The Fairy Tale of Cheap Nuclear Power

ends, "Electricity produced from nuclear power is cheaper than electricity produced by renewable energies. And power reactors live happily ever after. "

This is not the correct ending. Old reactors are phased out, and cheap electricity is no longer available when they die.

Nuclear power from existing plants was one of the cheapest forms of energy to close the acute supply gaps caused by the discontinuation of cheap Russian gas. The variable electricity generation costs for existing nuclear power plants are 20 to 25 euros per megawatt hour. This includes, for example, the costs of fuel rods and the maintenance and operation of the getting-on-in-years plants.

However, we must not forget the so-called hidden costs of nuclear power. It only appears cheaper than green electricity because the massive taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power - in Germany between 1950 and 2010, more than 200 billion euros - are usually not taken into account.

Finally, we must add the costs for the final storage of nuclear waste and incident and accident risks. Nuclear power is one of the most expensive ways of generating electricity if these costs are considered. Today's society and future generations are burdened with accumulated nuclear waste. Taxpayers pay four-fifths of the expenses for its disposal.

Still, since most of the old nuclear power plants have been written off, their continued operation is tantamount to a license to print money.

The situation doesn't look so bright for nuclear power plants that recently came into operation or those still under construction.

Long construction periods and increased safety requirements are driving up the costs of building new reactors to the extent that the generation costs per megawatt hour now exceed those for green electricity.

©ZDF

In Finland, the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant cost €11 billion, 4 times more than planned.

©ZDF

Flamanville on the English Channel in France was 6 times more expensive at €19 billion.

©ZDF

The twin reactor at Hinkley Point in the southwest of the UK was initially expected to cost €21 billion but is now estimated to cost at least €50 billion. By the way, who wants to learn about Nuclear power stations on television at 6:14 a.m.?

Stanford University professor Mark Z. Jacobson wrote, "Investing in new nuclear power is the surest way to climate disaster." He is assisted by Ben Wealer from the Technical University of Berlin, who succinctly said, "[Nuclear] blocks the cash we need for renewables."

Here is a comparison of energy costs.

©US Energy

As the cost of renewables continues to decrease, nuclear power costs are increasing. Between 2009 and 2021, renewables like wind and solar have declined by 90 percent, while nuclear power has increased by 33 percent.

©AEE

While Germany boasts that more than 50% of the electricity is produced by renewable energies, the situation doesn't look so bright on the world scale.

Breakdown of the primary energy consumption from fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewables worldwide
(©Energy Institute)

Even the most optimistic assessments suggest it could take more than 30 years to transition the world to renewable energy. Eventually, the economic question of nuclear energy and renewables becomes furtive. We no longer have 30 years before the climate catastrophe strikes, and even if we increase nuclear power dramatically, it will not shorten the time we have left considerably.

UN Secretary-General Guterres recently called for a dramatic increase in spending on renewables, saying, "Had we invested massively in renewable energy in the past, we would not be so dramatically at the mercy […] of fossil fuel markets."

*

Tyranny of the Majority or the Minority? Development of the American Democracy Since the Writing of the Constitution

As part of the "Democracy" lecture series at Freiburg's Samstags-Uni, yesterday, Professor Manfred Berg spoke about

   

The lecture hall was fuller than ever. The audience waited eagerly for some helpful comments on a possible President Trump. But first, Professor Berg spoke about the historical development of American democracy.

What was new to me was that the United States was founded as a republic, not a democracy. But at the latest, since the German Revolution of 1848, the two concepts have blurred into one, when Friedrich Hecker demanded in the pre-parliament in Frankfurt that only a Federal Republic modeled on the North American free states can ensure the unity and freedom of Germany.

The revolution failed, as did the attempt to introduce democracy permanently in the Weimar Republic.

Following the Second World War, the Americans fulfilled Hecker's demand by successfully transferring their Republican system to the Federal Republic of Germany. We are still thankful.

Professor Berg showed a slide listing the primary conditions of democracy.

He then categorized the history of American democracy.

 

Checks and balances are the firm corsets of American democracy where ambition counteracts ambition.

The first transition of power between two presidents occurred peacefully after the 1800 election. This tradition was broken with the last presidential election.

Click to enlarge

I had never seen such an informative power distribution map on the eve of the Civil War of 1860.

The freed slaves were given the right to vote during Reconstruction. Yet, 160 years later, some States continue to hurdle the independent, free exercise of voting with administrative and bureaucratic requirements that discriminate against entire groups of voters.

The demographic development in the States to 2045 shows that the proportion of the white population is being pushed into a minority, primarily due to Hispanic immigration. This is a cause of division in American society, too.

The widening gap between the rich and the "poor" is not unique to the US. Social explosives?

The suffragette refers to the treatment of the Germans at Versailles by President Wilson, who, unlike the British and French, gave the Germans credit for not having lived in a democracy.

In the end, Professor Berg did not fail to promote his new book, A House Divided.

©Time

A future President Trump has announced gruesome things. After a chaotic first term, he is already having his vassals prepare for his likely second term.

Trump will undoubtedly try to increase his executive power at the expense of the judiciary and the legislature.

He plans to demote the Department of Justice to his instrument of revenge. Trump said at a rally, "That means if I win and somebody wants to run against me, I'll call my attorney general. I say, 'Listen, indict him'."

When murmurs in the audience occurred, Trump continued in the voice of his future attorney general, "But he hasn't done anything wrong. I don't know." Trump ended with an order, "Indict him on income tax evasion. Figure it out."

Can the legislative power of Congress be overridden by executive orders?

We Europeans will be in for a rough ride. Are we sufficiently prepared for Trump's well-prepared second term? I doubt it.

Will Trump end the Ukraine war to Putin's liking? Will he hollow out NATO?.

If he does not win the presidential election, will the US be faced with a bloodbath? Given the density of firearms in the country (1.2 per person) and the January 6, 2021, events, this is not excluded.

On leaving, the director of the Freiburg Studium Generale, Professor Werner Frick, rightly said that the speaker was sending us into the weekend with pessimistic feelings.

*

The Seminar

The University of Freiburg is organizing a seminar this summer semester entitled Which Truths Can We Build Upon? Physics and Theology in Discourse.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Buchleitner, a physicist, is in charge. Other lecturers are theologians Prof. Dr. Helmut Hoping, Dr. Matthias Huber, and Prof. Dr. Magnus Striet.

Yesterday, theologian and priest Matthias Huber, who also has a degree in physics, introduced the seminar with a lecture titled Critical Realism - Models and Theories - Explaining versus Understanding (Science - Humanities).

©Matthias Huber

In his first slide, Dr. Huber showed various possibilities when science and theology meet. There is the conflict model, the independence model, the dialog/convergence/consonance model, and finally, the integration model.

©Matthias Huber

Photos of the protagonists of the above models can be seen in the picture above.

Dr. Huber started his lecture proper by citing Horst W. Beck, who shed light on the incompatibility of religious statements and earth history: "The task is, of course, no less than to create an alternative cosmology, biology, geology based on salvation history [...]. Anyone who takes the judgment of God about the biblically and extra-biblically attested Flood catastrophe seriously must rewrite geology (1979)." 

Karl Rahner sees no areas of friction since "theology and science cannot in principle come into conflict with each other because both differ from the outset in their subject matter and method (1983)." 

 Finally, Rudolf Mosis goes so far as to say that natural sciences and theology ultimately do not interfere with each other at all: "The natural scientist can discover whatever he wants with his observations; he can build whatever hypotheses and theories he wants on them: it is always only about 'nature,' never about 'salvation.' So, faith cannot be affected by all this. After that, natural scientists and theologians would perhaps live in separate houses as good, or at least compatible, neighbors. Men/women would greet each other in a friendly manner. But there would be nothing left to argue about and nothing to talk about: We would simply have nothing more to say to each other." 

These citations were an excellent introduction to the topic. But then the lecturer showed a slide whose content made me stop my hooves from pawing.

©Matthias Huber

The above table made it clear to me that natural science - and here I mean physics as in the seminar's title - is objective. Still, theology must be viewed from a subjective angle.

 In physics, the interplay between theory and experiment is fruitful. Non obstat that theorists tend to forge hypotheses, such as string theory, that still need to be supported by any experiment.

Physics is not free of induction. For example, the fluctuations in the energy field after the Big Bang, which led to the formation of galaxies in the cooling phase of our Universe, are hypothetically transferred to the state before the Big Bang. According to this hypothesis, fluctuations in the primordial energy field triggered the Big Bang. This, however, means that several Big Bangs are possible, and with them, the existence of other universes.

In the early days of physics, personal influence on experimental results may have existed. In the meantime, however, every experimental result is verified by independent parallel measurements.

What is a "truthful representation of reality?" When the tool describing phenomena in physics is mathematics how true and how real is mathematics?

The starting point of theology is a subjective personal experience of God. People wrote the holy books as a result of their interpreted experience. After the Jew Saul had his faith experience with the Lord outside Damascus, the first written testimony of the Christian faith is found in St. Paul's letters.

New experiences of God caused a split in Christianity between Catholic and Protestant theology. Islam, too, with its Sunnis and Shiites, is not free of man-made divisions, without forgetting the deep shades between orthodox, reformed, and liberal Jews.

©Matthias Huber

Dr. Huber closed his lecture with a slide stressing the consonance between science and theology.

I shall mention only three points from the following discussion:

In 1957, when Red Baron attended a lecture on theoretical mechanics in Göttingen, the lecturer referred to the teleology of mechanical processes. Still, physics is not goal-oriented in the philosophical sense.

The measurement of the Higgs (© Prof. Karl Jakobs)

The comparison between the concealment of God and the Higgs boson is absurd because the latter leaves its trace in measurements.

God does not change the past. Does God exist in our time frame?

An excited Red Baron left the seminar wanting more.

* 

Value Conflict between the West and the Global South

Der Wertekonflikt zwischen Westen und Globalem Süden was the title of a lecture by Professor Winfried Veit yesterday at the Museumsgesellschaft.

After the Second World War, the motherland of democracy, the United States, successfully implanted its Values in Western Europe. Since the failed attempts to democratize Vietnam and Afghanistan, the USA is no longer keen to export Western values* to other countries. 

The most important are: The dignity of man/woman is inviolable. The free development of his/her personality is guaranteed. All people are equal before the law. There is passive and active freedom of expression. Members of parliament are elected in a general, direct, free, equal, and secret election. Powers are separated into the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government.

It is not only because of its colonial past that the Global South does not follow those Western values. "You have exploited us in the past and, in many cases, still do today; why should we follow you?"

In addition to the exploitation of "their" territories, the colonial powers drew arbitrary borders that tore ethnic groups apart, which led and still leads to bloody conflicts on the African continent.

Many countries of the Global South have apparent human rights deficits. This means Western countries dependent on imports of energy and raw materials must balance realpolitik and moral politics when dealing with those governments.

Yesterday, Red Baron learned that German foreign policy is following this course. While on his suspiciously large number of trips to countries in the Global South, Chancellor Olaf Scholz tries to establish new partnerships; he only cautiously points out human rights violations. On the other hand, our Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, calls for a policy of equal rights for women. So. she criticizes countries that are often dominated by Islam. Mullahs in radical Islamic states only smile wearily at her efforts.

Last Saturday in Hamburg, about 1000 demonstrating Muslims shouted,
"Overthrow the dictatorship of Values!“ and asked for a caliphate as the solution.
That's not how it works (©Die Zeit)

Although a former German president once said Islam belongs to Germany, he did not mean religiously fanatical Muslims.

Everyone is allowed to practice his/her religion in Germany. Frederick the Great already said that for him "sind alle Religionen [...] gleich und guth, wan nuhr die leüte, so sie professieren, ehrliche leüte seindt, und wenn Türken und Heiden kähmen und Wolten das Landt pöplieren, so wollen Wir sie Mosqeen und Kirchen baun, Fr. (all religions [...] are equal and good, if only the people who profess them are honest people, and if Turks and pagans come and populate the land, then we want to build them mosques and churches, Fr.).”

In 1015, the first mosque in Germany was built in Wünsdorf (Zossen), 20 km from Berlin.
It was adjacent to a POW camp where prisoners of Islamic belief were retained (©Wikipedia).

While the countries of the Global South have no qualms about taking advantage of the achievements of the West, India, China, and Brazil sometimes look down arrogantly on those decadent and outdated Western democracies.

 After the collapse of the Eastern bloc, the former West-East conflict is replaced by a multipolar world. BRICS (Brazil, Russian Federation, India, China, and South Africa) was founded as a counterweight to Western trading blocs and has more people than the USA and Europe combined. Dipesh Chakrabarty had already written earlier about Provincializing Europe.

One fact Professor Veit mentioned at the beginning of his lecture troubled me during his entire presentation: the rapid increase in Africa's population. How will the governments there feed these people? Television images from South Sudan or Yemen with malnourished children and haggard, pregnant women shock me every time. Payment options on screen following these unbearable pictures ask the capitalist West for humanitarian help.

Is the only consolation we Westerners have left the idea of being a beacon of Values in a disintegrating world?

*

Democracy - Foundations and Challenges

This is the title of a series of highly topical lectures at Freiburg University during the summer semester of 2024, presented within the framework of the studium generale. 2024 is a super-election year not only in the States but also in Europe (European Parliament) and Germany (three state elections). Will the results of these elections celebrate democracy?

These lectures are also known as Samstags-UNI (Saturday University). This morning, Red Baron went downtown with the aim of getting hold of a printed copy of the full program of the studium generale.

So I came to listen to Professor Rainer Forst from the University of Frankfurt talking about Demokratie in Zeiten der Regression. Normative und zeitdiagnostische Überlegungen (Democracy in times of regression; normative and time-diagnostic considerations).

Everyone knows that democracy is not limited to electing new members of parliament every four or five years, who then pass laws and thus decide the fate of their fellow citizens.

 Parliaments are elected in many countries around the world, but some of these states are not democracies. Here is a map you have seen before showing the status of democracy worldwide.

There are dictatorships with a one-party system that is sold as Popular Democracy. Alleged democratic states are curtailing the powers of the third branch, i.e., the judiciary. Restrictions on freedom of expression go hand in hand with restricted freedom of the press. There are democracies where not every vote cast counts the same.

In a parliamentary, liberal, and representative democracy, all people are equal. However, this also means that the majority's decision must not only consider the minority but must actually protect it. In a true democracy, there must be no exclusion of people. Do parliaments decide in the interest of the people or in the interest of a particular party?

One of the major weaknesses of the current world order is its growing social inequality. According to Professor Forst, the banking crisis of 2008 was one of the biggest disasters in recent years. Here, taxpayers had to bail out the big banks, which have not ensured that the difference between rich and poor has become smaller since.

However, the majority of the poor do not rebel against the minority of the rich. Instead, most people see the problem of immigration as even more severe than global climate change.

The difficulty is that the above problems can no longer be solved at a national level, only at an international level. We are, therefore, particularly called upon to speak with one voice as a European democracy. Wishful thinking?

All efforts are needed, and much remains to be done to defend our democracies against authoritarian, illiberal, and populist attacks.

*

The Call for Freedom

This is the title of an exhibition at the Dreiländermuseum in Lörrach. In 1848, the revolutionary marches of Hecker and Struve started here in the south of Baden, and in 1849, the drama of the Baden Revolution ended.

One of Red Baron's main interests is the European revolutionary efforts of the time, focusing on the Baden Revolution.

I keep returning to this topic in my blogs because there is always something new to discover.

It was the same this time when I took the ÖPNV (public transport) to Lörrach to participate in a guided tour of the exhibition The Call for Freedom.

I had hoped to find an interesting account of the Baden Revolution and was not disappointed. In addition, our history-interested group had a guide who, as it later turned out, was a Wikipedia contributor, i.e., a colleague. Well acquainted with the subject, I enjoyed his professional explanations, and, as usual, I learned something new.

I don't want to stretch the Baden Revolution here. Instead, I refer you to a detailed account in German on my Freiburg history page. Here, I'll share some finds from the exhibition.

The trigger for the revolutionary movements in Europe was the February 24, 1848, uprising in France, which toppled the regime of the Citizen King installed 18 years earlier.

Liberté (Françoise Désirée), the daughter of the people, was born in Paris on July 27, 1830.
The speech bubbles:
So be firm! Some bourgeois circles ask: But why? We're overwhelmed. I lack the strength.
But the clergy is behind: Don't give up; I'll be back soon.

In this allegorical depiction, Liberty (desired by the French), born in Paris on July 27, the day of the 1830 revolution, is strangled by the reactionary forces of Louis Phillipe's regime. So, it was time for a new revolution.

Heart and Hand for God and the Fatherland

The flag of the Lörrach militia of 1848, lovingly embroidered with golden letters by their revolutionary wives, was on display. Its color sequence is gold, red, and black, i.e., reversed. Read this blog.

 

Amalie Struve with Friedrich Hecker

The exhibition also pays tribute to women who did not embroider in the background but participated actively in the revolution. In addition to the well-known Amalie Struve and Emma Herwig, there are also:

Mathilde Franziska Anneke and

Elise Blenker

Even then, historical misinformation existed; today, we would call it fake news. 

History has always been falsified. In a painting from 1850 depicting the Battle on the Scheideck, the painter M. Jacob shows the revolutionaries confronting the government troops under a red flag. "Communist" Hecker stands next to a cannon. The red flag is just as ahistorical as the firing of a cannon, two of which the insurgents were carrying but were unable to fire due to the lack of ammunition.

The fatherland must be saved from lawlessness and a republic.
Charlottenburg, May 16, 1849 (Click to enlarge)

This exhibition was where I first encountered Frederick William IV's call for Prussian troops to intervene in southwestern Germany to defeat the "criminals."

Most impressive: Democracies and dictatorships around the world today. The colors, ranging from dark blue to dark red, are self-explanatory. Is Canada more democratic than the US, and is China more oppressed than Russia?

*

Existential Physics

This is the title of a book Sabine Hossenfelder published in 2022. Red Baron was made aware of it recently during a discussion at a Wikipedia Stammtisch.

I mentioned Sabine in an earlier blog as a great critic of present experimental high-energy physics. She expressed in more vital words than I ever dare use, namely that experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, the giant accelerator at CERN, did not reveal New Physics, are expensive, and should, therefore, be abandoned.

For a retired physicist, Sabine's latest book is not easy to read, but it addresses all of the topics at the forefront of present-day science.

One of her most important statements is that I want scientists to be mindful of the limits of their discipline. Sometimes, the only scientific answer we can give is "We don't know."*
*The many quotations from Sabine's book are in italics

Reading Existential Physics refreshed my knowledge of physics and was a step forward in my understanding.

Having read many physics books after my retirement, Sabine was the first to distinguish clearly between theory and hypothesis.

Mathematics is the tool to describe phenomena in physics.* The formulation of a physics law will not only describe the so-called initial state but also its development in the future. The key tool is differential equations with respect to time.
*Is mathematics just a tool for describing the world, or is it the world?

These equations also allow us to calculate backward, i.e., how a system developed. In particular, we may extrapolate from our present universe to its beginning, developing the theory of the Big Bang.

The further back in time we go, the more we generate models for our understanding, but these are modern creation myths written in the language of mathematics. All these hypotheses about the early universe (...) are pure speculation.

Rapid cooling of the universe and inflation with time.
Note the question marks when approaching the Big Bang singularity.
On the other end of the timescale is data from the James Web Space Telescope.

Still, mathematical extrapolations do not work beyond the initial state of our universe. We simply don't know what happened before the Big Bang. This situation has become the starting point of several hypotheses. We can't test those neither by observation nor by calculation, so they are the purest speculation and tales.

The Standard Model

What can we rely on? Sabine states that The only fundamental theories we currently know of — the currently deepest level — are the standard model of particle physics and Einstein's general relativity, which describes gravitation. Red Baron has written about the standard model in the past.

The mathematical tool for subatomic systems is quantum mechanics, of which the eminent physicist Richard Feynman said:

However, Sabine thinks that much of the supposed weirdness of quantum mechanics just comes from forcing it into everyday language. She is very much a math person and personally doesn't see the need to translate math into everyday language. Once we have the mathematics, and at least someone understands it, it is often possible to communicate it verbally and visually.

 Red Baron once wrote an essay on understanding physics based on Heisenberg's autobiography Der Teil und das Ganze. 100 years ago, Wolfgang Pauli said in a conversation with Werner Heisenberg, "... with the technical means of today's experimental physics, we are penetrating into areas of nature that can no longer be adequately described with the concepts of everyday life. Therefore, we depend on an abstract mathematical language that we can only handle with thorough training in modern mathematics. So, unfortunately, you have to limit yourself and specialize.* I find the abstract mathematical language easy, and I hope to be able to do something with it in physics.“

* This was the beginning of the creation of chairs for theoretical physics. Pauli became a professor at the University of Hamburg in 1923 at the age of 23, and "he did something in physics. "

At the Bohr Festspiele in Göttingen in June 1922, Niels Bohr said to Heisenberg, "Because we are supposed to say something about the structure of the atom, but we have no language with which we could make ourselves understood." 

 As is well known, Einstein never accepted quantum theory. He tolerated it as a temporary clarification of atomic phenomena but not a final one. Einstein was adamant about the principle that "God does not play dice" and would not allow them to be shaken.

Is there a contradiction with Sabine's above statement with the one near the end of the book? Science is severely lacking in (...) social integration. It's something we can and should improve on. Alongside public lectures, we should offer opportunities for lecture attendees to get to know one another. Instead of panel discussions among prominent scientists, we should talk more about how scientific understanding made a difference for non-experts. Instead of letting researchers answer audience questions, we should listen and learn from those who have been helped through difficult times by scientific insights.

Her remark coincides with my experience. Any panel discussion on any subject turns out to be too long* such that questions from the audience are eventually cut short.
*Some people like to listen to themselves, and others use the opportunity to start a whole new lecture.


The Standard Model of Big Bang Cosmology

While the standard model is complete (?), and physicists are desperately looking for New Physics, the situation at the other end of the spectrum doesn't look so bright.

The Lambda*-CDM (cold dark matter) model assumes that general relativity is the correct theory of gravity on cosmological scales. So, ΛCDM is the most accepted mathematical model of the Big Bang theory.
*The cosmological constant is denoted by lambda (Λ)

©Valerie Domcke (CERN)

ΛCDM requires the introduction of dark matter, which helps, among other things, explain why galaxies rotate faster than expected. But that is not all. Astrophysicists also introduced dark energy to explain the accelerated instead of steady expansion of our universe. Dark matter and energy are huge and are no minor corrections.

Both hypothetical constituents of the universe are required to save Einsteins's theory of general relativity. However, neither has ever been directly observed; astrophysicists have merely indirectly inferred their presence from their gravitational effects.


Natural Constants

Red Baron hasn't counted them, but I confidently repeat what Sabine writes, The currently known laws of nature contain twenty-six constants. We can't calculate those constants; we just determine their values by measurement. The fine-structure constant (α) sets the strength of the electromagnetic force. Planck's constant (ħ) tells us when quantum mechanics becomes relevant. Newton's constant (G) quantifies the strength of gravity. The cosmological constant (Λ) determines the expansion rate of the universe. Then, there are the masses of the elementary particles.

Numerous calculations showed that slight variations in those universal constants would not allow life on planet Earth or could even make our universe collapse.

Did a god fine-tune these constants? Claiming that the constants of nature are fine-tuned for life is not a scientifically sound argument because it depends on arbitrary assumptions. While science does not rule out a creator or a multiverse, science does not require their existence either.

Sabine's conclusion: We have no reason to think the universe was made especially for us or for life in general.


String Theories

Richard Feynman's reaction while Sabine sees no strings attached to experimental results at the LHC.

©Sabine Hossenfelder

String theorists originally hoped they'd be able to calculate the constants of nature. That didn't pan out, so now they argue that if they can't calculate the constants, that must mean all possible values exist somewhere in a multiverse.

Do multiverses with other possible combinations of constants exist? The multiverse hypothesis doesn't explain anything. A good scientific hypothesis is one that is useful for calculating the outcomes of measurements. We can't measure what we can't observe.


Free Will

Discussions about whether we have free will are endless. The final physics verdict is: According to the currently established laws of nature, the past determines the future, except for occasional quantum events that we cannot influence. Indeed, in Sabine's book, any argument in favor of free will is followed by this common thread.

She notes: Much of the debate about free will in the philosophical literature concerns not whether it exists in the first place but how it connects to moral responsibility.

She closes the chapter by declaring that she's a hard determinist and that we have no free will in the commonly accepted sense of "libertarian" free will. Whether you take that to mean that free will does not exist depends on your definition of free will.

The Principle of Least Action

Here comes something personal. Red Baron experienced the same eye-opener as Sabine: When, in the first semester of university physics, the principle of least action was introduced, it was a revelation: there was indeed a procedure to arrive at all those equations! Why hadn't anybody told me?

The principle of least action is also known as Fermat's principle, after Pierre de Fermat, who noticed that nature is minimalistic since a ray of light passes through a medium in a minimum amount of time.

Richard Feynman showed that the principle of least action is universal in physics since it applies to quantum mechanical systems, too. When a particle moves from point A to point B, all possible paths are taken into account, not, as in classical mechanics, only the path of the least action. However, the integral over all paths follows the principle of least action again.


Does the Universe Have Consciousness?

Sabine's answer is brief: If you want consciousness to be physical "stuff," then you'll have to explain how its physics works ... Going by the currently established laws of nature, the universe can't think, ending, You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Powerful artificial intelligence (AI)

Sabine limits herself to a few statements from people who would know about AI:

Elon Musk thinks it's the "biggest existential threat."

Stephen Hawking said it could "be the worst event in the history of our civilization."

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak believes that AIs will "get rid of the slow humans to run companies more efficiently."

And Bill Gates, too, put himself in "the camp that is concerned about super intelligence."

In 2015, the Future of Life Institute formulated an open letter calling for caution and formulating a list of research priorities. It was signed by more than eight thousand people.


Is there a Purpose?

Sabine dares to criticize Stephen Hawking when he states that "there is no possibility of a creator." She points out that religion matters to many people in a way that science doesn't. 

The belief in an omniscient being that can interfere with the laws of nature but that, for some reason, remains hidden from us is a common element of monotheistic religions.

So she finds it likely that, in our ongoing process of knowledge discovery, religion, and science will continue to coexist for a very long time. That's because science itself is limited, and where science ends, we seek other modes of explanation.

Sabine insists that her book is about what we can know or not. I am saying that what's beyond what we can observe is purely a matter of belief. Science doesn't say anything about whether something exists or doesn't exist. Hence, claiming something exists is ascientific, and so is claiming it doesn't exist. If you want to talk about it, fine, but don't pretend it's science. Her argument closely follows that of Professor Urban.


The Benefits of Science

Scientists are often asked what the practical benefits of their research are. On the other hand, Sabine sees that science opens our eyes to possibilities we couldn't previously imagine, much less comprehend. Far from taking away wonder, science gives us more to marvel at. It expands our minds. She continues, saying that we have the desire to make sense of our own existence. We all have our own approach to sense making, and I have illustrated mine through the examples in this book.

Above all, my audience served as a constant reminder that knowledge matters, regardless of whether it has technological applications.

Conclusion

I share Sabine's feelings, which she expressed near the end of her book: I've spent most of this book discussing what physics teaches us about our own existence. I hope you've enjoyed the tour, but maybe you sometimes couldn't avoid the impression that this is heavy stuff that doesn't do much to solve problems in the real world.

Thank you, Sabine. You still got an old man excited.

*

AMOC

stands for Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and is a horror scenario regularly good for a headline. AMOC means that the warming Gulf Stream is "drying up," with devastating consequences for the climate on the European continent.

In a recent article in Science Advances, "Physics-based early warning signal shows that AMOC is on tipping course," René M. van Westen, Michael Kliphuis, and Henk A. Dijkstra try to predict the date of collapse for the AMOC. It is comforting that their simulations show that the tipping point will occur no earlier than 2100. Still, they also warned that their stimulation was incomplete due to the lack of data, and the tipping may occur earlier or later (?).

However, there are reasons to take these predictions with a grain of salt since the Earth system is currently blowing up all models with its incredibly rapid heating.

2023 was a year with air and ocean temperatures far beyond all normal fluctuations, and 2024 "promises" to be even hotter. March of this year in Germany was four full degrees Celsius warmer than the long-term average from 1961 to 1990. 

Highest temperatures on April 6, 2024

Nine days ago, we beat all the temperature records.

The thick grey line is the average temperature of the Atlantic surface over a year
up to 2022. The thick red line is the temperature anomaly observed in 2023
 that is continuing in 2924 (brown line) (©Nahel Belgherze)

The oceans are even hotter than the air. Extreme weather expert Maximiliano Herrera said, "We are entering uncharted territory regarding heat records. Nothing compares to what we've been experiencing since 2023."

There will most likely be even more extreme rainfall events this year than in the catastrophic year of 2023. At the same time, the polar ice is melting much faster and regenerating much more slowly than in the past. This, among other things, makes the seawater in the polar regions less salty.

The Gulf Stream transports warm tropical water into the north.
After cooling, the water streams back into the southern Atlantic.
a)During the last ice age. b) The present situation (©van Westen et al.)

This situation could trigger the massive planetary catastrophe of AMOC much faster than previously estimated. Temperatures in northern Europe would drop dramatically within a very short time.

Scandinavia and the British Isles experience permafrost,
while the average annual temperature in the continental coastal regions
stays below 0 °C. (©van Westen et al.)

Elsewhere on the globe, monsoon regions would shift, and sea levels would rise abruptly, for example, on the US Atlantic coast. As climate expert Stefan Rahmstorf stated, "All in all, there would be devastating consequences for humanity and ecosystems in the sea and on land."

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