Origins of the Laws of Nature - Peter Atkins

Thermodynamics. Speed of light. Conservation of energy. Where do the fundamental laws of nature come from?

Peter Atkins explores the pieces that build up the complexity of the universe and argues that it all came from very little, or arguably from nothing at all.

Peter Atkins began his academic life as an undergraduate at the University of Leicester, and remained there for his PhD. He then went to the University of California, Los Angeles as a Harkness Fellow and returned to Oxford as lecturer in physical chemistry and fellow of Lincoln College in 1965, where he remained as professor of chemistry until his retirement in 2007. He has received honorary doctorates from universities in the United Kingdom (Leicester), the Netherlands (Utrecht), and Russia (Mendeleev University, Moscow, and Kazan State Technological University) and has been a visiting professor at universities in France, Japan, China, New Zealand, and Israel.

This talk and Q&A was filmed in the Ri on 21 May 2018.

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[mathematicalmuscleman]

I have so much respect for this brilliant Physical Chemist. Loved his PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY Textbook!!!

[stuartdryer]

I remember using this fellow's textbook when I took P Chem back in the 70s. It was very clear.

[Bogusgal]

I am finally free. Now, I can study science freely!

[Thefamiliaguy]

Nothing he said in this video gave an explanation for the origin of any law in nature. All his attempted explanations used laws themselves.

[AnimeshSharma]

This, at least of Boltzmann Distribution @40 mts, was the most beautiful presentation i have ever seen! Thanks :)

[Biga]

Though he is correct in his statement that absolutely nothing is without spacetime, he fails to truly create absolutely nothing when he imposes uniformity and isotopy. Imposing this means there has to be something, a coordinate system of some sort, with which to impose this on. Absolutely nothing can't be more or less dense, but it also can not be uniform. The concept is meaningless without space to measure it relative to. The amount of something contained in some space. But without anything in it, and without space to measure it in we would have 0/0.

Imposing any physical property inherently means we have something present that is capable of having this physical property applied to it. Beyond that, if time does not exist beforehand, there would be an asymmetry in time at the creation of time. So energy would not be conserved at the beginning of time.

[SchiwiM]

Very good talk, thanks for this interesting idea of "Nothing"

[medusaskull]

Nothing exists without something. Something has to be there to govern the state of nothing; otherwise, nothing will almost be anything that we can't imagine. Imagination is actually information. Information is something. We cannot describe nothing without using information. We are now dealing with the new egg and chicken problem. Does nothing exist before information or does information exist first?

[sathyapilai]

Phenomenal experience, you travelled along the entire duration i.e from the origin to the present, it's a beautiful present

[buzzword]

Atkins' book Physical Chemistry is the best science book I've ever encountered, a masterpiece of clear writing. If you think this talk is somehow dated and out-of-touch, you are wrong: Atkins knows modern physics at a high level and, like Feynman, he comes off as naive at first, only later do you realize that you've been served some deep concept usually reserved for those with advanced mathematical training. Check out Feynman's QED for a great example of this.

[VictorBaggio]

Ok, some thoughts. In the beginning, his theory was looking like bad metaphysics - like the old rationalist ones, with axioms and entities that came out of nowhere. Then he set course to justify his inicial postulates on the basis of firmly grounded physics, and that was when it became a bit interesting. I thought that perhaps he would present good arguments to condensate and aggregate physical theories into concepts, which would be interesting in a metaphysical speculative sense. But no solid reason was presented, just brief comments and analogies. It would only be relevant to make this conceptualization if he could logically or argumentatively prove that this three concepts are the fundamental "logical atoms" or imperatives of all fundamental physical reality. That is no easy task, and he failed, or he omitted all the revolutionary evidence of the talk. Then he used this unjustified concepts to take relational and causal jumps with no justification. In the end it was impossible to understand if he could see the line between fundamental aspects of reality and theoretical concepts. This is not philosophy. Contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of physics are very serious fields that have lots of interesting and important things to say. This is just opinion.

[dogwithwigwamz.]

I like Peter Atkins, especially when he says such things as - to paraphrase - his book is one full of words.
Nevertheless I think God not only can but must exist.

[bradchapman]

It is a mistake to suppose that the elementary particles and forces are constrained in their behavior by some invisible hand we call "The Laws of Nature". As though the laws of nature existed before there was any material for them to work upon. (John 1:1) This is exactly backwards from how the laws of nature were formulated by the scientific method. Laws of nature are descriptions of how nature behaves, as discovered through experience. With better and more accurate precision in observation these descriptions of nature are finely tuned to match the phenomena actually observed.
The value of Pi is a description of nature more precise than the universe can actually manifest.

[jonathanyouth]

Dr Atkins is one of the very few scientists who answer "why" instead of "how", making his argument inevitably metaphysical. Great insights he has got!

[DocHuard]

Lost me at 13 when the advert popped up in the middle of a sentence and it made more sense.

[Gringohuevon]

Old scientists talk rubbish..it is the fate of us all

[davidfriedlander]

How can "absolutely nothing" be homogeneous when it doesn't exist in space?

[kokolanza]

Yikes - a bit beyond me. Thanks very much for a clear and clearly explained model in any case. I wonder if a justifiable theory can be built on the hypothesis that consciousness creates the universe. From what it is aware of and what it is not. Thanks again Prof. Atkins. Will probably have to watch your presentation again - the law of my nature is that it's kind of dense. 🙂

[smashexentertainment]

There must be a lot of either creationists or extremely smart astrophysicists in a comment section.

[IndigoPoetCreations]

An ancient idea with new ideas for clothes. Worth a thought, although not my philosophy.