Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #231704 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Customer Reviews

The Physics of God
Few men could be more qualified than Tipler, Professor of Mathematics and Physics (joint appointment), to explain the physics of God. Tipler's Ph.D. is in the field of global general relativity (the same rarefied field of Penrose and Hawking). John Wheeler wrote that "Frank Tipler is widely known for important concepts and theorems in general relativity and gravitation physics" in the Foreword to The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (1986) by cosmologist Prof. John D. Barrow and Tipler, which was the first book wherein Tipler's Omega Point Theory (OPT) was described.

An atheist since the age of 16, Tipler only again became a theist circa 1998 due to advancements in the OPT that came after his book The Physics of Immortality (1994; PoI), which concentrates on the OPT.

Physicist Prof. David Deutsch (inventor of the quantum computer and winner of the Institute of Physics' Paul Dirac Prize for his work) defends the physics of the OPT in his excellent book The Fabric of Reality (1997).

Tipler's present book (PoC) is a simplified exposition of his OPT, while giving an update to the latest findings of the OPT since Tipler's previous book, PoI. PoC is very much intended for a popular audience, and far less technical details are given than in PoI (which is quite technically advanced, particularly in the Appendix for Scientists, and is quite an intellectually rigorous treasure-trove in everything from the physics of Artificial Intelligence, perfect emulations of humans via computer, the inherent multiverse nature of quantum mechanics, and much more).

Instead, for PoC, Tipler confines the rigorous technical details of the OPT to his papers in the science journals and his previous book PoI, while giving endnotes in PoC to them (many of which papers are available online for free). Where that can be a problem is that some people (especially ones wanting the technical exposition) may think that Tipler is out of his league by asserting fantastic ideas without presenting proof if they don't follow up with the endnoted references.

In PoC, Tipler especially analyzes the OPT's pertinence to Christian theology. Tipler therein identifies the Omega Point (OP) as being the Judeo-Christian God, particularly as described by Christian theology, due to the fundamentally triune structure of the OP cosmology when formulated in multiversal terms (of which many-worlds formulation isn't necessary for the physics upon which the OP itself is based): the Final Singularity (i.e., the OP), the All-Presents Singularity (which exists at all times at the edge of the multiverse), and the Initial Singularity (i.e., the beginning of the Big Bang), which Tipler identifies with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, respectively.

Tipler also analyzes how Jesus Christ could have performed the miracles recorded in the New Testament without violating any known laws of physics, even if one were to assume that we currently don't exist as an emulation (in that case, then such miracles would be trivially easy to perform for the society running the simulation, even though it would seem amazing from our perspective). This process uses baryon annihilation, and its inverse, via electroweak quantum tunneling controlled by the cosmological end state of the OP (since in physics it's just as accurate to say that causation goes from future to past events: viz, the principle of least action; and unitarity).

Tipler proposes that the virgin birth of Jesus could be possible via Jesus being a special type of XX male who obtained all of his genetic material from Mary.

Tipler is not claiming that the above miracles in the previous two paragraphs are proven to have taken place by physics, simply that they need not have violated any known laws of physics. Tipler proposes tests that can be performed on certain relics which could verify whether in fact said miracles did take place via the described processes. Although I'll point out that if such tests are performed and the results are negative, that would not disprove the miracles of Jesus, since the provenience of the relics are themselves in question.

Tipler discusses the Feynman-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything in PoC, but for the technical details see Tipler's paper "The structure of the world from pure numbers," Rep Prog Phys, available on Tipler's website (and with a different title at arXiv:0704.3276), which also gives the technical details on how the known laws of physics (i.e., general relativity, quantum mechanics, and the Standard Model) requires that the universe end in the OP.

The only way to avoid the OP cosmology is to invent tenuous physical theories which have no experimental support and which violate the known laws of physics, such as with Prof. Stephen Hawking's paper "Information loss in black holes" hep-th/0507171 on the black hole information issue (BHII) which is dependant on the conjectured AdS/CFT correspondence.

That is, Hawking's paper is based upon proposed, unconfirmed physics. It's an impressive testament to the OPT's correctness, as Hawking implicitly confirms that the known laws of physics require the universe to collapse in finite time. Hawking realizes that the BHII must be resolved without violating unitarity, yet he's forced to abandon the known laws of physics in order to avoid unitarity violation without the universe collapsing.

Some have suggested that the universe's current accelerating expansion obviates the OP. But as Profs. Lawrence Krauss and Michael Turner point out in "Geometry and Destiny" astro-ph/9904020, cosmological observations cannot tell us whether the universe will expand forever or eventually collapse.

The reason for that is because that is dependant on the actions of intelligent life. The known laws of physics provide the mechanism for the universe's collapse, as discussed in PoC (again, by baryon annihilation via electroweak quantum tunneling). Moreover, this process would provide the ideal energy resource and rocket propulsion during the universe's colonization.

Science - Religion cusp
Tipler acknowledges that he is a 'Physics Fundamentalist'.

Using the principles of five fundamental physical laws: quantum mechanics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, general relativity, quantum cosmology and the Standard Model of Particle Physics, he validates several 'Christian' contentions which were hitherto in the domain of miracles. Namely the Incarnation, the Virgin Birth of Jesus, and the Resurrection.

Using an arresting blend of scientific and mathematical logic, Tipler also throws profound light on the Omega Point, God as the cosmological singularity, the problem of evil, and the co-existence of divine determinism and human free will. Never before have I encountered such stunning implications of the multiverse paradigm that emerges from quantum mechanics.