Friday, September 24, 2010

Physics

I recently added another person to my list of people I'm following, and the first thing I read was "and yet here I sit", which reminded me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

The above video is an hour long presentation by physicist Lawrence Krauss about the nature of the universe, its implications, and how it might end. Although he does seem a bit pontifical at times, the overall message is quite interesting, and much like the name of the person's blog I mentioned above it's led me to think about the anthropic principle.

Now, for those of you who don't know what the anthropic principle is, it's - in brief definition - the cosmological principle that theories of the universe are constrained by the necessity to allow human existence. As I think Lawrence Krauss puts it in the video "the universe is the way it is because astronomers are here to measure it". It's a bit dogmatic, perhaps, but it certainly sounds interesting to me. Skeptics might suggest that the universe is simply illusory or intangible; that we have no way of knowing how to measure it. And yet here I sit.

4 comments:

  1. Read Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku. Great great book.

    ReplyDelete
  2. followed for mentioning the anthropic principle, this is an awesome and informative link, thank you

    ReplyDelete