Author notes

COINCIDENCE TWO, Page Four (Made Perfect in Weakness)

alschroeder

on Jan. 12, 2014

This is talking about the Type II supernovae. Type I supernova, which undergo a different process, would still work. But those are much smaller stars–with much less to "spread"–and in our type of galaxy are much less frequent. It's fair to say if we only had Type I supernovae, the interstellar medium would be much LESS enriched by higher elements than hydrogen and helium, and rocky planets and lifeforms that depend on higher elements (like us) would be far less likely to occur. But the possibility isn't zero.
A lot of scienitsts doubted the neutrino theory in supernova production, because the values would have to be so exact. Fortunately, a supernova detected in 1987 confirmed the theory. You can see references to it here and here.
If sentient life–or ANY life–can be formed JUST from hydrogen and helium (say, in stars themselves) than my argument falls flat. But I doubt anyone thinks there is a strong case for that,anyway.
Next week, we'll go into Coincidence Three–which is almost Coincidence Two-and-a-Half–because it also involves the weak force, but at a different epoch of the cosmos…and ties directly with my comment that my argument depends on evolution.
After that, I may discuss recent speculations about a "weakless" universe and what refutes them.