Stars Could Shine In Many Universes

A commonplace of cosmologists who argue the anthropic principle is the assumption that if any or a few of the constants of nature took on an even slightly different value, life could not have evolved — perhaps even stars and galaxies would not form. Science News reports on a new calculation showing that, to the contrary, star formation could happen in up to one-quarter of universes with different values of three important constants. "In fact, all universes can support the existence of stars, provided that the definition of star is interpreted broadly," said the researcher, Fred Adams. "...calculations suggest that, contrary to some previous claims, stars are not only common in our cosmos but are also ablaze in myriad other universes, where the laws of physics may be drastically different... Had Adams found that the range of parameters that allowed for stars was very small, that would have suggested that the laws of physics in our universe have been 'fine-tuned' to allow for star formation... Instead, Adams' study shows that our universe doesn't seem particularly special in that regard."

Comments

so

[thermian]

This hypothesis, if true, shows that the universe is actually a rather robust structure.

I like that a lot more then the 'one tiny bit off and you get nothing' thing. It sounds more plausible to me.

Re:so

[cathector]

good clarification.

yes, i was limiting the scope of agents to those admitted by "accepted science".

so with scoping in mind, my complaint is that irreducible complexity arguments tend to translate into "accepted scientific agents do not currently explain such-and-such, therefore we must look outside accepted scientific agents".

.. which strictly speaking, yes, proper scientific method can't shut the door out-of-hand on agents such as gods. for example, consider a world in which gods actually did create such-and-such. if the scientists of that world always reject gods as possible agents, then they will clearly never arrive at the correct explanation of such-and-such.

however, appeals to agents outside the scope of accepted science have historically always fallen, so it seems prudent not to resort to them now, and instead to keep hammering on the stuff within accepted science. qv the god of the gaps, etc.

Re:so

[fm6]

Scientists are saying no such thing. The argument is not that a universe that is slightly different could not support any life. The argument is that is could not support human life. For example, Fred Hoyle argued that if certain physical constants were just a little different, carbon atoms could not form ring-shaped molecules. All life as we know it is based on those carbon rings, so those changes would preclude our existence.

And before you start picking at flaws in that argument, let me point out something else you got wrong: the anthropic principle is not standard scientific theory. In fact, many scientists consider the reasoning behind it very sloppy.

Re:so

[DamnStupidElf]

Now take Daniel, one of the figures we read about in the Old Testament. Among the predictions he made, long before it happened, was that there would be a succession of three world empires. He described the power and extent of each of these empires. In other prophecies of the Bible, also long before it happened, even the names of the ruler to come were given. The ancient Hebrew text was translated into Greek, put down in black and white, long before these things took place.

Completely ignoring the Chinese, Indians, Northern Europeans, Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, and other native islanders, of course. Daniel said there would be four beasts (possibly empires), and there were at least the babylonians, persians, medes, lydians, greeks, spartans, romans, parthians, byzantines, and several minor countries which prevented the existence of a true world empire even in the palestine area, up until the modern time.

One of the prophecies that has been fulfilled in our time is the state of Israel. It is prophesied that the Jewish people would be scattered and all nations of the world.

And it's no wonder that a mostly Christian western world decided to carve up Palestine to make a Jewish state, and no wonder that Hebrew was chosen as the official language. Look up self-fulfilling prophesies. Manifest Destiny is another good one.

There has never been a language that had become extinct for almost 20 centuries and then become a life again as a living language used every day. This is only a tiny example of the many predictions in the Bible.

Ancient Egyptian could qualify for that in the future, as well as ancient Babylonian, if anyone cares to do it. Also, Hebrew is not quite the same anymore with the addition of vowel indicators, and no one is exactly sure of the pronunciation of the words. Also, are you arguing for the Bible or the Torah here? If anything, the survival of Judaism would seem to indicate some sort of weakness in Christianity.

Still dumb

[Bombula]

So science uncovers yet another way in which our world and universe are mediocre instead of special. Is this surprising? Even if the universe were fine tuned so that the characteristics we see are a unique product of its basic configuration, what's to say there aren't an infinite number of other universes which also harbor unique characteristics as a result of their own basic configurations - features that may make them more conducive to what we would call life? Perhaps there are universes in which life is fantastically abundant and our universe is, by comparison, a bland underperformer? Or perhaps life is itself a silly concept? Maybe whole universes are organized such that they are sentient. Perhaps even in our own universe there is complexity in dark matter and dark energy that might be called life, perhaps in great abundance (there is, after all, much more dark matter and energy). Or perhaps rules of logic and consistency - the basis of mathematics, upon which we interpret our universe's configuration - is itself specific to our universe, and in other universes logic and consistency look different or aren't even meaningful.

Even if we are rare, why does that make is so special? It's rare to win the lottery, but it's got to happen to someone doesn't it? If we hadn't won the lottery, we wouldn't be here to talk about it, would we?

Re:Still dumb

[Chappster]

The anthropic principle is one of Creationists' favorite argument for the 'proof' of the existence of god. It is one of the most annoying, under-the-belt argument that has absolutely no actual bearing on anything whatsoever, but philosophers like Dinesh D'Souza play with it like a flute.

With studies like this, that argument is useless. It shows that the philosophers who use this argument are just blowing steam out of their pompous asses without any actual research. I really wish that I could see the faces on the folks who put this idea in to print, who are now making a fortune off of their hog-wash book.

What's even sadder, is that people will still use this argument, even though this research proves that it's near-completely invalid. I'm glad that somebody actually went forward and put work into this, though.

Re:In lameness terms, please?

[Hurricane78]

I'm sorry, but it's the "mathematical phantasy" thing.
Or more correctly: It's a tought experiment, to find out if the universe has some special fine-tuned constants, because this would pose some interesting questions on why they are exactly like this.

Of course, as far as our knowledge goes, the universe could be a 4d sphere (with a 3d surface). So there is still the question "is there an 'outside' to the universe"? If so, what is there? Other universes?

A completely different, and more realistic POV is to see our universe as the cone or our event horizon. So there could be space outside that we'll never see, but that is perfectly normal "space". Of course this would pose the question, that if the constants are different in "another universe" (= another place outside our event horizon), then why is there no visible gradient when you get near the border of that horizon?

weakless universe

[xPsi]

Here's another similar idea trying to construct a so-called "weakless" universe, where no weak nuclear interactions exist (see abstract below). A bit technical, but good stuff.

"A universe without weak interactions is constructed that undergoes big-bang nucleosynthesis, matter domination, structure formation, and star formation. The stars in this universe are able to burn for billions of years, synthesize elements up to iron, and undergo supernova explosions, dispersing heavy elements into the interstellar medium.

There's no evidence such universes exist. But it is still a good exercise to help keep some perspective on what is possible, even in principle, given what we know about physical law. It also highlights that people who make "anthropic principle-like" claims based on fine-tuning haven't bothered to go back to the underlying laws of physics and actually look for other stable configurations, even in theory.

Re:Words mean something

[I7D]

That's being closed minded (no offense). Scientists once thought the atom was the smallest block of matter. We now know that there are protons/neutrons/quarks/etc. Nobody is fighting to have the atom back, though.

don't fear infinity

[globaljustin]

I like that a lot more then the 'one tiny bit off and you get nothing' thing. It sounds more plausible to me.

I'm not convinced in the slightest that a multiverse exists (in any sense of the word), but I agree that assuming things like Brane cosmology are true, the logical conclusion is that these other universes would, based on probability, have something recognizable to us as 'stars' and even 'life'

Possibility always wins when we play the probability game.

As I said above, I think the multiverse theories are a pantload of stink. When it comes to the very big and the very small, we can't ever seem to reconcile with infinity. There's always a smaller particle or a bigger cosmological super-structure...how long before we find that Higgs Bosons actually have a sub-particle or that there are actually multiple multi-verses? It's a reductive zero sum game...when in doubt, just add another layer of complexity.

I submit that instead of spinning our wheels thinking up bigger and smaller structures so we can get research grants, we should instead do whatever needs to be done to nail gravity down cold. Once we understand gravity as well as other forces, things will start making more sense such that these unprovable multi-verses and sub-sub-sub-sub particles will be unnecessary.

Re:Zug zug

[Anonymous Coward]

I watched all the Nova shows and read all the Scientific America articles on string theory and quantum mathematics and have come to the conclusion that science doesn't know any more about alternate universes then Jules Verne did in the late 19th Century.

I particularly like the fact that since the math for quantum theory didn't equate in this univers, to solve that little inconsistency in logic the quantum theorists began inventing new universes until the math worked. In other words, if there is only one universe, the math is wrong. So to make the math work, keep inventing universes until the math does work. That's kind of like saying that 2+2=5 in another universe because in this universe 2+2=4, but what the heck, in some universe 2+2 must = 5, so lets just say it does and make that proof that another universe exists. Not real scientific, but what the heck, I'm not a PHD with tenure somewhere.

Re:Zug zug

[MichaelSmith]

There's also the semi-popular negaverse. In fact, there's two.

Don't forget the Planiverse.

Re:Zug zug

[DeadChobi]

Yeah, except that by definition the Universe encompasses all that we can observe, so if we could observe these other Universes by definition they would become part of our Universe. Planes of existence might be a better phrase for it.

Re:What is the point of stars...if you have no mat

[Roger W Moore]

I also qualified my reply with 'if true'.

I understood that. I was commenting that I thought it very unlikely to be true based on the evidence presented.

All parameters are not created equal, he may have picked up on something rather interesting.

I doubt it. There are very clear reasons to expect other parameters to greatly affect the formation of stars. As far as I can see he has not commented on this at all. This means that either:

• There is some good reason, so obvious to other cosmologists that he need not explain it, which precludes these other parameters from affecting his conclusions
• He is deliberately ignoring the effects of other parameters and just considering varying those he states. In which case his conclusion regarding 25% of universes is simply wrong because he has not considered the full phase space.
• He doesn't realize/believe that the other parameters are important to star formation and has not considered them.

My guess is that option (2) or (3) is the case and for both of these I would regard his conclusions as either wrong or unproven. If he has considered and ruled out the other parameters as relevant then either option (1) is the case or else he should have explained his arguments as to why they are irrelevant.

The reason I doubt option (1) is that from the particle physics side of the fence we know of the 3 Sakharov conditions on the Big Bang. One of these is something called CP violation which is a difference between matter and anti-matter which is why the universe is matter only (as far as we know). If we alter the SM parameters relating to this ('delta' for the quarks and possibly another for the leptons plus theta_QCD) then this asymmetry could disappear (unless you add new physics) and you'll have very little matter left plus an equally small amount of anti-matter. I would argue that star formation in a universe like this will be impossible. Either there will be too little material or, if there is enough, the moment it starts to collapse gravitationally it will blow itself apart before a star forms.

That's the "Weak Anthropic Principle"...

[Anonymous Coward]

...you're describing. Although there are variants on it, your description is correct-- if the universe didn't happen to favor human life, we wouldn't be here to argue about it.

The Strong Anthropic Principle makes stronger claims, that the universe's laws exist to bring about sentient observers.

The chief difference between them is that the Weak principle sees humans as a coincidental product, while the Strong principle sees humans as the intentional/desired/inevitable outcome of physical forces, although not always Deist intervention.

Re:This makes no sense!

[Shag]

I didn't know that astrologers used telescopes.

At the visitor information station on Mauna Kea, I am routinely approached by followers of astronomy (henceforth "gullibles") during the evening stargazing sessions. It usually goes something like this:

Gullible: It's my birthday, can you point out my sign?
Me: (points at the ground)

Anyone who subscribes to pseudoscientific nonsense but doesn't even read enough of it to know that their sign is the one the Sun is in when they're born, should be duct-taped in place and forced to listen to Weird Al's "Your Horoscope for Today."

To their credit, no Christians have asked me to point out the star from when Jesus was born. Yet.

Re:Zug zug

[Urkki]

String theory and other ideas may be beautiful mathematically, but do not belong into the realm of science because it cannot be observed and measured. Just because faith is based mathematics, does not make it science.

I think you're wrong here. String "theories" are not scientific theories just because of what you say. Believing them to be true would be faith based in mathematics.

However, they certainly are science, a scientific work in progress. Just about everything we know about science started as just a crazy idea. Then it might have evolved into a bunch of mathematics, then a testable hypothesis, and then rejected or tweaked or found out to be accurate to the limits of measurement. But all this is part of science, part of scientific work. String theories are currently somewhat stuck in the mathematics phase, but perhaps already LHC will shed some light in the matter.

Now I'm guessing you think the research should head in an entirely different direction, and that researching string theories is stupid waste of time. That's fair enough, but calling it unscientific is not.

Re:Zug zug

[ceoyoyo]

We can observe the workings of quantum mechanics perfectly well in this universe. In fact, we've observed them more accurately than with any other theory, ever.

The weirdness comes in when we start to ask why things work that way. Then we invent explanations like alternate universes, that are consistent with, but not required by, QM. To take your example, Newtonian gravity tells us very well how an object will behave when subjected to a (moderate) gravitational force. But it doesn't tell us anything about what gravity is, or why it works that way. Neither does general relativity, by the way. The warping space-time thing is another explanation (proposed by someone other than Einstein) that is consistent with, but not required by, relativity.

You know very little about things like string theory, or science in general. Nobody (except maybe people who've read a pop science book or two) think string theory is anything like finished. It has some interesting properties and a great deal of promise, but is most certainly a work in progress. Again, the difference is that no string theorist (or his book) will tell you he is in possession of the Truth.

Re:Zug zug

[flitty]

Personal experience of God. Not always as dramatic as some mystics visions, but always a life-changing experience.

This reason for being a christian always makes me laugh. When god shows up, does he say "Hi there, Nice to meet you. It's Christian god here, and you've chosen the right religion. Oh wait, I'll be right back, i've got to go give a different religious believer a false belief in their god by giving them a life changing experience. Why? Oh, I don't know, because I Can."

I've also heard that other religions are all just praying to the christian god anyway, and it's all the same thing, which then begs the question, Why Religion, then. Especially YOUR religion. Why not be a theist and leave it at that? I'm rambling...

Re:Zug zug

[Tiny Elvis]

Evolution cannot explain where the matter and energy came from in the first place. The theory of aliens populating our planet does not explain where the aliens themselves came from.

and the Bible does not explain where God came from. It's all back to "why is there something rather than nothing?" The Bible cannot help you there.

same old arminw claims

[Anonymous Coward]

We are told only in the Bible he created the time-space matter-energy universe.

No. You obviously lack the familiarity you claim to have with other religions, even very closely related ones, and with religion in general. (You've made the same wrong assertion many times now, and people have pointed out the problems with it; perhaps you've just missed them all.) Islam and Judaism make this same claim, and even about roughly the same God! Hinduism and Daoism have very different spins on this idea. Zoroastrianism has exactly the same theological concept (Ahura Mazda, the uncreated creator) that you claim is true only of Christianity. Only one of the few, major counterexamples I just gave is younger than Christianity, and most are *much* older. It is either naive or arrogant of you to think that your religion (in this case, Christianity) is the lone bastion in all human history of people being in some way "reasonable" about their religion, above and beyond how poor that reason actually is.

One of the most majestic sentences in all of human writings...

"Majestic" is a matter of opinion. And it is clear you have not sampled "human writings" very broadly, and are in no position to assert this one is tip-top; only that you like it.

...is the first verse of the Bible...

The first verse of the Bible is also a sweeping claim about reality, it isn't based on evidence, and there is evidence that it is an incorrect claim anyway.

The Bible contains many accurate predictions that have come true throughout history, some are happening right now before our eyes, and some are about to happen in the not too distant future. These predictions are not vague generalities, but very narrow and specific.

Bullshit. You have made this claim in very many posts on Slashdot, but never once named even one. Name them, or stop making this claim.

Only in the Bible are we given an accurate account of Jesus Christ...

How would anybody know it was accurate? Most religions in the world make no reference to Jesus of Nazareth, and most of those that do consider him a prophet at most; certainly not the son of God and most certainly not God himself.

...and gave powerful evidence that this is true. He showed understanding of and mastery over the forces of nature and overcame our greatest enemy -- death.

Appealing to evidence is not a battle you can win. The Bible simply makes claims about Jesus, including the virgin birth and resurrection after death, and ascent into heaven. The Koran claims that Muhammad ascended into heaven on a flying horse. These are not historical facts; they claim to be historical facts just like many other false claims. They just aren't corroborated by analysis.

I cannot see how anyone can study any field of science and not be amazed and stand in awe of the incredible order and harmony of the world we find ourselves in.

Maybe you can't, but that's not to say there are none. Fascination and awe with the universe is what attracts scientists to study it in its many facets.

I cannot imagine how this order could have arisen by any process NOT involving careful thought and planning...

That's appealing to lack of imagination. Just because you can't imagine an alternative doesn't mean there aren't alternatives. In fact, complexity often arises from simple rules; one discovers this in the course of scientific or even purely mathematical study. You're clearly unfamiliar with such things, so perhaps their existence is news to you. ... -- the mind of God.

Here's a second leap of logic: You fail to understand how something could be, and then ascribe it to magic. Scientists are comfortable admitting they don't know how everything works,

doesn't help

[Anonymous Coward]

Other religious writings place their god as part of or within this physical time-space-matter-energy universe.

I'll post this yet again, because this wrong assertion just keeps getting made:

No. You obviously lack the familiarity you claim to have with other religions, even very closely related ones, and with religion in general. Islam and Judaism make this same claim, and even about roughly the same God! Hinduism and Daoism have very different spins on this idea. Zoroastrianism has exactly the same theological concept (Ahura Mazda, the uncreated creator) that you just claimed was true only of Christianity. Only one of the few, major counterexamples I just gave is younger than Christianity, and most are *much* older. It is either naive or arrogant of you to think that your religion (in this case, Christianity) is the lone bastion in all human history of people being in some way "reasonable" about their religion, above and beyond how poor that reason actually is.

The record tells us that those who came to arrest Jesus fell down backwards at the sound of the name of God.

"The" record? There are many books, and many holy books, but they do not constitute historical "record". The Bible claims a lot of unlikely events happened. So does the Koran, so do the Vedas, and so does the New York Times. Not every claim that gets made or reported is true.

The Bible tells us that God just is.

But it is just as easy for the universe itself "just to exist". Religious claims of special creation don't solve any mystery at all, and they are worse because they require belief without evidence.