How The Universe Came Into Being

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Mark of the Cross' date='08 January 2010 - 08:42 PM' timestamp='1262997746' post='2032728']
Would I be out of place by saying that time is a function of the Universe. It belongs with space and matter! God is not affected by these things he created them. And He just is, was and always will be beyond the physics of time. Omni present, etcetera.
[/quote]
Exactly. God is the author, the universe is the book.

[Servus_Mariae]

I have always been puzzled by the assumption that causlity as it applies to us must apply to God who would be its creator not its subject.

[Ed Normile]

[quote name='Oliver' date='05 January 2010 - 12:08 PM' timestamp='1262711285' post='2030199']
God created the Universe using the big bang. That is what I believe.
[/quote]

I agree with you Oliver, I also believe in evolution that way, for example if God decided I should fly like a bird I would be the first old Irish American to sprout wings and fly.

my God, Your will be done.

ed

[Apotheoun]

Every time a bell rings an Irishman gets his wings.

[MithLuin]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='05 January 2010 - 11:58 PM' timestamp='1262750296' post='2030595']I read somewhere that Albert Einstein applauded Father Lemaitre's explanation of the Big Bang as an elegant explanation of Creation.[/quote]

[quote name='Hassan' date='06 January 2010 - 03:27 AM' timestamp='1262762867' post='2030712']Nope, just the opposite. "Your mathematics are correct but your physics are deplorable" or something like that. Einstein hated Lemaitre's theory for the same set of reasons he hated quantum theory. He was a classical determinist and a rationalist. His God was the Great Mathematician, not the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.[/quote]

Well, not quite. I mean, you're both right - Einstein did make both statements. I'm more inclined to go with [b]Hassan[/b], though. I'm pretty sure Einstein said his math was beautiful, but his physics terrible in 1927. Einstein did not think the universe had a beginning or an end, and was [i]not[/i] a proponent of the big bang theory (not that that existed yet, but you know what I mean). Einstein's reaction may have changed over time, but I don't think he ever "bought into" LeMaitre's idea fully. Saying it was the best explanation of creation he'd heard (in 1933) doesn't mean that Einstein was convinced that the universe, in fact, [i]had[/i] a creation moment. But something did change between 1927 and 1933 - Hubble's observations gave the first evidence for an expanding universe.

Pope Pius XII might have agreed with Einstein's later remark, though. If so, Lemaitre was not comfortable with the connection, because that implies that if his theory turns out to be incorrect, there would be 'something wrong' with the Biblical account of creation, too. He didn't want to conflate the ideas, but keep his idea of a primordial atom strictly a cosmological theory, building on Einstein's theory of relativity.

And in the end, Einstein did [i]not[/i] approve of LeMaitre's use of his cosmological constant, since that was looking less and less likely to be real by that time.

If anyone wants to see the math, look [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedmann-Lema%C3%AEtre-Robertson-Walker_metric]HERE[/url].

A book on the subject is [url=http://www.amazon.com/Day-Without-Yesterday-Lemaitre-Cosmology/dp/1560256605]The Day Without Yesterday: LeMaitre, Einstein and the Birth of Modern Cosmology[/url], and [b]cmom[/b] has already linked to a nice overview from it.

The History Channel's "Beyond the Big Bang" documentary also addresses this topic. Here are the relevant parts; they are all available on YouTube: [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIpi00FoVNY]LeMaitre's idea[/url] and [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6OAM-HYAag]Einstein's reaction[/url]

The real squabble over steady state vs big bang was not between Einstein and LeMaitre, though. It was between Fred Hoyle and George Gamow/Ralph Alpher.

And then there was the later argument between a pulsating universe and one that expands indefinitely.

It is important to remember that in the 1920's, very little data had been collected, so all of these ideas were more thought experiments than anything else. Red shift (evidence of an expanding universe) wasn't found til the end of that decade. The background radiation from the big bang wasn't discovered until 1965. The observations and calculations that make a collapsing universe unlikely were made in 1998. Some of the current prevailing theories (that the initial explosion was faster than the speed of light) are pretty whacky, too, but time will tell if they have any merit. Basically, this branch of science (cosmology) is changing all the time as we learn new things we didn't know before.

But I think it extremely unlikely that science will be able to offer testable/observable explanations for what came "before" the big bang...time was pretty meaningless then, so if we look all the way back to time = 0....what comes "before"? Asking where the Singularity came from might be interesting, but...yeah, don't hold your breath waiting for answers.

Edited January 10, 2010 by MithLuin

[Apotheoun]

Anyone who wants to know more about the interactions between Einstein, LeMaitre, and Hubble should get a copy of Stanley Jaki's book "[url="http://www.amazon.com/God-cosmologists-Stanley-L-Jaki/dp/B0006RZQVK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263152569&sr=1-1"]God and the Cosmologists[/url]."