Tuesday 7 July 2009

Anthropic Principle and Inflation

Anthropic Principle and Inflation :
Another avenue to understanding the anthropic principle is through inflation. Inflation theory
shows that the fraction of the volume of the Universe with given properties does not depend
on time. Each part evolves with time, but the Universe as a whole may be stationary and the
properties of the parts do not depend on the initial conditions.
During the inflation era, the Universe becomes divided into exponentially large domains
containing matter in all possible `phases'. The distribution of volumes of different domains
may provide some possibility to find the ``most probable'' values for universal constants.
When the Universe inflated, these different domains separated, each with its own values for
physical constants.



Inflation's answer to the anthropic principle is that multiple universes were created from the
Big Bang. Our Universe had the appropriate physical constants that lead to the evolution of
intelligent life. However, that evolution was not determined or required. There may exist many
other universes with similar conditions, but where the emergent property of life or intelligence
did not develop.
Hopefully a complete Theory of Everything will resolve the `how' questions on the origin of
physical constants. But a complete physical theory may be lacking the answers to `why'
questions, which is one of the reasons that modern science is in a crisis phase of development,
our ability to understand `how' has outpaced our ability to answer if we `should'.

No comments:

Post a Comment