PRHRLLEL UNIVERSES ZA\
all of which are "fine-tuned" to allow for life. So either we are left with
the conclusion that there is a God of some sort who has chosen our
universe to be "just right" to allow for life, or there are billions of parallel universes, many of them dead. As Freeman Dyson has said, "The
universe seemed to know we were coming."
Sir Martin Rees of Cambridge University has written that this fine
tuning is, in fact, convincing evidence for the multiverse. There are
five physical constants (such as the strength of the various forces) that
are fine-tuned to allow for life, and he believes that there are also an
infinite number of universes in which the constants of nature are not
compatible with life.
This is the so-called "anthropic principle." The weak version simply states that our universe is fine-tuned to allow for life (because we
are here to make this statement in the first place). The strong version
says that perhaps our existence was a by-product of design or purpose.
Most cosmologists would agree to the weak version of the anthropic
principle, but there is considerable debate over whether the anthropic
principle is a new principle of science that could lead to new discoveries and results, or whether it is simply a statement of the obvious.
QUANTUM
THEORY
In addition to higher dimensions and the multiverse, there is yet another type of parallel universe, one that gave Einstein headaches and
one that continues to bedevil physicists today. This is the quantum universe predicted by ordinary quantum mechanics. The paradoxes
within quantum physics seem so intractable that Nobel laureate
Richard Feynman was fond of saying that no one really understands
the quantum theory.
Ironically, although the quantum theory is the most successful theory ever proposed by the human mind (often accurate to within one
part in 10 billion), it is built on a sand of chance, luck, and probabilities. Unlike Newtonian theory, which gave definite, hard answers to
the motion of objects, the quantum theory can give only probabilities.
all of which are "fine-tuned" to allow for life. So either we are left with
the conclusion that there is a God of some sort who has chosen our
universe to be "just right" to allow for life, or there are billions of parallel universes, many of them dead. As Freeman Dyson has said, "The
universe seemed to know we were coming."
Sir Martin Rees of Cambridge University has written that this fine
tuning is, in fact, convincing evidence for the multiverse. There are
five physical constants (such as the strength of the various forces) that
are fine-tuned to allow for life, and he believes that there are also an
infinite number of universes in which the constants of nature are not
compatible with life.
This is the so-called "anthropic principle." The weak version simply states that our universe is fine-tuned to allow for life (because we
are here to make this statement in the first place). The strong version
says that perhaps our existence was a by-product of design or purpose.
Most cosmologists would agree to the weak version of the anthropic
principle, but there is considerable debate over whether the anthropic
principle is a new principle of science that could lead to new discoveries and results, or whether it is simply a statement of the obvious.
QUANTUM
THEORY
In addition to higher dimensions and the multiverse, there is yet another type of parallel universe, one that gave Einstein headaches and
one that continues to bedevil physicists today. This is the quantum universe predicted by ordinary quantum mechanics. The paradoxes
within quantum physics seem so intractable that Nobel laureate
Richard Feynman was fond of saying that no one really understands
the quantum theory.
Ironically, although the quantum theory is the most successful theory ever proposed by the human mind (often accurate to within one
part in 10 billion), it is built on a sand of chance, luck, and probabilities. Unlike Newtonian theory, which gave definite, hard answers to
the motion of objects, the quantum theory can give only probabilities.