Yes, you lot, those that like to say "But the universe HAD to have been designed, it can't have come from nowhere!" I'd like you to bite THIS, my zealous friends!
To summarise the article, they nicknamed the results "Schroedinger's Hat". There's an exotic "particle" known as an exciton; I say "particle", but it's better defined as a type of mobile energy formed by an excited electron and an associated "hole". Anyway, scientists have trapped and cooled the excitons so effectively that they condensed and cohered to form a giant matter wave.
Yeah. You read that right. That's energy = matter, for real.
And we all know that energy doesn't disappear, it just transfers into radically different formats. Honestly, this shouldn't be a major surprise for most logical people. After all, you put matter into your mouth and it converts to energy and so on. And that energy can then be converted to kinetic (movement), or sound, or light, or potential - all incredibly different configurations of energy. So it's perfectly reasonable that there are other forms of energy we haven't discovered yet.
After all, we're still not certain what Dark Matter is yet, except that it comes with a whole heap of Dark Energy too.
(Further reading here:http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/mathematicians-can-conjure-matter-waves-inside-an-invisible-hat)
Most logical people know that it is chemical energy that we extract from food; it's not matter being converted to energy. However matter-energy equivalence is very real and demonstrable (has been for 80 years) and I've never heard any creationist (even a young earth Biblical literalist) say otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThe article you sited has absolutely nothing to say about the the universe having "come from nowhere". In truth there is absolutely no scientific explanation for the fact of existence, so there is plenty of room left for God. The Big Bang happened, and we don't know why. Thus "God caused the Big Bang" is as elegant and plausible as any other at this point, and if that ever changes there will be new preconditions (and probably new dimensions) to attribute to God.
Admittedly it was oversimplification on my behalf, however my initial point still stands quite well. I'll introduce you to "catabolism": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catabolism - yarhar, thar blows energy from bre'kin' down matter. 'Ere be no dragons, jus' science. ;)
ReplyDeleteI recommend looking at an extension on SLAC's work from 1997, where they made matter particles from pure light. And utilised the neat phrase "virtual photons"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/09/970918045841.htm
Also, have a proper look at excitons, and you'll see why this research is (drum roll) really exciton! (Ba-dum-tish) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exciton. Also, the ability to convert them into quantum probes is just... incredible. I mean, invisibility research?! :D
However, I always appreciate a well worded response, so thank you for your comment :)
My apologies, I forgot to comment on your latter paragraph, and so I'll continue here.
ReplyDeleteAs my partner says: "There's no rational reason to go 'we don't know, so God.' We simply don't have sufficient information to make a solid observation like this. It's a simple case of 'we don't know'."
Yes CURRENTLY, and that's a deliberately big "CURRENTLY", there's a temporary inability to perfectly define the beginning of existence. However, there are a few relatively stable theories to help describe it. Sadly nowdays, it's God of the _shrinking_ gaps.
The Big Bang is a reasonably stable theory, though I strongly recommend reading Hawking's "A Brief History..." - towards the back there's a fascinating (and much more likely) theory that allows the Big Bang to _technically_ not require a magic "from nothing suddenly".
(I don't yet sufficiently understand it to be able to simplify it accurately, which is why I have made a read-it-yourself-and-come-to-your-own-conclusions suggestion.)