Why we happen to live on a planet that has so many nice things for our comfor...

Terrence Miao - 2012-02-13 12:08:04+1100 - Updated: 2012-02-13 12:08:04+1100

Why we happen to live on a planet that has so many nice things for our comfortable existence: oxygen, water, a temperature between the freezing and boiling points of water, and so on. Is this happy coincidence just good luck, or an act of Providence, or what?

Why the multiverse idea is so fascinating, why it does explain one aspect of our universe that has unsettled some scientists for years: according to various calculations, if the values of some of the fundamental parameters of our universe were a little larger or a little smaller, life could not have arisen.

The accidental universe: Science's crisis of faith—By Alan P. Lightman (Harper's Magazine)

James Gemmell - 2012-02-13 14:58:00+1100

I don't find the existence of other universes a problem. If you accept that our universe has a beginning and (may have) an end then it is not be too big a leap to postulate that other universes may have existed before and after ours. I say this with some reservation as the causal concepts of before, during and after are nonsense when placed outside of the time and space of our universe. :-)

Oleg Kiorsak - 2012-02-13 15:55:32+1100

In the other universes even the laws of physics and nature of the "matter" might be quite different... this is why Mathematics is the "purest" and the highest of all sciences - it's universal across all universes! ;-))

btw, just wanted to share/ask something... all my interest in (and most of knowledge of) in this kind of stuff is based on having stumbled upon the (Russian translation) of this book about 27 years(!!) ago:

http://www.amazon.com/Search-Life-Universe-Third/dp/1891389165/

(this was before we started studying Chemistry or Phsycis or any real science in school so I was essentially "reverse engineering" the stuff in this book that was meant to follow from knowing the prerequisites)

was wondering if this book was popular here and what you think of it...