0.0073

[Cypress]

The term" fine-tuning" implies a tuner.

Right, but it doesn't imply a diety did it.

There might be a physical explanation for why the properties of the universe are presicely tuned for the existence of complex matter, organization, and structure.

The geometric flatness of the observable universe seemed implausible and way to conveniently tuned to a critical density= 1. Cosmic flatness can only result when the critical density of energy and matter is set to exactly 1.000....

But that might not be a head scratching statistical improbability. It might be a result of cosmic inflation in the first fractions of a second after the big bang.

 

[Saint Guinefort]

It's really funny that you keep complaining this topic is just meaningless navel gazing, but then you keep coming back to the thread to read all the posts on it.

IT'S CALLED TAKING AN OPPOSING POSTION YOU FUCKIN' DIMWIT.

Jeeeeezus are you really that stupid? Seriously? You've never had anyone suggest that they have a different opinion from what YOU were told you should have?

And it's HILARIOUS to see you invoke authority all the time. That's YOUR ONLY RESPONSE: APPEAL TO AUTHORITY.

you need to take a philosophy class, you dimwitted moron.

 

[Cypress]

IT'S CALLED TAKING AN OPPOSING POSTION YOU FUCKIN' DIMWIT.

Jeeeeezus are you really that stupid? 34Seriously? You've never had anyone suggest that they have a different opinion from what YOU were told you should have?

And it's HILARIOUS to see you invoke authority all the time. That's YOUR ONLY RESPONSE: APPEAL TO AUTHORITY.

you need to take a philosophy class, you dimwitted moron.

Way to funny!

You used to claim you stalked my threads because you thought my topics were so fascinating.

But now you still stalk my thread even though you claimed the topic was just pointless navel gazing.

This thread would have died and lapsed into obscurity if you hadn't stalked it and secretly cried to the mods about it

 

[BidenPresident]

Right, but it doesn't imply a diety did it.

Of course it does. It can only mean that.

 

[Saint Guinefort]

Way to funny!

You used to claim you stalked my threads because you thought my topics were so fascinating.

But now you still stalk my thread even though you claimed the topic was just pointless navel gazing.

This thread would have died and lapsed into obscurity if you hadn't stalked it and secretly cried to the mods about it

I honestly wish you were smarter. Seriously. You are an annoying fuck up who accidentally posts what OTHER PEOPLE TALK ABOUT. That doesn't make YOU the interesting one.

Sorry you are so easily confused. But I suspect it is quite common for you.

Also, it's "too", not "to" when using the adverb.

 

[Into the Night]

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

The purpose of any constant of nature is to convert a relation to our units of measurement. That's all.

 

[Into the Night]

I used to wonder how they came up with those constants when I took PChem e.g.
But that was sometime last century.

Same reason. To convert a relation to our units of measurement. The history of measuring these constants is a rather fascinating one, and filled with some rather surprising 'failures'.

 

[Into the Night]

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.

There is no 'fine tuning'.

 

[Into the Night]

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.

No 'tweaking' would result in a universe with only energy, a universe with nothing by hydrogen in it, nor a universe of pure plasma.
You are not discussing constants of nature at all here.

 

[Into the Night]

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.

What 'constant'? He's not talking about any constants!

 

[Into the Night]

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.

There is no 'universal gas constant' or 'universal gravitation constant'.

 

[Into the Night]

Fine tuning is just another way for theists to assert that God created the universe.

How can God create the Universe? He would have to be outside of it to do so, wouldn't He? If so, than it is not the Universe.

 

[Into the Night]

Fine tuning is a legitimate scientific and philosophical question that doesn't require invoking God.

No science or philosophy here. Nothing to see folks...move along...move along...

 

[Into the Night]

The physical constants would exist whether we were here to observe them or not.

Not true. You have to have a unit of measurement for any constant of nature to exist.

The universe is 13.8 billion years old.

The age of the Universe is unknown. Indeed, it might not have an age. It is very possible the Universe has always existed, and always will.

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.

You are not describing any constants of nature.

 

[BidenPresident]

How can God create the Universe? He would have to be outside of it to do so, wouldn't He? If so, than it is not the Universe.

Nothing you say makes sense

 

[Into the Night]

Can you envision a way in which God could create a circle that did NOT automatically generate Pi?

This is why I think al this obsession on why physical constants come out with whatever random value they come out with is mainly navel-gazing without any real meaning.

Personally I think that if one wants to marvel at something it should be "Why is there more matter than antimatter?" or some such question. But pointing to some random 3 significant figure decimal number and oohing and aaahing as if it has some deeper MEANING seems like mental masturbation without the pleasure of an orgasm. Just stroking.

PI is not a physical constant. It is a mathematical constant.

 

[Cypress]

Not true. You have to have a unit of measurement for any constant of nature to exist.

The age of the Universe is unknown. Indeed, it might not have an age. It is very possible the Universe has always existed, and always will.

You are not describing any constants of nature.

Argument from ignorance fallacy.
Adult Depends diapers full of shit mantra

The Theory of the Big Bang is just a nonscientific theory

Wave-Particle duality is classical physics.

There is no such thing as an accelerating reference frame!!

There is no such thing as an 'accelerating frame of reference'.

Darwin's theory of evolution is not science

Axioms are not postulates!

The Nazis were also socialists.

 

[IBDaMann]

Fine tuning is just another way for theists to assert that God created the universe.

Correct. "Fine Tuning" assumes "Intelligent Design." If this is someone's belief then great. It is part of the circular argument that theists get to claim as their faith, as long as they aren't calling it "thettled thienth." I don't happen to share this view; I see the universe, at least the fraction of the flake of the speck of the universe we can observe, as a totally random dust cloud. I encourage Christians to shift away from the "finely tuned" line of thinking towards one of "God is providing a random look and feel to the universe." I have always considered the "finely tuned" claim to be absurd and impossible to support, even in the least.

 

[Into the Night]

Correct. "Fine Tuning" assumes "Intelligent Design." If this is someone's belief then great. It is part of the circular argument that theists get to claim as their faith, as long as they aren't calling it "thettled thienth." I don't happen to share this view; I see the universe, at least the fraction of the flake of the speck of the universe we can observe, as a totally random dust cloud. I encourage Christians to shift away from the "finely tuned" line of thinking towards one of "God is providing a random look and feel to the universe." I have always considered the "finely tuned" claim to be absurd and impossible to support, even in the least.

Speaking as a Christian, I do not support the 'finely tuned' argument either.

 

[Cypress]

The purpose of any constant of nature is to convert a relation to our units of measurement. That's all.