Re: Cambridge Publishes Neo-Creationism

Kevin O'Brien (Cuchulaine@worldnet.att.net)
Wed, 4 Nov 1998 23:35:17 -0700

Well, Stan, when you become moderator, you may establish the ground rules as
to what is permissible in the way of topics or evidence to be discussed as
you see fit. Until then, I will continue to speculate as I see fit. I
never stated that I knew for a fact that the constants were changing, only
that they could be changing. I never stated that conditions after the
Planck Era would allow for such changes; I was careful to limit myself to
the Planck Era, which we know very little about. Besides, without a valid
Theory of Everything to tell us what was happening during the Planck Era my
speculation that the constants were changing is no less correct (or no more
hand-waving) than your speculation that they were not. Can you demonstrate
mathematically, using established models, that the constants were not
changing during the Planck Era? If you can, then you should publish them,
because you have solved the riddle of The Theory of Everything! As for
"science in its present state of knowledge", you should know as well as I do
that speculation led to "science in its present state of knowledge", and it
will be speculation that leads to the next state of scientific knowledge. I
may turn out to be wrong, but I would rather stick my neck out and risk
being wrong, than hide away in my shell playing it safe and never contribute
anything of lasting importance to science.

By the way, one possible reason why the constants might have changing, even
wildly, is that during the Planck Era the universe was no bigger than 10^-33
cm in diameter. This has led some theorists to describe the universe as an
infinitesimally tiny quantum object. These same theorists have stated that
space-time itself could have been subject to wild, unpredictable
fluctuations. Since the physical laws, and thus the values of the physical
constants, are derived from space-time, if space-time was subject to the
uncertainty principle, so were the physical laws. However, once the
universe had entered the Electroweak Era at the end of the Inflation Era,
the universe had grown large enough that quantum uncertainty no longer had
any influence over it as a whole. Once space-time settled down, so did the
physical laws and thus the values of the physical constants. Hence the
reason why the electroweak theory does not predict fluctuations in the
constant values.

As for the evidence I described concerning the "temporal variation in the
fine-structure constant" being preliminary, yes I know it is; I said it was!
Or weren't you listening? I also described attempts by people to explain it
without resorting to variation in the laws of physics. Nonetheless, the
experimental data is real and it does strongly suggest that some constants
at least could have been changing. So why we don't we wait and see what
develops before you try to dictate what I can and cannot talk about.

PS -- I never told Randy to keep his beliefs to himself or that he should
"drop" them from discussion. I respect his right to say anything he likes
on this list, even if it is sheer speculation.

Kevin L. O'Brien