Posted on 12/18/2009 12:07:14 AM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
The typical Hollywood action hero skirts death for a living. Time and again, scores of bad guys shoot at him from multiple directions but miss by a hair. Cars explode just a fraction of a second too late for the fireball to catch him before he finds cover. And friends come to the rescue just before a villain’s knife slits his throat. If any one of those things happened just a little differently, the hero would be hasta la vista, baby. Yet even if we have not seen the movie before, something tells us that he will make it to the end in one piece.
In some respects, the story of our universe resembles a Hollywood action movie. Several physicists have argued that a slight change to one of the laws of physics would cause some disaster that would disrupt the normal evolution of the universe and make our existence impossible. For example, if the strong nuclear force that binds together atomic nuclei had been slightly stronger or weaker, stars would have forged very little of the carbon and other elements that seem necessary to form planets, let alone life. If the proton were just 0.2 percent heavier than it is, all primordial hydrogen would have decayed almost immediately into neutrons, and no atoms would have formed. The list goes on.
(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...
I agree with you.
The compelling thing about this split-universe theory, btw, (I think it’s called many-worlds theory officially), is that it’s unexplainable to science why quantum events are random. There’s no way of knowing which direction a photon will travel, or when a radioactive nucleus will decay. Einstein was also baffled by this seemingly unaccountable randomness, claiming instead that “God does not play dice”. Scientists by their very nature prefer order and predictablity, but quantum physics itself states that events must happen at random (Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal). If a photon goes left instead of right completely at random, then can it also go right in some other universe, and still appear random in both? That at least explains what otherwise cannot be explained by present science.
I agree with you.
God is in the details...
I agree. He is.
Time is the forth dimension, alternate reality is the fifth dimension.
BREAKING NEWS - President Palin just approved the final nuclear strike in the mideast that will turn Saudi Arabia, the last muslime country, into glass. This will eliminate all final muslimes from the earth. Palin also announced the completion of the last “relocation camp” for the few remaining liberals in the western hemisphere at Guantanamo Bay in the State of Cuba. ...... Oh shoot, I’m sorry, guess I bumped over from the real universe, carry on.
Infinite means infinite. The number is probably inexpressible. How many atoms in the visible universe? Maybe 10^80. And how many quantum events for each second per each atom? We don’t know for sure, but certainly millions at least.
And, to blow your mind away even more, each one of these permutations represents another universe with equal permutations. In other words, the number of of them grows exponentially by a factor impossible to imagine. You make a good point, one I’m aware of.
This is true. You are speaking of a mathematical estimate based on a ton of presumptions about the 'beginning' of the Universe, and the 'weight' (amount of mass).
It is also well-known that this 'model' doesn't fit the facts (kinda like the GW issue), and scientists had to make up a fudge factor called dark-matter.
Still, it is a 'guess', and I was talking about the 'observed' (whether visually or via other parts of the EM spectrum).
So, mainstream size 'estimates' may be correct, or may not. We have no proof yet.
If and when we are able to 'observe' the 'extent' of the Universe, what will we see just beyond that?
I live again, a million, a billion, a trillion times.
Best....
Thank you very much for the link.
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