The age of universe expressed in atomic units is very close to the ratio of electromagnetic to gravitational forces in the atom (both 10 to power 40). Is this a coincidence?
Astrophysicist Robert Dicke argued it is because of anthropic reasons. The age of the universe means of course the epoch at which we happen to be living. What determines that epoch? Life as we know it demands the existence of carbon and other heavy elements, none of which existed in abundance at the origin of universe. Instead, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen etc, were synthesized in the interiors of stars. These elements were then distributed through space as a result of supernova that destroyed the stars. Terrestrial type biology therefore had to wait for at least one generation of stars to live and die before it could start. At the other extreme, life would become problematical after several stellar life cycles due to paucity of suitable stars. Hence we would expect to find ourselves living at a cosmic epoch between one and several stellar lifetimes after the big bang.
Now, the lifetime of a star is determined by the physical processes that control the rate at which fuel is consumed and its energy flows away into space. The rate turns out to depend on the ratio of the electromagnetic to gravitational forces!!
From: Are we alone? by P. Davis
“We are made from the ashes of stellar death. Some scientists have whimsically imagined the meanderings of a single carbon atom, released in the explosive death throes of a star, drifting for eons across intergalactic space, landing in a gas disk that eventually formed Earth, becoming chemically altered, and finally being inserted into a chain of life as part of a nerve cell that guides a human hand to write about it.”