The Anthropic Principle


Matt Hohenberger




1. The Anthropic Principle tries to explain how the constants in physics and chemistry are “just right” or “fine-tuned” to allow the universe and life survive. It states that those seemingly irrelevant constants that we learn about all have on thing in common, and that is they are the precise values that are needed for the universe to be able to produce life. Through these values, it seems as if the universe was made just right so that we could live. We have figured that the creation of the universe cannot be a random chance event, but was designed with the ability to support life.

There are different aspects to the Anthropic Principle: Weak Anthropic Principle, Strong Anthropic Principle, the Final Anthropic Principle, and the Participatory Anthropic Principle.

The Weak Anthropic Principle states, “If conditions weren't right for us to be here, we wouldn't very well be here to remark on the fact.” This means that the Anthropic Principle may be presuming some evidence about the universe, but the is no real experimental evident for any universe besides our own, so we cannot know for sure what life would be like without the exact values.

The Strong Anthropic Principle states that the universe must have the properties which allow life to develop at some point in history. It also mentions that the universe is designed to create and sustain “observers” to notice the universe because they are necessary to bring it into being. If we weren’t here, then there would be no knowledge of the universe, and therefore, the universe would be pointless. So the universe made sure that it was important, or so says the Strong Anthropic Principle

These last two are the most speculative:
The Participatory Anthropic Principle states that not only did the universe have to develop humanity, but that we are necessary to its existence, as it takes an intelligent observer to turn the observations into relatively concrete reality.

The Final Anthropic Principle states that once the Universe has brought intelligence into being, it will never die out.



2. The first recognition of the Anthropic Principle was during the 1973s in Poland by the astrophysicist and cosmologist Brandon Carter. He stated that the humans had a place in the universe, although it wasn’t designed specifically for our purpose.



3. This theory doesn’t make sense to me or my logical thought at all. Part of the principle states that it created its conditions so that we can live and observe it, but I have trouble accepting that the universe has thoughts, goals, feelings, and reason. I do believe that if the values of constants were different, the world would be a very different place. I personally have very few thoughts on how the world came around because I think I mainly try to avoid those discussions. I am not sure if I care how the world came to be because it is here and I am focused on the present and future, not the past.

Lets play the "IF" Game!!!
If cows could fly, we would all wear helmets!

  • Gravity is roughly 1039 times weaker than electromagnetism. If gravity had been 1033 times weaker than electromagnetism, "stars would be a billion times less massive and would burn a million times faster." The nuclear weak force is 1028 times the strength of gravity.
  • Had the weak force been slightly weaker, all the hydrogen in the universe would have been turned to helium (making water impossible, for example).
  • A stronger nuclear strong force (by as little as 2 percent) would have prevented the formation of protons--yielding a universe without atoms.
  • Decreasing it by 5 percent would have given us a universe without stars. If the difference in mass between a proton and a neutron were not exactly as it is--roughly twice the mass of an electron--then all neutrons would have become protons or vice versa. Say good-bye to chemistry as we know it--and to life.
  • The very nature of water--so vital to life--is something of a mystery (a point noticed by one of the forerunners of anthropic reasoning in the nineteenth century, Harvard biologist Lawrence Henderson). Unique amongst the molecules, water is lighter in its solid than liquid form: Ice floats. If it did not, the oceans would freeze from the bottom up and earth would now be covered with solid ice. This property in turn is traceable to the unique properties of the hydrogen atom.
  • The synthesis of carbon--the vital core of all organic molecules--on a significant scale involves what scientists view as an astonishing coincidence in the ratio of the strong force to electromagnetism. This ratio makes it possible for carbon-12 to reach an excited state of exactly 7.65 MeV at the temperature typical of the centre of stars, which creates a resonance involving helium-4, beryllium-8, and carbon-12--allowing the necessary binding to take place during a tiny window of opportunity 10-17 seconds long.


    The Sources that I used
    The Anthropic Principle
    Anthropic Definitions : A closer look
    The Anthropic Cosmological Principle Some Cool "IF's"
    Or If you want to see the actual Anthropic Principle
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