The Energy of Empty Space != Zero

Raindeer writes "Lawrence Krauss (well-known physicist and author of The Science of Star Trek) invited a group of 21 cosmologists, experimentalists, theorists, and particle physicists and cosmologists. Stephen Hawking came; three Nobel laureates, Gerard 'tHooft, David Gross, Frank Wilczek etc. He wrote about the conclusions of this session in Edge; in short: 'there appears to be energy of empty space that isn't zero! This flies in the face of all conventional wisdom in theoretical particle physics. It is the most profound shift in thinking, perhaps the most profound puzzle, in the latter half of the 20th century. And it may be the first half of the 21st century, or maybe go all the way to the 22nd century. Because, unfortunately, I happen to think we won't be able to rely on experiment to resolve this problem.'"

Comments

Energy Explained

[dsginter]

It will eventually be found that this energy was the egg in the proverbial chicken and the egg dilemma.

Re:New news?

[Bobke]

"He then proceeds on to the standard "argument from conditional probability" where the universe has exactly these constants because if it didn't we wouldn't be here to see it. Which is a comfortable thing to believe but isn't predictive science."

There's another way to look at that:
Say if the "universe" tried _every_ possible setting (every combination of all the possible variables), and if just in one of these (for lack of a better word) "dimensions" there would evolve intelligent life, where would be the place where they would start thinking about the universe? Exactly there where everything seems to fit.