The Fine-Tuning of the Universe: What Does It Mean?

Fine-tuning, as it applies to the universe, is the idea that the conditions that allow life to exist in the universe can occur only when certain universal constants lie within a very narrow range of values. If any of several constants were only slightly different, the universe would be unlikely to be conducive to the establishment of life.

All modern scientists agree that the universe seems to be fine-tuned for life. There are so many features in our universe that, if they were slightly different, life could not exist. The universe in which we live gives the appearance of having been designed with incredible precision.

For instance, there are 31 constants in physics that seem to be set just right, and these fundamental constants are set just right for life to exist. Furthermore, these constants are completely unrelated. Douglas Ell uses the analogy of walking into a control room for the universe and finding 31 separate dials that have been set with great precision for the existence of life.

Sir Fred Hoyle, the British astronomer and one of the twentieth century’s most significant scientific thinkers, said:

“A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

Paul Davies says:

“There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all … it seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the universe. The impression of design is overwhelming.”

Even the noted physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking was impressed with the fine-tuning he saw in the universe.

“The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron … The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.”

So what does all this mean? Well there certainly is disagreement, but no scientists disagree with the existence of fine-tuning. In fact in the field of physics it is considered a scientific fact.

When the Big Bang occurred billions of years ago, the matter in the universe was uniformly distributed. There were no stars, planets or galaxies—just particles floating about in the dark void of space. As the universe expanded outwards from the Big Bang, gravity pulled ever-so-gently on the matter, gathering it into clumps that eventually became stars and galaxies. But gravity had to have just the right force—if it was a bit stronger, it would have pulled all the atoms together into one big ball. The Big Bang—and our prospects—would have ended quickly in a Big Crunch. And if gravity was a bit weaker, the expanding universe would have distributed the atoms so widely that they would never have been gathered into stars and galaxies.

The strength of gravity has to be exactly right for stars to form. But what do we mean by “exactly”? If we change gravity by even a tiny fraction of a percent—enough so that you would be, say, one billionth of a gram heavier or lighter—the universe becomes so different that there are no stars, galaxies, or planets. And with no planets, there would be no life. Change the value slightly, and the universe moves along a very different path. And remarkably, every one of these different paths leads to a universe without life in it. Our universe is friendly to life, but only because the past 13.7 billion years have unfolded in a particular way that led to a habitable planet with liquid water and rich chemistry.

https://thecenterbham.org/2018/05/03/the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe-what-does-it-mean/