Science and Truth: More Lisa Randall Quotes

"Scientists actively approach the door to knowledge--the boundary of the domain of what we know. We question and explore and we change our views when facts and logic force us to do so. We are confident only in what we can verify through experiments or in what we can deduce from experimentally confirmed hypotheses." --Lisa Randall (Knocking on Heaven's Door)

"Although there is much we don't yet know about the evolution of the universe, we have a spectacularly successful understanding of the universe's evolution based on the so-called Big Bang theory supplemented by a period of exponential expansion of the universe known as cosmological inflation... This theory has agreed with a range of observations, including observations of the microwave radiation in the sky--the microwave radiation left over from the time of the Big Bang.

"Originally the universe was a hot dense fireball. But during the 12.75 billion years of its existence it has diluted and cooled substantially, leaving this much cooler radiation that is a mere 2.7 degrees kelvin today--only a few degrees Celsius above absolute zero. Other evidence for the Big Bang theory of expansion can be found in detailed studies of the abundances of nuclei that were made during the universe's early evolution and in measurements of the universe's expansion itself." --Lisa Randall

"In some cases, we will understand the observations sufficiently well to know what they imply about the underlying nature of matter and physical laws. In other cases, we'll spend a lot of time unraveling the implications. Regardless of what happens, the interplay between theory and data will lead us to loftier interpretations of the universe around us and expand our knowledge into currently inaccessible domains.

"Some experiments might yield results soon. Others could take many years. As data come in, theorists will be forced to revisit and sometimes even abandon suggested explanations so we can improve our theories and apply them correctly... even when new results might require abandoning old ideas.

"Our hypotheses are initially rooted in theoretical consistency and elegance, but... ultimately it is experiment--not rigid belief--that determines what is correct." --Lisa Randall

Gravity follow up Question

I received a really great question concerning gravity after my previous article about Space-time, Quantum Mechanics, and the Cosmological argument for God.


The question was raised:

In addressing "why there is something rather than nothing" your article states:

"Likewise, the related question of why there is something rather than nothing (within the universe) can also be explained. The answer is gravity. Entropy x gravity = clumping. This clumping of matter is what creates stars and planets. Gravity, in other words, is why we have something rather than nothing in the universe."


Honest questions here:

*Why is there something available to be clumped? You say gravity is the reason for there being something rather than nothing, but if there was nothing for gravity to act upon, there would still be nothing.

*And isn't gravity a function of mass (mass of a something)?

Maybe you just shorthanded your treatment of this question. What am I missing in understanding this?

I don't think you're missing anything. As you correctly state, gravity is a function of mass, but let's not forget a function of energy also. 

Why is there something available to be clumped? Because of the big bang. At least that's how I have come to understand it from reading physics books. All the energy in the universe (as far as I can tell) spontaneously popped into existence via the quantum fluctuation, or singularity. Next, as the MIT physicist Alan Guth has posited, inflation takes over and this hot dense plasma is spread out across a great distance via inflation. Gravity then begins to collect the gas clouds of mainly helium and hydrogen and eventually the mass of this gas gets so dense that it ignites a nuclear reaction from the sheer pressure of the mass being compressed. This chain reaction creates a stellar furnace of super giant primordial stars.

Eventually, as any astrophysicist would tell you, these super stars go super nova and explode and create new elements baked in their fiery furnaces. All the natural elements we have identified thus far are known to come from stars. Every piece of matter that exists today was baked up in a star then distributed back out into space in that stars subsequent death. 

Gravity, meanwhile, continues to clump the stuff of stars together along with the other gases and dust swirling about. Soon after, gravity forms nebulae. Eventually the right type of star goes super nova and collapses in on itself forming a black hole. With enough nearby gas, dust, and debris a galaxy can form. Like our own Milky Way galaxy, eventually planetary systems are formed, and all of this spins around the massive black hole at the center.

Meanwhile, the with the recent discovery of dark energy, physicists have a good idea of what is driving the universe to expand exponentially. 

At least, this is how I understand the evolution of our universe to be like from reading physics books. However, I am by no means an authority on the subject.

My point about gravity being the answer to why there is something rather than nothing is this. If there was no gravity, then there would be nothing acted upon. No effect in other words on the stuff after the big bang. Basically the hot plasma after expansion, minus gravity, would never clump and dark energy would continue to force all that energy apart while entropy would erase it from existence. Nothing would ever come to be. 


This causes me to feel that theologians are asking the wrong question about the origin of something with regard to nothing. Because even with all the energy left over from the big bang, without gravity, we would still have nothing. We wouldn't even exist to ask the question. 

So the answer of why there is something rather than nothing is quite clearly: because gravity.

The answer of where did this something come from is: the big bang.


How did stuff form after the big bang? Physicists suppose it has something to do with Symmetry breaking.

The answer of what caused the big bang is currently unknown. Or, perhaps I should say, not fully understood. 


Most physicists think it was likely a quantum fluctuation (of some kind). Yet the field of quantum mechanics is fairly young and it is not completely understood either. Luckily this is why various branches of cosmology and physics exist--so we can continue to investigate the unknown elements of our universe perchance discover why it is the way it is and how it came to be. 

I feel that I must now point out that although we don't currently understand everything about the nature of reality, scientists are making steady progress at increasing our understanding of the over all picture of reality. 


Gradually they are pulling the curtain which veils reality and hides her from us further and further back revealing hitherto unforeseen truths. With each new discovery our understanding of the overall picture of reality grows ever more complete. 


Although I can only speak for myself, it seems to me that if religion were true, according to the claims religion makes for itself, then it would be the vehicle to revealing all the truths of reality. Since this is not the case, it makes me highly skeptical of anything religion has to say with regard to reality--the world--the universe--or myself.

Now, it stems to reason, that if you assume something "caused" the big bang--although this assumption is illogical knowing that causation cannot exist outside of temporal space-time--even if we wish to ignore the erroneous nature of the question and simply rephrase it--the question would probably have to push back to where did that initial energy fluctuation come from? 

That is still a question currently undergoing investigation. Physicists are currently working on figuring that out--from many different angles--so it is too early to tell with any certainty. 


Which brings me to the second part.

Many physicists, including Stephen Hawking and Michio Kaku, posit that gravity exists multidemensionally. At least, the math seems to suggest it (as I am not a physicist I am inclined to take their word for it--esteemed as they are).


If so, then gravity would exist whether or not our particular universe did.

As I hopefully showed in the article, the logic behind the Cosmological argument is Newtonian. But modern physics and cosmology goes far above and beyond that type of reasoning. Especially where gravity is concerned. 


Modern cosmology suggests that there is a minute vacuum energy to the quantum foam of space. This vacuum energy has recently been tested by Swedish physicists who used a virtual mirror to push a virtual particle out of the vacuum energy and it immediately formed into a tangible light particle. That is amazing. They literally tapped on vacuum energy, the closest thing to nothing there is, with a oscillating magnetic field and got a light photon out of it. 

Basically they made light from nothing. That's just cool. Although it doesn't provide ready answers--it is a step in the right direction. Slowly, but surely, we are piecing together the puzzle of how the cosmos came to be.

I think I should mention that gravity is also mysterious. It may even be multi-demensional (according to several physics theories). We have only been able to measure it indirectly. But new instruments are being developed which will have the required sensitivity to measure gravitational radiation in the near future (see the Michio Kaku video below). As I understand it, its frequency will tell us a lot about the nature of gravity and how the universe functions/behaves. So I am eagerly anticipating that discovery.


It seems to me, and this gets back to my initial point, if there really were a theistic deity of a power and magnitude such as the type which theologians claim, then this power has to interact with reality (otherwise what good is such a power if it remains forever unknown? It might as well not even exist--if that's the case). If there is a God, such as the one theists posit, it can be assumed that it interacts with the universe and so should also have observable effects. The fact that we don't see any, would, it seems to me, suggest there is no such being.

Space-time, Quantum Mechanics, and the Cosmological Argument for God

While watching Brian Greene's excellent NOVA series "The Fabric of the Cosmos," I went back and opened up the book (still sitting unread on my shelf) and read it with interest.

Greene talks about space-time, hence the title "The Fabric of the Cosmos," and while thinking carefully on the subject of how space and time are interwoven, as proved by Einstein's theory of special relativity, I came to a very simple realization. Theologians who invoke the Cosmological Argument for God likely don't understand the first thing about cosmology.

A Christian asked me today whether or not it takes the same amount of faith to believe that the universe arose from a quantum singularity as it does to believe a God created it.

My answer was simply: no.

He then told me I should think more about the Kalam cosmological argument, and what the first premise entails, specifically that the universe began. Thus it was caused to begin. Therefore something outside of the universe must have caused it--and for the supernatural minded--this explanation is Goddidit.


I have several objections to the first premise.

As I considered time and space being part of the same fabric of reality, I realized that theologians have the wrong impression of beginnings. Their thinking fits the Newtonian idea that things which begin have causes. But quantum mechanics has blown that rationale up showing that the classical model of physics and how it depicts reality is largely misleading. It has been discovered that fully actualized particles pop in and out of existence all the time in what are called quantum fluctuations. 


Where I feel theologians are getting hung up is not on the notion that time, and so reality and thus all existence--must have a definite beginning--because this is in tune with cosmological observations, but that they feel the beginning of space-time denotes a cause because all things that begin--according to Newtonian reasoning--have causes (e.g., causality).


The problem is this theological consideration that because the universe began it must have had a cause is only true within the confines of the physical universe in which the physical laws already dictate that causes have effects. Without the fabric of the space-time continuum, beginnings and ends make little to no sense, so it would technically be incorrect to assert that everything that begins to exist has a cause before you establish causation. 

The statement "anything which begins to exist has a cause" is true only within the confines of the physical laws of the universe as they are known to us. Beyond the confines of space-time, however, the statement makes no sense whatsoever. 

To complicate matters even more, we must be aware that the past, present, and future all seem to be relative. As Brian Greene reminds us, "there is nothing in the laws of classical physics that says this direction is time future and that direction is time past."


This being the case, how can theologians, who abide by the strict adherence to classical reasoning, say there is a beginning or end at all? 


Again, I is apparent to me that their Newtonian reasoning (which only applies to one small part of the picture) has caused them to jump to the wrong conclusions about the underlying reality of the universe (thereby causing them to miss the bigger picture).


Additionally, to answer the often asked question of why there appears to be order in the universe, this too can be explained by the the increase of entropy from a low to high state. As Greene informs, "The big bang started the universe off in a state of low entropy, and that state appears to be the source of the order we currently see."

Likewise, the related question of why there is something rather than nothing (within the universe) can also be explained. The answer is gravity. Entropy x gravity = clumping. According to physicists, this clumping of matter is what creates stars and planets. Gravity, in other words, is why we have something rather than nothing in the universe.


The Cosmological argument merely asks what sparked that initial fluctuation that caused the big bang? But see, that is, once again, the Newtonian reasoning which presumes all things that begin have causes. In other words, theologians are making a categorical mistake of attributing a metaphysical cause to a temporal effect wherein that reasoning only fits within the framework of a temporal reality. 


Thus, according to the theologians reasoning, things which are acted upon (either physically or metaphysically) have effects and therefor must have causes. There are no random accidents. As Einstein lamented, "God does not play dice."  


Niels Bohr, one of the early pioneers of quantum mechanics, replied to Einstein, "Stop telling God what to do."


The question theoretical physicists and cosmologists are currently investigating is: what, if anything, was there before the big bang?

Recently new theories have emerged which go a long ways toward helping to explain the conditions of the universe prior to its onset. The anthropic principle, eternal inflation, and string theory (for example) all predict a cosmic multiverse. Although it is yet unproved--the fact that three main fields of physics all stumble upon the same prediction, seems to me, to be a good sign that there might be something to this premise.

Although these cutting edge theories are not yet confirmed, they do predict the universe we see, and are based off of the cosmological pieces of the puzzle we have thus far collected and pieced together. What's more--they are testable--and so are falsifiable. Falsifiability is important--because if we are wrong--then being falsified lets us find out our mistakes so that we may correct them.


God theories, on the other hand, predict absolutely nothing (i.e., have zero utility), and in many cases cannot be adequately falsified. 

Being asked to even entertain the notion of the Cosmological argument for the existence of God is the same as being asked to ignore all the current cosmological evidence we do have which leaves no room for the existence of such a being. God theories merely make the a priori assumption that God exists. That's faith--not science. 


Do we know for sure what happened before the big bang? No. But that doesn't mean we can just substitute any answer we like in place of our ignorance. We aren't merely drawing straws here at what the most probable answer is. 


We are in the process of looking for testable evidence. When we find it--we will know. Even if we never find out for certain how the universe came to be, then the only answer we could possibly give to the question of what caused the universe to begin to exist is: I don't know.

God never even enters the equation.

Let me turn the question around, why would anyone put their faith in God having created the universe when God fails to explain anything about the universe, but current competing model of cosmology seem to explain everything fairly well without invoking useless God theories?

My point is this, although science cannot say whether or not it is possible for God to exist or not, it does a good job of showing that any effects of his causes are so far entirely absent. That is to say we can see no noticeable signs of his interaction with the universe or his effect upon it. Meanwhile physics explains things quite well without God. 


Without any evidence of God's interaction upon the universe, God becomes redundant for explanations which don't need to invoke God, and thus the God hypothesis is mainly irrelevant. Such a being might as well not even exist.

Gallivanting Through the Universe on a Unicorn! An Interview with Mike D. aka "The A-Unicornist"

I recently sat down (at my computer) and had a great online exchange with Mike Doolittle who runs the amazing blog called The A-Unicornist. Mike is one of the most intelligent and clear thinking writers you'll read online, so I was truly honored that he took the time out of his schedule of work, rock, and blogging to have an engaging discussion with me. As we geeked out over things cosmological I couldn't help but feel a little envious of his knack for clarity and easy to understand explanations--whereas I feel I'm always struggling to state things precisely Mike is a natural. Check out his blog if you get a chance and enjoy the discussion!

FYI: Just a couple free-thinking laymen shooting the breeze about things they are passionate about. We're by no means experts or professionals here (just so you know), but we both love science, especially the area known as cosmology--the study of the cosmos and our origins. So without further delay, onto the interview.

1.      Do you have a particular area of interest with regard to cosmology? I personally am fascinated by M-Theory and the fantastic possibility of parallel dimensions.

I'm most fascinated by String Theory, just because it is by far the best candidate we have for a quantum theory of gravity. Crazily enough, while other theories incorporate gravity, String Theory actually predicts gravity. Granted it's a retro-diction, but it's still a pretty impressive piece of mathematics. A unified theory of physics still seems very elusive, but the Large Hadron Collider may be able to test some of the predictions of String Theory, like supersymmetry. It's a pretty exciting time to be into physics, especially because this will probably be the largest particle accelerator we get for a long time. To get to significantly smaller scales we'd need an impossibly huge particle accelerator. To probe the Planck scale directly (where we might be able to observe the one-dimensional strings of String Theory), we'd need one larger than the solar system. But in the next few years I anticipate the LHC making some very big discoveries.

2.      Do you have any favorite physics books which are a must read and if so what are they?

I loved Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe", and of course Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" is a must-read. Some of the other books I've read, like Lisa Randall's "Warped Passages", are a little more technical and esoteric. But if you're just being introduced to cosmology, both Brian Greene and Stephen Hawking have written some very readable books that nicely illustrate where we are and what some of the possibilities are for the future. I would actually recommend to most people that they get started with lectures. TED Talks has some great lectures on physics that introduce general concepts without getting too technical.

3.      Do you have a favorite cosmologist, astrophysicist, or theoretical physicist? Who are they and why do you like them?

Well I love Hawking. He's undeniably brilliant, and he's a great writer. Brian Cox, the "rock & roll physicist," is also very entertaining just because of the clarity and palpable excitement he speaks with. Brain Greene has a knack for explaining complex things in terms mortals like me can understand. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is fantastic too, for his sense of humor and his ability to express the poetry of some really amazing facts – like the fact that the very atoms that comprise us were cooked from lighter elements in ancient stars that exploded their enriched guts across the galaxy. The universe is literally inside us. That's a very profound and humbling thought to me. 

4.      What, in your mind, has been the most noteworthy find or discovery in the past fifty or sixty years of cosmological investigation? What would you like to see discovered?

It's difficult to pick one. We've discovered fundamental elementary particles, called quarks. It was amazing because scientists had predicted their existence back in the 60s, but we didn't actually observe them until the 90s at Fermilab here in the U.S. In the last decade we've confirmed within a 2% margin of error that the universe is geometrically flat, which has big implications for cosmology. We have strong evidence that dark matter and dark energy are real, even though we don't know much of anything about what they are or what they do. And for future possibilities, the unification of the five versions of String Theory into M-Theory was a big mathematical accomplishment, though there's still a lot of work to be done just in terms of developing the theory, much less empirically testing it. I'd love to say that I'd like to see a unified theory of physics, but I think more pragmatically there are some interesting concepts with regard to extra dimensions (that's spatial dimensions – not to be confused with other universes) that may be tested with the LHC, and I'd love to see us confirm the Higgs boson and supersymmetry, as well as develop a working understanding of dark matter and dark energy. Those are real possibilities within the next ten years, whereas a quantum theory of gravity... well, who knows. We've been at it for nearly a century, and it's always seemed just out of reach.

5.      What theory do you think is the most misunderstood in physics/cosmology? Which is the most misrepresented by religious?

Without a doubt, the answer to both questions is the same: the Big Bang. I've often heard it described as an "explosion in space"; it wasn't anything like that – it was the expansion of the very fabric of space-time. Edwin Hubble noticed that distant galaxies were all getting farther away from each other, which means they must have been closer together in the past. When we extrapolate that backward billions and billions of years, we reach a point where the equations of Einstein's General Relativity break down, in what's known as the cosmic singularity. This is what's often called the "beginning" of our universe. The Catholic church, back when the Big Bang was formulated, got pretty excited because it seemed to confirm the Bible. This misconception continues to this day. The singularity is just an artifact of General Relativity, and shows us the limitations of that model of physics. If we use quantum theories, the laws of physics do not break down. The universe gets to a very small size – Planck size, or 1.616 x 10^-35 meters, and we just don't know what happened before that. But most modern cosmological theories, including String Theory, do not predict a singularity or a "beginning" to the universe. Instead, they reshape our understanding of time itself.

6.      How would you go about dealing with someone who is obviously ignorant about cosmology (and science in general) and keep confusing abiogenesis, evolution, and cosmology as one and the same? What would you say to them or would you just brush them off as a lost cause?

That depends. Some people are ignorant, but have a natural curiosity. You can work with that. I mean, that's me! There's so much I have yet to learn. Others have a rigid adherence to dogmatic viewpoints, and they usually aren't worth the trouble. Before you can talk to them about cosmology, you have to address the issues causing them to be resistant to new knowledge.

7.      I find it strange that Intelligent Design proponents will deny evolution but be in full support of the big bang theory and fine tuning, etc. Where do you think the fault in reasoning is taking place and what is the best fix for such a glitch?

I don't know that there's an easy fix at all. If someone is in the new-agey Deepak Chopra school of thought, it's usually just a misunderstanding of science and you just have to steer them in the right direction; you know, remind them that Deepak Chopra isn't actually a physicist and introduce them to popular science books by reputable physicists. But if someone is adhering to a specific dogma the way ID'ers tend to be evangelical Christians, you have to address that first by for example talking about the Bible – is it historically reliable, is it logically coherent, etc. Beliefs tend to arise as a sort of network of experiences, knowledge and biases. I remember arguing til I was blue in the face with an evangelical Christian friend of mine about evolution. Then we started talking about the Bible – he started looking at the Old Testament more critically, with all its scriptures where God commands stonings, subjugation of women and genocide, and that created the cognitive dissonance he needed to start examining everything more critically. Now he's an atheist and loves learning about evolution. A direct approach isn't always the most productive.

8.      I personally feel that modern cosmology has helped to make religion obsolete (especially archaic creation myths). Would you agree with this assessment? If so why or why not, and which ideas or theories specifically relate to this concern?

It's funny you say that, because "A Brief History of Time" is actually what pushed me into atheism. Even after I lost my faith in Christianity, I still held on to a very vague concept of a higher power. I was sort of a "deistic agnostic". It wasn't any theory in particular that changed my mind, but Hawking's exposition helped me recognize the fact that the idea of God really fails in every conceivable way as a hypothesis for explaining anything worth explaining – the origin of the universe, our morality, our evolution, even our sense of meaning in life. But I didn't recognize my philosophical folly until I became better acquainted with science. Cosmology is really about the biggest questions of all – why are we here, where did we come from, that sort of thing. Once you can see why "God did it" isn't a good answer to those questions, it inspires a great sense of wonder, curiosity, and most of all humility.

9.      What are your favorite Science Fiction film(s), television series, and/or book(s)? If you have more than one please list them and briefly explain what you like about them.

I don't read much fiction, though a good friend of mine has promised to loan me "Ring World", a favorite of hers. But I am a complete nerd when it comes to sci-fi movies and TV. Right now I'm working through Battlestar Galactica, and it's just fantastic. I enjoyed Caprica for its brief run, and I'm really into Stargate Universe. Movies, I love everything from "Contact" to the new "Star Trek". I'm such a geek though that when I watch stuff like that, I'm always thinking about what is and isn't plausible. For some reason artificial gravity really annoys me. It's funny how, like in SGU, the whole ship can get shot up or be almost totally drained of power, but gravity always works just fine.

10.   Where do you think the future of cosmology and physics know how will take us? In other words, what are your predictions for the future and beyond with regard to the course we now traverse?

I wish I knew. It's easy to take something like GPS systems for granted, but they wouldn't work unless we took General Relativity into account. But Einstein could never have imagined back in the 1920s that his equations would be used to synchronize satellites with our cell phones. Right now, with the Large Hadron Collider, we're on the cusp of some potentially transformative discoveries in physics. It could lead to advances in quantum computing, nanotechnology, medicine, neurology, and who knows... maybe we'll even get that whole interstellar travel thing down. The LHC cost over $10 billion to build, and a lot of people questioned the wisdom of that investment when the world is faced with so many urgent problems. But were it not for quantum mechanics we would not have many things that have transformed our lives, including computers and the internet. It might seem ironic, but I think part of the excitement of physics is really just having no concept of where our discoveries will take us. Sometimes just exploring the mysteries of the universe is one of the most important things we can do. 

A Universe From Nothing

How did the Universe come to be? Theists posit that God must have been the initial cause of the origin of the Universe, however, modern physics and cosmology suggest that the Universe came from nothing and is self sustaining. Eminent physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss gives quite an entertaining, yet highly informative, talk at AAI 2009 which addresses this exact issue and expounds more fully. For those concerned with what the real science shows and how we get something from nothing, along with an insightful lecture on the modern picture of cosmology and how it has changed our views, or if you just love cosmology like I do, please watch this educational lecture by Krauss at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo


***

On a side note, some popular physics titles I highly recommend are:

Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang -- Rewriting Cosmic History by Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok.

The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design by Leonard Susskind

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (Princeton Science Library) by Richard P. Feynman and A. Zee

The Feynman Lectures on Physics including Feynman's Tips on Physics: The Definitive and Extended Edition by Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, and Matthew Sands

Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions by Lisa Randall 

The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene

The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Lee Smolin

Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos by Michio Kaku

The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe by Roger Penrose

The Comprehensible Cosmos: Where Do the Laws of Physics Come From? by Victor J. Stenger

These are just a list of my favorites. Some are more challenging than others, but if you love to learn, and you want to know about the origin of the Universe, including why we exist at all, these books will quench your thirst for better understanding while simultaneously fueling your imagination and desire to learn more!  Happy reading!