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Town Hall kicked off its Science Lecture Series last night with a talk by particle physicist Lawrence Krauss on Einstein's "biggest blunder."
Krauss is famous (in some circles) for three things, which we'll list in descending order of fame: 1) for being the Star Trek physics guy (he's in town for the Trek-inanigans at the Sci-Fi Museum this weekend), 2) for allegedly calling string theory a "colossal failure," and 3) for his work on the early universe and the whole dark matter thing. (He goes into more detail about what he meant by (2) in his book, Hiding in the Mirror: The Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions, from Plato to String Theory and Beyond.)
Lately, he's been pummeling "intelligent design" whenever he can find a free moment, which makes him a good lead-in for next Tuesday's talk by Michael Shermer, whose book is subtitled "The Case Against Intelligent Design."
We made up this post's headline, by the way. While the talk is titled "Einstein's Biggest Blunder," it's called that because it's what Einstein said about his invention of what's called the "cosmological constant." During his talk, quirkily illustrated via Powerpoint and the use of multiple !!!, Krauss filled us in on why Einstein came up with the constant, why he was embarrassed by it, and how it's recently become useful in science's quest to explain the energy of empty space.
We know, you'd think empty space had no energy. It's a bit of a curve ball. But the observed data suggests that something like 70% of the energy in the universe is contained in space that has nothing in it that we can see.
Physicists came up with the term "dark matter" a while ago to cover all the stuff we can't see (but whose gravitational effects are clear to see in the motion of galaxies), but it's taken much longer to support the theoretical work that says dark energy must be there (because the math calls for it) with observed experimental evidence.
As a particle physicist, Krauss is on the edge of his seat about the LHC at CERN due to switch on next year. This particle collider, everyone hopes, will shine a spotlight at long last on dark energy.
Krauss is a terrific lecturer, one of those rare scientists whose personality allows them to communicate their excitement about findings that have, for most people, little immediate impact. (We're a long way from using dark energy to power your Prius.) It doesn't hurt that he's got a Woody Allen-esque way of dropping in asides as he thinks of them, even adopts a distinctly Vizzini-ish tone in summarizing quickly.
We like most his insistence on science's predictive ability -- the incredible accuracy provided by the scientific method. By that standard, strictly in terms of usefulness, what exactly can intelligent design predict?
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Ask Krauss how he likes my entry into the wikipedia article on the anthropic principle. Specifically, ask him how he can say that he sees no evidence for purpose in nature, or was he just being hypocritical when he said that?... ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
Observational Evidence
Direct observational evidence in support of the Anthropic Principle includes the Cosmic microwave background radiation, whose anthropic relevance has only been partially "explained-away":
CERN Courier "Does the motion of the solar system affect the microwave sky?"
http://www.cerncourier.com/main/article/44/10/4/1/CCEsky1_12-04
"On the large-angle anomalies of the microwave sky."
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0508047/
"The Energy of Space That Isn't Zero."
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/krauss06/krauss06.2_index.html
In this article, Lawrence Krauss is quoted as follows:
"But when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun — the plane of the earth around the sun — the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe."
So... which is it, Krauss, do you give this evidence equal time, or do you willfully ignore it like most other scientists do while they wait for a better way to rationalize this evidence away?
Silly me, of course the correct answer is the one that involves "lame rationale"...