I read a story once (again, can't recall exactly where/who), in which a
particular experiment, if run successfully would have destroyed the
universe. The only realized this after many trials -- power failures etc.
kept getting in the way. They realized that they had to be in one of those
universes in which life continued to exist.
A less science-fiction version of this is the "Mediocre Universe", i.e., why
we happen to live in the unlikely that we do (aka the Anthropic Principle).
See http://www.lucifer.com/~sean/BT/9.html#mediocre
"Some universes may spawn far more civilizations than
others -- one universe might be harsh and allow life merely
to squeak by, while another, more fecund universe might
be teeming with millions of inhabited solar systems.
"If so, Vilenkin reasoned, a small percentage of universes
would account for the lion's share of civilizations. Any
randomly chosen civilization -- say, for example, ours --
would be far more likely to come from one of these
high-civilization-producing universes than from a stingy
universe harboring only one or two civilizations. After all,
if you randomly picked a person from among the billions
of people on Earth, he or she would more likely hail from
populous China or India than from tiny Liechtenstein or
Luxembourg. This reasoning applies as well to civilizations
and universes.
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Sean Morgan | |\/\/\/| \/\/\/\/
| | | | |
sean@lucifer.com | | | | | Exhibit 'A' in the paternity suit,
| | (o)(o) | ---()()
| C __} C __} "Marge Simpson v. Dilbert"
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