Related papers: Problems in a weakless universe
Whether our universe with present day acceleration can eventually collapse is very interesting problem. We are also interesting in such problems, whether the universe is closed? Why it is so flat? How long to expend a period for a cycle of…
According to the "hard-steps" model, the origin of humanity required "successful passage through a number of intermediate steps" (so-called "hard" or "critical" steps) that were intrinsically improbable with respect to the total time…
It is undeniable that life as we know it depends on liquid water. It is difficult to imagine any biochemical machinery that does not require water. On Earth, life adapts to the most diverse environments and, once established, it is very…
The anthropic principle has been proposed as an explanation for the observed value of the cosmological constant. Here we revisit this proposal by allowing for variation between universes in the amplitude of the scale-invariant primordial…
Environmental science almost invariably proposes problems of extreme complexity, typically characterized by strongly nonlinear evolution dynamics. The systems under investigation have many degrees of freedom - which makes them complicated -…
This paper discusses the benefits of describing the world as information, especially in the study of the evolution of life and cognition. Traditional studies encounter problems because it is difficult to describe life and cognition in terms…
Even when completely and consistently formulated, a fundamental theory of physics and cosmological boundary conditions may not give unambiguous and unique predictions for the universe we observe; indeed inflation, string/M theory, and…
I cast doubt upon the desired consistency between the anthropic principle and modern cosmology.
An anthropic explanation for evident smallness of the value of the dark energy implies the existence of a time-dependent component of the scalar field, serving, together with a negative-valued cosmological constant, as one of two components…
There is some evidence that the Universe is presently undergoing accelerating expansion. This has restored some credit to the scenarios with a non-vanishing cosmological constant. From the point of view of a theory of fundamental…
A modern assessment of the classical Boltzmann-Schuetz argument for large-scale entropy fluctuations as the origin of our observable cosmological domain is given. The emphasis is put on the central implication of this picture which flatly…
What is physics? What are the limits of what physics can say about the world? In seeking ever-broader theoretical `umbrellas' for physical phenomena, we are seeking unifying principles. Emergent phenomena have turned out to be some of the…
Oceanic planets formed by type Ia supernovae become spectacularly abundant as stars cease to shine. However, the timing may not be altogether inappropriate. Neutrino annihilation might thermally regulate iron-cored water-worlds, sustaining…
In physics, there is the prevailing intuition that we are part of a unique external world, and that the goal of physics is to understand and describe this world. This assumption of the fundamentality of objective reality is often seen as a…
Inflation has been the leading early universe scenario for two decades, and has become an accepted element of the successful `cosmic concordance' model. However, there are many puzzling features of the resulting theory. It requires both…
Large and complex molecules are building blocks for life. We compute probabilities for their formation from an average non-equilibrium model. As the distance from thermodynamic equilibrium is increased in this model, so too are the chances…
We study the statistical mechanics of the early radiation dominated universe in the context of a generalized uncertainty principle which supports the existence of a minimal length scale. Utilizing the resultant modified thermodynamical…
High-energy astrophysical events that cause galaxy-scale extinctions have been proposed as a way to explain or mollify the Fermi Paradox, by making the universe at earlier times more dangerous for evolving life, and reducing its present-day…
Based on the conjecture that rather than the second law of thermodynamics inevitably be breached as matter approaches a big crunch or a black hole singularity, the order of events should reverse, a model of the universe that resolves a…
The rapidly increasing interest in the quantum properties of living matter stimulates a discussion of the fundamental properties of life as well as quantum mechanics. In this discussion often concepts are used that originate in philosophy…