FEATURED ARTICLE: Fine-Tuning of the Universe (part 1 of 8): Physical Laws | ISLAMHUDAA

What is Fine-Tuning?

Over the past century, scientists
have discovered that if certain properties of the universe were changed very
slightly from what they are, we would not be here.  They have to be within a
very narrow range for our universe to make life possible and be habitable. 

The universe is fine-tuned for the existence of
intelligent life with a complexity and delicacy that literally defy human
comprehension.  The sensitivity of the ‘habitability’ of the universe to small
changes is called ‘fine-tuning.’

This was recognized about 60 years ago by Fred Hoyle who
was not a religious person at the time he made the discovery.  Scientists like Paul
Davies, Martin Rees, Max Tegmark, Bernard Carr, Frank Tipler, John Barrow, and
Stephen Hawking, to name a few, believe in fine-tuning.  These are prominent
names in cosmology as they are heard in the media whenever a news headline is
made.

Types of Fine-Tuning

1.  Fine-tuning of the laws of nature.

2.  Fine-tuning of the constants of physics.

3.  Fine-tuning of the initial conditions of the
universe.

We will explore each category below:

1.  Fine-Tuning of the Laws of Nature

There are two ways to look at this aspect of
fine-tuning:

1.    Precisely the right laws are needed for
highly complex life to exist.  If one of these were missing, such life would
not be possible.  To say that the laws are fine-tuned means that the universe
must have precisely the right set of laws in order for highly complex life to
exist.  Perhaps this type of fine-tuning is the easiest of the three to
understand.

Example 1: The law
of gravity states that all masses attract each other.  What would the universe
be like if gravity did not exist? There wouldn’t be any stars or planets.  Matter
would be equally distributed around the universe with no place for life to form
or energy sources like the sun that provide food to plants through
photosynthesis that in turn become food for animals.

Example 2: One type
of force can play multiple roles in this very well designed system.  For
example, the electromagnetic force refers to the combination of electric and magnetic
forces.  James Clerk Maxwell unified the two forces in 1800’s. 

If there were no electromagnetic force, there would be
no atoms because there would be no force to hold the negatively charged
electrons with the positively charged protons that allow for chemical bonds.  There
would be no building blocks of life as there would be no chemical bonding, and
therefore no life. 

The electromagnetic force plays another role in light
which is a type of electromagnetic radiation.  It allows energy to transfer
from the sun to our planet.  Without this energy we would not exist. 

2.    Harmony between nature and mathematics: Only
in the 20th century have we come to understand that what we observe in nature can
be described by only a few physical laws, each of which is described by simple
mathematical equations.  Just the fact that these mathematical forms are so
simple and few in number that they can all be written on one sheet of paper is
amazing.

Table1.  The
Fundamental Laws of Nature

·      
Mechanics (Hamilton’s Equations)

·      
Electrodynamics (Maxwell’s Equations)

·      
Statistical Mechanics (Boltzmann’s
Equations)

·      
Quantum Mechanics (Schrödinger’s Equations)

·      
General Relativity (Einstein’s Equation)

For life to exist, we need an orderly and intelligible
universe.  Furthermore, order at many different levels is required. 

For instance, to have planets that circle their stars,
we need Newtonian mechanics. 

For there to be multiple stable elements of the periodic
table to provide a sufficient variety of atomic “building blocks” for life, we
need the atomic structure given by the laws of quantum mechanics. 

We need the orderliness in chemical reactions that is
the consequence of Boltzmann’s equation for the second law of thermodynamics. 

And for an energy source like the sun to transfer its
life-giving energy to a habitat like Earth, we require the laws of
electromagnetic radiation that Maxwell described.[1]

Physicist and Nobel Prize winner Eugene Wigner in his
widely quoted paper, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the
Physical Sciences notes that scientists often take for granted the
remarkable – even miraculous – effectiveness of mathematics in describing the
real world.  He says:

“The enormous usefulness of mathematics is something
bordering on the mysterious…There is no rational explanation for it…The miracle
of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of
the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor
deserve.”[2]

[1]
Bradley, Dr.  Walter.  Is There Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God?  How
the Recent Discoveries Support a Designed Universe.  On-line.  Available from
Internet,

http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9403/evidence.html,
accessed 10 March 2014.

[2]
Wigner, Eugene.  1960.  The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the
Physical Sciences.  Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics, vol. 
13: 1-14.