Coincidences

“The universe is conspicuously well organized for human existence and has all the necessary and narrowly defined characteristics to make man and his sustained survival possible. It would take a book to explain all these parameters, so I will list just a few that demonstrate the point.

If the “strong nuclear forces” that hold protons and neutrons together were 2 percent weaker, only hydrogen would exist, and nothing like the universe we know would be possible. And if they were 0.3 percent stronger, hydrogen would be rare and life would be impossible.

The neutron is 0.138 percent more massive than the proton, and at creation seven times more protons were created than neutrons. If neutrons were 0.1 percent more massive, so few neutrons would have emerged from the big bang that life would not have been possible. If neutrons were 0.1 percent less massive, the universe would have collapsed into neutron stars or black holes — and again, life would have been impossible. Nobody knows why neutrons are larger — except that this is necessary to allow the universe to exist and support life.

Unless the number of electrons in the universe is equivalent to the number of protons to an accuracy of one part in 10^37 or better, electromagnetic forces would have overcome gravitational forces, and so stars and galaxies would have never formed. With that many dimes — ten to the thirty-seventh power — you could cover North America, with the dimes stacked to the moon, and do this a billion more times. If you colored one dime red and blindfolded yourself, your chance of picking it out would be 1 in 10^37!

The expansion rate of the universe determines what kinds of stars, if any, are able to form. If the rate of expansion were slightly less, the whole universe would have collapsed before any sun-type stars could have settled into stability. If the universe were expanding slightly more rapidly, no stars or galaxies could condense. According to the theoretical physicist Alan Guth, this expansion rate must be fine-tuned to an accuracy of one part in 10^55. As massive as that number is, the gravitational constant must be fine-tuned to one part in 10^60, and dark energy density to one part in 10^120. To get an idea of just how large these numbers are: The number of cells in the human body is roughly 10^14, and the number of seconds since time began 13.8 billion years ago is only 10^20!”

From Atheism to Catholicism: Nine Converts Explain Their Journey Home (Kindle Locations 1049-1072). EWTN Publishing, Inc. . Kindle Edition.

Love & science,
Matthew