Movie night: Jay Richards on Signs of Design from Physics and Astronomy

First of all this Thomistic perspective, or the natural philosophy perspective, is sort of maximal design. Finality and intelligibility everywhere. So sort of design everywhere if you will. And the second thing is that you can't really prove this design from within the scientific framework precisely because the science is predicated on the intelligibility and the order of nature. And so, for science to even get off the ground, you have to have an orderly cosmos. - Mark Ryland

Mung

January 6, 2013

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Attn News, Any plans for an OP about the recent ENV article? http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/01/dna_replication068061.htmlMung

January 6, 2013

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OT: KF, I thought you might like the following article: Testing Einstein's E=mc2 in outer space - January 4, 2013 Excerpt: "The most important problem in physics is the Unifying Theory of Everything – a theory that can describe all forces observed in nature," said Lebed. "The main problem toward such a theory is how to unite relativistic quantum mechanics and gravity. I try to make a connection between quantum objects and General Relativity." The key to understand Lebed's reasoning is gravitation. On paper at least, he showed that while E=mc2 always holds true for inertial mass, it doesn't always for gravitational mass. "What this probably means is that gravitational mass is not the same as inertial," he said.,,, "Space has a curvature," Lebed said, "and when you move a mass in space, this curvature disturbs this motion." According to the UA physicist, the curvature of space is what makes gravitational mass different from inertial mass. Lebed suggested to test his idea by measuring the weight of the simplest quantum object: a single hydrogen atom, which only consists of a nucleus, a single proton and a lone electron orbiting the nucleus. Because he expects the effect to be extremely small, lots of hydrogen atoms would be needed. Here is the idea: On a rare occasion, the electron whizzing around the atom's nucleus jumps to a higher energy level, which can roughly be thought of as a wider orbit. Within a short time, the electron falls back onto its previous energy level. According to E=mc2, the hydrogen atom's mass will change along with the change in energy level. So far, so good. But what would happen if we moved that same atom away from Earth, where space is no longer curved, but flat? You guessed it: The electron could not jump to higher energy levels because in flat space it would be confined to its primary energy level. There is no jumping around in flat space. "In this case, the electron can occupy only the first level of the hydrogen atom," Lebed explained. "It doesn't feel the curvature of gravitation." "Then we move it close to Earth's gravitational field, and because of the curvature of space, there is a probability of that electron jumping from the first level to the second. And now the mass will be different." "People have done calculations of energy levels here on Earth, but that gives you nothing because the curvature stays the same, so there is no perturbation," Lebed said. "But what they didn't take into account before that opportunity of that electron to jump from the first to the second level because the curvature disturbs the atom." "Instead of measuring weight directly, we would detect these energy switching events, which would make themselves known as emitted photons – essentially, light," he explained. Lebed suggested the following experiment to test his hypothesis: Send a small spacecraft with a tank of hydrogen and a sensitive photo detector onto a journey into space. In outer space, the relationship between mass and energy is the same for the atom, but only because the flat space doesn't permit the electron to change energy levels. "When we're close to Earth, the curvature of space disturbs the atom, and there is a probability for the electron to jump, thereby emitting a photon that is registered by the detector," he said. Depending on the energy level, the relationship between mass and energy is no longer fixed under the influence of a gravitational field. Lebed said the spacecraft would not have to go very far. "We'd have to send the probe out two or three times the radius of Earth, and it will work." According to Lebed, his work is the first proposition to test the combination of quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of gravity in the solar system. http://phys.org/news/2013-01-einstein-emc2-outer-space.htmlbornagain77

January 6, 2013

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