In physics and cosmology, the anthropic principle is the collective name for several ways of asserting that the observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the life observed in it. The principle was formulated as a response to a series of observations that the laws of nature and its fundamental physical constants remarkably take on values that are consistent with conditions for life as we know it rather than a set of values that would not be consistent with life as observed on Earth. The anthropic principle states that this phenomenon is actually a necessity because living observers wouldn't be able to exist, and hence, observe the universe, were these laws and constants not constituted in this way. Brandon Carter defined two forms of the Anthropic Principle, a "weak" one which referred only to anthropic selection of privileged spacetime locations in the universe, and a more controversial "strong" form which addressed the values of the fundamental constants of physics. Seeing little sense in a principle requiring intelligent life to emerge while remaining indifferent to the possibility of its eventual extinction, Barrow and Tipler propose the: "Final anthropic principle: Intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the Universe, and, once it comes into existence, it will never die out." In Wikipedia we trust.