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Sciama’s argument on life in a random universe and distinguishing apples from oranges

Nature Astronomy volume 7, pages 755–756 (2023)Cite this article

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Dennis Sciama has argued that the existence of life depends on many quantities—the fundamental constants—so in a random universe life should be highly unlikely. However, without full knowledge of these constants, his argument implies a universe that could appear to be ‘intelligently designed’.

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Fig. 1: A counterintuitive consequence of concentration-of-measure phenomena.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Physics, Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of China

    Zhi-Wei Wang

  2. Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Zhi-Wei Wang

  3. Computer Science, University of York, York, UK

    Samuel L. Braunstein

Authors
  1. Zhi-Wei Wang
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  2. Samuel L. Braunstein
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Correspondence to Zhi-Wei Wang or Samuel L. Braunstein.

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Wang, ZW., Braunstein, S.L. Sciama’s argument on life in a random universe and distinguishing apples from oranges. Nat Astron 7, 755–756 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-02014-9

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