Posted on 04/26/2012 3:13:30 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Cosmologists use the mathematical properties of eternity to show that although universe may last forever, it must have had a beginning
kfc 04/24/2012
The Big Bang has become part of popular culture since the phrase was coined by the maverick physicist Fred Hoyle in the 1940s. That's hardly surprising for an event that represents the ultimate birth of everything.
However, Hoyle much preferred a different model of the cosmos: a steady state universe with no beginning or end, that stretches infinitely into the past and the future. That idea never really took off.
In recent years, however, cosmologists have begun to study a number of new ideas that have similar properties. Curiously, these ideas are not necessarily at odds with the notion of a Big Bang.
For instance, one idea is that the universe is cyclical with big bangs followed by big crunches followed by big bangs in an infinite cycle.
Another is the notion of eternal inflation in which different parts of the universe expand and contract at different rates. These regions can be thought of as different universes in a giant multiverse.
So although we seem to live in an inflating cosmos, other universes may be very different. And while our universe may look as if it has a beginning, the multiverse need not have a beginning.
Then there is the idea of an emergent universe which exists as a kind of seed for eternity and then suddenly expands.
So these modern cosmologies suggest that the observational evidence of an expanding universe is consistent with a cosmos with no beginning or end. That may be set to change.
Today, Audrey Mithani and Alexander Vilenkin at Tufts University in Massachusetts say that these models are mathematically incompatible with an eternal past. Indeed, their analysis suggests that these three models of the universe must have had a beginning too.
Their argument focuses on the mathematical properties of eternity--a universe with no beginning and no end. Such a universe must contain trajectories that stretch infinitely into the past.
However, Mithani and Vilenkin point to a proof dating from 2003 that these kind of past trajectories cannot be infinite if they are part of a universe that expands in a specific way.
They go on to show that cyclical universes and universes of eternal inflation both expand in this way. So they cannot be eternal in the past and must therefore have had a beginning. "Although inflation may be eternal in the future, it cannot be extended indefinitely to the past," they say.
They treat the emergent model of the universe differently, showing that although it may seem stable from a classical point of view, it is unstable from a quantum mechanical point of view. "A simple emergent universe model...cannot escape quantum collapse," they say.
The conclusion is inescapable. "None of these scenarios can actually be past-eternal," say Mithani and Vilenkin.
Since the observational evidence is that our universe is expanding, then it must also have been born in the past. A profound conclusion (albeit the same one that lead to the idea of the big bang in the first place).
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1204.4658: Did The Universe Have A Beginning?
Sounds Great!...except for those dang pesky Laws of Thermodynamics.
"Big Bang" is bad science and bad theology rolled into a package. Having the entire mass of the universe collapsed to a point would be the mother of all black holes, nothing would ever "bang" its way out of that.
Likewise for a supposedly omnipotent and omniscient God to suddenly determine that it would be cool or necessary to create a universe at a particular point in time while the idea had never occurred to him previously is clearly unworkable and is not compatible with anybody's system of logic. It doesn't even matter whether this supposed creation was 6000 years ago as per Bishop Usher or 17B years ago as per the evolosers and big-bangers.
In real life, the RNA/DNA code which is the basis of meaningful life has to be the work of a single pair of hands; the physical universe logically has to be eternal like God; the creation stories we read in ancient literature have to refer to the creation of our own local environment, and not to the creation of the universe.
I believe the answer you’re looking for is actually 42...
What’s the question?
I think you’re missing the fact that God created the universe, therefore the universe has a beginning. God is eternal. Matter is not.
The relevant point the research seems to point to is that all the popular theories that have been designed to evade the “universe-has-a-beginning” argument actually argue the opposite - the sort of expansion that is theorized by multiverse proponents, and undulating universe proponents, and sudden expansion proponents... each of them mathematically require the universe to have a beginning.
It is compatible with my logic. My God can can do what He wants when He wants to do it on His time schedule. The universe is not eternally old. It had a starting point. And time is relative.
In infinity there is no such thing as time. It just is.
Psa 75:6 For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south.
Psa 75:7 But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.
East, West South, and God...
Recognizing that this one has its faults, I’m wondering if he didn’t also create others to improve on this one.......like we didn’t already have enough to think about.
There are versions of the theory that involve cycles, and the researcher used the same method to disprove those as well.
Well, what UCANSEE2 said isn’t contradicted by the laws of thermodynamics. If the universe is a closed system, then it is going to tend towards entropy, which is simply the equilibrium state, or the point where the sine wave crosses zero. It’s perfectly logical that a sine wave can continue vibrating while at the same time tending towards zero. Just look at what happens when you throw a rock in the water: the waves spread out, the amplitude continually decreases, but they never stop being waves.
?
“Likewise for a supposedly omnipotent and omniscient God to suddenly determine that it would be cool or necessary to create a universe at a particular point in time while the idea had never occurred to him previously is clearly unworkable and is not compatible with anybody’s system of logic.”
You were doing great up until this point. Yes, God has given us logic so that we can inspect His handiwork and glean understanding about the universe, ourselves, and perhaps something about Him as well. However, to imagine that the logic we are given to understand this universe is equipped to give us understanding of anything outside this universe is a non sequiter. If God created this universe, then he must not be bound by it, and must be outside of it. So, we have no evidence that our logic is equipped to judge whether any of God’s possible actions or motivations are plausible. We can make some guesses, and hope that we are correct, but we cannot use our logic to draw a conclusion such as yours with any degree of certainty.
Well, if you say this universe has “faults”, then either God must have wanted a universe with those faults, or God is not omnipotent. Can’t have it both ways.
Maybe some genius scientist out there can help me reconcile the Big Bang theory against Newton’s First Law of Physics.
I’m an old fart so I’ll term it the way we used to say it, “An object at rest will stay at rest and an object in motion will stay in motion, unless acted on by a force”.
So if the universe had a beginning, and all of the mass in the universe was collected in one body at rest, what set it in motion?
If this is true, and it may well be, what more possible proof do you need for God?
The object at rest could not possibly have been set into motion unless God set it into motion.
I wonder how the athiest scientists would respond to that?
IF the universe “bounced” and it did oscillate like a sine wave, the peaks would grow smaller and smaller, eventually resting in a flat, heat death universe. Nothing goes on and on without losing energy...except for that one perpetual motion machine that guy down in Florida wants to sell me.
Galaxy NGC 3172 makes Galaxy NGC 1586 look like a cap pistol.
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