Three major discoveries during the last century contradict the forecasts of scientific atheists, pointing instead in a distinctly theistic direction. //

In fact, three major scientific discoveries during the last century contradict the expectations of scientific atheists (or materialists) and point instead in a distinctly theistic direction.

First, cosmologists have discovered that the physical universe likely had a beginning, contrary to the expectations of scientific materialists who had long portrayed the material universe as eternal and self-existent (and, therefore, in no need of an external creator). //

This evidence of a beginning, later reinforced by other developments in observational astronomy and theoretical physics, not only contradicted the expectations of scientific materialists, it confirmed those of traditional theists. As physicist and Nobel Laureate Arno Penzias observed, “The best data we have [concerning a beginning] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the first five books of Moses, the Psalms, and the Bible as a whole.”

Second, physicists have discovered that we live in a kind of “Goldilocks universe.” Indeed, since the 1960s, physicists have determined that the fundamental physical laws and parameters of our universe have been finely tuned, against all odds, to make our universe capable of hosting life. Even slight alterations in the values of many independent factors — such as the strength of gravitational and electromagnetic attraction, the masses of elementary particles, and the initial arrangement of matter and energy in the universe — would have rendered life impossible. //

Finally, discoveries in molecular biology have revealed the presence of digital code at the foundation of life, suggesting the work of a master programmer. After James Watson and Francis Crick elucidated the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953, Crick developed his famed “sequence hypothesis.” In it, Crick proposed that the chemical constituents in DNA function like letters in a written language or digital symbols in a computer code.

Functioning computer code depends upon a precise sequence of zeros and ones. Similarly, the DNA molecule’s ability to direct the assembly of crucial protein molecules in cells depends upon specific arrangements of chemical constituents called “bases” along the spine of its double helix structure. Thus, even Richard Dawkins has acknowledged, “the machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like.” Or as Bill Gates explains, “DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we’ve ever created.”

No theory of undirected chemical evolution has explained the origin of the information in DNA (or RNA) needed to build the first living cell from simpler non-living chemicals. Instead, our uniform and repeated experience — the basis of all scientific reasoning — shows that systems possessing functional or digital information invariably arise from intelligent causes.

We know from experience that software comes from programmers. We know generally that information — whether inscribed in hieroglyphics, written in a book, or encoded in radio signals — always arises from an intelligent source. //

Stephen C. Meyer directs Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle. His new book, "Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Discoveries that Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe," is now available from HarperOne.

First in a four-part exclusive Asia Times interview with renowned physicist and Big Bang theory critic Eric Lerner
By JONATHAN TENNENBAUM

The Big Bang is probably the most famous scientific theory since Einstein’s relativity. The Big Bang theory says that our Universe began with a gigantic explosion, about 14 billion years ago, and has been expanding and cooling down ever since.

Until relatively recently this theory has been regarded as the foundation of modern cosmology, the branch of science devoted to the study of the Universe as a whole.

But not all scientists agree with the Big Bang theory, and some even say it is completely wrong and contradicted by a growing mountain of evidence. In fact, in recent years one hears more and more talk about a “crisis of cosmology.”

I am talking now to one of the most well-known, outspoken critics of the Big Bang, the American physicist Eric J Lerner.

Scientists were expecting to find an intermediate-mass black hole at the heart of the globular cluster NGC 6397, but instead they found evidence of a concentration of smaller black holes lurking there. New data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have led to the first measurement of the extent of a collection of black holes in a core-collapsed globular cluster.

To settle the score, an international team of astronomers led by Cornell university used data from the National Science Foundation's Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile and "cosmic geometry" to end the debate, Cornell officials said in a statement. Their estimate of (about) 13.77 billion years roughly matches the estimate from the Planck Collaboration.

"Now we've come up with an answer where Planck and ACT agree," astronomer Simone Aiola, a researcher at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York City and author of one of two new papers describing these findings, said in the same statement. "It speaks to the fact that these difficult measurements are reliable."

By determining the age of the universe, the researchers also were able to estimate how fast the universe is expanding — this figure is known as the Hubble constant. With ACT, they calculated a Hubble constant of 42 miles per second per megaparsec, or 67.6 kilometers per second per megaparsec. In other (simpler) words, they found that an object 1 megaparsec (or about 3.26 million light-years) away from Earth would be moving away from Earth at 42 miles per second (67.6 km/s).

The Spitzer Space Telescope lasted over 16 years //

Spitzer is one of four space telescopes operated by NASA known as the Great Observatories. Its fellow “greats” are the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the famous Hubble Space Telescope. Combined, the four telescopes were meant to observe the Universe in as many wavelengths of light as possible — ranging from the visible light that we can see, to the kinds of light our eyes cannot register. Spitzer’s charge has been to observe infrared light, a type of light that humans can’t see but can sense as heat. Objects that are faint and super cold can still be seen by the infrared light that they produce, so Spitzer can show us things that might otherwise seem invisible. //

This afternoon, NASA scientists will send a command to Spitzer, telling it to stop taking observations and no longer send pings back to Earth. Conceivably, NASA could wake Spitzer back up again someday, but as more time passes, the tougher that will be. Spitzer will no longer be pointing its antenna back at Earth and sending a strong signal that NASA can pick up. So making a link with the spacecraft will become harder and harder.

But even as Spitzer hangs up its hat, there are still other infrared telescopes in the works — notably, NASA’s next great space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope. Designed to study the Universe in infrared, the James Webb will be the most powerful space telescope ever when it launches, and will be able see back in time to the beginning of the Universe. //

After almost 350 years, physicists have just arrived at a statistical solution for Newton's three-body problem – that is, the problem of figuring out how three similar objects or bodies are going to travel in space in a way that fits in with the laws of motion and gravity. //

The researchers behind the latest study describe the three-body problem as "arguably the oldest open question in astrophysics", and while they haven't completely cracked the case, they've gotten closer than most by finding a statistical formula that fits this open question in certain scenarios.
In particular, they looked at a couple of centuries of previous research that puts forward the following idea: in unstable, chaotic three-body systems, one of those bodies eventually gets expelled, leaving behind a stable binary relationship between the two that are left. //

The three laws of motion laid down by Isaac Newton in 1687 are these: that objects remain in a state of inertia unless acted upon by force, that the relationship between acceleration and applied force is force equals mass times acceleration (F=ma), and that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

So far so brilliant, as far as the basic physics of the Universe are concerned. But Newton ran into difficulties applying his rules to the Earth, Moon and Sun – the original three bodies. It actually became much harder to track three bodies with these mathematical rules.
While scientists have found fixes for special cases, a general formula for the three-body problem has proved elusive. It's like trying to apply a mathematical template to the butterfly effect – it's just too chaotic to track.

Weird electron-positrons from decaying beryllium and helium hint at new boson. //

A new paper, by the same scientists that published the beryllium results. This time, they measured electron-positron emissions from excited helium. Same experiment, different atom, but the same 17MeV boson was found.

The new result is pretty strong evidence. If the experiment has some kind of systematic error in it, then we would expect that the “new” particle would change mass between helium and beryllium. It doesn’t, though; the results are very consistent between experiments. That means that if it is an error, it is an unfortunately flukey one.

more scientists would be happier to accept the result if it fit their expectations. An axion with a mass as small as a few MeV? Sure thing. A giant WIMP with a mass of many GeV? Ok. But, a boson that is lighter than a proton and kind of middle of the road? Why haven’t we seen that before?

There may also be, I think, a certain amount of unconscious snobbery in the background. The experimental results haven’t come from any of the big labs. And now the big labs are going to be putting planned experiments on hold to see if a result that they won’t get credit for stands up. If they find the boson, then, great, they’ve won plaudits for someone else. But, if that gun doesn’t smoke, there will be a long and painful search for what makes the original experiment different from the rest.

For the first time, astronomers have mapped the surface of a pulsar in detail. And the result challenges our textbook picture of a pulsar’s appearance. //

From its perch on the exterior of the International Space Station, the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, looks for X-rays from extreme astronomical objects, such as pulsars //

Pulsars, like black holes, are extremely dense but extremely small objects. Their immense gravity bends space-time around them, giving us a glimpse at the far side of the pulsar, even as they rotate out of view. The effect also makes the pulsar appear slightly larger than its actual size. Because NICER can clock the arrival of X-rays from the pulsar with extreme precision (better than 100 nanoseconds ), the researchers were able to build a map of the star’s surface and measure its size with unprecedented accuracy.

The teams determined that the neutron star is between 1.3 and 1.4 times the mass of the Sun. And it is roughly 16 miles (26 kilometers) wide. (By contrast, our Sun stretches just over 864,000 miles [1.3 million km] across.) //

J0030’s is oriented with its northern hemisphere pointed toward Earth. So, the teams expected to see a hotspot near the north pole. Mapping the hotspots required supercomputer modeling to disentangle where the X-rays NICER received from the pulsar originated on the star’s surface. The task would have taken normal desktop computers about a decade to complete, but the supercomputers finished in less than a month. //

What the teams found presented a different picture: J0030 has two or three hotspots, all in the southern hemisphere. The University of Amsterdam team believes the pulsar has one small, circular spot and one thin, crescent-shaped spot spinning around its lower latitudes. The University of Maryland team found the X-rays could alternatively be coming from two oval spots in the southern hemisphere, as well as one cooler spot close to the star’s south pole.

Neither result is the simple picture astronomers expected, indicating that the pulsar’s magnetic field, which causes the hotspots, is likely even more complex than originally assumed. While the result certainly leaves astronomers wondering, “It tells us NICER is on the right path to help us answer an enduring question in astrophysics: What form does matter take in the ultra-dense cores of neutron stars?” NICER science lead and study co-author Zaven Arzoumanian said in a press release.

The Dean of Westminster, John Hall accompanied by Hawking's first wife Jane Hawking and son and daughter Tim and Lucy Hawking, presides over the interment of the ashes
Tributes have been paid to renowned physicist Prof Stephen Hawking in a Westminster Abbey memorial service.

British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who played Hawking in a BBC drama, and astronaut Tim Peake were among those giving readings at the ceremony.

Prof Hawking died in March, aged 76, after a long battle with motor neurone disease.

His ashes are being buried alongside other great scientists like Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton. //

To mark the occasion, the European Space Agency beamed Prof Hawking's words towards the nearest black hole to Earth. The transmission, which was sent from a big radio dish in Spain, was backed by an original score from composer Vangelis. //

Stephen Hawking said that science would take us on a path to "the mind of God". By that he meant that we would know everything that God would know, with the caveat, "if there were a God, which there isn't. I'm an atheist."

On the face of it, the religious ceremony at Westminster Abbey was at odds with Prof Hawking's personal views. But hearing the choral works of Wagner, Mahler, Stravinsky, Elgar - and, of course, Holst's The Planets - filling the vast halls of the Gothic Abbey, one's mind was lifted beyond Earthly matters towards the ethereal. And that is what he did through his work - unravelling the mysteries of the Universe.

The neutrino could be the weirdest subatomic particle; though abundant, it requires some of the most sensitive detectors to observe. Scientists have been working for decades to figure out whether neutrinos have mass and if so, what that mass is. The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment in Germany has now revealed its first result constraining the maximum limit of that mass. //

The KATRIN experiment begins with 25 grams of a kind of radioactive hydrogen gas, called tritium, stored in a 30-foot container held at cryogenic temperatures—cold enough such that even neon gas is a liquid. These tritium atoms undergo a kind of radioactive decay called beta decay, where one of their neutrons turns into a proton, spitting out an electron and an electron-antineutrino in the process (which would have the same mass as the electron neutrino). These decay products go into a house-sized detector called a spectrometer that measures the energy of the electrons. The electron and neutrino each carry away some of the energy of the reaction, but how much they take away can vary. Scientists must look at the spectrum of all the different electron energies, focusing particularly on the electrons that have taken away the maximum energy, whose neutrinos would in turn have taken away the minimum energy. Analysis of the shape of the resulting graphs reveals the maximum mass of any of the neutrino mass states. //

The mere fact that oscillation exists sets a lowest possible average mass of the three mass states, less than 0.1 electron volts (eV). After a month of operating and 18 years of planning and construction, KATRIN has now predicted an upper limit of any of the three mass states at 1.1 eV, where an electron weighs around 500,000 eV and a proton weighs nearly a billion.

KATRIN scientists announced the results at the 2019 Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics conference in Toyama, Japan, last Friday.

First results from the KATRIN experiment are based on just 28 days of data.