Do you know that life is made up of constants? Unlike living life with all its variables, there are constants that exist supporting the very fabric of life and allow us to see what we see.

The constants include the familiar to the less so: the speed of light, gravitational, Einsteins cosmological constant, the mass of an electron and proton. So there are electromagnetic, atomic, nuclear and physico-chemical constants; There are indeed 10 primary constants and 12 derivations.

Unit mass and charge for electrons, neutrons, protons and quarks taken with the mass of the universe and then add famous equations to make a very very narrow window that allows a complex necessary for life forms. On top of that we have needed a universe that can produce a carbon type atom that resonates at precisely the right frequency to produce bonding that allows organic chemistry. Its called an anthropic universe; a universe that is compatible with the conscious life that observes it. And the subject of consciousness is of course another blog entry altogether.

Type out the works of Shakespeare was the task set for the monkey, but the chances of our anthropic universe coming out the other end is far far more difficult to achieve. But the statistics tell us that not only does our universe have the potential to create life, life exists.

Imagine 22 dials that control these constants and twist a few. What do you think will happen? Well the experts say our life will not exist is the bottom line. It so happens for example, that the cosmological constant alone which governs the rate of the expansion of the universe itself, is fine tuned to 1 in 10 to the 120th power. That errors most calculators; its a lot of trillions and an awful lot of noughts. Any larger, the universe would have blown apart so fast you wouldn't get structures, any smaller it would have collapsed in on itself.

The universe is but 13.9 Billion years old. Its kept pretty stable all told isn't it?