The Anthropic Principles and Theories of Everything

Abstract

Modern physics was born of the union of the “terrestrial physics” and the “celestial physics.” In the Aristotelian paradigm of science there was a rigid demarcation between the “sublunary world” and the “supralunary world.” The former was the domain of a physics of changeability and destruction; in the latter eternal motion about circular paths were proceeding with neither loss nor expenditure. The work of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo shook this dualism severely, and Newton’s synthesis finally laid it to rest: the same force of gravity made the apple fall to the ground and held the planets in their orbits around the Sun. This search for unity was inscribed into the progress made in modern science.