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Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#281

Post by riwsky »

gizmo686 wrote: post #51
mianos wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you have a bunch of fulcrums in the air and items droping down. If the things that land on the fulcrums don't balance each other out the fulcrum tips and the items keep dropping. Eventually all the fulcrums are balanced. A lot of these things coalesce until they are stable enough they don't fall apart. If there is a stable form and you have enough of them, eventually you get a lot of stable forms. It is not s…

This explains why atoms have 0 charge, but not why protons, which are stable even without electrons, have a charge of 1. Put in terms of elementary particles, why is it that the ratio of electric charge between a quark and an electron is either 1:3 or 2:3?

A proton, electron, and a neutron walk into a bar…

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#282

Post by knightoffaith »

Mauneam wrote: post #272
knightoffaith wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anthropic principle is actually the opposite - it's an objection to the fine-tuning argument that says something roughly like "well, of course the universe is configured in a way that allows us to be around. if it wasn't, we wouldn't be around to discuss it. thus, there is no need to appeal to an intelligent designer of the universe to explain its fine-tuned nature." That aside, with respect to saying an intellig…

>Well, it explains why the universe is fine-tuned, if you buy the argument. No it doesn't. Goddidit is not an explanation. >Yep, just like any other answer to the question, since it's a metaphysical question rather than a scientific one. Nope, not like any other answer. Like Satandidit. >It offers an explanation. No it doesn't. Goddidit is not an explanation. >No more than any other answer does. No, not like other an…

I suspect you're reading into my comment more than what I intended to say.

In the context of fine-tuning arguments for God, we really are just arguing that an intelligent designer designed the universe. In isolation, this doesn't necessarily commit us to some mainstream religion, and in this context, God is just the intelligent designer of the universe, nothing more (though proponents of the arguments will go on, through other arguments, to ascribe more properties to this thing).

>Goddidit is not an explanation.

I don't know why it wouldn't be. Suppose I kept pulling a card from a deck and showing it to you. Every single time, it was the ace of spades. Why is this? Well, one pretty good explanation is that I know where the ace of spades is in the deck and I'm intentionally picking that card out and showing it to you. That is, there is intelligence/intentionality that explains this event. You would probably consider this as an explanation. The fine-tuning argument's conclusion is just as much of an explanation.

>Nope, not like any other answer. Like Satandidit.

I don't know what you mean to say here. Satandidit doesn't predict anything either.

>No, not like other answers. Science never closes the book on further questions.

This isn't a scientific question though. This is a question about why the fundamental constants of nature are what they are. This is a question beyond the domain of science. Elsewhere in this thread, someone linked a video of Feynman (an atheist) on "why" questions and how at some point they have to bottom out - and at this point, science cannot provide the answers.

Besides, this doesn't close the book on further questions. We can still ask, "what kind of existence is this intelligent designer?", "why does this intelligent designer exist?", etc. And of course, questions that are normally under the domain of science are still under the domain of science.

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#283

Post by knightoffaith »

notahacker wrote: post #142
jononomo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the more we learn, the more we realize how much we don't know This is why the "god of the gaps" critique is so short-sighted. It relies on the assumption that as science progresses it will "close the gaps". In reality the opposite happens. Another example is the cell -- in Darwin's day it was thought to be a simple thing, but then we learned more about it and it turned out to be monstrously complex and the mystery…

Nope, the "god of the gaps" critique has nothing to do scientific discovery being a route to omniscience, something only some religious figures have ever claimed to have even the possibility of access to. It's the set of things religions claim the only explanation/evidence for repeatedly shrinking, as we found explanations for weather that have more predictive power than "the wrath/favour of the gods", found cures fo…

>It's the set of things religions claim the only explanation/evidence for repeatedly shrinking

I haven't read The God Delusion or wherever the "god of the gaps" critique originated - what is this actually referring to? Are we just talking about like, pagan polytheistic explanations of natural phenomena? What serious Christian or Buddhist thinkers using religion to explain things like weather or medicine are being referred to here?

>A shift in the position of the faithful from "this an accurate account of how the world was created direct from the creator" to "well actually that stuff was all metaphorical but the Big Bang must have been God's moment because you can't explain anything that happened before then" is not a trend in favour of the explanatory power of religion.

As early as St. Augustine, writing around ~400, and one of the most influential Christian thinkers, we have discussion of the account of creation in Genesis being metaphorical. Long, long before the theory of the Big Bang.

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#284

Post by ambyra »

andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #18

I just had a really stupid thought, after finishing reading the article. So, the electron is an elementary particle, right? Compared to the proton, the electron is "simple", yes? Despite this difference in complexity, an electron has a charge of -e and a proton has a charge of +e. They are exactly complementary regarding charge (if I am understanding right, I am not a smart person). my question is... why? why must pr…

Electrons balance the nuclear charge by their distance from the nucleus. They’re not perfectly equal; the electrons move closer or farther to maintain balance with the nucleus. I think it’s called effective nuclear charge.

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#285

Post by Vecr »

boringuser2 wrote: post #134
Vecr wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More or less the weak anthropic principle. Maybe once people get universal sequence predictors really going there would be a better argument.

Rather than waiting for god-machines, you could just believe in god. Not specifically any religion, just god. Or god-entity. Or god-force. Basically, deus ex machina except for philosophy It's a surprisingly strong position. Respects occams razor, low amount of moving parts, etc.

A universal sequence predictor can be used as a vastly better version of Occam's razor. It's not a god machine unless someone uses it wrong.

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#286

Post by alex_smart »

andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #18

I just had a really stupid thought, after finishing reading the article. So, the electron is an elementary particle, right? Compared to the proton, the electron is "simple", yes? Despite this difference in complexity, an electron has a charge of -e and a proton has a charge of +e. They are exactly complementary regarding charge (if I am understanding right, I am not a smart person). my question is... why? why must pr…

https://youtu.be/36GT2zI8lVA

Richard Feynman on why questions

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#287

Post by Mauneam »

knightoffaith wrote: post #282
Mauneam wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Well, it explains why the universe is fine-tuned, if you buy the argument. No it doesn't. Goddidit is not an explanation. >Yep, just like any other answer to the question, since it's a metaphysical question rather than a scientific one. Nope, not like any other answer. Like Satandidit. >It offers an explanation. No it doesn't. Goddidit is not an explanation. >No more than any other answer does. No, not like other an…

I suspect you're reading into my comment more than what I intended to say. In the context of fine-tuning arguments for God, we really are just arguing that an intelligent designer designed the universe. In isolation, this doesn't necessarily commit us to some mainstream religion, and in this context, God is just the intelligent designer of the universe, nothing more (though proponents of the arguments will go on, thr…

Saying "because God did it" as an answer to any question has the same value as saying "because pixel cooked the music". If you want to consider those two groups of words "explanations" go for it. They are grammatically correct, and if they satisfy the curious mind they are good enough.

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#288

Post by fblp »

at_a_remove wrote: post #52
andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #18

I just had a really stupid thought, after finishing reading the article. So, the electron is an elementary particle, right? Compared to the proton, the electron is "simple", yes? Despite this difference in complexity, an electron has a charge of -e and a proton has a charge of +e. They are exactly complementary regarding charge (if I am understanding right, I am not a smart person). my question is... why? why must pr…

I'll take a shot at this. The "answer," such as it is, is symmetry. The electron belongs to a group called the leptons, which is to say they are lightweight. Leptons obey certain sorts of statistics and consist of the electron, the muon, the tau lepton, the electron neutrino, the muon neutrino, the tau neutrino, and their antiparticles. That's twelve in total. The mirror of the leptons would be quarks. Up, down, char…

This is hard to wrap my brain around but thank you for the explanation!

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#289

Post by anon84873628 »

westurner wrote: post #241
andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #18

I just had a really stupid thought, after finishing reading the article. So, the electron is an elementary particle, right? Compared to the proton, the electron is "simple", yes? Despite this difference in complexity, an electron has a charge of -e and a proton has a charge of +e. They are exactly complementary regarding charge (if I am understanding right, I am not a smart person). my question is... why? why must pr…

Are there intermediate [electron,] charge states between + and - in superfluids and/or superconductors? Is there superposition with electron charge states?

The typical model of superconductivity says that electrons in the material pair up to form a quasiparticle -- the "cooper pair" -- with new properties, namely not experiencing resistance. The original quantized charge of the electrons still adds up to the same amount.

Unlike protons an neutrons, electrons are considered elementary particles that can't be broken down any further, so their charge can not be "divided" into something less than 1.

Re: Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’

#290

Post by unethical_ban »

knightoffaith wrote: post #282
Mauneam wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Well, it explains why the universe is fine-tuned, if you buy the argument. No it doesn't. Goddidit is not an explanation. >Yep, just like any other answer to the question, since it's a metaphysical question rather than a scientific one. Nope, not like any other answer. Like Satandidit. >It offers an explanation. No it doesn't. Goddidit is not an explanation. >No more than any other answer does. No, not like other an…

I suspect you're reading into my comment more than what I intended to say. In the context of fine-tuning arguments for God, we really are just arguing that an intelligent designer designed the universe. In isolation, this doesn't necessarily commit us to some mainstream religion, and in this context, God is just the intelligent designer of the universe, nothing more (though proponents of the arguments will go on, thr…

I consider the person to whom you are responding a troll, because they are taking a hard line stance, using abrupt terms, shutting down discussion, and putting much less effort into things than you are.

That said, I agree with you roughly. I think suggesting an intelligent design as a possibility is not "shutting down curiosity". A scientific mind can entertain higher forms of power and look into it.

Accepting the possibility of a creator is not equivalent to blind devotion to one of the many existing faiths.

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