Posted on 01/31/2007 10:41:52 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The subject of the debate was the Anthropic Principle, which states that the observable universe has to be as it is in order to support life. That is, the fundamental constants of the universe are precisely chosen such that if they were tweaked only slightly, then life, the earth or even our galaxy would not have formed. Thus, these values are as we observe them only because we are here to observe them in the first place. Paul Davies, director of Beyond: The Institute for Fundamental Concepts in Physics at Arizona State University, was the first to speak, arguing that modern science is greatly affected by monotheistic religion, searching for a singular answer to everything. "Abandoning that philosophy and replacing it with anthropic arguments may be a step forward in thinking," he said... A more theoretical talk was given by Leonard Susskind, who is widely regarded as the father of modern string theory. He demonstrated the concept of 'bubble nucleation' which is a mechanism analogous to evolution in that our universe mutated out of a "multiverse" of varying physics. Finally, David Gross, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in physics, presented his anti-anthropic viewpoint, in which he questioned the scientific validity of the principle and stressed the value of observation, experimentation and calculation as the chief tools of science... Much of the previous discourse continued, but with obvious tension between Gross and Davies.
(Excerpt) Read more at media.www.mcgilltribune.com ...
Whoops! I screwed up the title. The AM has been informed.
Freedom mixed with raw intellect and hubris. All good things.
That's the high school version, which brings a lot of confused students to college.
I'm rethinking the "everything riding on the back of a giant turtle" theory. I think it's got promise.
It does indeed and it happens that right now it is my preferred belief since I learned that 4-dimensional Minkowski space has ten dimensions.
Just to avoid clutter on the A-Mod's "My Comments" screen, I won't address this thank you. :') But Thank You.
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