Posted on 02/12/2006 4:35:53 AM PST by AmericaUnited
The Fine Tuning of the Universe
by Rabbi Mordechai Steinman with Dr. Gerald Schroeder
An amazing array of scientists are bewildered by the design of the universe and admit a possibility of a designer.
According to growing numbers of scientists, the laws and constants of nature are so "finely-tuned," and so many "coincidences" have occurred to allow for the possibility of life, the universe must have come into existence through intentional planning and intelligence.
In fact, this "fine-tuning" is so pronounced, and the "coincidences" are so numerous, many scientists have come to espouse The Anthropic Principle, which contends that the universe was brought into existence intentionally for the sake of producing mankind.
Even those who do not accept The Anthropic Principle admit to the "fine-tuning" and conclude that the universe is "too contrived" to be a chance event.
In a BBC science documentary, "The Anthropic Principle," some of the greatest scientific minds of our day describe the recent findings which compel this conclusion.
Dr. Dennis Scania, the distinguished head of Cambridge University Observatories:
If you change a little bit the laws of nature, or you change a little bit the constants of nature -- like the charge on the electron -- then the way the universe develops is so changed, it is very likely that intelligent life would not have been able to develop.
Dr. David D. Deutsch, Institute of Mathematics, Oxford University:
If we nudge one of these constants just a few percent in one direction, stars burn out within a million years of their formation, and there is no time for evolution. If we nudge it a few percent in the other direction, then no elements heavier than helium form. No carbon, no life. Not even any chemistry. No complexity at all.
Dr. Paul Davies, noted author and professor of theoretical physics at Adelaide University:
"The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge, and would be total chaos if any of the natural 'constants' were off even slightly. You see," Davies adds, "even if you dismiss man as a chance happening, the fact remains that the universe seems unreasonably suited to the existence of life -- almost contrived -- you might say a 'put-up job'."
According to the latest scientific thinking, the matter of the universe originated in a huge explosion of energy called "The Big Bang." At first, the universe was only hydrogen and helium, which congealed into stars. Subsequently, all the other elements were manufactured inside the stars. The four most abundant elements in the universe are: hydrogen, helium, oxygen and carbon.
When Sir Fred Hoyle was researching how carbon came to be, in the "blast-furnaces" of the stars, his calculations indicated that it is very difficult to explain how the stars generated the necessary quantity of carbon upon which life on earth depends. Hoyle found that there were numerous "fortunate" one-time occurrences which seemed to indicate that purposeful "adjustments" had been made in the laws of physics and chemistry in order to produce the necessary carbon.
Hoyle sums up his findings as follows:
A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintendent has monkeyed with the physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars.
Adds Dr. David D. Deutch:
If anyone claims not to be surprised by the special features that the universe has, he is hiding his head in the sand. These special features ARE surprising and unlikely.
UNIVERSAL ACCEPTANCE OF FINE-TUNING
Besides the BBC video, the scientific establishment's most prestigious journals, and its most famous physicists and cosmologists, have all gone on record as recognizing the objective truth of the fine-tuning.
The August '97 issue of "Science" (the most prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal in the United States) featured an article entitled "Science and God: A Warming Trend?" Here is an excerpt:
The fact that the universe exhibits many features that foster organic life -- such as precisely those physical constants that result in planets and long-lived stars -- also has led some scientists to speculate that some divine influence may be present.
In his best-selling book, "A Brief History of Time", Stephen Hawking (perhaps the world's most famous cosmologist) refers to the phenomenon as "remarkable."
"The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers (i.e. the constants of physics) seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life". "For example," Hawking writes, "if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different, stars would have been unable to burn hydrogen and helium, or else they would not have exploded. It seems clear that there are relatively few ranges of values for the numbers (for the constants) that would allow for development of any form of intelligent life. Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty."
Hawking then goes on to say that he can appreciate taking this as possible evidence of "a divine purpose in Creation and the choice of the laws of science (by God)" (ibid. p. 125). Dr. Gerald Schroeder, author of "Genesis and the Big Bang" and "The Science of Life" was formerly with the M.I.T. physics department. He adds the following examples:
1) Professor Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in high energy physics (a field of science that deals with the very early universe), writing in the journal "Scientific American", reflects on
how surprising it is that the laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe should allow for the existence of beings who could observe it. Life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values.Although Weinberg is a self-described agnostic, he cannot but be astounded by the extent of the fine-tuning. He goes on to describe how a beryllium isotope having the minuscule half life of 0.0000000000000001 seconds must find and absorb a helium nucleus in that split of time before decaying. This occurs only because of a totally unexpected, exquisitely precise, energy match between the two nuclei. If this did not occur there would be none of the heavier elements. No carbon, no nitrogen, no life. Our universe would be composed of hydrogen and helium. But this is not the end of Professor Weinberg's wonder at our well-tuned universe. He continues:
One constant does seem to require an incredible fine-tuning -- The existence of life of any kind seems to require a cancellation between different contributions to the vacuum energy, accurate to about 120 decimal places.
This means that if the energies of the Big Bang were, in arbitrary units, not:
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000,
but instead:
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000001,
there would be no life of any sort in the entire universe because as Weinberg states:
the universe either would go through a complete cycle of expansion and contraction before life could arise, or would expand so rapidly that no galaxies or stars could form.
2) Michael Turner, the widely quoted astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and Fermilab, describes the fine-tuning of the universe with a simile:
The precision is as if one could throw a dart across the entire universe and hit a bulls eye one millimeter in diameter on the other side.
3) Roger Penrose, the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, discovers that the likelihood of the universe having usable energy (low entropy) at the creation is even more astounding,
namely, an accuracy of one part out of ten to the power of ten to the power of 123. This is an extraordinary figure. One could not possibly even write the number down in full, in our ordinary denary (power of ten) notation: it would be one followed by ten to the power of 123 successive zeros! (That is a million billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion zeros.)
Penrose continues,
Even if we were to write a zero on each separate proton and on eachseparate neutron in the entire universe -- and we could throw in all the other particles as well for good measure -- we should fall far short of writing down the figure needed. The precision needed to set the universe on its course is to be in no way inferior to all that extraordinary precision that we have already become accustomed to in the superb dynamical equations (Newton's, Maxwell's, Einstein's) which govern the behavior of things from moment to moment.
Cosmologists debate whether the space-time continuum is finite or infinite, bounded or unbounded. In all scenarios, the fine-tuning remains the same.
It is appropriate to complete this section on "fine tuning" with the eloquent words of Professor John Wheeler:
To my mind, there must be at the bottom of it all, not an utterly simple equation, but an utterly simple IDEA. And to me that idea, when we finally discover it, will be so compelling, and so inevitable, so beautiful, we will all say to each other, "How could it have ever been otherwise?"
See the full presentation of this and other themes on the 2001 Principle Website.
This article can also be read at: http://www.aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/The_Fine_Tuning_of_the_Universe.asp
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Yes, you guys...
I am looking forward to their responses.
I suspect the proverbial cat is very busy at the moment, having so many tongues to run off with...
LOL
Thanks for posting this!
actually as I understand it, intelligent design relates to the appearance of humans on this planet, essentially that certain evolutionary steps are not documented and/or that maybe there was tinkering with some primate genes to make some very large leaps.
This article deals with the design of the universe overall, a task on a scale compared to which the earth is not even an ant incomparison to an entire planet.
If we assume intelligent design and the second piece on the construction of the universe, I do not see that it follows that the same agency designed both the universe and the genetic jumps to form homo sapiens. It seems very plausible that there could be more than one agency at work - it is equally arguable that the tinkerers of human origin would be other biological species(s) sufficiently advanced to engage in such activities such as star travel and very advanced dna manipulation.
There are enough very odd things in recorded human history to make me think humans thought they were being visited from the sky. The nazca lines are the first to come to mind, but I know I have seen other references. A person could see the arc of the covenant and the abilities attributed to it as being an effort by a bronze-age people to describe advanced technology (kind of like a hal clement novel). THe sparks flying from between the 2 cherubins to slay scorpions etc. certainly sounds like an effort to describe electricity. It certainly is curious.
Here is an analysis and commentary on ID that is based on treating the LETTERS of the Bible as the revealed truth, and not the STORIES.
Here is, for some, an authoritative source: Pope says science no threat to faith
I've often thought... would it not be a hoot if the entire unverse was an acquarium in God's den?
And God... would evelution not become the much more beautiful of things if it was simply a tool God used to get us to this place in time?
Believe? Why would anyone take the chance of not believing? Risk and reward says volumes.
AND... you don't pee on superman's leg or spit into the wind. Pretty simple for an Redneck Aggie.
Hmmm... not enough sleep and too much time spent listening to Art Bell...
Self Ping (should not cause blindness)
And an article that goes along with this is featured in Commentary this month.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article.asp?aid=12102024_1
Just how many universes are there?
We live in the one where these numbers are just so because it is the universe where life can exist.
Ponder how many universes there are where something else exists, or nothing exists.
"Hmmm... not enough sleep and too much time spent listening to Art Bell..."
I have never heard art bell. Are you citing him as support for your viewpoint? If you are tired and unable to post coherently, perhaps you could reply later?
Do you care to reply in specificity to my post?
Do you feel that an article supporting the idea that the universe was constructed HAS TO BE interpreted as vindicating intelligent design of man and that the intelligent designer of the universe has to be the same one as that of homo sapien?
This is like saying a nuclear bomb exploded in japan in 1945, and a firecracker went off in 2005, so obviously the same guy is responsible for both explosions, which seems an absurd notion and thus my previous comment.
Now, answering very 'specifically' your question. Yes, since the Biblical account of creation says the 'Intelligent Designer' created both.
Super article, thanks.
Can you activate the ping list? Thanks!
It's not the universe that has been fine-tuned to life, it's that life has adapted to the environmental conditions. End of story.
God created the Universe.
Then he waited 14 billion years for us to arrive??
Seems like a really long not-well-designed timeline to me.
Lots of the laws of physics do seem to be finetuned. If they weren't, we wouldn't be here talking about.
But we weren't here talking about it for the past 14 billion years since this Universe started. In the eternity of billions of billions of years before the Big Bang, we weren't talking about either. The laws of chance explain it better considering the timelines.
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