Mathematical model of medieval cosmology reveals modern concepts

New Scientist : English theologian Robert Grossette wrote his De luce in 1225, after studying Aristotle’s description of the universe as nine concentric spheres . Grossette described how that universe could have formed by drawing a connection between light and matter. In his theory, a flash of light created the universe from a point and expanded everything outward until it created a sphere. When the sphere stabilized, it released new light that pushed matter inward until a new sphere was formed, and then the process repeated until Earth formed at the center. Tom McLeish of Durham University in the UK and his colleagues used Grossette’s descriptions to create sets of equations that they employed to model his universe; they found that the resulting model matched the description very well. Analyzing the model revealed that Grossette’s universe, like modern cosmology, is finely tuned . If the initial conditions or the way light and matter interacted were just slightly changed, the resulting universe would have formed with different numbers of spheres. Some modern theorists argue that fine tuning implies the existence of a multiverse, full of the other universes that could have formed with different conditions.