Astronomer Alan Fitzsimmons of Queen\u2019s University Belfast takes a break between sessions at the La Silla Observatory in Chile to simply admire the Milky Way.
(Click to enlarge the image. \u00a0It\u2019s worth it.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cScientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth \u2014 the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. \u00a0The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. \u00a0For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient \u2018coincidences\u2019 and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. \u00a0Fred Hoyle, the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if \u201ca super-intellect has monkeyed with physics\u201d.<\/span><\/strong>
\u201cTo see the problem, imagine playing God with the cosmos. Before you is a designer machine that lets you tinker with the basics of physics. Twiddle this knob and you make all electrons a bit lighter, twiddle that one and you make gravity a bit stronger, and so on. It happens that you need to set thirtysomething knobs to fully describe the world about us. The crucial point is that some of those metaphorical knobs must be tuned very precisely, or the universe would be sterile.<\/span><\/strong>
\u201cExample: neutrons are just a tad heavier than protons. If it were the other way around, atoms couldn\u2019t exist, because all the protons in the universe would have decayed into neutrons shortly after the big bang. No protons, then no atomic nucleuses and no atoms. No atoms, no chemistry, no life. Like Baby Bear\u2019s porridge in the story of Goldilocks, the universe seems to be just right for life.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nPaul Charles William Davies (English physicist)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Victoria, British Columbia<\/p>\n
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cScientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth \u2014 the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. \u00a0The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. \u00a0For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient \u2018coincidences\u2019 and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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