Franck Muller: Great Complications Giga Tourbillon watch
Modern physicists have been amazed when they calculated how a tiny change in the fundamental constants of physics will alter the possibility that a viable universe could ever arrive. For example the gravitational constant G determines the force of attraction F of two bodies M and m and the distance d between them according to a formula published by Isaac Newton.
F = G x M x m / d2. Where d2 is the square of the distance.
If G was anything other than what we observe today, then the likelihood of the universe ever existing is reduced to near zero. In the case of G, the universe would not exist in a theoretical physical environment where G differed from what we know it by one part in 1034 or one followed by 34 noughts, written also as 10^34.
This is not, by far, the only physical constant that must be extraordinarily exact to allow our existence to happen. Without exact gravity, electric, magnetic, nuclear and other constants we would not exist because our universe would not exist. It would be physically impossible. That is like a skyscraper building made out of jelly sticks; it does not have the elemental characteristics and strength to sustain it before it collapsed.
Praise be for Precision!
The exactness that fundamental constants must be determined is as follows:
- Gravitational constant: 1 part in 1034
- Electromagnetic force versus force of gravity: 1 part in 1037
- Cosmological constant: 1 part in 10120
- Mass density of universe: 1 part in 1059
- Expansion rate of universe: 1 part in 1055
- Dark energy: 1 part in 10123
If we consider the universe running true as present as having all its mechanics such as the cog-wheels absolutely correct, we might gain some understanding of what this means. The gravitational cog has 1034 teeth.
Think of it as getting the shape of each cog exactly right. So if there is one part mistake in the Gravitational constant it is not 1034 a number like
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
but a number like
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,001
that creates such an error that the universe becomes unstable and inoperative for required stability of planet Earth not to mention how life on the planet and how intelligence and even more how consciousness arose.
That last digit really makes that much of a difference.
So it is like betting on a horse, not with one chance in ten to win, but one in that number, 1034
But the same can be said for all the other constants. So the probability of getting Earth just right from the above must meet the requirement of all the constants. Hence to get all the cogs and their accuracy in line the probability involves:
1034 X 1037 X10120 X 1059 X 1055 X10123 = 10428 .
This number is many times the total number of atoms in the universe -- which is a mere 1080, one followed by 80 zeroes.
Brilliant Beginning or Big Bang?
The term Big Bang was thrown out by the then atheist astrophysicist Fred Hoyle in a 1949 BBC debate. Hoyle was a proponent of the eternal, steady state universe. He refused to recognise a definite moment of creation. Why? Because that would imply logically a biblical Creator by the laws of physics and cause and effect. He said he did not believe in a Big Bang or Genesis. Why use that term? It obscures real facts.
A Bang or explosion implies bits and pieces just happened without saying the word Creator. It tries to avoid the cause and effect dilemma. It is dishonest.
It wasn't a chaotic explosion that made the universe, its galaxies, stars, planets revolving around them. It was not an explosion that spit out material to create the most complex feature of that universe. What is that? The human brain -- including Hoyle's which was not functioning well on this question.
It takes massive organisation to proceed from the creation of light, particles and matter to a living planet like Earth. In other words, it wasn't a Big Bang, it was a Brainy Beginning, a Brilliant Beginning anticipating in advance effects billions of our years in advance. A Bang Bang would never have produced astrophysicist Hoyle with free will to deny evidence.
Before an assembly of a complex entity such as a satellite with solar panels, all the pieces have to be conceived, constructed to exact standards, set and packed in order, like a folded tent, to use the biblical analogy. Hence the pre-Beginning organisation and planning has to contain far more information than at a later stage when they start to function to support life. Life decays and dies. So do stars. So what was the Brainy Beginning like? The chronological cycle has to be planned to work.
Physicists call this extremely low entropy, S. It means high information content, high organisation. Is it conceivable that everything in our universe today with billions of humans and untold numbers of animals, bacteria and a sky-full of trillions of stars was foreseen?
We should maybe call it the Universal Begettal. It was like a newly fertilised ovum. It was tiny. It starts with just one cell. Biologists consider all the information for growth is contained in code in the chromosomes. It has information far beyond the covers of a multivolume encyclopaedia to accomplish such a task. It has to build the greatest computer in the universe, the human brain. There are more neural connections in the brain, 100 trillion, than all the known stars in the universe.
What happened at the begettal of the universe was far beyond the miracle of human life. This universal begettal had the potential to shape everything that happened subsequently. It spread the material infrastructure, liker the erection of a tent. It included spawning elements for engineering life on Earth (Terrestial Begettal) with the first cell. All other forms of life we see today are so different from a single cell of a bacterium. We should contemplate multiple generational events and not assume they are evolved because that is the last gasp of some unproven anti-theistic method.
At the begettal between an ovum and a sperm a mighty electric current happens. Similarly the extraordinarily powerful energy of the early expansion is no indication of a randomness. An event of such huge proportions of energy and matter (that at some later stage produced complex beings like humans) should tell us that huge magnitudes of organisation are involved. The scientific approach should be to detect this information about organisation, not dismiss it by calling it randomness. That merely reflects human astonishment at our puniness and the size and dimensions of the event, not its engineering design.
It had to be super-exact, far beyond any watchmaker or instrument today. Each step of the expansionary process followed the laws of physics. Nothing in the evolution of the universe was chaotic or random because chaotic means something that does not obey the laws of physics. It's a wrong starting point. The Big Beginning was therefore the most highly organised and well-thought out part of the universe because it had to encapsulate all possible actions and reactions of subsequent particles and elements that brought the Earth into existence. It placed us on a special planet with what is an essential twin called the moon. A special solar system was also necessary to sustain life.
Other solar systems are apparently outside our reach of ever getting there. They are beyond our malevolent hands that fabricate recurrent evil and destruction. We should contemplate on the eternal natural laws of justice, morality and ethics, before attempting even to envisage man's steps off his own planet.
Witness of Science
Another witness proves the deep design of our universe. Mathematics and physics had to exist BEFORE the Big Beginning. The Designer created these plus the logic in our brains required to use them, if only we would.
All these three laws, physics and the material world, natural justice and the laws of mathematics show the scientific design of the universe and our part and destiny in it.
Random means without law according to observation and human discernment. Scientific means establishing the laws by which the universe works. The two concepts are opposites.
The estimate of the probability of the constants of the Universe arising as haphazard values from an explosion of parts is one in 10428 according to the above calculation. Those odds are so small that chance is ruled out. That sort of result is so unlikely that another solution or another process has to be sought to explain the experiment: right by design. Not just any design but design that dealt with the factors involved in the most intricate way possible, engineering far beyond human powers.
But this huge number 10428 is still a woeful underestimate. Nobel laureate for Physics Roger Penrose estimates the real number as 1010 itself raised to the 123 power (10^10^123). (See New Proofs of the Existence of God from Physics by Robert J Spitzer SJ)
These numbers showing this extraordinary amount of precision and organisation flummox those who claim to be scientists but are not willing to concede that a Great Designer must have been involved in the process of our creation and that of the Universe.
It is irrational to say: 'I believe in science but the Universe must have arisen by randomness.' It is not scientific.
So those that have a visceral, non-mathematical, non-scientific reaction to the conclusion of human physical existence, will have to deal with the consequences. What about multiple universes where only ours is successful? Even if such a number of universes were possible, just about all would be none-working, imploding or exploding failures.
Warning! According to the multiverse philosophy these other failures as universes actually interact with our own. So stand by, something worse is going to happen as an almost infinite number of failed, renegade universes crashing through ours!!! Please prepare a shelter!
But that's not all. There is no proof that even if all the physical constants are just right, that life, as distinct from chemical elements, will suddenly appear. Atheists generally work on the unproven assumption (in fact an assumption that has been proved wrong centuries ago) that life comes from raw elements spontaneously. Life comes only from life.
So even if some other universe does not collapse then there is no certainty of life -- in fact an assurance from science that life will not arise by itself.
No Darwin Fairies in Physics
Physics is called a hard science, meaning there is little room for fudging by the use of unproven theories. Theories are built on logic. Conclusions are reached from facts by a mathematical process. The conclusions must conform to observed results. These can be repeated to be sure of the accuracy.
Biology also can produce scientific results but at a lower certainty. But then its grand and obsolete theory of Evolution requires replacement; its obsolescent theory has become dogma. It fails when absolute proof is required. Ask a biologist to demonstrate practically in a laboratory how a bacterium transforms itself into an elephant. Or on being given just elementary chemicals, make the request to create life.
Darwinists say the process of transformation took time. But time is relative. Bacteria can double in population in as little as four minutes. But they still remain bacteria for as long as humans observe them. They have been tracked in laboratories over decades and therefore millions of generations. None has changed into an amoeba, let alone a baby elephant.
Animals have the chance to live through a fewer number of generations in earth's epochs. Yet evolutionists expect in these fewer generations for a fish to change into a land animal or a mouse-size creature to burst into a dinosaur.
Fairy-talk. Unreal. Impossible.
Biological creatures do not naturally create more complex, working animals. Structures including lifeforms decay and disintegrate to dust. Biological structures based on DNA fall apart after a few generations. Modern genetic research shows that in such animals each generation of reproduction loses its DNA telomeres so specie death is inevitable. Extinction does not have to wait for a meteorite bombardment.
The difference in physics is qualitative. Time is a measured feature which helps define interactions of matter, which are also observed, measured and calculated. They are compared with mathematical calculations based on a theory and formulas. Different results would appear from the mathematics if the starting assumptions are different.
So as William Paley pointed out in his Natural Theology in 1802, the world is as surprisingly well designed for humans like a watch with a perfect mechanism. In fact infinitely more. It has esthetics and lessons to teach humans on morality. A watch found in a field indicates that it was made with an intelligent designer and fabricator. He chose the exact materials for the brass cogs and steel spring so that it worked best and lasted longer. A glass face allowed the movement of the hands to be observed without opening the case. A further cover with a central hole allows the hands to be observed while the glass is protected.
It is no argument to say that individual components reflect the laws of metallic nature (whatever may be meant by that). It requires an agent. It requires intelligent choice from an extensive knowledge of elements and their properties. So do the 'laws of vegetable nature' and the 'laws of animal nature.' We might add the laws of human nature, which writers affirm are too often opposed to moral laws, and require choice.
Astronomy shows, says Paley, beyond all other sciences the magnificence of the Creator's operations. The real subject of admiration is that we understand so much of astronomy as we do, so we can make this judgement.
The Truth -- Man is of small brain
Returning to the man's reaction to the watch he found in the field. This finder does not have to be a farmer. It may be an intelligent, well-read gentleman on his country stroll. What is he confronted with?
He first sees an object that it is obviously man-made. How does he know? it has geometrical design. It has artistic features that show regularity, repetition and variation that are pleasing to the senses. These 'intuitions' or artistic rules are in some ways similar to mathematics.With the latter the rules are paramount. But whatever the rules of art are, they are recognised universally to some extent across mankind. In the case of mathematics the premises and the logic are essential for human agreement on their validity.
A man can imagine things that are false but he can only understand things that are true. If the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding. Isaac Newton.
The same goes for a watch in a field. We know at first glance it is of human production without anyone saying. To say it arrived by random forces is the nonsense, the material counterpart of reductio ad absurdam.
But there are logical deductions that the finder does not necessarily take to heart and brain. This shows how little is man's brain and how egocentric and self-serving he is. While man may not object to a mathematical reductio ad absurdam, his human nature objects to his acknowledging a Maker who clearly provides laws and instructions about how he should run his life. Too often he would prefer to hurt himself rather than be wise. False gods, lying, cheating, drug addiction, promiscuity may be his preferred choice and the consequences come from his decisions.
This is why Paley's watch argument is resisted. But every element shows that a Designer is active. He is confronted with a product that has capitalized on the intrinsic characteristics of chemical elements, all of them different, metals of various sorts, precious gems and glass. It is easy for modern unthinking man to brush these facts away. But for the watch even to exist, there has to be a means and a designer to produce such varied characteristics and in more than a hundred elements, with untold numbers of alloys and compounds.
In some cases, many cases, only one metal or alloy is suitable for the purpose of the watch. As scientists do not believe in randomness or any result without a cause following physical law, we are led to conclude that these results giving the curious characteristics of the elements arise from the Big Beginning of the universe with its ultimate knowledge and Wisdom. The Earth is the only planet were life has been found. It would be frustrating for a would-be watchmaker if the very element he needed for one cog was not present here but found on some far-off star!
The elements are all here, at hand, however unlikely that may appear to be as our major planetary neighbours are gas-filled giants. This little planet has all that it takes. The necessary metals are part of the Universe, its design, development in its expansion phase and then comes their accumulation on earth, its discovery by man when he arrives and application into a watch! Without that engineering specification at the start, there would be no watch.
But there is more to it than first meets the eye.
Let's start with the glass cover. It is a product of silicon, made heating sand to a high temperature. But a gentleman of the time, as of ours, would know that that is not the sum total of the process. To obtain such high quality glass a stupendous amount of knowledge and experience of glass-making has to be accumulated. The Phoenicians were making glassware thousands of years ago but they could not fabricate such an object, as far as we know. Technology and artistic refinement takes generations upon generations to make improvement on improvement. And not by random processes but by application of intelligent analysis, research experimentation and ever-more careful production.
The watch glass has not only to be perfectly transparent without distortion but tough enough to withstand everyday usages. The watch found in a field shows that this purpose is intrinsically a part of the type and specifications of the glass. A random pile of silicon sand heated by whatever means would under no circumstances produce such an artefact.
We have only just got started with the glass. A half hunter pocket watch has an outer hinged metal and small central glass cover, so the hands can be seen partially without opening the cover fully.
How would such sophistication come about from random? The cover opened reveals the second glass and the hands.
This shows that thought and purpose is involved in at least two contradicting ideas: protecting the internal mechanism and the internal glass, and secondly making the hands visible as they show something that is the ultimate purpose of the watch -- the time.
The central glass of the half hunter is small. It is just big enough to see the central parts of the hands and therefore the hour, minute and second.
Then we see the purpose of the watch is to reflect the time sequence on an earth day or half day. That is obviously not a coincidence. it is a purpose.
To do this there may be 26 moving parts, such as cogs, springs and an escapement mechanism. All have to be finely accurate in size, shape and design for the mechanism to have any sense and purpose. Any variation in their production would mean the watch fails as a timepiece, which we infer is the purpose. So we can judge whether it is fit for that purpose: if it keeps good time. If we find something is defective, we may infer that the owner has rejected it because it does not fulfil its purpose.
What happens when we pick it up. What happens when we put it in our pocket, or even swing it around on its chain? Does it still keep good time if we lay it on its side or stand it upright? Those possibilities have obviously been thought of in advance. It is even certified to correct from 'positional errors'. That shows the instrument or previous versions of it have been tested and such a phenomenon noticed, analysed and corrected in a mechanical way. Then it has been synchronized against a master clock.
The inside cover tells us where it was made and how it was certified. How do we know that? Because it is in writing. And of itself the writing should prove to us if nothing else existed that it was made by a human and had a purpose and cause. The circle of the dial is marked off with Roman numerals. These show a progression I to II to II and so on. Then there are also figures like 1, 2, 3 and even 13 to 24.
The figures reveal an intimate connection with the laws of mathematics, something that had to exist before the creation of the Universe.
The Writing of Life
Writing implies a whole culture and civilization. First there is the language. Then the codification in a way that others can understand it. But we do not even have to assume that we can hear the language spoken or understand the symbols of the script.
Humans recognize written script as a uniquely human achievement. It has purpose. It has much more than that. It represents both individual and collective intelligence.
As one of them was ancient Greek the Egyptian scripts could, by careful application of human intelligence, be eventually understood as a translation made at the same time.
The inescapable conclusion is that three scripts are all products of humans and human activities. They show design and order. It is not credible to argue that all these letters and styles as well as the cut rock itself was the result of 'random' events of pebbles crashing against a big cliff face until this stone fell out replete with the script.
All that sounds reasonable. No one in their right mind would doubt archaeologists now can understand and translate all the other hieroglyphic inscriptions based on this knowledge. Each addition site with hieroglyphics can be understood and put into a larger context and framework of history. The whole of ancient Egyptian civilization is thus opened.
It is also important to say that if this were not so we would draw conclusions that would shake the basis of the science. A hieroglyphic inscription that could not be understood as Egyptian would cast doubts on the conclusions from the Rosetta Stone. The further identity of words in the Rosetta Stone with similar symbols in other inscriptions show consistency. And this is an important attribute of science to show the conclusion is correct.
Atheists refuse to read the Book of Life
What if God wrote an inscription just like the Rosetta Stone? Would all the atheists of the world suddenly change their tune?
Let's say God wrote a book the size of an encyclopedia, would they then believe or still say the Universe came about by random?
The book I am thinking about is long, very long. To type it out would take about 50 years, non stop, at eight hours a day.
That is what the coded message of DNA is telling us. It is:
a. recognisable as a message because of its form.
b. it uses the equivalent of letters in an alphabet.
c. the separate parts can be decrypted to reveal the message about the human body.
d. altering the DNA message shows changes in outcome; and that a designer must have created the original DNA message to make a perfect, well-thought result.
e. the total message can not yet be decoded, showing the original writer of the DNA is far cleverer than us.
f. the conception and construction of DNA as a coded double helix is far beyond human ability when a human would be given as a starting point the constituent chemical elements in labelled boxes.
g. some of the chemicals required are so rare, humans are at a loss how our small planet had collected any quantity of them at all.
The Enigma Riddle
Cast your mind back to the dark days of World War Two. The Allies spent a huge effort and built some of the first computers. Their purpose was to decipher the radio messages from Germany and from submarines.
The messages looked like gibberish. They were just a string of letters and numbers. But thousands of people laboured day and night to make sense of them.
Eventually they 'cracked' the code, a first only in a few words, then sentences.
Then the meaning of the messages became clear. It was about attack plans and various military secrets. They proved essential for Allied victory.
But what if at the start, those who received the radio messages declared that they were just random electrical noises? What if no one collected the signals? What if no one researched them? The first efforts would seem to show that they were not understandable at all.
And then when some of the analysts said the signals were of vital military importance, the political leaders said: "I don't believe the Germans are sending these signals. In fact I don't believe in there is any connection between the ships that are being sunk in the Atlantic and the radio signals (that may be just random noise)."
That politician would be assumed to be working for the Nazis as his reaction was so illogical to the obvious design and vital information content of the decrypts.
Yet this is exactly what atheists do when the DNA decrypts are revealed with a far greater message than any military could devise. They bring a message from the Great Designer and Creator.
It is time we say loud and clear that if scientists do not believe in the decrypts of Nature as God's creation, then they are working for the enemy.
Radio vacuum
Now that Earthlings have assembled such a powerful means to decrypt coded messages, they have the means to apply to a much wider operation.
The earth receives light from far-off suns and galaxies. Physicists know how to analyse this light. Each beam of this far-distant solar light can be split into the wavelengths and for visible light the constituent colours. It affords massive amounts of information.
As the light is spread out by wavelength, it is seen that dark lines appear at certain distinct places. These Fraunhofer lines are very valuable. They tell the astrophysicist about the chemical composition of the material emitting the light and the absorption of elements that the light travels through.
From this meagre indications much of astrophysics can come to surprising conclusions. Among these is the conclusion that the universe is expanding and more recently that this expansion is accelerating.
And so much more. But earth scientists have not detected any signal that shows intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. There is no equivalent to the signals of the Nazis that tells of messages, about what they are doing for good or ill.
For the present humans are faced with the conclusion that all our efforts using massive radio telescopes show that we are alone in the universe.
If we look impartially at the facts, the outcome is shocking. Not only is the chance of the existence of Earth astronomically unlikely but our best efforts to detect other life shows no results.
Yet some scientists, abandoning the scientific method, believe, or want to believe, that all the universe arose by a random process called Evolution.
The Evolution cop out
Today, the forbidden word is Designer. A century ago when atheists became more militant and theists more passive, words like God and Designer were avoided in scientific discourse. Instead the word Nature was used. This contrasts with the early days of modern science where such words as Designer and God were commonplace.
'Nature has provided such a wonderful design here etc.'
With further indoctrination in schools and universities and especially the media where many of journalists do not have a technical background, the predominant word is now 'Evolution'.
They do not seem to think when they say such things as 'Evolution has thought out and developed an intelligent system to counter this animal's foes.'
The lack of logic does not seem to bother them. Evolution implies random processes that self-destruct leaving only the survival of those that survive. Remember Solomon's word:
'I saw under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong... ' The survivors may be the weak and the fearful who hide!
Evolution does not provide the means for in-depth analysis of design, except by dogmatic assertion that highly sophisticated and advanced design must have arisen by lawless processes.
Evolution has grown from an analysis of the beaks of Galapagos finches to a religion. The bible of that religion, the evolutionary tree, has since been cut down by further research over the past two centuries. Evolutionists persist. The Emperor has no clothes but it is the Evolutionist that does not realise it, not the public that cries 'He has no clothes'.
For the present, I deem it better to analyse design (present day perceived order and intelligence) in terms of a designer, not random processes.
Physicists, Biologists and Logicians
The most brilliant physicists often make poor biologists. The noted Stanford physicist Professor Leonard Susskind somehow believes that the bat developed the most brilliant sonar guidance system over generations without one of the generations of intermediates dying of hunger! Hunting moths in the dark is not easy! Any generation without sonar would be littering the caves, dead with their feet up in the air because they starved. No chance to breed.
There are many models of eyes, but no explanation how or why different animals have different types of eyes, some with multiple lenses, fish eyes with no irises, eel eyes with an extra cover that protects them from grime and sand they bury themselves in.
How did these organic cogs arise? Just the Darwin fairy? Prof Susskind admits he is biased and not an impartial scientist.
Here's a page from his book on The Cosmic Landscape.
Confounding Science with False Faith
Susskind is a clear writer when it comes to physics. When you add a false faith not based on science but wishful thinking he commits the fault that he accuses his enemy of. Who is Susskind's enemy? Should a scientist have enemies? Shouldn't they be looking for facts?
Susskind says that he is against what he calls 'supernatural agents.' In other words God as a designer. Here he makes a logical error. He is biting his tail. He is trying to understand the laws of science, it originating forces, its mathematics, its sequential events, without a lawgiver.
Darwin is no use here. Even if it shows some aspects of micro-evolution of species, it has nothing to say about the origin of life, as Darwin said. It also has even less to say about the physical universe. Rocks do not think they will improve. Nor is there any teleology (purpose-driven will) when they collide.
Mixing error and science is no way to seek out the origin of the universe before it existed. The only honest way for scientists is to stick to the principles of science and physics.
Failing Mechanisms
The human body has about 37 trillion cells with 200 different cell types. A human functions with the aid of microbes in his gut mainly and elsewhere. These amount to an additional ten to 100 trillion cells in order to function and remain alive. Getting this all together is no easy task either. How animals moved from a single cell (wherever that came from) to such a complex mechanism is another puzzle of gigantic proportions. It is a question of design, not only of the human cellular structure, the biology of the gut, but the entire ecology of the surroundings, and ultimately the solar system in which humans live. That is design on some large scale.
To change one organic form to another is no simple task. David Berlinski is one mathematical physicist that tackled the nonsense of evolutionary biology. He shows how many variations have to take place simultaneously in bones and nerves and other organs to change a living creature into another supposed link. Failure means death, even if some of the changes could be made. You need 100 % to make a creature fit for its environment and survival.
Changing life forms is not a simplistic process, millions of changes need to be done simultaneously.
Creating life requires an exact process of highly unusual chemicals to be present in the right concentration at the right time and in the right order. No Chemist store is available once one step fails! You start again. You cannot bake a cake by throwing all the ingredients together and hope the cream will come on top.
Big Picture
What's it all about? Why is the universe so big and we are so small and insignificant in size but humungous in pride? If you wish to polish a diamond you need vast industries to dig them out of the ground in deep mines and powerful instruments to separate and polish them. One of the reasons the universe is so big is that our ego is also so big. We have to look at the atoms to get an understanding of real design from the bottom up and what is involved.
That brings us to the laws of justice and morality and character. As sentient beings we can understand that humility is a positive trait in human society and before the immensity of the Universe and its creator. Why are humans on earth? God-like Character is the end product, but it requires a lot of machinery to get us there.
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