Science rocks at comprehending the universe

When has somebody using the faith-based method of religion made a spectacularly accurate prediction about how reality behaves? Never. Not ever. 

But people using the tools of science have done just that. This is one reason, among many, why science rocks and religion sucks. 

I've finished the marvelously informative and entertaining book about calculus, Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe, that I've written about previously here and here.

Below is an excerpt from the final chapter, where Steven Strogatz, the author, discusses how amazing it is that calculus can be used to make predictions about reality that are as precise as one in a hundred million.

Religion has no choice but to bow down at the feet of science and admit that when it comes to comprehending the mysteries of the cosmos, there's a clear winner. And it sure isn't religion. 

Behold what Strogatz has written. I find this hugely more appealing than any religious text, since I've seen the light and decided that I much prefer truth over fiction, facts over falsehoods, open-minded inquiry over faith-based blind belief.

By wielding infinity in just the right way, calculus can unlock the secrets of the universe. We've seen that happen again and again, but it still seems almost miraculous. A system of reasoning humans invented is somehow in tune with the harmony of nature.

It's reliable not just at the scales where it was invented -- at the everyday scales of ordinary life, with its spinning tops and bowls of soup -- but also at the smallest scales of atoms and at the grandest scales of the cosmos. 

So it can't just be a trick of circular reasoning.

It's not that we're stuffing things into calculus that we already know, and calculus is handing them back to us; calculus tells us about things we've never seen, never could see, and never will see. In some cases, it tells us about things that never existed but could -- if only we had the wit to conjure them.

This, to me, is the greatest mystery of all: Why is the universe comprehensible, and why is calculus in sync with it?

...The first example [of the eerie effectiveness of calculus] takes us back to where we started, with Richard Feynman's quip that calculus is the language God talks. The example is related to Feynman's own work on an extension of quantum mechanics called quantum electrodynamics, or QED for short. QED is the quantum theory of how light and matter interact.

...More important, it's the most accurate theory anyone has ever devised... about anything. With the help of computers, physicists are still busy summing the series that arise in QED, using what are known as Feynman diagrams, to make predictions about the properties of electrons and other particles. 

By comparing those predictions to extremely precise experimental measurements, they've shown that the theory agrees with reality to eight decimal places, better than one part in a hundred million. 

This is a fancy way of saying that the theory is essentially right.

It's always hard to find helpful analogies to make sense of such big numbers, but let me try putting it like this: a hundred million seconds equals 3.17 years, so getting something right to within one part in a hundred million is like planning to snap your fingers exactly 3.17 years from now and timing it right to the nearest second -- without the help of a clock or an alarm.

There's something astonishing about this, philosophically speaking. 

The differential equations and integrals of quantum electrodynamics are creations of the human mind. They are based on experiments and observations, certainly, so they have reality built into them to that extent. Yet they are products of the imagination nonetheless. They are not slavish imitations of reality.

They are inventions.

And what is so astonishing is that by making certain scribbles on paper and doing certain calculations with methods analogous to those developed by Newton and Leibniz but souped up for the twenty-first century, we can predict nature's innermost properties and get them right to eight decimal places.

Nothing that humanity has ever predicted is as accurate as the predictions of quantum electrodynamics.

I think this is worth mentioning because it puts the lie to the line you sometimes hear, that science is like faith and other belief systems, that it has no special claim on truth.

Come on.

Any theory that agrees to one part in a hundred million is not just a matter of faith or somebody's opinion. It didn't have to match to eight decimal places. Plenty of theories in physics have turned out to be wrong. Not this one. Not yet, at least. No doubt it's a little bit off, as every theory always is, but it sure comes close to the truth.

Comments

[X17]

Science mocks the Universe by it's claims of understanding it.

[Brian Hines]

X17, you've got it backwards. Religion mocks the Universe by it's false claims of understanding it. Science, on the other hand, actually DOES understand the universe, because it comes up with laws of nature that reflect the actual reality of the universe. What law of nature has religion ever discovered on its own? Answer: none.

[X17]

Brian,

I never even mentioned the word Religion!!

Who got it wrong?

[X17]

And since when has religion been about comprehending the mysteries of this cosmos I.e. the observable universe?

The true Men of God have left such mundane tasks to scientists. Of course unraveling the mysteries often are marvelous, jaw dropping; no doubt. Just like X17.

[Spence Tepper]

Aren't human beings amazing?
Where did they come from? Where did that intellect come from?
Your own brain and body are an heirloom holding perfect replicas of ancient artifacts hundreds of thousands of years old... INSIDE YOU!

Just look at those fingers. A design carefully refined over hundreds of thousands of years.

And that brain. Way way way overbuilt for mere survival. Look what weird and cool stuff it comes up with!

It's beyond belief. But here we are creating, inventing, imagining, refining. All from within this bag of jellly we call the human form.

Astounding.

Of course, we do have a pretty high opinion of ourselves. But I guess it goes along with the big brain....

[Sonia]

“Calculus is the language God talks.”

Makes sense. :)

Found this interesting as well:

The "Kerala school," a little-known group of scholars and mathematicians in fourteenth century India, identified the "infinite series" — one of the basic components of calculus — around 1350.

Calculus created in India 250 years before Newton:
https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.632433

[Spence Tepper]

And of course Religion and God are also incredible inventions.

But just as Calculus has been abused to create nuclear warheads, better ballistic missiles and the most elegant automatic weapons, so too the invention of religion and God have seen their abuse.

But humanity has its shining moments.

Mathematics itself. Think of the earlier times, even before modern electricity or automobiles, or even indoor plumbing. That golden age when Mathematics was the high tech, and the Microsoft and the Google of the times were the universities.. Elite places of genius, invention and discovery. And Math, the most high tech of all the sciences. And every discovery hotly debated, coveted, and jealously copied and replicated, inspiring or driving late hours even later to invent the next even cooler axiom. When genius was cool.

[Spence Tepper]

In those incredible times, there was no word processor, no laptop, no spreadsheet and no visualization or simulation software. No instant email to colleagues, no webex meetings with scholars around the globe. It was all imagination, visualization and simulations conducted by the individual through sheer mental discipline of thought and brain. Then, the hypothesis, the principle, the theory, the law was everything. These r the codes to the universe. And those letters, those written communiques to colleagues dozens and hundreds of miles away, or across europe.. And each letter 's hotly anticipated arrival, the next step in the adventure of one's lifetime.

[Dungeness]

What law of nature has religion ever discovered on its own?

The mystical discipline at the core of religion doesn't claim to.
It examines the self -the inmost reality of the observer himself-
using the power of mindfulness and directed attention.

These are the tools of science too. Both reject blind belief. Both
embrace rigorous testing, and experiential validation of claims.
Mysticism and science are complementary and synergistic.

[Spence Tepper]

Where religion lost ground was precisely when there was no where to go, no significant discoveries to be made, no room for invention, testing, collaboration. In religion, these had become beaurocratic and marginal.

But especially with Mathmatics, the individual could pursue reality on their own. As if adventuring to new lands, through the principles of math, they could discover and test new regions of reality.

Just as today's scientists have traveled the local planets through the Mariner voyage data, the scientists of old could vicariously visit other worlds big and small... Worlds in concept, in abstract thought where dimensions could change, but whose forces and laws controlled this physical world and everything in it.

[Pebble]

“Calculus is the language God talks.”

Sorry; but who God, which God and whose God? God exists 🤔🤔

Maybe God felt sorry and handed down Calculus through some inner revelations (LOL) so that Scientists and Science through them could begin to have some understanding of this Universe.

And Science rocks at comprehending the Universe

What about the other (10^10)^16 universes?

[Spence Tepper]

When I was six years old growing up in Los Angeles, my dad took me to the California Museum of Science and Industry to see a new exhibit, Mathematica, created by the design team of Charles and Ray Eames, the creators of the now famous Eames chair, in collaboration with IBM.

The exhibit celebrates the sheer beauty, joy, history, Variety and total coolness of the world of Mathematics.

It was engaging, and I never forgot it.

The exhibit had been duplicated in a few places across the globe. How pleasantly surprised I was to find,, 56 years later, it is also in the Boston Mustain of Science, near my current place.

“As the first major exhibit of the new wing of the California Museum of Science and Industry, it was an ambitious goal. . . . Though Mathematica’s initial run was open-ended, it is fair to say that no one expected that 1961’s opening exhibition would be so popular that it would stay in place for almost 37 years. In fact, Mathematica outlasted the building itself. Since the building was closed (and then demolished) in 1998, the exhibition has traveled.”

https://www.eamesoffice.com/the-work/mathematica/

And a video about it....

https://youtu.be/A0UDPZ5tEpk

And here...

https://youtu.be/8SE9Hsa7fZM

[Spence Tepper]

Charles and Ray Eames were famous architects and furniture designers, and loved mathematics. Their famous "house" built in the Pacific Palisades, where I was raised, was one among several modern architectural homes we would drive by as children, on our way to Santa Monica. It reflected the poetry of math, architecture and science.

https://eamesfoundation.org/house/eames-house/

And the famous movie they made about it in 1955....(naturally shown to us tikes at Marquez Elementary school....)

https://youtu.be/hv7ipQdUrYk

[Georgy Porgy]

Science is the best way we have of understanding the observable universe.

But it cannot say anything about phenomena it cannot measure and prove by definition. There are many aspects of our lives that it doesn’t come remotely close to explaining, including the really big questions:

Love, consciousness, how organic matter arose, does ET exist, why does the US have so many preachers, etc.

[Meditator]

Except for the force and (non)entity behind creatures especially a 'class' among creatures who invented Science - the all-knowing Homo Sapiens Science can fairly conclude to nearest accuracy any process or phenomenon which can be sensed by the sense organs directly or indirectly . using instruments/ machines/etc. (may be with near accurate interpolations or extrapolations) within logics and reason.

Science has its inborn limitations same as.the intellectuals among humans have as it being conceived by them which. in cases. has improved upon its own conclusions, analyses later after years. And therefore it is not perfect in each case or study. So. is its knowledge and understanding of the Universe and its features.

[Whodunit]

Pure circular reasoning

Universe exists whether humans observe it or try calculate it or not

Humans brains derived from source unknown to modern scientists some call consciousness
All life is evolving in or through consciousness

All evolution is consequences of natural selection according to Darwin
Laws of nature exist whether humans measure it or discover it or not
Without human intelligence or human intervention universe and nature exists and evolves or devolves, is created or sustained or destroyed in nature.

Atheist position is totally flawed and totally illogical.

Science attempts to measure and calculate what already exists before human existence or human evolution or human interaction with nature.

So without human knowledge or human interaction nature creates and sustains and destroys itself.

Humans are part and parcel of nature and natural effects and evolution.

The atheist position is of the utmost audacity to think human beings can exist independently of natural selection or independent of force of nature.

Forces of nature are beyond human capacity to understand intrinsically through sensual perception, they can only attempt to calculate and measure what they observe through either theoretical or physical applications via models of measurement or via physical apparatus.

As Socrates and pretty much every true scientist / mystic proclaimed

"Know thyself"

If you want to know about the universe or about source of nature, there are two options

The inaccurate long and tedious process of making models and estimating via theoretical calculations which invariably are at best close assumptions or otherwise inaccurate theories or entirely wrong, or alternatively through following Socrates or mystics advice, "know thyself".

[Whodunit]

https://youtu.be/c8k4yXuGH28

[Georgy Porgy]

But whodunit will ‘knowing thyself’ help to cure cancer?

Just 200 years ago if a leg got infected, they’d hack it off - now a pill is popped. Magic.

You make an interesting point on consciousness tho. But I think Darwin Ji’s Theory of Evolution by natural selection (not intelligent design) is undeniably powerful. It basically created the atheist movement, as it explained how complex things like humans, brain (and consciousness) arose by naturally evolutionary processes without the need for the existence of god or an intelligent designer.

Yes all laws of nature exist whether humans exist or not, but science is just trying to understand those laws (the mind of god). Seems a worthy pursuit.

The more these natural laws are understood, the more suffering can be prevented. Question then is whether humans are better than god. If nature (god) is cruel and uncaring in creating a dog-eat-dog world of suffering where only the strongest survive, but we humans override nature (or god’s will) by creating human laws that protect the weak or use science to cure suffering - aint we better than god (even if more ignorant)?

But yeah Science still doesn’t even know much about the natural world, ie the origins of life. How do you get from rocks to cells and what caused the bang from which all those particles arose?

[Sonia]

Spence,

You wrote:

“Where religion lost ground was precisely when there was no where to go, no significant discoveries to be made, no room for invention, testing, collaboration. In religion, these had become beaurocratic and marginal.”

Religion is a continuous evolution of concepts, ideologies and beliefs. I’ve noticed that all the “old-time religions” are adopting new principles and soft sell practices. These churches don’t hit hard on fire and brimstone like they used to. And that’s an improvement.

Mathematics is endlessly fascinating. And I’m not sure where the line is drawn but science seems to fall into its own category where we’re constantly proving new theories and disproving old ones. Our knowledge and understanding of science is ever changing. At least, so it seems.

[Sonia]

Science is the best way we have of understanding the observable universe.

But it cannot say anything about phenomena it cannot measure and prove by definition. There are many aspects of our lives that it doesn’t come remotely close to explaining, including the really big questions:

Love, consciousness, how organic matter arose, does ET exist, why does the US have so many preachers, etc.

Posted by: Georgy Porgy | December 18, 2019 at 08:43 AM

🤣🤣🤣 OK, now that’s just funny... I’m also very curious why the US has so many preachers.

[Sonia]

Spence,

This is a really cool reflection. Thanks for sharing. :)

“Just as today's scientists have traveled the local planets through the Mariner voyage data, the scientists of old could vicariously visit other worlds big and small... Worlds in concept, in abstract thought where dimensions could change, but whose forces and laws controlled this physical world and everything in it.”

[Jesse]

There was a time when popular mystics looked to science to help understand the world better. They didn't have the arrogant flippancy to disregard the possibilities provided by humanity's analytical skills.

Those days are gone, and the 3rd rate followers of those religious gurus mock science, and bite the hand that literally feeds them.

[Tim Rimmer]

Posts such as this provide me with a degree of frustration, because unless post readers have read the book, folks (like myself) who have not, are left with a cool excerpt but not much context in which to place or critique it. Yet that’s the nature of the blog and Brian is the ‘BlogMeister’, so If we are keen to clarify what’s quoted then I guess it’s up to us to read the book ourselves.

When I think of calculus I think of integration such as dy/dx etc (as remembered from final year at high school). What I see in this post is information pertaining to the super usefulness of calculus especially its predictive power. However, and although it’s related, the discussion then morphs into someone’s theory of quantum electrodynamics, aligned with terms such as ‘the language god talks’ and the theory of how ‘light and matter interact’.

I find this is more interesting, and it’s affect was to remind me of what I perceive (as a ‘lay person’) is the ‘non-nature’ and unpredictability of quantum mechanics. Also, the whole thing of how the observer and observed are entwined. That QED is about how light and matter interact got me thinking: that this points to how energy operates, about the interplay between matter and ‘consciousness’, the caused/uncaused, being/non-being etc. Such things are equally the domain of other modes for finding truth and dare I say it ‘mysticism’.

Also when it comes to quantum mechanics, while it’s often somewhat hard to decipher/follow (for me anyway), it’s intriguing to read what 777 (alias the Qubit Kid) has to say:
18.12 .19 - ‘YOU are the Energy …. a LOVE Accumulator’-
……. there’s got to be some calculus in this :-)
Also in regard to free will:
‘You have it at the start and at the end of the “voyage” which doesn’t happen, But not when You imagine that something happens’
i.e. ultimately there is no one there to take the trip - just energy/consciousness - however as ‘matter’ someone may appear and apply some calculus to crunch the numbers.
That’s my take on it.
Best wishes for Xmas and New Year to all

[Maria de La Torre]

Atheism is also a belief.
I don't see any discrepancy between electromagnetism and consciousness. Where did the photons come from? The underlying principle of quantum physics was practically discovered by saints who could consciously bilocate centuries ago. By that I mean they were fully conscious of having bilocated and could confirm without prompting where they had been and to whom they had appeared.
Quantum physics made a great discovery that things could be in two places simultaneously but it's not anything new. Neither is the fact that blood cells taken from a patient react to the patient developing a new disease even if the blood cells are thousands of miles away.
Consciousness is omnipresent, quantum physics merely hints at that.