You’ve heard talk of the multiverse, right? The idea is that the astronomically low odds of a universe like ours being compatible with life—something like 1 in 10 to the 229th power—is proof that “our universe is just one of a huge, perhaps infinite, ensemble of worlds.” The physics of such a problem are too mind-bending to even consider. (Well…for me, anyway.) But probability theorists have poked a hole in the argument. And it’s a pretty big hole.
Speaking of science-y things, John Horgan reminds us that “the equations embedded in Newton’s laws of motion, quantum mechanics and general relativity are extraordinarily, even unreasonably effective. Why do they work so well? No one knows….”
So, in other words, we don’t know what we think we know. Or even what we don’t know. Or much of anything, really. And that, my friends, is strangely comforting.
