So Much Invested for Such a Short Time

In 1983 a British mathematician, Brandon Carter, introduced what he called the “anthropic principle inequality” to the scientific world. Carter took note of the fact that several billion years is the minimum time required for the universe to expand and develop sufficiently to allow for the existence of the human race or a similarly advance species. Yet, according to his calculations, the maximum time window in which the cosmos can possibly sustain such a species amounts to less than a few million years. In other words, it took a very long time to prepare the universe to sustain humans for a relatively short time.

Physicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler demonstrated in 1986 that the inequality is far more extreme than Carter figured. They estimated that global human civilization – something more than just a few low-population people groups existing in one or two regions using Stone Age type tools – could last no more than 41,000 years. According to their calculations, this limit would apply to any physical intelligent species with a sophisticated global civilization living anywhere in the universe.

Barrow and Tipler noted that the laws of physics, the characteristics of the universe, and the properties of life would all contribute to this brevity of duration for advanced life. Other factors include the Earth’s rotation rate, fossil fuel supplies, solar stability, solar luminosity, plate tectonics and more. Additional limitations apply to affluent high-tech civilizations. These include declining birthrates, increasing genetic disorders, environmental catastrophes, sociopolitical upheaval, and more.

Furthermore, the preparation of the universe involves so many intricate details intertwined with such exquisite fine-tuning and timing that only one reasonable conclusion emerges: the Creator of such an environment must possess unfathomable power, genius, resources, and above all else, purpose. That high purpose most apparently involves humans.

Given that it costs the material resources of the entire universe and the investment of 13.73 billion years of time to support humanity and its civilization for only a few tens of thousands of years, the human species indeed must have immense worth and purpose.

In the movie “Contact”, based on Carl Sagan’s novel, lead actress Jodie Foster and others repeatedly proclaim that the universe is a terrible waste if humans are alone in it. That may be true if humans are limited to this universe. But are we? The universe is far from a waste if the Creator endowed humans with a destiny that extends beyond the universe itself.

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