The coin will land on heads

Imagine there’s a planet somewhere in the universe where every time they flip a coin it always lands on tails, every time. 

There’s no reason for this, it just so happens that the universe is so big that improbable things are bound to happen, like coins being invented in another planet and those always landing on tails.

Now, the aliens living in this planet would not think this is a coincidence, they have no reason to believe this, they would probably end up thinking this is somehow a law of nature.

They would make theories trying to explain it, they would make experiments, and eventually they may even develop technology based on the fact that when you flip them coins always land on tails.

And then, one day, the unimaginably rare streak will end, and a coin will land on heads.

Now consider the universe we see. All around the universe seems to be perfectly made for us. The temperature in our planet, the gravity it has, the amount of oxygen… even the laws of physics. If the constants were anything but exactly the values they have it would be impossible for creatures like us to exist.

However, this doesn’t mean that the universe was made for us, it could very well be that there are many universes, each different from the rest, and that we came to exist in this one, because this is the only universe where we can exist. This means that the universe seems to be made for us, because if it didn’t, we wouldn’t be here to observe it.

Now, combine the two ideas.

What if the laws of physics seem to be made perfectly for us… because of a coincidence?. Maybe there’s a process happening in nature which we think it’s a law of physics, but it isn’t, it’s just a coin landing tails every time without any particular reason other than pure chance… this would be extremely unlikely, sure, but then again, if it is the only way we could exist, we would observe it, no matter how unlikely it was.

In fact, I may even know what it is, have you heard about axions?.

You see, there are 4 forces in nature, and I don’t want to get too much into detail here, but the point is that one of this forces, the Strong Force, can break a thing called the Charge Parity Symmetry… in simple terms, we discovered this Force of Nature can break a law of physics, or rather, something we thought was a law… and yet… it never breaks it.

Processes involving the Strong Force happen every day, every nanosecond, inside your atoms and mine, in fact, they keep our atoms together, but they never break CP symmetry… the coin gets flipped a trillion times every nanosecond, and it always lands on tails…

Of course this sounds absurd, there must be a reason why the Strong Force never breaks this law, even though it seems like it could, and the best answer we have so far is that there are particles called Axions which keep everything nice and steady… but we have never found them…

Who knows, maybe you live in a future where axions have long been discovered, or maybe some other solution was found for this problem, and you laugh at poor little silicon age me, okay, sure, we ancient people were silly but… are you sure all the laws of nature you know are actually laws?

Any of the many principles you call laws could just be an incredible coincidence, the possibility is extremely unlikely, and yet, you will never be sure it is zero, and one day… the coin could land on heads.