Symmetry in the universe: Physics says you shouldn't exist. - 0 views
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You, me, and even the most calming manatee are nothing but impurities in an otherwise beautifully simple universe.
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Your existence wasn’t just predicated on amorousness and luck of your ancestors, but on an almost absurdly finely tuned universe. Had the universe opted to turn up the strength of the electromagnetic force by even a small factor, poof
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if the universe were only minutely denser than the one we inhabit, it would have collapsed before it began.
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Worse still, the laws of physics themselves seem to be working against us. Ours isn’t just a randomly hostile universe, it's an actively hostile universe
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The history of physics, in fact, is a marvel of using simple symmetry principles to construct complicated laws of the universe
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if the entire universe were made symmetric, then all of the good features (e.g., you) are decidedly asymmetric lumps that ruin the otherwise perfect beauty of the cosmo
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it would be a mistake to be comforted by the symmetries of the universe. In truth, they are your worst enemies. Everything we know about those rational, predictable arrangements dictates that you shouldn't be here at all.
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How hostile is the universe to your fundamental existence? Very. Even the simplest assumptions about our place in the universe seem to lead inexorably to devastating results
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In literally every experiment and observation that we’ve ever done, matter and antimatter get created (or annihilated) in perfect concert. That is, every experiment except for one: us.
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Matter and antimatter should have completely annihilated one another in the first nanoseconds after the Big Bang. You should not even exist. But you do, and there’s lots more matter where you came from.
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if the perfect symmetry between matter and antimatter remained perfect, you wouldn’t be here to think about it.
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The flow of time (as near as we can tell) is completely arbitrary. Does entropy increase with time or does it make time? Are our memories the thing that ultimately breaks the symmetry of time?
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It seems only a matter of luck (and some fairly arbitrary-looking math) that a symmetric universe would end up being remotely hospitable to complex creatures like us
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Without electrons binding to protons, there would be no chemistry, no molecules, and nothing more complicated than a cloud of charged gas. And you’re not a sentient cloud of gas, are you?