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Steven Weinberg: The universe’s symmetry may be an accident

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File:Steven weinberg 2010.jpg
Steven Weinberg 2010/Larry D. Moore

In “Symmetry: A ‘Key to Nature’s Secrets’” (New York Review of Books , October 2011), Steven Weinberg tells us,

I said that I would be concerned here with the symmetries of laws, not of objects, but there is one thing that is so important that I need to say a bit about it. It is the universe. As far as we can see, when averaged over sufficiently large scales containing many galaxies, the universe seems to have no preferred position, and no preferred directions—it is symmetrical. But this too may be an accident.

There is an attractive theory, called chaotic inflation, according to which the universe began without any special spatial symmetries, in a completely chaotic state. Here and there by accident the fields pervading the universe were more or less uniform, and according to the gravitational field equations it is these patches of space that then underwent an exponentially rapid expansion, known as inflation, leading to something like our present universe, with all nonuniformities in these patches smoothed out by the expansion. In different patches of space the symmetries of the laws of nature would be broken in different ways. Much of the universe is still chaotic, and it is only in the patches that inflated sufficiently (and in which symmetries were broken in the right ways) that life could arise, so any beings who study the universe will find themselves in such patches.

This is all quite speculative. There is observational evidence for an exponential early expansion, which has left its traces in the microwave radiation filling the universe, but as yet no evidence for an earlier period of chaos. If it turns out that chaotic inflation is correct, then much of what we observe in nature will be due to the accident of our particular location, an accident that can never be explained, except by the fact that it is only in such locations that anyone could live.

From Peter Woit at Not Even Wrong ,

Weinberg ends with a landscape sort of picture, involving symmetries emerging only when a specific ground state emerges out of an initial chaotic inflation state. Philosophically this is a popular view of the future of the subject these days, but one that has so far led nowhere, and one that I think even in principle can never lead anywhere. Much more interesting would be to try and draw lessons from what has worked well in the past: exactly the gauge symmetries and spontaneous symmetry breaking phenomena that led to the standard model. We may very well soon find out there is no Higgs particle, turning this whole subject into a wide-open one. Future progress may come from exactly the same place as in the past: new ideas about how to exploit the mathematical structures inherent in quantum mechanical symmetries.

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Comments
they are created by the infinite intelligence we call the 'great spirit'mazda
October 11, 2011
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And what about those "natural laws"? Are they also due to the operation of teh natural law of cause and effect?Joseph
October 11, 2011
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whatever we call 'accidental' is due to the operation of the natural law of cause and effect. there can be no such thing as 'chance' or 'accident'mazda
October 11, 2011
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Sounds like Susskind, Smolin is generally highly critical of m-theory, landscape. They (materials metaphysicians) have been fighting "the beginning" since the priest first proposed it, and it's inescapable implications.junkdnaforlife
October 10, 2011
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Sigh. One would hope that a man who has published on the Big Bang (First 3 minutes) would be constrained, nay, protective of data, but such data-free speculation is unbecoming in a physicist of his stature and age. As Smolin (or was it Susskind?) has pointed out, we can't really talk about a "beginning" of the universe if we invoke some eternal 11-dimensional "landscape". No matter how many times we try to kill off this Democritean eternity, the materialist metaphysician in every cosmologist reveals his darker side. Look. There was a Creation. Eternity is toast. Get over it.Robert Sheldon
October 10, 2011
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OT:
"Metamorphosis Video Exclusive: Metamorphosis Phenomenon is Widespread" - (Another Day, Another Extremely Bad Day For Neo-Darwinists) http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2011-10-10T17_10_39-07_00
bornagain77
October 10, 2011
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