Dear Prof Moore,
If the universe will end and all life will die then is our only purpose to enjoy our short lives?
Regards,
Kry
Hello Kry,
Tough question. Its difficult to be certain of anything, but it does seem that life cannot survive forever in our Universe, so it is important to make the most out of our short lives.
but perhaps there is more...
All life on our planet is still evolving, becoming ever more efficient at surviving and reproducing. Humans are no different in this way, however we have apparently become more skilled than many other animals at this process - in particular due to the capacity of our brain for logic and thought. I think that we do have the capability to answer fundamental questions, such as 'why the universe began' and 'how life originated'?
These questions may take another 1000 years to answer but they will give us a deeper understanding of why we are here. So as well as having fun and enjoying our short lives it seems that we have an additional capability & purpose - to understand our universe.
live life!
Professor Moore
I think why and how are two very different types of questions. Can the first be answered by science?
Celia
Good question!
Its all about cause and effect. Every change that occurs in our Universe follows from some some set of forces acting on some set of particles (ignoring quantum mechanics for now…). For example when we drop something it falls, and it moves in a way that can be calculated almost exactly.
So when we answer ‘how’ the ball falls we have also answered ‘why’ it falls.
The question becomes more philosophical when we come back to the first ’cause’ – i.e. the origin of the Universe. What caused time & space to appear when there was nothing before? Well its a bit of a chicken & egg type of question, except that I believe right now, in our short existence on this planet, we have not developed our mathematical tools and physical understanding to a level that allows this question to be answered.
Ben
The ball falls because I dropped it, the ‘why did I drop it’ question, can this be answered by science?
Celia
Not yet, because we do not know exactly how our brain works to make the decision. However I suspect that the calculations made by the neural network inside your celebral cortext are similar to how a computer works. There is some input – perhaps visual stimulation reading a message to ‘drop the ball’, combined with lots of image processing, resulting in your brain sending the signal to your hand to open.
Robots can be programmed to do exactly the same things, but they can’t operate outside the boundary of the software written for them….yet. They are not self aware but this could just be a matter of the software they run and the limited computational power they are built with.
So, freedom of choice? Can I choose to drop the ball or not? Or are you implying that we are just complex computers?
Yes!
I realize that nuclear fusion that happens inside stars is of course due to intense heat and pressure, but are bosons affected by high temperatures (gluons , w and z bosons, or photons)?
http://www.astroparticle.net/wpblog/2010/12/bosons/
If gravity can be reconciled with the unified field theory, then will Einstein’s theory of space-time still be relevant? It seems that according to the standard model, all matter interacts with fields mediated by virtual particles,so why wouldn’t there be a gravitational field mediated by gravitons? Also, what are your thoughts on the concept of time itself? It was always my belief that time was simply a construct of man: that the universe does not need a timekeeper to advance.
If I could tap your knowledge or insight, I have a simple question. How can we be so sure that space is expanding,as opposed to objects just expanding within it? I mean, I think that the big bang probably occurred, but I have a problem with a concept of time and space created at the same instance. Since we are stuck inside this “fish bowl”‘ how can anyone be so sure.