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Contemporary Science in Light of Tradition

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Contemporary Science in Light of Tradition Chapter XI Interpreting Anthropic Coincidence What is a man, that the electron is mindfol ofhim? Carl Becker y the middle of the twentieth century, physicists had come to realize Bthat the familiar world in which we live and have our physical being constitutes a highly improbable formation, a contingency about as unlikely as randomly picking a premarked grain of sand in the Sahara. By then it was clearly understood that a handful of fundamental numerical constants, such as the ratios of the nuclear, electric and gravitational forces, determine what is physically possible and what is not. One came to recognize that the atomic and molecular structures upon which life depends demand an immensely delicate balance or near-balance of opposing forces, which in turn demands that the constants of Nature assume the values they are found to have with almost a zero margin of tolerance: it is somewhat as if the distance between the centers of the Earth and the Moon, let us say, had to be what it is to within the thickness of a hair. In the face of these recognitions one can hardly refrain from asking why the universe should be thus fine tuned. To be sure, the question is more philosophical than scientific, given that the laws and constants of Nature constitute the principles in terms of which scientific explanations are framed. It is not, strictly speaking, the task of science to explain or justify the existence of 203 The Wisdom of Ancient Cosmology these laws or the values of these constants; and yet the fact remains that fo more than half a century, scientists have debated the issue. An entir~ literature, claiming at least to be scientific, has evolved in response to this' problem.' Although the fact of fine tuning is evidenced by the state of the universe here and now, it happens that the debate has from the start presupposed an evolutionist scenario. Two problems, in particular, have dominated the initial phase of the discussion. The first has to do with the fact that the very large integers and dimensionless ratios arising naturally from atomic physics and the new cosmology have turned out to be close to 1040 or ia square. For example, the ratio N of the electric to the gravitational force between a proton and an electron is approximately 2.3 x 1039• Compare this with another exceedingly large number of interest to cosmologists: the present age of the universe in so-called jiffies, where a jiffY is the time it takes light to traverse the diameter of a proton. Now, this quantity, call it M, is calculated to be of the order 6 x 1039• It was this close proximity between the seemingly unrelated quantities M and N that prompted Paul Dirac (one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century) to propose, in 1937, what he termed the Large Number Hypothesis: "Any two of the very large dimensionless numbers occurring in Nature are connected by a simple mathematical relation, in which the coefficients are of the order of magnitude of unity." Since M is time-dependent, this implies that N must be time-dependent as well; and this fact led Dirac to propose a second hypothesis: he stipulated that the gravitational constant G is inversely proportional to the age of the universe. On this basis, M and N could remain comparable, and both would presently be large simply because the universe is old. And so the matter stood until 1957, when a Princeton University physicist by the name of Robert Dicke explained the proximity of M and N in a very different way. In keeping with the big bang scenario, Dicke assumed that the heavier elements upon which life on Earth depends, such as carbon and oxygen, were produced in the interior ofa star through nucleosynthesis and released into the surrounding space when the star, having burned up its fuel, turned into a supernova and disintegrated. Now, this process, from start to finish, requires about 10 billion years. Allowing perhaps another few billion years for the formation of planet Earth and the evolution oflife, Dicke concluded that it takes somewhere between 10 and 15 billion years for scientific observers to appear on the scene. T.1king into account also estimated survival times, he inferred that "The age of the universe 'now' is not random but is conditioned by biological factors." This establishes a close connection between the lifetime of main sequence stars and the constant M representing 204 Interpreting Anthropic Coincidence the present age of the universe. A third large number L, in the form of a stellar lifetime, has now entered the picture; but it happens that Lis indeed related to N, given that stellar evolution is determined by the interplay of electric and gravitational forces. Thus, by way ofthe constant L, Dicke was able to explain, at least to the satisfaction of his fellow scientists, a large number coincidence that had puzzled the astrophysics community for decades. It is to be noted that his explanation brings into play a novel principle, one that came in 1974 to be dubbed "the anthropic principle." Basically, it affirms that the universe must have certain features, because, if it did not, human beings would not be here to observe that universe. In Dicke's case, the point at issue was simply that "carbon is required to make physicists," to put it in his own words. It turns out that this rather obvious fact does enable physicists to hypothesize a close relation between two very large and seemingly very unconnected quantities. The second problem to which I have alluded has to do with the production ofcarbon in the interior ofa star. It evidently takes three helium 4 nuclei to produce one carbon 12 nucleus. However, since 3-particle collisions are exceedingly rare, one must suppose that the production takes place in two steps: first, two helium 4 nuclei collide to produce a beryllium 8 nucleus, which then collides with another helium 4 nucleus to produce carbon 12. Now, the feasibility of these fusions hinges upon favorable nuclear resonances. In particular, Fred Hoyle ascertained, in 1954, that a carbon 12 nucleus must have a resonance level close to 7.7 MeV if nudeosynthesis of carbon 12 is to occur. The following year, while on sabbatical at Caltech, he prevailed upon his nuclear physics colleagues to test this predictior:t; and as it turns out, a resonance level at 7.656 MeV was in fact detected. Hoyle's unspoken reasoning, one sees, was once again "backwards": from the existence of carbon 12 to its stellar nucleosynthesis, and thus from the present to the past; it belongs implicitly to the "anthropic" genre. To be sure, the story of nucleosynthesis, as it is told today, does not end with the production of carbon, and one finds that a number of other "anthropic coincidences" enter into the production of nuclei "required to make physicists." However, as I have noted before, the necessity of fine tuning is evidenced, first of all, by the state of the universe here and now. Let us consider a very simple example. The charge of an electron and of a proton as determined experimentally are found to be equal and opposite; their ratio is consequently -1. What would happen, let us ask, if this ratio were ever so slightly changed? Given the atomic constitution of matter, one finds that an explosion would take place. The opposite charges of protons and electrons would no longer cancel out, implying that material objects 205 The Wisdom ofAncient Cosmology would become electrically charged (positively or negatively, depending on which of the two elementary charges dominates). Not only, therefore, would objects repel each other, but each would repel itself internally, which is to say, would explode. A change in the ratio -1 by as little as 1 part in 100 billion would suffice to blow our world apart in a split second. Now, this is only the simplest example, one that can he appreciated without any deeper knowledge of physics. Obviously other more refined "anthropic coincidences" are required to permit the existence-as distinguished from a surmised formation via nucleosynthesis--of nuclei, atoms and molecules, as well as of their organic and inorganic aggregates, and to assure the myriad physical and chemical properties of these aggregates upon which our life depends. Remarkably, once nuclei are in place, two fundamental constants suffice in principle to control this multitude of phenomena: namely, the so-called fine structure constant, whose value is approximately .00729720, and the ratio of the proton to the electron mass, which is dose to 1836.12. According to quantum theory, a universe thus fine tuned will permi[ "carbon-based physicists" not only to exist, but to construct the technological apparatus needed to explore [he universe. learly, the discovery of anthropic coincidence calls for a shift in the Cscientific outlook. Scientists had realized for a very long time that living creatures are adapted to the cosmic ambience; but now the realization has dawned that the cosmos itself is adapted to living forms. The adaptation, one finds, is mutual; it now appears that the cosmos, for whatever reason, has been finely tuned for the reception of life, and that the very particles comprising the universe prove to be "mindful of man." The first enunciation of the so-called Anthropic Principle, one sees in retrospect, had failed to grasp the critical point: "Our location in the universe," Brandon Carter specified back in 1974, "is necessarily privileged to the extent of being compatible with our existence as observers." One senses an effort to accommodate the new insight within the old worldview, a desire, as it were, to circumvent the crux of the matter.
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