Cosmic Fingerprints #3

Email number three, 

Max,

   In your kitchen cabinet, you've probably got a spray

bottle with an adjustable nozzle.  If you twist the nozzle

one way, it sprays a fine mist into the air.  You twist 

the nozzle the other way, it squirts a jet of water

in a straight line.  You turn that nozzle to the exact

position you want so you can wash a mirror, clean up

a spill, or whatever.

   If the universe had expanded a little faster, the 

matter would have sprayed out into space like fine

mist from a water bottle - so fast that a gazillion

particles of dust would speed into infinity and never even 

form a single star.

   If the universe had expanded just a little slower, the 

material would have dribbled out like big drops of water,

then collapsed back where it came from by the force

of gravity.

   A little too fast, and you get a meaningless

spray of fine dust.  A little too slow, and the whole

universe collapses back into one big black hole.

This is called the "Goldilocks syndrome", it's where every thing is "just right". The earth lies inside a Goldilocks zone. Not to hot not to cold. Our three examples being Venus, Earth, Mars. Venus being too hot, Mars being too cold and Earth being just right. However there is evidence that the reason Venus is so hot may have to do with the atmosphere being like a green house and trapping the heat in. The opposite may be true of Mars, With out an active magnetic core, like Earth, Mars was unable to keep it's atmosphere from being slowly blown away by the solar wind. Thus unable to keep a very warm, to our standards, temperature.

   The surprising thing is just how narrow the difference

is.  To strike the perfect balance between too fast and

too slow, the force, something that physicists call 

"the Dark Energy Term" had to be accurate to one part in 

ten with 120 zeros.  

   If you wrote this as a decimal, the number would

look like this:

0.000000000000000000000000000000

00000000000000000000000000000000

00000000000000000000000000000000

0000000000000000000000000000001

   In their paper "Disturbing Implications of

 a Cosmological Constant" two atheist scientists 

from Stanford University stated that the existence of 

this dark energy term would have required a miracle... 

"An unknown agent" intervened in cosmic history 

"for reasons of its own."

Back to quoting someone again. I often say "oh my god", when I see something dramatic or surpassing. This however doesn't mean I am invoking Odin or Thor. To bring to a more dramatic example, when a loved one is hurt in an accident and their life is threatened, emotions take over our rational nature. We will often assume the worst case possible. When they survive or recover our emotional brain flips from doom and gloom to elation. At this point It becomes a "miracle" that they survived. Not a health care system of Ambulances with highly trained professionals, a hospital staff, all highly trained and some of the best life saving equipment in the world. No it was a "MIRACLE"

   Just for comparison, the best human engineering

example is the Gravity Wave Telescope, which was built with

a precision of 23 zeros.  The Designer, the 'external

agent' that caused our universe must possess an intellect,

knowledge, creativity and power trillions and trillions

of times greater than we humans have.

 For a very long time many people gave the credit for the Pyramids of Giza, to aliens, not humans. When confronted with amazing things why is it the nature of man to invoke gods instead of just marveling at the amazing power of the natural world. Humans have only been a technical society for about a couple of hundred years. Nature can make a blackhole, the most powerful and amazing object in the whole universe. In-fact the universe seams to be designed to create black holes not people. It is amazing we as humans are able to build anything with the precision of the Gravity Wave Telescope.

    Absolutely amazing.

    Now a person who doesn't believe in God has to find 

some way to explain this.  One of the more common explanations 

seems to be "There was an infinite number of universes, so it

was inevitable that things would have turned out right

in at least one of them."

Actually no we don't. I don't have to believe in some god to explain this, I'm willing to wait for science to explain this and eventually science, by the power of humanity, will explain this and many other mysteries. Just like we did 200 years ago with lighting. 

    The "infinite universes" theory is truly an amazing theory.  

Just think about it, if there is an infinite number of 

universes, then absolutely everything is not only possible...

It's actually happened!  

    It means that somewhere, in some dimension, there is

a universe where the Chicago Cubs won the World Series last

year.  There's a universe where Jimmy Hoffa doesn't get 

cement shoes; instead he marries Joan Rivers and becomes 

President of the United States.  There's even a 

universe where Elvis kicks his drug habit and still

resides at Graceland and sings at concerts.  Imagine

the possibilities!  

    I might sound like I'm joking, but actually I'm dead

serious.  To believe an infinite number of universes

made life possible by random chance is to believe everything

else I just said, too.  

 The only thing that is provable at this time is just after the big bang starts. The science that deals with the big bang is unable to get us to the actual event, or before it. The tv show Sliders was based on the multi-universe idea. There is also String theory that gives us nine dimensions. Super Gravity is another contender. These are the three strongest contenders for the theory of the universe. At this time we don't have the ability to test for them, which means until we can they are unprovable. This however does not mean there are a bronze age gods out there spreading milk across the galaxy.

    Some people believe in God with a capital G.

Faith is believing with out any proof.

    And some folks believe in Chance with a Capital C.

Trusting in science is not "Faith". Ignorance is not a reason to believe.

   Tomorrow's installment: "If you can read this email,

I can prove to you that God exists."  Sound a little bold?

Tune in tomorrow - same time, same station.

Respectfully Submitted,

Perry Marshall

The next one should be great!