Stars Could Shine In Many Universes 309
A commonplace of cosmologists who argue the anthropic principle is the assumption that if any or a few of the constants of nature took on an even slightly different value, life could not have evolved — perhaps even stars and galaxies would not form. Science News reports on a new calculation showing that, to the contrary, star formation could happen in up to one-quarter of universes with different values of three important constants. "In fact, all universes can support the existence of stars, provided that the definition of star is interpreted broadly," said the researcher, Fred Adams. "...calculations suggest that, contrary to some previous claims, stars are not only common in our cosmos but are also ablaze in myriad other universes, where the laws of physics may be drastically different... Had Adams found that the range of parameters that allowed for stars was very small, that would have suggested that the laws of physics in our universe have been 'fine-tuned' to allow for star formation... Instead, Adams' study shows that our universe doesn't seem particularly special in that regard."
Zug zug (Score:5, Funny)
I dont read slashdot for 2 days and I missed the fact that there are more than 1 universes... shit!
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Re:Zug zug (Score:5, Informative)
Taken 4 at a time you come out with something like 8000 different "universes", each with their own physical laws.
The big goal of string theory is to figure out why our 4 dimensions are the uncoiled ones. It may be that those are the only ones that give a stable "universe", or it may be that there are other universes which use a different combination of those dimensions. At this point we just don't know.
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Re:Zug zug (Score:5, Insightful)
You watched NOVA and some SA articles, appear to have utterly failed to comprehend what QM is, but don't worry, /. is the perfect place to make believe that a few dozen TV shows and four or five page articles makes you an expert.
QM is in fact one of the most successful scientific theories in history, predicting and explaining a very large number of phenomena. It's responsible for a goodly portion of the technology you're using right now to broadcast to the world the extent of your idiocy.
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QM has indeed done more then what the gf poster said, and you are indeed correct that it explains a vast number of uncertainties, unfortunatly the more you study QM the more mysteries are added...its like the multi-layered onion that will never unravel.
To me, not sure who said it, but the qoute goes like this: "anyone who claims they understand QM does not understand it." This is what I liken it to after doing more extensive research into it then what the GF poster did. You go into all sorts of branches w
Re:Zug zug (Score:5, Insightful)
That's how you know you have a really powerful theory: when it lets you meaningfully ask more questions. When Newton figured out how gravity worked we could suddenly ask all sorts of questions about planets, stars, solar systems, and other interesting bits of the universe. Quantum mechanics does the same thing for our ability to investigate the very small, and parts of reality itself.
Which part of quantum mechanics are you referring to, that predicts other universes? Do you mean certain interpretations of Feynman's sum over paths method? That's not really a prediction, just a convenient what-if explanation for an interesting trick Feynman figured out for calculating probability waves. It's very interesting, but not a requirement for QM to work.
Re:Zug zug (Score:5, Insightful)
I BELIEVE that Jesus Christ was who he said he was and is, namely God. He demonstrated this by the unique powers over the forces of nature and more importantly over death. However, science cannot observe or demonstrate this and therefore it belongs into the realm of faith, in this case religious faith. Of course, everyone who has faith, believes it to be the truth. Faith can turn out to be true in the end, but it is still faith and will always remain faith, never science.
Just wondering why you chose Christianity over, say, Islam or Buddhism or Shamanism. Feel free to ignore my question if you want, but it always interests me to know why people choose a particular religion (which almost always originated or was historically propagated within their cultural group). Do you apply the concepts of rigorous hypothesis testing to Biblical claims, or do you just accept everything the Bible says (and do you read the original Greek and Aramaic, and why do you discount the apocryphal and gnostic works yet accept the concept of the Trinity, etc.)?
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String theory and other ideas may be beautiful mathematically, but do not belong into the realm of science because it cannot be observed and measured. Just because faith is based mathematics, does not make it science.
I think you're wrong here. String "theories" are not scientific theories just because of what you say. Believing them to be true would be faith based in mathematics.
However, they certainly are science, a scientific work in progress. Just about everything we know about science started as just a crazy idea. Then it might have evolved into a bunch of mathematics, then a testable hypothesis, and then rejected or tweaked or found out to be accurate to the limits of measurement. But all this is part of science, p
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We can observe the workings of quantum mechanics perfectly well in this universe. In fact, we've observed them more accurately than with any other theory, ever.
The weirdness comes in when we start to ask why things work that way. Then we invent explanations like alternate universes, that are consistent with, but not required by, QM. To take your example, Newtonian gravity tells us very well how an object will behave when subjected to a (moderate) gravitational force. But it doesn't tell us anything abou
Re:Zug zug (Score:4, Informative)
I cannot speak for Arminw, but here are the reasons why I believe the Bible.
First, unlike most religious books, much of the Bible is essentially a book about history and the reflections of its worldview as seen in historical events. This historical account has proven to be incredibly accurate -- far more so than any other writings from its time frame. It contains details that have stood up against tremendous scrutiny, and whenever someone thinks they have found an error in its account, archaeology eventually proves that the Biblical account was actually correct from the start (if you want examples, I can give you some, but for the sake of brevity, I will move on).
Further, the textual scrutiny and techniques given to ensure the accuracy of our manuscripts is unparalleled by any other work of ancient writings. The entire Old Testament except for the book of Ester was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls dating back to 100 B.C. These manuscripts were found to be nearly identical to the manuscripts that had been used to translate most versions of the Bible. This means that the Bible we have today -- especially in the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic -- are essentially identical to the original writings with an accuracy that no other ancient document can touch.
These two facts make the writing of the Bible highly reliable as a record of ancient history and culture. If the Bible is so accurate in these little things, it makes me take what it says about God, life, the state of humanity, and how we should live our lives very seriously. It is one of the few religions to state that man is basically evil -- we are all capable of horrendous acts. This, I think, best explains the sorrows and atrocities we see in the world today.
It also explains how our universe came into being. Unlike most religions, it identifies the source of all things while most theories do not. Evolution cannot explain where the matter and energy came from in the first place. The theory of aliens populating our planet does not explain where the aliens themselves came from. Reincarnation does not explain the original source of our souls. Also, where did the laws of our universe come from? Why are we able to describe mathematically how our universe works with accuracy and predictability with formulas that are simple and eloquent? If the universe is run by collective consciousness or random chance, how could such an unchanging and perfect system come into being?
The Bible identifies God as the uncaused cause -- the singularity of eternal existence from which all things derive their existence. God created the laws that govern our universe and ensures that they remain unchanged to this day. The Bible also tells us that far from being an impersonal force, God desires to have a relationship with His creation, and that the Bible was His way of communicating with us.
Regarding the apocryphal and gnostic works, there were rules and procedures for choosing which books were considered scriptural. One of the most important rules was that the author needed to be a witness of Jesus Christ or directly associated with the original Apostles. Many of the gnostic gospels were actually written two to three hundred years after the events of the New Testament. The "Gospel of Judas" was written, for example, around 290 A.D., and its account is such a vast departure from the rest of the gospels, it would be hard to argue its accuracy and be intellectually honest. Another rule was the agreement of these works with the established scriptures -- the Old Testament. In short, it was a rigorous process and ultimately, these excluded works are a red herring. The fundamental aspects of Christianity can be found throughout all of the books of the Bible so that even if you removed some of the existing books, you would lose none of the essential doctrines.
This post is already getting quite long, and so I will pass on a detailed discussion of the Trinity, but it should be noted that the roots of this doctrine can even be found in the Jewish custom of Passover, the physical manifestations of God in the Old Testament (the incarnate God, Jesus Christ) and even the use of plural forms when God speaks in Creation ("let Us create...").
I hope this has helped.
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This reason for being a christian always makes me laugh. When god shows up, does he say "Hi there, Nice to meet you. It's Christian god here, and you've chosen the right religion. Oh wait, I'll be right back, i've got to go give a different religious believer a false belief in their god by giving them a life changing experience. Why? Oh, I don't know, because I Can."
I've also heard tha
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If the Bible is so accurate in these little things, it makes me take what it says about God, life, the state of humanity, and how we should live our lives very seriously.
The Bible is also very INaccurate about a lot of things. Why do you count the hits and forget the misses?
It also explains how our universe came into being.
Except it doesn't. "God did it" doesn't really explain anything.
Evolution cannot explain where the matter and energy came from in the first place.
Evolution doesn't have to, because th
doesn't help (Score:3, Interesting)
Other religious writings place their god as part of or within this physical time-space-matter-energy universe.
I'll post this yet again, because this wrong assertion just keeps getting made:
No. You obviously lack the familiarity you claim to have with other religions, even very closely related ones, and with religion in general. Islam and Judaism make this same claim, and even about roughly the same God! Hinduism and Daoism have very different spins on this idea. Zoroastrianism has exactly the same theological concept (Ahura Mazda, the uncreated creator) that you just claimed was true only of Christianity. Only one
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No. Science does make assumptions, but those assumptions are always subject to verification. A big example is when quantum mechanics came around and forced us to throw out the idea that nature is always predictable: a given cause always produces the same result.
I realize you feel some need to compare your faith with science, but you really shouldn't. If you want to believe what you read in an old book, go ahead, but that's not the way science works, and it's not even the way string theory works, despite
Re:Zug zug (Score:4, Informative)
QM certainly works. It demonstratively works. However the actual workings of QM are odd. In fact that it's easier to understand them if you invent an infinite number of parallel dimensions or dead/alive cats or any number of very bizarre but oddly more understandable things. Even clearly bizarre they tend to seem less bizarre than things actually work that way.
It's not complex. It's just weird. It's something that we just aren't good getting our heads around. Sure QM works and works every time we just have a tough time understanding how something be there and not be there, have a state and not have a state or be several places at the same time because we aren't use to this in our everyday lives. They don't compute... but we use quantum phenomenon to run our computers without fail or error. They just work.
Re:Zug zug (Score:4, Funny)
yeah but in another universe he trounced MightyMartian with the ultimate comeback, and MM flew back to Mars to cry to his mama!
Re:Zug zug (Score:4, Funny)
When I was small and liked to make shit up, I designed "flyingpigs theory" which has 1,235.656565 universes. So there. It's string theory, but with a more realistic name and a bigger number (so it must be better right?).
there's a difference between theory and hypothesis.
one has a grounding in reality, one can be made up by 10 year-olds and still be 'valid'
guess which yours is
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Call me when string theorists make a testable prediction.
They have. The problem is that they haven't made a testable prediction yet that's unique to string theory. In other words, at the moment it predicts things as well as the current model, but nothing yet beyond that.
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That would explain the validity of FSM as a causative agent.
My God. It's full of sauce.
Re:Zug zug (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and "atom" means "indivisible." Therefore, "atom smasher" is an oxymoron, and particle physics is just the product of deranged imagination.
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You missed that joke totally. I swear, the only things indivisible in this thread are your ass cheeks. Loosen up!
Popper Is Turning in his Grave (Score:2, Funny)
I dont read slashdot for 2 days and I missed the fact that there are more than 1 universes... shit!
Only physicists can get away with this sort of crap. Any other field of science would be up in arms. Where is the falsifiability, asks Sir Karl Popper in his grave?
Louis Savain
Rebel Science News [blogspot.com]
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Pretty much. In fact, all universes could have stars given that your parameters for what constitutes star is broad enough. In our universe, it's a ball of incandescant gas, in another universe it's a radioactive rock, in another universe it's a feces throwing monkey. Not much to see here. How clever.
This isn't science, it's philosophy.
Re:Popper Is Turning in his Grave (Score:4, Funny)
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This isn't positing the existence of multiple universes at all. This is about the question why the universal constants are what they are, and what would have happened if they were different.
Something completely different from M-theory.
Re:Popper Is Turning in his Grave (Score:4, Informative)
Would you all screw off about Popper. No one has ever done science the way Popper said they do, and even he backed off on is ridiculous claims in later years.
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Re:Zug zug (Score:4, Interesting)
There's also the semi-popular negaverse [wikipedia.org]. In fact, there's two.
Don't forget the Planiverse [wikipedia.org].
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Yeah, except that by definition the Universe encompasses all that we can observe, so if we could observe these other Universes by definition they would become part of our Universe. Planes of existence might be a better phrase for it.
so (Score:5, Interesting)
This hypothesis, if true, shows that the universe is actually a rather robust structure.
I like that a lot more then the 'one tiny bit off and you get nothing' thing. It sounds more plausible to me.
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....now I just need to work out which religion to sign up for!....
A god worth worshiping would have to be transcendent, outside and beyond our universe, not Limited to the dimensions of time or space. Such a God would also be capable of accurately predicting the future, never missing even once. He should also be capable of entering time and space and showing that he had power over nature and even death itself.
There is a collection of books claimed to be the Word of God which we call the Bible. The word "un
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Now take Daniel, one of the figures we read about in the Old Testament. Among the predictions he made, long before it happened, was that there would be a succession of three world empires. He described the power and extent of each of these empires. In other prophecies of the Bible, also long before it happened, even the names of the ruler to come were given. The ancient Hebrew text was translated into Greek, put down in black and white, long before these things took place.
Completely ignoring the Chinese, I
Re:so (Score:5, Insightful)
slightly OT, the thing i really dislike about Intelligent Design arguments is that they're essentially a way of just giving up trying to explain things. they equate to "it's irreducibly complex, therefore we can learn no more", or "the chances approach zero, therefore we can learn no more". but science constantly discovers new things, throws old things out, etc. an essence of science is *not* deciding you've learned as much as you can or that you've arrived at the ultimate explanation.
Re:so (Score:5, Insightful)
How did this tired chestnut become a meme among supposedly smart people? "God did it" refers to agency, just like "time and chance" refers to agency. The "how" is a completely different matter. As a child, I remember asking my father, "How did you do that, Dad"? If anything, it whetted my curiosity to know more.
Whatever position one holds on the "irreducible complexity" argument, the argument is not "therefore we can learn no more." Rather, the argument is "the agency of time, chance, and unguided selection couldn't be the cause of such-and-such an object."
Re:so (Score:5, Interesting)
good clarification.
yes, i was limiting the scope of agents to those admitted by "accepted science".
so with scoping in mind, my complaint is that irreducible complexity arguments tend to translate into "accepted scientific agents do not currently explain such-and-such, therefore we must look outside accepted scientific agents".
however, appeals to agents outside the scope of accepted science have historically always fallen, so it seems prudent not to resort to them now, and instead to keep hammering on the stuff within accepted science. qv the god of the gaps, etc.
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Whatever position one holds on the "irreducible complexity" argument, the argument is not "therefore we can learn no more."
Its my understanding that "irreducible complexity" means "we can make millions selling this idea to brainless idiots".
Re:so (Score:5, Insightful)
As already pointed out by another reply, this only applies specifically to star formation, which was just one piece that has to be in place for life to work out. Even if this particular one has a 25% chance of happening, there are still a lot of others. Like existing long enough to make heavy elements, or having the right ratio between gravity and electromagnetic forces.
We don't even understand gravity or dark matter! (Score:3, Insightful)
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I am a bit weary of scientists telling us that 'life' wouldn't be able to form if certain things were slightly different...
I think life could potentially evolve in a lot of completely different universes with completely different values for the 'constants of nature'. Maybe stars wouldn't form - but if there is matter, maybe something else might form out of it.
It just wouldn't look like anything you might have seen in Star Trek, Star Wars, or any other SciFi movie, series, or story...
Similarly to a creature
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Scientists are saying no such thing. The argument is not that a universe that is slightly different could not support any life. The argument is that is could not support human life. For example, Fred Hoyle argued that if certain physical constants were just a little different, carbon atoms could not form ring-shaped molecules. All life as we know it is based on those carbon rings, so those changes would preclude our existence.
And before you start picking at flaws in that argument, let me point out something
What is the point of stars...if you have no matter (Score:5, Insightful)
This hypothesis, if true...
The Standard Model has 19 free parameters [wikipedia.org] (not including G) and even more if you include the new neutrino mixing results. This guy varies TWO of them plus G and then claims that 25% of possible universes would form stars? I remain completely unconvinced. While the strength of gravity, EM and the strong interactions may be important for stars the other parameters control some other vaguely important things like whether there is any matter in the universe.
In addition these parameters also have major effects directly on the functioning of stars. For example if the electron mass were larger the orbit of the electron in the atom shrinks and fusion becomes a lot easier [wikipedia.org]. One would presume that this would greatly affect star formation. In addition there are other effects caused by varying the parameters: tweaking with these may well change the type of matter in the universe such as less hydrogen and more helium etc. He does at one point mention this and then states that he would not expect it to vary much from our universe without giving a reference. To me this seems completely non-obvious but I'm not a cosmologist so perhaps it is obvious to them?
So as I said I remain totally unconvinced that this paper really shows anything meaningful at all.
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I also qualified my reply with 'if true'.
All parameters are not created equal, he may have picked up on something rather interesting.
Or not, it requires more investigation.
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I also qualified my reply with 'if true'.
I understood that. I was commenting that I thought it very unlikely to be true based on the evidence presented.
All parameters are not created equal, he may have picked up on something rather interesting.
I doubt it. There are very clear reasons to expect other parameters to greatly affect the formation of stars. As far as I can see he has not commented on this at all. This means that either:
Re:What is the point of stars...if you have no mat (Score:3, Funny)
But varying the other 16 produced hairy women, so he skipped them.
don't fear infinity (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not convinced in the slightest that a multiverse exists (in any sense of the word), but I agree that assuming things like Brane cosmology are true, the logical conclusion is that these other universes would, based on probability, have something recognizable to us as 'stars' and even 'life'
Possibility always wins when we play the probability game.
As I said above, I think the multiverse theories ar
Re:don't fear infinity (Score:5, Insightful)
As I said above, I think the multiverse theories are a pantload of stink.
The interesting thing about a way of describing the universe is that it doesn't have to be true to be userful, provided it produces useful results.
Think for a moment of Copernicus.
His model wasn't accurate at all, not even slightly, it was nowhere near as useful in real terms then the Ptolemaic model, but it allowed the universe to be viewed in a different way, eventually leading to our current, vastly more accurate description.
Ours too may be wrong, but you need ways of describing reality which produce useful results. They don't have to be 'real' to be useful.
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you speak wisdom, and I am always in favor of thought experiments and 'what if...' especially in cosmology
Yes. here is my point, I do not think the way we are currently viewing the universe (as a part of a multiverse) is useful. I think we can do better.
ex: we could view the universe as a massive confluence of zip drive dandylions that nunchuck the higgs anti-bosons into oblivion then refresh them via the Kobe/Shaq bridge at a rate of 5!/cat in Krull-sp
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I find it somewhat implausible myself, but I wouldn't know how to go about revising it.
I dabble in physics, but I don't stray beyond the Newtonian model because my research is purely concerned with the practical realities of route finding in space.
A commonplace of cosmologists (Score:3, Funny)
That's funny, I always thought they came in herds.
Or maybe in packages - contents may have expanded during shipping.
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Still dumb (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if we are rare, why does that make is so special? It's rare to win the lottery, but it's got to happen to someone doesn't it? If we hadn't won the lottery, we wouldn't be here to talk about it, would we?
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So science uncovers yet another way in which our world and universe are mediocre instead of special. Is this surprising?
No, it isn't. I think we need a better definition of the anthropic principle. My proposal is: "There is at least one universe which contains at least one species thinking it's the center of said universe."
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With studies like this, that argument is useless. It shows that the philosophers who use this argument are just blowing steam out of their pompous asses without any actual research. I really wish that I could see the faces
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The anthropic principle is one of Creationists' favorite argument for the 'proof' of the existence of god.
The anthropic principle is only "'proof' of the existence of god" if it is misinterpreted. Simply stated, it describes the selection bias at play in humanity's observations of the universe. Increasing the number of universes that can support stars (much less life) has no bearing on the anthropic principle, as either way we're 100% sure we live in a universe which does support both.
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Re:Still dumb (Score:4, Informative)
Until it sets g too low and the universe expands forever instead of collapsing, or time doesn't increment. Or maybe our glorious intelligent designer has put a constraint in to make sure this can't happen :)
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So science uncovers yet another way in which our world and universe are mediocre instead of special. Is this surprising?
I agree this isn't surprising. However, the reason this isn't "dumb" has to do with difference is between just letting your imagination run wild and actually doing a physics calculation to find specific alternative stable configurations of physical law.
Re:Still dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
There are several kinds of low probability events. A lottery has a low probability of any one ticket winning, but a very high probability that somebody will win because there are so many tickets. For universes to work like that, there have to be enough universes that as you put it, "it's got to happen to someone". Science hasn't "uncovered" (again, your word) this situation, unless they have proved that parallel universes definitely exist, there are definitely enough of them for the low probabilities to sum, and the meta-laws of these universes allow summing the low probabilities.
Uncovered would mean:
1. Scientist observes parallel universes.
2. Scientist counts enough of them to prove the low odds can sum to likely odds, or finds a good proof there are enough. A good proof has to be more rigorous than is usual in physics, because our universe's physics may not be the ruleset in any of these others. Probably this means the proof has to meet formal mathematical standards.
3. Scientist has to have a Theory of Everything for our universe.
4. Scientist has to derive similar theories for the other universes and a meta-theory that combines them.
5. Scientist then has to show that the meta-ToE allows low probability events to sum.
I'm pretty sure none of those steps have happened. If I'm wrong, I'd like to predict what discoveries get awarded the next ten Nobel prizes in physics, and probably a Fields medal or two.
The Universe is Sentient (Score:2)
Perhaps there are universes in which life is fantastically abundant and our universe is, by comparison, a bland underperformer?
What the anthropic people are talking about is "life just like me." They're not talking about what's flourishing near our undersea thermal vents, by and large, what grows under the Antarctic ice, or if we find any, what grows on Mars.
AFAICT, life adapts to its environment. One would expect different forms of life under different conditions.
Or perhaps life is itself a silly concept
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The important part about this idea is that the universe is more mediocre than we expected. Specifically cosmologists are interested in asking the question
What does "significantly different" mean? Originally our ego-centric view promoted the idea of "c
The obvious question (Score:3, Insightful)
So just how is "they exist but it is mathematically impossible for them to affect our universe in any way or for us to measure them or conduct any empirical experiment upon them" any different from "they don't exist"? Are they, perchance, Invisible Pink Universes?
As for "winning the lottey", the question "why is the universe like it is" has only ever been a side-issue to the bigger question "why should any universe whatsoever exist at all -- the empty set is perfectly mathematically self-consistent; why sh
Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
more paranoia (Score:2)
So now we've got to be worried about aliens from different UNIVERSES as well?
There are also aliens in sub-space as well (Score:2)
and they can jump in to our electric systems as well.
weakless universe (Score:4, Interesting)
"A universe without weak interactions is constructed that undergoes big-bang nucleosynthesis, matter domination, structure formation, and star formation. The stars in this universe are able to burn for billions of years, synthesize elements up to iron, and undergo supernova explosions, dispersing heavy elements into the interstellar medium.
There's no evidence such universes exist. But it is still a good exercise to help keep some perspective on what is possible, even in principle, given what we know about physical law. It also highlights that people who make "anthropic principle-like" claims based on fine-tuning haven't bothered to go back to the underlying laws of physics and actually look for other stable configurations, even in theory.
Words mean something (Score:4, Insightful)
I continue to be bothered by the use of the word "universe" to mean something other than "everything". Having to substitute "multiverse" to replace the word that didn't need to be replaced (rather a new word should have been invented for the new concept) bugs the crap out of me so much so that I hope all these new theories are proved wrong so we can maintain continuity of the language.
Re:Words mean something (Score:4, Interesting)
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i think it needs to be treated the same way we treat the word "modern" when applied to art or literature.
"constants" not constant (Score:2)
No one has brought up the obvious point that this indicates what we call "constants" don't need to be constant to fit with the stars we see?
Or at least they need to be less constant than originally believed?
Maybe useful research but hardly earth-shattering (Score:2)
The usual anthropic principle argument about formation of stars relates to the cosmological constant (yes we have one of those again, at least if there's anything to dark matter and dark energy). That constant is very, very poorly predicted by some particle physics models such as the ones that predict a Higgs boson. The observations suggest a value that is a full 120 orders of magnitude less than the prediction. If that value were as little as 119 orders below the prediction, cosmic expansion would prevent
Misunderstanding of the Anthropic Principle (Score:5, Informative)
Proponents of the Anthropic Principle do not claim that universes which cannot support life are rare, or commonplace, or anything of the sort.
The Anthropic Principle merely says that we should not be surprised to find the universe conductive to our existence, even if such conditions are highly improbable, because the fact of our existence logically necessitates that we exist in a universe conductive to it.
Cut the "infinite universes" crap (Score:4, Informative)
This research is great because it points out that the constants and such that the universe exhibits aren't so special, however the way it's presented is quite ridiculous.
Firstly, these "universes" are purely theoretical, and they're function of the modification of a few constants, that doesn't mean they're actually out there.
Secondly, I just hate it when people say "myriads/an infinity of other universes". What you really mean by "infinity" in that case is not a large number of discrete universes, but continuous variations of a universe. Presenting something continuous as an infinite amount of discrete things is stupid and misleading, although somehow correct. Sure you can iterate some constant by the smallest increments you want, so you can cut the whole thing into an infinity of possibilities, but just because you're sampling something continuous discretely doesn't make it cease from being continuous and not discrete. That's exactly like saying the 3D space universe is actually made of an infinity of stacked up 2D universes that communicate between each other. A completely arbitrary way to look at things that misleads you on the real nature of things.
when are scientists going to acknowledge (Score:2, Funny)
Other universes (Score:2)
So is it just me, or is this just crazy theoretical stuff made up by mathematicians, with absolutely zero empirical evidence to support any of it?
He finds that stars are stable entities in roughly one-fourth of the universes he considered.
Come on. Now I know he's just making stuff up. He thought up some imaginary universes, and discovered that a quarter of them can have stars. Despite being printed in Science News, this isn't science. Maybe it's interesting math, but that's all.
And you people think Creationists are nuts...
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This whole thing remembers me Q proposing to redefine some universal constants to solve a problem in ST:TNG, and that idea was actually used in a particular way to solve it, go in that direction if you want to find something rea
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I'm sorry, but it's the "mathematical phantasy" thing.
Or more correctly: It's a tought experiment, to find out if the universe has some special fine-tuned constants, because this would pose some interesting questions on why they are exactly like this.
Of course, as far as our knowledge goes, the universe could be a 4d sphere (with a 3d surface). So there is still the question "is there an 'outside' to the universe"? If so, what is there? Other universes?
A completely different, and more realistic POV is to se
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I see the multi-worlds and multiple universe hypotheses as being not much better than intelligent design. None of them can ever be proven.
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They also can't be disproven. That means that the idea can be used as needed as a convenient fiction. It's like the way navigation about the Earth is made easier by pretending that the Earth is the center of the universe, or engineers invoke the fictitious centrifugal force in their calculations. In this case, physicists invoke the concept of a different universe with slightly (or not so slightly) different laws to see what would happen and maybe learn something about th
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I know. I was speaking more for the benefit of those who take these things quite literally. Intelligent design can make for interesting thought experiments too.
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Anything outside our light-cone is a different universe.
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Re:In lameness terms, please? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you mean to say anything outside the light-cone of the big bang is a different universe.
That is fairly defensible, I'd go with it.
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Last time I checked the definition of universe is still "all existing matter and space considered as a whole"
So if the universe is "everything" can someone tell me how there can be "many?" in a way that isn't a mathematical fantasy proven in the minds of few and no where else?
The hypothesis that is being discussed involves what is essentially an extra-dimensional and strictly theoretical version of our own universe. Basically it explores what our universe would be like under different physical constraints than our own.
As for the definition of universe, it essentially is "all existing matter and space considered as a whole" but that definition deals with human perception itself. Because there are versions of our own universe which are theoretical even if they only exist in a t
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Re:This makes no sense! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This makes no sense! (Score:4, Interesting)
I didn't know that astrologers used telescopes.
At the visitor information station on Mauna Kea, I am routinely approached by followers of astronomy (henceforth "gullibles") during the evening stargazing sessions. It usually goes something like this:
Gullible: It's my birthday, can you point out my sign?
Me: (points at the ground)
Anyone who subscribes to pseudoscientific nonsense but doesn't even read enough of it to know that their sign is the one the Sun is in when they're born, should be duct-taped in place and forced to listen to Weird Al's "Your Horoscope for Today."
To their credit, no Christians have asked me to point out the star from when Jesus was born. Yet.
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Yes uni means one. This is such an important point that it needed to be posted twice.
Re:there are other marble bags? (Score:5, Funny)
i thought "uni" meant one and only. [slashdot.org]
doesn't "uni" mean one and only? [slashdot.org]
Which is why I find your double post so delightfully ironic!
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