Wait… I thought this was a science corner! It is; I am using part of a definition of “miracle” in the Oxford dictionary: “An extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws…”
The very first event, fitting that definition perfectly, was when our universe came into existence about 13.7 billion years ago, in what we call the Big Bang. That dictionary definition continues “… and is therefore attributed to a divine agency.”
I don’t know what that means. Maybe the origin of the universe is exempt from a “rule” that everything has to have a cause? In any case, science does not have an answer to this ultimate question of “Life, the Universe, and Everything” unless it is 42 (check Douglas Adams).
The second miracle, happening right after the first, is that a tiny difference between matter and antimatter appeared. Scientists do not know how, but think it resulted in all the antimatter being annihilated. The left-over matter formed all the stars, planets and us. But this may be “explicable by a scientific law” one day; scientists are developing theories. It would still be “an extraordinary and welcome event”!
Lucky for us, things kept happening. Hours after the Big Bang, the universe was a rapidly expanding hot plasma of protons, electrons, antineutrinos and radiation, with some helium nuclei and little else. Helium nuclei are two protons and two neutrons stuck together by the strong nuclear force. But any free neutrons all decayed to protons and electrons. This is possible because the neutron is a little heavier than a proton, but only by 0.14%. By all the known laws of physics, it could have been the other way around, with neutrons lighter. Then protons would decay, and hydrogen atoms would not exist. Oh, dear!
Life as we know it needs carbon, too. That is another “lucky for us” piece of physics. No carbon was made in the Big Bang; it was made by three helium nuclei sticking together in exploding stars much hotter than the Sun. In 1953, Fred Hoyle said this could only happen if carbon nuclei have an “internally excited state” with an energy of about 7.6 energy units (MeV). An experiment then confirmed this. Had it been less than 7.3 or more than 7.9, very little carbon would have been made.
Many other miracles make our universe “just right for life” – the Goldilocks Principle. Food for deep thought.
