The Penrose Number

it's called the Penrose Number, an equation really, 10^10^23, and its simplicity in appearance belays the impossibility that it represents - these are the odds in which the likelihood of the universe coming into existence in a way that would develop and support life as nearly mathematically impossible. This is the equation of a miracle. Mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose formulated this equation and by all accounts it is sound and fully checks out theoretically, Penrose won a Noble prize and was a close associate of Stephen Hawkins, so his credentials are unmatched. To better understand what this number represents we need to to know just how unlikely it places the odds of our existence, it's almost a zero probability, and it's been described that if we took each zero from this number and wrote it on an atom there wouldn't be enough in the entire universe to express its actual value. 

what we're told here is the Big Bang never should have happened.

or that we've defied the greatest odds by our existence. 

honestly, I can't really wrap my mind around the Penrose Number, it's too large, too complex for my limited understanding. To be even more honest, most physics and pretty much all math is beyond me, although I'm fascinated by their challenge. Yet the Penrose Number challenges me in a different way, I'm trying to understand its mathematical value, or weighing its truth against the generally accepted theory of the Big Bang - for me it's all a mystery, marvelously so, no matter how the universe's story is told. I love the impossible odds here, I mean literally impossible, that there is just no likely way that we should be here in a life sustaining world. 

how does carbon turn to life?

and more so, become conscious of its own existence? 

the Penrose Number calculates a miracles, and I'm not sure if that was it's intention. What I believe is that Penrose was searching for another viable explanation for the universe's beginning, that he wondered at the odds of conditions being absolutely just so for the Big Bang to occur and a life producing universe to follow. 10^10^23 is his exact calculations, his number that best represents the odds of our existence. It's truly amazing, and for some it gives cause to question the likelihood of the Big Bang ever having happened, at least in the way currently accepted. I'm not smart enough to question that, nor am I interested in doing so - every story of the universe's origins fascinates me, from the science of cosmology to Genesis and creation of first light. It's all a description of a miracle, proving curiosity and inspiration for my own, personal deep dive into the mystery of my existence. 

I don't take these odds lightly, the Penrose Number is truly meaningful to me. 

no matter how the universe came to be, whatever odds defied, or the likelihood of carbon somehow evolving to the point of conscious understanding - I am here, alive, aware, and so fully engaged with life, participating in unfolding. The Penrose Number gives me the important reminder of how fortunate I am indeed, defying every odd to simply be here. 

I take none of this for granted. 

being blessed by this existence. 

~

Peace, Eric