The Mathematics of Probability Refutes “Coincidence”

There are extraordinary balances among the forces that make human life possible in this universe. The speed of the Big Bang’s explosion, the values of the four fundamental forces, and all the other variables which are vital for existence have been arranged according to an extraordinary precision.

Let’s make a brief digression and consider the coincidence theory of materialism. Coincidence is a mathematical term and the possibility of an event’s occurrence can be calculated using the mathematics of probability. Let’s do so.

Taking the physical variables into account, what is the likelihood of a universe giving us life coming into existence by coincidence? One in billions of billions? Or trillions of trillions of trillions? Or more?

Roger Penrose, a famous British mathematician and a close friend of Stephen Hawking, wondered about this question and tried to calculate the probability. Including what he considered to be all variables required for human beings to exist and live on a planet such as ours, he computed the probability of this environment occurring among all the possible results of the Big Bang.

According to Penrose, the odds against such an occurrence were on the order of 10¹⁰¹²³ to 1.

It is hard even to imagine what this number means. In math, the value 10¹²³ means 1 followed by 123 zeros. (This is, by the way, more than the total number of atoms 10⁷⁸ believed to exist in the whole universe.) But Penrose’s answer is vastly more than this: It requires 1 followed by 10¹²³ zeros.

Or consider: 103 means 1,000, a thousand. 10¹⁰³ is a number that has 1 followed by 1000 zeros. If there are six zeros, it’s called a million; if nine, a billion; if twelve, a trillion and so on. There is not even a name for a number that has 1 followed by 10¹²³ zeros.

In practical terms, in mathematics, a probability of 1 in 10⁵⁰ means “zero probability”. Penrose’s number is more than trillion trillion trillion times less than that. In short, Penrose’s number tells us that the ‘accidental” or “coincidental” Creation of our universe is an impossibility.

Concerning this mind-boggling number Roger Penrose comments:

This now tells how precise the Creator’s aim must have been, namely to an accuracy of one part in 1010123. This is an extraordinary figure. One could not possibly even write the number down in full in the ordinary denary notation: it would be 1 followed by 10123 successive 0’s. Even if we were to write a 0 on each separate proton and on each separate neutron in the entire universe–and we could throw in all the other particles for good measure–we should fall far short of writing down the figure needed.

Roger Penrose: “This number tells us how precise the Creator’s aim must have been.”

The numbers defining the order and plan of the universe’s equilibrium play a crucial role and exceed comprehension. They prove that the universe is by no means the product of a coincidence, and show us “how precise the Creator’s aim must have been” as Penrose stated.

In fact in order to recognize that the universe is not a “product of coincidences” one does not really need any of these calculations at all. Simply by looking around himself, a person can easily perceive the fact of Creation in even the tiniest details of what he sees. How could a universe like this, perfect in its systems, the Sun, the Earth, people, houses, cars, trees, flowers, insects, and all the other things in it ever have come into existence as the result of atoms falling together by chance after an explosion? Every detail we peer at shows the evidence of Creation and Allah’s supreme power. Only people who reflect can grasp these signs.

In the Creation of the heavens and earth, and the alternation of the night and day, and the ships which sail the seas to people’s benefit, and the water which Allah sends down from the sky–by which He brings the earth to life when it was dead and scatters about in it creatures of every kind–and the varying direction of the winds, and the clouds subservient between heaven and earth, there are signs for people who use their intellect. (Surat al-Baqara:164)