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Hierarchy problem
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== Overview == {{refimprove|date=April 2024}} Suppose a physics model requires four parameters to produce a very high-quality working model capable of generating predictions regarding some aspect of our physical universe. Suppose we find through experiments that the parameters have values: 1.2, 1.31, 0.9 and a value near {{val|4|e=29}}. One might wonder how such figures arise. In particular, one might be especially curious about a theory where three values are close to one, and the fourth is so different; i.e., the huge disproportion we seem to find between the first three parameters and the fourth. If one force is so much weaker than the others that it needs a factor of {{val|4|e=29}} to allow it to be related to the others in terms of effects, we might also wonder how our universe come to be so exactly balanced when its forces emerged. In current [[particle physics]], the differences between some actual parameters are much larger than this, so the question is noteworthy. One explanation given by philosophers is the [[anthropic principle]]. If the universe came to exist by chance and vast numbers of other universes exist or have existed, then lifeforms capable of performing physics experiments only arose in universes that, by chance, had very balanced forces. All of the universes where the forces were not balanced did not develop life capable of asking this question. So if lifeforms like [[human being]]s are aware and capable of asking such a question, humans must have arisen in a universe having balanced forces, however rare that might be.<ref>{{cite web |date=2024-02-08 |title=Anthropic principle {{!}} Cosmology, Physics & Philosophy {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/science/anthropic-principle |access-date=2024-04-01 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{citation |last1=Dimopoulos |first1=Savas |title=The anthropic principle, dark energy and the LHC |date=2007 |work=Universe or Multiverse? |pages=211β218 |publication-date=5 July 2014 |editor-last=Carr |editor-first=Bernard |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/universe-or-multiverse/anthropic-principle-dark-energy-and-the-lhc/1FEAD231F875FB51E8A01EF68541A9D8 |access-date=2024-04-01 |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-14069-0 |last2=Thomas |first2=Scott|bibcode=2007unmu.book..211D }}</ref> A second possible answer is that there is a deeper understanding of physics that we currently do not possess. There may be parameters from which we can derive physical constants that have fewer unbalanced values, or there may be a model with fewer parameters.{{Citation needed|reason=Reliable source needed for the whole sentence|date=April 2024}}
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