Wayne Dawson wrote:
>
> Hi Bert,
>
> just a few notes....
>
> ***
> > ...... Materialists grab any new news as good news
> > about the death of God. The current good news is the discovery of
> > life at high temperatures and pressures beneath the earth and
> > therefore this is the origin of life. Whay happened to the High
> > School DOGMA of prebiotic soup and duckly little tide pools?
> *****
>
> An interesting note here.... There is an interesting article in
> Science in which the data set of rRNA was studied to understand the
> phylogeny. It basically rules out the likelihood of thermophilic
> origins of life.
>
> ``We favor the notion that extant hyperthermophilic species evolved
> from mesophilic organisms via adaptation to high temperature. We
> argue that the short branches leading to thermophilic lineages do not
> reflect any affinity with the ancestor, but are the consequence of
> increased selective pressure acting on rRNA molecules of thermophilic
> species.'' (N. Galtier, et al. ``A nonhyperthermophilic Common
> Ancestor to Extant Life Forms'', Science, 283:220-1 (1999))
>
> I should point out that GC does form a stronger H-bond and therefore a
> thermodynamically more stable sequence. Since rRNA is a functional
> entity, it must preserve that function in the environment it occupies.
> It would actually be better to study sequences that code for proteins
> since (in principle) the environmental temperature is not as likely to
> strongly bias the nucleotide sequence (unless you are one of those who
> believes in exon definition).
>
> ***************
> > The interesting thing about quantum physics is that the wave
> > equations are perfectly predicticle but the interaction of a
> > particle is not. So, we have an apparant injection of
> > non-determinancy into the physical world. The extension of this to
> > the creation of the universe is appalingly bad physics. Consider
> > that these fluctuatins which lead to the Hawking radiation are at a
> > microscopic level and are essentially forbidden at the level of the
> > Universe. What was the last time you saw a large object such as a
> > car tunnel (in the quantum since) through a brick wall? It happens
> > all the time at the electron level however.
> ***************
>
> One thing that still puzzles me....
>
> We can creat complex entities like a proton/antiproton pairs via
> collision with other matter, so a proton beam can pound a piece of BN
> and produce pions ($\pi^+/pi^-$). Using matter to produce other
> matter is fine. Moreover, using energy to interact with a virtual
> particle field and subsequently creating different matter which is
> even non-fundamental (such as a pion) in fine. Yet all this requires
> at least the presence of energy or other matter to even begin any
> discussion of the results of such interaction. The adage ``twice
> nothing is still nothing'' applies, IIRC.
>
> If I extrapolate this to multiple universes, I would think the same
> reasoning must apply. I can maybe accept that we have a virtual
> particle pair, and then we split them, but it requires energy to do
> that, otherwise, such particles are not observable. Furthermore, to
> split a particle of the mass and complexity of the universe, we need
> astronomical quantities of energy.
>
> So one can argue all they want that multiple universes is ``the
> Answer'', but
> (1) Where did such astronomical scale energies come from?
> (2) What precludes such large objects from popping into existence
> anywhere (including right infront of our face)?
> (3) Why do we fail to observe semi-macro objects popping into
> existence --- say a microgram blob of something. If we have universes
> potentially popping up everywhere, there must be a whole lot of other
> blobs of intermediate size popping up as well. What discriminates
> astronomical blobs such as universes, and femtoscopic blobs such as
> hadrons from 25 orders of magnitude of other blobs separating these
> extremes?
>
> I have a lot to learn, and to really understand what is going on out
> there even now, it would take more than a few hundred lifetimes, so I
> have to accept some hopeless ignorance in my knowledge base, but
> anyway, at this gave me the opportunity to rant. :D
>
> I will be in China during the holidays so I am not likely to respond
> till some time next year.
>
> Merry christmas, & happy y2k.
> Wayne
**************
1) There is a fundamental relationship in quantum fluctions between size
and likelyhood. The larger the fluctuation, the smaller the
probability. The decrease in probability is substantial even at the
size of an atom much less a baseball. Quantum fluctions are just that,
fluctions at the level where quantum effects are significant.
2) Infinite universes popping into and out of existence is first beyond
detection. Second, it is not based on any extrapolation from know
physics. It is speculation period and generally sourced from a desire
to have an infinity since the infamous bouncing universe of Sagan is not
firmly rulled out.
Bert M.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jan 16 2000 - 00:31:55 EST