3 ms·
So this touches on the anthropic principle, which is to say that if the Universe (and the constants within it) were other than what they were, we wouldn't be ab
by jmyeet 2y ago
So this touches on the anthropic principle, which is to say that if the Universe (and the constants within it) were other than what they were, we wouldn't be able to exist to contemplate it.
The speed of light being "slow" in cosmic terms is almost necessary for our existence in that we need a relatively long period of relative stability in order to evolve into sentient life. And that becomes a whole lot harder if, say, the Milky Way was only one light day across.
- chongli 2y agoI think in the past I would’ve readily accepted this explanation but now it seems to me like a just-so story. Bacteria can exhibit doubling times on the scale of tens of minutes. We know of trees that live for thousands of years. On the other hand, we know of chemical reactions that can propagate significantly faster that the speed of sound (high explosives) and nuclear reactions that propagate even faster that this. At the other end of the scale, we have mildly radioactive elements with half-lives measured in billions of years. This is all to say that everything is relative and no matter what constants you choose for the universe, they’re going to seem arbitrary.