"One of the greatest puzzles in physics is
where this dark energy came from,
and why it has the value that it does."
If dark energy were a lot stronger, the Universe would have been driven apart not only before the first stars and galaxies formed, but even before the first stable atoms could form. If it were stronger in the opposite (negative) direction, the Universe would have recollapsed before anything interesting could have formed. The fact that dark energy is as weak as we observe it to be is one of the greatest cosmic coincidences of all, and one that's seemingly necessary for our existence.
Therefore, we must live in a special place, for the Universe to be so finely tuned.
Duh.
"So long as you can still form gravitationally bound clumps of matter, you'll still get a similar cosmic story to what's unfolded in the Milky Way. You'll still form stars, which will still burn through their fuel and die, creating heavy elements, that can then get recycled into future generations of stars.
Maybe they should read Joel 2?
"But the scientific truth may be far more sobering: we don't know what causes dark energy to have the value it does. It could be that it varies dramatically from Universe-to-Universe within the Multiverse, or it could be that dark energy has the same values in all iterations of Universes within the Multiverse. It could vary a lot, or it could vary very little, if at all. This depends very strongly on properties of nature that we do not yet understand how to measure."
"Until we understand where these values come from,
and what makes one set of values more likely than another"
Ecclesiastes 3:11
"He has made everything beautiful in its time.
He has also set eternity in the human heart;
yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."
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