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Chapter 9: Anthropism
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/rossuk/c-anthro.htm
Anthropic Principle
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"A life-giving factor lies at the centre of the whole
machinery and design of the world." John Wheeler
"everything about the universe tends toward humans, toward making
life possible and sustaining it" Hugh Ross
"... the Anthropic Principle says that the seemingly arbitrary and
unrelated constants in physics have one strange thing in common--these
are precisely the values you need if you want to have a universe capable
of producing life." Patrick Glynn
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The Anthropic Principle was first suggested in a 1973 paper, by the astrophysicist
and cosmologist Brandon Carter from Cambridge University, at a conference
held in Poland to celebrate the 500th birthday of the father of modern
astronomy, Nicolaus Copernicus. The Anthropic Principle is an attempt
to explain the observed fact that the fundamental constants of physics
and chemistry are just right or fine-tuned to allow the universe and life
at we know it to exist. (see Cosmic Matters). The Anthropic Principle
says that the seemingly arbitrary and unrelated constants in physics have
one strange thing in common--these are precisely the values you need if
you want to have a universe capable of producing life. The universe gives
the appearance that it was designed to support life on earth, another
example of Paley's watch.
• Gravity is roughly 1039 times
weaker than electromagnetism. If gravity had been 1033 times weaker than
electromagnetism, "stars would be a billion times less massive and
would burn a million times faster."
• The nuclear weak force is 1028
times the strength of gravity. Had the weak force been slightly weaker,
all the hydrogen in the universe would have been turned to helium (making
water impossible, for example).
• A stronger nuclear strong force (by as little as 2 percent) would
have prevented the formation of protons--yielding a universe without atoms.
Decreasing it by 5 percent would have given us a universe without stars.
• If the difference in mass between a proton and a neutron were
not exactly as it is--roughly twice the mass of an electron--then all
neutrons would have become protons or vice versa. Say good-bye to chemistry
as we know it--and to life.
• The very nature of water--so vital to life--is something of a
mystery (a point noticed by one of the forerunners of anthropic reasoning
in the nineteenth century, Harvard biologist Lawrence Henderson). Unique
amongst the molecules, water is lighter in its solid than liquid form:
Ice floats. If it did not, the oceans would freeze from the bottom up
and earth would now be covered with solid ice. This property in turn is
traceable to the unique properties of the hydrogen atom.
• The synthesis of carbon--the vital core of all organic molecules--on
a significant scale involves what scientists view as an astonishing coincidence
in the ratio of the strong force to electromagnetism. This ratio makes
it possible for carbon-12 to reach an excited state of exactly 7.65 MeV
at the temperature typical of the centre of stars, which creates a resonance
involving helium-4, beryllium-8, and carbon-12--allowing the necessary
binding to take place during a tiny window of opportunity 10-17 seconds
long. Taken from God the Evidence by Patrick Glynn
The fact that we are living and can observe the universe, implies that
the fundamental constants must be "just right" to produce life.
There is an element of circular reasoning here, because if the constants
were not "just right", we would not be here to observe the universe.
However, the fact is that the universe does not seem to be a random or
chance event. We can postulate a many universe scenario, in which only
one or some universes produce life, but we cannot validate that scientifically
because we only live in one of those universes.
And, as far as I can tell so far, there is no reason to expect
other universes with other constants…
And, see Immortality.
(Supernatural)
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