Electron’s nearly perfect roundness stymies the search for “new physics”

es58 So, oranges are not "round"? Really, before you get picky, first get a dictionary. "Antartic" keeps bothering me though. Robert Sheldon

Just to be picky - is it really round, as in 2 dimensional, or spherical, and if so why not say so? If yes, is it not surprising to have a 2 dimensional particle? es58

daveS states,

"If the natives had developed nukes, then the Europeans would have to keep their distance."

But that is precisely groovamos's point at post 8, no other culture, besides Christianity, developed modern science, thus no other culture could have possibly developed nukes

"the founders of Western science (pre-1875), almost exclusively, and most of the giants of modern mathematics (pre-1875), were Christian,"

It's habitual for atheists, such as daveS, to automatically assume that modern science could have easily developed in other cultures minus Christianity, but the fact of the matter is that all indications point to the fact that Christianity provided the necessary cultural foundation in order for modern science to be born and flourish in the first place.

Jerry Coyne on the Scientific Method and Religion - Michael Egnor - June 2011 Excerpt: The scientific method -- the empirical systematic theory-based study of nature -- has nothing to so with some religious inspirations -- Animism, Paganism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Islam, and, well, atheism. The scientific method has everything to do with Christian (and Jewish) inspiration. Judeo-Christian culture is the only culture that has given rise to organized theoretical science. Many cultures (e.g. China) have produced excellent technology and engineering, but only Christian culture has given rise to a conceptual understanding of nature. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/jerry_coyne_on_the_scientific_047431.html Kelvin's conundrum: Is it possible to believe in God and science? - 20 October 2013 Excerpt: Some years ago, the scientist Joseph Needham made an epic study of technological development in China. He wanted to find out why China, for all its early gifts of innovation, had fallen so far behind Europe in the advancement of science. He reluctantly came to the conclusion that European science had been spurred on by the widespread belief in a rational creative force, known as God, which made all scientific laws comprehensible," Lennox said. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/0/24535331 The Christian Origins of Science - Jack Kerwick - Apr 15, 2017 Excerpt: Though it will doubtless come as an enormous shock to such Christophobic atheists as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and their ilk, it is nonetheless true that one especially significant contribution that Christianity made to the world is that of science.,,, Stark is blunt: “Real science arose only once: in Europe”—in Christian Europe. “China, Islam, India, and ancient Greece and Rome each had a highly developed alchemy. But only in Europe did alchemy develop into chemistry. By the same token, many societies developed elaborate systems of astrology, but only in Europe did astrology develop into astronomy.”,,, In summation, Stark writes: “The rise of science was not an extension of classical learning. It was the natural outgrowth of Christian doctrine: nature exists because it was created by God. In order to love and honor God, it is necessary to fully appreciate the wonders of his handiwork. Because God is perfect, his handiwork functions in accord with immutable principles. By the full use of our God-given powers of reason and observation, it ought to be possible to discover these principles.” He concludes: “These were the crucial ideas that explain why science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else.” https://townhall.com/columnists/jackkerwick/2017/04/15/the-christian-origins-of-science-n2313593 "Did Christianity (and Other Religions) Promote the Rise Of Science?" - Michael Egnor October 24, 2013 Excerpt: Neither the Greeks nor Islam produced modern theoretical science. The Greeks produced sublime philosophy and mathematics, but no theoretical science. They excelled in mathematics but never applied mathematical models to the systematic study of nature. Islam produced no real theoretical science. It invaded the Christian Middle East, Christian North Africa and Christian Spain, and expropriated the culture and work of Christians and Jews and pagans in the conquered lands. Centralized government and fresh availability of booty fostered a modest bit of science produced by the conquered locals -- the vast majority of whom were not Muslim for centuries. It took several centuries before most of the conquered peoples under the Islamic boot converted to Islam -- Islamic rulers coveted the dhimmi taxes and were not quick to force conversion -- and when Islamic lands became wholly Islamic, science became wholly dead. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/10/did_christianit078281.html

Whitehead and Jaki elaborate a little more fully on why modern science was uniquely born out of the Christian worldview,

The War against the War Between Science and Faith Revisited - July 2010 Excerpt: …as Whitehead pointed out, it is no coincidence that science sprang, not from Ionian metaphysics, not from the Brahmin-Buddhist-Taoist East, not from the Egyptian-Mayan astrological South, but from the heart of the Christian West, that although Galileo fell out with the Church, he would hardly have taken so much trouble studying Jupiter and dropping objects from towers if the reality and value and order of things had not first been conferred by belief in the Incarnation. (Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos),,, Jaki notes that before Christ the Jews never formed a very large community (priv. comm.). In later times, the Jews lacked the Christian notion that Jesus was the monogenes or unigenitus, the only-begotten of God. Pantheists like the Greeks tended to identify the monogenes or unigenitus with the universe itself, or with the heavens. Jaki writes: Herein lies the tremendous difference between Christian monotheism on the one hand and Jewish and Muslim monotheism on the other. This explains also the fact that it is almost natural for a Jewish or Muslim intellectual to become a pa(n)theist. About the former Spinoza and Einstein are well-known examples. As to the Muslims, it should be enough to think of the Averroists. With this in mind one can also hope to understand why the Muslims, who for five hundred years had studied Aristotle’s works and produced many commentaries on them failed to make a breakthrough. The latter came in medieval Christian context and just about within a hundred years from the availability of Aristotle’s works in Latin,, If science suffered only stillbirths in ancient cultures, how did it come to its unique viable birth? The beginning of science as a fully fledged enterprise took place in relation to two important definitions of the Magisterium of the Church. The first was the definition at the Fourth Lateran Council in the year 1215, that the universe was created out of nothing at the beginning of time. The second magisterial statement was at the local level, enunciated by Bishop Stephen Tempier of Paris who, on March 7, 1277, condemned 219 Aristotelian propositions, so outlawing the deterministic and necessitarian views of creation. These statements of the teaching authority of the Church expressed an atmosphere in which faith in God had penetrated the medieval culture and given rise to philosophical consequences. The cosmos was seen as contingent in its existence and thus dependent on a divine choice which called it into being; the universe is also contingent in its nature and so God was free to create this particular form of world among an infinity of other possibilities. Thus the cosmos cannot be a necessary form of existence; and so it has to be approached by a posteriori investigation. The universe is also rational and so a coherent discourse can be made about it. Indeed the contingency and rationality of the cosmos are like two pillars supporting the Christian vision of the cosmos. http://www.scifiwright.com/2010/08/the-war-against-the-war-between-science-and-faith-revisited/ The truth about science and religion By Terry Scambray - August 14, 2014 Excerpt: In 1925 the renowned philosopher and mathematician, Alfred North Whitehead speaking to scholars at Harvard said that science originated in Christian Europe in the 13th century. Whitehead pointed out that science arose from “the medieval insistence on the rationality of God, conceived as with the personal energy of Jehovah and with the rationality of a Greek philosopher”, from which it follows that human minds created in that image are capable of understanding nature. The audience, assuming that science and Christianity are enemies, was astonished. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/08/the_truth_about_science_and_religion.html

Thus daveS and other internet atheists may automatically assume that modern science could have easily developed, minus any Christian cultural influences, in other cultures, but they have exactly zero evidence for their automatic assumption. As the following article remarks, "such diverse historians and philosophers of science as Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Duhem, Loren Eiseley, Rodney Stark, and many others have observed,, science—not an occasional flash of insight here and there, but a systematic, programmatic, ongoing way of studying and controlling the world—arose only once in history, and only in one place: medieval Europe, once known as “Christendom,” where that Biblical worldview reigned supreme. That is no accident. Science could not have arisen without that worldview."

The Threat to the Scientific Method that Explains the Spate of Fraudulent Science Publications - Calvin Beisner | Jul 23, 2014 Excerpt: It is precisely because modern science has abandoned its foundations in the Biblical worldview (which holds, among other things, that a personal, rational God designed a rational universe to be understood and controlled by rational persons made in His image) and the Biblical ethic (which holds, among other things, that we are obligated to tell the truth even when it inconveniences us) that science is collapsing. As such diverse historians and philosophers of science as Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Duhem, Loren Eiseley, Rodney Stark, and many others have observed,, science—not an occasional flash of insight here and there, but a systematic, programmatic, ongoing way of studying and controlling the world—arose only once in history, and only in one place: medieval Europe, once known as “Christendom,” where that Biblical worldview reigned supreme. That is no accident. Science could not have arisen without that worldview. http://townhall.com/columnists/calvinbeisner/2014/07/23/the-threat-to-the-scientific-method-that-explains-the-spate-of-fraudulent-science-publications-n1865201/page/full

Several other notable resources backing up this claim are available, such as Thomas Woods, Stanley Jaki, David Linberg, Edward Grant, J.L. Heilbron, and Christopher Dawson. Moreover, not only did Christianity provide the necessary cultural foundation in order for modern science to be possible in the first place, but I also hold that the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead also brings an ultimate resolution to modern science in that Christ's resurrection from the dead provides a very plausible solution for the much sought after "Theory of Everything":

Copernican Principle, Agent Causality, and Jesus Christ as the “Theory of Everything” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NziDraiPiOw

bornagain77

Where there are conflicting belief-systems, there is a clash of cultures. To deny the truth and value of one's own culture is an exercise in self-loathing. Tolerance and respect for that which one considers to be evil, is a moral evil in itself. Cultures in themselves do not have value merely for the sake of being a culture. There can be evil and destructive human cultures (mafia, Nazi, communist, drug-dealing, sex-slavery). Christianity will conflict with some cultures it considers to be evil, in favor of a Christian-oriented worldview. Christianity professes that it has received the truth about the morality of certain human behaviors as received from God, the ultimate Judge of such things. That view conflicts with those belief-systems that profess opposing truths. Silver Asiatic

groovamos,

Also interesting that a giant continent was to be preserved for a few million in tribal cultures. And those tribal cultures? They surely enjoy their pickup trucks and cell phones and internet, of course products of great civilization which invented modern science and mathematics.

It is interesting to consider how the New World might have ended up if Europeans had first encountered it today. How would modern-day explorers treat it? Assuming the natives lacked the technology to repel invaders, of course. If the natives had developed nukes, then the Europeans would have to keep their distance. I suspect present-day European explorers would at least make a show of respecting the natives' territory and not just kill them off and take the land. "A few million in tribal cultures" stretching back > 10,000 years on the continent is actually quite significant. daveS

Wait, what? Whatever happened with "Electron point particle"? "The present featured model in physics for the electron is a point particle, so with no physical dimensions, an electric charge and ½ spin, and an invariant mass of unknown source." Nonlin.org

A colonizing country that has a state supported or dominating religion such as Christianity or Islam, both proselytizing religions, will significantly change any culture they colonize. I would say that it is a fair claim to say that Christianity “wrecked” traditional native culture in the Americas Interesting how a great civilization is somehow supposed to just magically appear without a core system of belief held in common. If one ever has please, I would be happy to learn. Also interesting that a giant continent was to be preserved for a few million in tribal cultures. And those tribal cultures? They surely enjoy their pickup trucks and cell phones and internet, of course products of great civilization which invented modern science and mathematics. groovamos

Groov

What does make a difference is to indicate such on this thread, because as I occasionally see on my FB news feed, Christianity has wrecked our culture.

I havent been to your FB page so I can’t comment on the context they refer to. But if by “wrecked” they mean significantly changed or surplanted, then Christianity has certainly done that. A colonizing country that has a state supported or dominating religion such as Christianity or Islam, both proselytizing religions, will significantly change any culture they colonize. I would say that it is a fair claim to say that Christianity “wrecked” traditional native culture in the Americas R J Sawyer

What in the world difference does it make whether one of the authors is a Christian??? It makes no difference. What does make a difference is to indicate such on this thread, because as I occasionally see on my FB news feed, Christianity has wrecked our culture. And then when I point out (with supporting links) that the founders of Western science (pre-1875), almost exclusively, and most of the giants of modern mathematics (pre-1875), were Christian, it's fun to behold atheist heads explode. Or at least read the comments indicating such. Kind of like what just happened here, causing someone to log in just to ask an indignant question. Which hopefully got answered. groovamos

Besides the Cosmic Background Radiation, there are two other places in the universe where unexpected 'exceptional roundness' is found:

Sun's Almost Perfectly Round Shape Baffles Scientists - (Aug. 16, 2012) — Excerpt: The sun is nearly the roundest object ever measured. If scaled to the size of a beach ball, it would be so round that the difference between the widest and narrow diameters would be much less than the width of a human hair.,,, They also found that the solar flattening is remarkably constant over time and too small to agree with that predicted from its surface rotation. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120816150801.htm

and also this 'exceptional roundness':

Bucky Balls - Andy Gion Excerpt: Buckyballs (C60; Carbon 60) are the roundest and most symmetrical large molecule known to man. Buckministerfullerine continues to astonish with one amazing property after another. C60 is the third major form of pure carbon; graphite and diamond are the other two. Buckyballs were discovered in 1985,,, http://www.3rd1000.com/bucky/bucky.htm

The delicate balance at which carbon is synthesized in stars is truly a work of art. Fred Hoyle (1915-2001), a famed astrophysicist, is the scientist who established the nucleo-synthesis of heavier elements within stars as mathematically valid in 1946. Hoyle is said to have converted from staunch atheism into being a Theist/Deist after discovering the precise balance at which carbon is synthesized in stars. Years after Sir Fred discovered the stunning precision with which carbon is synthesized in stars he stated this:

"I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars." Sir Fred Hoyle - "The Universe: Past and Present Reflections." Engineering and Science, November, 1981. pp. 8–12

And now, to repeat, we can, apparently, also add the electron itself to this list of where unexpected 'exceptional roundness' is found:

What the electron’s near-perfect roundness means for new physics The particle’s most precise measurement yet suggests the LHC isn’t large enough BY LISA GROSSMAN 1:00PM, OCTOBER 17, 2018 Excerpt: "The finding improves the team’s last best measurement (SN Online: 12/19/13) by a factor of 10 to find an EDM (electric dipole moment) of 10-29 electron charge centimeters. That’s as round as if the electron were a sphere the size of the Earth, and you shaved less than two nanometers off the North Pole and pasted it onto the South Pole, says Yale University physicist David DeMille, a member of the ACME team." https://www.sciencenews.org/article/electron-shape-round-standard-model-physics?tgt=nr

Of related note to all this unexpected 'exceptional roundness', it is interesting to note that Godel's incompleteness theorem is often stated as such, “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove”

"Gödel's incompleteness theorem (1931), proves that there are limits to what can be ascertained by mathematics. Kurt Gödel (ref. on cite), halted the achievement of a unifying all-encompassing theory of everything in his theorem that: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove”. - Stephen Hawking & Leonard Miodinow, The Grand Design (2010)

Apparently, as the exceptional roundness of the electron itself makes clear, not even the existence of the 'round electron' itself can be explained by mathematics. Of related note, Godel's incompleteness theorem has recently been extended to Physics. In the following article entitled 'Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics', which studied the derivation of macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description, the researchers remark that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, The researchers further commented that their findings challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description."

Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics - December 9, 2015 Excerpt: A mathematical problem underlying fundamental questions in particle and quantum physics is provably unsolvable,,, It is the first major problem in physics for which such a fundamental limitation could be proven. The findings are important because they show that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, "We knew about the possibility of problems that are undecidable in principle since the works of Turing and Gödel in the 1930s," added Co-author Professor Michael Wolf from Technical University of Munich. "So far, however, this only concerned the very abstract corners of theoretical computer science and mathematical logic. No one had seriously contemplated this as a possibility right in the heart of theoretical physics before. But our results change this picture. From a more philosophical perspective, they also challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description." http://phys.org/news/2015-12-quantum-physics-problem-unsolvable-godel.html

Thus, the quest for scientists to explain why any specific object in the universe might have any particular shape, such as roundness and/or flatness, is forever stymied. Besides providing an insurmountable roadblock for physicists trying to explain why any particular object may be round and/or flat in the universe, this extension of Godel's incompleteness theorem to physics also provides an insurmountable roadblock for Darwinists in their attempt to explain how any particular organism might achieve its basic "form". Simply put, since the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution are, via Godel, found to be inadequate for explaining how any particular organism might achieve its basic form, then neo-Darwinian speculations for how one type of organism might transform into another type of organism are based on pure fantasy and have no discernible experimental basis in reality. A few notes to that effect are in the following video

Darwinism vs Biological Form - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyNzNPgjM4w

Verses:

Psalm 139:13-14 For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

Of supplemental note:

Gödel, Infinity, and Jesus Christ as the Theory of Everything - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1Jw5Y686jY

Verse:

Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

bornagain77

And indeed, besides failing to explain the initial 'flatness' of the universe, physicists are also baffled as to how the universe can possibly maintain exceptional flatness throughout its entire 13.8 billion year history

"The Universe today is actually very close to the most unlikely state of all, absolute flatness. And that means it must have been born in an even flatter state, as Dicke and Peebles, two of the Princeton astronomers involved in the discovery of the 3 K background radiation, pointed out in 1979. Finding the Universe in a state of even approximate flatness today is even less likely than finding a perfectly sharpened pencil balancing on its point for millions of years, for, as Dicke and Peebles pointed out, any deviation of the Universe from flatness in the Big Bang would have grown, and grown markedly, as the Universe expanded and aged. Like the pencil balanced on its point and given the tiniest nudges, the Universe soon shifts away from perfect flatness." ~ John Gribbin, In Search of the Big Bang The universe is flat as a pancake. Coincidence? Dark energy is smoothing the expanding cosmic curves – but only exactly the right amount can make that happen – Oct. 2016 Excerpt: NEXT time you fancy doing something really frustrating, try balancing a pencil on its sharpened tip. Your efforts will succeed for a second at most. Yet the universe has been succeeding at a similar gravitational trick for the last 13.8 billion years.,,, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23230970-800-cosmic-coincidences-the-universe-is-flat-as-a-pancake/ Yes, the world (universe) really is flat - December 8, 2016 Excerpt: The universe has all sorts of deformations in space-time where it varies from the perfectly flat. Any place where there’s mass or energy, there’s a corresponding bending of space-time — that’s General Relativity 101. So a couple light beams would naturally collide inside a wandering black hole, or bend along weird angles after encountering a galaxy or two. But average all those small-scale effects out and look at the big picture. When we examine very old light — say, the cosmic microwave background — that has been traveling the universe for more than 13.8 billion years, we get a true sense of the universe’s shape. And the answer, as far as we can tell, to within an incredibly small margin of uncertainty, is that the universe is flat.,,, ,,, but there are also no laws of physics that predict or restrict the topology. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/yes-the-world-really-is-flat/

Moreover, the universe must have been flat to 1 part within 1×10^57 parts over its entire 13.8 billion year history, which, as the following author comments, "seems like an insane coincidence".

How do we know the universe is flat? Discovering the topology of the universe - by Fraser Cain - June 7, 2017 Excerpt: With the most sensitive space-based telescopes they have available, astronomers are able to detect tiny variations in the temperature of this background radiation. And here's the part that blows my mind every time I think about it. These tiny temperature variations correspond to the largest scale structures of the observable universe. A region that was a fraction of a degree warmer become a vast galaxy cluster, hundreds of millions of light-years across. The cosmic microwave background radiation just gives and gives, and when it comes to figuring out the topology of the universe, it has the answer we need. If the universe was curved in any way, these temperature variations would appear distorted compared to the actual size that we see these structures today. But they're not. To best of its ability, ESA's Planck space telescope, can't detect any distortion at all. The universe is flat.,,, Since the universe is flat now, it must have been flat in the past, when the universe was an incredibly dense singularity. And for it to maintain this level of flatness over 13.8 billion years of expansion, in kind of amazing. In fact, astronomers estimate that the universe must have been flat to 1 part within 1×10^57 parts. Which seems like an insane coincidence. https://phys.org/news/2017-06-universe-flat-topology.html

And whereas physicists have no clue why the universe should be as round and flat as it is, the Christian Theists has no problem finding an answer for why the universe is as such. The Bible 'predicted' thousands of years before it was discovered by modern science, that the universe would be 'exceptionally' round and flat:

Proverbs 8:26-27 While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields, or the primeval dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep, Job 26:10 He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness. Job 38:4-5 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?

Moreover, it is also important to point out that the reason why Euclidean (3 Dimensional) geometry is even applicable in our science and engineering in the first place is because the 4-Dimensional space-time of our universe (General Relativity) is exceptionally, and unexpectedly “flat”. As Fraser Cain stated in the following article, which was referenced previously, “We say that the universe is flat, and this means that parallel lines will always remain parallel. 90-degree turns behave as true 90-degree turns, and everything makes sense.,,,’

How do we know the universe is flat? Discovering the topology of the universe – by Fraser Cain – June 7, 2017 Excerpt: We say that the universe is flat, and this means that parallel lines will always remain parallel. 90-degree turns behave as true 90-degree turns, and everything makes sense.,,, Since the universe is flat now, it must have been flat in the past, when the universe was an incredibly dense singularity. And for it to maintain this level of flatness over 13.8 billion years of expansion, in kind of amazing. In fact, astronomers estimate that the universe must have been flat to 1 part within 1×10^57 parts. Which seems like an insane coincidence. https://phys.org/news/2017-06-universe-flat-topology.html

Simply put, without some remarkable degree of exceptional, and stable, flatness for the universe, (as well as exceptional stability for all the other constants), Euclidean (3-Dimensional) geometry would not be applicable to our world. or to the universe at large, and this would make science and engineering for humans, for all practical purposes, all but impossible.

Scientists Question Nature’s Fundamental Laws – Michael Schirber – 2006 Excerpt: “There is absolutely no reason these constants should be constant,” says astronomer Michael Murphy of the University of Cambridge. “These are famous numbers in physics, but we have no real reason for why they are what they are.” The observed differences are small-roughly a few parts in a million-but the implications are huge (if they hold up): The laws of physics would have to be rewritten, not to mention we might need to make room for six more spatial dimensions than the three that we are used to.”,,, The speed of light, for instance, might be measured one day with a ruler and a clock. If the next day the same measurement gave a different answer, no one could tell if the speed of light changed, the ruler length changed, or the clock ticking changed. http://www.space.com/2613-scientists-question-nature-fundamental-laws.html

Moreover, this adds considerable weight to both Einstein's and Wigner's claim that the applicability of math to the universe is, by all rights, a miracle:

On the Rational Order of the World: a Letter to Maurice Solovine - Albert Einstein - March 30, 1952 Excerpt: "You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way .. the kind of order created by Newton's theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if a man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the 'miracle' which is constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands. There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles." -Albert Einstein http://inters.org/Einstein-Letter-Solovine The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin's process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind's capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html

bornagain77

From the article,

What the electron’s near-perfect roundness means for new physics The particle’s most precise measurement yet suggests the LHC isn’t large enough BY LISA GROSSMAN - OCTOBER 17, 2018 Excerpt: "The finding improves the team’s last best measurement (SN Online: 12/19/13) by a factor of 10 to find an EDM (electric dipole moment) of 10-29 electron charge centimeters. That’s as round as if the electron were a sphere the size of the Earth, and you shaved less than two nanometers off the North Pole and pasted it onto the South Pole, says Yale University physicist David DeMille, a member of the ACME team." https://www.sciencenews.org/article/electron-shape-round-standard-model-physics?tgt=nr

That is certainly a very impressive measurement of "Roundness" for something as incredibly small as an electron. Moreover, there is hope that they will soon make even better measurements of the electron's roundness that will circumvent the need to build larger, much more expensive, particle colliders.

"The proposed successor to the LHC, the Future Circular Collider, could reach such high energies if it is ever built. But smaller and cheaper EDM experiments may beat them to the punch, says physicist Brent Graner at the University of Washington in Seattle, who was not involved in the new study."

Like I said, very impressive. This finding also drove another nail into the coffin of purely mathematical theories that seek to explain why the universe exists without recourse to God.

Physicists want to find signs of particles that aren’t in the standard model because that theory can’t explain some crucial features of the universe, like why there is more matter than antimatter. But so far, the LHC has come up empty (SN: 10/1/16, p. 12).

But of particular note, this is certainly not the only place that surprising "Roundness" has befuddled physicists. Most notably, the Cosmic Background Radiation is found to be 'surprisingly' round: It is interesting to note how precise, and mysterious, the 'roundness' of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is:

Planck Cruise to L2 (mapping CMBR) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piYn0nbbJcs The Cosmic Background Radiation Excerpt: These fluctuations are extremely small, representing deviations from the average of only about 1/100,000 of the average temperature of the observed background radiation. The highly isotropic nature of the cosmic background radiation indicates that the early stages of the Universe were almost completely uniform. This raises two problems for (a naturalistic understanding of) the big bang theory. First, when we look at the microwave background coming from widely separated parts of the sky it can be shown that these regions are too separated to have been able to communicate with each other even with signals traveling at light velocity. Thus, how did they know to have almost exactly the same temperature? This general problem is called the horizon problem. Second, the present Universe is homogenous and isotropic, but only on very large scales. For scales the size of superclusters and smaller the luminous matter in the universe is quite lumpy, as illustrated in the following figure. ,,, Thus, the discovery of small deviations from smoothness (anisotopies) in the cosmic microwave background is welcome, for it provides at least the possibility for the seeds around which structure formed in the later Universe. However, as we shall see, we are still far from a quantitative understanding of how this came to be. http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/cosmology/cbr.html Space is all the same temperature. Coincidence? Distant patches of the universe should never have come into contact. So how come they’re all just as hot as each other? - 26 October 2016 Excerpt: THE temperature of the cosmic microwave background – the radiation bathing all of space – is remarkably uniform. It varies by less than 0.001 degrees from a chilly 2.725 kelvin. But while that might seem natural enough, this consistency is a real puzzle. For two widely separated areas of the cosmos to reach thermal equilibrium, heat needs enough time to travel from one to the other. Even if this happens at the speed of light, the universe is just too young for this to have happened. Cosmologists try to explain this uniformity using the hypothesis known as inflation. It replaces the simple idea of a big bang with one in which there was also a moment of exponential expansion. This sudden, faster-than-light increase in the size of the universe allows it to have started off smaller than an atom, when it would have had plenty of time to equalise its temperature. “On the face of it, inflation is a totally bonkers idea – it replaces a coincidence with a completely nonsensical vision of what the early universe was like,” says Andrew Pontzen at University College London. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23230970-900-cosmic-coincidences-everythings-at-the-same-temperature/

Of additional note to inflation's abject failure to explain why the CMBR is so round.

Planck reveals an almost perfect Universe (Disconfirms inflationary models) – video Quote at 2:00 minute mark: “What’s surprising in Planck’s latest findings and is inconsistent with prevailing theories, is the presence of unexpected large scale anomalies in the sky. Including a large cold region. Stronger fluctuations in one half of the sky than the other. And less light signals than expected across the entire sky.” Planck spokesman: “When we look at only the large features on this (CMBR) map you find that our find that our best fitting theory (inflation) has a problem fitting the data.” “Planck launched in 2009,, is the 3rd mission to study the Cosmic Microwave Background to date. While these unusual features in the sky were hinted at the two previous US missions, COBE and WMAP, Planck’s ability to measure the tiniest of fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background has made these so called anomalies impossible to ignore.” Planck spokesman: “Because of these features that we are finding in the sky, people really are in a situation now where they cannot ignore them any more. ,,, We’ve established them (the anomalies) as fact!”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2CWaLU6eMI A Matter of Considerable Gravity: On the Purported Detection of Gravitational Waves and Cosmic Inflation - Bruce Gordon - April 4, 2014 Excerpt: Thirdly, at least two paradoxes result from the inflationary multiverse proposal that suggest our place in such a multiverse must be very special: the "Boltzmann Brain Paradox" and the "Youngness Paradox." In brief, if the inflationary mechanism is autonomously operative in a way that generates a multiverse, then with probability indistinguishable from one (i.e., virtual necessity) the typical observer in such a multiverse is an evanescent thermal fluctuation with memories of a past that never existed (a Boltzmann brain) rather than an observer of the sort we take ourselves to be. Alternatively, by a second measure, post-inflationary universes should overwhelmingly have just been formed, which means that our existence in an old universe like our own has a probability that is effectively zero (i.e., it's nigh impossible). So if our universe existed as part of such a multiverse, it would not be at all typical, but rather infinitely improbable (fine-tuned) with respect to its age and compatibility with stable life-forms. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/04/a_matter_of_con084001.html Why I Still Doubt Inflation, in Spite of Gravitational Wave Findings By John Horgan - March 17, 2014 Excerpt: Indeed, inflation, like string theory, has always suffered from what is sometimes called the “Alice’s Restaurant Problem.” Like the diner eulogized in the iconic Arlo Guthrie song, inflation comes in so many different versions that it can give you “anything you want.” In other words, it cannot be falsified, and so–like psychoanalysis, Marxism and other overly flexible hypotheses (Hmmm Darwinism anyone?)–it is not really a scientific theory. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2014/03/17/why-i-still-doubt-inflation-in-spite-of-gravity-wave-findings/

In the following article, Paul J. Steinhardt, one of the originators of the inflation model but who is now scathing of it, stated, "there has to be a patch of space where the quantum fluctuations of spacetime have died down and the space is well described by Einstein’s classical equations of general relativity; second, the patch of space must be flat enough and have a smooth enough distribution of energy that the inflation energy can grow to dominate all other forms of energy.,,, if it were easy to find a patch emerging from the big bang that is flat and smooth enough to start inflation, then inflation would not be needed in the first place."

Pop Goes The Universe - Scientific American - January 2017 - Anna Ijjas, Paul J. Steinhardt and Abraham Loeb Excerpt: “If anything, the Planck data disfavored the simplest inflation models and exacerbated long-standing foundational problems with the theory, providing new reasons to consider competing ideas about the origin and evolution of the universe… (i)n the years since, more precise data gathered by the Planck satellite and other instruments have made the case only stronger……The Planck satellite results—a combination of an unexpectedly small (few percent) deviation from perfect scale invariance in the pattern of hot and colds spots in the CMB and the failure to detect cosmic gravitational waves—are stunning. For the first time in more than 30 years, the simplest inflationary models, including those described in standard textbooks, are strongly disfavored by observations.” “Two improbable criteria have to be satisfied for inflation to start. First, shortly after the big bang, there has to be a patch of space where the quantum fluctuations of spacetime have died down and the space is well described by Einstein’s classical equations of general relativity; second, the patch of space must be flat enough and have a smooth enough distribution of energy that the inflation energy can grow to dominate all other forms of energy. Several theoretical estimates of the probability of finding a patch with these characteristics just after the big bang suggest that it is more difficult than finding a snowy mountain equipped with a ski lift and well-maintained ski slopes in the middle of a desert.” “More important, if it were easy to find a patch emerging from the big bang that is flat and smooth enough to start inflation, then inflation would not be needed in the first place. Recall that the entire motivation for introducing it was to explain how the visible universe came to have these properties; if starting inflation requires those same properties, with the only difference being that a smaller patch of space is needed, that is hardly progress.” “…inflation continues eternally, generating an infinite number of patches where inflation has ended, each creating a universe unto itself…(t)he worrisome implication is that the cosmological properties of each patch differ because of the inherent randomizing effect of quantum fluctuations…The result is what cosmologists call the multiverse. Because every patch can have any physically conceivable properties, the multiverse does not explain why our universe has the very special conditions that we observe—they are purely accidental features of our particular patch.” “We would like to suggest “multimess” as a more apt term to describe the unresolved outcome of eternal inflation, whether it consists of an infinite multitude of patches with randomly distributed properties or a quantum mess. From our perspective, it makes no difference which description is correct. Either way, the multimess does not predict the properties of our observable universe to be the likely outcome. A good scientific theory is supposed to explain why what we observe happens instead of something else. The multimess fails this fundamental test.” https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/sciam3.pdf

bornagain77

jdk @ 2

What in the world difference does it make whether one of the authors is a Christian???

No hypothetical particles where there should be. Gap. God. Obvious. Seversky

According to BA77, doesn't reality not exist until you look at it? Maybe the researchers can't see the pear shape because they're not looking at it the right way? Seversky

What in the world difference does it make whether one of the authors is a Christian??? jdk

One of the authors is a Christian and is taking questions here: https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/the-electron-is-still-round/2321/7 Prof. S. Joshua Swamidass