Cosmic Coincidences ~ A few amazing 'miracles' that have made life possible in our universe

George Saunders Physicists have increasingly come to examine the amazing coincidences of our universe and to consider the possibility that it may be rather perfectly designed for the emergence of conscious life. This is not evidence of intelligent design; it merely is a statement that conscious life is necessary for the universe to exist (through the quantum-mechanical function of collapsing the wave function) – or that the emergence of conscious life is the goal of the universe.
None of these principles presuppose an intelligent creator, as the old Thomistic theological arguments vis-a-vis ‘argument by design’ did. But they do suggest the possibility of intelligent control over the universe’s unfolding, or, more heretically, its self-unfolding toward greater complexity.
So what are these striking cosmic coincidences? One is that the electric charge of the proton and electron are exactly equal and opposite, despite their radically different masses. If this were not the case, everything in the universe would explode.
Our sun would not exist if:

1) the neutron did not outweigh the proton by a fraction of a percent or

2) the strong nuclear force were not strong enough to hold the deuteron together, but not so strong as to make it unstable.

In fact, nothing would exist if the Big Bang did not

1) have a critical density which prevented recollapse

2) have a perfectly smooth and uniform temperature or

3) generate a slightly greater amount of matter than antimatter.

We are also fortunate that space has only three (manifested) dimensions – otherwise nervous system activity and blood circulation would be impossible, and planets would not orbit their stars stably. And if it were not for the nuclear resonances peculiar to Red Giant Stars, the universe would consist solely of hydrogen and helium, and contain no other organic elements. Strangely, there is an almost remarkable matching between the sun’s temperature and the absorptive frequencies of chlorophyll in green plants.
There are other coincidences advantageous to life in the cosmos. The “shape” of the cosmos, known as O to astronomers, would be hyperbolic (4-dimensionally so) if omega was greater than 1, and would soon reach entropic heat death; it would be parabolic if omega was less than 1, and eventually recollapse into a Big Stop. But current data suggests that O is almost exactly equal to 1, perhaps due to the mysterious “missing mass” which may or not be neutrino-filled “dark matter.” Though it seems trivial, the stars are far apart enough that their gravitation does not preclude the stability of solar systems. On our own planet, we are lucky that water possesses some unique properties – its solution of substances, high heat of vaporization, expansion in solid state, and peculiar crystalline molecular structure make conditions here fortuitous for the emergence of life – and is abundant on a planet which might be barren like its neighbors were it to be a little closer or further from the sun.
Many of the constants of the cosmos – the gravitational constant, Planck’s constant, the mass ratio of hadrons to leptons – almost appear to some physicists to be “fine-tuned.” This led the famed astronomer Sir James Jeans to surmise that “the universe seems to be more like a great thought than a machine.”
Solar System Surprises There are many surprising facts about our own cosmic ‘burb. One is that the orbits of the planets almost, but not quite, fit a simple arithmetic function known as Bode’s Law. Bode’s Law works almost perfectly up to Uranus, but then starts to go awry around Neptune. Strangely, it predicts the existence of a planet at roughly the orbital position where the asteroid belt is now. Bode’s Law also suggests the possibility of the existence of intra-Mercurial and trans-Plutonian planets, which some astronomers have christened Vulcan and Charon respectively, and more than a few have claimed to have turned up on their telescopes.
As for the “missing” 5th planet, some have named it Maldek. More interesting than Bode’s Law is the fact that the orbital periods of all the planets are exact fractions of a mathematical figure known as the Nineveh constant (approx. 1.95 times 1014.) This figure is found on Babylonian tablets dating from before the 1st millennium BCE, when it was believed that they only knew of the existence of five planets.
Other astronomers speculate the existence of a “Nemesis” dark-star out beyond the Oort cometary cloud which is responsible for the periodic extinction (every 65 million years or so) of life on our planet (deduced from the geologic record). Yet others wonder about the origins of the retrograde diurnal revolutions of Venus and Uranus. Is it necessary to invoke the “billiard-ball” astronomy of Velikovsky to explain such puzzles? Strangely, Velikovsky’s predictions about the temperature of Venus proved to be almost exactly correct, as did his belief that Jupiter would have a unique magnetic “tail” that no other planet would have.
Jupiter is the source of constant and powerful radio emissions of unknown origin. Some have suggested it is a secondary “sun” which failed to ignite. It is also curious that all the so-called “gaseous giant” outer planets – Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune (and not just Saturn) appear to have rings. And there are of course the tantalizing hints that the Red Planet, Mars, may have held water at some point. Certainly, as far as planetary mysteries go, the so-called Face on Mars (if authentic) is hard to ignore…
Frames of Reference When viewing the universe from our (apparently) fixed vantage point, it is sometimes hard to realize that we are undergoing several types of motion at once. We are on a spinning planet orbiting a star. That star is in turn part of a spiral arm of a spinning galaxy, orbiting around a vast source of energy at the galactic core. That galaxy is in turn rapidly hurtling away from all of its neighbors and toward the constellation of Vega. Said galaxy is also part of what may be a rotating universe (not an impossible notion, if it is in fact finite and unbounded, as Einstein suggested, rather than infinite) which may be part of a vaster multiverse. While most of our units of time are based on simple cosmic motions, few of us are willing to go to the lengths of reckoning Galactic Years. Yet in ancient times the precession of the equinoxes established the crucially important Great Year of approximately 25,900 years. It may be that the Aeons (Yugas) of the Hindus may have been based on accurate notions of cosmic time, with the idea that the movement of the Earth through space might change the influences on the planet – the idea of World or Zodiacal Ages.
While the world has largely absorbed the paradigm shifts of the Copernican revolution, it has yet to absorb the Hubble revolution. The universe contains many exotic, amazing entities – black holes, quasars, pulsars, nebulae, supernovae, and cosmic “walls” of galactic dust – that we can scarcely comprehend.
While many have theorized regarding the possibility of intelligent life existing elsewhere in the cosmos, there has been less than great luck in picking up discernible signals in the SETI program, and the search for planetary systems like our own with habitable worlds goes on. The strange thing is that the cosmos does seem to be more structured than we might expect, almost as if it consists of “films” of matter wrapped around vast cosmic “bubbles” or voids. Most of it seems to exist in places beyond our perception, as infrared, radio, and ultraviolet astronomy has revealed, or beyond even our detection – as with the mysterious “dark matter.” Many of us have difficulty in accepting the vastness of our immense universe. But it is not empty, the void is seething with quantum “virtual particles,” a veritable sea of ceaseless becoming.