Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2011-07-02]: Scientists from the Tevatron accelerator claim that preliminary results show a possible explanation of the great mystery of why matter is much more than anti-matter in our Universe [source: BBC News]. When protons and anti-protons collide, new particles are formed which start decaying. Scientists claim they have found that some matter particles decay faster than other anti-matter ones. But what is that? Is that an explanation? Or merely a tautology? When you do not know why matter is more than anti-matter, is the claim “some matter particles decay slower than their anti-matter counterparts” a scientific explanation? Or do we just push back the problem to the previous step? If we ask “why is A > B”, is the claim “because A = C and C is greater than B” and explanation, or do we need to justify why C is greater than A also? Wittgenstein thought all mathematics is a mere tautology. What we learn today is that this may be applied to physics as well…(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective...
