Hi,
I have read where it is theorized the laws of physics could have been different than they are in our universe today, and I have even read due to the disparity and formation of matter at different points right after the big bang the laws of physics may actually be different in some portions of the outer universe. This is something I understand nothing about. Could any of you more technically qualified tell me more about this?
I am not technically qualified, but am still willing to offer my opinions.
For almost a century and a half, theoretical physics and cosmology have been on a roller-coaster ride; one moment the universe is treated as a solved problem, the next moment it's all a total mystery. With most of the physicists who've ever lived alive and working today, and dependent on publishing papers, the oscillations are frenetic. Google "Newton and Einstein were BOTH wrong" and find dozens of papers from 2025 alone. Not only do some imagine that the constants of physics would differ if we could look beyond the observable universe, some think that even closer to home, parameters vary over time! As recently as a decade ago one could ask cosmologists WHEN the Big Bang occurred and hear "13.8 billion years ago. Is that enough sig figs for you?" Today you can hear widely different estimates, and hear doubt that there was ever a Big Bang at all.
Isaac Newton developed laws of motion and gravity; Maxwell provided laws for electricity, magnetism, and even light, as well as advancing the kinetic theory of gases. Newton's mistaken idea that light was particles was refuted by the double-slit experiment in 1801. What else was there left to discover?
In 1878 the precocious Max Planck was studying physics at university, when one of his advisors, Philipp von Jolly cautioned Planck not to waste his time on theoretical physics, because
Philipp von Jolly said:
Physics was almost complete, being a highly developed, nearly fully matured science, that through the crowning achievement of the discovery of the principle of conservation of energy will arguably soon take its final stable form.
Planck assured Herr von Jolly that he had no intention to advance the theory of physics, and went about pursuing details, such as, in 1900, fitting black-body radiation to a curve:
Planck's_law. Five years later a then-obscure fellow German noticed that Planck's Law implied that light was composed of particles after all!
As recently as 1900 some physicists (including Planck himself!) did not accept that matter was composed of atoms, but of course they changed their views long before 1938 when an atom of uranium was
split.
The glories of life -- no element, certainly not silicon, has chemistry as complex as carbon -- and the evolution of stars -- dependent through unknown magic on the details of quark behavior -- may not operate without the EXACT physical constants we happen to have in our Universe. Maybe there was, after all, an Omnigod who calculated the perfectly best parameters! Or maybe, as Tegmark suggests, ALL possible parameter settings map to "real" universes, but 99.99999999999% of them are too boring to have creatures posting on message-boards.
Take your pick. If you WANT the physical constants to change over time and/or space you can probably find a PhD's paper that offers what you want.
