Last week I got to spend time in the NBC studio where they record Meet The Press — re-decorated for this occasion in a cosmic theme, with beautiful images of galaxies and large-scale-structure simulations in the background. The occasion was a special panel discussion to follow a Stephen Hawking special that will air on the Discovery Channel this Sunday, August 7. David Gregory, who usually hosts MTP, was the moderator. I played the role of the hard-boiled atheist; Paul Davies played the physicist who was willing to entertain the possibility of “God” if defined with sufficient abstraction, while John Haught played the Catholic theologian who is sympathetic to science.
The Hawking special is the kick-off episode to a major new Discovery program, called simply Curiosity. I predict it will make something of a splash. The reason is simple: although most of the episode is about science, Hawking clearly goes all-in with “God does not exist.” It’s not a message we often hear on American TV.
The atheistic conclusion is really surprisingly explicit. I had a chance to talk to someone at Discovery, who explained a little about how the program came about. The secret is that it was originally produced by the BBC — British audiences have a different set of expectations than American ones do. My completely fictional reconstruction of the conversation would go something like this. Discovery: Hey, blokes! Do you have any programs we could use to launch our major new series? BBC: Sure, we have a new special narrated by Stephen Hawking. Discovery: Perfect! That’s always box office. What’s it about? BBC: It’s about how there is no God. Discovery: Ah.
[Update: Alas, reality is intruding upon my meant-to-be-funny imaginary dialogue. The episode was actually originally commissioned by Discovery, not by the BBC, although it was produced in the UK. More power to Discovery!]
At first, I will confess to a smidgin of annoyance that an opportunity to talk about fascinating science was being sacrificed to yet another discussion about religion. But quickly, even before anyone else had the joy of pointing it out to me, I realized how spectacularly hypocritical that was. I talk about religion all the time — why shouldn’t Stephen Hawking get the same opportunity?
The more I thought about it, the more appropriate I thought the episode really was. I can’t speak for Hawking, but I presume his interest in the topic stems from similar sources as my own. It’s not just a coincidence that we are theoretical cosmologists who happen to go around arguing that God doesn’t exist. The question of God and the questions of cosmology arise from a common impulse — to understand how the world works at its most fundamental level. These issues naturally go hand-in-hand. Pretending otherwise, I believe, probably stems from a desire on the part of religious believers to insulate their worldview from scientific critique.
Besides, people find it interesting, and rightfully so. Professional scientists are sometimes irritated by the tendency of the public to dwell on what scientists think are the “wrong” questions. Most people are fascinated by questions about God, life after death, life on other worlds, and other issues that touch on what it means to be human. These might not be fruitful research projects for most professional scientists, but part of our job should be to occasionally step back and look at the bigger picture. That’s exactly what Hawking is doing here, and more power to him. (In terms of his actual argument, I’m sympathetic to the general idea, but would take issue with some of the particulars.)
Nevertheless, Discovery was not going to feature an hour of rah-rah atheism without a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. Thus, our panel discussion, which will air immediately after the debut of Curiosity (i.e., 9pm Eastern/Pacific). The four of us had fun, and I think the result will be an interesting program — and hopefully I did the side proud, as the only legit atheist participating. Gregory seemed to enjoy himself, and joked that he might have to give up politics to do a weekly show about cosmology. (A guy can dream…) But we all agreed that it was incredibly frustrating to have so little time to talk about such big issues. The show will run for half an hour; subtract commercials, and we’re left with about 21 minutes of substance. Then subtract introduction, questions, some background videos that were shown … we three panelists had about five minutes each of speaking time. Not really enough to spell out convincing answers to the major questions that have troubled thinkers for centuries. Hopefully some of the basic points came across. Let us know what you think.
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Stephen Hawking‘s favorite idea is that the universe came out of “nothing” — it arose (although that’s not really the right word) as a quantum fluctuation with literally no pre-existing state. No space, no time, no anything.
These ideas are receiving a lot more attention in the popular media and press, and I think that a few pointers to the technical ideas that motivate them are necessary. So here’s some scientific background and links on universe ex nihilo theories, a background that isn’t presented widely enough, even at scienceblogs that address the subject specifically.
Guth’s Inflationary Universe is a must-read, in which Guth explains ex nihilo theories with the colorful statement:
Guth provides technical reasons for this claim:
Guth goes on to explain a simple argument for all this that if you grasp, you will understand a fact of gravity that evaded Newton. Unfortunately, Google books doesn’t have Appendix A online.
Guth’s technical explanation above is what is meant by the nontechnical, poetic description, like Hawking’s: “Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.”
Here are some pointers to a quick technical explanation of the creation of a universe from literally nothing subject to the laws of quantum mechanics.
A technical account of the universe ex nihilo, following Vilenkin, “Creation of universes from nothing”. Physics Letters B Volume 117, Issues 1-2, 4 November 1982, Pages 25–28. Available here.
1. Observe the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric for universal expansion:
ds² = dt² – a(t)|dx|²
This is the space-time geometry with the spatial scale term a(t) describing the growth/contraction of the universe. This is Vilenkin’s equation (2).
2. Solve the evolution equation:
a(t) = (1/H)cosh(Ht)
where H² = (8π/3)Gρ is the Hubble parameter.
This is Vilenkin’s equation (3). So far, there is no explanation of a universe from nothing because the de Sitter space isn’t nothing, as everyone agrees.
3. Observe that at t = 0, the physics has the same form as a potential barrier, for which it is known that quantum tunneling is possible. The description of quantum tunneling involves a transformation t → it, with i² = –1.
Now the evolution equation is
a(t) = (1/H)cos(Ht) [the cosine “cos”, not the hyperbolic cosine “cosh”]
valid for |t| < π/2/H. This is Vilenkin’s equation (5). Space-Time is simply the 4-sphere, a compact, i.e, bounded space. At the scale a(t) = 0, this space is literally nothing. No space-time, no energy, no particles. Nothing. The interpretation of (5) is quantum tunneling from literally nothing to de Sitter space, the universe as we know it. See Figure 1a in Vilenkin’s paper for a depiction of the creation of the universe from nothing using this explanation.
Vilenkin says in the paper, “A cosmological model is proposed in which the universe is created by quantum tunneling from literally nothing into a de Sitter space. After the tunneling, the model evolves along the lines of the inflationary scenario. This model does not have a big-bang singularity and does not require any initial or boundary conditions. … In this paper I would like to suggest a new cosmological scenario in which the universe is spontaneously created from literally nothing, and which is free from the difficulties I mentioned in the preceding paragraph. This scenario does not require any changes in the fundamental equations of physics; it only gives a new interpretation to a well-known cosmological solution. … The concept of the universe being created from nothing is a crazy one. To help the reader make peace with this concept, I would like to give an example of a compact instanton in a more familiar setting. …”
This is what physicists mean by “nothing”. Nonexistent space-time, subject to the laws of quantum mechanics.
Guth provides a nontechnical explanation:
Here’s another brief, skeptical look at the Scole experiments. Note in the comments one person claiming to be from SPR who largely agrees with the criticism.
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4179
@ Steve Smith,
“This is what physicists mean by “nothing”. Nonexistent space-time, subject to the laws of quantum mechanics.”
What the heck does that mean? How can something which is nonexistent be subject to anything, let alone “laws of quantum mechanics.” What does “laws” even mean in the absence of anything?
Alan,
Thanks for the info.
I’m going to bow out now on this one — these types of discussions always seem to degenerate.
Only one point: regarding Dr. Puthoff you say:
“Frankly I also think it is beyond the pale the way you attempt to smear a fine theoretical and experimental physicist. . . You should be ashamed.”
This is why rationale discussions sometimes become difficult. All I did was copy from the wiki page, and I gave the link if others wanted to read more.
It wasn’t an attempt to smear anyone. The wiki section I copied was not edited to make it conform to my view, and it also contained statements somewhat favorable to paranormal research.
Sorry, but it wasn’t beyond the pale and I’m not ashamed, only a little disappointed.
Chris
I’ve seen that. If you scroll up on the comments in that article you’ll find Tim Coleman’s comment. He produced the documentary in my second last link at 75 above. He says he could “demolish” the arguments in the initial article you give …”childish in their logic”, he says.
Better though is a 3 page article written by the independent referee, Dr. Crawford Knox, within the Scole Report (1999). I am afraid you can’t find his article online but I’ll quote a little:
1. “The report is long, detailed and clearly presented and demands, I believe, to be taken very seriously.”
2. “If it is read as a whole, I think it is likely it will mark an important step in attempts to place on a firm footing evidence for the existence of a spirit world and its impact on our everyday world and for survival of death.”
Mike
Thanks for your comments but I think one must really concentrate on phenomena only, even unpalatably, subjective ones. If you didn’t mean to “smear” then fair enough but I have seen attempts, though not just aimed at him.
As for the links my aim was only to indicate that there seem to be converging lines of evidence in this subject – some physicists at least are trying to model. Cheers.
Here’s a nice post by Peter Woit in which is comments on the multiverse hype using, as an example, looking for evidence of eternal inflation in the CMB data. Null results. http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3879
Here’s a paper, http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.3667, co-authored by someone who wrote a guest post on this blog about looking for evidence of bubble universes in CMB data:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/12/22/observing-the-multiverse-guest-post/
They found nothing.
I strongly recommend going to another Discovery Magazine site:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/07/13/free-will-is-as-real-as-baseball
Buried in that article was a clickable word “duality”. So I clicked on it, bringing one to:
http://twistedphysics.typepad.com/cocktail_party_physics/2011/01/dueling-dualities.html
There you will find an amazing essay by Jennifer Ouellette who is Sean Carroll’s partner. If Sean chats with her about such matters it is surprising that he takes such a narrow-minded view on what God is about. There are many versions of God other than the old-fashioned literalist version. Ouellette’s subtlety on this issue is most welcome (it involves a bit of quantum mechanics thinking). The narrow Carroll-Hawking atheism position has the downside that many people who have some sense of God (not necessarily purely literal) will conclude that scientists are narrow-minded and possibly wrong on important issues like climate change. That’s not healthy for science education.
Alan,
The fact that Tim Coleman says that the arguments are ‘child-like in their logic’ doesn’t really mean anything, since he doesn’t bother to demonstrate this and the article in question isn’t really making any ‘arguments’ – it’s pointing out the obviously unscientific procedures involved in the experiment, procedures that are comically bad, in my view. There’s no way to obviate the terribleness of these procedures, and all I see in their ‘defense’ from proponents are quotes like ‘Person X said it couldn’t have been faked,’ and the like. That is just meaningless personal opinion.
The experiment is worthless, since the experimenters did pretty much everything wrong – indeed, their procedures could be used as a textbook case of how NOT to run an experiment (as the article points out).
I would be completely happy to see good evidence of life after death – I’d like to survive death as much as everyone else. But an experiment like this isn’t it, even on a minimal level, much less as some sort of ‘strong’ evidence.
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Chris
“…procedures that are comically bad…”, “…terribleness of these procedures…” …”worthless”…
I am really trying to understand this comment not from the point of view of the “procedures” but from the viewpoint of yourself, how you think and what you would consider evidence.
“procedures” – multiple light displays, including lights entering crystals, variable “sheet light forms” and “golden moving globes”, and on two occasions flying pea-sized lights entering/exiting investigators bodies took place – ALL in a bare searched stone cellar. Also incredibly detailed information from the mediums of knowledge they did not possess and also at locations in Europe and two places in the US. Only with the four sitters present BTW with scientist investigators and others.
What “procedures” were lacking that allowed such phenomena to occur?
I honestly ask this question.
The four sitters wore shirt sleeves and light dresses (two ladies) and the cellar was searched repeatedly. See the above links for this.
“faked” – this must be nailed as a comment because there are two possibilities, fake or real.
There must be clarity on this as there is NO third answer. Fraud was never found.
Only REAL is left – nonmaterial intelligence manifested and at many locations but only in the presence of the four “Scole sitters”, but with the investigators.
A very senior physicist was a witness and has tried to model the space around us in a way that includes “information spaces” wedded to the higher dimensional spaces of physics – all to try to explain phenomena like this. I met him once at a meeting in London and he spoke about this. Also he gave a talk about it at a very prestigious UK scientific Society. I find this so interesting – an attempt to model a reality where non-material intelligence can manifest, no less.
Chris, consider this – we have been brought up on such a “bad diet” of poor shows on TV regarding this subject that it is very difficult to consider as real what is implied here, especially in a techno world where all is apparently known. We tend to “default out” and make a run for it. One must not do this.
Finally if you were there you would have seen the same incredible light displays, photographic phenomena, levitating crystals, heard direct voices etc. I wonder what you would have made of it? I would have been awed.
Cosmos is God; the equator of All in all.-Aiya-Oba (Philosopher).
Alan,
I don’t know if you saw the comment by Peter Wadhams, purported member of SPR, but here it is:
“I am an SPR member, but regretfully must agree with your critical article about Scole. And there is one further item which you didn’t spot, but which is clear evidence of fraud (it is mentioned in the report): the fact that one of the exposed film canisters contained a strip of impressive-looking kabbalistic writings and drawings, which the intrepid investigator Tony Cornell showed as having been traced from a popular book on kabbalism. Cornell showed how the material could have been put onto tracing paper then exposed to produce an image identical to that obtained. He even found the marks where the tracing paper had been fixed against the film and exposed to create the fraud. This was a film which was in the easy-to-open box created by one of the mediums. It is clear proof of fraud and really shows that the SPR people at Scole were taken in. Yet Keen and Fontana would never admit that they may have been fooled. Very sad.”
So let’s look at what we have here. We have a field, mediumship, that is highly implausible in its claims to begin with (talking to the dead, for example), and where there is already a great deal of documented fraud. We have a poor experimental protocol, in which the mediums design their own experiment, in essence (this here is enough to invalidate any experiment, not just this one). We have a typical magician/medium set-up in the mediums’ very own ‘performing space’, in the dark (where concealment is easier), with supposedly locked boxes, glowing wristbands (as the article notes, common tricks of the trade). We have no film documentation and no real attempt to catch the mediums cheating (Did anyone violate the rules and sneak a night vision camera in? Did anyone even jump up and turn on the lights? ¬– many a medium has been caught by this very simple method.). Then we have a group of people, probably already believers in psychic phenomena (and thus susceptible to suggestion and trickery in that regard), wowed, however sincerely, by some lights and some likely bogus photographic effects. And we have, possibly, evidence of fraud right in the SPR’s own report.
You seem to take the reports of the phenomena at face value, and to be impressed by them. Let’s grant that they were impressive. But couldn’t they be impressive, yet fake? Impressive but fake phenomena is the very stock of the mediums’ trade historically. If it weren’t ‘impressive’, even the credulous wouldn’t believe it. So the personal impressiveness of phenomena is no guide to its reality. Even scientists are easy to fool (and this has also been amply documented in the history of paranormal fraud). For someone to assert ‘it couldn’t have been faked’ is simply absurd. Really, it couldn’t have been faked under any circumstances? Or is ‘couldn’t have been faked’ simply equivalent to ‘I personally don’t know how it could have been (or was) faked’?
In the same vein, not finding evidence of fraud doesn’t mean that there was no fraud. It could mean there was no fraud; but it could also mean that the fraud was successful. You can see this, right? If the fraud were successful, obviously no evidence would be found. So Tim Coleman’s assertion that he didn’t find fraud doesn’t mean a thing (and this is leaving aside any questions about his investigative abilities, which might very well be extremely poor, however well-meaning).
So, to my mind, not only is Scoles not good evidence for the paranormal, but it is in fact as dismal an effort as can be imagined. You may find that view unfair – I would’ve agreed wholeheartedly with you a few years ago. But Scoles just looks like fraud and credulity to me now.
Are discussions such as “Hawking and God” to shed light or stimulate controversy ?
My understanding of what science such as cosmology does is provide descriptions of the composition and functions of parts or all of the universe which is subject to measurement and analysis by the tools available to us.
Merely being able to describe in increasingly accurate detail a 747 surely does not and cannot exclude a designer / maker (Boeing ).
I doubt that “the God Hypothesis” can be falsified by more accurate descriptions of what exists .
It may be falsified by our being able to accurately detect the presence of nothing i.e no quantum fields … etc , really nothing and demonstrating that something arises from it. We must also demonstrate – not believe – that intelligence can arise spontaneously from the laws of physics and chemistry.
@Phil 79
“What the heck does that mean? How can something which is nonexistent be subject to anything, let alone “laws of quantum mechanics.” What does “laws” even mean in the absence of anything?”
It means mathematics. t → it at t = 0 + i. Nothing here means the universe at time i; imaginary time.
Liberal theology accepts all the findings of science and simply adds on God. So evolution is just God’s way of creating species. Let’s just say quantum tunneling is how God does it, shall we? Now, shall we all go home?
@ Leigh,
You’re full of %^&* and living your life in imaginary time in an imaginary world where your arguments make any sense whatsoever.
Chris
1.
Peter Wadhams comments are from his reading only of the Scole Report – selective reading which is totally disingenuous. He was not a witness. The authors give a detailed reply to this, in fact a 23 page reply to all commenters to the Report. If one doesn’t read this by getting the Report itself you cannot judge. Make that step. Go to spr.ac.uk
Also these are sealed films, rolled up inside plastic containers, inside locked boxes, which are then developed. Detailed writing and images are found from extremely obscure literary references. I have seen the images and they are reproductions but not copies.
I must say that comments like Wadhams give people “hope” that things will return to normal!
2.
Peter Wadhams ignores the light phenomena – I don’t know why. Why do you? The descriptions I give above are detailed so please read. Wadhams also ignores the fact that the phenomena were seen at multiple locations around the world.
Could I ask you to read this carefully and come back? I honestly ask for mechanisms of reproduction of the lights – remember no equipment ever found in a bare stone cellar, searched by an electrical engineering professor, Arthur Ellison and others or at other locations.
http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=9&pageid=91&pgtype=1
3.
You say “we have a field, mediumship, that is highly implausible…” You are closing this off from the outset. Why?
4.
Also you have to prove how to reproduce ALL the phenomena seen, high speed blue-green lights hovering in front of investigators, entering their boodies, sheet light forms, golden hovering/moving globes, photographic images, detailed knowlege from the mediums, glowing crystal levitations and materialization/dematerialization of crystals. And there is more.
5.
You also have to account for why some scientists who were witnesses or who know about Scole are spending years of their lives trying to model reality to account for these and related phenomena, e.g. NDEs, remote viewing etc. – converging lines of evidence, as I said above for the existence of non-material intelligences and the possible survival of bodily death.
6.
Fraud. Fraud is a human phenomenon and is everywhere, in business, science (though hopefully little), mediumship and human life in general. But one must also recognize truth when it appears.
7.
One thought – if there was nothing to all this, nothing would be seen. And yet it was.
Chris
In fact Professor Fontana answers Tony Cornell’s (and others) criticisms in the link I give above:
http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=9&pageid=91&pgtype=1
This link is from 2000.
“Criticisms of the investigation are fully detailed in the Report, and come primarily from three distinguished and highly experienced SPR members, namely Dr. Alan Gauld and Professor Donald West (both to whom had a sitting with the Group at which no sign of possible fraud was detected) and Tony Cornell. These criticisms contain no charges of fraud and no direct evidence for it, and focus upon the fact that as the controls were imperfect, fraud could theoretically have taken place. These criticisms can be summarized and answered as follows.
* The vulnerability of the Alan Box which contained some of the films used during the sittings. Experiments by Dr. Gauld revealed that even when padlocked the lid could be opened by swiveling the sockets holding the hasp through which the padlock was threaded. Anticipating this danger we had ensured that paint seals were applied to the screws holding the sockets as a safeguard. When the box was returned to us after Dr. Gauld’s experiments these seals were seen to be broken (although Dr. Gauld informs us that this did not happen on his initial openings).
However, the challenge is to take the box from the table (or from Walter Schnittger’s grasp in the experiment detailed above), to open the box under the conditions operating during the sittings, to abstract the film contained in the box and to substitute it for a prepared fake, to place the arms of the hasp back in their sockets (a difficult maneuver even in daylight), to replace the box in its exact position on the table (which on occasions was carefully marked prior to the sittings), and to effect all this without detection and without breaking the paint seals.
To date, no critic has undertaken to attempt this feat.
* Some of the images on the films have the appearance of being faked on acetate before being transferred to the films. This criticism is less weighty than it appears. It applies only to one particular film, and the similarity of the images concerned to those obtainable by the acetate method does not constitute direct evidence of fraud. The challenge to critics is to reproduce the filmed material, using this method, under the conditions operating during the sittings.”
And then there are ALL the other phenomena to also explain.
One must take comments like Peter Wadhams’ not on their face value, which would be a serious error, but in the context of a 3 year investigation. They are strange in the sense that if one can prove (which nobody has) or even strongly infer fraud, then the whole of the investigation collapses. Clearly this is not true.
An honest reader, even if not a witness to the investigations, will say this is not true.
Alan,
I didn’t deal with the light phenomena largely due to space considerations, since that would involve bringing in psychological and perceptual issues, which would take forever to elaborate. The fact that some scientists are dedicating their lives to it, etc., is fine by me, but again, it doesn’t make the phenomena any more ‘real’ – it just means that they were really, really impressed by it, i.e.. it was a great fake. Bravo, then. But I can’t be impressed by it on their behalf. There’s lots of ‘impressive’ testimony about Bigfoot, too, but I don’t believe in that either, due to lack of physical evidence. Personal testimony is the worst form of evidence – again, due to the psychological/perceptual issues involved.
Mediumship is all about performance. If these mediums can reproduce this phenomena under actual scientific investigative conditions (and then repeat it several times), that would be more meaningful. But to produce it only under conditions they control invalidates the entire thing – again, that is just a minimum investigative standard, not met at all here. This is my main point. The standards were so bad that it’s not even necessary to try to ‘prove’ it was faked; the entire experiment easily allowed fakery at each and every point. Let’s see these mediums do this with, for example, hidden cameras around. Wouldn’t you rather see that? Aren’t you a little suspicious about the conditions as they were? I think you should be.
As to mediumship being implausible by nature, well, that seems to me a perfectly fair and earned view. First, the history of mediumship is filled with exactly the same story we’re getting here: impressive phenomena that are ‘impossible to fake’, scientists astounded, dedicate their lives, etc. Then somebody has the bright idea to turn on the lights, and the whole thing collapses. And we already have at least some evidence of fraud, with a seal broken and manipulated film.
Second, it IS implausible that people can speak to dead people, or conjure spirits, etc. That should be the default view, in my opinion. It’s not ruling it out, it’s just being critical at the outset. What are the assumptions behind speaking to the dead? The existence of immaterial souls, the existence of an afterlife, the maintenance of consciousness without a physical brain, possession of another’s mind, various violations of the laws of physics, etc. Every one of those things is implausible in itself (not to mention totally unproven) and when you stack them together, well…it seems like a critical view is warranted.
So, to reiterate, the conditions ruin the entire experiment. No amount of ‘rebuttal’ to criticism (which, by the way, seem weak to me, but I won’t get into it) can overcome this problem. There was so much opportunity for fraud that it is unnecessary to try to ‘prove’ fraud. Only reproducing the phenomena under more stringent conditions would be meaningful. I’ll bet that either the mediums would not agree to such conditions, or would fail if they did. And then we would hear all over again how it doesn’t work when skeptics are present, etc….
Thank you for the discussion. I’ll give you the last word.
Calling the series “Curiosity” seems a bit disingenuous when the purpose of the BBC/Discovery launched affront to people of faith, is to extinguish anything but a mind-numbed adherence to the atheist/evolutionist worldview.
Hawking may be the most brilliant scientific mind that rolled down the pike, but a one-sided worldview pretending that science is the end-all, be-all to human existence, is as ludicrous as the notion that any discipline (science included) that has virtually opened it’s eyes 18 seconds ago, is apprised of sufficient sagacity to rule out the need for discovery any further than our limited five senses will take us. What if science later shows us that we have three other human senses yet undiscovered?
Discovery? Tommy-rot.
Please Note: This Is A Re-Post Of A Comment I Made On A More Recent Thread (“Water on Mars”) ( http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/08/04/water-on-mars/ ) – This Post May Be More “On-Topic” Here Than There?
If Interested – A Related Discussion About “Hawking And God” May Be Found On Wikipedia At the Following -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Stephen_Hawking#Stephen_Hawking_-_does_not_believe_in_god
One Comment Posted To The Wikipedia Discussion May Summarize The Current Thinking:
In Any Case – Enjoy! 🙂
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