Re: [asa] big bang question ... and the start of matter...

George, in lay terms, is the following true:

-- what was "before" the big bang appears at present to be a true
singularity ("before" not really being an appropriate term because
space-time does not exist before the big bang). Science at present cannot
explain what was "before" the big bang and it appears that science may never
be able to do so within the bounds of known principles of physics. Common
scientific explanations presently involve ideas such as string theory,
bouncing universes, colliding branes, and/or multiverses, none of which are
properly scientific theories because they are not really testable.

-- in theological / apologetic terms, the singularity "before" the big bang
seems consistent with the notion in classical Christian theology that the
universe had a "beginning" caused by an unmoved mover God. Though this is
a god of the gaps argument, it is a more sturdy argument than irreducible
complexity in biology, because pre-big bang singularity appears to be a real
black box. However, it is not impossible that this black box also could be
opened, so the question of creation's exact "beginning" and the strength of
unmoved mover / Kalam arguments must be held with some degree of
tentativeness.

On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 11:08 AM, George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:

> I should probably clarify what I said below. In the simple model I
> described, in which 2 particles pop into existence in a state of zero
> energy, the speeds of the particles will decrease as their separation
> increases until they come to a stop & then fall back together. (There can
> be no orbital angular momentum if the particles are spinless.) This can be
> seen by solving the special relativity equation of motion with Newtonian
> gravity. In this sense the model corresponds to the closed universes of
> general relativity.
>
> But in relativistic cosmology things are different. The Friedman equation
> for the scale factor of a uniform model universe has the mathematical form
> of the Newtonian - i.e., *non*relativistic - equation of motion of a
> particle. (This resuult seems surprising but there's a reason for it. In a
> uniform universe the scale factor of any small part is the same as that of
> an arbitrarily large part. & for a sufficiently small region containing a
> very small amount of matter, the equations of Einstein's theory approach
> those of Newton's.) What corresponds to the Newtonian energy is -kc^2/2
> where k is the curvature which is +1 , -1 or 0. So zero "energy"
> corresponds to *flat* space, the borderline between spaces which will
> expand forever and those which will eventually collapse. k = 0 is like the
> case of a rocket sent away from the earth at exactly escape velocity - it
> would in the limit creep out to infinity at a speed approaching zero but
> would never fall back.
>
> Both inflationary cosmology and present observations indicates that our
> universe is, on the average, spatially flat. But it's possible that it's a
> closed (spherical) space with an extremely large radius of curvature.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
> *To:* Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com> ; asa@calvin.edu
> *Sent:* Monday, May 05, 2008 6:04 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [asa] big bang question ... and the start of matter...
>
> Bernie -
>
> Briefly, matter could come into existence from a state of zero energy if
> its mc^2 energy plus any kinetic energy were exactly cancelled by its
> negative gravitational potential energy. In the simplest case of 2
> particles of mass m at a distance r, 2mc^2 - Gm^2/r = 0. In a more general
> case of a homogeneous distribution of matter, this corresponds to the
> spatially closed universes of Einstein's theory. The transition from a
> state of no particles to one of 2 (or of N) particles would be discontinuous
> but quantum theory allows such "jumps." Thus you need a correct quantum
> theory of gravitation to make this work rigorously & whether we have that or
> not is a matter of debate.
>
>

-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.