“Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient "coincidences" and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. Fred Hoyle, the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if "a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics". To see the problem, imagine playing God with the cosmos. Before you is a designer machine that lets you tinker with the basics of physics. Twiddle this knob and you make all electrons a bit lighter, twiddle that one and you make gravity a bit stronger, and so on. It happens that you need to set thirtysomething knobs to fully describe the world about us. The crucial point is that some of those metaphorical knobs must be tuned very precisely, or the universe would be sterile. Example: neutrons are just a tad heavier than protons. If it were the other way around, atoms couldn't exist, because all the protons in the universe would have decayed into neutrons shortly after the big bang. No protons, then no atomic nucleuses and no atoms. No atoms, no chemistry, no life. Like Baby Bear's porridge in the story of Goldilocks, the universe seems to be just right for life.”
Quote by Paul Davies
Author
Paul Davies, born April 22, 1946, is a British theoretical physicist, cosmologist and prolific science writer. After earning his PhD at Cambridge, he held faculty positions at Oxford, UC San Diego and the Australian National University, focusing on cosmology, quantum gravity, black‑hole thermodynamics and the physics of life's origins. Known for his interdisciplinary outlook and clear popular‑science books such as "The Mind of God" and "The Goldilocks Enigma," Davies has been elected Fellow of the Royal Society and Fellow of the American Physical Society. His research advances fundamental physics, while his outreach has shaped public understanding of the universe and its deeper philosophical implications. more
You May Also Like
“Who did you ever sell something to without them paying attention?”
“Beginnings are happy never-endings as long as you remember where you started from.”