January 2022 - Thefinetuneduniverse.com

The Wrong Argument

January 29, 2022October 6, 2022 Ron Patterson 21 Comments

The Great Non-Sequitur

I wrote a rather long essay on “From Whence The Fine-Tuned Universe” and posted it as a page on PeakOilBarrel.com. However, I don’t think many people read the entire essay because I keep getting questions that I already answered in that essay. I will try to be a lot clearer in this post.

First, I must make one thing clear. The fact that the universe is fine-tuned is overwhelmingly accepted throughout the cosmological community. There are only three or four holdouts among the hundred or so that write books and papers as well as those who post YouTube videos on the subject. And even the tiny few, like Sean Carroll, who say that they are “not so sure” that the universe is fine-tuned, hedge their bets by positing the multiverse as a backup explanation when they are pressed with the overwhelming evidence of fine-tuning. Read More

The Double-Slit Experiment

January 20, 2022January 20, 2022 Ron Patterson 25 Comments

The double-slit experiment is the central puzzle of quantum mechanics. Because it demonstrates the fundamental limitation of the ability of the observer to predict experimental results. Richard Feynman called it “a phenomenon which is impossible to explain and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics”. In reality, it contains the only mystery of quantum mechanics.

If you are not familiar with the double-slit experiment then this 9 minute video is the very best and quickest explination I have found.

Double Slit Experiment explained! by Jim Al-Khalili

The Fine Tuned Universe

January 12, 2022January 14, 2022 Ron Patterson 26 Comments

The debate rages. But it rages not about whether the universe is fine-tuned or not, that argument has been settled. That argument has been made convincingly by many of the giants of physics, including Leonard Mlodinow, Luke Barnes, Geraint Lewis, Leonard Susskind, Robin Collins, Paul Davies, Martin Rees, John Barrow, John Leslie, Alan Guth, Brian Green, Roger Penrose, the late Stephen Hawking, and many others. They all agree, yes, the universe is extremely fine-tuned. The argument left is how did it get that way.

Oh, there are a few holdouts, Sean Carroll, Lawrence Krauss, and a couple of others. Their objections will be dealt with in a later post.

But what is meant by the term The Fine-Tuned Universe? Just a brief overview of what that means.

There are about 30 or more constants that if any of the values were changed as much as one percent then the universe as we know it would not exist. But these constants are only a small part of the story, even though advocates of the multiverse would like to make them the whole story.

The initial conditions at the Big Bang are unbelievably fine-tuned. Physicist Roger Penrose estimates that the odds of the initial low entropy state of our universe occurring by chance alone are on the order of 1 in 10 ^10(123).