May 3, 2013

Today’s Big Idea: The Laws of Nature

"Why is the mass of the electron what it is and not 12 times larger or half the size?"

“Why is the mass of the electron what it is and not 12 times larger or half the size?”

Lee Smolin asks this and many other questions in today’s lesson, which explores not only what the laws of nature are, but why are they what they are?

Furthermore, if an experiment is conducted 10 years from now or 10 billion years from now we expect that it should yield the same results. “So why do we expect to get an outcome in the future the same as in the past?” Smolin asks. Because the same law of nature is acting. But this is a very bizarre idea if you believe that there’s nothing that’s real outside of time.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

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11 min

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