The gods must be crazy (Physics article)

U.S. News and World Report ^ | September 8, 2003 | Charles W. Petit

[RightWingAtheist]

I found the link to this news article on the Fermilab website. Annoyingly, Yahoo has removed about half of its science categories, including particle physics, from its news section.

[B.Bumbleberry]

Bump for an interesting article.

This explosion of new discoveries brings to mind a great physics professor of mine in school, who got up the last day of class and read from a newspaper clipping. It quoted a leading scientist at a national science gathering, who said that all the major discoveries in science had now been made, and it only remainded to flesh out some of the finer details. My professor then read the date of the article--sometime in the late 1800s (I forget the exact date).

We are on the upper asymtote of a geometrical explosion of knowledge. Each succeeding decade is going to be more remarkable than the last. The wonders my children will see can't even be imagined today.

[concerned about politics]

Today, that search is going to extreme lengths, as scientists posit hidden realms, such as extra dimensions or parallel subuniverses, that could help make sense of our apparently random cosmos. They're also planning giant experiments that may turn up hints of these shadow universes.

The Bible also speaks of 3 heavens in an unseen area. Biblical theologins say there may be as many as 7 different demensions- a Holy number in the scriptures.
The Bible says in the end of time as we now it, the "veil" between these universes, i.e., between the seen and unseen demensions, will be lifted.
Quantum physicists throughout the ages have come to a conclusion that something, a word, thought, a push, had to have started everyhing somewhere. Many of the quantum physicists were very spiritual people, but somehow had to be able to mathmatically explain their theories. That's where the separation of spirituality, or what they refered to as mysticism, divided it and the world of physics as we know it today. They couldn't put the mystery of the unseen into a mathmatical, physical formula.
I've reciently been reading a book titled "Quantum Questions" by Ken Wilber. He's compiled the various theories between mystisism and quantum theories by Heisenberg, Schrodinger (who's cat is STILL dead), Einstein, De Brogle, Jeans, Planck, Pauli, and Eddington. So far, I'm just starting the 7th chapter.

[Theo]

If the universe is "unattractive" and "ugly," then why are these scientists so enamored by it, to the point of making it their life-work?

And I'd posit that the universe is not "hodge-podge" or "random," but more complex than our mortal minds can fathom.

I'd argue that the universe is full of wonder beyond our imagination, a thing worthy of our fascinated investigation. :-)

[concerned about politics]

I'd argue that the universe is full of wonder beyond our imagination, a thing worthy of our fascinated investigation. :-)

Somehow, in my little world of imagination, I expected the planet Mars to appear much larger when it came this close to earth. I was hoping to see a planet, but instead saw a large star. It was interesting, but it popped my bubble. *sigh*

[lonevoice]

Bump for a good read.

[irv]

Experimenters see a good chance that a new, more powerful version of Fermilab's Tevatron particle accelerator or the European Large Hadron Collider, due in a few years, may slam protons, electrons, and other particles together so hard that signals of big extra dimensions will finally turn up.

Signals from aliens with giant brains (note spelling), poking into our universe and yelling, "Stop that!"

[spunkets]

bump

[sourcery]

Coming soon to a universe near you: Pinky and the Brane!

[RightWingAtheist]

The Bible also speaks of 3 heavens in an unseen area. Biblical theologins say there may be as many as 7 different demensions- a Holy number in the scriptures. The Bible says in the end of time as we now it, the "veil" between these universes, i.e., between the seen and unseen demensions, will be lifted.

Well, it may seem like the Bible prophecy, but really, it's a stretch to compare the scientific theory of extra dimensions to the pre-scientific conception of Heaven. If the extra dimensions do turn out to exist, then the Bible writers just made a lucky guess, like Democritus did when he predicted the existence of atoms

Quantum physicists throughout the ages have come to a conclusion that something, a word, thought, a push, had to have started everyhing somewhere.

Er...quantum physics is just 103 years old, and the history of science has been characterized by a move away from teleological explanation and towards a more mechanistic explanation of events.

Many of the quantum physicists were very spiritual people, but somehow had to be able to mathmatically explain their theories.

Of course they had to mathematically explain them; otherwise, they wouldn't be valid scientific theories. :) Seriously, yes many of the quantum theorists have been spiritual people, beginning with Max Plank himself, a devout Lutheran. They have included devout Christians, such as John Polkinghorne and Erwin Schrodinger, Orthodox Jews such as Yuval Ne'eman, and yes, devout Muslims such as Abdus Salaam. But their contributions to quantum theory have been important because they all are or were good scientists, not because they were spritual people. David Bohm has received a lot of press for his fusions of quantum physics and mysticism (and for being a fellow-travelling lefty) but very little of his work had any actual scientific merit.

They couldn't put the mystery of the unseen into a mathmatical, physical formula.

Actually, I'd say they've done a darn good job at doing so.

[RightWingAtheist]

If the universe is "unattractive" and "ugly," then why are these scientists so enamored by it, to the point of making it their life-work?

It's their job to find the beauty just underneath. When scientists speak of "beauty" and "elegance" or "ugly" and "unattractive" they're using these terms in a manner different from everyday parlance. A "beautiful" theory is one manages to explain simply and concisely a given phenomena or set of interconnected variables. The new evidence makes the universe seem "ugly" just because much is inconsistent with or difficult to expalin with the "beautiful" theories at our disposable. By explaining the evidence through a new set of theories, scientists hope to "touch up" the universe and make it look pretty again.

And I'd posit that the universe is not "hodge-podge" or "random," but more complex than our mortal minds can fathom.

The universe is complex precisely because it is hodgepodge and random, and our mortal minds seem to have evolved precisely so that we can understand objects of great complexity. I believe Einstein once said something to the effect that the universe is wonderful not because it is beyond our understanding, but by virtue of the fact that we can understand it.

I'd argue that the universe is full of wonder beyond our imagination, a thing worthy of our fascinated investigation.

Amen to that! There's a big difference between being beyond our imagination and being beyond our understanding.

[Chemist_Geek]

I'd argue that the universe is full of wonder beyond our imagination, a thing worthy of our fascinated investigation. :-)

Aye, "there are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy..."

[Aracelis]

Ping for the science "branes"!

[PatrickHenry]

PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]

[Movemout]

"Everything that can be invented – has already been invented," and other famous invention-related quotes

This (in)famous quote has long been attributed to the commissioner of the United States Patent Office, a Mr. Charles Duell, back in 1899, and it’s one of my personal favorites. Since the patent office opened in 1790, it has registered more than 6.2 million patents.

When I called the patent office in an attempt to verify the accuracy of this quote, the lady on the other end of Mr. Bell’s invention told me that the commissioner was misquoted when he said that. Whether or not she was being honest is anyone’s guess; you really couldn’t blame her if she was simply towing the company line in order to avoid embarrassment.

Either way, the jury is still out on whether the former patent commissioner is an early inventor of the art of being misquoted.

Surprisingly, though, this wasn’t the first time someone had made such a remark. In 10 A.D., Roman Engineer Julius Sextus Frontinus said, "Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further developments."

This began a long line of infamous invention-related notable quotables, such as:

"That’s an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?" ... President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, after Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone to him at the White House.

"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom," ... Robert Milken, Nobel Prize winner in physics, 1923

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible," ... Lord Kelvin, President Royal Society, 1895

"Who the hell wants to watch movies with sound?" Who said this? Believe it or not, it was the president of Warner Brothers Studios, Harry Warner, sometime around 1918.

[djf]

Good article. It points out something I've been saying all along, that run-of-the-mill scientists refuse to see the true nature, and revert to "dark matter" as nauseum, when all it takes is a simple look at G to see we are talking topology.

But nothing that explains the expansion of the universe tells about life, a different matter entirely, it's easy to understand the pulse of life, but impossible to know it's destiny.

[ovrtaxt]

Such a negative attitude in this article. Ugly? Random? I was waiting for the subject of Einstein's search for the Grand Unification Theory to come up when I read this:

Then there is the "fine-tuning" problem. The universe appears marvelously constructed to produce stars, planets, and life. Scientists have calculated that if the force binding atomic nuclei were just 0.5 percent different, the processes that forge atoms inside stars would have failed to produce either carbon or oxygen--key ingredients for life. If gravity were only slightly stronger or weaker, stars like our sun could not have formed. Yet physicists see no reason why the constants of nature are set just so.

No reason? Denial of deliberate or intelligent design at even this level? What do these physicists want, a Book spelling it all out? (Oh, wait, never mind...)

[aruanan]

Perhaps, as many religious people say, God exists and wanted it this way--case closed. For many scientists, who try to avoid supernatural explanations, the accumulation of mysteries merely signals that the time is right for a breakthrough.

Ha ha. The false dichotomy. One breakthrough has already happened. It's just that too many have too much vested interests to protect to acknowledge Halton Arp and others' observations of quasars that serves up a dead Big Bang complete with little X's over its eyes. And this matter of vested interest is not a small consideration. In my own field, I know of someone whose very solid work is regularly slammed. Once at a conference some other scientist threw something across the room and stalked out. At another, a guy yelled at him, saying that he was messing with people's lives, with their careers. Ooh, I guess we can't have a better or more complete understanding of nicotinic acid receptors do anything like upset someone else's comfy career based on an incomplete understanding. That just wouldn't be nice.

[fso301]

I'll read this later

[ovrtaxt]

It's just that too many have too much vested interests to protect

Aw, man, your depiction of scientists as self interested, paycheck guarding mercenaries has really blown my perfect, shining, disattached, PBS style image of these people.

You mean to tell me that some scientists actually have AGENDAS they wish to advance? Not just pure observation? Not just emotionless facts, the cold, hard Truth?

He's very disappointed.