It is interesting, don't you think, to play around with history? What might have happened to Britland if the Germans had taken the risk and invaded, despite the difficuties, in the late summer of 1940. Without a staging ground, the US would have been forced to watch from the sidelines; it is doubtful if Ireland would have given succour to US troops. What might have happened at Waterloo if Blücher had not arrived in the nick of time or that the Spanish Armada have not been so wildy torn apart by the British weather. Or even what might Britland have become if the shield wall had not lost all of its discipline at the battle of Senlac Hill and tried to chase down the Norman calvary intent on the very response which ensued. Would the Falkland Islanders now be under Argentinian rule if Margaret Thatcher had not taken the (in my view bold) step to send the fleet and chase the Argentinian troops away. There are many such instances of good fortune, blind luck or good or bad tactics at a single given point in time affecting people in profound ways; even to affect entire nations or groups of nations.
And so it is with the cosmos. The initial starting conditions were so finely tuned to provide the universe that we see all around that it is often difficult to think, or believe, that these came about by pure random chance, which as an atheist I must do, although perhaps I should spell that as Atheist to put it on a par with Islam, Christianity, Jainism to name but three 'belief' systems. Did it have to be that way? Could the emergence of life, so inextricably bound up with those initial conditions, only happen in our kind of universe? And what is life anyway? What might have happened if the electro-weak force was marginally less strong or the strong force marginally weaker? Would the universe be a sea of quarks and loose electrons and photons? Such questions lie at the root of our thinking about the universe and our place in it. Yes, we have gravitated towards thinking in purely scientific terms but we have been pondering these questions for millennia.
Why are we here? Who or what made us? Do we have a purpose? Is there some force or power that guides us? Does fate exist or are we, as many believe, driven by pure chance or happenstance. Essentially, these questions can all be boiled down to a single question; are we the inevitable product of a universe so dependent on its initial conditions? And if so, what made those initial conditions just right for life, whatever it may be.
Of course, the universe may just be an endless and infinite cycle between Big Bang and Big Crunch and the laws do not fundamentally change from one cycle to the next; each Big Bang uses the same laws and rules of engagement as the previous because there are no, can be no, other laws. However, if quantum mechanics is even half right about the way the universe works, then the likliehood of a repeat and exact performance from one Big Bang to the next seems unlikely. Perhaps the God, or Allah or somesuch, that some choose to believe in, is simply infallible and any universe that He brings into being has to abide by His rules and so the universe is entirely suited to life and sentient life at that.
It is considered that the early universe, the first 500,00 years or so, was conposed of only hydrogen atoms, with possibly a few helium ones. Hydrogen atoms are the simplest to make, and nature always seems to produce the very simplest things at the beginning; just 3 quarks coming together through the strong force and a captured electron 'orbiting' in a shell around them, although no-one, as far as I know, seems to have a cogent explanation of why exactly energy seems to condense in this way and, perhaps, why it does so in a practically, but statisticlally predictable, way. Why does energy even bother to condense? And why did only some of the energy in the early universe take the form of matter? And why, if matter was easy to form given the right circumstances, are there only 92 elements in the observable universe? Why would the universe stop at Uranium? Humankind doesn't. Or perhaps it didn't and anything 'larger' than Uranium just decays so quickly that there is noting now left for us to observe.
It is thought that the density of hydrogen atoms in the early universe, perhaps only one, or maybe two, in each cubic metre of 'space' would be insufficient for gravity to coelesce those atoms together in a high enough density for nuclear fusion, and therefore solar 'burning' to take place. But, and it's a big but, if molecular hydrogen, two atoms of hydrogen bonding together, were to form in sufficient quantity then this might be enough in the presence of gravity to initiate fusion and thereby begin the cycles of the process of star formation, burn and nova and supernova to create the all of the 92 elements in the observable universe. It is all rather convenient; don't you think.
The universe, however many there may be, we are told is approximately 13.5-14.0 billion years old; the furthest that we can see with our telescopes is about 13.5 billion light years away, which means that the light has been travelling for that amount of time but that is only the limit of our vision; it may be that more powerful telescopes will extend the range of the 'observable universe' beyond a timescale of 13.5-14.0 bya. However, the oldest star in our own galaxy appears to be slightly older as a spectral analaysis seems to indicate a lack of heavy elements; merely hydrogen and a little helium, calcium and carbon, which would seem to imply that it is possibly a 'second or third generation' star, one in which 'supernova created' elements heavier than iron are not present.
And what of dark matter; dark energy? Is the rate of expansion of the universe really accelerating? Not moving at a constant rate, or slowing down, as one might expect? Is there such a thing as 'anti-gravity' which might explain such acceleration? Why are there so many more particles of matter than there are of anti-matter? Might anti-matter and dark matter be one and the same?
These are questions to which humans have found few answers. Perhaps they are fated never to find them or perhaps humans wil one day find them because the universe is genuinely anthromorphic; the only observable reality is the one that humans observe. Perhaps aliens would perceive a different universe operating under different laws. Will humankind ever find a workable solution to Islamic terrorism which does violate essential freedoms which humankind has spent the last three hundred years enjoying?
I am, perhaps perversely, optimistic that mankind and womankind will eventually find satisfactory answers to its many questions; there will always be answers, however bizarre. Only one question will remain unanswered, however long your species remains alive; why are you here? That question is unanswerable; there is no reason!
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