Martin Rees wrote a fascinating book (Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape The Universe) about the precise mathematical tuning of the universe. If just six mathematical relationships were slightly different, planets, stars and life would not be possible.

Sir Martin Rees was a professor of astrophysics at Cambridge University. He’s held a number of pretigious titles: former Astronomer Royal (senior British astronomer and member of the royal household), former Master of Trinity College, Cambridge and former President Of The Royal Society. The upshot — he’s one of the world’s leading astrophysicists.

I tend to avoid scientific formulas in Heron Dance. To many they don’t mean anything, I don’t really understand them and I’m concerned that getting into them will only reveal my ignorance. But today, I’m making an exception because Rees’ observations, though difficult to understand in detail, are awe-inspiring on even the most casual review. The six numbers, or mathematical relationships, that govern the universe:

• •        The universe is as vast as it is because of one crucially important number: ‘N in nature. It is indicated by a 1 followed by 36 zeros, and is the strength of the electrical forces that hold the universe together divided by gravity between them. If ‘N had a few less zeros, no creatures could grow larger than insects, and planets would not exist long enough to allow biological evolution.

• •        E, whose value is 0.007, controls the power from the Sun, and how stars transmute hydrogen into the atoms of the periodic table. If E were 0.006 or 0.008, we could not exist.

• •        Ω (omega) is the ratio of gravity to the expansion of the universe. If this number were too high, the universe would have collapsed long ago; had it been too low, no galaxies or stars would have formed.

• •        Λ (lambda) controls the expansion of the universe, although it has no discernible effect on scales less than a billion light years. It is very small, otherwise its effect would have stopped galaxies and stars from forming and cosmic evolution would have stopped before it could begin.

• •        Q, the ratio of two fundamental energies, the seeds for all cosmic structures that were imprinted in the big bang. If it were smaller, the universe would be inert and structureless; if Q were bigger, it would be a violent place, in which no stars or solar systems could survive, dominated by vast black holes.

• •        Đ, three, the number of spatial dimensions in the world. Life couldn’t exist if Đ were two or four.

Page after page in the book describes symmetrical relationships in the universe, or relationships that make life possible:

• • We are each made up of between 10 to the power of 28 and 10 to the power of 29 atoms. This ‘human scale’ is, in a numerical sense, poised midway between the masses of atoms and stars. It would take roughly as many human bodies to make up the mass of the Sun as there are atoms in each of us.
  • Our Earth’s atmosphere is rich in oxygen; it didn’t start out that way, but was transformed by primitive bacteria early in its history . . . even when a planet offers a propitious environment, what is the chance that simple organisms emerge and create a biosphere?

Rees asks if the existence of these laws of physics is a mere coincidence or the creation of a benign Creator. He concludes neither, without giving any reason for his conclusion. His Wikipedia page says:

He is an atheist but has criticised militant atheists for being too hostile to religion.

The factors that allow life on earth, our lives, are so finely tuned as to be awe-inspiring. If, for instance, gravity was 20% more powerful, and the attraction of positively charged protons to negatively charged electrons was constant, even insects would need large legs to support themselves and no animals could get any larger in size. And the number of atoms needed to make a star or planet would be a billion times less. Galaxies would form much more quickly and be much more densely packed. The orbits of planets would thus be unstable—they would be constantly pulled hither and yon by passing stars. Stars would exist for periods of time a million times shorter. Instead of living for 10 billion years, a star would live about 10,000 years.

The fact that the universe yields to the laws of mathematics is mysterious and suggestive of an underlying harmony or logic.

The mystical of the world is that it exists.
- Wittgenstein

. . .

Travels With Ada.
Today, I plan to leave the
White Lotus Eco Spa near Stanardsville VA and head south.
To where, I’m not exactly sure yet.
More on my planned travels here.