... The forces that form molecules were stronger or weaker?

Our world as we know it consists of countless atoms that form everything we experience, the ground, water, air, animals, plants and even us humans. Several atoms group themselves to form bigger and more complex shapes, called molecules, examples are water and DNA. The reason for this grouping are forces between atoms that make them stick together. But what happened if those forces that eventually form the molecules were stronger or weaker?

First let’s have a look at what happens if we increase the attraction between positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons. If we make the force between them strong enough a freely existing proton and another freely existing electron would simply combine. We would just get a world that is completely made up of neutral neutrons. The problem with that is that neutrons by their own, being uncharged particles, couldn’t do any interesting chemistry to form more interesting molecules. An increased attraction would therefore only lead to a very boring and unspectacular universe.

But what happened if we decreased the force between protons and electrons?

It would not be good either as atoms could not exist in the way we know them today. Giant molecules, like DNA, would not occur in such a world because the forces that should hold them together are too small.

All in all, our universe is great the way it exists because even simple changes, like the attraction between protons and electrons, would change our world dramatically.