[Avodah] Anthropic Principle

[via Avodah]

From: "Jay F. Shachter via Avodah"  <avodah at lists.aishdas.org>

Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2015 18:48:06  -0500
From: Micha Berger via Avodah
> SciAm ran this article last month  on 5 of the really finely tuned
> aspects of physics without which we  wouldn't be here.
> <http://j.mp/1QRZqyY>

I'm a member of a  book club in which we all take turns recommending a
book to the others.  ...
One of the books I recommended was "Just Six Numbers" by Martin  Rees,


Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
jay at m5.chicago.il.us
http://m5.chicago.il.us





>>>>
 
You and your book club should read **THE PRIVILEGED PLANET*** by Guillermo  
Gonzales and Jay Richards.  It's one of my favorite books in the whole  
world.  I think it should be a required science textbook in every  yeshiva high 
school.  I would subtitle the book "Mah Gadlu Maasecha Hashem"  -- although 
the writers are not Jews and not theologians.  They are  scientists.  I 
love, I love, I love this book.  The book shows in a  most fascinating way how 
the universe is uniquely designed for life; even more,  it shows how the 
universe is designed to be discovered and  known.  (And the Designer means to 
be discovered.) To give just three  examples:
 
1. Even though the sun is 93 million miles away and the moon only 25,000  
miles away, the two luminaries are exactly the same [apparent] size in the  
sky!  A perfect fit!  Everything we know about the sun's corona,  we know 
only  because of eclipses.  If the moon were slightly smaller  it would not 
completely cover the sun and the sky would not be dark during an  eclipse and 
we could not see the corona.  If the moon were  slightly bigger, it would 
cover the corona as well as the sun and again, we  could not see the corona.
 
2.  If the atmosphere were just slightly different than it is, we  would 
still be able to breathe and function normally but it would be opaque  instead 
of transparent -- it would be cloudy -- and we would not even be aware  
that there are stars and planets out there.
 
3.  If we were in a different part of our galaxy, where the stars are  more 
thickly strewn, we would not have a night sky.  Instead the night sky  
would be as brightly lit (by stars) as the day sky is lit by the sun and we  
would not even know there are stars out there.
 
http://www.privilegedplanet.com/

--Toby  Katz
t613k at aol.com
..
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