Different fundamental constants

[blobrana]

"In a paper soon to be published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, astrophysicist Fred Adams says that the three most relevant physical constants that determine star formation can have very different values, yet still permit stars to appear. In other words, there is nothing obviously 'special' about their values in our Universe at all."

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[MartinB]

and...?

[themos]

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0807.3697v1

[narrowbandpaul]

scientists hate to think that the human race are somehow lucky. We like to think think we are very ordinary. The paper then says that we are inded not special, as a lot of different combinations of fundamental constants can produce stars which are the entities that support life

[blobrana]

Well it came as a bit of a shock when i read it.

The general anthropic principle and aspects of spacetime/ cosmological constant etc, imply that the universe is fine tuned.

“The premise of the fine-tuned universe assertion is that a small change in several of the approximately 26 dimensionless fundamental physical constants would make the universe radically different”

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[InvaderXan]

Well it came as a bit of a shock when i read it.

The general anthropic principle and aspects of spacetime/ cosmological constant etc, imply that the universe is fine tuned.

Sadly, a lot of people don't like string theory for that very reason. The Anthropic Principle is a very good way of sidestepping some pretty big questions. "Why are we here? Well, we're here to ask, so what does it matter?"

Admittedly, it makes a very good point in the ight context.

The Copernican Principle on the other hand, implies that we are sitting on an average planet around an average star in an average part of an average galaxy. When you look at the astronomical evidence, that assertion holds up pretty well.

Besides, Fred Adams was talking about star formation... And his conclusion makes sense. If star formation required too specific a set of parameters, we'd probably see far less stars in the universe.