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arpruss / norms-and-forms

Norms and Forms book in progress
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Mersenne questions #3

Open rocket357 opened 1 year ago

rocket357 commented 1 year ago

Hi,

It's obvious that Mersenne did not have modern technology at his disposal, otherwise he would have removed the questions regarding the distance to the moon and sun (both are changing, slowly...the Earth moves ~6 cm away from the Sun each year, and the moon moves ~3.8 cm away from the Earth each year).

Granted, 6 cm/year means it would take approximately 100 million years for the earth to move a single earth-radius further from the sun, and 3.8 cm/year means it would take approximately 46 million years for the moon to move a single earth-radius further from earth, and the history of humanity is such a brief "blip" comparatively speaking that Mersenne's assumption that these are static values is forgiveable (the earth has only moved ~1.3 meters, on average, from the Sun since Mersenne was alive), but these are non-zero numbers, and they may very well accelerate (given the fact that we've only been able to accurately measure the earth-moon distance for an even shorter "blip" of history).

But it raises the important question that as science advances, is it wise to bet against our ability to eventually explain the natural universe? I liked your treatment of the fine tuning argument, however I think your assessment of "brute values" being "less satisfying" leaves a lot to be desired.

The facts as we know them:

1) many constants have to be what they are for intelligent life. 2) those constants are, indeed, what they need to be for intelligent life.

That's...it. We know that if those constants weren't what they are, we would not be here. But we are here, so....God?

Doesn't follow.

If the constants were randomly chosen, as you've pointed out, they might fall on values that are not suitable for life. Problem is, if that were to happen we would not exist to observe those values. Thus, we have just a bit of bias in our observation. And we're sorely lacking on sample size to confirm that they were "specifically chosen."

As the "hardest question on a physics test" goes, "Describe the universe. Give three examples."

Jon

arpruss commented 1 year ago

I think that non-static values only add to Mersenne's point, because now instead of a single distance, we have a different distance at every time (perhaps with some pattern).