Snow, Telephones and Writing
Mike DeHaan
The day dawned clear, but that was just a lull between flurries of snow.
After quickly shoveling the sidewalk, I had a 90-minute conversation with a client about his web site. Changes logged, I now may make my updates and complete that project. As a bonus, he may have more work for me in the future.
Another flurry of activity should be catching up on all the bills and correspondence outside of work. No doubt another will be repeated bouts with the forces of snow. No complaints here, though!
After quickly shoveling the sidewalk, I had a 90-minute conversation with a client about his web site. Changes logged, I now may make my updates and complete that project. As a bonus, he may have more work for me in the future.
Another flurry of activity should be catching up on all the bills and correspondence outside of work. No doubt another will be repeated bouts with the forces of snow. No complaints here, though!
The DeHaan Guide to Hawking and Mlodinow's "The Grand Design"
Image of Stephen Hawking by slideshow bob
Finally, I have written and published a new article in Suite 101. This took about nine hours to write; hopefully readers will think it worthwhile.
The Simple Logic of Hawking and Mlodinow's "The Grand Design" is my summary of the main "argument" in the book. How did they arrive at the conclusion "It is not necessary to invoke God to...set the universe going"?
Apparently they would invoke God if there were something unique or incredibly unlikely about our universe. Surprisingly, physics says that the balance of forces is indeed unlikely.
What balance of forces? Not "good versus evil", but gravity against electromagnetism, as well as the strengths of the "weak" and "strong" nuclear forces. If one of these were slightly stronger or weaker, atoms would fall apart or our Sun's fusion reactions would fail...or would have gone supernova a billion years ago.
"The Grand Design" then argues that the Big Bang must have been a quantum event. As such, we are in a probability wave that encompasses all the possible universes. Most of them would lack stars or planets because their forces are too strong or weak. But since we live here, in one of the lucky universes...stop complaining.
My greatest challenge in writing that article was to distill the logic into as few words as possible. It still ran uncomfortably close to Suite 101's cut-off point. But in my opinion, both my article, and "The Grand Design", are worth reading.
A really abbreviated summary, with a link so you can purchase a copy, is The DeHaan Lens for Hawking and Mlodinow's "The Grand Design".
The Simple Logic of Hawking and Mlodinow's "The Grand Design" is my summary of the main "argument" in the book. How did they arrive at the conclusion "It is not necessary to invoke God to...set the universe going"?
Apparently they would invoke God if there were something unique or incredibly unlikely about our universe. Surprisingly, physics says that the balance of forces is indeed unlikely.
What balance of forces? Not "good versus evil", but gravity against electromagnetism, as well as the strengths of the "weak" and "strong" nuclear forces. If one of these were slightly stronger or weaker, atoms would fall apart or our Sun's fusion reactions would fail...or would have gone supernova a billion years ago.
"The Grand Design" then argues that the Big Bang must have been a quantum event. As such, we are in a probability wave that encompasses all the possible universes. Most of them would lack stars or planets because their forces are too strong or weak. But since we live here, in one of the lucky universes...stop complaining.
My greatest challenge in writing that article was to distill the logic into as few words as possible. It still ran uncomfortably close to Suite 101's cut-off point. But in my opinion, both my article, and "The Grand Design", are worth reading.
A really abbreviated summary, with a link so you can purchase a copy, is The DeHaan Lens for Hawking and Mlodinow's "The Grand Design".