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To: betty boop
Perhaps the matter-antimatter asymmetry apparently demonstrated in the recorded 13% CP violation might be an indication of an "in-built bias in favor of life" manifesting in the universe from the very beginning? We must ask Doc and tortoise and Physicist what they think....

[Credibility check: I spent four years at Penn working on experimental issues of B-meson detection. Some of that work became the initial trigger design of the BTeV experiment at Fermilab, which has become much more sophisticated since.]

We really don't know the origin of CP violation. The question of "built-in bias" becomes one of whether the CP symmetry is spontaneously broken or dynamically broken.

Spontaneous symmetry breaking means that the symmetry had to break somehow, but there was no built-in bias to how it broke. For example, if you stand a knitting needle up on its point, it will fall because it's unstable. After it falls, it will point at some well-defined orientation, in contrast to the radial symmetry it enjoyed before it fell. There's nothing special about the orientation, however: it had to be something, and any orientation was as likely as any other. Anyone reading any significance into the orientation is fooling himself.

Dynamical symmetry breaking means that the way in which the symmetry breaks is forced. If someone pushed the standing needle in a particular direction, for example, or if the needle fell onto a slope, the radial symmetry would be dynamically broken. But while you can question the intentions of a pusher, the slope has none.

In the case of B mesons, we can't yet say how it happens, so the question of bias is premature.

523 posted on 01/07/2005 3:03:07 PM PST by Physicist
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To: Physicist; Alamo-Girl; marron; StJacques; tortoise; PatrickHenry; Matchett-PI
The question of "built-in bias" becomes one of whether the CP symmetry is spontaneously broken or dynamically broken.... In the case of B mesons, we can't yet say how it happens, so the question of bias is premature.

Of course I agree drawing any conclusions at this point in the research would be premature. The entire issue of a "bias towards life," or life as an "opportunistic phenomenon," is speculative in any case. Yet one does notice that instances of "fine-tuning" of universal physical constraints necessary for the emergence of life continue to come to notice, such that questions of "intent" seem not unreasonable to ask, although premature to answer on the basis of the scientific record to date.

Thank you ever so much, Physicist, for laying out the issues involved in CP violation for us as they pertain to the matter of "bias." It is so good to hear from you!

530 posted on 01/08/2005 7:56:19 AM PST by betty boop
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