Co-inventor of the the frickin' "Lazer Beam"!
Posted on 03/10/2005 9:17:16 AM PST by zencat
Charles Townes, the UC Berkeley professor who shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics for his work in quantum electronics and then startled the scientific world by suggesting that religion and science were converging, was awarded the $1.5-million Templeton Prize on Wednesday for progress in spiritual knowledge.
The co-inventor of the laser, Townes, 89, said no greater question faced humankind than discovering the purpose and meaning of life — and why there was something rather than nothing in the cosmos.
(Excerpt) Read more at story.news.yahoo.com ...
Ah yes... the ultimate metaphysical question.
Why something, rather than nothing?
Wow could this be any timelier to the thread we have going on evolution and whether we are the result of random mutations or some deeper "plan" behind nature? And yes the good professor is saying exactly what I have been arguing, except his credentials are much better.
Why not?
science and religion ping
Yet the first known primate, whose fossils occur on BOTH SIDES of the KT boundary in (Hell Creek Formation) Montana-North Dakota survived...
He had the curious name of Purgatorius. Before the meteor, was supposedly favored as a meal by Troodon, a cousin of Velociraptor, and, after the meteor, had evolved into different primate lines taking advantage of the niches left open by the dinosaur extinction...
PURGATORIUS
Planned evolution can have an outward natural random appearance, yet not be so...
The mechanics evolution, mutations, etc., can occur according to what secular scientisits say, but no one can account for draughts, floods, and other "events" (big meteors) which change the course of evolution, directed by God, and guide it...
Yet the first known primate, whose fossils occur on BOTH SIDES of the KT boundary in (Hell Creek Formation) Montana-North Dakota survived...
He had the curious name of Purgatorius. Before the meteor, was supposedly favored as a meal by Troodon, a cousin of Velociraptor, and, after the meteor, had evolved into different primate lines taking advantage of the niches left open by the dinosaur extinction...
PURGATORIUS
Planned evolution can have an outward natural random appearance, yet not be so...
The mechanics evolution, mutations, etc., can occur according to what secular scientisits say, but no one can account for draughts, floods, and other "events" (big meteors) which change the course of evolution, directed by God, and guide it...
> The mechanics evolution, mutations, etc., can occur according to what secular scientisits say, but no one can account for draughts, floods, and other "events" (big meteors) which change the course of evolut
??? Such events are some of the random occurances that drive evolution. Had the KT event not occured, Purgatorius and it's mamalian/marsupial buddies might well have stayed small, rather than taking over the world and growing huge.
What? You prefer to believe a fairy tail about a white bearded God living in a majestic jeweled palace floating on the clouds up there,somewhere?
I think this physicist is probably closer to the truth. At the quantum level there is no time and space. There is only eternity. When God spoke the world into existence there was the "big bang" and all matter sprung from this quantum nothingness. Did you really expect even God to figure out a way to explain this concept to nomadic goat herders in ancient times?
What? You prefer to believe a fairy tail about a white bearded God living in a majestic jeweled palace floating on the clouds up there,somewhere? I think this physicist is probably closer to the truth.
Ascertaining more and more scientific facts is all well and good and useful, but those facts tell us little about destiny, purpose, or values, which are the matters of spirituality and metaphysics. These are observations about the nature of our existence and unrelated to any personal beliefs or disbeliefs about God.
not much apparently... ignorant of roger penrose, kip s. thorne and david bohm. probably never even heard of quantum entanglement!
Perhaps you have heard of the time dependent Schrodinger Equation. It exhibits both spacial and time parametric dependence. To my knowledge, it has not been displaced from quantum theory.
I met Briane Green last night (The Elegant Universe, Fabric of the Cosmos) and asked him if his envisioned unified physical theory could be reconciled with psychic phenomena and account for the human mind and free will. He told me it will be able to account for the mind (which is bullcrap) and that there is no such thing as "psychic phenomena" (which is also bullcrap).
> Did you really expect even God to figure out a way to explain this concept to nomadic goat herders in ancient times?
Here's somebody's attempt to explain it in an ancient text, they did a pretty good job as well, IMHO.
HYMN CXXIX. Creation.
1. THEN was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?
2 Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider.
That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.
3 Darkness there was: at first concealed in dark, new this All was indiscriminated chaos.
All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit.
4 Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit.
Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.
5 Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it?
There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder
6 Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?
TheGods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?
7 He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,
Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.
(Rig Veda X.129)
But what difference does it make if you know where if you dont know when or vice versa.
Are you referring to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? When and where can be known with perfect precision, even within HUP. (Time and energy are subject to the limitation of knowledge.) In any event, the point I made was that, contrary to your statement, that spatial and temporal dimensions are fundamental to quantum theory.
Bump for a creationist and a man of science proving once again that the two are not only not mutually exclusive but that they are common, everyday occurrences.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.