation that tells us not just what the universe is but why it is. Science and religion are compatible after all! Yay!
But Hawking ain't one of these New Agey, feel-good physicist–deists like John Barrow, Paul Davies, Freeman Dyson or other winners of the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities. Deep inside Brief History Hawking showed his true colors when he discussed the no-boundary proposal, which holds that the entire history of the universe, all of space and time, forms a kind of four-dimensional sphere. The proposal implies that speculation about the beginning or end of the universe is as meaningless as talking about the beginning or end of a sphere.
In the same way a unified theory of physics might be so seamless, perfect and complete that it even explains itself. "What place, then, for a creator?" Hawking asked. There is no place, he replied. Or rather, a final theory would eliminate the need for a God, a creator, a designer. Hawking's first wife, a devout Christian, knew what he was up to. After she and Hawking divorced in the early 1990s she revealed that one of the reasons was his scorn for religion.
Hawking's atheism is front and center in Grand Design. In an excerpt Hawking and Mlodinow declare, "There is a sound scientific explanation for the making of our world—no Gods required." But Hawking is, must be, kidding once again. The "sound scientific explanation" is M-theory, which Hawking calls (in a blurb for Amazon) "the only viable candidate for a complete 'theory of everything'."
Actually M-theory is just the latest iteration of string theory, with membranes (hence the M) substituted for strings. For more than two decades string theory has been the most popular candidate for the unified theory that Hawking envisioned 30 years ago. Yet this popularity stems not from the theory's actual merits but rather from the lack of decent alternatives and the stubborn refusal of enthusiasts to abandon their faith.
M-theory suffers from the same flaws that string theories did. First is the problem of empirical accessibility. Membranes, like strings, are supposedly very, very tiny—as small compared with a proton as a proton is compared with the solar system. This is the so-called Planck scale, 10^–33 centimeters. Gaining the kind of experimental confirmation of membranes or strings that we have for, say, quarks would require a particle accelerator 1,000 light-years around, scaling up from our current technology. Our entire solar system is only one light-day around, and the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful accelerator, is 27 kilometers in circumference.
Hawking recognized long ago that a final theory—because it would probably involve particles at the Planck scale—might never be experimentally confirmable. "It is not likely that we shall have accelerators powerful enough" to test a unified theory "within the foreseeable future—or indeed, ever," he said in his 1980 speech at Cambridge. He nonetheless hoped that in lieu of empirical evidence physicists would discover a theory so logically inevitable that it excluded all alternatives.
Quite the opposite has happened. M-theory, theorists now realize, comes in an almost infinite number of versions, which "predict" an almost infinite number of possible universes. Critics call this the "Alice's restaurant problem," a reference to the refrain of the old Arlo Guthrie folk song: "You can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant." Of course, a theory that predicts everything really doesn't predict anything, and hence isn't a theory at all. Proponents, including Hawking, have tried to turn this bug into a feature, proclaiming that all the universes "predicted" by M-theory actually exist. "Our universe seems to be one of many," Hawking and Mlodinow assert.
Why do we find ourselves in this particular universe rather than in one with, say, no gravity or only two dimensions, or a Bizarro world in which Glenn Beck is a left-wing rather than right-wing nut? To answer this question, Hawking invokes the anthropic principle, a phrase coined by physicist Brandon Carter in the 1970s. The anthropic principle comes in two versions. The weak anthropic principle, or WAP, holds merely that any cosmic observer will observe conditions, at least locally, that make the observer's existence possible. The strong version, SAP, says that the universe must be constructed so as to make observers possible.
The anthropic principle has always struck me as so dumb that I can't understand why anyone takes it seriously. It's cosmology's version of creationism. WAP is tautological and SAP is teleological. The physicist Tony Rothman, with whom I worked at Scientific American in the 1990s, liked to say that the anthropic principle in any form is completely ridiculous and hence should be called CRAP.
In his 1980 speech in Cambridge Hawking mentioned the anthropic principle—which he paraphrased as "Things are as they are because we are"—as a possible explanation for the fact that our cosmos seems to be fine-tuned for our existence. But he added that "one cannot help feeling that there is some deeper explanation."
Like millions of other people I admire Hawking's brilliance, wit, courage and imagination. His prophecy of the end of physics inspired me to write The End of Science (which he called "garbage"). Hawking also played a central role in one of the highlights of my career. It dates back to the summer of 1990, when I attended a symposium in a remote Swedish resort on "The Birth and Early Evolution of Our Universe." The meeting was attended by 30 of the world's most prominent cosmologists, including Hawking.
Toward the end of the meeting, everyone piled into a bus and drove to a nearby village to hear a concert in a Lutheran church. When the scientists entered the church, it was already packed. The orchestra, a motley assortment of blond-haired youths and wizened, bald elders clutching violins, clarinets and other instruments, was seated at the front of the church. Their neighbors jammed the balconies and seats at the rear of the building.
The scientists filed down the center aisle to pews reserved for them at the front of the church. Hawking led the way in his motorized wheelchair. The townspeople started to clap, tentatively at first, then passionately. These religious folk seemed to be encouraging the scientists, and especially Hawking, in their quest to solve the riddle of existence.
Now, Hawking is telling us that unconfirmable M-theory plus the anthropic tautology represents the end of that quest. If we believe him, the joke's on us.
Clarification (9/14/10): My original post referred to Stephen Hawking's "smirk." Apparently many readers assume that Hawking can't control his expression and that I was mocking him for this symptom of his paralysis. When I met Hawking, he could and did grin on purpose, and I assumed that's still the case. I apologize for any offense caused by my (now deleted) remark.
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173 Comments
Add CommentThe author of this article seems to have more respect for "Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities" (what is that exactly--parapsychology? theology? shamanism?) than for cosmology. The gratuitous airing of dirty laundry (why is Hawking's divorce relevant in an article on popular science?), dismissive tone about atheism (which is still the simplest and most straightforward world view consistent with all scientific observations) and the claim that the Universe *can* indeed be figured out makes me think the author is still smarting because Hawking called his book "garbage". I don't know about the book, but this article certainly is. So much so that I'm unsubscribing from the Scientific American RSS feed that I've been reading for a long time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is a good thing to give constructive criticism to a fellow scientist, but this article lapses into petty personal attack and that is unacceptable neither in a forum for popular science nor in any publication that claims good journalism.
Good bye.
This is the most fun critique of the dispute I've read thus far. But I would like to add that one of the key's to addressing the debate is not being considered, namely, the nature of sensation and our comprehension of the world. In physics, the limits of the senses are extended with mathematics and this is the stuff out of which physical theories grow. God grew out of some awareness we have of the relationship between ourselves and everything around us. We still know very little about the relationship between material and our awareness of it, the relationship between material and thought. The roots of mathematics lie there (as does the anthropic principle probably). What has changed since the birth of many of our religious traditions is our awareness. Reconsidering what the body is doing when it configures the world, when it discerns its place (which is largely outside of our awareness) is more relevant to a discussion of God than is the completeness of physic's analysis of material. What physic's analysis of material often tells us is the way the senses are misleading.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm quite surprised to find
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCrap like this commentary has no place in Scientific American. Is this one of those things that gets posted remotely without the editors even looking at it first?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWouldn't it be ironic if our mindless machines usurped our place as discoverers of Cosmic Truth? Hilarious!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this---
Sheesh.... Enlgish lit majors have no business here.
Tell this guy to read about technological singularity.
Can someone tell me why this is in Scientific American? His views and thoughts belown in Spiritual American, don't you think?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow. Sour grapes, and such public ones.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow embarrassing for you.
Good luck with your god theory.
"Maybe it's the perpetual Mick Jagger smirk, which implies that to him everything, including his own physical plight, is a joke"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst time I ever heard Lou Gehrig's disease called a joke.
What's next - making fun of bald cancer patients?
SciAm: Please do not publish any more articles from this author, he is embarrassing.
In spite of Hawking's tremendous contributions to the understanding of our universe, neither he nor any other human being can conclude with certainty the nature of God, nor whether a God truly exists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe've evolved according to parameters which our ancestors found favorable, and acquired senses which served our basic needs for survival. While we are increasingly able to use our technology to peer deeper into the atom as well as farther into the depths of space, either in wavelengths our meager eyesight cannot natively perceive, there remain many mysteries beyond our perception.
At the top of my own list of these mysteries is the why of our existence; why did we arise?
Were I afflicted with a debilitating disease, resentment for my creator's decision in depositing me on earth would lay in wait in the back of my mind. Even if my intellectual maturity greatly eclipsed my emotional intelligence, this bitter pill would still remind me of my suffering every day of my life, even though my intellect would be unable to ascertain the true nature of that which led to my creation. I'm certain it would color my outlook on life, giving me an irrational boldness to proclaim that the same God which created my withering form need not be the same entity responsible for instantiating the splendor of the universe.
Until a God comes down from on high and grants us the privilege of knowing why we were created, I think there's no reason to allow the idea to color our quest for understanding the universe, however tantalizing various human reasoning presents such according to various Scripture.
By the same token, those who would let their belief in an almighty creator, whether overtly as an instrument of their religion, or passive-aggressively as the bitter pill of resentment, have sway over the integrity of the scientific method, are doing themselves and their colleagues, as well as those who would benefit greatly from the fruits of their research, a disservice.
In spite of Hawking's tremendous contributions to the understanding of our universe, neither he nor any other human being can conclude with certainty the nature of God, nor whether a God truly exists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe've evolved according to parameters which our ancestors found favorable, and acquired senses which served our basic needs for survival. While we are increasingly able to use our technology to peer deeper into the atom as well as farther into the depths of space, either in wavelengths our meager eyesight cannot natively perceive, there remain many mysteries beyond our perception.
At the top of my own list of these mysteries is the why of our existence; why did we arise?
Were I afflicted with a debilitating disease, resentment for my creator's decision in depositing me on earth would lay in wait in the back of my mind. Even if my intellectual maturity greatly eclipsed my emotional intelligence, this bitter pill would still remind me of my suffering every day of my life, even though my intellect would be unable to ascertain the true nature of that which led to my creation. I'm certain it would color my outlook on life, giving me an irrational boldness to proclaim that the same God which created my withering form need not be the same entity responsible for instantiating the splendor of the universe.
Until a God comes down from on high and grants us the privilege of knowing why we were created, I think there's no reason to allow the idea to color our quest for understanding the universe, however tantalizing various human reasoning presents such according to various Scripture.
By the same token, those who would let their belief in an almighty creator, whether overtly as an instrument of their religion, or passive-aggressively as the bitter pill of resentment, have sway over the integrity of the scientific method, are doing themselves and their colleagues, as well as those who would benefit greatly from the fruits of their research, a disservice.
If anyone is a clown it is the author of this article.. You come across as a jealous adolescent with no understanding of real science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am removing this site from my feeds for allowing such garbage.
If anyone is a clown it is the author of this article.. You come across as a jealous adolescent with no understanding of real science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am removing this site from my feeds for allowing such garbage.
There is a God. However I do not believe that any religion has the right or wrong ideology. That said, I have a joke I heard once. God and a scientist are having an intellectual argument. God tells the man that he made the universe, the worlds, and man. He also said that He made man from the dirt or the earth. When the scientist claims he too can make a man from the earth, God interrupted him and said "make your own dirt!" The actual version is longer and perhaps funnier, but you get my point. It's pretty lofty to believe that we, as mere mortals, are even capable of interpreting the dynamics of "everything"! Look, I believe in science. I think there is more credibility behind science than there is behind most religion. However, something started this whole thing, and there has never been an explanation that even comes CLOSE to being an even somewhat relevant alternative to God.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen Horgen asks the question, "Do you believe in 'God'?" He actually asking, "Do you believe in the all knowing and powerful being I am so socialized into believing in that I cannot even concieve of any other theism or atheism (and I actually mean the version proposed and exclusive to Christians)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find this article pretty offensive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@landonthegr8: Do show him/her to us. I'm all eyes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article is pretty offensive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI absolutely agree. This is not an author I would read again. This article is an embarrassment to SciAm.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI love the hypocrisy of many hard-core atheist scientists. "You can't prove God exists, so he doesn't. Instead, here's this convoluted theory that relies on a near-impossible series of coincidences to achieve the end results of a universe with intelligent life, instead of an old man driving things. It's just as impossible to prove, just as ridiculous, but because it's more 'sciencey', it makes more sense, so we're right and you're idiots." Any true scientist would keep an open mind about all possibilities, until they've been disproven.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's a sad day when a once-great publication publishes a petty ad hominem like this. Truly embarrassing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can find little to choose between when comparing most modern cosmology and religious beliefs. There is no supporting evidence on one side or the other, ultimately just speculation. Anything is apparently possible. I don't see how the proponents of either type of view can be critical of the other.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf one accepts the concept of the infinity of universes then one also has to accept that there are universes where there are Gods!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis CROSS-CHECK column has to go. It's embarrassing to read. Consistently.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with Urania, the personal attacks at Hawking`s personal an medical history ( Iam sure He finds the permanent grin that gives you paranoia very painful and non deliberate ) to be totally out off place in such a well held Scientific publication.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJohn,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou really missed the mark here regarding anthropism. It basically just says, weak or strong that, if the universe were different, we wouldn't be seeing what we see. We are created from the universe as we see it, and so how could it be different, any more than a fish couldn't be a fish if it wasn't a fish. That fish is a fish because of all the history that took place before to to allow it to become a fish. We couldn't be here if it weren't for the precise history that precedes us, if it were different, we would be different if we existed at all and perhaps asking exactly the same thing, why are we are we are? The answer is we are a product of our environment...that's it....
You cant top that!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou, sir, are a buffoon. Scientific America, you cheapen yourself by publishing this piffle. And why is it in the "basic science" category? The author clearly knows nothing of science and, to boot, clearly has not even read the book. All this excerpt is is a shoddy book review from a hurt-child who is offended that his crack-pot religion is constantly being revealed as nonsense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost offensive is the implicit endorsement of statements mocking a person suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. Pathetic acts by publisher and author. For shame.
@cryofpaine: "I love the hypocrisy of many hard-core atheist scientists. 'You can't prove God exists, so he doesn't.'"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou make a common mistake here. Scientists, in general, and by definition, are agnostic in the absense of repeatable, independant evidence. It is only fervent theists, who find scientists' disbelief in their particular deity(s) so detestable, who feel they must call them athiests.
@Gregory: "If one accepts the concept of the infinity of universes then one also has to accept that there are universes where there are Gods!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd, by the same thinking, ones where there are not.
(but I actually think the assertion is invalid)
When You think about it, Organised Religion doesn`t need a GUT`s to destroy itself?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are more and more religious scholars saying that God created everything including the laws of physics and nature, but does, for want of a better phrase, does not get involved with man's day to day happenings. Meaning that he does not change things for us or make things happen - he simply created the rules to allow everything to some how be created and happen. Hawking's new book states that the Universe (or Universes) is governed by a set of laws of physics and nature and that everything can be predicted this way. So it would not be unfeasible to argue that both arguments can come together here. God created the laws which in turn allowed the Universe, galaxies, matter, and even the human race to be created, and that is as far has he got involved. So God could actually refer to these laws and not to some sort of being. That argument would that preclude us from calling God a him (or her). Instead, God is an "it".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a sad rejectionist article by a person who truly does not understand the logic of science, the implications of theoretical physics and the fact that all things cannot be TESTED for in a laboratory but must be understood through their affects and by indirect means. We will never "see" a proton but that does not mean that protons do not exist as a complex of even more difficult to conceive of sub structures. The anthropic factor is NOT foolishness..It is in fact an absolute reasonable statement for if our particular universe were anything other than what it is we would not be here to study it. It is a reality that religious people are blind ( or too rigid to see it as such). Professor Hawking and his colleagues are pushing the boundaries of science and if it leaves out the stupidities of primate god belief well tough, fella. Your book , The End of Science" is one of the laughter emoting subjects that young physicists use as a way of lightening up the crowd. As they say, garbage in and garbage out and your lack of understanding of theoretical physics is just such a conclusion. For the readers out there reading what I write here, do not listen to this trifle but go to the source and read Mr. Hawking's books and others as well and if you have the chance see the wonderful Into the Universe which just ran on Discovery Channel and see the beauty of the universe and perhaps realise that we are maybe only one of an infinitude of universes needing no primate creator, no bearded old guy, no turtles holding up the earth and no writer who writes piffle such as The End of Science. The outrageous comments about Prof. Hawking's expression is sickening by the way and shows the author's ignorance about the disease that Prof Hawking suffers and that alone should point out the inferiority of the mind of the author of this dismal article which belongs not in a Scientific American article but rather in with a Creationalist rag sitting next to the National Enquirer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat do we do when the mindless machines confirm the existence of God??
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...and when those mindless machines confirm the existence of God....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis personal attack - I would hate to call it an article - has no place in Scientific American. What is the point of the obscenity, or the attack, or of mixing Hawking's personal life with his scientific accomplishments, especially of callously referring to the painfully twisted expression on his face as a "grin."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as the "God" reference in Brief History of Time, clearly Hawking was using the word in the same sense that Einstein used it, and not referring to a mythological animate superhuman.
Is Mr Hawkings saying that his time is up, that he's tired of trying to solve a multi-dimensional problem that will only take a man into the realms of insanity. Has he given up on his quest with a simple and unverifiable answer that leaves is in the realms of the mystics?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy first thought, as I read some of the comments on this light-hearted yet substantial article, was: "WOW! Some of my fellow scientific americans take themselves and their supposed scientific objectivity far too seriously."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy second thought was: "When was it that holding to a faith commitment or transcendent view intrinsically disqualify one from the ability to engage in 'scientific' discourse and offer viable explanations of reality? And then, when was it that the lack of or rejection of transcendence intrinsically qualify one for 'scientific' pursuits or make one any more 'objective'?"
It seems this objectifying of reality -- as if any of us are more or less 'objective' -- arose in the 19th and 20th centuries, it now clearly continues in earnest in the 21st century, and something important has been lost.
The denial of God -- even in the pursuit of 'objective' or 'empirical' truth, whatever that is -- is equally subjective as the assertion of God in the explanation of the universe and reality as we can observe it. To deny this is consciously (or blindly or delusionally) to assert one's faith -- whether in atheism, theism, or whatever -- as a basic condition (presumption) of one's version of reality and explanation of the universe.
To be fair, I too thought there were a couple of cheap shots taken by the author. And though they were quite funny -- except for those who take themselves and their supposed scientific objectivity far too seriously, they did weaken his important main point, which was: Dr. Hawking and others assert their massively subjective albeit brilliant conclusions in misleadingly absolute terms.
I recently watched "Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking and the Story of Everything" on Discovery. Just reading the title, I was stunned that Dr. Hawking's quest for a 'theory of everything' has now morphed into 'the story of everything.' Not surprisingly, the two-hour program was more of a documentary -- absolute language and all -- than one explanation of the universe among possible explanations.
Further to our author's point, in both The Grand Design and the aforementioned Discovery program, Dr. Hawking gives himself HUGE passes by asserting that elements of his 'story' for which he has no explanation ... "happened by accident" or "we got lucky" or some other faith-based-yet-godless-non-explanation, which are far less satisfying than any number of the answers on these very points that religion provides.
As for me and my house, keep the Cross-Checks coming -- just cut down on the adHominems.
I actually thought the article was well-written--it was both informative and had just the right dose of humor injected. I did not perceive any malice or "sour grapes" in Mr. Horgan's writing whatsoever.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that for many, atheism is the new acid test of intelligence. Unfortunately, it is also the sign of a closed mind. Were these same people to read about someone denying the possibility of string or m-theory, they would rank this person as intellectually unenlightened. Had scientists of past generations refused to acknowledge the possibilities of something that wasn't understood at the time, we would be living in a much different world today--and Columbus and the Norsemen would have fallen right off the edge of our flat earth.
No one says you have to believe in Godbut to deny the possibility, in this vast cosmos, of an intelligence higher than our own, is hubris at its most pronounced.
In "The Grand Design" Stephen Hawking postulates that the M-theory may be the Holy Grail of physics...the Grand Unified Theory which Einstein had tried to formulate and later abandoned. It expands on quantum mechanics and string theories.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn <a href="http://www.suprarational.org/">my e-book</a> on comparative mysticism is a quote by Albert Einstein: <i> &most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive form this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of all religion. </i>
Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity is probably the best known scientific equation. I revised it to help better understand the relationship between divine <b>E</b>ssence (Spirit), <b>m</b>atter (mass/energy: visible/dark) and <b>c</b>onsciousness (f(x) raised to its greatest power). Unlike the speed of light, which is a constant, there are no exact measurements for consciousness. In this hypothetical formula, basic consciousness may be of insects, to the second power of animals and to the third power the rational mind of humans. The fourth power is suprarational consciousness of mystics, when they intuit the divine essence in perceived matter. <i>This was a convenient analogy, but there cannot be a divine formula.</i>
Some say the Universe started with a Big Bang, others say it started with a Quiet Dinner..................
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBest article on modern science ever! :))
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBest article on modern science ever! :))
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI tend to think of Hawkings as the man who had a form of radiation named after Him not the cripple that baffled He`s medics. I think Hawkings is telling us that there might not be no Grand Unified Theory or no ultimate answer , like Marvin we will search till we cant go no further, an when we soilder on we only discover what we already reliased.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHorgan is not a scientist, and badly informed about string theory, M-theory and the antropic principle. His anger mostly results from his misunderstanding or superficial understanding of the deep concepts involved. Does he really seriously think that Hawking or other brains are spending their life on stuff that he believes are obviously flawed? If he has ever been involved with higher mathematics and quantum field theories and got lost, he should consider that it might actually be himself who doesn't get the point?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSciAm should only allow comments from scientists who understand the issues, and use journalists for REPORTING OR ILLUSTRATING research.
The core problem with most of these discussions is that a large percentage of the people reading/commenting are reason-deaf (similar to being tone-deaf).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave you ever met, or worse yet, heard a person who couldn't carry a tune sing their heart out? However much you might appreciate their enthusiam, you can't say they are great singers. However, they are doing (to their ears), exactly what great singers do... they can't tell the difference between themselves and the big vocal stars... but their not being able to hear the difference doesn't mean there isn't a profound one.
Similarly there are many people that for want of either intelligence or education or both spend their time going through the motions of making a reasoned argument, but being unable to see where their reasoning has failed. To them, their lines of reasoning compare equally well with those of anyone else.
They make the same mistakes in their logic again and again, but being reason-deaf, they can't understand why others don't value their results as highly as those of people like Hawkings. Because they essentially make up a path to the answer they desired in the first place, they assume that is what everyone else is doing too, and if so, isn't their result equally valid?
Just as the misguided singer might wonder what strange bias leads people to prefer Pavaratti to themselves, they assume it is some smug arrogance on the part of rational scientists that makes them unmoved by their flawed reasoning. But is it arrogant of a person who can hear and appreciate the music to simply do so, and to disagree with the tone-deaf person who says it is only so much squeaking? If it is, it still doesn't alter the facts, one is right and the other is wrong.
How do you get that person to appreciate Mozart? I'm not sure you do. But at least for some of the people with enough native intelligence, one would hope they could be educated enough to begin to understand the difference, or perhaps their children could be.
No one likes to be called uneducated or not smart enough, but if you insist on saying 2+2=5 or other nonsense, and claiming your opinion on that subject equivilant to those that say, no 2+2=4, then if the shoe fits, please stop sticking it in your mouth on Sci American posts.
Shermer and others have written similar SciAm columns debunking creation science books. Instead of pseudo-science, Hawking wrote pseudo-theology. When influential scientists write SCIENCE books that arrive at THEOLOGICAL conclusions, then a review in SciAm should appropriately debunk such nonsense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMany science writers contradict themselves by saying, "Science and Religion Don't Mix" (see L.M. Krauss, 2009), and then they proceed to cite scientific evidence against tenets of religious belief. This is abuse of their "scientific authority" to promote a personal philosophy, plain and simple. Hawking just took this abuse to the next level by claiming that M-theory implies that we don't need God.
Krauss said in his last SciAm column: "When science becomes this strange, it inevitably generates possibilities for confusion, and with confusion comes the opportunity for profit." Hawking is smart enough to know that those who agree with him will rush to his defense, which generates lots of attention and PROFIT!
By "good luck with your god theory", I mean that:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat particular hypothesis has been around longer than probably any in our species history,
In all this time, a couple things have happened to it.
1. It has been hacked away at severely by the aquisition of knowledge in every realm that physically exists.
2. The definition of gods have changed over and over again, continually reformulated to work around those parts of it that are hacked off.
3. Still no evidence to support the necessity or existence of theist gods, even by our (ok, the best we've got, but still relatively low standards of the) scientific method.
...which leaves the gods to exist as some foggy, diminishing notion in the minds of those that... wish for a god to exist.
To a person who looks at the universe as a blank page, and waits to see what evidence lands upon it, before building an idea of what that universe looks like, being told that it's the same to look at that blank page and not see... sorry, imagine, a purple dinosaur as it is to see a purple dinosaur, because either way you're making a decision... no. I see a blank page. I don't see a need for a purple dinosaur, and until I see some evidence for one taking up the white space, I doubt there is one.
Pretty simple really.
This article is a disgrace to Scientific American. I expect to find its like on the opinion pages of a mainstream newspaper, or at the HuffPo. The writer is dismissive about scientific theory, and instead seems to hold "Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities" from the abomination that is the Templeton Foundation in higher regard. The article starts out by mocking Hawking's physical condition, and only goes downhill from there. All in all, this reads like a thinly veiled apology for creationism. While M-theory is far from perfect, and quote probably not the "final theory", the author gives no real reason to revile it, and instead focuses on attacking Hawking's person, as if this were a proof for the existence of God. The author's obvious disdain for Atheism is the only clear point that comes through.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy only consolation is that this is basically a ranting Blog post, and does not appear on the pages of Scientific American itself.
John -- great article and I can only surmise that you are goofing on Dr. Hawking as he might be with you and the rest of us, and speaking just as euphemistically.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't think Hawking takes the so-called 'anthropic principle' (a misnomer if there ever was one -- should be called 'The God principle') seriously, mainly because of its obviously forlorn, capitulating, absurdness.
Still, I applaud your apparent effort to call him out on some of his seemingly errant musings -- by virtue of the very position he holds, and has earned, he owes us more than that.
Please don't publish any more by John Horgan.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet us hope we don't create a machine that becomes God,because we have alot to be judged for,and how forgiving would this God be considering what we have done to the planet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHorgan can justif iably criticize the critical content of the book, but he shows insensitivity -indeed very bad manners - in mocking Hawkings's "smirk". It's a part of his severe physical problem and Horgan should know that. He's probably still smarting from Hawkings "garbage" evaluation of his book.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess "urania" has summed it up very well in the first comment. We can not deny that there are people out there who think like the author. Also I understand that this "Cross-Check" blog means to be a representation of "critical views of science in the news"; as the heading implies. However, trying to impose one's ignorance and making jokes of Hawking; is not a "Cross-Check" any more; but violating boundaries in a shameful manner; the whole article sounds to be a tasteless disgusting joke which does not deserve to be in SciAm.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess "urania" has summed it up very well in the first comment. We can not deny that there are people out there who think like the author. Also I understand that this "Cross-Check" blog means to be a representation of "critical views of science in the news"; as the heading implies. However, trying to impose one's ignorance and making jokes of Hawking; is not a "Cross-Check" any more; but violating boundaries in a shameful manner; the whole article sounds to be a tasteless disgusting joke which does not deserve to be in SciAm.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) Mocking his grin? Wow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2) Clearly sour grapes, as other reviewers have said.
3) The Weak Anthropic Principle is hardly crap. It isn't *scientifically* all that important, but it's highly relevant to today's culture, full as it is with many people who think that the coincidence of the universe supporting life demands a supernatural explanation.
4) Hawking's disdain for religion is exactly how a scientist ought to feel. Despite all the fluffy nutjobs who love to think that science and religion are compatible, or maybe even two roads to the same mountaintop, the principle of Occam's Razor says that we have to be maximally parsimonious in the formation of our theories. In particular this entails cutting out any and all references to unobservable or non-falsifiable objects, entities, or phenomena. This doesn't mean that science disproves a god -- rather it means that science reports his existence as highly, highly unlikely, until such a time as we have new evidence. Fundamentally, with science and religion it's one or the other -- and it's pretty clear which one deserves our support. It isn't as if I have religion to thank for the computer I'm currently using, or even the aspects of culture that promoted its invention. Summary: Hawking wins, you lose.
@cryofpaine, re: lamorpa -- Lamorpa's comment is exactly correct. You have made a common and annoying mistake of presuming that atheists believe with 100% certainty that no god exists. Atheists -- the rational ones anyway -- simply believe beyond a reasonable doubt that no god exists, which is quite a bit different. Certainly a god could exist, and have chosen to set up the universe so as to provide no rational indication of it. Maybe he'll change his mind tomorrow, and then the scientists will have to change their minds. But there's no reason to believe in such a god currently, and so we don't.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCompare this to the fact that you don't believe in Santa Claus. You've never seen evidence that he DOESN'T exist -- you just haven't seen any reason why he DOES exist. Thus you don't believe in Santa, but if pressed to it, presumably you'd admit that maybe he's hiding under the ice in the North Pole and we just haven't found him yet. But of course you'd say "obviously that isn't very likely."
Same with god.
"Hawking seemed to imply that physics was going to come full circle back to its spiritual roots, yielding a mystical revelation that tells us not just what the universe is but why it is. Science and religion are compatible after all! Yay!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHawking didn't imply this at all. I was 14 when I gave Brief History of Time a crack, and while I clearly didn't understand everything in it, I understood that Hawking wasn't arguing for the existence of God or for the convergence of science and spirituality. This author simply set up a silly strawman to beat down. In scientific terminology, this article sucks.
@Gregory, re: Lamorpa -- that assertion is invalid indeed. An infinity of universes would simply be all universes that are allowed under M-theory. But all of these universes would contain the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, and so would prohibit any immortal structure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMathematically you can understand what I said this way. Consider the set of all ordered pairs (x, x). This is just the straight line that is the graph of y=x. There are an infinite number of such points, but these points don't even come close to covering ALL points. Same thing with believing in infinite universes -- that doesn't include any universe you can describe.
I have been a subscriber to Sci Am for decades, through vastly different incarnations and through at least one editorial run that I thought would kill me if I didn't cancel... But this nonsense is unreasonable and indeed has NO place in this publication.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs the goal to become another "we print anything" source; or perhaps "every story gets an opposing view no matter how unlearned or uninformative?" Whats the point here, to show that there are religious folk who disagree and cannot tolerate a material analysis? Really?
This commentary, Cosmic Clowning, is an immature, vicious screed against Stephen Hawking. I am well aware of the intense, sometimes battle-royale-like, brain brawls in academia in the hard sciences, especially in the fields of physics and astrophysics. I think that the big-brained experts should take a respite on occasion and sit ringside and be entertained by small-brained folks, normally your spectators, voicing their impressions on the perspectives of the expert intellectual combatants. I suggest that you and the SciAm readers Google and read the commentary 'Cosmogenic Spontaneous Combustion, the Source of the Universe, Devoid of God, According to Dr. Hawkings,' relating to Stephen Hawking's book 'The Grand Design.' It holds that Hawking's proposition that the force of gravity accounts for or can, prima facie, instantly account for an autonomous, or self, organizing, shaping and evolving of the universe, free of a God causation, is scientifically (empirically, objectively) indisputably correct. There no doubt was some comedy in the title 'The Grand Design' in it simply putting forward the force of gravity as on its own able to account for the largely ordered universe without a need for the unscientific explanation of a God causation posed by 'Divine Design' religious doctrine or Creationism (also most commonly misnomered as 'Intelligent Design'). The title is an obvious pun on God-causation 'Intelligent Design' doctrine, which is rendered superfluous, baseless nonsense if we just acknowledge that gravity acting on the material mass of the universe over billions of years, in our time as we measure it, can shape and evolve the ordered phenomena of the universe, including subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, compounds, stars, galaxies, DNA and life. The commentary does dispute that gravity could create energy and matter, if anything absent the raw material of energy and matter, or that that energy and matter self created or that the big-bang genesis of the universe could occur without a cause (that is, self create), although it points out that combustions occur in nature given the right volatile substances and enabling or triggering conditions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis commentary, Cosmic Clowning, is an immature, vicious screed against Stephen Hawking. I am well aware of the intense, sometimes battle-royale-like, brain brawls in academia in the hard sciences, especially in the fields of physics and astrophysics. I think that the big-brained experts should take a respite on occasion and sit ringside and be entertained by small-brained folks, normally your spectators, voicing their impressions on the perspectives of the expert intellectual combatants. I suggest that you and the SciAm readers Google and read the commentary 'Cosmogenic Spontaneous Combustion, the Source of the Universe, Devoid of God, According to Dr. Hawkings,' relating to Stephen Hawking's book 'The Grand Design.' It holds that Hawking's proposition that the force of gravity accounts for or can, prima facie, instantly account for an autonomous, or self, organizing, shaping and evolving of the universe, free of a God causation, is scientifically (empirically, objectively) indisputably correct. There no doubt was some comedy in the title 'The Grand Design' in it simply putting forward the force of gravity as on its own able to account for the largely ordered universe without a need for the unscientific explanation of a God causation posed by 'Divine Design' religious doctrine or Creationism (also most commonly misnomered as 'Intelligent Design'). The title is an obvious pun on God-causation 'Intelligent Design' doctrine, which is rendered superfluous, baseless nonsense if we just acknowledge that gravity acting on the material mass of the universe over billions of years, in our time as we measure it, can shape and evolve the ordered phenomena of the universe, including subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, compounds, stars, galaxies, DNA and life. The commentary does dispute that gravity could create energy and matter, if anything absent the raw material of energy and matter, or that that energy and matter self created or that the big-bang genesis of the universe could occur without a cause (that is, self create), although it points out that combustions occur in nature given the right volatile substances and enabling or triggering conditions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGregory CH - You stated:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"If one accepts the concept of the infinity of universes then one also has to accept that there are universes where there are Gods!"
Why would any reasonable person accept any proposition for which there is no direct physical evidence? Do you believe that everything a matter of faith? I cannot.
@John Horgan, you are really writing for the wrong genre. You seem to despise science and those who hypothesis about what scientific discoveries may be around the corner. Hypothesis is the beginning of scientific inquiry. We learn just as much when our hypothesis are wrong as when they are right. When Hawkings gives us his opinion it is just that and he is entitled too it. He is not claiming anything has been proven, he is just placing his bet on what he believes to be the winning horse. He would be the first to admit he has been wrong in the past, and likely will be wrong again. That is science. But it is typical of religious fanatics to use an error made by a scientist to imply that science itself is flawed. It seems to me that your talents are wasted here. The Watchtower could use someone who knows just enough about science to distort it to fulfill a political agenda.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Scientific American, if I wanted to read an opinion based on nothing more than faith, I'd go back to attending church. Please keep the blogs a place for science rather than religion.
I'm no fan of Stephen Hawking, but John Horgan should not have mocked his smile in an article featuring his own arrogant smirk for comparison. IMO, Horgan appears to have some deceptive motives in mind... I certainly wouldn't buy a used car from this guy!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTouché!
THOUGH HAST SPOKEN BLASPHEMY!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is NO charade going on!!
The answers are nearly here, we just need more money and a bigger contraption!!
All will be revealed. The secrets are within our grasp and we will be like God, knowing why the Big Bang!
We will build a great oracle, and call it CORN (Contraption for Ongoing Research into Nothing), and we must trust the masters who will interface with the contraption and interpret what the message is, for they will reveal the truth to us, and it shall be so.
--The Priests of Bel.
Hawkings wrote: "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAsserting that creation was spontaneous implies that there there would have been a nothingness without that eventuality. This is just as silly as having a God create something from nothing, which would seem of course to require a God of nothing to exist, which would be something.
Folks, there never could have been a nothing for the various forms of something to pop up or be popped up from. Something with an energetic potential has to have always been in existence.
Please read --Misjudgements by Newton-- published in ASTRONOMY.NET in year 2002 and links available in --durgadas datta facebook--
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGuys, this is a blog. Look at the title, "Critical Views of Science in the News."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn other words, it would not appear in the Scientific American magazine. It's clearly a personal opinion piece in a personal opinion blog.
I would rather see you all objectively argue against him than claim you are picking up your toys and going home, especially in the same post where you claim the article writer is smarting from an insult...
Some good healthy constructive and respectful counterarguments would be very educational. This sequence of angry comments is not.
I am very disturbed that Scientific American has allowed something like this to be posted in their blogs. Hawking is not just a popular science writer but most certainly one of the greatest minds of the generation. This is INSANITY that people like this have a respectable forum where they can attack people like Stephen Hawking without understanding the depths of their ideas
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a fundamental flaw in all of our arguments about the existence of God and the nature of the universe. All of our "Knowledge" including the so called metaphysical revelations arises within the limits of our knowledge we gained ' within the bounds of our sensory perceptions'. No man can imagine anything out of the bounds of our sensory perceptions. This is the greatest limitation of all humankind. Even mathematics and other theoretical knowledge begin and end in these limits. We never agree that there may be other dimensions possible. Just like an ant living among us could never understand Stephen Hawking, it is futile for us to try to understand such creatures, which might or might not be living "among us" or outside in some other planets or even in Sun or Stars( It Is Possible!).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen one talk about end of some branch of our knowledge, it simply means that it "WENT OUT OF OUR LIMITATIONS OF PERCEPTIVE KNOWLEDGE".
by Sindhuraj divakaran
Could you be more specific about this god thing?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat does it explain and how?
Me thinks god is the mother of all tautologies. What does a non defined word explain? And why does the creator of all hate some possible sex positions and kinds of bread?
Dosen´t make sense at all.
But yes, Hawking is a little early with claiming success. Maybe we need another 100 years to explain the origins of the universe in a provable form. But his time is running out, so he wants to hurt this silly believers in fairytales while he still can.
Nice try.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou say: The set of rational numbers is infinite. Therefore god is a rational number.
Autsch! Don´t mess with infinity.
I'm confused. I thought Hawking conceded that we cannot have a TOE due to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thought Hawking said we couldn't have a TOE due to the Incompleteness Theorem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe author of this article only aims at emphasizing his own importance. He is the wise and smart one who can see through it all. He jibes both at those who invoke some vague divine purpose and those who don't. He seems tired of the business, in short. I can understand that. As for final answers I fear he is right. The smallest components may turn out to be too small for a study. Besides even if M-theory was tested and quote verified unquote one could always ask what those quote things unquote are made of and why they are like they are. The technical term is infinite regression.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStephen Hawking's Physics produced up to now was useful but when he starts to predict what God has to do and what not I would rather call him a clown than a physicist. I pity him for his illness and understand somehow that he is blaming his illness on God but that should not show up in his Physical theories he is presently producing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI therefore like this article entitled "Cosmic Clowning: Stephen Hawking's "new" theory of everything is the same old CRAP" very much and I am grateful to Sciam for it.
Hartwig Thim
Arguing against M-theory or the Strong Anthropic Principle is fine. The personal invective in this rant, however, is highly regrettable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSean
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat the WAP is tautological doesn't mean it's useless. If you want to be nitpicking, every mathematical proof is tautological - after all its truth was already contained in the conditions you started with. To be more concrete in this case, the existence of human life does set constraints on the possible ranges and combinations of parameters we can observe. These constraints may be non obvious and thus actually be insightful. How insightful is of course a matter of perspective. As much as it is a matter of perspective how insightful you consider a proof that the complex numbers are complete. Depending on how much you know, you might find it obvious, for not to say tautological...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article is shameful and I am very disappointed that the Scientific American has chosen to publish it. It is not a review of Stephen Hawking's latest book but rather an attack on atheism and on Hawking personally, stooping so low as to make fun of the disabled man's "perpetual Mick Jagger smirk". If he's going to attack every book on science on the basis that it does not support his religious views then his reviews are going to quickly become extremely repetitive. Sour grapes are clearly not far beneath the surface; Horgan even finds time to plug his book and can't resist mentioning that Hawking described it as "garbage", as if such a statement were automatically wrong and unfair. I have not read Horgan book's (and don't think I'll bother based on this article). Even if Hawking's criticism of his book is unfair, if he is being quoted accurately (which I don't think can be taken for granted), he does at least appear to have been reviewing the book rather than attacking him personally. Unfortunately, Horgan does not seem to appreciate the difference.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is an unfortunate article and reflects incredibly poorly on Scientific American.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI read this twice looking for a scientific argument about Prof. Hawking's work, however, there was none.
Mr Horgan's "argument" is that Prof. Hawking is ugly, divorced and his theory should be renamed 'Crap'.
Mr Horgan, you are a buffoon. I sincerely hope that Scientific American fires you and writes to Prof. Hawking with a much deserved apology.
I'm not saying I accept the proposition, I'm only mocking those that believe in infinite universes that exclude the possibility of a God centric universe, i.e. you can't have your infinity without a God damned universe!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGet this idiot and his godtalk out of Scientific American...he has absolutely no place here. His absurd twisting of the anthropic principle is misguided. Claiming that "because we are living matter that we must be in a universe that allows that" is NOT anthropic. It is simply an obvious statement of fact. Since we have no idea such universes are (despite apologist fine-tuning arguments), it cannot be said that our universe is "special". Please remove this buffoon and his apologist arguments from your writing staff immediately.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf Stephen Hawking cannot prove his theories, why is Science so demanding that God be proved? Prove your theories, and then repeat and prove them again. Is this not science? If you cannot go from Hypothesis to Theory to Law, then you have nothing but faith in the creator of the theory. I'd rather put my faith in an all knowing God than in Stephen Hawking. He may believe his theories in his faith, but they are by no means fact. Think for yourselves. Don't die with your faith in Stephen Hawking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1 Corinthians: 18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."[c]
20Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
Belief in unproven theories and absolute denial of God goes against the very principles of science & objectivity and makes the argument against belief in God by those who believe unproven theories laughable (you're both stating opinion as facts). To state assumptions as facts and to use unproven science to make sweeping attacks against religion is asking for a fight that neither side can win.....you are both going on faith (you are two sides of the same coin). So get back to what science is intended to do solve problems, look for solutions but don't pretend to have all the answers cuz that changes with new discoveries or the reviling of mistakes in theories that were just yesterday stated as proven.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd asking, no demanding a mans job because he doesn't agree with you is in keeping with the principles of a dictatorship. And threatening his employer unless they yield to your pressure, is bullying and blackmail. How can you call yourselves seekers of the truth, oh I forgot now its finders of the absolute truth of all things when at your core you are deaf to any other view than your own. I fear the science that comes from such individuals for surely it is flawed beyond repair
It's interesting that Mr. Horgan declares the anthropic principle to be tautological, but fails to explain how he comes to that conclusion. The anthropic principle is easily demonstrable, if only by example of the comments by religionists here. Meanwhile the entire content of his article is a perfect example of tautology. He tries to sound logical, but is simply basing his scorn for Hawking on unproven, unprovable, and essentially superstitious, assumptions. If he were not indoctrinated with religious dogmas in childhood, he would not even be writing this confused tautological rubbish. M-theory may be currently unprovable, but at least it's an honest theory and not "let's play make-believe."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExcellent review, but readers should note that John Horgan's humor has a definite "New Jersey" flavor reminicent of the "Are you talkin' ta me?" guys. This humor is appealing to some, if you like straight talk, and "f'get about it" with the politically correct nicities. When I first moved to New Jersey, it took me a while to get used to this attitude, since the honesty can be both refreshing and painful. I like it now! But I know how uncomfortable it can make a conversation with those who are easily offended. In the context of this article, I say "Deal with it!".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAfter being in Jersey for many years, it's very annoying to read disingenuous science writers who fawn over the elite "Nobel-ity" of science, and who artificially heighten the value of the otherwise uninformed opinions of some of the more pompous and condescending ones. It's especially disconcerting when Hawking's disability is used to justify a certain inclination to honor anything that he says, whether it has scientific merit or not. While he is truly admirable for his scientific work and personal courage, his inclination to abuse his scientific authority by pontificating [pun intended] in theology is just dogmatic scientism.
So, I find all of Horgan's points to be deliciously accurate and to the point, and his jabs at Hawkings abuses are well deserved. If Hawking finds fault with Horgan's presentation, then perhaps Hawking should move to Jersey for a while. I truly think that Hawking has a similar "cut out the frills" attitude and his self-righteous humor might fit right in here.
"Belief in unproven theories and absolute denial of The Lavender Fairy with her Pixie Dust Wand goes against the very principles of science & objectivity and makes the argument against belief in The Lavender Fairy by those who believe unproven theories laughable (you're both stating opinion as facts)." ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is how your comment reads to me. I DID get a laugh out of it. "God" and "The Lavender Fairy" can both be proven to exist with exactly the same amount and quality of objective evidence.
Digite seu comentário aqui.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA contribuição de Howking para a ciência é inegável e grandiosa. Entretanto, inserir, neste estágio em que se encontra a ciência - sempre engatinhando e admirada consigo mesma -, a necessidade ou não de Deus na criação cheira a uma arrogância desmedida. Ora, a ciência não consegue debelar uma simples gripe, mas consegue dispensar Deus da criação? Essa é que é a piada! Talvez falte algo, que também a ciência não explica, que se denomina HUMILDADE para a humanidade usufruir - e não se estressar - da criação. Criatura, criação, existência, começo e fim... isso deve incomodar qualquer físico que se desligue de sua humanidade!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you fire a shotgun blast into a Deist's dark alley, you are bound to offend someone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI know too little of physics to take a stand in this discussion. The only thing that seems clear to me is that, if someone claims the existence of a god, the onus is on him to prove it. As simple as that. I'm still waiting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would have liked to have read a reasoned intelligent article on this topic, not this sloppily put together piece. There are thousands of blogs carrying bilge: Scientifc American could do better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with jackalope66 and urania - this article is not what I would have expected to find in Scientific American, and it would seem that this got by the Editors somehow. This is not an article offering any realistic theories that can indulge curiosity or create a forum for speculation or theories to be discussed. This is merely a lashing out at a very respected and renowned scientist who hurt this author's feelings. I'm glad to see that the childish *smirk* remark was deleted, but this author still doesn't deserve the respect of the Scientific American readers - that kind of remark *proves* (well, in theory) that this article was only written to retaliate for a bruised ego...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShame on SciAm for allowing this one to be published. We're all entitled to opinion, and if I may express mine - this article caused a chemical reaction in my system that caused me to feel uncomfortable and negative. My reaction is obviously going to be negative, as well.
How truly intelligent minds can possibly believe in god is truly beyond me. It's extremely disappointing that even the best of the best cannot escape the current state of our psyches' primordial existence. It's beyond weakness, it's an inherent flaw.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you for more atheism dressed up as science, I enjoy that, really I do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually this isn’t so bad…
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLook up Deepak Chopra’s review in Huffington Post. He rips into Hawking and Mlodinow on such fundamentals --
From Chopek on “The Grand Design” --
[Hawking] blithely dismisses the all-too-human need for the cosmos to be a meaningful home, a nurturing place for love, truth, compassion, hope, morality, beauty, ethics, and every other value once ascribed to God.
If "nothing" gives rise to the human desire for meaning, how can it be meaningless? …how can the purposeless give birth to the purposeful?
The missing ingredients of music and art -- intelligence and creativity, inspiration and invention -- can't be whisked up out of random swirls of gases subject to the law of gravity.
They fail to address Gödel's incompleteness theorem that categorically implies that no mathematical model of cosmos can ever be complete
… today's most inventive speculative science supports … the idea that Platonic values are embedded in spacetime geometry at the Planck scale.
Gregory CH - I see. My assertion is that neither the multiverse nor god propositions should be accepted without compelling direct physical evidence. I do not wish to mock any who do, but I must question their rationality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome people can't help being ignorant, but it's nothing to brag about. SA's choice of including the clinical picture of a devastating disease to accompany this sample of medieval humor indicates a person or persons in the wrong business!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"When amused, Horgan did not
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissmile so much as grimace.&his already
protuberant eyes bulged still farther
from their sockets, and his lips peeled
back to expose twin rows of brown,
piglike teeth stained by countless cigarettes
and espressos (both of which he
consumed during our meeting). His
vocal cords, cured by decades of exposure
to these toxins, yielded a voice as
rich and resonant as a basso profundos
and a deep, villainous snicker."
This is a quote from Horgan's book and this is what he does best. Feigenbaum is the unfortunate person being described here, not Horgan. It seems that instead of putting forward proper arguments Horgan prefers to degenerate to ill-mannered remarks about authors he does not like. It is unfortunate that Scientific American choose to publish such crap.
Mr. Horgan,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat's the difference between Hawking's 'end of theoretical physics' and Horgan's "end of science?" Both are crap?
Until physicists find a way of testing them empirically, string theory, M theory and other variants are merely mathematical models, not scientific theories. The latter must be falsifiable. As Wolfgang Pauli once said, I don't like your theory, it isn't even false.
Mathematical physics is more mathematics than physics. In mathematics, one can invent theorems that exist only in the mind. As long as it is logically consistent, it doesn't matter if it doesn't physically exist. In the book Brief History of Time, Hawking said theories exist only in the mind. Our theoretical physicists are close to becoming pure mathematicians.
Since I've grown up I just can't understand why superstitous people tend to think there must be a god. Why on earth would you think that? Just because we don't understand something does not mean it is created/managed by mystical forces.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can't credit/discredit science because you like/dislike the scientist - you need to supply your own proof/theories
I can't believe all of the hate coming from these comments. If you think the author guilty of ad hominem, then rise above it. If you think this article has no place here (I think it does) then counter the scientific ideas with reason, not passionate statements reminiscent of gun duellers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs it offensive that Stephen Hawking has a sense of humour? No scientist is above criticism, including Stephen Hawking... perhaps not about his person, but certainly about the veracity of his scientific ideas. I agree with the author that String Theory and M-Theory seem to be based more on wishful thinking than evidence. Also, if a theory predicts an infinite number of worlds that are absolutely mutually exclusive from each other, than we are necessarily one of those worlds. With that premise, all you have to do is find the equation that predicts a Multiverse and you could be Right.
I don't however understand the criticism of the Anthropic Principle. If the laws of a universe were such that matter immediately condensed into black holes, then we wouldn't expect Life As We Know It to become conscious of such a universe. So of all possible universes, only those that are hospitable to life would be expected to harbour beings that become conscious of that universe. This has nothing to do with creationism.
Why? Because if you believe in God you would equally accept that God could create a universe with sentient beings as plausible as God creating a universe without sentient beings. And without God, you could equally posit that possible laws of nature are sufficient in creating either situation. The Anthropic Principle is not even closely in the category of Intelligent Design. In fact, physical theories that do not give a purchase to the existence of the entities doing the theorizing seem absurd... why theorize about an existence devoid of the one certainty that we have had since the solipsists and "cogito ergo sum"?
I think the greatest problem in all of this is the definition of God. As something that is held to be mysterious, God can sometimes be conflated with fudge-factor, the "God of the Gaps". Hawking is saying that this god is not necessary. But without a clear definition of what God is, it is impossible to say that God does not exist, just as it is impossible to conjecture about alternate universes to which we do not have access.
When Hawking said science will reveal the mind of God he is talking not about the anthropomorphic God, but a God conceived by the likes of Galileo: "Mathematics is language in which God wrote the universe."
I see he's removed the most offensive (unwarranted personal attacks on Hawking's appearance) parts of his rant. Anyway, the best answer to this sort of religious mumbo jumbo is to go and buy Hawking's new book. I just did.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt looks like Hawking's no-boudary cosmology physics corresponds to dark energy particle physics. In other words, we are surrounded by two unknowables both at the macro and micro level. However, we also know that altough a closed system can be understood by the laws inside it (like the law of gravity), it cannot be explained by by itself but requires a higher dimension of thought system. Thus, even if we can say how staff works we cannot tell why it is the way it is. Therefore no need for god argument cannot be inferred from the existence of certain laws explaining how the system works.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"me to write The End of Science (which he called "garbage")."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah, I can see why they would pick you to review Hawking's book, then.
Coming next month, Elie Wiesel reviews "Mein Kampf"
The overreaction to this really minor insight by Hawking (from what appears to be a fairly minor book, by all accounts) in the media and the comments sections thereto pertaining demonstrates the sad state of religious thought in this era.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe man is saying that if the theories are correct and an essentially infinite number of universes are being spawned with different characteristics, then the fact that this universe could give birth to us does not exactly require a benign deity to deliberately design it for us. In impact, it is similar to the reformulation by Galileo that the universe does not actually physically revolve around the Vatican. It's not disproving the existence of God, it's disproving the assertion that He really really really really likes you (and/or me) way way way more than anybody or anything else. Guys, get over yourselves.
I recommend the denialists to study authors as diverse as St. Augustine and Maimonedes, who both stated that the tenets of their religions must not be seen as denial of the findings of science (I'm sure there is a Muslim equivalent, but I apologize for not knowing his name).
And as a general warning to those who ascribe "intelligent design" as an aspect of the Deity, even as just a general principle of the universe and not in opposition to evolution, I further recommend the works of Maimonedes again, who points out the folly of ascribing any of the limited characteristics of humanity to God, and concludes that God can only be described in negative terms, i.e. what He is not. In other words, the one thing you can be sure of regarding God (and creation) is that any resemblance to what you or I consider "intelligence" is purely in the eye of the beholder.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...Things are as they are because we are..."
Great, it explains why things seems so weird. :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...Things are as they are because we are..."
It explains why things seem so weird..... :)
Oh, I´m sorry, but the error is explained because I am.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThings are so.
Dr. Strangelove - Excellent comments. I particularly agree with your assessment of physicists' weak reliance on mathematical proofs and analytical models to 'prove' assertions and conclusions. Thanks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOK, so Hawking is an Atheist. So what??
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHis contributions in Physics do require some respect regarding matters of Physics. But, his opinions on religion are no more valid than anyone else s.
Now, he is caught in the webs of String theory (or 'Brane or ...). This system of belief has ensnared many theorists into endless and ultimately meaningless conjectures. He is neither the first nor the last to be tangled up there.
The theory string or membrane) is useful ONLY if it makes predictions that can be verified or rebutted based on observable evidence. His (Hawkings') opinion that it can never be proven or disproven, only means that it is not Physics. It is metaphysics. That means that it is a rarefied philosophy.
The claim that there is nothing else remaining to discover, is a reference to a famous physicist at the turn of the Century (1900) that there was nothing new remaining to be discovered. This may have been a subtle joke on Hawkings' part.
Oops. That is still true. We are about in the same position with regards to our own opinion of ourselves that we were 100 years ago. Have we learned anything?
Then, there were only a few measurements left to make. But, there were a couple of anomalies that might just as well be ignored.
Cosmology is as close as Physics gets to religion. There is often no way to check the observations of something new, when they are made. Current physics can not explain the actions near a black hole, or the observations that have left us with "dark matter" or "dark energy". We see effects, but cannot explain them with what we now know. OK, I can accept it. Something is going on that is not what we predicted.
Hawking is now a senior scientist. Set in his ways. It will remain for some new youngster to explain what is now being observed. It will happen, and it will not be what we expect. That is the way it has always been. I can see no reason that it will not continue to be that way.
All we need is a new Einstein or a new Newton or Hawking. I can't wait!
what next,, Einstein had the clap. Sad day for Sci Am.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI Do Seriously Not agree with Hawking : Philosophy is still alive !
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishaha ... that's the new picture:
the natural number 'one' ( for apple) not equal to the 'one' (for electron),we need 'the new one' for electron come from quantum phenomenon , just so so...
why ? because there are no 'half-clicks' not equal to there are 'one' electron.
"The first thing we notice with our electron experiment is that we hear sharp
"clicks" from the detector (that is, from the loudspeaker). And all "clicks" are
the same. There are no "half-clicks.""(From Richard Feynman's Lectures on Physics)
I has more for the idea in my blog : http://xexz.mysmth.net. if interesting ,give me a comment,thanks a lot!
It is interesting to think about the parallels between current scientific models and their ancestral Greek versions. When Herakleitos said you cannot swim in the same river twice he was pointing the fact that everything in this universe is in flux. That is exactly the point when quantum physics tells us that at the quantum level particles pops out into existence and then perish. Therefore everything changes in every moment but our cognition connects the dots and perceive it as a whole being. As Socrates said in this kind of universe the only thing I know is the fact that I do not know anything. This correspond to the fact that there is no theory of everything in current physics. Only after young Platon visited the Alexandrian School that the Greeks learned that their thoughts were childish and there was a reality and values beyond what we can see and speculate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow. Well put. Perhaps we are still in the chaos of the big bang... Things are in process. Ever-changing, the explosion is still occurring. No permanent structure. Nothing settled, nothing real, nothing resolved. Nor will it be. There is no order, only chaos. No cause, no effect. No beginning, no end. I feel at peace with this. There is no struggle.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMIND & MATTER - A PARADOX of BEING - Man cannot create or be creative. His sole capacity is to learn and be inventive with what was Given to utilize! A transference of Intelligence from Ethereal Intellect for Dimensional use.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCrap is usually what John Horgan writes.. Not funny, not smart, in other words, 'garbage'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have reservations about Stephen Hawkings unfounded conclusion of his latest book, the Grand Design that categorically hints at absence of Gods role in cration of the universe. My disagreement with the learned scientists claim is substantiated by the fact that given any number of combinations of the basic building blocks of life viz., amino acids, nucleotides, sugar,and phosphate,etc., life has never been created in any of the laboratories the worldover.Science just remains clueless about origin of life so far. Life has never emerged from inanimate(non-life) objects. This is suggestive of the evolution of life having bearing on the existence of some supernatural force, whom we rever as Almighty or as God. Readers may like to refer to the review article Origin of Life published in the peer-reviewed European journal, Astrophysics & Space Science (2008, Volume 317, Issue 3-4, pp. 267-278), e-print of which is archived at arXiv as http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0907/0907.3552.pdf for the current status of scientific research in the inter-disciplinary field of origin of life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMoreover, Hawking appears to have wrongly referred to the Big Bang Model as the viable explanation for origin of the universe in his latest book. The said model is highly controversial with number of inconsistencies (the redshift controversy being the most hotly debated controversy) brought to the notice of the scientific community by the leading researchers in the field from time to time.It is ironic that the mainstream cosmologists have remained indifferent to admit the cosmological realities despite several loopholes with the said model.The article titled Big Bang Model? A Critical Review published in the US journal, Journal of Cosmologyand posted at the website:http://vixra.org/pdf/1005.0051v8.pdf details the prominent shortcomings with the Big Bang model that hitherto remain unattended.
Ashwini Kumar Lal, New Delhi, India
I have reservations about Stephen Hawking’s unfounded conclusion of his latest book, ‘the Grand Design’ that categorically hints at absence of God’s role in cration of the universe. My disagreement with the learned scientist’s claim is substantiated by the fact that given any number of combinations of the basic building blocks of life viz., amino acids, nucleotides, sugar,and phosphate,etc., life has never been created in any of the laboratories the worldover. Science just remains clueless about origin of llife sofar. Life has not ever emerged from non-life. This is suggestive of the evolution of life having bearing on the existence of some supernatural force, whom we rever as ‘Almighty’ or as ‘God’. Readers may like to refer to the review article “Origin of Life” published in the peer-reviewed European journal, ‘Astrophysics & Space Science’ (2008, Volume 317, Issue 3-4, pp. 267-278), e-print of which is archived at arXiv as http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0907/0907.3552.pdf for the current status of scientific research in the inter-disciplinary field of ‘origin of life’.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMoreover, Hawking appears to have wrongly referred to the ‘Big Bang Model’ as the viable explanation for origin of the universe in his latest book. The said model is highly controversial with number of inconsistencies (the redshift controversy being the most hotly debated controversy) brought to the notice of the scientific community by the leading researchers in the field from time to time.It is ironic that the mainstream cosmologists have remained indifferent to admit the cosmological realities despite several loopholes with the said model.The article titled “Big Bang Model? A Critical Review” published in the US journal, ‘Journal of Cosmology’and posted at the website, http://vixra.org/pdf/1005.0051v8.pdf details the prominent shortcomings with the Big Bang model that hitherto remain unattended.
Ashwini Kumar Lal, New Delhi, India
Mind & Matter - A paradox of Being! Man cannot create or be creative. He can - at best - invent or be inventive with what was created for him to use. A transference of Intelligence from Ethereal Intellect to the limited confines of Dimension. (Excerpt from my Copyright Poster "Earthings")
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJohn Horgan---stop writing anything ever again! Who pays you to write this dribble
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat article to have provoked such an assortment of reactions. I have to agree with Hawkings, there was no need for a God to "create" the Universe, especially if one's definition of God is that God is everything, everywhere, and outside of time. Since our puny brains and limited senses can't "grok" God, have NO IDEA as to what the physics or "prephysics" of the Big Bang entails, it would seem that God continues to elude our attempts to contain, define, delineate, "mathematize" either the act of Creation (our Big Bang) or Creation itself, multiple universes or this one that has so nicely allowed itself to become part of our awareness of it and of ourselves. The rest of the references to humor? God gets the first and last laugh, especially since there are those that claim that "He" made us in "His" image (apologies to all women, or perhaps they get to laugh even harder). Hawkings has the proper irreverence to put God outside of physics and Creation. We should all get past the clockworks of the universe as well as the need to have a clockmaker. And I agree with John Horgan, Hawkings has always had a smirk, as well he should. His humor is sometimes as profound as his need for it. Bet he would be the first among us to get one of God's Cosmic jokes, Big Bangs and All.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople, you're not paying attention. In this post Horgan said that Hawking "inspired me to write The End of Science". In his last post, Horgan said "My guess is that the more we learn about the universe, the more mysterious it will become. Which means of course that neither science nor religion will ever end."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat you SHOULD be asking is, Does this represent a change of attitude on Horgan's part? And if so, WHAT PROMPTED IT? Fair question, given the nature of this screed against M-theory...
I just finished "The Grand Design", and, having seen John Horgan on bhtv before, and knowing that he's repulsed by the Anthropic Principle, I Googled, and found this article. I thought Hawking did an admirable job using the AP in the book to argue for many universes, and was curious to see if what Horgan's reaction would be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUpon learning the acronym CRAP, "Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle", and reading Horgan's rebuttal of the concept, I'm just left dismayed and appalled.
I agree that the WAP is tautological. But to call the AP in general "cosmology's version of creationism" is unwarranted. Creationists attempt to explain the apparent fine-tuning of the universe with an all-powerful creator-god. Hawking, in his book, and proponents of SAP in general, attempt to explain it by asserting that many (or all) universes with different physical laws do exist, and the one we find ourselves in is necessarily one with apparent fine-tuning.
He dismisses SAP by saying it's "teleological" -- which I take to mean that he thinks proponents invoke it to say that the universe somehow exists for "the purpose" of bringing us into being. I don't understand this, and I would like some elaboration. I see SAP as an argument for the existence of a panoply of universes with different physical laws. If many universes really do exist, then WAP and SAP are the same thing. So is Horgan saying that the idea of many universes is as ridiculous as the idea of a creator-god?
Hawking does a good job in his book of arguing that the fine-tuning is real, and is something that requires explanation. The universe has a myriad different properties and physical constants that, if they differed by even a little bit, would make the evolution of life impossible. Would Horgan argue that this is not something that requires explanation? The whole purpose of science is to explain anomalous phenomenon that we observe. This fine-tuning definitely falls into that category. If not God, then what could possibly be the explanation?
I really want to ask you, John Horgan, don't you see that: if one rejects the notion of a divine "fine tuner"; then every observation that appears to be fine-tuned (of a property that *otherwise would be free to vary*), based on the SAP, provides an argument in support of many universes? And that this is a non-trivial (non-tautological) assertion?
The most convenient aspect of any proposition for additional, separate universes is that it is untestable. If any exchange occurs between universes, potentially providing physical evidence, they are not separate. We are free to safely dream on, with no further interruption...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBravo. The scientist tells us how reality works, not why it exists. The irony is that cosmologists thought themselves superior to the spiritualists, and in the end what they had to say was just as specious, only it was void of any redeeming human meaning. It was Alice in Wonderland, only darker. Why don't we just tell it as it is: Hawking wants to know why a brilliant mind is marooned inside a body with neuro-muscular dystrophy, whilst the riff-raff of the street and the rot of the prisons suffer no such fate. It is a horrific injustice. Why is life so wickedly unfair if God is so gloriously loving? I wish I had an answer. But I'll tell you this, M theory and the WAP/SAP/CRAP has no answer either.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh hi PHySiCs !!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCommon Man: How are you? When will you reveal in your grand form or in at least mathematical equations? Tell me who created you , what are your building blocks.
God particle (defines itself): I'm the last building block, I cannot be created nor be destroyed, but i continue to exist.
Common Man: Does it means a 'Steady state in Quantum ?'
God particle: That is left for Hawking to answer that.
Comman Man: You are CRAP(common ridicules answer by physicist)
God particle: I'm unmoved by your comments
Common Man: Oh my God!
God particle: Now what!
Common Man: I have realized !!!
Iso Invocation: The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. Whatever is produced of the Complete Whole is also complete in itself. Because He is the Complete Whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance.
Iso 1: Everything animate or inanimate that is within the universe is controlled and owned by the Lord. One should therefore accept only those things necessary for himself, which are set aside as his quota, and one should not accept other things, knowing well to whom they belong.
Iso 2: One may aspire to live for hundreds of years if he continuously goes on working in that way, for that sort of work will not bind him to the law of karma. There is no alternative to this way for man.
Iso 3: The killer of the soul, whoever he may be, must enter into the planets known as the worlds of the faithless, full of darkness and ignorance.
Iso 4: Although fixed in His abode, the Personality of Godhead is swifter than the mind and can overcome all others running. The powerful demigods cannot approach Him. Although in one place, He controls those who supply the air and rain. He surpasses all in excellence.
Iso 5: The Supreme Lord walks and does not walk. He is far away, but He is very near as well. He is within everything, and yet He is outside of everything.
Iso 6: He who sees everything in relation to the Supreme Lord, who sees all living entities as His parts and parcels, and who sees the Supreme Lord within everything never hates anything or any being.
Iso 7: One who always sees all living entities as spiritual sparks, in quality one with the Lord, becomes a true knower of things. What, then, can be illusion or anxiety for him?
Iso 8: Such a person must factually know the greatest of all, the Personality of Godhead, who is unembodied, omniscien
I thought I was reading something from one of the supermarket fishwrap tabloids. I have lost a great deal of respect for SciAm seeing this here. I have been reading SciAm since the early days of Gardner and the mathematical recreations column when SciAm was a real science magazine. Now I don't know what to call it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://instabilityofzero.blogspot.com/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy (brand new) blog about the place where science and religion meet. No personal agenda whatsoever, just want to further the possibility of a cohesive Theory of Everything.
I definitely lean more towards science than religion myself, but good science is necessarily free of expectations, and must follow the evidence.
The blog is just getting started, so I'd love comments - arguments, thoughts or suggestions are all welcome.
David Cota - I do not consider the quests for dark energy or dark matter to be valid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI consider the analyses of gravitational effects that seem to require the presence of additional mass not included in astronomers’ estimations, intended to be supplied by the proposed dark matter, to be simply in error. To be succinct, I’ll refer to an unpublished essay of my own and a published analysis:
http://sciencewithoutfiction.com/uploads/Mass_Distribution-_Galaxy_Rotation_Problem.pdf
http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.1131
As I understand, primarily from “Observational Evidence from Supernovae for an Accelerating Universe and a Cosmological Constant”, 1998, Riess, et al, http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9805201v1 , the requirement for dark energy arose primarily from a common misperception in astrophysics.
Having most precisely determined that the most distant galaxies must be accelerating away from their observers at a greater rate than nearer galaxies, it was concluded that the expansion rate of the universe is increasing.
However, those more ancient light emissions indicating greater rates of expansion reflect the expansion rate of the earlier universe. Those precise observations only confirm the expected deceleration of the universe.
May be the time has come to think about why we are here than where we are as human beings. Understanding the laws of nature did not make us happier or wiser and comparing ourselves with other species did not give us a clue about what it is to be human. As the ancient wisdom told us, we are here to realize our potential to be fully human, which does not mean survival of the fittest like the other beasts of nature. We are here to be the vicegerent of god, in the sense that we should act not on the basis of natural laws (name it karma!) but according to god given moral principles, which makes us different from animal kingdom, hence, human.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDavid Cota - Thanks for your specific questions, David. Unfortunately, I am not a scholar, mathematician or astrophysicist but a lame old technical fellow. However, I’ll do my best to explain, as I understand, but please remember that the astrophysics community has been refining the standard hypotheses for forty years now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“Please explain where the 95% of the missing mass is.”
The 95% figure is considered to be currently composed of dark matter (23%) and dark energy (72%). The dark matter estimate is, as I understand, primarily based on the estimates of spiral galaxy mass from observed galaxy luminosity and the observed orbital velocity of their stars at varying distances from their geometric center. The dark matter estimated is the amount of additional mass necessary to produce the observed galactic rotation using Kepler’s planetary orbital equations. This method effectively ignores the gravitational effects of the mass of innumerable additional stars within the galactic disc.
The amount of missing mass was initially estimated to the amount required to align observed galaxy rotation with the Keplerian rotational curve derived from our Solar system. However, this estimate had to be increased significantly when it was realized that large amounts of peripheral gaseous clouds were also rotating much faster than Kepler would have expected. It’s all about adjusting our observations to our expectations…
“Andromeda has been estimated to have between 100,000,000,000 to 200,00,000,000 starts not 1,000,000,000,000 as you claim in your document.”
The estimated one trillion stars is a quote from wikipedia’s Andromeda galaxy entry, an estimate based on observations made in 2006 by the Spitzer Space Telescope infrared detectors. I make no claim on my own and include an estimate only for illustrative purposes.
“If the effect you describe was correct there would be issues of what is happening at the core of the galaxy…”
The effect I attempt to describe is the self gravitation of the galactic discs of spiral galaxies, which does not apply to the galactic core. I think that the galactic core region is primarily governed by the gravitational effect of the central supermassive black hole. By the way, it has been widely reported that galactic supermassive black holes invariably contain 0.5% of total estimated galactic mass. In comparison, the Sun contains 98.8% of total Solar system mass. These orbital systems are not comparable: the Keplerian Rotational Curve simply does not apply and should not have been applied to galaxies.
“You fail to account for the earlier than expected birth of galaxies at a time when ordinary matter would not have had time to develop the infant galaxies (quasars).”
I can only respond that this assertion contains many unproven assumptions. One possibility is that supermassive black holes were produced by the extreme densities of the very early universe…
The currently established cosmological model contains so many unproven presumptions that it’s unlikely to survive as the final solution that cosmologists are so proud to present. Once again, it seems, we have just about figured it all out… Thanks again.
The anthropic principle puts me in mind of Candide in which Professor Pangloss affirms, every chance he gets, that this must be the most perfect of all possible worlds because God created it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfor those of you hungry for a different viewpoint, check out Robert Lanza's theory of biocentrism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfor those of you interested in a different viewpoint, check out Robert Lanza's theory of biocentrism. it's probably unfalsifiable but, isn't quantum theory as well?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDavid Cota - Yes, it is difficult to explain, but as I understand this image includes generated dark matter filaments projected to be connecting galactic clusters at all scales - it is not an actual observational image but the construction of an enhanced model generated from composite observational data. I cannot explain in the correct terminology of general relativity, but I’ll do my best.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe observed universe appears to us as a generally spherical form, with nearby galaxies surrounding our location, stretching out to more distant galaxies appearing at the periphery of the observed universe. This is the natural, spatial, perspective of our observations of the sky.
However, the most distant light observed was not emitted from the spatial periphery of our current universe. The apparent ‘most distant’ objects are indicated by the detection of photons whose characteristic redshift and luminosity indicate that they were emitted long ago and have been traversing expanding spacetime since emission. These light emissions did not come from distant locations in any current spacetime but from a much earlier time.
Observed distant objects do not now exist as they appear to us from ancient light emissions. Apparent distant clusters of galaxies have likely long ago merged to produce larger, more disperse galaxies now existing at distant locations that cannot now be observed because of the traversal time of more recent light emissions.
It therefore is meaningless to view a composite spacial representation of detected light emissions from observed objects, since it actually represents objects as they appeared in recent time going back to very ancient times. It would be like making a composite model of the highway systems in the US, starting at the East coast in 1700, progressing across the country to the west coast in 2010. No meaningful representation of physical structure at any moment can be made of such a composite of observational data.
I hope this helps explain that the now famous image of the universe structure is meaningless – attempting to find meaning in it is futile.
Great article and probably right on. Stephen will never tell, though.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Briefest History of Time
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr
A Letter to Mr. Stephen Hawking
Dear Mr. Hawking,
Being neither scientist nor astrophysicist, it is with great humility that I address myself to you, to, dare I say, differ with you on the major premises presented in your now legendary book of which I took the liberty of parodying, above. Im sure youre quite used to being disputed or disagreed with by illuminati as well as fools, or both, and in danger of following suit or sounding like that feisty old lady, in your introduction to your book, protesting that it was turtles all the way down I would seriously like to challenge you and your soul-mates to re-examine premises laid down, some in the halcyon yesteryear, some not such a long time ago, and others yet to come.
You, and others like you have noted that mankind is limited by the very faculties, our brains and all of our senses, that help and have helped us understand and even manipulate our environment a little ( e.g., from the humblest Aristotles experiments in his attempts to explain gravity by rolling boulders of different sizes down hills, or his ingenious realization that all matter was like the sand composed of smaller particles or atoms to our reasonably more sophisticated if not complex experiments at CERN, NASA, ESA, etc.) or even escape it, at least, temporarily in moon trips and now, the ISS.
Herein lies the quandary, for although much has been achieved, our physical as well as intellectual limitations are an absolute cul-de-sac. As one of your colleagues put it in a lecture aired by the BBC on June 20, this year, Mr. Martin Rees of the Royal Society of Science, &Einsteins ideas would baffle a chimpanzee , when pondering on what would happen if man were to be confronted with superior alien minds. This is the crux of the matter. We, Mr. Reess chimpanzee are simply ill equipped to unravel or even be able to conceive of, or envisage the true essence of things great and small, their origins, and or, the reason(s) why they are here, there, and everywhere.
I prefer my own parable which, although not based on the unfortunate ape or turtles, is based on what a praying mantis would do when presented with a sheet of paper. At first, it would contemplate it from a close distance witnessing its seemingly infinite span and eventually it would board it and once upon it, it would believe it to be its cosmos, endless and unlimited, yet while on the one side of the sheet, it would be totally unaware of the existence of the other side, or side B , of the sheet of paper. Mr. Reese, in his speech suggested that our cosmos could be like an origami . If thats the case then we are like that insect looking for the beginnings of the proverbial sheet and its boundaries if anyyet totally unaware of the origamis parallel worlds, warps and quirks as well as kinks, and much less aware of the cosmos beyond the origamis convolutions and manifold.
The milestones weve achieved, and there have been many, are notable. From Aristotle to Galilee and Newton to Einstein, yet time and time again, their contributions, and I dare say yours included, although monumental and ingenious, still fall short when it comes to explaining the very things they set out to explain. These include time, space, or the universe, its synonym (interestingly, universum in Latin has a very figurative as well as literal meaning: the one-matter scattered or cast at once ), or gravity, light and its very nature, atoms--the DNA of matter, dark matter or light matter, for that matter, etc. Evidence of the shortcomings are the latest and wayward disarray of theories that claim to have found the very thing that underpins the cosmos and beyond, i.e., the Strings Theory, the Chaos Theory, the Big-Bang Theory, the Quantum Theory, the M Theory or the omniscience-theory (the theory to explain all things), the Higgs boson particles- aka the God particle--being sought after at CERN, neutrinos, quantum physics, dark matter, black holes, time travel&the list is long and doubtlessly, it will continue. May I remind you of Platos Cave wherein its inhabitants came to believe that the world, or should I say, cosmos, consisted of, well, you knowshadows. Our situation is not very different. The American expression a shot in the dark or taking potshots would not be very inaccurate in describing our vane efforts to explain---everything.
I am aware of the fact that we have no choice in the matter and must make full use of the faculties and qualities that have been endowed upon us, by whomI dare not speculate.
Yet, I maintain that unless we are to escape our own very human if not inhumane limitations by means of, for example, artificial intelligence of a supreme sortnot a very implausible milestone if I may saycreated by mankind or imposed upon it by exterior sources, we will be doomed to forever tread on the endless planes or segments of the interminable and convoluted origami and will continue to gaze at the stars and be baffled, like the proverbial chimp.
I suppose that given the time---and it may take a few thousand years if not another million--we will accumulate enough knowledge and our brains and other qualities will have evolved sufficiently to be able to not only perceive the unseen and conceive of the unconceivable, but also to fully understand it and be able to manipulate it to our convenience, whatever that may be consequently. Will it be as A.C. Clarke postulated in his brilliantshot in the dark-- 2001 A Space Odyssey, the supreme force that inserts the enigmatic monolith on the terrestrial clay or rather and more probably; the miniscule monolith-shaped chip we all call Intel that will be inserted into our hybrid-USBportal-brain implants? �Qu� ser�, ser�? Time will tell?
Time>>Space>>Gravity
On the question of time and space, which you brilliantly handle in your monogramgiving us the scientists point of viewand which I dont pretend to emulate in any way, I would simply like to make some observations, that, Im sure, have already been made by others. But in the interest of absolute clarity and simplicity I put to you the following. Times as well as space are two phenomena that we, like all other phenomena described by man, have identified as an observable fact, an occurrence, an event, or what have you. Yet, neither time nor space exist in their own right as a tree a fish or a planet do ,observable and concrete as tactile evidence would prove.
Who was it that said, seeing is believing ? This is fine and good for the concrete tangibles in our world but intangibles or abstracts for that matter are, have been, and will always continue to trouble us simply because, well, we cant seem to get our brains around them . Time, space and gravity are the abstracts, par excellence that defy us simply because they dont exist yet somehow we feel their presence, particularly when it comes to gravity, and have even devised means and tools by which we could measure them&the next best thing to seeing or touching them.
Or could it be that we have conjured up these abstractions simply because they suited us in order to explain the observable e.g., Newtons apocryphal falling apple. Upon pondering on the phenomenon that all things hit the ground if not fixed to it already, he went on to create the mathematics (an abstract measuring tool if ever one existed) that neatly explained this nasty habit of falling that all objects display. Since his day things have changed and we now see the limitations of Newtons law since it seems applicable to bodies in our shadowy world but once we escape its gravitational pull Newtons law falls short itself, no pun intended. And indeed, when it comes to explaining the behaviour of heavenly bodies--as they were so quaintly alluded to in the past----stars and planets dont collapse into each other as Newtons law would have us believe instead they seem to respect each others distance and the space between them by some unexplainable mechanism&if only we knew which mechanism is responsible &.wed be all the wiser.
Granted, Newtons and most other laws are useful in certain environments, mainly earthly ones. For how do we account for the expanding, static, or perhaps contracting space? That dark-void we call many things for no lack of words, including, firmament that continues to be there with all of its visible as well as invisible matter in its usual place. Recently, I read about another colleague of yours, that maintains that we, and by we he means our planet and everything that envelops it ( the origami ? ) are caught in a gigantic black hole, which might account for why space seems to be stretching itself endlessly on end. Did he say a black hole or a dark cave? Forgive my facetious pun but do you see the similarity here between Platos metaphor and your colleagues apocalyptic revelation?
The point is that space, time, and gravity are abstracts, voids identified, measured and labelled by man and his limited, self concocted tools to help humanity understand them. But, the question remains, are we up to the challenge and do we have the wherewithal to understand the inexplicable? We can keep trying and our duty is to do just that but I doubt that we are up to the challengefor the time being anyhow.
PS---I just heard your public proclamation to the effect that the creation of the universe does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god.
Its about time you came out of the closet!
The Briefest History of Time
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr
A Letter to Mr. Stephen Hawking
Dear Mr. Hawking,
Being neither scientist nor astrophysicist, it is with great humility that I address myself to you, to, dare I say, differ with you on the major premises presented in your now legendary book of which I took the liberty of parodying, above. I’m sure you’re quite used to being disputed or disagreed with by illuminati as well as fools, or both, and in danger of following suit or sounding like that feisty old lady, in your introduction to your book, protesting that it was “turtles all the way down” I would seriously like to challenge you and your soul-mates to re-examine premises laid down, some in the halcyon yesteryear, some not such a long time ago, and others yet to come.
You, and others like you have noted that mankind is limited by the very faculties, our brains and all of our senses, that help and have helped us understand and even manipulate our environment a little ( e.g., from the humblest Aristotle’s experiments in his attempts to explain gravity by rolling boulders of different sizes down hills, or his ingenious realization that all matter was like the sand—“composed of smaller particles or atoms” to our reasonably more sophisticated if not complex experiments at CERN, NASA, ESA, etc.) or even escape it, at least, temporarily in moon trips and now, the ISS.
Herein lies the quandary, for although much has been achieved, our physical as well as intellectual limitations are an absolute cul-de-sac. As one of your colleagues put it in a lecture aired by the BBC on June 20, this year, Mr. Martin Rees of the Royal Society of Science, “…Einstein’s ideas would baffle a chimpanzee ”, when pondering on what would happen if man were to be confronted with superior alien minds. This is the crux of the matter. We, Mr. Rees’s “chimpanzee” are simply ill equipped to unravel or even be able to conceive of, or envisage the true essence of things great and small, their origins, and or, the reason(s) why they are here, there, and everywhere.
I prefer my own parable which, although not based on the unfortunate ape or turtles, is based on what a praying mantis would do when presented with a sheet of paper. At first, it would contemplate it from a close distance witnessing its seemingly infinite span and eventually it would board it and once upon it, it would believe it to be its cosmos, endless and unlimited, yet while on the one side of the sheet, it would be totally unaware of the existence of the other side, or side “B”, of the sheet of paper. Mr. Reese, in his speech suggested that our cosmos could be like an “origami”. If that’s the case then we are like that insect looking for the beginnings of the proverbial sheet and its boundaries if any—yet totally unaware of the origami’s parallel worlds, warps and quirks as well as kinks, and much less aware of the cosmos beyond the origami’s convolutions and manifold.
The milestones we’ve achieved, and there have been many, are notable. From Aristotle to Galilee and Newton to Einstein, yet time and time again, their contributions, and I dare say yours included, although monumental and ingenious, still fall short when it comes to explaining the very things they set out to explain. These include time, space, or the universe, its synonym (interestingly, universum in Latin has a very figurative as well as literal meaning: “the one-matter scattered or cast at once”), or gravity, light and its very nature, atoms--the DNA of matter, dark matter or light matter, for that matter, etc. Evidence of the shortcomings are the latest and wayward disarray of theories that claim to have found the very thing that underpins the cosmos and beyond, i.e., the Strings Theory, the Chaos Theory, the Big-Bang Theory, the Quantum Theory, the M Theory or the omniscience-theory (the theory to explain all things), the Higgs boson particles- aka the God particle--being sought after at CERN, neutrinos, quantum physics, dark matter, black holes, time travel…the list is long and doubtlessly, it will continue. May I remind you of Plato’s Cave wherein its inhabitants came to believe that the world, or should I say, cosmos, consisted of, well, you know—shadows. Our situation is not very different. The American expression “a shot in the dark” or “taking potshots” would not be very inaccurate in describing our vane efforts to explain---everything.
I am aware of the fact that we have no choice in the matter and must make full use of the faculties and qualities that have been endowed upon us, by whom—I dare not speculate.
Yet, I maintain that unless we are to escape our own very human if not inhumane limitations by means of, for example, artificial intelligence of a supreme sort—not a very implausible milestone if I may say—created by mankind or imposed upon it by exterior sources, we will be doomed to forever tread on the endless planes or segments of the interminable and convoluted origami and will continue to gaze at the stars and be baffled, like the proverbial chimp.
I suppose that given the time---and it may take a few thousand years if not another million--we will accumulate enough knowledge and our brains and other qualities will have evolved sufficiently to be able to not only perceive the unseen and conceive of the unconceivable, but also to fully understand it and be able to manipulate it to our convenience, whatever that may be consequently. Will it be as A.C. Clarke postulated in his brilliant—shot in the dark-- 2001 A Space Odyssey, the supreme force that inserts the enigmatic monolith on the terrestrial clay or rather and more probably; the miniscule monolith-shaped chip we all call “Intel” that will be inserted into our hybrid-USB—portal-brain implants? ¿Qué será, será? Time will tell?
Time>>Space>>Gravity
On the question of time and space, which you brilliantly handle in your monogram—giving us the scientist’s point of view—and which I don’t pretend to emulate in any way, I would simply like to make some observations, that, I’m sure, have already been made by others. But in the interest of absolute clarity and simplicity I put to you the following. Times as well as space are two phenomena that we, like all other phenomena described by man, have identified as an observable fact, an occurrence, an event, or what have you. Yet, neither time nor space exist in their own right as a tree a fish or a planet do ,observable and concrete as tactile evidence would prove.
Who was it that said, “seeing is believing”? This is fine and good for the concrete tangibles in our world but intangibles or abstracts for that matter are, have been, and will always continue to trouble us simply because, well, we can’t seem to “get our brains around them”. Time, space and gravity are the abstracts, par excellence that defy us simply because they don’t exist yet somehow we “feel” their presence, particularly when it comes to gravity, and have even devised means and tools by which we could measure them…the next best thing to seeing or touching them.
Or could it be that we have conjured up these abstractions simply because they suited us in order to explain the observable e.g., Newton’s apocryphal falling apple. Upon pondering on the phenomenon that all things “hit the ground if not fixed to it already, he went on to create the mathematics (an abstract measuring “tool” if ever one existed) that neatly explained this nasty habit of falling that all objects display. Since his day things have changed and we now see the limitations of Newton’s law since it seems applicable to bodies in our “shadowy” world but once we escape its “gravitational” pull Newton’s law falls short itself, no pun intended. And indeed, when it comes to explaining the behaviour of heavenly bodies--as they were so quaintly alluded to in the past----stars and planets don’t collapse into each other as Newton’s law would have us believe instead they seem to respect each other’s distance and the space between them by some unexplainable mechanism…if only we knew which mechanism is responsible ….we’d be all the wiser.
Granted, Newton’s and most other laws are useful in certain environments, mainly earthly ones. For how do we account for the expanding, static, or perhaps contracting space? That dark-void we call many things for no lack of words, including, “firmament” that continues to be there with all of its visible as well as invisible matter in its usual place. Recently, I read about another colleague of yours, that maintains that we, and by “we” he means our planet and everything that envelops it ( the origami ? ) are caught in a gigantic black hole, which might account for why space seems to be stretching itself endlessly on end. Did he say a black hole or a dark cave? Forgive my facetious pun but do you see the similarity here between Plato’s metaphor and your colleague’s apocalyptic revelation?
The point is that space, time, and gravity are abstracts, voids identified, measured and labelled by man and his limited, self concocted tools to help humanity understand them. But, the question remains, are we up to the challenge and do we have the wherewithal to understand the inexplicable? We can keep trying and our duty is to do just that but I doubt that we are up to the challenge—for the time being anyhow.
PS---I just heard your public proclamation to the effect that the creation of the universe “does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god.”
It’s about time you came out of the closet!
David Cota - Thanks for the kind remarks. I'm really more of a back-yard mechanic who relies on common sense to figure things out for myself, but I have tried to understand quantum entanglement. I'll try to pass along what I now think.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that the particle-wave duality issue comes down to all material elements manifesting as a self propagating energy wave linearly dispersed throughout spacetime whenever they are 'in motion'. When manifesting as particles, they are stationary and not 'in motion': their motive energy is configured as an external field of internally directed (self opposed) potential energy known as particle mass.
The most massive particles (such as quarks) were produced in the densest conditions (such as the early universe): they could almost never manifest as motive waves since their linear motion was obstructed and density was so great that their emission en energy could not be reabsorbed. That produced their particle state manifestation, most of the time or probability. That's why atoms 'wiggle'.
Photons, in contrast, were emitted into lower density conditions (of the later universe) rarely (as a probability) manifest as a particle unless their emission energy/momentum is absorbed by an obstructing mass.
Quantisized light is an emission of wave energy that, when absorbed, will manifest as a single photon.
Wave energy can be optically redirected (by a mirror) and even split into multiple directions (like a forked stream of water). As a singular beam of light linearly propagating in multiple directions, any alterations that are imparted to the light wave's characteristic properties apply to the entire (singular) wave. As each individually directed beam is individually absorbed or detected, an individual photon reflects the (then) current state the characteristic properties of the light wave. As long as no alterations occur between the separate photon detections, they will all reflect identical property states.
That's how I currently envision the mechanical processes of particle/wave duality, quantum mass and quantum entanglement. I think this represents all observational data: if I'm missing anything modifications would be required. I tend to focus on what I think works…
P.S. The density or temperature of the emitting elements determines mass, particle/wave probability, etc.: the temporal density of the universe performs the particle selection function attributed to the 'Higgs Field'. I don't think there is a Higgs boson, since IMO mass is an external particle field.
@jtdwyer, "I think that the particle-wave duality issue" there is no issue. Particles and waves are concepts we apply to these phenomenon to help us understand them. They are models and as such they have a limited application. They do not imply by extension all the same limits on the system being modelled that are inherent in the model itself. For example, I could say life is a river. It has a beginning and end, it twists and turns, etc. But regardless of all the features that rivers and life have in common the analogy does not imply that life is made of water or erodes the landscape. Photons are neither particles nor waves, they are photons. We talk about photons as particles in one context and as waves in another. That's it. No need to invent a hypothesis to explain the "duality". The "duality" only exists for armchair scientists who want to sound clever.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe intent of your continuously critical comments always seems to be to prove that you’re the smartest kid in the class. It doesn’t matter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy casual use of the term ‘issue’ in discussing particle-wave duality did not warrant your sophomoric lecture on the ‘river of life’, much less justify your customary derisive remarks. Certainly there have been long standing contentious debates of this issue in the past, and there is even some disagreement among real scientists today – please check your references. This trivial point is not a topic for further discussion.
Strangely, real scientists and non-scientists alike often describe photons as traversing spacetime. Likewise your dumbfounding statement, intended to be clever, "Photons are neither particles nor waves, they are photons." In fact, photons, like other identified ‘fundamental particles’ are considered to exhibit the characteristic properties of either waves or particles. I do not think that photons simultaneously exhibit the distinct characteristics of both photon particles and light waves, as you imply in your statements, “We talk about photons as particles in one context and as waves in another. That's it”. I think these views are products of the historical confusion about particle-wave duality. In any case, for my purpose I found it necessary to distinguish between these two discrete states of matter.
Quantum Entanglement… Particle-Wave Duality (cont.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this[Disclaimer: I am not attempting to represent established explanations consistent with any theory or textbook but merely my own speculations regarding physical reality. As such, their value is limited to the extent that they might someday be shown to correctly describe actual conditions. Please do not challenge my assertions on the basis of their contradicting established references – I acknowledge that they likely do. Please let me know if they conflict with experimental evidence.]
I am proposing that light is emitted as an energy wave and is manifested as photon particles only when detected by the material absorption of is momentum. I think this may be already generally understood by most particle physicists.
I also propose that quarks, for example, are primarily manifested as stationary particles with characteristic spin and mass, intermittently manifesting as wave energy, briefly propagating in the direction determined by its last particle spin before once again manifesting as a particle. This specific combination of effects produces random, short duration movements, aggregating as a seemingly random 'shimmy' motion.
Furthermore, I suggest that the duration or incidence of wave state manifestation is primarily an inverse function of the identified characteristic mass simply because identified mass is simply a function of the duration or incidence of particle state manifestations, and that the characteristic motions that can be associated with each fundamental particle is a function of its particle/wave state manifestation along with their spin and charge characteristics. For example, the photon has no rest mass and propagates linearly because the probability of it manifesting in its particle state, exhibiting mass and spin properties, prior to material absorption is effectively null.
These propositions combine to provide a potentially viable explanation for the characteristic motion of atoms. I don't think that this phenomenon has previously been explained by science, but then I'm neither a scientist nor a scholar.
I'll attempt a respond to one point in you comment (re-edited for legibility):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"And indeed, when it comes to explaining the behavior of heavenly bodies …stars and planets don't collapse into each other as Newton's law would have us believe instead they seem to respect each others' distance and the space between them by some unexplainable mechanism. If only we knew which mechanism is responsible, we'd be all the wiser."
Perhaps Newton's imaginary attractive force vectors between two objects effectively represented the net effect of two intersecting opposingly directed force fields. In this scenario, the collective potential velocity of aggregated mass (for spherical objects) radially contracts the energy of spacetime, just as linear momentum linearly contracts spacetime. The locally contracted spacetime forms an external force field surrounding objects of mass that imparts velocity to matter. The vector summation of the intersection of two gravitational fields is the effective equivalent of a gravitational attraction vector in classical mechanics.
Small body objects within the gravitational field of a massive object accelerate in the direction of its center of mass at the velocity proportional to its mass, effectively irrespective of the small body's mass.
Two objects of comparative mass are each accelerated in the direction of the others' center of mass, proportional to its mass, up to the point at which compression of the opposingly directed force fields produces resistance to further motion. This resistive phenomenon preferentially produces the orbital motions of massive objects rather than their direct collision.
I hope this scenario may give someone some useful insights – it's the best I can offer right now.
@jdwyer, "The intent of your continuously critical comments always seems to be to prove that you re the smartest kid in the class." as opposed to your long winded made-up B.S. Ya, that's not a cry for attention. You're like some kid trying to explain why Santa Klaus is real without the cute and amusing bits. I find it tedious that you think you have soul right to freedom of speech. Everyone else has the freedom to shut up and listen to your nonsense. Criticism is the cornerstone of the logical process. If you want to play scientist you have to take the good with the bad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour personal insults hardly constitute constructive criticism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI truly agree with author. Look at the comments, most of them have no proper answer except "this is insult to our hero so it must be illogical" type attitude. Fact mentioned in here are very clear. For M theory, you need 11 dimensions and membranes those are planc length! How exactly is this better in logic and science than the concept of god itself? Scientists like Hawkins want to keep denying truth and keep the objective perspective towards science which has limitation. There is a lot better theory offered by Eastern countries such as India in ites Vedic literature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI truly agree with author. Look at the comments, most of them have no proper answer except "this is insult to our hero so it must be illogical" type attitude. Fact mentioned in here are very clear. For M theory, you need 11 dimensions and membranes those are planc length! How exactly is this better in logic and science than the concept of god itself? Scientists like Hawkins want to keep denying truth and keep the objective perspective towards science which has limitation. There is a lot better theory offered by Eastern countries such as India in ites Vedic literature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe current controversy regarding Hawking’s latest book, ‘The Grand Design’ results from the celebrated scientist’s limited vision about ‘origins’ (of life and universe). Perhaps Hawking is under false impression that the current knowledge of quantum physics and general theory of relativity alone is sufficient to unearth mystery surrounding ‘origin of life’, whereas fact of the matter is that ‘origin of life’ involves deep understanding of diverse sujects such as genetics, astrobiology, and molecular biology besides astrophysics. Ironically, despite considerable advancement in the above cited fields in recent years, science just remains clueless about origin of life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAshwini Kumar Lal, New Delhi
Ok, Please tell me David suppose LHC detected the Godparticle, what does the godparticle made up off. If your answer is nothing its the ground zero in Physics then I call it CRAP (common ridiculous answer by physicist) You cannot be meaningless to laymen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this----------------
All of physics fanatics things are really CRAP, black holes says, eat up anything that comes in its path, tell me where are these things that end up in blackhole end up? You say in another universe, another dimension, passage through wormhole (what we have to believe all these things?)
Please Please don't make things complicated, they are simple, its only we try hard to understand in an easier way that makes complication.
Dark matter, Dark Energy all CRAP CRAP CRAP
So you mean that there are such things like DARK - MATTER -ENERGY that are unable to be detected my humans, Are they made up of different atoms that defer from what we observe ???
What the author has written is true.
These things exist in paper, sorry these things exist in mathematics alone not in physics.
alan.bright.76 quoted
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this''Scientists like Hawkins want to keep denying truth and keep the objective perspective towards science which has limitation. There is a lot better theory offered by Eastern countries such as India in ites Vedic literature.''
Actually Hawking doesn't know the truth neither none of us know the truth.
The inverse of this is also true.
Hawking knows something but the something is other than science, but we all know the truth its 'god'.
I personally hold Stephen Hawking in very high esteem. It nonetheless does not imply that whatever he writes will be acceptable to everbody.It is wrong to presume that he is infallible.The celebrated scientist appears to have wrongly referred to the ‘Big Bang Model’ as the viable explanation for origin of the universe in his latest book, 'The Grand Design'. I am not opposing the largely accepted hypothesis just for the heck of it. There are genuine reasons for this. The redshift controversy, presence of full-bloomed mature galaxies in the very early epoch of the universe as also the presence of superclusters of galaxies interspersed with supervoids in the cosmos are some of the unsolved mysteries that defy plausible explanation by the Big Bang model. I have detailed the prominent inconsistencies with the said model in my paper titled "Big Bang Model? A Critical Review" published in the peer-reviewed US journal, ‘Journal of Cosmology’ modified version of which is posted at the website: http://vixra.org/pdf/1005.0051v8.pdf . It is ironic that the mainstream cosmologists have remained indifferent to admit the cosmological realities despite the loopholes with the said model repeatedly being pointed out from time to time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat a pity! Both Hawking and Horgan are right to say that a final theory is near. And Horgan is right to write that M theory and string theory are dead. The strand model is a much better candidate for the final theory ( found at http://www.motionmountain.net/fun.html ) and it does make testable predictions, such as a lack of the Higgs bosons and a lack of supersymmetry. It would be great to hear what Hawking and Horgan think about it.
Redshift Controversy
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs per Hubble’s law, galaxies in the cosmos are observed to recede on account of expansion of universe. However, there remains nagging uncertainty whether the redshift calculated on the basis of Hubble’s law gives true value of the receding galaxies. Some astronomers (Narlikar 1989; Parker 1993; Harrison 1993; Longair 1995) have serious reservations about the authenticity of the galactic velocities catalogued by astronomers using the Hubble’s velocity- distance law, v = Hd. Expansion redshift does not arise from the Doppler effect, nor is the redshift related to velocity by the special relativistic relation, 1+z =[(1+v/c)/(1-v/c)]1/2 (Narlikar 1993). Einstein’s relativistic Doppler formula merely applies to the motion of galaxies through space, it does not apply to the recession of galaxies (Seeds 2007). Moreover, Doppler redshift is bound by the laws of Einstein’s special relativity, which dictates that an object cannot travel faster than the speed of light whereas in the case of cosmological redshift, v > c is possible since the space which separates the objects (e.g. a quasar from the Earth) through a vacuum can expand faster than the speed of light.
Under the cosmological redshift interpretation, galaxies are not receding simply by a physical velocity in the direction away from the observer; instead, the intervening space is expanding, which accounts for large-scale isotropy of the effect demanded by the cosmological principle (Harrison 1981). In the current cosmological model (Gray and Davies 2008), cosmological redshift z(cos) is described as the observable time-dependent cosmic scale factor (a), governed by the expression,
1+z(cos)= a(now)/a(then). Bondi (1947) defined cosmological redshift as the summation of the Doppler shift due to an object’s motion through space, and the global gravitational shift (Einstein effect) due to the difference between the potential energy per unit mass at the source and the observer. Mathematically, cosmological redshift is expressed as
z(cos) = z(dop)+ z(grav),
where 1+ z(cos) =[(1+v/c)/(1-v/c)]1/2 (1+∆Ф/c2), and
∆Ф is the difference in gravitational potential between the points of emission and reception of a photon, which hints at the Doppler shift not being the correct measure of distance between the source and the observer.
Ashwini Kumar Lal, New Delhi
The ‘Big Bang Model’ has been under controversy for quite some time. Eminent cosmologists like Fred Hoyle, Halton Arp, and Jayant Narlikar have been pinpointing the persisting loopholes with the said model from time to time. Instead of addressing those outstanding issues, advocates of the ‘Big Bang’ have taken it to be a prestige issue. Keeping in view some recent developments in the field of space science, when I submitted my manuscript titled “Big Bang Model: A Critical Review” incorporating critical analysis of the available scientific facts and results of the various space probes, for publication in a reputed international journal, I received a terrible shock when my paper was arbitrarily rejected despite very strong recommendation by one of the referees appointed by the the editor for review of my paper. The said paper did get enentually published in the April 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed US journal, Journal of Cosmology.Then, subsequent to publcation of the said paper, when I tried to get e-print of the published paper posted at arXiv( the prestigious scientific website maintained by the Cornell University, New York)),I was blacklisted by the arXiv administration on very flimsy ground of having pestered the arXiv adminstration for posting of the article opposing the ‘Big Bang Model’ at their site. The ‘Big Bang’ lobbyists just want perpetuation of the status quo in respect of the controversial ‘Big Bang Model’.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAshwini Kumar Lal
The ‘Big Bang Model’ has been under controversy for quite some time. Eminent cosmologists like Fred Hoyle, Halton Arp, and Jayant Narlikar have been pinpointing the persisting loopholes with the said model from time to time. Instead of addressing those outstanding issues, advocates of the ‘Big Bang’ have taken it to be a prestige issue. Keeping in view some recent developments in the field of space science, when I submitted my manuscript titled “Big Bang Model: A Critical Review” incorporating critical analysis of the available scientific facts and results of the various space probes, for publication in a reputed international journal, I received a terrible shock when my paper was arbitrarily rejected despite very strong recommendation by one of the referees appointed by the the editor for review of my paper. The said paper did get enentually published in the April 2010 issue of the peer-reviewed US journal, Journal of Cosmology.Then, subsequent to publcation of the said paper, when I tried to get e-print of the published paper posted at arXiv( the prestigious scientific website maintained by the Cornell University, New York)),I was blacklisted by the arXiv administration on very flimsy ground of having pestered the arXiv adminstration for posting of the article opposing the ‘Big Bang Model’ at their site. The ‘Big Bang’ lobbyists just want perpetuation of the status quo in respect of the controversial ‘Big Bang Model’.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs per Hubble’s law, galaxies in the cosmos are observed to recede on account of expansion of universe. However, there remains nagging uncertainty whether the redshift calculated on the basis of Hubble’s law gives true value of the receding galaxies. Some astronomers have serious reservations about the authenticity of the galactic velocities catalogued by astronomers using the Hubble’s velocity- distance law, v = Hd. Expansion redshift does not arise from the Doppler effect, nor is the redshift related to velocity by the special relativistic relation,1+z =[(1+v/c)/(1-v/c)]1/2 (Narlikar 1993). Einstein’s relativistic Doppler formula merely applies to the motion of galaxies through space, it does not apply to the recession of galaxies (Seeds 2007). Moreover, Doppler redshift is bound by the laws of Einstein’s special relativity, which dictates that an object cannot travel faster than the speed of light whereas in the case of cosmological redshift, v > c is possible since the space which separates the objects (e.g. a quasar from the Earth) through a vacuum can expand faster than the speed of light.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnder the cosmological redshift interpretation, galaxies are not receding simply by a physical velocity in the direction away from the observer; instead, the intervening space is expanding, which accounts for large-scale isotropy of the effect demanded by the cosmological principle (Harrison 1981). In the current cosmological model (Gray and Davies 2008), cosmological redshift z(cos) is described as the observable time-dependent cosmic scale factor (a), governed by the expression,1+z(cos)= a(now)/a(then). Bondi (1947) defined cosmological redshift as the summation of the Doppler shift due to an object’s motion through space, and the global gravitational shift (Einstein effect) due to the difference between the potential energy per unit mass at the source and the observer. Mathematically, cosmological redshift is expressed as
z(cos) = z(dop)+ z(grav),
where 1+ z(cos) =[(1+v/c)/(1-v/c)]1/2 (1+∆Ф/c2), and ∆Ф is the difference in gravitational potential between the points of emission and reception of a photon, which hints at the Doppler shift not being the correct measure of distance between the source and the observer.
Ashwini Kumar Lal, New Delhi
The celebrated scientist, Stephen Hawking appears to have wrongly referred to the ‘Big Bang Model’ as viable explanation for origin of the universe in his latest book, 'The Grand Design'. The review paper titled 'Big Bang Model? A Critical Review' published in the peer-reviewed US journal, 'Journal of Cosmology'(modified version of which is available at the wesite :
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://vixra.org/pdf/1005.0051v8.pdf ) has detailed prominent inconsistencies with the said model. The persisting redshift controversy pinpointed by several cosmologists in the past, presence of full-bloomed galaxies with higher metallicity in the very early epoch of the universe, and presence of superclusters of galaxies and supervoids in the cosmos are some of the unsolved mysteries which remain inexplicable by the Big Bang model. It is ironic that the mainstream cosmologists have remained indifferent to admit the cosmological realities despite the loopholes with the said model repeatedly being pointed out from time to time.Ironically, Hawking's immense popularity as a popular science writer hinges on success of his widely popular book, 'A Brief History of Time' that is all about the origin of the universe. Authencity of the information contained in these books depends on the validity of the 'Big Bang Model'.When the said model itself in mired in deep controversy, what Hawking has been preaching to the world is a mere gossip without element of authenticity.
Readers may also like to browse posting no. 435 on page 44 of the thread :'Stephen Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe' at the website :
http://www.politics.ie/education-science/137173-stephen-hawking-god-not-needed-create-universe-44.html .
ashwini Kumar Lal
On the whole I can't see what's wrong about what John wrote. By the look of it, there seems not much new in Hawking's book after books from authors like Brian Greene, Michio Kaku and Lisa Randall.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisZhe M-theory does not make any predictions. There are no measurement data which would support this theory, as Roger Penrose wrote in his review of Hawking's book in the "Financial Times" of 4/5 Sept. 2010. Apart from it, even the Nobel Prize laureate Gerhard 't Hooft said that the M-theory did not explain any observable phenomena.
When Isaac Newton researched mechanics, he was able to invent a new kind of mathematics (i.e. calculus) which he then made to to fit to physics.In contrast to it, the string theory is based on mathematics - in fact it could not even exist without mathematics, i.e. physics had to be made to fit to mathematics, even though it does not really fit: e.g. in the 5-D Kaluza-Klein theory the mass of the electron is too large (so-called "large mass problem") and the gravitational constant in the string theory is too large. One must keep in mind that 11-D spaces of the string theory are of Kaluza-Klein sort. But even before the development of the M-theory A. Einstein said: "One gets the impression that modern physics is based on assumptions, which somehow resemble the smile of a cat that is not there." David Lindley wrote in 1993 in his book "The end of physics - the myth of a unified theory": "Superstring theory may be a perfect, unique creation, a singular piece of mathematics. But it contains, apparently, the makings of a million different imperfect worlds, all equally possible." (i.e. the multiverse) And David Peat wrote already in 1988 in his book "Superstrings and the search for the theory of everything": "On one hand, there are mathematical excursions with no deep foundation;...And so the deepest questions remain. But at least more and more physicists are realizing that a crisis does indeed exist in physics,...“
And as far as the Big Bang is concerned, fairly recently there is a new cosmological theory from Wun-Yi Shu, without a Big Bang and without singularities.
It is also nothing new to declare philosophy for dead, as Hawking did. John Horgan has done it long before him in his book "The end of science" already in 1996.
At the end to the question whether there is a connection between the science and the religion. For example, the Irish poet Oscar Wilde said already in 1900 that science is the history of dead religions...
Who am I? I am in this universe as much as it is in I.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is I? I is sphere full of love. I is the singularity.
Imagination is more important than knowledge,
for all that we know is just an imagination.
http://sridattadev-theoryofeverything.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html
The Big Bang Model has failed the crucial acid test for its survival that relates to detection of remnant of gravity waves from the earliest epoch of the universe. Existence of gravitational – wave background, predicted by Einstein in 1916 in his general theory of relativity, is expected from the violent early moments of the Big Bang much like the cosmic microwave background that fills the sky with radio waves from the early universe. As per Einstein’s prediction, the cataclysmic Big Bang is believed to have created a flood of gravitational waves – ripples in the fabric of space-time that still fill the universe, albeit at a very feeble strength to be discernible by the conventional astronomical tools. The much hyped LIGO experiments, undertaken at whopping sum of over $365 million, for probe of remnant of the gravity waves from the earliest epoch of the universe have so far yielded nothing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHawking ignores the very basic question about where the laws of physics come from. Even if true - though unprovable - M theory still assumes rather than explains the laws of Physics. The reason for going into the "God" question is that Hawking himself brings it up. There are many questions that "science" cannot answer since "science" is a method not a conclusion. As a Christian, I find that Atheism is a very incomplete explanation of the events of the world. Most of the time evidence that actually challenges that view - such as the very existence of the laws of physics (stop and meditate on that phrase for a moment), are ignored with hand waving and cries of "creationism" as though that were enough to invalidate the question out of hand. Apriori assumptions do not evidence make.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAtheism (or perhaps I should say very strong agnosticism as described by Dawkins and others)is not an explanation of anything, much less the events of the world. It is simply the acceptance that no one has yet presented a sound evidence for the existence of a theistic god. I bear no religion ill will but I cannot accept their version on blind faith. It is one thing to say that there may be a set of laws, force or model underlying everything, a force that we may not yet know and may never know. (I lack freshthinker's certainty in saying that we CANNOT know,I prefer uncertainty to certainty). It is quite another to assert that the world was created by a triune God, that his son was born of a virgin, that he died for our sins and rose from the dead. Lack of complete knowledge about the natural world does not constitute proof for such bold claims.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe do not yet, and may never know, to the fullest extent what is the ultimate source of the "laws of physics", but the lack of knowledge is not evidence for a specific theistic view such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc. And yes, while it may be true that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" it is equally true that those making extraordinary claims must provide extraordinary evidence.
I find it fallacious and self serving to claim that Jesus, Yahweh or Allah are the ultimate divine creators based simply on the fact that there are gaps in our understanding of nature. Given the current evidence for the worlds religions would it not be equally valid to say that they may have it wrong? What if there is yet another "God", who has yet to reveal himself? After all, Yahweh and Christ waited approximately 98,000 years before revealing themselves to modern humans.
If God appears and starts suspending the laws of nature right, left and center I will change my opinion. Ancient texts and popularity are insufficient proof for me to abandon the scientific method, which as you say is not a conclusion. Unlike religion, the scientific method requires evidence that can be tested by believers and non-believers alike. Science changes, religion remains certain in its conclusions without requiring evidence. Don't believe me? When was the last time a pastor discussed the testable fact that our brains are both atheist and "believers"? When the corpus callosum is severed, and the separate hemispheres of our brain are asked if they believe in God - the left typically says no, the right typically says yes. Does one hemisphere go to heaven while the other burns in hell?
I think this piece is just about Horgan's personal anger at a scientist with whom he disagrees and of whom he is extremely envious. (haters gonna hate) Is this guy someone you want representing you SciAm?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisArticles like this always lead somebody to say something like, "There must be a God, because something can't come from nothing." Of course, what they always forget is that this explanation brings up the obvious point, "So then where did God come from?" Was there nothing and then suddenly a highly advanced omnipotent being appeared from nowhere for no reason, or somehow did this God being always exist? But then, how can something always have existed? Don't all things have to have a start? And if not, then why couldn't some natural phenomena that existed outside of time have started everything?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe bottom line is nobody knows for sure how the Universe came into existence, but saying "God did it" is just as much a paradox as any other explanation. We don't know. What we do know is that in the 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang there hasn't been a single shred of evidence for any God(s). We also know for certain that humanity is a tiny insignificant speck among trillions of stars and massive amounts of time; this universe has little to do with us. I think we all need to let go of our religious superstitions.
"Like millions of other people I admire Hawking's brilliance, wit, courage and imagination. His prophecy of the end of physics inspired me to write The End of Science (which he called "garbage")."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is the sole reason for this unscientific ad hom attack "article." SciAm, get rid of Horgan. He doesn't write well and he isn't an accomplished scientist.
What JH is getting at is how far the stringy multiverse empire Greene/Hawking/Randall have gone in exiling physics, logic, reason, empirical reality, and the Great Physicists. For instance, none of the following definitive quotes from the Greats are ever seen in their stringy works:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn questions of science, the authority of thousands is not worth the humble reasoning of one individual. –Galileo
Books on physics are full of complicated mathematical formulae. But thought and ideas (the fourth
dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at c), not formulae, are the beginning of every physical theory.—Einstein/Infeld, The Evolution of Physics
But before mankind could be ripe for a science which takes in the whole of reality, a second fundamental
truth was needed, which only became common property among philosophers with the advent of Kepler
and Galileo. Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge
of reality starts from experience and ends in it. Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are
completely empty as regards reality. Because Galileo saw this, and particularly because he drummed it
into the scientific world, he is the father of modern physics—indeed, of modern science altogether. -
Einstein, Ideas and Opinions
…my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received
it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible
ever to get it out of their heads. Such arguments in support of their fixed idea ... gain their instant acceptance … whatever is brought forward against it, however ingenious and conclusive, they receive with disdain or with hot rage.... No good can comme of dealing with such people . . . their company may be not only unpleasant but dangerous. –Galileo
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of
genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction. –Einstein
I don't believe in mathematics. –Einstein
Mathematics are well and good but nature keeps dragging us around by the nose. –Einstein
More of what physics is and ought to be can be found here: http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/McGucken_What_is_Ultimately_8.pdf
Articles like this is EXACTLY what Sciam needs more of!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHawking/Randall/Greene never quote the Greats, nor Nobel Laureates, as real physics and physicists get in the way of perpetual-motion fiat money machine/fiat physics.
Contrast MDT’s elegant, unifying success with String Theory's “not even wrongishness.” The first page of ST in a Nutshell states in a footnoted sentence:
ST … gained popularity because it provides a theory that is UV finite.(1) . . . The
footnote (1) reads: “Although there is no rigorous proof to all orders that the theory is UV
finite...” lol!
We don’t know what we are talking about. David Gross
It is anomalous to replace the four-dimensional continuum by a five-dimensional one and then
subsequently to tie up artificially one of those five dimensions in order to account for the fact that
it does not manifest itself. -Einstein to Ehrenfest ( I magine doing this for 10-30+ dimensions!)
String theorists don't make predictions, they make excuses. -Feynman
ST is like a 50 year old woman wearing too much lipstick.-Laughlin, Nobel Laureate
Actually, I would not even be prepared to call ST a “theory” rather a “model” or not
even that: just a hunch.–‘t Hooft
It is tragic, but now, we have the string theorists, thousands of them, that also dream of explaining
all the features of nature. . .when one person spends 30 years, it's a waste, but when thousands
waste 20 years in modern day, they celebrate with champagne.-Glashow
I don't like that they're not calculating anything. I don't like that they don't check their ideas. I
don't like that for anything that disagrees with an experiment, they cook up an explanation-a fix…
It doesn’t look right. -Feynman
superstring physicists … cannot demonstrate that the standard theory is a logical outcome of string
t h e o r y . …they have not yet made even one teeny-tiny experimental prediction. ..superstring theory
does not follow as a logical consequence of some appealing set of hypotheses about nature. --Glashow:
The great irony of string theory, however, is that the theory itself is not unified. –Kaku
If Einstein were alive today, he would be horrified at this state of affairs... The unsubstantiated
belief of our day is relativity itself. It would be perfectly in character for him … conclude that his
beloved principle of relativity was not fundamental at all but emergent(emergent from MDT!) -Laughlin
more: http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/511
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/238
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/873
This update is added in order is to address a recent sophisticated yet simultaneously clumsy attempt to try to discredit the Theory of the Big Bang/Big Crunch Infinite Cycle of the Universe and to render confusion in a paper and book by Stephen Hawking crony, Robert Penrose, plus some political updating:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaterialist Analysis of Theoretical Astrophysics
The Capitalist Dictatorship Deliberately Falsifies Basic Science!
Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, Wendy Freedman, Dennis
Overbye, Nichlas Wade, Brian Greene, etc. Are Exposed as Liars!
Self-Described Neo-Creationists Hawking and Kaku Are
Leading a Takeover Attempt of Theoretical Astrophysics!
Today basic medicine, science including climatology, astrophysics and even both Einstein’s Special Theory and General Theory of Relativity are brazenly and routinely falsified at the direction of genuinely Fascist elements for political/religious reasons. These scientifically fabricated and bizarre distortions are mixed in with some actual science and are passed off as “the new science” in exhaustive mesmerizing falsifications lasting for hours on NOVA, FRONTLINE, National Geographic Channel, CUNY TV, “Discovery Channel” and even the so-called “History Channel.” There is also a simultaneous attempt to create a sense of panic in order to help generate the Mass Psychology of Crisis based on falsely claimed imminent threats from space from rogue asteroids to Stephen Hawking’s alarmist claim of future invasions by inevitably hostile space aliens. See section below on UFOs and Extraterrestrial Life. In addition, the above-mentioned so-called “cosmologists” publish an endless stream of books, videos and magazine and newspaper articles, not to mention the new textbooks, to try to popularize their fiction and pass it off as good coin. The media, including the science media is simply a privatized arm of the U.S. “intelligence agency,” an actual army of legions of professional liars in every area of politics and academic discipline and includes even so-called “comedians” working in service to the capitalist dictatorship of millionaires and billionaires. The U.S. media is very similar to Blackwater, Dyncorp, Custer Battles and Triple Canopy, etc. the armed military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, except that the media has always been privatized. Can you say Total Brainwash of the youth? Not to mention the adult population! Note that Stephen Hawking and Michio Kaku, who are leading the takeover attempt of theoretical astrophysics and “cosmology,” now both openly describe themselves as neo-creationist/”intelligent design” advocates and are campaigning through their statements to make neo-creationism the default belief taught in schools, colleges and universities! (See below.) Although Hawking simultaneously tries to deny this all his statements are contrived to lead to the same “conclusion.” The title and contents of Hawking’s book: “The Grand Design” is an example.
There is also a maximal attempt to confuse the masses in order to keep them susceptible to the constant stream of lies originating from NASA and the U.S. government. These lies include but are not limited to multiple false theories of the origin of life which include: 1.) so-called “panspermia,” 2.) evolution of life from submarine vents and now preposterously 3.) hypothetical civilizations based on arsenic (!) not phosphorus, all of which are fully disproved below. NASA first threatened to ram through a revisit of the Moon and a Mars mission before Obama under some public pressure temporarily cancelled the Moon and Mars ventures and made asteroids the first priority in order to lay the groundwork for an asteroid fear campaign to help reinforce the Mass Psychology of Crisis partially achieved by the “War on Terror,” complete with multiple U.S.-government-assisted and/or instigated mass provocations. U.S. “intelligence” has increased the number of these provocations in order to manipulate support for the Final Stage of Capitalism: Permanent War and State Terrorism! See below. There is also no possibility that a manned trip to Mars would ever return. Rocketry is a primitive form of space travel and there is no acknowledged attempt of efforts to develop the nuclear powered electromagnetic anti-gravity engine used by so-called UFOs, which are documented to have visited the Earth for Millennia. Such “space missions” along with “Supply-Side Economics” and the $4.7 trillion bank bailouts (!), are another fraudulent pretext to divert money from social spending and to decrease the U.S. living standard in accordance with Globalism, while trying simultaneously to try to boost U.S. patriotism from its nadir. The widespread academic opposition to these far-ranging falsifications of science in order to manipulate the public consciousness is never given equal time! We demand and will take some time to refute the U.S.-led capitalist dictatorship’s lies.
The Capitalist Dictatorship’s Attempt to Falsify the
Age of the Universe to Help Provide False Belief in “god”
The capitalists have tried to falsify the actual age of the Universe and the infinite cycle of a Big Bang followed by a Big Crunch, meaning a closed rather than an open Universe, because the reality of a closed Universe does not fit with the religious brainwash of a single creation and belief in a supernatural fictitious “god.” (The statecraft of capitalism’s alliance with religion and belief in “god” and other superstition is exposed further below.) The reality is that the process of contraction of the Universe began soon after the Big Bang, which began the process of expansion. The process of contraction began with the first condensations of gas after the Big Bang. At first the process of expansion was dominant, but the processes of expansion and contraction exist simultaneously from shortly after the Big Bang until finally the process of contraction becomes dominant and all galactic matter is finally drawn into Supermassive Black Holes, which today form the centers of all spiral galaxies and elliptical galaxies in the process of becoming spiral galaxies. These Supermassive Black Holes, which are growing larger continuously, finally link up all existing matter of the Universe at one spot, one huge super-maximal Black Hole known as the Singularity in the Big Crunch, at which time Critical Mass in the true and ultimate sense is reached for another Big Bang Cycle and the beginning of another Universe. This analysis clearly and conclusively demonstrates that THERE WAS NO “MOMENT OF CREATION” because all the matter for this Universe already existed in its pure nuclear form in the Singularity from a previous Big Crunch which preceded the Big Bang which began our present Universe. And the origin of matter is PROVED to be an unknowable. (See below.) This is the ONLY explanation which fits the facts! See below for comment on Roger Penrose and his recently published paper and book where he invents a highly contrived but easily disproved counter “theory” to the Big Bang Big Crunch Cycle of the Universe in order to try to discredit the cyclic nature of the Universe.
Ninety-five Percent of Matter in the Universe Exists in the Form of Energy According
To Einstein’s Formula E=mc2! Black Holes Completely Reverse that Relationship and
Solve the Equation for Mass: m=E/c2 thus Supplying the so-called “Missing Mass”!
The critical mass density required for the Big Crunch to occur is 1 x 10 to the negative 29th of a gram per cubic centimeter (approximately 5 hydrogen atoms per cubic meter), according to the calculation from the General Theory of Relativity, which predicted Black Holes. Neutrinos are now known to have mass which may be sufficient to supply the supposed “missing mass.” (See below.) But probably even more significant is the recent paper in Science, November 21, 2008, (Vol. 322, 5905:1198-1199 and 1124-1127), which shows that 95% of matter in the Universe exists in the form of energy according to Einstein’s formula E=mc2. This relationship would reverse in a Black Hole and the so-called “missing mass” would gradually appear as the contraction of the Universe allowed the energy-mass relationship to shift so that in a practical and real sense Einstein’s formula would be solved for mass: m=E/c2. Though the authors of the paper fail to draw this conclusion that is the inescapable significance of those papers. See below. The fact that the expansion and contraction of the Universe occur simultaneously is one more example of the Law of Unity of Opposites, the Second Law of Dialectical and Historical Materialism and demonstrates the correctness of the scientific philosophy of Dialectical and Historical Materialism, as opposed to the false philosophies of idealism and metaphysics, which are the only philosophies permitted to be seriously taught in U.S. colleges and universities, and which form the underlying basis for all phony “cosmological” theory! See further below!
Black Holes Rotate on an Axis and Have
Mass and a Size, which Can Be Calculated!
In addition, in the Big Crunch matter most certainly does NOT collapse to “less than the size of a single molecule,” a totally ridiculous assertion by the so-called “string theorists” (see below) designed to try to discredit the Theory of the Big Bang/Big Crunch Cycle of the Universe. The Black Hole in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy is 15 million miles in diameter—not “the size of a single molecule”! Black Holes are formed exclusively of condensed nuclear material; protons and neutrons (composed of quarks) and electrons (composed of leptons) devoid of their orbits and all motion, all collapsed together. The end point of all matter in the Big Crunch is a Single Black Hole, the so-called “Singularity.” The size of the final “Singularity” which forms prior to the Big Bang would thus be quite large because it must contain all the nuclear material in the entire Universe. All Black Holes have the same mass density, which is said to be infinite, and which vary only in actual mass depending on how many stars and how much nuclear material they contain. The only difference is the difference in mass, which is constantly increasing as matter changes from its energy form when entering a Black Hole. See above cited article in Nature, November 21, 2008. Note that while some of the information provided below may appear to be somewhat technical it is necessary for any subsequent challenges which might be made of this dialectical and historical materialist analysis. An educated reader should be able to understand most of it and follow for the most part the explanations, which have in turn vast political implications. A few key references are provided and the reader can research the area independently.
Black Holes have mass and size just as neutron stars (pulsars) also have mass!! All Black Holes, both Stellar Black Holes and Supermassive Black Holes (the result of combination of millions of solar masses) which form the center of evolving elliptical galaxies and all spiral galaxies, also rotate extremely rapidly just like neutron stars, some of which are estimated to be only 8 to 20 miles in diameter, and rotate in 1.4 milliseconds to 30 seconds! Black Holes rotate as fast or faster. All stars rotate on a central axis to some degree due to the angular momentum of gas approaching the center of the proto-star prior to the ignition of hydrogen fusion. In other words the gravitational collapse of gas in star formation is not uniform just as its opposite, an explosion such as the Big Bang is not uniform. When the radius of the star is reduced drastically in stellar collapse the angular momentum remains the same but the momentum of inertia is sharply reduced. The standard example is that of a figure skater spinning with outstretched arms who speeds up by pulling in his/her arms. Black Holes are formed from the collapse of the largest Blue Giant stars 5 to 20 or more solar masses. Neutron stars are formed from the explosion of stars with 1.35 to 2.1 solar masses in a Type II, Type Ib or Type Ic supernova explosion. The rapid rotation of Supermassive Black Holes is in fact the reason Spiral Galaxies exist in the flattened disk form they do with spiral arms—because of the huge gravitational force exerted by the rapid rotation of Supermassive Black Holes which form their galactic centers! As mentioned this fact is entirely covered up and denied by the phony NASA “scientists” on television, e.g., National Geographic TV. As the rotating Supermassive Black Hole in the galactic center gradually increases in size through accumulation/accretion of more stellar material and gas, the early elliptical galaxies, in the process of becoming a spiral galaxies, begin to flatten due to the rapid rotation of the Supermassive Black Hole in their center which causes the flattening. It should also be noted that as would be expected there exist a high number of stellar black holes in the galactic center drawn by their strong gravitational fields on their way to join the central Supermassive Black Hole. According to observations of the Chandra X-Ray Telescope released in a July 16, 2005 report there are 10,000 stellar black holes along with numerous neutron stars orbiting the Supermassive Black Hole in the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy, officially designated Sagittarius A (SGR A)! The Supermassive Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way has a mass of 3.7 million solar masses. The largest known Supermassive Black Hole in the OJ 287 Quasar contains 18 billion solar masses!
The spiral arms comprised of outlying stars are formed by the combination of the gravitational force coming from the rapidly rotating galactic center and the relative gravitational attraction of one outlying star to another based on their actual distances from one another. As the outlying stars approach neighboring stars due to gravity this leaves other areas where stars are much less concentrated giving rise to the appearance of usually 2 major spiral arms originating from each end of the central bar often found in the galactic center, as well as several minor spiral arms, all of which are actually in the process of being gradually drawn inexorably toward the galactic center. The gravitational force of the Black Hole, the mass of which is steadily increasing, gradually overcomes the outward centrifugal force caused by its rapid rotation. Central bars form after the Supermassive Black Hole in the center of a large spiral galaxy reaches a certain size and are therefore found more prevalently in more massive galaxies where the required mass is reached sooner. Central bars form when stellar orbits in a spiral galaxy become unstable and deviate from a circular path. The tiny elongations in the stars' orbits grow and become locked into place, forming a bar. The bar becomes even stronger as it locks more and more of these elongated orbits into place. Eventually a high fraction of the stars in the galaxy's inner region join the bar. The galactic center thus attracts both gas and stars. This concentration of gas at the center of spiral galaxies does result in the formation of new stars but does not represent the primary or original source of star formation, which occurs in the beginning of formation of galaxies from gravitational condensation and collapse of primordial gas clouds. The central bars draw a large amount of gas towards the galactic center, fueling this new star formation, building central bulges of stars, and feeding the Supermassive central Black Hole. The formation of a bar may be one of the last stages in the evolution of a spiral galaxy prior to its eventual total collapse entirely into its central Supermassive Black Hole.
Information Overload by NASA and U.S. Government Propagandists is used to Distract
Focus Away from the Significance and Central Role Black Holes Play in the Process
Of Contraction of the Universe which Finally Becomes Dominant in the Big Crunch!
In the interest of accuracy it is also important to mention that this information is being misused by NASA and other U.S. government propagandists to try to distract from and obscure the significance of black holes and the central role black holes play in the process of contraction of the Universe, which ultimately becomes dominant over the simultaneous process of expansion. First, it is a fact that matter generally enters a black hole through a combination of both gravitation and magnetism. Matter in the accretion disk, which spins around the black hole, can only enter the black hole after it loses its angular momentum. The inertia of the material in the accretion disk keeps it spiraling in a disk rather than falling straight into the black hole. The inertia in turn is due to the mass of the material in the disc and the gravitational field caused by the extremely rapid rotation of the black hole itself. An accretion disc is a rotating disk of gas, dust and other matter that may form around any of a variety of stars or other massive objects from protostars to white dwarfs to neutron stars to stellar black holes and Supermassive Black Holes and even quasars (see below). While the accretion disc of a young star or protostar usually contains dust which later consolidates or accretes to form planets and other objects, the accretion disk of a black hole, which may also contain stars, feeds matter directly into the black hole.
According to a report in the July 22, 2006 Nature, and another 2008 paper by F. Casse Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 50 124020 (9pp) confirming the 1973 theory of Starobinsky and Churilov, the spinning gas in an accretion disc generates its own magnetic field which powers a wind of charged particles directed away from the black hole. The wind of charged particles transfers angular momentum from the inner regions of the disk outward in a twin jet phenomenon perpendicular to the plane of the accretion disk allowing angular momentum to be conserved, meaning to remain balanced or constant. This transfer of angular momentum outward slows down the spinning gas near the center, allowing gravitation to draw matter into the black hole. The magnetic field also causes turbulence and friction to build up within the disk. The friction heats up the gas to millions of degrees, causing it to glow brilliantly in the ultraviolet and X-ray bands. In Supermassive Black Holes large jets of plasma flow away from the accretion disc perpendicular to its center at almost the speed of light. These jets of plasma travel outward along the magnetic field lines which are twisted by the rotating accretion disk. It should be noted that the material which flows outward in the jets represents only a tiny amount of material extracted from the accretion disk. (Plasma, which is found in the accretion disk closest to the black hole, is a partially ionized gas, where a certain proportion of electrons are free, not being bound to atoms or molecules, unlike the gas form of matter. This permits electrical conduction of magnetic fields. Plasma is considered the fourth state of matter in addition to solid, gas and liquid.
Redshift Measurement of Quasars puts
The Age of the Universe at 28 Billion Years!
The process where matter enters a black hole from its accretion disk may be greatly expanded during the formation of quasars where a Supermassive Black Hole at a galactic Center accretes a huge amount of matter in the order of billions of stars. When two black holes combine or a stellar black hole enters a Supermassive Black Hole in a galactic center the process causes the emission of radio waves and even visible light. When hundreds of millions to billions of stars and enormous amounts of gas first combine to create a Supermassive Black Hole in the center of a galaxy the energy released is exponentially increased and is known as a quasar. In a quasar this radiation is emitted across the entire spectrum almost equally, from X-rays to the far-infrared with a peak in the ultraviolet-optical bands, with some quasars also being strong sources of radio emission and of gamma-rays. Quasars are the most visibly luminous objects in the Universe and are also the strongest energy source in the Universe. A quasar is simply an accelerated process of formation of a Supermassive Black Hole in an early galaxy. The release of gravitational energy by matter falling towards a massive black hole in the formation of a quasar is the only process known that can produce such high power continuously, energy far greater than the fusion process which powers stars. Quasars easily outshine their host galaxies. (The light we see is from the huge superheated accretion disk, which is greatly enlarged due to the high density of matter in such galaxies. Stellar explosions such as Supernovas and gamma-ray bursts can create the same level of energy, but only for a few minutes. Gamma ray bursts are generated by hypernova, which are simply very large supernova, the collapse of a stars with masses 100 to 200 times that of the sun. Contrary to the lies designed to create confusion, which appear on the National Geographic so-called Discovery Channel “How the Universe Works” programs, not all early galaxies possessed enough mass to produce a quasar. There is no evidence for example, that the Milky Way Galaxy, as claimed by Micho Kaku & Co. was a quasar! The Supermassive Black Hole at its center is far too small! And the mass extinction on Earth 440-450 million years ago was undoubtedly NOT caused by a gamma ray burst from a hypernova, but from the continental drift of a large landmass (Gondwana) into the south polar region causing a global temperature drop, glaciation and lowering of sea level which destroyed 60% of habitats around the continental shelves at a time when all life was confined to the seas and oceans. Evidence documenting this was found in deposits in the Sahara Desert.
All observed quasar spectra have red shifts between 0.06 and 6.5. Applying Hubble's law to these red shifts, it can be shown that they are between 780 million and 28 billion light-years away, a measurement which is NOT due to gravitational lensing, although this has been reported for some extremely bright quasars. This is proof that the Universe itself is at least 28 billion years old! So the most recent “estimates” of the Hubble Constant and the actual age of the Universe by NASA, Wendy Freedman and company and the media (a privatized arm of the U.S. “intelligence community”) are obviously TOTALLY FALSE! (See below.) The process of quasar formation occurred regularly in the early Universe in the formation of galaxies with huge densely concentrated gas and stars. It should be obvious that the first galaxies to form in the Universe generally contained the highest volume and concentration of gas, which in turn created the highest concentration and densities of stars. The Supermassive Black Holes at the center of those early galaxies became quasars. Galaxies without such high densities of matter develop more along the lines of our own Milky Way Galaxy and Andromeda, for example. Formation of galaxies is still occurring but generally they do not become quasars because the volume and density of gas is insufficient. An exception is 3C 273 in the constellation Virgo which is only 33 light years away with a luminosity equal to 2 trillion times that of our sun or about 100 times the total light of the Milky Way. Their discovery by Maarten Schmidt in 1967 was early strong evidence against the totally discredited steady state theory of Fred Hoyle, and in favor of the Big Bang Theory. Blazers, incidentally are the same as quasars but have their perpendicular jets in direct alignment with our galaxy, while quasars have their jets pointed away in another direction.
As part of the escalating campaign of Big Lies, in March 2009 NASA made the totally disingenuous statement on a National Geographic Channel so-called “Naked Science” show that “while black holes are associated with galaxies we (who we?) do not yet know what that relationship is!” (!) And on May 17, 2010, Michelle Thaler of NASA disingenuously stated: “We do not know which comes first the galaxy or the Black Hole” (!) and further falsely stated that when 2 spiral galaxies collide the result is an elliptical galaxy “which does not spin!” This is another Big Lie and demonstrates a very systematized structure of lies. The truth is that the elliptical galaxy in this case is only a temporary structure. The Black Holes, which drove the 2 colliding spiral galaxies, combine and a larger spiral galaxy is formed. The motive for that feigned ignorance/Big Lie by the misnamed “intelligence community” is to try to obscure the documented reality that the matter of all galaxies is entering black holes as part of the ongoing contraction of the Universe, which begins shortly after the Big Bang and takes places simultaneously with the process of expansion and finally becomes dominant. As explained herein expansion of the Universe has slowed down enormously since the Big Bang and will be overtaken by the process of contraction until all mass in the Universe has again entered the final Black Hole, the so-called final Singularity in the Big Crunch. At that point there will be another Big Bang and another Universe will begin. In addition, NASA and other government propagandists have attempted to overemphasize the accretion disk/jet phenomenon and the huge energy produced as matter enters a black hole or quasar, almost to make it appear that black holes and quasars are “expelling” matter as much as drawing it in, virtually standing black holes on their head and falsely ascribing all sorts of false “observations” to black holes, in order to divert focus from the primary role of black holes as the mechanism or engine of contraction of the Universe and the beginning of the Big Crunch!
One example is the false claim by the fraudster, James Geach, hyped in the July 7, 2009 New York Times by the determined “intelligence community” propagandist Dennis Overbye, that black holes fueled so-called Lyman alpha “blobs,” glowing clouds of gas in the early universe. But that lie was immediately refuted with the obvious explanation that cold gas streaming into a protogalaxy would heat up and glow from the gravitational energy alone! (See: “Lyman Alpha Blobs as an Observational Signature of Cold Accretion Streams into Galaxies” by Mark Dijkstra and Abraham Loeb, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, June 5, 2009.) These fraudulent NASA/U.S. government propagandists hope that most viewers know absolutely nothing and will believe virtually anything that they are told by someone claiming to be a “scientist” or “professor” and that most people will not do their own research, or will remain at least confused and vulnerable to their next bizarre fantastical claim. That is why the information which appears here should be forwarded by email and networked in every possible way nationally and internationally in order to counter the U.S. capitalist dictatorship’s Big Lies. The objective of the capitalist dictatorship is to render the population more susceptible to their lies in every area including politics and economics, which also have little to no basis in reality. The capitalist dictatorship also resorts to the come on of “naked science” in order to try to sex-up their Big Lie propaganda in theoretical astrophysics, while simultaneously presenting some truthful “Naked Science” reports in other areas and in other National Geographic programs in order to help their Big Lies blend in.
In response to the heavy push on the so-called “History Channel,” etc. it should be noted that the Theory of the Big Bang was first proposed by Georges-Henri Lemaître, who had both a PhD in physics and was an ordained priest. Lemaître studied at the University of Leuven, the University of Cambridge, Harvard and MIT. The little read report was first published in 1927 in the Annales de la Société Scientifique de Bruxelles (Annals of the Scientific Society of Brussels) and later in Nature: G. Lemaître, The Beginning of the World from the Point of View of Quantum Theory, Nature” 127 (1931), n. 3210, pp. 706. Lemaître called it “the hypothesis of Primeval Atom” and also referred to it as "the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation," with the word “creation” obviously reflecting his religious bias. As explained above the Universe did not originate from a single point less than the size of a single molecule as falsely proposed by the string theorists, who now are pushing Lemaître. As explained above the end point of all matter in the Big Crunch is a Single Black Hole, the so-called “Singularity.” As mentioned all Black Holes have the same mass density, which is said to be infinite, and which vary only in actual mass depending on how many stars and how much nuclear material they contain. The only difference is the difference in mass, which is constantly increasing as matter changes from its energy form when entering a Black Hole according to m=E/c2, Einstein’s formula from the Special Theory solved for mass. See cited article in Nature, November 21, 2008. The Singularity contains the combined mass of all nuclear material from all stars and gas in the Universe. The designation: “Big Bang Theory” first derived from a derogatory reference to the theory of an expanding Universe by Fred Hoyle on the BBC in March 1949 over 20 years after it was first proposed. The truth as explained above and herein is that the processes of expansion and contraction of the Universe coexist from shortly after the Big Bang until finally the process of contraction becomes dominant and there is a Big Crunch followed by another Big Bang and formation of another Universe.
It is a fact that Lemaître applied Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity to Cosmology, but was NOT a spearhead of religion supposedly leading physics as Lemaître is presently falsely being portrayed on the so-called “History Channel.” Lemaître also preceded Edwin Hubble in deriving what became known as Hubble’s Law and even calculated the Hubble Constant but was not able to prove the linear relation which Hubble did in 1929. Lemaître has rarely been given the credit he is due for first proposing the Big Bang Theory for 3 reasons: 1.) The theory of an expanding Universe was opposed at the time he first proposed it by Einstein and others, 2.) For political-religious reasons explained herein the capitalist dictatorship has always opposed the Big Bang Theory because the natural logic of a Big Bang implies a Big Crunch and a cyclic nature of the Universe rather than a single creation which leaves the most room for “a creator” and 3.) U.S. nationalism/jingoism, where the U.S. capitalist dictatorship always prefers that whenever possible credit be given to an American. Edwin Hubble was an American lawyer. Although Lemaître had received numerous Belgian and international scientific honors only recently have the capitalists been pushing Lemaître in order to focus on the fact that he was a priest and that his theory speaks of a moment of “creation.” The so-called “History Channel” focuses on this language in an attempt to inject the sophisticated form of neo-creationism/intelligent design also espoused by Francis Collins, Obama’s new choice for head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). See below. Both Michio Kaku and Stephen Hawking have also now identified themselves as neo-creationists/”intelligent design” advocates! See below.
The Hubble Constant is a calculation of the speed at which the Universe is expanding and is crucial in calculating the age of the Universe. Four methods have been used to estimate the Hubble Constant and age of the Universe. The most recent method employed by Allan R. Sandage, et al measures: 1.) the distances to Type 1a Supernovae explosions in distant galaxies and then 2.) confirms those measurements by comparing the relative luminosities of Cepheid variable stars as so-called “standard candles,” while Wendy Freedman’s NASA team uses Cepheid Variable stars alone, which is a lot less accurate. Freedman’s method especially is an easy method in which to either err or to deliberately falsify results as she and her NASA team have clearly done. (See below.) The typical errors in calculating the Hubble Constant include: 1.) “the universal, yet unjustified Period-Luminosity relation of Cepheid (variable stars), 2.) neglect of selection bias in magnitude-limited samples or 3.) the errors which are inherent to the adopted models, which cause most values of the Hubble Constant and corresponding estimates of the age of the Universe to be incorrect as explained in detail in the most comprehensive review which has yet been published, which also includes the Sandage team’s most recent calculation of the Hubble Constant to date of 62.3 +or–1.3, which is based on measurements to 279 galaxies: “The expansion field: the value of the Hubble Constant,” by G.A Tammann, A. Sandage and B. Reindl, Astron Astrophys Rev (2008), 8 July 2008, 15:289-331, DOI 10.1007/s00159-800-9912-y. ((Allan Sandage died on November 13, 2010.)
This value of the Hubble Constant corresponds to an age of the Universe of approximately 13.7 billion years, which should be sufficient to permit the Big Crunch. However even this method of calculation of the Hubble Constant, which as exhaustively explained and documented by Allan Sandage et al, is fraught with potential errors cited above, which Sandage takes account of and systematically avoids. As mentioned above Wendy Freedman and Co. on the other hand use only Cepheid variable stars in their “calculations” and deliberately include faulty (fraudulent) data in their calculations as explained to this writer personally by Allan Sandage, therefore making Freedman & Co.’s method of determination of the Hubble Constant even easier to falsify. Such data is systematically excluded by Sandage, et al., as explained above. In response to the withering but suppressed critique by Sandage et al, known primarily only to other astrophysicists who follow these matters, Freedman has published a slew of pathetic papers addressing such topics as “correction of errors involving optical extragalactic background light (EBL), sampling-induced errors, magnitude errors, and random and optimal sampling,” etc. where she always comes up with ridiculously high (fraudulent) values for the Hubble Constant. Fraudulent data was necessary for Freedman & Co. to reinvent the entirely fictitious so-called “dark energy,” Einstein’s “Cosmological Constant,” (“My greatest blunder!” See below), which is declared to be “the opposite of gravity” and which has no scientific explanation whatsoever, but is falsely proffered as “the reason” the capitalist dictatorship and its media (and textbook) propagandists now falsely state that the expansion of the Universe has unexplainably “speeded up,” a “finding” which violates all previous findings not to mention all known rules of physics including the General Theory of Relativity! In other words this finding is totally invented, totally fabricated, a Big Lie to end all Big Lies! All designed to achieve the political-religious-propagandistic objective of a single “genesis.” See below. Legitimate opposing viewpoints are simply ignored and in practice not permitted to be heard! How jolly!
Regarding the most recent results given above for the Hubble Constant, this writer would still prefer to accept Sandage’s previous calculation of 55 +or-5, which has been repeatedly established in papers from 1975, 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1995, although it may certainly be possible that the 62.3 +or-1.3 value is the most accurate and it is certainly can be argued that 55 +or-5 is not that far removed from the new figure. The reason for this caution is that Allan Sandage was 82 years old at publication and although he was 100% intellectually intact and in control of all of his faculties his name is listed second in the above paper indicating that he himself may not have collected the data used in the calculation giving 62.3 +or-1.3 for the Hubble Constant. This writer has not spoken or corresponded with the other members of his team, as this writer has, with Allan Sandage. Sandages’s team also often includes A. Saha who was not included in the above paper, so this writer can not rule out alteration of the raw data to give a falsely high Hubble Constant by certain personnel who might be bribed by the NASA forces in charge of the Key Project, which was set up determined to achieve a certain result come hell or high water. This issue is important enough to the capitalist dictatorship so that they would leave no stone unturned to tweak the results in their direction for reasons explained further below. In addition, we are reminded that the Redshift of some quasars actually puts the age of the Universe at 28 billion years! See above. Because of this fact and previous calculations of the age of the oldest stars which are in a similar range, it can not be ruled out that the computer program used for collecting light data from stars from modern telescopes in the “Key Project” may have been written in such a way as to deliberately give false values in order to increase the Hubble Constant and thereby reduce the age of the Universe as calculated by the “standard candles” method.
The U.S. so-called “intelligence community” organized the so-called “Key Project” in order to cover up the cyclic nature of the Universe from Big Bang to Big Crunch. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was built primarily for the “Key Project.” This is an important point. The capitalist dictatorship chose Wendy Freedman to lead the project rather than the obvious choice, Allan Sandage, the legendary, most preeminent and world-renowned astrophysicist as well as the number one authority on the Hubble Constant along with his internationally renowned group of astrophysicist colleagues. See above. The reason was that Sandage’s studies up to that point had shown the Universe to be “between 14 and 18 billion years old, depending on what is assumed about the mass of the Universe.” This corresponds to a Hubble Constant, which he and colleagues had repeatedly calculated to be 55 +or-5 as cited above. An older age and smaller Hubble Constant, of course, would mean that the Universe contained easily enough matter to permit the Big Crunch, which is the key point the capitalist propagandists want to discredit because that would rule out a single creation and make the existence of a god, for which there is no scientific evidence whatsoever, even more unlikely! This is the actual statecraft behind the “Key Project.” (See further below.)
Freedman’s initial claim that the Universe was only 8 billion years old was obviously fraudulent, as have been all of her subsequent “estimations.” All of Freedman’s estimations of the age of the Universe and the Hubble Constant have been designed to try to fraudulently invalidate (!) the Big Bang, the Big Crunch especially and the cyclic nature of the Universe in particular. The preposterous claim of an 8 billion year age is a direct attack on the Big Bang, which has been verified worldwide. In her initial unrestrained enthusiasm to falsify and misinterpret her own data (see above) Freedman forgot about the 1.) Red shift discovered by Edwin Hubble (see below) and 2.) the detection of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which is the residual effect of the Big Bang both of which exist as irrefutable evidence for the Big Bang origin of the Universe! In January 2003 Freedman was made the Director of the Carnegie Observatories located in Pasadena, California where Allan Sandage works thereby placing her above him as a maneuver to make her fraudulent estimates of the Hubble Constant appear more authoritative in the public eye!
Note that even AFTER the 1965 discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Penzias and Wilson and its confirmation by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite in 1989 that its measurement produced a curve precisely matching a Planck curve, which most scientists have accepted as proof that the radiation is indeed from the beginning of the universe, the capitalist dictatorship has still made efforts to continue to try to deny the existence of the Big Bang, even publishing books with 466 pages (!) attacking the Big Bang such as the 1991 rubbish: “The Big Bang Never Happened” (!) by the totally discredited Eric Lerner. Anyone using simple inductive reasoning would immediately begin to smell a rat! Since the capitalist dictatorship and its media have not been able to refute the Big Bang they have now focused all their efforts in trying to refute the Big Crunch. The capitalist dictatorship has a long history of political meddling and sabotage in virtually all fields of scientific and medical research and a history of using scientific advances against the masses in order to control them and also to reduce the population according to their own perceived needs, e.g. from Bio-warfare to Bio-fuels (through enforced starvation, falsely portrayed as seeking “energy independence” and “clean energy.”).
NASA Propagandists Have Now Concocted the Fraudulent “theory of the
Big Rip” In Order to Try to Counter the Reality of the Big Crunch and
The Information which Appears Here now Found All Over the Internet!
NASA in a new propaganda blitz using their standard Big Lie technique in order to try to refute the information, which appears here and all over the Internet, has pushed back hard with the totally discredited claims on the National Geographic Channel beginning in March 2009 that 1.) “dark matter” forms a supposed “filamentous superstructure” of the universe from the very beginning of the Big Bang until the present 2.) the fictitious “dark energy” will supposedly eventually “become so strong” that it will overcome all 4 primary forces including the strong force, which holds quarks and gluons together to form protons, neutrons and other particles, so that that the entire Universe will then supposedly “fly apart ripping apart galaxies, stars, planets and eventually every speck of matter in a fantastical end to time” in what the fraudulent propagandist Robert Caldwell describes as “the Big Rip.” This is also known as the theory of the flat universe. There is no “filamentous superstructure of the universe held together by dark matter.” And phantasmagorical images of galactic superclusters do NOT prove the existence of a “filamentous superstructure” and are simply a photographic effect due to the enormous luminosity of such dense accumulations of stars. As mentioned above the great wall of galaxies is not due to a “dark matter superstructure” but is simply due to the irregularities in the Big Bang explosion, which was not uniform as in any explosion. Such brainwash already appears in the astrophysics textbooks of the capitalist dictatorship! We recommend that it be exposed as a Big Lie whenever and wherever it is encountered.
The capitalist cosmologists/propagandists have demonstrated that they can not coherently reply to any of the arguments advanced in this Materialist Analysis of Theoretical Astrophysics except through contrived, feigned ignorance, information overload and MORE totally outrageous, bizarre Big Lies, which require a religious-like faith (in the case of dark energy and dark matter, for example ) to actually believe them—their overall objective in the first place as explained here. So do not be intimidated by the doctoral degrees which they award themselves or the exalted positions held by these above-mentioned frauds in order to try to legitimize their lies and to try to control and monopolize this field as they try to do with all others. These false propagandists/ “cosmologists” keep up a truly relentless barrage of lies in the major media and even physics journals and on TV with a never ending stream of phantasmagoric images blending and cascading one into another to try to help prove their scripted Big Lies, for example, the existence of “dark matter,” which they laughably claim is so dominant that it forms the “superstructure of the universe” but which they supposedly have only been able to detect as “two tiny pulses of heat deposited over the course of two years...” New York Times, December 18, 2009, a frankly pathetic false “finding” which the article admits is “no proof” but “tantalizing” (?) an adjective carefully chosen to try to make it appear as if everyone were are all rooting to try to prove their Big Lie. The reality is that there is no “dark matter.” Claims on the National Geographic Discovery Channel and elsewhere in April-May 2010 that “gravitational lensing and cosmological expansion rates” have “confirmed” its existence are totally fabricated! Gravity, not dark matter, is responsible for ALL gravitational lensing and that is where it gets its name. And there is NO “large halo of unseen matter (an oxymoron!) extending beyond the visible stars.” But according to Michio Kaku & Co., “Dark matter is in a struggle with dark energy and dark energy wins in the end in the Big Rip!” Not a WORD about gravity! And according to Michio Kaku and the NASA propagandists, eventually stars will all simply “blink out and the universe will be dark…again!? The age of stars will be over!” Kaku just makes it up in a jumble as he goes along. Anything for his cause! But what is his cause? See below.
It can also be predicted that the capitalist dictatorship will take over the science, if they have not already done so, of the new Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and highest energy particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland, when it finally goes on line in order to try to continue to concoct the existence of “dark matter” and “dark energy” as well as the “Higgs Boson,” the so-called “god particle,” which is reputed to be “the particle which may impart mass to all other particles after the Big Bang.” The Higgs Boson is a hypothetical massive scalar elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model in particle physics. At present there are NO known elementary scalar particles in nature. There are numerous Higgsless models, which do not depend on the Higgs Boson or Higgs Field. The top contender presently is the Three-Site Higgsless model. Whether or not the Higgs Boson exists or does not exist, its importance has been completely overstated in any case, in order that in the event of its discovery the media may falsely claim to have “proved” the existence of “god!” In any case, the Higgs Boson has absolutely nothing to do with “god” and no reputable physicist has ever made such a claim. The capitalist dictatorship is desperate and reeeediculous! So do not be intimidated by their Big Lies.
Through brazen false arguments and bizarre false analogies these phony “cosmologists” who control the airways and media, have even attempted to up the ante and generate maximum confusion by trying to brainwash people into believing that the laws of physics and theoretical astrophysics, such as the Laws of Quantum Mechanics, the Special Theory of Relativity and General Theory of Relativity, etc. are “not immutable” and are in a process of “constant evolution” supposedly like species of animals in Charles Darwin’s “The Evolution of Species.” The laws of physical science are thus directly compared to the evolution of species of animals! Einstein therefore supposedly only has “temporary relevance” giving virtually every kind of science fiction a basis in “reality.” (See: “Beyond Einstein,” Discover Magazine, April 2010). Einstein is also falsely quoted as believing in god: “learning to read the laws of physics is like reading the mind of god.” See comprehensive section on Einstein below.
The author of the Discover Magazine article moreover disingenuously announces: “physicists should not spin any theories that require the existence of things such as multiverses, that cannot be disproved.” This carefully contrived statement implies that because “multiverses,” etc. supposedly cannot be disproved these fraudsters do not have to actually PROVE any piece of science fiction currently being passed off as “science.” They imply that is the duty of genuine theoretical physicists to disprove every false theory used to bombard the public domain by the misnamed, so-called “intelligence community” led by heavily hyped characters such as Michio Kaku or Stephen Hawking. The Materialist Analysis of Theoretical Astrophysics disproves their primary concoctions and it is a rule of the Court that a witness caught in one lie in testimony does not merit any further credibility by the Jury. This is especially true in science where it is clear that, above all else, Kaku, & Co., are straining at the leash to inject confusion into basic physics and are forced to tell many lies in order to try to achieve their objectives. Their motives to create confusion are explained above. The title of the Discover Magazine article was incidentally borrowed from the very title of a 1987 book by “intelligence community” fraudster, Michio Kaku, wherein Kaku tried to popularize so-called “String Theory,” concocted in the effort to try to supplant Quantum Mechanics. See below. It should be noted that Kaku, who hides his specious, bogus so-called “Beyond Einstein science,” behind a phony slick and unctuously triumphal presentation, is equally at home passing off science fiction e.g. “parallel universes, time warps, time travel and the tenth dimension” as science as he is relentlessly fabricating false theories designed to compete with and supplant the natural laws of physics and to confuse as many people as possible behind a mantle of genuinely false knowledge. Based on only ONE non-cyclic Big Bang, Michio Kaku’s “String Theory” is thus a back door to Creationism! Michio Kaku now openly describes himself as a neo-creationist! See below.
There is no such thing as “Dark Energy”. And there was no “inflationary epoch” in the Big Bang, which supposedly “caused the Universe to expand faster than the speed of light.” It did not! The so-called “Theory of Inflation” which attempts to supplant entirely the standard model of the Big Bang with “dark energy” AKA “vacuum energy” is also a total fraud! (See below) Nor has the Universe suddenly increased its rate of expansion as falsely claimed by these frauds as supposed “proof of its existence.” Just the opposite! The rate of expansion of the Universe has continued to slow since the Big Bang! All previous observations have indicated that is the case! While the Red Shifts of the most distant galaxies do indicate they are receding much more rapidly than closer galaxies this is because their light originated closer to the time of the Big Bang when the expansion rate was greater, but that is not the situation today. It should therefore be noted that although we may be able to receive light from galaxies which started its journey near the beginning of star formation and galactic formation, that light does not portray the reality at this point in time of the galaxy which was the source of that light. The reality is that today most of the Universe is undoubtedly relatively uniform in its development today except where, for example, there are huge clouds of gas from super novae explosions or where there are huge accumulations of matter such as the Great Wall of galaxies, the latter of which formed due to the irregularities which occurred in the Big Bang just as in any other explosion. In other words the light from our own galaxy, the Milky Way, would appear to an observer from the most distant galaxies to be receding at the same rate that their light is receding from our own galaxy! This should be a no-brainer but is rarely if ever mentioned. The only viewpoint which is ever mentioned is from the Earth as if it were the center of creation. Which it is not!
The Universe is not open! Just like the Earth itself the spatial curvature of the Universe is NOT FLAT! It is CLOSED! In reality there are no “multiple universes,” which “pop out of Black Holes” or by any other explanation. A Universe arises ONLY from a Big Bang! Although mass is infinite in a Black Hole (see above), Critical Mass does not exist! Critical Mass is attained only in the Final Singularity, when all matter in the Universe comes together in one spot in the Big Crunch prior to the Big Bang. The point when Critical Mass is reached is the point when a Big Bang occurs! See above. This is why the Large Hadron Collider cannot reproduce either the Big Bang or even a Black Hole. The reason for this is that even a Black Hole can form only when a Blue Giant star of sufficient mass collapses. This can not occur in the Large Hadron Collidor no matter how high the energies attained or how “large” the collidor itself may be claimed to be!!
Stephen Hawking’s claimed existence of “exploding miniature Black Holes,” which “permit particles to leak out in a quantum process” (!), eventually causing Black Holes to “EVAPORATE” (!), due to the pretentiously designated, so-called: “Hawking Evaporation,” or to “finally explode entirely” is based on fraudulent “String Theory” related mathematics and is baseless nonsense. Note that so-called “Hawking radiation” has NEVER BEEN OBSERVED and is ENTIRELY FICTITIOUS! Hawking’s wild claims were based on the fact that on a visit to the USSR in 1974 the Soviet physicist Alexander Starobinsky told Hawking that according to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, rotating black holes should create and emit particles. (!) Oh? But the truth is that in a Black Hole or “Singularity” the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and ALL LAWS OF PHYSICS DO NOT APPLY and DO NOT EVEN EXIST! Starobinsky WOULD have known that fundamental fact and it cannot be ruled out that in the middle of the Cold War he may have recognized that Hawking was such a nut-job ego tripper that he would fall for virtually anything in order to make a big splash for himself in physics. And the question immediately arises, if Starobinsky really thought he had made such a profound discovery why didn’t he come out with it himself? In any case there is no radiation whatsoever of any type emitted from any Black Hole itself! Nevertheless, such absurd and ridiculous claims are given credence in the media and given a heavy push on the phony “science” magazines and TV shows mentioned above and on websites which permit NO COMMENT!
It was also announced on the highly discredited “Naked Science” National Geographic (Discovery) Channel with NO PROOF WHATSOEVER and with no legitimate counter-arguments ever permitted, the totally bizarre claim that Michio Kaku’s “String Theory” is “the best explanation of the origin of the Universe,” which it most certainly is NOT! On that program Hawking and “String Theorists” absurdly stated: “the Big Bang occurred when gravity weakened” (!) because “after the Big Bang gravity (supposedly) entered the 7 to 9 extra dimensions (in “String Theory”) and was weakened.” Duh! Such rubbish! (!) Finally, after presenting one concoction after another for almost an hour falsely dressed up as “science,” the April 20, 2010 “Naked Science” program (which is to be repeated!), apparently in a pathetic attempt to try to save face and keep some semblance of credibility among the growing majority of those who see through their lies, concluded with the unexpected disclaimer: “There is only one catch! There is no proof for any of this!” Right! But since then there have been no more disclaimers of these relentlessly pushed Big Lies! Parenthesis added.
There is also no “time travel” in a practical sense either despite the phenomena of time dilation described in Einstein’s Special Theory and gravitational time dilation described in Einstein’s General Theory, which was actually confirmed in the Pound-Rebka experiment. And there are no “wormholes.” These fraudsters intone Einstein’s name by falsely claiming that there are “two valid solutions” to the General Theory of Relativity which contain “wormholes.” This is a Big Lie! Neither “solution” cited is actually valid! The first type falsely postulated, the “Schwarzchild wormhole,” which they also falsely designate with the label “Einstein-Rosen bridges” (!?), depends on a Black Hole, “which has no charge and no angular momentum!” But ALL Black Holes rotate and thus have angular momentum! (See above.) The second type, the so-called “traversable wormholes,” would require the existence of “exotic (non-baryonic) matter,” which does NOT exist and which itself would violate energy conditions specified in the General Theory and would require changing space-time topology and would require regions of negative energy, which also do not actually exist in the known Universe. At best this is all mathematical imaginings of those who want to be “the next Einstein.” Einstein himself realized that his later mathematical attempts to formulate a Grand Unified Theory were simply incorrect and were not leading in the right direction. In addition, there are no “strings.” “String Theory” is a mathematical attempt to try to refute, compete with and supplant, NOT EXPLAIN, the Theory of Quantum Mechanics, the foundations of particle physics which were established during the first half of the twentieth century by Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, etc.! See below for the most likely ready solution to the Grand Unified Theory.
On July 22, 2010 on the so-called “History Channel” Michio Kaku brazenly also falsified the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle! That principle states simply that pairs of physical properties, such as position and momentum, cannot simultaneously be known to arbitrary precision. The more precisely one property is measured, the less precisely the other can be measured. In other words, the more you know the position of a particle, the less you can know about its velocity, and the more you know about the velocity of a particle, the less you can know about its instantaneous position. In his false presentation of “parallel universes,’ which also involved countless other falsifications of basic physics, Kaku stated that Heisenberg stated that one particle can be in two positions simultaneously! Heisenberg never ever even suggested that!
Recent Findings Document that the Mass of the Universe
Increases as Matter Enters a Black Hole and the Final Singularity!
This Finding Totally Refutes Infinite Expansion of the Universe
And “String Theory!” The Fact That Neutrinos Have Mass Also
Provides Further Basis For the Big Crunch!”
The false claim that there is supposedly insufficient matter in the Universe to permit the Big Crunch to take place is entirely refuted by 2 discoveries. Perhaps even more significant than the work on neutrinos discussed below is the paper published on November 21, 2008 in Science. More than 99% of the visible mass of the Universe is made up of protons and neutrons. Recent calculations of the mass of the nucleus found that matter, which is composed of protons and neutrons, which are in turn are composed of quarks held together with gluons by the strong force, normally exists as 95% energy, according to the formula from Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity: E=mc2! This provides further confirmation for the Big Crunch! Why? The reason, not drawn as a conclusion by the authors of the paper, is that in a Black Hole and moreover in the final Black Hole, the “Singularity,” that relationship would be 100% reversed, with all matter existing in the form of mass: m=E/c2. The mass of the Universe would therefore increase according to these findings as matter enters a Black Hole as energy shifts to its mass equivalent! (Science, November 21, 2008, Vol. 322, 5905:1198-1199 and 1124-1127. Obviously this is the precise opposite of what occurs in a nuclear explosion where matter is converted entirely to energy according to the equation E=mc2. On the other hand such tidbit reports as “Excess Particles From Space may Hint at Dark Matter,” (Science, Vol. 322, 5905:1173) are only red herrings meant to titillate, to keep attention diverted away from focusing on key findings of genuine significance. There is no such thing as “dark matter.” In another important point, the Second Law of Thermodynamics does NOT prevent the Big Crunch because 1.) the energy of the Universe is entirely converted to mass in Black Holes and the Final Singularity in accordance with Einstein’s equation solved for mass: m=E/c2 and 2.) ALL laws of physics break down and do not apply in a Black Hole! There is no exception for the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
The discovery that neutrinos have mass also provides a further basis for the Big Crunch. This fact was first reported on July 1, 1998 by a collaboration of 120 U.S. and Japanese physicists at the Neutrino 98 meeting in Takayama, Japan and submitted to Physical Review Letters. (By Super-Kamiokande Collaboration (Y. Fukuda et al.) Phys.Rev.Lett.81:1562-1567,1998.) Neutrinos have sufficient weight to allow the Big Crunch! The experiment measured the differences in mass of the three types of neutrinos to be 0.1 eV or greater. The group reported that the simplest interpretation of the solar and atmospheric results is that the heaviest neutrino has a mass of 0.1 eV. However, they reported that since oscillations between the 3 types of neutrinos depend only on the differences in mass it is possible that the masses of all three neutrinos are fully 1 eV or greater, but that it is the mass differences which are much smaller. (They allow for the “possibility.” How nice! They know that the majority of physicists do not simply automatically accept the interpretation which is first proffered.)
This makes the most sense and is of course suppressed for political reasons. (See below.) If the mass of the neutrino is 1 eV that would mean that neutrinos account for more mass in the Universe than all of the protons and neutrons put together easily supplying the supposed “missing matter” necessary for the Big Crunch. As mentioned the critical mass density required for the Big Crunch to occur is 1 x 10 to the negative 29th of a gram per cubic centimeter (approximately 5 hydrogen atoms per cubic meter), according to the calculation from the General Theory of Relativity. In addition, the fact that neutrinos have mass also provides the basis for the Grand Unified Theory which links the gravitational force described in the General Theory of Relativity with the strong and the weak forces and electromagnetism described in the Theory of Quantum Mechanics. Einstein struggled and failed to formulate this theory, but it has already been shown that at high enough energies electromagnetism and the weak force are the same force known as the electroweak force. It is theorized that if energies are increased even further and neutrinos acquire mass, which has now been fully documented, all the known forces will reduce to the same force thus providing the basis for the Grand Unified Theory. This high energy level existed only during the very early expansion of the Universe known as the Planck Epoch, which existed up to 10 to the negative 43rd seconds after the Big Bang, where the four fundamental forces — electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force and gravitation — all had the same strength. After that point the energy level decreased and gravity separated from the other 3 fundamental forces and with the condensation of matter into the elementary particles (quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons) formed the so-called Standard Model of today’s Universe. These facts, while available, are de-emphasized by the capitalist dictatorship propaganda machine with the false claim that “no one—not even Einstein—has been able formulate the Grand Unif
Why did Professor Hawking wait for over 20 years before acknowledging Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem as ruling out a complete Theory of Everything (TOE)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn all-encompassing TOE would not only include a logical derivation of the fundamental laws from a set of root mathematical axioms but would extend this logical derivation to every possible phenomenon in the universe as a mathematical statement.
This is the definition of the TOE used by Professor Hawking, as evidenced, for instance, by his including the Goldbach conjecture formulated as a physical problem – in terms of wooden blocks – as part of “the theory of the universe”, as he puts it in his website.
Applying Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem to the root mathematical axioms shows that the mathematical system is either inconsistent, which we can rule out, or that it is incomplete, ie, there are some true statements of the mathematics – manifest as phenomena in our universe – which cannot be deduced from the root axioms and, therefore, which cannot be predicted from the TOE either, since it is, itself, derived from the root axioms.
The fact that a TOE derived from the root axioms of the type envisaged by Professor Hawking is incapable of predicting all the phenomena in the universe surely deserved a comment!
In The Grand Design, again, no mention is made of Gödel, although this is less surprising if M-theory is regarded as a “conventional” TOE, which does not attempt to explain all phenomena.
However, there is a final twist to the tale. While Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem shows that an all-encompassing TOE, which predicts all phenomena, cannot be derived from the root axioms, it is nevertheless true that a TOE which does predict all phenomena could, in principle, be written down without deriving it. It would simply not be possible to prove, in this universe, that what had been written down was, indeed, the genuine TOE. This, and other aspects of the TOE, are discussed in greater detail in www.godel-universe.com.
PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Old Lady’s TORTOISE (Hinduism) and DRAGON (Taoism) are symbols for WAVE (energy), both are analog with MAGEN DAVID (Judaism). "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is the metaphor, and also similar with allegory of rituals Thawaf circling around the Ka'ba and Sa’i oscillating along “the sinus” Marwah-Shafa (seven times) during the Hajj pilgrimage (Abraham). CROSS (Christian) and SWASTIKA (Buddhism) are symbols for “Balance of Nature.”
"A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME - From the Big Bang to Black Hole" by Stephen W. Hawking is the best scientific interpretation of AL QUR'AN by a non believer. It is also a “genuine bridge stone” for comprehensive study of Theology. Surprise, this paradox is a miracle and blessing in disguise as well. It should be very wise and challenging for Moslem scholars and others to verify my discovery, for then we should know the Mind of GOD.
I am just “ordinary people,” so would you mind correcting my point of view. Thank you.
Couple of things I'd love to know from anyone who's REALLY thought about this (not someone who's just worked numbers or answers from a book... cause to be frank, I've heard it all).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) Beginning. Gas. Suns. Galaxies. Solar Systems. Planets. Life. In that order. You could take from that, that the whole point to the Universe "so far" appears to be to create and support life (for a short time at least). Life (we are proof) that has self consciousness. Doesn't anyone find that really odd. I MEAN REALLY ODD. And unless something weird happens, life will be about the only interesting natural occurrence.
2) Your in darkness. You can't see the edge of space, only the edge of the expanding universe. Inexplicably, the Universe seems to expanding into a vast nothingness. Creating a vast "something-ness" as it goes. You wonder whats going on. Einstein has already told you space and time is stretchy (or relative as he playfully referred to it). You look around. In the center of every galaxy, you see a super massive black hole. You realise there is enough force to not only compress space-time there, but possibly fracture and even completely invert space time. How would the inside of this bubble look if it was stable? You and the space time you occupy would be forever shrinking within it, making it appear to you as if your new "Universe" was ever expanding!
Why doesn't anyone ever take this possibility seriously?
A) Physical events that could support such massive space-time crushing power are observable in our own Universe (super massive black holes). It's not some nob with his head stuck in a maths book talking about elastic bands.
B) Einstein's already done the work for you. Space time is "relative". That means EXACTLY what it says. To you a mile is a mile. To someone seeing you being crushed between two oddly close and very dense suns, you and your space time looks like a piece of spaghetti 3000 miles long and one inch wide (with a nice tan).
I don't care about maths. There is something very wrong with these peoples explanations. They aren't beautifully and naturally simple as all truths of this kind usually are. For me, higgs boson will never be found, it is simply the effect of all space time (and the matter within it) being endlessly compressed inside our Universe (a black hole). Gods, Aliens, A Dream, The Matrix, Eternal Contentiousness; call it what you will, the Universe seems to have been created to support it.
I grantee you this. You will die and almost instantly (to you) wake. Why? Look around. "Entropy man It's a happnin!".