The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions by David Berlinski

Author:David Berlinski [Berlinski, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780465019373
Amazon: 0465019374
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2009-09-21T22:00:00+00:00

If the Standard Model is a triumph, is not one that is unalloyed. The Standard Model cannot explain the transition from the elementary particles to states of matter in which the elementary particles are bound to one another and so form complex structures. It is in this sense incomplete.

The Standard Model is not only incomplete but arbitrary. Like any physical theory, it contains a good many numerical parameters—at least twenty-one. These designate specific numerical properties of the model. These cannot be derived from the theory. Physicists thus find themselves very much in the position of a master couturier obliged to allow one of his finest creations to appear on the runway with its basting lines and tacking pins still affixed.

Above all, the Standard Model is inadequate because it does not incorporate the force of gravity. General relativity stands apart. The two great theories of the twentieth century have not been reconciled. They invoke different languages, different ideas, and different techniques of calculations. The great technical triumphs that made the Standard Model a success are with respect to general relativity unavailing because ineffective. General relativity and quantum mechanics resemble two aging matadors facing the bull of nature, the both of them retiring flustered after a number of halfhearted veronicas and ineffective passes.

The bull is still there, snorting through velvet nostrils. He does not seem the least bit fatigued.

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