RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space
Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
 |  Subject: Idiots in science: Universe 'could have arisen out of nothing'  Fri Apr 06, 2012 5:00 am | |
| LAWRENCE KRAUSS is not coming to Australia to argue that God does not exist.
The renowned American physicist simply wants to convey the extraordinary new findings that have been made about the origin of the cosmos.
His profound conclusion is that our universe, in all its vast complexity, could have - ''and plausibly did'' - arise out of absolutely nothing. And that just happens to make the concept of a creator ''unnecessary'', he said.
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Professor Krauss, director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University, who has been hailed by Scientific American as a rare scientific ''public intellectual'', will give public addresses in Sydney next week, alongside his good friend and atheist Richard Dawkins.
''My main purpose is not to argue against God, but to celebrate the real universe, and point out how much more fascinating it is than the universe of myth or fairytales,'' Professor Krauss said this week from the US.
The latest research in cosmology, particle theory and gravitation outlined in his new book, A Universe from Nothing, has been ''one of the most remarkable journeys of exploration humanity has ever taken'', he said.
It has revealed that the empty space that makes up most of the universe - a nothingness that theologians and classical philosophers have long pondered - is not empty after all.
''It is a boiling, bubbling brew of virtual particles that pop in and out of existence on a time scale so short you can't see them.''
Not only can this cosmic void give rise to matter, and to people, the laws of physics have also thrown light back to beyond its creation.
''We have learned that space and time can themselves spontaneously appear,'' he said.
And if that isn't enough nothing for you, ''I show that even the laws may have come into existence when the universe came into existence.''
This implies many universes exist, like drops in an ocean, each with its own set of laws - a possibility that he also finds ''quite plausible''.
He said that finding meaning in a universe that arose from nothing and may one day return to nothing was easy.
''It is an amazingly wonderful bit of good fortune that we happen to be here at a time when we have a consciousness that can appreciate the universe,'' Professor Krauss said.
''So it's more important for us to say we should take advantage of that remarkable accident and use our minds and produce the best lives we can have.''
Professor Krauss has been involved in many of the developments resulting in today's picture of an expanding universe that began in a primeval fireball 13.72 billion years ago and which contains a lot of invisible dark matter.
In 1995, with Michael Turner, he came up with the ''crazy'' idea that about 70 per cent of the universe's total energy is an unknown force that permeates empty space.
''I don't think anyone was more surprised than we were when it turned out, three years later, that our heretical suggestion was precisely on the money after all,'' he said.
Researchers, including a team led by Australian Nobel Laureate, Brian Schmidt, showed the universe's expansion was accelerating, seemingly pushed ever faster apart by this mysterious, repulsive dark energy.
''This discovery has produced remarkable new support for the idea that our universe arose from precisely nothing,'' Professor Krauss said.
He gets upset when criticised for challenging the concept of a creator, when critical thinking on other topics is praised.
''People automatically say, you're attacking religion when all I'm doing is saying, let us ask the question, 'Could you understand a universe without God?'.''
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/no-argument-against-god-just-another-view-about-origins-of-the-cosmos-20120405-1wfm3.html#ixzz1rFVMKIgD
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CovOps
 Location : Ether-Sphere
Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator
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| | Subject: Re: Idiots in science: Universe 'could have arisen out of nothing' Fri Apr 06, 2012 5:08 am | |
| - Quote :
- This implies many universes exist...
:Pulling hair o |
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