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The view of James Webb Space Telescope to iconic pillars of creation, famous Eagle Ebula features. | Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STSCI; J. Depasquale, A. Koekemoer, A. Pagan (STSCI).
The main constant of nature looks perfectly matched to exist life. If they were even a little different, we wouldn’t just not be here. Given this serious existential fact, we are forced to ask the question: Why?
In our laws of physics, there are several parameters with values that we cannot provide for theory alone. These are known as the main constants. We can only go out and measure their values, then insert these values into our equations so that physics will work. Everything has been said, there are about two dozen such numbers. They express the basic facts such as the speed of light, the strength of the four main forces and the mass of the initial particles.
What is particularly worried about these numbers is how they are carefully created. If anything were different, even in small quantities, our universe would be radically changed. For example, stronger gravity would force the stars to burn faster, preventing the rise of solar systems and life -threatening planets such as the Earth. If the light speed was faster or the electron would be heavier, the stars would not even form. If the planck constant were different, the space would be completely unrecognizable.
We seem to be living on the edge of a knife, where only the narrowest combination of basic constant values allows life and a particularly conscious life to emerge.
This is the heart of an improvement argument: the universe seems to support the existence of life. So why are we here?
One answer is just to finish the thinking line exactly there. The constants are what they are because if they were different, we wouldn’t be here to observe it. This is called the anthropical argument: life exists, otherwise life would be impossible.
Many physicists and philosophers consider this argument slightly smaller than they satisfy. Although this answers the question, it seems that such a gloomy feeling that there is more in history.
Another option is that there is more than one universe – that we live in a multi -part, with each different universe “samples” with different constant values. There are some particularly hypothetical physics ideas that can cause multiple. One is through the concept of eternal inflation, when a very early universe never ended in speed development and different common parts of the multimedia to create the universe of its bubble.
Another path to multifaceted string theory comes from when additional spatial dimensions can turn into intoxicating ways. Each agreement will lead to new values of physical constant and even completely new laws of physics. The range of possible combinations is known as the landscape, and our universe consists of one point in that landscape.
These multifaceted ideas contain many universes “there” that do not support life, but they do, so we are. At the end of the day, it is still an anthropical argument, but at least this explains how different values of constant values can be realized.
However, there are problems with both of these ideas. Importantly, both are hypothetical and do not support any evidence available. We do not know how normal inflation works and whether eternal inflation is possible. In addition, string theorists cannot establish a connection between the layout of an additional dimensions and the physics it creates, which means that we cannot even make the forecasts tested.
Related stories:
– How do we know that the main constants are constant? We don’t.
– Why is gravity so weak? Answer may be the very nature of space time
– Could we travel to parallel universe?
In addition, eternal inflation and string theory has its own constant, which “does not scold” with different multimedia iterations. For example, string theory assumes a certain number of additional dimensions – a number that the theory itself does not predict. And forever inflation requires many additional, unknown parameters to work.
So, no matter, we cannot avoid some basic constant or a certain form of knowledge of the universe that we cannot explain from our own theories. I think we will just have to continue digging.