The anthropic principle is a rather abstract concept that states that our Universe as it needs to be for life to emerge, in the form to which we are used to. And recently, scientists have proposed a possible physical way to confirm or disprove its existence.
Anthropic principle
A group of scientists published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics an article in which, almost for the first time, proposed a physical experiment that could prove or disprove the anthropic principle. Therefore, this previously almost philosophical concept may finally get a strong connection to science.
The anthropic principle was proposed in 1973 by Brandon Carter, and the surrounding debate has been going on ever since. In its simplest form, it merely represents the observation that physical constants like the speed of light and Planck’s constant, as well as the physical laws of our world, are precisely those that accept the existence of life as we know it.
The above statement is called the weak anthropic principle. And there is also a strong one. According to it, the Universe doesn’t just permit the existence of humans, its entire evolution is designed to bring us into existence.
And the point is that the anthropic principle in its strongest version goes far beyond physics and deals with metaphysical, or more simply, religious issues. It also has almost no predictive power, that is, it is impossible to say that something should or should not exist in the Universe that we have not already seen based on it, unlike other physical laws.
Dark matter test
However, there are certain physical consequences of a strong anthropic principle. The very constants that must have had certain values at the origin of the Universe in order for us to exist now. And as the authors of the new study convince us, this fact should have consequences that can be tested experimentally to see if there is a strong anthropic principle or not.
The fact is that the presence of a certain set of constants at the beginning of the Universe’s existence should have led not only to our existence, but also for several other global phenomena that we can observe and verify whether the constants have indeed been of the kind envisioned by the strong anthropic principle.
At the very beginning of its existence, the Universe underwent a period of rapid expansion called inflation. Its conditions were very different from those of today. The laws of quantum mechanics were predominantly valid.
At this point, two things could have arisen that could be used to test the anthropic principle: primordial gravitational waves and dark matter. At first glance, they are not related to each other in any way, and besides, neither of them has been observed by scientists so far.
However, scientists argue that there is a connection and if both actually exist, it is evidence of a strong anthropic principle. Moreover, dark matter has to exist in the form of particles of a certain kind — light axions.
Provided by phys.org
