Posted on 06/23/2003 11:31:49 AM PDT by yonif
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http://www.aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/The_Big_Bang_and_the_Big_Question_A_Universe_without_God$.asp |
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The Big Bang and the Big Question: A Universe without God?
Until the early twentieth century, astronomers entertained three possible models of the universe: 1. The universe could be static.
According to this theory, though the mutual gravitational attractions of stars and planets might hold them together in the form of solar systems and galaxies, each of these stellar-terrestrial groups slide through space along its own random trajectory, unrelated to the courses tracked by other groups of stars and planets.
The static model works for atheists and believers: Such a universe could have been created by God at some point in history, but it also could have existed forever without God. 2. The universe could be oscillating.
It might be a cosmic balloon alternately expanding and contracting. For a few billion years it would inflate, expanding into absolute nothingness. But the gravitational attraction of every star and planet pulling on every other would eventually slow this expansion until the whole process would reverse and the balloon would come crashing back in upon itself. All that existed would eventually smash together at the universe's center, releasing huge amounts of heat and light, spewing everything back out in all directions and beginning the expansion phase all over again.
Such a universe could also have been created by God or could have existed forever without God. 3. Finally, the universe could be open.
It might be a cosmic balloon that never implodes. If the total gravitational attraction of all stars and planets could not halt the initial expansion, as in the oscillating model, the universe would spill out into nothingness forever. Eventually the stars would burn out and a curtain of frozen darkness would enshroud all existence. Such a universe could never bring itself back to life. It would come into existence at a moment in history, blaze gloriously, and then pass into irrevocable night.
Crucially, the latter model proposes that before the one-time explosion, all the universe's matter and energy was contained in a singularity, a tiny dot that sat stable in space for eternity before it detonated.
This model proposes a paradox: Objects at rest -- like the initial singularity -- remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force; and yet, since the initial dot contained all matter and energy, nothing (at least, nothing natural) existed outside of this singularity that could have caused it to explode.
The simplest resolution of the paradox is to posit that something supernatural kicked the universe into being. The open model of the universe thus implies a supernatural Creator -- a God. THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY
In 1916 Albert Einstein released the first drafts of his general theory of relativity, and the scientific world went wild. It appeared that Einstein had revealed the deepest secrets of the universe. His equations also caused a few problems -- technical dilemmas, mathematical snags -- but not the sort of thing to interest newspapers or even popular science journals.
Two scientists noticed the glitches. Late in 1917 the Danish astronomer Willem de Sitter reviewed general relativity and returned a detailed response to Einstein, outlining the problem and proposing a radical solution: general relativity could work only if the entire universe was exploding, erupting out in all directions from a central point.
Einstein never responded to de Sitter's critique. Then, in 1922, Soviet mathematician Alexander Friedmann independently derived de Sitter's solution. If Einstein was right, Friedmann predicted, the universe must be expanding in all directions at high speed.
Meanwhile, across the sea, American astronomer Vesto Slipher actually witnessed the universe's explosive outward movement. Using the powerful telescope at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, Slipher discovered that dozens of galaxies were indeed rocketing away from a central point.
Between 1918 and 1922, de Sitter, Friedmann, and Slipher independently shared their findings with Einstein, but he strangely resisted their solution -- as if, in his brilliance, he realized the theological implications of an exploding universe.
Einstein even wrote a letter to Zeitschrift fur Physik, a prestigious technical journal, calling Friedmann's suggestions "suspicious," and to de Sitter Einstein jotted a note, "This circumstance [of an expanding universe] irritates me." In another note, Einstein reassured one of his colleagues, "I have not yet fallen in the hands of priests," a veiled reference to de Sitter, Friedmann, and Slipher. THE HUBBLE DISCOVERY
In 1925, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble dealt the static model of the universe a fatal blow. Using what was then the largest telescope in the world, Hubble revealed that every galaxy within 6 x 1017 miles of the Earth was receding.
Einstein tenaciously refused to acknowledge Hubble's work. He continued teaching the static model for five more years, until, at Hubble's request, he traveled from Berlin to Pasadena to personally examine the evidence. At the trip's conclusion, Einstein reluctantly admitted, "New observations by Hubble ... make it appear likely that the general structure of the universe is not static."
Einstein died in 1955, swayed but still not fully convinced that the universe was expanding. THE SOUND OF THE BIG BANG
Ten years later, in 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were calibrating a supersensitive microwave detector at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey. No matter where the two scientists aimed the instrument, it picked up the same unidentified background noise -- a steady, three-degree Kelvin (3K) hum. On a hunch, the two Bell Labs employees looked over an essay on general relativity by a student of Alexander Friedmann. The essay predicted that the remnants of the universe's most recent explosion should be detectable in the form of weak microwave radiation, "around 5K or thereabouts."
The two scientists realized they had discovered the echo of the biggest explosion in history: "the Big Bang." For this discovery, Penzias and Wilson received the Nobel Prize.
The discovery of the "3K hum" undermined the static model of the universe. There were only two models left: one that worked without God and one that did not.
The last issue to be settled was: Had the primordial universe exploded an infinite number of times (the oscillating model) or only once (the open model)?
Researchers knew the issue could be settled by determining the average density of the universe. If the universe contained the equivalent of about one hydrogen atom per ten cubic feet of space, then the gravitational attraction among all the universe's particles would be strong enough to stop and reverse the expansion. Eventually there would be a "big crunch," which would lead to another big bang (and then to another big crunch, etc.). If, on the other hand, the universe contained less than this density, then the big bang's explosive force would overcome all the gravitational pulls, and everything would sail out into nothingness forever. THE PANIC AND ITS RESOLUTION
Curiously, the death of the static model inspired panic in many quarters of the scientific world. Mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers joined forces to prove the eternity of the universe.
Dr. Robert Jastrow, arguably the greatest astrophysicist of the time and director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Center for Space Studies, was named head of the research project. For fifteen years Jastrow and his team tried to demonstrate the validity of the oscillating model, but the data told a different story.
In 1978 Jastrow released NASA's definitive report, shocking the public with his announcement that the open model was probably correct. On June 25 of that year, Jastrow wrote about his findings to the New York Times Magazine:
This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." ... [But] for the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; [and] as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
Dr. James Trefil, a physicist at the University of Virginia, independently confirmed Jastrow's discovery in 1983. Drs. John Barrow, an astronomer at the University of Sussex, and Frank Tipler, a mathematician and physicist at Tulane University, published similar results in 1986. GENESIS CONFIRMED
At the 1990 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Professor John Mather of Columbia University, an astrophysicist who also serves on the staff of NASA's Goddard Center, presented "the most dramatic support ever" for an open universe.
According to the Boston Globe reporter covering the conference, Mather's keynote address was greeted with thunderous applause, which led the meeting's chairman, Dr. Geoffrey Burbridge, to comment: "It seems clear that the audience is in favor of the book of Genesis - at least, the first verse or so, which seems to have been confirmed."
In 1998, Drs. Ruth Daly, Erick Guerra, and Lin Wan of Princeton University announced to the American Astronomical Society, "We can state with 97.5 percent confidence that the universe will continue to expand forever."
Later that year, Dr. Allan Sandage, a world-renowned astrophysicist on the staff of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, was quoted in The New Republic saying, "The big bang is best understood as a miracle triggered by some kind of transcendent power."
Newsweek columnist George Will began his November 9, 1998, column with this quip: "Soon the American Civil Liberties Union or People for the American Way, or some similar faction of litigious secularism, will file suit against NASA, charging that the Hubble Space Telescope unconstitutionally gives comfort to the religiously inclined." PERMISSION TO BELIEVE
The same year, Newsweek reported a recent and unexpected swing of opinion among the once passionately agnostic: "Forty percent of American scientists now believe in a personal God - not merely an ineffable power and presence in the world, but a deity to whom they can pray."
There are, of course, mathematicians, physicists, astronomers, and cosmologists who choose not to believe in God today. For a variety of reasons, they choose instead to have faith that new natural laws will be discovered or that new evidence will appear and overturn the current model of an open, created universe.
But for many in the scientific community, the evidence is persuasive. For many, modern cosmology offers permission to believe.
LAWRENCE KELEMEN is the author of Permission to Believe: Four Rational Approaches to God's Existence (Targum/Feldheim, 1990) and Permission to Receive: Four Rational Approaches to the Torah's Divine Origin (Targum Press, 1996). He studied at U.C.L.A., Yeshiva University of Los Angeles, and Harvard University. He was also a downhill skiing instructor on the staff of the Mammoth Mountain Ski School in California and served as news director and anchorman for KMMT-FM radio station. Currently he teaches medieval and modern Jewish philosophy at Neve Yerushalayim College of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.
This essay is excerpted from "Jewish Matters: A pocketbook of knowledge and inspiration." "Jewish Matters" includes short essays on topics from relationships, prayer, happiness, and Shabbat, written by top male and female educators from around the world. Deep, funny, and fascinating, "JM" is available in Jewish bookstores, and on Amazon.com , and Chapters.ca. More information and excerpts can be seen at www.jewishmatters.com.
Copyright © 1995 - 2003 Aish.com - http://www.aish.com
maybe no one does know what the matter came from, or where the energy came from, but what some people say is, how does that lack of knowledge demand that a creator created the universe?
Actually, we do know where all the matter came from. All the light gases of the universe were made by the Big Bang. At the time of Big Bang the Universe was situated in a very infinite small space and was so hot as if millions of suns were burning together. As the Universe was one thousandth of a second old, its temperature had fallen 10 billion degrees. Initially Quark was created, it is known as the creator of todays protons and neutrons. By the time the Universe had reached the age of one hundredth of a second it was failed up with protons, electrons, positrons and neutrinos. These three quarks combined together to form neutrons and protons, but these particles are found in very less quantity. By the time the Universe was a second old, the temperature had further fallen by 10 million degrees and protons did not have so much energy left with them that they could collect their own particles.
The most historic event took place after the Universe was 100 seconds old. Its temperature had further fallen by some lakh degrees. The protons and neutrons were moving very slowly, at that time the force was created that is responsible for holding the protons and neutrons to the nucleus. From here on the era of Nuclear Synthesis started when light Nuclear were created, they contained Helium and Lithium gases, but for creation of heavy elements like oxygen higher temperature was required. But as the Universe was expanding at the same rate it was cooling down. The heavy basic elements later were to become atomic furnaces in the stars.
Nuclear fusion in stars converts hydrogen into helium in all stars. In stars less massive than the Sun, this is the only reaction that takes place. In stars more massive than the Sun (but less massive than about 8 solar masses), further reactions that convert helium to carbon and oxygen take place in succesive stages of stellar evolution. In the very massive stars, the reaction chain continues to produce elements like silicon upto iron.
Elements higher than iron cannot be formed through fusion as one has to supply energy for the reaction to take place. However, we do see elements higher than iron around us. So how did these elements form? The answer is supernovae. In a supernova explosion, neutron capture reactions take place (this is not fusion), leading to the formation of heavy elements. This is the reason why it is said that most of the stuff that we see around us come from stars and supernovae (the heavy elements part). If you go into technical details, then there are two processes of neutron capture called rapid process (r-process) and the slow process (s-process), and these lead to formation of different elements.
So far as a creator, you seem to miss the point of a sigularity. A singularity, where the universe once resided, is so small, protons would be millions of times larger. The point of the matter is, according to Newtons laws of motion, for every reaction--the Big Bang, there had to be a preceding action. If the entire universe was contained in one sinularity--and nothing else was outside of it, what was the ACTION, that started the Big Bang REaction??
of course it's a theory. No one was witness to it, except the Father.
But the point is, what theory overrules the Big Bang? None so far. In fact, as Einstien and every physicist since him has proven, the evidence of a 'Big Bang' is the only explanation.
Otherwise, explain the discovery of the background microwaves found at Bell Labs in 1965. How do you explain the expansion of the universe, at such a high rate?? No other theory explains this.
It's only a theory in so much there was no witnesses. This doesn't mean it isn't proveable.
Exactly!! Exactly!! Thank you so much for this quote from the bible.
Something's ARE unknowable to us--like how do you reconcile Quantum theory with the physics our known universe? The so-called UNIFIED theory Einstein spent the rest of his life searching to find, but never did.
This just goes to further prove that searching for proof of God's work is as easy as looking into the eyes of another human being. If evolution is the answer, and science the key--we have all the materials we need to make life, why hasn't science achieved this yet?
Certainly we have the water, minerals, material, etc., to assemble life. Why can't we create it in a laboratory? IF, as the evolutionists tell us, life came together in a bastion of amino acids to form DNA, and a spark of electricity transformed it into life--then why hasn't science replicated this?
Any real educated person would have to admit that the beginning of life is beyond our capability to create spontaneously
And the only being that could produce it--obviously did. Why doubt his ability if you can't repeat it?
Obviously God.
And what started the action that started the action that started the Big Bang?
The answer is very simple--God. The problem is, you refuse to accept the answer that physics and science is proving daily. There was a beginning action, and it rested with an outside, ALIEN to our universe, force. It had to be, otherwise, it would be part of our universe and therefore contained in the singularity.
Einstein, for the better part of his life before he died in 1955, sought the answer to why Quantum theory is beyond what we know about the physics of the universe--he sought a so-called UNIFIED THEORY of the Universe. For instance: The Electrons Quantum Leap--an electron moves from one energy level to another, it doesn't gradually pass through all the energy levels in-between. Instead, there is a "Quantum leap", and the electron instantly leaps from one energy level to the next. In general, a Quantum leap is when a particle changes from one Quantum State to another. It's as if you were trailing someone, and you saw them at different points, but never saw them get there.
The greatest minds of our age have been unable to explain this--but it's answer lies in what we already know. The creator of the universe had his own timetable and his own laws.
Excellent point -- and it's worth noting that eternity pretty much has to be "bigger than" time or space-time.
Preceding is perhaps a little too wide or loose for old Newton. Simultaneous, perhaps, rather than preceding.
It's not obvious, it's just one possible answer. Still God would have to come from somewhere and he'd have to have some reason to create the universe.
As I remarked quite some while ago on FR, the Judeo-Christian-Islamic perception of an infinitely omnipotent & benevolent deity is simply illogical. If an omnipotent deity were infinitely holy, then there would exist no evil with which It could find offense.... In my estimation, there are only eight resolutions to this paradox, none of which appear acceptable to contemporary Christian consciousness. In no particular order:
1) A dualist deity
2) A limited deity
3) Multiple deities
4) A capricious deity
5) An irrational deity
6) An indifferent deity
7) No deity
8) A dead deity...
Whatever the case, for all practical intents, further inquiry into God's nature appears inconsequential for all practical purposes.
PS. One might also posit that evil does not exist as a universal, absolute principle outside of our own value judgments. Everything which happens is accordant to the designs or wishes of such a deity, which finds it all 'good' in Its regard.
Sounds like a constraint on the Infinite. The Infinite might find this amusing.
Well, so is the concept of God, since if God were more than a theory, there wouldn't be all this mindnumbing debate. The Eifle Tower is not a theory, you can go touch it, you can get postcards, no one debates the "essence" of the Eifle Tower.
Truthfully, neither The Big bang Theory, nor the Theory of Evolution have any effect at all on the question of whether there is a universal morality, i.e. a universal religion. As for the idea of God, unless you make a trivialized anthropomorphic figure of clay to represent him (a Michaelangelo figure touching the hand of Adam), well there isn't much of a definition that makes much sense to human brains. Define an omnipotent, omniscient creator in plain English, and you have distilled God to something akin to a saturday morning cartoon figure.
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