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Space Science

Origin of Antimatter Cloud Discovered 136

Posted by Soulskill from the finding-an-anti-silver-lining dept.
Active Seti brings us news that astronomers have discovered the origin of an enormous antimatter cloud surrounding the galactic center. Data from the European Space Agency's "Integral" satellite indicated that the cloud's distribution is similar to that of a group of binary star systems containing black holes or neutron stars. From NASA's article: "The cloud itself is roughly 10,000 light-years across, and generates the energy of about 10,000 Suns. The cloud shines brightly in gamma rays due to a reaction governed by Einstein's famous equation E=mc^2. Integral found that the cloud extends farther on the western side of the galactic center than it does on the eastern side. Integral found certain types of binary systems near the galactic center are also skewed to the west. Because the two "pictures" of antimatter and hard low-mass X-ray binaries line up strongly suggests the binaries are producing significant amounts of positrons."
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Origin of Antimatter Cloud Discovered More

Origin of Antimatter Cloud Discovered

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  • Um... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Smordnys s'regrepsA ( 1160895 ) on Friday January 11, 2008 @04:36AM (#21996738) Journal
    ...I feel stupid saying this, but...
    In English, please?

    • Re:Um... (Score:5, Informative)

      by SetupWeasel ( 54062 ) on Friday January 11, 2008 @04:45AM (#21996774) Homepage
      "The cloud itself is roughly 10,000 light-years across, and generates the energy of about 10,000 Suns. The cloud shines brightly in gamma rays due to a reaction governed by Einstein's famous equation E=mc^2. Integral found that the cloud extends farther on the western side of the galactic center than it does on the eastern side. Integral found certain types of binary systems near the galactic center are also skewed to the west. Because the two "pictures" of antimatter and hard low-mass X-ray binaries line up strongly suggests the binaries are producing significant amounts of positrons."

      The cloud of antimatter is big and hot. When matter and antimatter come together they produce lots of Gamma rays, and that is happening. There are certain types of neutron stars or black holes that are orbiting in pairs that appear in the same pattern as the cloud or antimatter (positrons) so astronomers think it is likely that the pairs are causing the cloud.
    • "In English, please?"

      It's all explained near the bottom of TFA - "We expected something unexpected, but we did not expect this," says Skinner.
    • 10,000 light years is a very big cloud. Our galaxy is reckoned to be about 60,000 ly diameter (IIRC; that's the diameter of the disc, not the halo) and we are about 2/3 of the way out to the edge of the galactic disc.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by jollyreaper ( 513215 )

      ...I feel stupid saying this, but...
      In English, please?
      In the voice of Ollie the Blackucast weatherman:

      "CLOUDS GO BOOM!"

    • Re:Um... (Score:4, Funny)

      by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation&gmail,com> on Friday January 11, 2008 @10:35AM (#21999534) Journal
      If I weren't heading off to work, I'd tell you the story of Dick (matter) and Jane (antimatter) whose sordid love affair resulted in their eventual meeting and annihilation of their corporeal forms, converting the sum of their body mass into pure energy. Alas, if I were to continue the tale I'd be late for work.
       
    • PEW PEW LAZERS

      It's kind of like that.

  • I won't eat the chilli again.
    I only started after the last gas cloud from my curries occluded polaris.

  • east/west??? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by sveard ( 1076275 )
    Eastern and western side of the galaxy? Right...

    • Re:east/west??? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by famebait ( 450028 ) on Friday January 11, 2008 @05:12AM (#21996922)
      Why is that any more stupid than eastern and western hemispheres of a planet?

      Both designations are arbitrary, but once agreed on they are useful for
      communicating, which is sort of what language is for. Just because _you_
      don't often need to differentiate between far regions of the galaxy doesn't mean
      astronomers don't, and have arranged it so they can.

      • cool/uncool (Score:2, Insightful)

        by denzacar ( 181829 )
        I myself prefer the cool/uncool division of our planet and/or galaxy.

        Its very simple. I just take an arbitrary imaginary line and divide the planet/galaxy along that line.
        The cool part is the one I'm on at the time. Simple.

        Yeah, it sucks a bit for all those uncool people out there but its their own fault really.
        For a price of a plane ticket and a beer they can be on the cool side too.
        Get me a house/job/money/car/female-combo and I might consider making their neighborhood my permanent residence, and thus - c

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by yotto ( 590067 )
      It's entirely subjective, but the Galaxy does have eastern, western, northern, and southern "sides". You can't find them with a compass but when discussing the structure of the galaxy people have to be able to discern one part from another, and using words we already know makes sense.
      • We could call the different parts of our galaxy the alpha, beta, gamma, and delta quadrants.
        • Yeah, of course, why not? Except that that needs someone to tell us where are the quadrants.

          Give a map (that doesn't need rotation) to someone and tell him to place the quadrants. What would he do? There are several different ways to place them, all of which make sense:

          Western Comic: a b
          c d

          Eastern Comic: b a
          d c

          Circunference: b a
          c d

          North-south:

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by SQLGuru ( 980662 )
            Ummm Sci-Fi fans have been dealing with Alpha - Delta quadrants for a while......and I would bet whoever named them North/South/East/West was a Sci-Fi fan and would have understood those terms.

            Layne
            • The point he was making was that calling "Alpha Quadrant" is just as aribtrary as calling it the "Wester portion of the Galaxy". Heck, it's just as arbitrary as calling it "Trish". Anything we use to describe will just a lable assigned to an agreed upon area, so why not use something we're already familiar with?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by SQLGuru ( 980662 )
                And my point was that those of us familiar w/ Sci-Fi are also familiar w/ Alpha Quadrant.....and Alpha Quadrant was already applied in the current context.....East/West is a new application of existing terms instead of an existing application of existing terms.

                Layne

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by joto ( 134244 )

                  So what? Even though you are familiar with [Alpha/Beta/Delta/Gamma] Quadrant, all of the people in the world are familiar with east, west, north, and south, and all of us know where they are in relation to each other. Do you prefer an ambigious system familiar only to people reading bad bad science fiction, or one that is immediately useful and easy to understand for everyone?

                  Arguing that it's a "new application of existing terms" should definitely go in its favour. This is similar to use the word "progra

                • Actually, it's not. One other problem with the Alpha-Delta thing is that their names do not describe their relation to each other. If you know which portion of the galaxy is "North", you can figure out where South, East and West. If you know which area is "Alpha" though, where's Beta? To the left, the right, up, down?

                  While your system would in fact name them, it does not provide an clues to the location of the other sections...which means it's not as good of a system. If you require an example, that's

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by HTH NE1 ( 675604 )

                    If you know which portion of the galaxy is "North", you can figure out where South, East and West.
                    No, what is East from the perspective of one side of the disk would be West from the other side, and knowing North doesn't tell you which is the canonical side of the disk of the galaxy.
                    • As was pointed out elsewhere, you simply go by Galactic rotation. "East" on the Earth is defined as the direction that Earth rotates towards. More simply put, if you're looking at the Earth from above the north pole, then Earth rotates in a clockwise fashion. The direction of rotation is what we call "East", and the reverse of it is what we call "West". (I will concede that you need some sort of agreed upon terminator here, but that's not different from any other system that seeks to divide up an area.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by 2names ( 531755 )
                Heck, it's just as arbitrary as calling it "Trish"

                I believe she changed her name to Trillian.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AJWM ( 19027 )
            Are we looking at the galaxy from "above" (north?) or "below" in those diagrams?

            Does the circumference sequence go spinward or antispinward (trailing)?

            Et cetera, et cetera.
      • I don't know i it is done that way, but you could define the north and south sides of a galaxy (or any rotating object) by looking in which way it rotates around its axe.
    • What you haven't noticed where the great galactic sun sets?
  • Captain Kirk would not want to fly into such a cloud, especially at high speed, as it would eat away at the Enterprise's hull producing lots of gamma ray radiation. Definitely worse than a magnetic storm.
    • But he did! [imdb.com]
      • Yeah, but that was an episode in the animated series, which I considered a poor substitute even when I was a kid and they had just cancelled the original series a few years back. Therefore, you can't expect any self-respecting Trekkie to be familiar with such trivia.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )
      You wouldn't want to take a General Products hull through it either.

  • Quote hurts my brain! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sciros ( 986030 ) on Friday January 11, 2008 @07:25AM (#21997498) Journal
    From TFA:

    "We expected something unexpected, but we did not expect this," says Skinner.
    I really don't have anything to say about it other than... "huhwhat?" If he said something like "we expected something unexpected, and that's what we got," that would be better. But it's 7am on Monday and that doesn't help in any case.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by hcdejong ( 561314 )
      Must have been the Spanish Inquisition...

    • Re:Quote hurts my brain! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Eponymous Bastard ( 1143615 ) on Friday January 11, 2008 @07:50AM (#21997596)

      From TFA:

      "We expected something unexpected, but we did not expect this," says Skinner.
      I really don't have anything to say about it other than... "huhwhat?" If he said something like "we expected something unexpected, and that's what we got," that would be better.
      I'm guessing they were expecting something unexpected but got the Spanish Inquisition instead. A fine astronomy tradition. Even Galileo didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

      But it's 7am on Monday and that doesn't help in any case.
      Ok ... that statement was unexpected ...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sciros ( 986030 )

        But it's 7am on Monday and that doesn't help in any case.
        Ok ... that statement was unexpected ...
        Wow see mornings are bad for me. Even .. Friday ones. Yay it's Friday :3

    • Re:Quote hurts my brain! (Score:4, Funny)

      by IndustrialComplex ( 975015 ) on Friday January 11, 2008 @08:46AM (#21998064)
      We expected something unexpected, but we did not expect this

      They expected whatever expectorated the radiation was an unexpected source. Yet the expectation that they would find the source of exectoration to be quite so unexpected, that the excited scientists exclaimed that such an extraordinary event was quite unexpected. The exact reason for the non-uniform distribution is still unexplained.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Sciros ( 986030 )
        Man you are NOT helping here! Especially with that extra "expect" type word you put in there. And then you also misspelled it later. And the second sentence is more like a sentence fragment. Clearly this article is hurting a lot of people's brains.

        • Re:Quote hurts my brain! (Score:4, Funny)

          by IndustrialComplex ( 975015 ) on Friday January 11, 2008 @09:48AM (#21998802)
          Man you are NOT helping here! Especially with that extra "expect" type word you put in there. And then you also misspelled it later. And the second sentence is more like a sentence fragment. Clearly this article is hurting a lot of people's brains.


          I would eagerly extract and edit the erroneous item. Except the egregeous use of exacting diction to exemplify my etymological interests entails effort. Instead I end it entirely, ere I make an assonance of myself.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by provigilman ( 1044114 )
          Perhaps the giant gas cloud not only has anti-matter but anti-brain particles as well. The more we look at it and talk about, the more we absorb and the less intelligent and easily confused we'll get. Eventually it will get so bad that....Oh, SHINY!!!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by arkham6 ( 24514 )
      It really must have hurt your brain, since its 7am on FRIDAY. ;)

      Or if you want to have fun with the string theorists, it hurts your brane.

  • Journalists strike again (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mapkinase ( 958129 ) on Friday January 11, 2008 @07:49AM (#21997590) Homepage Journal
    Original article [nasa.gov]

    As reported by an international team in the January 10 issue of Nature


    Today is 11th of January and it is still not on the website. Obviously, the author of the article knows in advance about this publication.

    What pisses me off is that he wrote about that in the past tense. Ordinary folks like myself who wanted just to read the peer-reviewed article, not their popularizing crap, are mislead to go there.

    Is it that difficult to write "to be published" instead of "published"?

    Rant off.

    • Re:Journalists strike again (Score:4, Informative)

      by dreamchaser ( 49529 ) on Friday January 11, 2008 @07:57AM (#21997646) Homepage Journal
      Ordinary folks like myself who wanted just to read the peer-reviewed article, not their popularizing crap, are mislead to go there.

      While I would also prefer the peer reviewed article, you're making the false assumption that we're ordinary folk. Most people want the popularizing crap, not the actual science.
      • I meant that characterization of me as ordinary folks was in the context of comparison to the author of the article at NASA website who was privileged to have access to. I admit that my "who wanted just to read the peer-reviewed article" has mislead you.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by joto ( 134244 )
        Actually, I think most people want to read popularized stuff that's well written and explained, by someone who actually understands science, but also knows how to popularize it. I certainly don't want popularized crap written by journalists who don't even understand what they are writing. But maybe that's just me.

    • Today is 11th of January and it is still not on the website.
      [snip]
      Is it that difficult to write "to be published" instead of "published"?

      You realize that Nature is a physical, paper journal? Not a web-only publication like Salon.com or Newsmax.

      Also, frequently these dead tree publications are post-dated so that -- with some luck -- they arrive in the subscriber's snailmail on the date of the issue (or in the case of porn rags, a month earlier), especially the weekly ones.

      Just because it's not on t

      • First of all, if you or your institution is not subscribed you cannot see the full text.

        Second, there is "advanced publications" (or smth like that, it is really inconveniently places apart from the "current issue") section which whole purpose is to appear before the paper copy arrives to your snailbox.
  • Beowulf Shaffer says: Stay away!
  • and what will happen if a normal matter object flies into the antimatter cloud? will it explode?
    • and what will happen if a normal matter object flies into the antimatter cloud? will it explode?

      That is where the observed x-rays are coming from; They are the result of matter-antimatter annihilation.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by aadvancedGIR ( 959466 )
      No (it's way too far way) and yes.

      The existence of such a cloud can only be explained by the massive creation of antimatter (there is most likely also the same amount of regular matter produced but it is probably cast the other way by an electric or magnetic field) that eventualy cleaned a portion of space of all regular matter. Puting any kind of matter into that cloud will result in particule-corresponding antiparticlue reaction into very high energy photon (gamma radiation). If an hypothetical spaceship

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by inviolet ( 797804 )

        If an hypothetical spaceship entered the [antimatter] cloud, I don't know if it will be changed into pure energy almost instantly or not (the violent reaction at the surface of the hull will probably push back the antimatter cloud, and you need the same mass of antimatter to totally disintegrate the introduced matter) but it will be like putting it into a fusion reactor so the crew would die very fast anyway.

        Indeed. This issue is hush-hush, but antimatter is the only thing a General Products hull isn't pr

        • Thinking of it, there could be a working protection from antimatter: if the cloud is ionized, an containment magnetic field could keep those nasty particules away in the same way it keeps the superhot gas far from the hull of a fusion reactor. But if there are anti-neutron or anti-H2 in the gas, you're toast.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by spun ( 1352 )

          Indeed. This issue is hush-hush, but antimatter is the only thing a General Products hull isn't proof against.
          That's why you need a Slaver stasis field. Oh, and GP Hulls may be immune to large tidal forces, say from a neutron star, but unfortunately, the things inside a GP hull are usually not so well constructed.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AJWM ( 19027 )
          antimatter is the only thing a General Products hull isn't proof against.

          Well no, it doesn't work too well against high gravitational gradients (tides) either. Okay, actually the hull resists them just fine, it just doesn't do a good job of protecting the occupants.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Orange Crush ( 934731 ) *
      Probably not much at all would happen to an object traveling through the cloud. I couldn't find any information on how dense the cloud is thought to be, but any "cloud" in space is by its nature going to be extremely diffuse. A few particles impacting a normal matter object passing through is not going to do any noticeable damage and the extra gamma rays are likely a drop in the bucket compared to all the radiation encountered moving closer to the galactic center.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
      I would wonder if any normal matter object could get to that cloud.
      As you got closer there would be more and more really nasty radiation. That might be enough to "destroy" just about any object that you can imagine.
      Plus space is big, really big. You can not just fly into this cloud. As you get closer and closer the object would get hit by more and more antimatter. It would probably tend to erode over time as it flies into this cloud.
      But if an object was going fast enough I would say yes it would make a very
      • Based on the amount of energy they are observing, I'm not sure that this would be the case at all. While it is a huge amount, it is also spread across a region 10,000 lightyears wide. At those distances it may only be 0.01 positrons per cubic mile.

        In contrast, the interstellar medium has a density of a few thousand to a few million atoms per cubic meter.

        Granted my estimate of a maximum of 0.01 positrons per cubic mile is based on their statement of 10,000 ly wide and 10,000 solar energy units. A positr
    • The matter-antimatter annihilation matters not. The matter is too far away to matter.

  • Once again (Score:1, Insightful)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 )
    I don't think it takes an astrophysicist to understand that correlation does not prove causation?

    Facts (as far as I can tell from TFA):
    There's an asymmetry in the positron cloud at the center of the galaxy.
    There is a SIMILAR asymmetry in the distribution of low-mass, x-ray binary stellar systems.

    How do you go from that to some sort of causation?

    By the same logic, fat men and televisions in close proximity are CREATING couches.

    • Television is interesting and fulfilling to the intellectually lazy and/or comforting to the overworked (not everyone is lazy, sometimes they're just tired from slaving away at work). So, it encourages someone to watch. When someone wants to watch, they need a place to sit, so they buy couches. The demand for couches makes someone else want to provide couches. So, couches get made. Therefore, Fat men in proximity to TV's "make" couches. Q.E.D.
    • Well, there is doublt, and common sense. I could shoot you in the head and tell the judge that your death is not related in any way and that he should let me go.
      Antimatter does not spontaneously form inside regular matter galaxies be magic, you need extremely high energy to produce matter-antimatter pairs and particular conditions to separate them before they recombine. The binary system with a black hole that shares the same geometry is simply almost infinitely more plausible source than the void beside.

    • By the same logic, fat men and televisions in close proximity are CREATING couches.

      Aren't they, though? Fat man has TV, but can't properly use it. (No couch to sit on.) He says to the free market, "GIVE ME MY COUCH!" Free market says, "OTAY!" It makes a couch, and it is good.

      Here endeth the lesson.
      • I replied more expansively to an earlier similar comment, but to reply to yours seriously:
        it's possible, yes, that couches are created (by market forces) due to the need for Fat Men to have a place to sit while watching TV.

        I'd assert it's more likely that a comfy couch in proximity to a nice TV is reasonably likely to fatten a randomly present man.

        This allegory illustrates my point. The simple presence of two things together aren't ipso facto a causal relationship, even it seems plausible. Occam's razor a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )
      As someone else pointed out, correlation does not PROVE causation. There is the possibility that a third factor is involved.

      So what's the third factor? Until we identify one, since we have a spatial correlation between something that needs high energy to create it and some stellar objects that are known to provide a high energy environment, we let Occam's razor tell us to prefer the simplest theory.

  • Small Contention (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jekler ( 626699 ) on Friday January 11, 2008 @09:36AM (#21998650)
    "...governed by Einstein's famous equation E=mc^2."

    I think it's important for people to understand that scientific theories and laws don't "govern", they explain things. Einstein's theories don't direct or influence the universe, they're just an observation on how the universe appears to work.

    I know correct grammar on the internet has become a huge point of controversy, but when referring to science there's too much public confusion about how things work. Using words like "govern" in relation to scientific theories is a step towards lending credence to Intelligent Design, like scientific laws are control mechanisms of some "Great Designer".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Empiric ( 675968 )
      "The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming."

      --Freeman Dyson

      "The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron ... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been finely adjusted to make possible the development of life."

      --Step
      • There are so many other explanations besides "Someone set it up that way." If anything were different, we wouldn't be here to notice. One explanation: all possible universes exist, this just happens to be the one that we are in. And the 'design' theory raises the question: what made the designer's universe perfect for It to exist in? Either the designer and Its universe are somehow special, in which case the theory loses any explanatory power it might have had, or an even bigger designer designed our design

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Empiric ( 675968 )
          "And the 'design' theory raises the question: what made the designer's universe perfect for It to exist in?" Sorry, "raising a question" which can be answered plausibly that something eternally existed, and which isn't in-scope of "design of physical laws" anyway (sorry, you don't get to define the scope of an inference to contain whatever you feel like)--hardly "fails" demonstrates. However, feel free to hold your view, that is, until you're Naturally Deselected, anyway.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by spun ( 1352 )
            Okay, if a complex designer can be said to have existed eternally, then why can't a metaverse without a designer eternally exist? If our universe is but a pocket in an eternally existing larger structure, the question of parameter tuning is answered without recourse to designers. Eternity is a long time, within eternity, our universe would eventually come to exist if it possible for it to exist at all.

            You just aren't thinking clearly. It's sad to see how religion destroys some people's logical faculties.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Empiric ( 675968 )
              "Okay, if a complex designer can be said to have existed eternally, then why can't a metaverse without a designer eternally exist?"

              I have nowhere claimed it can't. You're the one whose overextended your argument by claiming mine "fails". I'm avoiding that mistake, due to my relatively-well-functioning logical faculties, and actual argumentative honesty.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by spun ( 1352 )
                You are trying to say that because of the tuning of certain parameters, the universe must be designed, but that the designer himself is eternal and not in turn designed. I'm sorry, but I don't see the logic in that. Either something complex must be designed, or it can exist without being designed. If something complex can exist (eternal or not, doesn't matter for this argument) without being designed, then a complex universe can exist without a designer. If complex things can not exist without a designer, t

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Empiric ( 675968 )
                  I am stating that both positions remain unrefuted, but I consider mine more plausible.

                  To simplify any further discussion of your basic line of reasoning here, I would first need to ask a clarifying question:

                  If I propose that my car is designed, is it your position that this position is invalid unless I further demonstrate how the car's designer was designed (the core of your [that is, Dawkins'] "infinite regress" argument), and additionally formally refute the counterclaim that my car was not designed?

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by spun ( 1352 )
                    A car is not a universe. You can actually show how, why, where, and when a car was designed. As with all car analogies, this one sucks.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Empiric ( 675968 )
                      I'll take that as a "no".

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by spun ( 1352 )
                      Take it as a fudge sundae, it doesn't change the fact that it does not apply to the original argument. It's a very poor analogy, because showing that a car was designed is a trivial observation.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Empiric ( 675968 )
                      Okay, lie.

                      Fact is, your argument is that it is somehow invalid to say something is designed without saying everything is designed. Your claim is destroyed by counterexample.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by spun ( 1352 )
                      Nice strawman. I never said that it is invalid to say that anything is designed without saying that everything is designed. I said that if a complex thing, like the designer of a universe, can exist without being designed itself, then other complex things, like a universe, can also exist without being designed.

                      You may as well give up on this, you only continue to make yourself look foolish.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Empiric ( 675968 )
                      Yes, in fact you have said that, in more-obfuscated terms. You said that proposing design -logically necessitates- that the designer was designed. That is the only reason that there could even theoretically be a chain-of-inference such as an "infinite regression" at all, by what "regression" simply -means-. You stated this as a stand-alone argument, requiring no questions of scale or empirical dependencies whatsoever.

                      Even you don't believe it's me who looks "foolish" here; why would I?

                      Anyway, as I said,

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by spun ( 1352 )
                      Well, I'm sorry I've been a jerk, and I'm not having much fun insulting you anymore. But you still don't get what I'm saying.

                      Let me try to explain. Design does not necessitate that the designer was designed. Rather, an undesigned designer raises the question, if a designer itself needs no designer, why does the universe? That is the major flaw in your argument. You say that the universe needs a designer in order for all the constants to be set right. I say there are many other possible explanations that do

      • "The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been finely adjusted to make possible the development of life."
        --Stephen Hawking
        Personally, "govern", "known", "adjusted", and "intelligence" seem like appropriate terms to me.

        In those quantum realities where you don't exist, those words are not quite so appropriate.

  • How is it that positrons are formed? Where do they come from? Obviously, they weren't just sitting around from the beginning of the universe, otherwise they would have annihilated with electrons a long time ago.

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