The Cosmic Landscape

Chapter 1: The World According to Feynman

No doubt we’ll never know the name of the first cosmologist to look to the sky and ask, “What is all this? How did it get here? What am I doing here?” What we do know is that it occurred deep in the prehistoric past, probably in Africa. The first cosmologies, creation myths, were nothing like today’s scientific cosmology, but they were born of the same human curiosity. Not surprisingly these myths were about earth, water, sky, and living creatures. And of course they featured the supernatural creator: how else to explain the existence of such complex and intricate creatures as humans, not to mention rain, sun, edible animals, and plants that seemed to be placed on earth just for our benefit?

The idea that precise laws of nature govern both the celestial and terrestrial world dates back to Isaac Newton. Before Newton, there was no concept of universal laws that applied both to astronomical objects like planets and to ordinary earthly objects like falling rain and flying arrows. Newton’s laws of motion were the first example of such universal laws. But even for the mighty Sir Isaac, it was far too much of a stretch to suppose that the same laws led to the creation of human beings: he spent more time on theology than physics.