The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.
-- Albert Einstein
Finely Tuned Universe
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How Finely-Tuned is the Universe?
by Sean Carroll, discovermagazine.com -- July 8, 2010
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In English: our universe looks very unusual. You might think we have nothing to compare it to, but that’s not quite right; given the particles that make up the universe (or the quantum degrees of freedom, to be technical about it), we can compare their actual configuration to all the possible configurations they could have been in. The answer is, our observed universe is highly non-generic, and in the past it was even more non-generic, or “finely tuned.” One way of describing this state of affairs is to say that the early universe had a very low entropy. We don’t know why; that’s an important puzzle, worth writing books about.
Part of the motivation of this paper was to put some quantitative meat on some ideas I discussed in my book. The basic argument is an old one, going back to Roger Penrose in the late 1970′s. The advent of inflation in the early 1980′s seemed to change things -- it showed how to get a universe just like ours starting from a tiny region of space dominated by “false vacuum energy.” But a more careful analysis shows that inflation doesn’t really change the underlying problem -- sure, you can get our universe if you start in the right state, but that state is even more finely-tuned than the conventional Big Bang beginning.
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We find that inflation is very unlikely, in the sense that a negligibly small fraction of possible universes experience a period of inflation. On the other hand, our universe is unlikely, by exactly the same criterion. So the observable universe didn’t “just happen”; it is either picked out by some general principle, perhaps something to do with the wave function of the universe, or it’s generated dynamically by some process within a larger multiverse. And inflation might end up playing a crucial role in the story. We don’t know yet, but it’s important to lay out the options to help us find our way.
PS. "very low
entropy" means it started out highly-ordered ... that's odd.
What are the odds?
It's a grand mystery ...
Open the next two clips simultaneously, for the Pink Floyd Cosmic Tour ...
Right Click -- Open in New Window
And Quick, then Right Click here too -- Open in New Window
Now MAX out that second one ... we'll wait for you to get back ...
And in honor of the world NOT ending prematurely ...
REM -- What's The Frequency, Kenneth?
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Cheers! here's to getting to the bottom of our Mystery Novel, someday.