The multiverse may well be the only viable non­religious explanation for what is often called the “fine-tuning problem” (or the anthropic principle)– the baffling observation that the laws of the universe seem custom-tailored to favor the emergence of life.

Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind thinks the various versions of string theory may describe different universes that are all real. He believes the anthropic principle, the multiverse, and string theory are converging to produce a coherent, if exceedingly strange, new view in which our universe is just one of a multitude–one that happened to be born with the right kind of physics for our kind of life.