From VAUGHAN STONE
I was most intrigued by John Gribbin and Martin Rees’s exposition of
the extraordinarily unlikely set of nuclear energy level conditions required
for the stellar formation of elements essential to our existence (‘Cosmic
coincidences’, 13 January). No doubt many readers will view these revelations
(originated by Fred Hoyle with the help of Willy Fowler) as an affirmation
that we exist by design and not by chance. I wonder how many faltering religious
faiths are now being rekindled as a result? I might personally have been
counted as a convert were it not for what I consider to be an equally plausible
non-anthropic implication of these ‘cosmic coincidences’.
This pivots upon the supposition that the big bang is an infinitely
cyclic event, each one followed by an expansion and then a contraction of
the universe back to a singularity – a possibility which I believe is considered
highly likely by many leading cosmologists. On the basis of this reasonable
assumption, my contention is: we have no certainty on each occasion the
universe reinflates that the physical make up of the ensuing universe, at
nuclear level and above, is identical to the previous. Taking an ‘all change’
view of physical constants at each of the infinite number of big bangs,
it is entirely conceivable, therefore, that the ‘magic’ combination of nuclear
energy levels within the helium nucleus, together with its lowly fusion-generated
daughter products, necessary for the creation of the heavier elemental building
bricks of life, would eventually occur by chance within one and the same
cycle.
Vaughan Stone ARK Geophysics Milton Keynes
