Overheard In Providence

I was all set to write about this Science Times article (don’t worry, I’ll get around to that later), when this monstrosity was brought to my attention. This article is fairly incoherent, but the gist of it, as far as I can tell, is that astronomers don’t yet have a theory that explains why the universe is the way it is. Specifically, we don’t really understand why the universe is filled with all sorts of interesting stuff, like earth, and people, and your brain. I know, it’s shocking that astronomer’s don’t yet understand absolutely everything in the universe, but the real question is how is this the basis for a New York Times article?

From what I gather, the article was inspired by a debate taking place about how the universe will evolve over time. In physics, there’s something called entropy, which is basically a measure of randomness. A major guiding principle in physics, known as the second law of thermodynamics, states that the entropy of an isolated system tends to increase over time. In other words, it takes energy to keep things organized. If you don’t keep adding energy, then over time, there’s a really high probability you’ll just get a bunch of disorganized atoms.

Knowing this, one might ask why our universe doesn’t appear random at all. Instead, it’s filled with all kinds sorts of fancily arranged items, like my computer, and Providence, RI, and our solar system. One explanation is that, given enough time, random pockets of organization can appear by chance. For example, you might randomly end up with a brain floating through space, the inspiration for the article’s title. Another, better explanation is that the universe isn’t that old, and also happened to begin in some very special initial configuration called the big bang. This explanation suggests that the universe simply hasn’t had enough time to degenerate into a random cloud of particles.

Astronomers agree that the idea of a big bang clears a lot of things up. Unfortunately, they do not have a good understanding of where our universe is headed. What the they do seem to have is a bunch of theories, and along with each theory, some whacky example of what the theory might imply. These bizarre scenarios that astronomers are describe simply indicate that there’s a lot about the universe we can’t yet explain. Sadly, this point is completely lost in an article that delights in presenting a laundry list of crazy sounding what-if statements.

It bothers me when physics articles present ill-formed theories in a way designed to make the physics involved appear as stupefying as possible. When physics gets things right, it makes sense, and can be presented clearly. When physics doesn’t have something figured out, it doesn’t yet make sense, and the world doesn’t need to know about it. At the very least, don’t don’t tell me about it in the New York Times while at the same time giving computer science extremely little press coverage.