The Universe Really Is Fine-Tuned, And Our Existence Is The Proof

The fact that our Universe has such a perfect balance between the expansion rate and the energy density — today, yesterday, and billions of years ago — is a clue that our Universe really is finely tuned. With robust predictions about the spectrum, entropy, temperature, and other properties concerning the density fluctuations that arise in inflationary scenarios, and the verification found in the Cosmic Microwave Background and the Universe's large-scale structure, we even have a viable solution. Further tests will determine whether our best conclusion at present truly provides the ultimate answer, but we cannot just wave the problem away. The Universe really is finely tuned, and our existence is all the proof we need.

When you take stock of what's in the Universe on the largest scales, only one force matters: gravitation. While the nuclear and electromagnetic forces that exist between particles are many, many orders of magnitude stronger than the gravitational force, they cannot compete on the largest cosmic scales. The Universe is electrically neutral, with one electron to cancel out the charge of every proton in the Universe, and the nuclear forces are extremely short-range, failing to extend beyond the scale of an atomic nucleus.

When it comes to the Universe as a whole, only gravitation matters. The Universe expands at the rate it does throughout its history — and not at a different one — for two reasons alone: our laws of gravity and all the forms of energy that exist in the Universe. If things were slightly different from how they actually are, we wouldn't exist. Here's the science of why.

Imagine that you came upon a thin, tall, rocky spire here on planet Earth. If you were to place another large rock atop this spire, you would expect it would topple over and either fall or roll down one side, coming to rest down in the valley below. It would be unrealistic to expect the rock would remain perfectly balanced in the configuration where a heavy, massive object remained in a precariously balanced state.

When we do encounter this unexpected kind of balance, we call it a system in unstable equilibrium. Sure, it would be far more energetically favorable to find the heavy mass at the bottom of the valley rather than at the top of the spire. But every once in a while, nature surprises us. When we do find the proverbial boulder balanced in unstable equilibrium, we talk about there being a fine-tuning problem.

Fine-tuning is an easy concept to understand in principle. Imagine that I asked to you pick a number between 1 and 1,000,000. You could choose anything you want, so go ahead, do it.

Pick a number between 1 and 1,000,000: any number that you choose.

I'll go ahead and do the same.

There; I've got mine and you've got yours.

Now, before I reveal my number to you and you reveal your number to me, let me tell you what we're going to do. We're going to take my number, once we reveal it, and we're going to subtract it from your number. Then, we're going to compare what we get with what we actually expect, and this is going to teach us about fine-tuning.

My number was 651,229. When you subtract it from your number, whatever it is, here are some things that we expect:

1. There's a very good chance that the difference will yield a 6-digit number;
2. There's a better-than-average chance that the difference will yield a negative number, but around a 1-in-3 chance we get a positive number;
3. There's only a very, very small chance that the difference will be a 3-digit number or fewer;
4. And if our numbers match exactly, it's very, very likely that there's a good reason, such as you have psychic powers, you've read this article before, or you peeked and knew my number beforehand.

If the difference between these two numbers is very, very small compared to the numbers themselves, that's an example of fine-tuning. It could be a rare, random, and unlikely coincidence, but your initial suspicion would be that there's some underlying reason why this occurred.

If we come back to the expanding Universe, that's the situation we find ourselves in: the Universe appears to be enormously fine-tuned.

On the one hand, we have the expansion rate that the Universe had initially, close to the Big Bang. On the other hand, we have the sum total of all the forms of matter and energy that existed at that early time as well, including:

• radiation,
• neutrinos,
• normal matter,
• dark matter,
• antimatter,
• and dark energy.

Einstein's General theory of Relativity gives us an intricate relationship between the expansion rate and the sum total of all the different forms of energy in it. If you know what your Universe is made of and how quickly it starts expanding initially, you can predict how it will evolve with time, including what its fate will be.

A Universe with too much matter-and-energy for its expansion rate will recollapse in short order; a Universe with too little will expand into oblivion before it's possible to even form atoms. Yet not only has our Universe neither recollapsed nor failed to yield atoms, but even today, some 13.8 billion years after the Big Bang, those two sides of the equation appear to be perfectly in balance.

If we extrapolate this back to a very early time — say, one nanosecond after the hot Big Bang — we find that not only do these two sides have to balance, but they have to balance to an extraordinary precision. The Universe's initial expansion rate and the sum total of all the different forms of matter and energy in the Universe not only need to balance, but they need to balance to more than 20 significant digits. It's like guessing the same 1-to-1,000,000 number as me three times in a row, and then predicting the outcome of 16 consecutive coin-flips immediately afterwards.

The odds of this occurring naturally, if we consider all the random possibilities we could have imagined, are astronomically small.

It's possible, of course, that the Universe really was born this way: with a perfect balance between all the stuff in it and the initial expansion rate. It's possible that we see the Universe the way we see it today because this balance has always existed.

But if that's the case, we'd hate to simply take that assumption at face value. In science, when faced with a coincidence that we cannot easily explain, the idea that we can blame it on the initial conditions of our physical system is akin to giving up on science. It's far better, from a scientific point of view, to attempt to come up with a reason for why this coincidence might occur.

One option — the worst option, if you ask me — is to claim that there are a near-infinite number of possible outcomes, and a near-infinite number of possible Universes that contain those outcomes. Only in those Universes where our existence is possible can we exist, and therefore it's not surprising that we exist in a Universe that has the properties that we observe.

If you read that and your reaction was, "what kind of circular reasoning is that," congratulations. You're someone who won't be suckered in by arguments based on the anthropic principle. It might be true that the Universe could have been any way at all and that we live in one where things are the way they are (and not some other way), but that doesn't give us anything scientific to work with. Instead, it's arguable that resorting to anthropic reasoning means we've already given up on a scientific solution to the puzzle.

However, a good scientific argument would do the following things:

1. It would provide a mechanism for creating these conditions that appear to be finely tuned to us.
2. That mechanism would also make additional predictions that differ from, and are testable against, the predictions that arise from not having that mechanism present.

That second condition is what separates a non-scientific argument from a scientific one. If all you can do is appeal to the initial conditions of a problem, you'll have no way of testing whether your scenario any further. Other Universes might exist, but if we cannot observe them and determine whether they have the same initial conditions that our Universe has or not, there's no scientific merit there.

On the other hand, if some pre-existing phase of the Universe created these initial conditions while also making additional predictions, we'd have something of enormous scientific importance.

In the case of finding a boulder precariously balanced atop a spire, the geological erosion of layered stone — where the different layers of sedimentary rock have different densities and susceptibilities to the elements — could be responsible. Measuring the various properties of the various layers of stone, and experimenting on how they erode when subject to simulated environmental conditions, is the critical next-level test.

In the case of the energy balance of the Universe, where the expansion rate appears to match up with the total energy density perfectly, an idea like cosmic inflation is the perfect theoretical candidate. Inflation would stretch the Universe flat, yielding an energy density that matched the expansion rate, and then when inflation ended, the Big Bang's initial conditions would be set up. In addition, inflation also makes additional predictions that could be experimentally or observationally measured, putting the scenario to the rigorous scientific test we require.

Whenever we run into an unexplained phenomenon, where two seemingly unrelated physical quantities match up either perfectly or almost perfectly, it's our duty to seek out an explanation. Perhaps the outcome truly is a coincidence, but that should only be a conclusion we reach if we cannot find any other scientific explanation. The key is to tease out novel and unique predictions that can be put to the experimental or observational test; without it, our attempts at theorizing will remain divorced from reality.

The fact that our Universe has such a perfect balance between the expansion rate and the energy density — today, yesterday, and billions of years ago — is a clue that our Universe really is finely tuned. With robust predictions about the spectrum, entropy, temperature, and other properties concerning the density fluctuations that arise in inflationary scenarios, and the verification found in the Cosmic Microwave Background and the Universe's large-scale structure, we even have a viable solution. Further tests will determine whether our best conclusion at present truly provides the ultimate answer, but we cannot just wave the problem away. The Universe really is finely tuned, and our existence is all the proof we need.

Water is "Common on Alien Worlds /// Breathable Atmospheres More Common in the Universe

WATER IS ‘COMMON’ ON ALIEN WORLDS, SCIENTISTS SAY IN FINDING THAT COULD TRANSFORM SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE

• Water is thought to be a key component to live anywhere in the universe

Water is "common" on alien worlds, scientists have found in a study that could change our understanding of how planets form and where we might find alien life.

The discovery comes from the most extensive survey of the chemical compositions of planets ever conducted, and challenges our search for water in our own solar system and elsewhere.

Water is thought to be a key component of extraterrestrial life, and so finding it elsewhere in the universe is likely to be central to discovering whether aliens exist elsewhere in the universe.

The researchers used data from 19 exoplanets to get detailed measurements of the chemical and thermal properties of exoplanets. They looked at a wide variety of different worlds, from relatively small "mini-Neptunes" only 10 times bigger than our Earth to "super-Jupiters" that are as big as 600 of our own planet, and from places that are between 20C and 2000C.

They found that water was "common" across many of those exoplanets. But they also discovered that there was less of it on those planets than expected, and there was great variety between the different kinds of worlds.

"We are seeing the first signs of chemical patterns in extra-terrestrial worlds, and we're seeing just how diverse they can be in terms of their chemical compositions," said project leader Dr Nikku Madhusudhan from the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge.

In our solar system, there is much more carbon relative to hydrogen in the atmospheres of the giant planets than there is in the Sun. That is thought to have come about at the formation of the planets, when large amounts of ice and other particles were pulled into the planet.

Researchers think that there will be a similar situation on other giant exoplanets. If that is true, there should also be large amounts of water.

Using data from a huge array of different telescopes, both in space and on the ground, the researchers found that water vapour was present in 14 of th 19 planets, and that there was also an abundance of sodium and potassium in six planets.

But they also found that there was less oxygen relative to other elements, and that they might have formed without gathering significant amounts of ice.

"It is incredible to see such low water abundances in the atmospheres of a broad range of planets orbiting a variety of stars," said Dr Madhusudhan.

The new data gives us a detailed understanding of exoplanets that we don't even have of our nearest neighbours, scientists said.

"Measuring the abundances of these chemicals in exoplanetary atmospheres is something extraordinary, considering that we have not been able to do the same for giant planets in our solar system yet, including Jupiter, our nearest gas giant neighbour," said Luis Welbanks, lead author of the study and PhD student at the Institute of Astronomy.

The discovery changes our understanding both of the prevalence of water on alien planets but also challenges our understanding of how those distant worlds might have formed.

"Given that water is a key ingredient to our notion of habitability on Earth, it is important to know how much water can be found in planetary systems beyond our own," said project leader Dr Madhusudhan.

_______________________________________

BREATHABLE ATMOSPHERES MAY BE MORE COMMON IN THE UNIVERSE THAN WE FIRST THOUGHT:

• It appears that Earth's oxygenation may have been inescapable once photosynthesis had evolved—and the chances of high oxygen worlds existing elsewhere could be much higher

The existence of habitable alien worlds has been a mainstay of popular culture for more than a century. In the 19th century, astronomers believed that Martians might be using canal-based transport links to traverse the red planet. Now, despite living in an age when scientists can study planets light years from our own solar system, most new research continues to diminish the chances of finding other worlds on which humans could live. The biggest stumbling block may be oxygen—human settlers would need a high oxygen atmosphere in which to breathe.

So how were we so lucky to evolve on a planet with plenty of oxygen? The history of Earth's oceans and atmosphere suggests that the rise to present-day levels of O₂ was pretty difficult. The current consensus is that Earth underwent a three-step rise in atmospheric and oceanic oxygen levels, the first being called the "Great Oxidation Event" at around 2.4 billion years ago. After that came the "Neoproterozoic Oxygenation Event" around 800 million years ago, and then finally the "Paleozoic Oxygenation Event" about 400 million years ago, when oxygen levels on Earth reached their modern peak of 21%.

What happened during these three periods to increase oxygen levels is a matter for debate. One idea is that new organisms "bioengineered" the planet, restructuring the atmosphere and oceans through either their metabolisms or their lifestyles. For example, the rise of land plants roughly 400 million years ago could have increased oxygen in the atmosphere through land-based photosynthesis, taking over from photosynthetic bacteria in the ocean which have been the main oxygen producers for most of Earth's history. Alternatively, plate tectonic changes or gigantic volcanic eruptions have also been linked to the Earth's oxygenation events.

This event-based history of how oxygen came to be so plentiful on Earth implies that we're very fortunate to be living on a high-oxygen world. If one volcanic eruption hadn't happened, or a certain type of organism hadn't evolved, then oxygen might have stalled at low levels. But our latest research suggests that this isn't the case. We created a computer model of the Earth's carbon, oxygen and phosphorus cycles and found that the oxygen transitions can be explained by the inherent dynamics of our planet and likely didn't require any miraculous events.

One thing we think is missing from theories about Earth's oxygenation is phosphorus. This nutrient is very important for photosynthetic bacteria and algae in the ocean. How much marine phosphorous there is will ultimately control how much oxygen is produced on Earth. This is still true today—and has been so since the evolution of photosynthetic microbes some three billion years ago.

Photosynthesis in the ocean depends on phosphorus, but high phosphate levels also drive consumption of oxygen in the deep ocean through a process called eutrophication. When photosynthetic microbes die, they decompose, which consumes oxygen from the water. As oxygen levels fall, sediments tend to release even more phosphorus. This feedback loop rapidly removes oxygen. This meant that oxygen levels in the oceans were able to change rapidly, but they were buffered over long timescales by another process involving the Earth's mantle.

Throughout Earth's history, volcanic activity has released gases that react with and remove oxygen from the atmosphere. These gas fluxes have subsided over time due to Earth's mantle cooling, and our computer model suggests this slow reduction along with the initial evolution of photosynthetic life was all that was necessary to produce a series of step-change increases in oxygen levels.

These stepped increases bear a clear resemblance to the three-step rise in oxygen that has occurred throughout Earth's history. The model also supports our current understanding of ocean oxygenation, which appears to have involved numerous cycles of oxygenation and deoxygenation before the oceans became resiliently oxygenated as they are today.

What is really exciting about all of this is that the oxygenation pattern can be created without the need for difficult and complex evolutionary leaps forward, or circumstantial catastrophic volcanic or tectonic events. So it appears that Earth's oxygenation may have been inescapable once photosynthesis had evolved—and the chances of high oxygen worlds existing elsewhere could be much higher.

The Sinister Scientist Behind the CIA’s Mind-Control Mayhem

How did Gottlieb, the Bronx-born son of Hungarian Jews, become

 a man who would earn comparisons to a ghoulish Nazi doctor?

A new book digs deep into the horrifying career of Sidney Gottlieb, the scientist who ran the CIA's damaging and possibly lethal experiments in drug-induced mind control.

Stephen Kinzer has written books about civil wars, terror attacks, and bloody coups, but his latest might be his most alarming. “I’m still in shock,” Kinzer says of what he learned about the appalling experiments conducted by a government scientist most Americans have never heard of. “I can’t believe that this happened.”

These aren’t the words of an author trying to fire up the hype machine. Though the events recounted in Kinzer’s Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control took place a half-century ago, they’re scandalous in a way that transcends time.

For much of his 22-year CIA career, Gottlieb ran mind-control projects designed to help America defeat Communism. In the ’50s and ’60s, Kinzer writes, Gottlieb “directed the application of unknowable quantities and varieties of drugs into” countless people, searching for the narcotic recipe that might allow him to mold his human test subjects’ thoughts and actions.

Gottlieb and a network of medical professionals gave LSD and other drugs to prisoners, hospital patients, government employees, and others—many of whom had no idea they were being dosed. A CIA staffer died in highly suspicious fashion after Gottlieb had his drink spiked with LSD. Meanwhile, when his bosses considered killing a foreign leader, Gottlieb developed custom-made poisons. Numerous people were harmed by Gottlieb’s work, but because he destroyed his files on the eve of his 1973 retirement, it’s hard to quantify the carnage he wrought.

The broad outlines of Gottlieb’s story have been public for years. Major newspapers ran obituaries when he died in 1999. In 2017, he was portrayed by actor Tim Blake Nelson in Errol Morris’ Wormwood. But Kinzer’s book, the first proper Gottlieb biography, includes fascinating new facts about the end of his career and fresh details about disturbing episodes he orchestrated. 

Poisoner in Chief describes Gottlieb’s little-known participation in torture sessions at U.S. military sites in foreign countries and reports that in at least one case a doctor who worked with Gottlieb gave LSD to children. Gottlieb was “the Josef Mengele of the United States,” Kinzer, a former New York Times reporter and the author of many books, told me in a recent interview.

How did Gottlieb, the Bronx-born son of Hungarian Jews, become a man who would earn comparisons to a ghoulish Nazi doctor?

The Artichoke project gave Gottlieb broad license to carry out mind control projects. Kinzer cites a CIA memo that describes the mission: “the investigation of drug effects on ego control and volitional activities, i.e., can willfully suppressed information be elicited through drugs affecting higher nervous systems?

-----

Entire article available here.