COSMOLOGY has come a long way. Once upon a time it was akin to theology, and models in which the universe rested on the back of a giant turtle were as plausible as any other. Now we have a sophisticated mathematical model backed up by hard observations. The universe, it says, exploded into existence 13.7 billion years ago, and entities such as dark matter and dark energy are orchestrating its evolution.
Yet there remains something disquieting about this model. It contains a huge array of variables that can be changed pretty much at will. So flexible is it that some…
