Related papers: In What Sense Is the Early Universe Fine-Tuned?
When a physicist says that a theory is fine-tuned, they mean that it must make a suspiciously precise assumption in order to explain a certain observation. This is evidence that the theory is deficient or incomplete. One particular case of…
Inflationary cosmology attempts to provide a natural explanation for the flatness and homogeneity of the observable universe. In the context of reversible (unitary) evolution, this goal is difficult to satisfy, as Liouville's theorem…
This note is a summary of the work reported in hep-th/9801073. We give a brief discussion of the fine tuning problem in pre-big bang cosmology. We use the flatness problem as our test case, and in addition to the exact numerical limits on…
We introduce a mathematical framework for quantifying fine-tuning in general physical settings. In particular, we identify two distinct perspectives on fine-tuning, namely, a local and a global perspective --- and develop corresponding…
The apparent fine-tuning of several fundamental parameters that determine the properties of our Universe and make it hospitable to life is sometimes used as an argument for God from design. I review the concept of cosmic fine-tuning and…
In physical theories, boundary or initial conditions play the role of selecting special situations which can be described by a theory with its general laws. Cosmology has long been suspected to be different in that its fundamental theory…
The standard big bang cosmology has been greatly successful in explaining many observational aspects of the real universe. However, two particular diffficulties faced by it are the so-called ``horizon'' and ``flatness'' problems. By…
Determining the initial state of the universe is a challenging problem in quantum cosmology and we argue that the issue is intractable if the basic postulates of quantum mechanics are not modified in a nontrivial way. Namely a "standard"…
As we follow our Universe to early times, we find that matter was crushed to high densities, somewhat similar to the behavior at a black hole singularity. String theory has made progress in explaining the internal structure of black holes,…
The fine-tuning of the universe for life, the idea that the constants of nature (or ratios between them) must belong to very small intervals in order for life to exist, has been debated by scientists for several decades. Several criticisms…
The beautiful scenario of pre-big-bang cosmology is appealling not only because it is more or less derived from string theory, but also because it separates clearly the problem of the initial conditions for the universe from that of high…
Anthropic principles were grown from the problem of fine tuning. Although anthropic principles have been discussed in cosmology for years there is no exact definition for fine tuning. Starting from the supposed similarity in the topologies…
We present a new approach to early universe cosmology. Inflation is replaced by a phase transition in which both matter and geometry are created simultaneously. We calculate the spectrum of metric perturbations and show that it is flat. We…
Fine-tuning in physics and cosmology is often used as evidence that a theory is incomplete. For example, the parameters of the standard model of particle physics are "unnaturally" small (in various technical senses), which has driven much…
Finetuning and Naturalness are extra-empirical theory assessments that reflect our expectation how scientific theories should provide an intuitive understanding about the foundations underlying the observed phenomena. Recently, the absence…
A well-known topic within the philosophy of physics is the problem of fine-tuning: the fact that the universal constants seem to take non-arbitrary values in order for live to thrive in our Universe. In this paper we will talk about this…
Fine-tuning studies whether some physical parameters, or relevant ratios between them, are located within so-called life-permitting intervals of small probability outside of which carbon-based life would not be possible. Recent developments…
We present numerical relativity simulations of cosmological scenarios in which the universe is smoothed and flattened by undergoing a phase of slow contraction and test their sensitivity to a wide range of initial conditions. Our numerical…
Topological defects are common in many everyday systems. In general, they appear if a symmetry is broken at a rapid phase transition. In this article, I explain why it is believed that they should have also been formed in the early universe…
Inhomogeneous cosmological models are often reported to suffer from a fine-tuning problem because of the observer's location. We study if this is a generic feature in the Lema\^{i}tre-Tolman (LT) models, by investigating if there are models…