Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss discuss Something from Nothing

Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss recently sat on the stage at the Australian National University to discuss "something from nothing." What follows are my notes from that conversation. (9) Dawkins offers two methods for illustrating the long periods of time that are critical to understanding natural selection. (13:30) The key idea is that we might be getting something from nothing. Life comes from non-life. Matter appears to come from the lack of matter. (14:47) We are dealing with the new version of "nothing." (16:00) It is plausible that everything started with no matter,and maybe no loss. It might not violate any laws for matter to come from the lack of matter. Especially in physics, scientists have learned to ignore the common sense. The total energy of the universe might be "zero." It might nonetheless be a bubbling brew of virtual particles, and this offends some people. (20) Krauss: The universe doesn't care what we like or what we understand. We need to deal with this. (21) Dawkins: Natural selection has equipped us to be bad physicists and we have to work to overcome this. (22) Space is curved, but we cannot visualize this. Our picture of natural/normal reality is myopic. [More . . . ]

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Everything you wanted to know about the universe, and the opposite

This is a highly entertaining and mind-stretching talk by Lawrence Krauss from 2009. The title is "A universe from Nothing," and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. Enjoy. Here are a few of Krauss' quotes from his talk: The universe is flat, It has 0 total energy, And it could have begun from nothing. (min 40) Why is there something rather than nothing? There had to be. If you had nothing in quantum mechanics, you’ll always get something. It’s not simple. . . but it’s true. (Min 41) We live in a universe dominated by nothing. 70% of the energy in the universe resides in empty space. And we don’t have the slightest idea why it’s there. (min 42). We now know that “we are more insignificant than we ever imagined. If you get rid of everything we see, the universe is essentially the same. We constitute a 1% bit of pollution in a universe that’s 30% dark matter and 70% dark energy. We are completely irrelevant. (min. 43). There may be other universes that aren't conducive to life, and lo and behold there isn't life in them. That's a kind of cosmic natural selection. (min 46:00). [History of string theory in 10 seconds.] (min 49). Strive for cosmic humility. The recognition that we don’t know far more than we know. (min. 50). Galaxies are moving away from us at an increasing rate of speed. In 100 billion years, “all evidence of the big bang will disappear.” Scientists living then will derive a picture of the universe that is completely wrong. They will derive a picture of the universe being one galaxy surrounded by empty space that is static and eternal. Falsifiable science will produce the wrong answer. (min. 52). We live in a very special time: The only time when we can observationally verify that we live at a very special time!” (min 52). The universe remains mysterious, and that is great (min 53).

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The Edge of Physics

I watched Anil Ananthaswamy's TED talk video "What it takes to do extreme astrophysics" last Sunday. I thought he was eloquent and passionate. Intrigued by his way with words, I picked up his book - The Edge of Physics, on which his talk was based - from the local library the next day. I now need to add it to my own. Ananthaswamy has created a fascinating survey of history and extraordinary efforts of today's cosmologists to uncover the knowledge of the origins and the fundamental structure of the universe. It’s a quick read, even though I found myself pausing to seek out (and read) Hubble’s 1929 paper “A Relation Between Distance and Radial Velocity Among Extra-Galactic Nebulae”; Ostriker, Peebles and Yahil’s 1974 paper “The Size and Mass of Galaxies, and the Mass of the Universe” and to look up where these researchers are working. I thoroughly enjoyed his narrative and particularly the composition of the book. Ananthaswamy's wonderful story has exquisite descriptions of the exotic and dangerous locations where the investigative scientists have found the “environmentally silent” conditions necessary to the detection of theorized particles and energy or of nearly unimpeded observation of the universe. Transitioning smoothly from optical cosmology to detection of neutrinos, dark matter, dark energy, Higgs bosons and more, Ananthaswamy excels at simplifying complex subjects, his narrative interwoven with the history of the building blocks leading to the current competing theories. As an engineer, I wonder how knowing the nature of dark matter or the validation of supersymmetry or superstring theories is useful; or more practically, how that knowledge can be used. But as a former physics major who never lost interest in the subject, I love the quest for knowledge. It doesn't matter if it can be used for anything practical. I was asked in another thread what I might consider literature (with a capital "L")...I'm thinking The Edge of Physics qualifies for me.

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