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I found this fascinating story The Fundamental Constants Behind Our Universe at medium.com's "Starts with a Bang" column. Ethan Siegel posits:
But the Universe itself experiences continual growth, constant change, and new experiences all the time, and it does so spontaneously.
And yet, the better we understand our Universe — what the laws are that govern it, what particles inhabit it, and what it looked/behaved like farther and farther back in the distant past — the more inevitable it appears that it would look just as it appears.
[...] We’d like to describe our Universe as simply as possible; one of the goals of science is to describe nature in the simplest terms possible, but no simpler. How many of these does it take, as far as we understand our Universe today, to completely describe the particles, interactions, and laws of our Universe?
The answer? "Quite a few, surprisingly: 26, at the very least." He then goes on to explore what these are and how they are computed.
Sadly, we don't know enough to be able to predict everything. As the article notes, there remain problems with explaining CP violations, matter-antimatter asymmetry in our Universe, cosmic inflation, and what dark matter actually is.
Separately, but related: many years ago I came upon a site that provided interactive exploration of the scale of things in the universe from Planck length on up to the the visible universe. (And, no, it was not powersof10.com) I have a niece who is curious about such things and I would love to share such a site with her. Sadly, I can no longer locate a link. Any suggestions?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Sunday February 08 2015, @03:45PM
From the article:
The claims in parentheses are unsubstantiated. Here's how the sentence should correctly read:
Note the "up to now" and "so far" bits.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 08 2015, @06:32PM
I would argue we have found a first principle. In simple terms, the only piece of reasoning about a thing that does not rely on any other knowledge or assumptions is this: a thing does exist or it does not. They are mutually exclusive and defined by relation to one another. A thing exists merely because it is not counted among existence. The inverse is also true. No thing itself is or is not alone. A thing is merely a relation. All of existence and nonexistence is a matter of compounding those relations between these two states.
(Score: 3) by maxwell demon on Sunday February 08 2015, @06:44PM
Now please calculate from your "existence principle" the masses of the elementary particles. Because that was what the quoted sentence was about.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 08 2015, @10:45PM
How does that refute the point? The original quote stated that we do not have a first principle. One was shown. By stating that everything has not yet been derived from it does not refute the point. It is like because you do not know everything you have clearly not ever been born.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday February 09 2015, @06:40AM
No, it didn't. You should urgently improve your reading comprehension. Start with the meaning of the word "such".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09 2015, @03:16PM
Just because a thing does not do everything you want it to do, does not mean that it does not exist. Ad hominem on your part while believing you are on the intellectual high ground belies your insecurities.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 08 2015, @10:19PM
"Nothing unreal exists" --Kiri-kin-tha's first law of metaphysics
(Score: 5, Funny) by Ryuugami on Monday February 09 2015, @05:39AM
"Nothing unreal exists" --Kiri-kin-tha's first law of metaphysics
Pure Quake propaganda. Unreal exists, there are even Tournaments in it.
If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber