We're Either Suspiciously Lucky, or There Really Are Many Universes Out There
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Loading... - Barbara Clark
- 16 Mar 2023
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It's easy to envisage other universes, governed by slightly different laws of physics, in which no intelligent life, nor indeed any kind of organized complex systems, could arise. Should we therefore be surprised that a universe exists in which we were able to emerge?
That's a question physicists including me have tried to answer for decades. But it is proving difficult.
Although we can confidently trace cosmic history back to one second after the Big Bang, what happened before is harder to gauge. Our accelerators simply can't produce enough energy to replicate the extreme conditions that prevailed in the first nanosecond.
But we expect that it's in that first tiny fraction of a second that the key features of our Universe were imprinted.
The conditions of the Universe can be described through its "fundamental constants" – fixed quantities in nature, such as the gravitational constant (called G) or the speed of light (called C). There are about 30 of these representing the sizes and strengths of parameters such as particle masses, forces or the Universe's expansion.
But our theories don't explain what values these constants should have. Instead, we have to measure them and plug their values into our equations to accurately describe nature.
The values of the constants are in the range that allows complex systems such as stars, planets, carbon and ultimately humans to evolve. Physicists have discovered that if we tweaked some of these parameters by just a few percent, it would render our Universe lifeless.
The fact that life exists therefore takes some explaining.
Some argue it is just a lucky coincidence. An alternative explanation, however, is that we live in a multiverse, containing domains with different physical laws and values of fundamental constants.
Most might be wholly unsuitable for life. But a few should, statistically speaking, be life-friendly. Read More…
