0.0073

C

Cypress

Well-known member
Why do the constants of nature have the values that they do?

Over the last hundred years, we’ve measured the properties of protons and electrons in great detail. All of those calculations start with how strongly protons and electrons attract each other. The strength of that attraction can be summed up in one number: the fine structure constant. We can measure the fine structure constant to extremely high precision; it’s about 0.0073 (or 1/137).

But nothing in our physical theories explains why the fine structure constant has that particular value. It seems like an arbitrary dial that got set when our universe came into being.

But it turns out that 0.0073 is not just any number. Calculations have shown that if the force of attraction between protons and electrons were stronger or weaker by just a few percent, stars wouldn’t be able to form the complex atoms like carbon that make life possible. Change the fine structure constant by a little more and stars couldn’t exist at all.

Something set the fine structure constant for our universe to this arbitrary-seeming value, and it happens to be exactly the value that we need it to be for complex matter to exist. That seems a bit odd.

When a coincidence gets too , you start to look for an explanation. If your neighbor wins the lottery, you have a lucky neighbor. If your neighbor wins the lottery five times in a row, you start to get suspicious.

Mathematically, the perfectly chosen fine structure constant looks like life and complex matter won quite a few lotteries in a row.

There are a number of other examples of constants like this. Two that are particularly relevant to the early universe are the number of visible dimensions (which determines whether stable orbits are possible) and the density of dark energy (which determined when the universe started to accelerate)—both of which seem to have just the right values they need to have. Make either one a little different and the universe would have no solar systems in it.



- source credit: course guidebook, The Big Bang and the Early Universe, Gary Felder, professor of physics, Smith College
 
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Cypress said:
Something set the fine structure constant for our universe to this arbitrary-seeming value, and it happens to be exactly the value that we need it to be for complex matter to exist. That seems a bit odd.
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What an absurd statement.

Does the water in a puddle think "Gosh, it is so good that nature created a hole that PERFECT FITS MY VOLUME OF WATER! What are odds?"
 
Someone reported this as rule 5, however this is not online content that can be linked, and posting a few paragraphs from a book is not a violation of the fair use act, if these were even direct paragraphs. I'm not sure. I don't have this book. Just noting here. This particular thread is not a violation of Fair Use, there isn't enough of the book quoted (if it is direct quoting) to cause an issue.
 
Damocles said:
Someone reported this as rule 5, however this is not online content that can be linked, and posting a few paragraphs from a book is not a violation of the fair use act
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Perry PhD is following me around and complaining again.
 
Cypress said:
Why do the constants of nature have the values that they do?

Over the last hundred years, we’ve measured the properties of protons and electrons in great detail. All of those calculations start with how strongly protons and electrons attract each other. The strength of that attraction can be summed up in one number: the fine structure constant. We can measure the fine structure constant to extremely high precision; it’s about 0.0073 (or 1/137).

But nothing in our physical theories explains why the fine structure constant has that particular value. It seems like an arbitrary dial that got set when our universe came into being.

But it turns out that 0.0073 is not just any number. Calculations have shown that if the force of attraction between protons and electrons were stronger or weaker by just a few percent, stars wouldn’t be able to form the complex atoms like carbon that make life possible. Change the fine structure constant by a little more and stars couldn’t exist at all.

Something set the fine structure constant for our universe to this arbitrary-seeming value, and it happens to be exactly the value that we need it to be for complex matter to exist. That seems a bit odd.

When a coincidence gets too , you start to look for an explanation. If your neighbor wins the lottery, you have a lucky neighbor. If your neighbor wins the lottery five times in a row, you start to get suspicious.

Mathematically, the perfectly chosen fine structure constant looks like life and complex matter won quite a few lotteries in a row.

There are a number of other examples of constants like this. Two that are particularly relevant to the early universe are the number of visible dimensions (which determines whether stable orbits are possible) and the density of dark energy (which determined when the universe started to accelerate)—both of which seem to have just the right values they need to have. Make either one a little different and the universe would have no solar systems in it.



- source credit: course guidebook, The Big Bang and the Early Universe, Gary Felder, professor of physics, Smith College
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I used to wonder how they came up with those constants when I took PChem e.g.
But that was sometime last century.
 
Oscillator said:
What an absurd statement.

Does the water in a puddle think "Gosh, it is so good that nature created a hole that PERFECT FITS MY VOLUME OF WATER! What are odds?"
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A very dumb comment showing complete ignorance of the issue of fine tuning

Puddles come in all sizes and shapes, depending on the amount of rain and the landscape's drainage characteristics.

The fine structure constant, the critical density of the universe, the gravitational constant, and more are the same everywhere in the observable universe, and seem to all be tuned to within a few percent neccessary to produce matter, energy, and the ideal spatial geometry to produce galaxies, stars, planetary systems. That is quite a coincidence. When good scientists see too many coincidences, they get suspicious and start looking for answers.

Some people think you can invoke inflation, or the anthropic principle to explain it, but that's just conjecture really. It's possible though.
 
anonymoose said:
I used to wonder how they came up with those constants when I took PChem e.g.
But that was sometime last century.
Click to expand...

Lots of smart astronomers and cosmologists wonder about how or why the physical constants are so finest tuned to allow the matter and structure we see in the observable universe. It's a legitimate scientific and philosophical question. There's no reason in principle a universe couldn't be made of pure hydrogen, pure energy, plasma if you just tweaked some constants and physical properties.
 
Cypress said:
A very dumb comment showing complete ignorance of the issue of fine tuning
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Nah, you are the dumb one in that you don't understand my point. You just like to find a number and oooh and aaaah over it so you can sound science-y.

If the constant were different you wouldn't know it.

Puddles come in all sizes and shapes, depending on the amount of rain and the landscape's drainage characteristics.
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Jeezopete you don't get the point do you???? Are you really that dumb? For someone how touts his amazing intellect and broad reading you sure don't come across as particularly sharp.

Damn, you are fuckin' dim.
 
anonymoose said:
I used to wonder how they came up with those constants when I took PChem e.g.
But that was sometime last century.
Click to expand...

Usually constants arise from the quirk of the mathematics. In the pchem class you took a lot of those constants fell out of standard integration etc. Nothing really "magical" about them. They just ARE. Like the universal gas constant or the universal gravitation constant.

If they were different the universe would be different. But to obsess on why the fine tuning constant is 0.0073 as opposed to 0.007337 or 0.0074 as if there is some deeper "meaning" behind it is absurd in the extreme.

May as well get oogly over a y-intercept on a graph. It just is what it is.
 
Cypress said:
Lots of smart astronomers and cosmologists wonder about how or why the physical constants are so finest tuned to allow the matter and structure we see in the observable universe. It's a legitimate scientific and philosophical question. There's no reason in principle a universe couldn't be made of pure hydrogen, pure energy, plasma if you just tweaked some constants and physical properties.
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Fine tuning is just another way for theists to assert that God created the universe.
 
Oscillator said:
I didn't complain about this one because you didn't wholesale steal a huge chunk of the text.

You need to learn how copyright law works. (Something new for you to read.)
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You usually lie Perry PhD, so I don't have much doubt you were the one who went crying and whining to moderators
 
Oscillator said:
Nah, you are the dumb one in that you don't understand my point. You just like to find a number and oooh and aaaah over it so you can sound science-y.

If the constant were different you wouldn't know it.



Jeezopete you don't get the point do you???? Are you really that dumb? For someone how touts his amazing intellect and broad reading you sure don't come across as particularly sharp.

Damn, you are fuckin' dim.
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The physical constants would exist whether we were here to observe them or not. The universe is 13.8 billion years old.


The fact that these constants settled on very specific and finely tuned values that allow the manifestation of complex matter, structure, organization is a legitimate scientific and philosophical question many PhD level astronomers and cosmologists wonder about.
 
The physical constants themselves are a kind of philosophical question.

They aren't really scientific in a certain sense, because they cannot be predicted from theory or from first principles. They are just these weird irrational numbers that we only know about because we can measure other things that depend on them.
 
Cypress said:
You usually lie Perry PhD, so I don't have much doubt you were the one who went crying and whining to moderators
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I reported you on the one where you lifted a HUGE chunk from behind a paywall. But this one wasn't as egregious. I get it, though, you think theft is OK but you are on guard against "liars".

Selective morality I'd say. But it figures because you don't seem to really understand much of what you talk about.
 
Cypress said:
The physical constants would exist whether we were here to observe them or not. The universe is 13.8 billion years old.


The fact that these constants settled on very specific and finely tuned values that allow the manifestation of complex matter, structure, organization is a legitimate scientific and philosophical question many PhD level astronomers and cosmologists wonder about.
Click to expand...

You post like a little kid who thinks just pointing at other people makes your argument. You really need to take a legitimate philosophy or logic or rhetoric class.
 
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