God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist by Victor J. Stenger

Author:Victor J. Stenger [Stenger, Victor J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Atheism, Religion, God
ISBN: 9781591026525
Publisher: Prometheus Books

ARE CARBON AND ORGANIC MOLECULES FINE-TUNED?

Let us next take a more detailed look at coincidence 5, which asserts that fine-tuning is needed to produce carbon, the primary building block of life. Astronomer Fred Hoyle used anthropic arguments to successfully predict the presence of a nuclear energy level in carbon at 7.65 million electron-volts. However, M. Livio and collaborators have shown that the production of carbon in stars does not depend sensitively on that nuclear energy level. Rather it hinges on the radioactive state of a carbon nucleus formed out of three helium nuclei, which misses being too high for carbon production by only 20 percent.27 Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg has noted that this "is not such a close call after all."28

The chemical elements carbon and oxygen are among the easiest to produce in the nuclear reactions that take place in dying stars. The main energy source in stars is the fusion of hydrogen into helium. The helium nucleus, composed of two protons and two neutrons and symbolized by 2He4, is highly stable—as predicted by the rules of quantum mechanics.2 Two helium nuclei can fuse to give a beryllium nucleus,

2He4+2He4 ->4Be8

Another helium then can fuse with the beryllium to produce carbon,

2He4+4Be8 ->6C12

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