In Heim’s theory both the metronic seize t and the largest diameter D depend on the age of the universe. The dependence is such that D is expanding and t is contracting, so that D was smaller in the past and t was larger. It stands to reason that at one time in the distant past the surface area of a sphere of diameter D in our 3-dimensional world was equal to the size of t. This instant marks the origin of the universe and of time. The mathematical relation between D and t is not simple, so that 3 different values of D are found to satisfy the criterion that the area of a sphere of diameter D be equal to t at the beginning of time. Evidently, the universe started as trinity of spheres, whose diameters turn out to be (in meters):
D1 = 0.90992 m, D2 = 1.06426 m, D3 = 3.70121 m.
This trinity of spheres has important bearings on the structure of elementary particles. From the first moment on the universe begun to expand, though at a slower rate than is presently predicted on the basis of the red shift of distant galaxis (see the Appendix). Heim’s theory results in a present age of the universe approximately equal to 5.45 ´ 10107 years, and a diameter D of about 6.37 ´ 10109 light years. During most of its existence the universe consisted of an empty metronic lattice, whose metrons kept getting smaller as the universe grew larger. Eventually, metrons became small enough for matter to come into existence. This may have occurred some 15-40 billion (109) years ago, at which time matter was created throughout the volume of the universe. Hence, according to Heim matter did not originate very soon after a “big bang” explosion but more uniformly in scattered “fire-cracker” like bursts, perhaps of galactic proportions. Spontaneous uniform creation of matter, coupled with the partly attractive and partly repulsive force of gravity mentioned in Section 3 resulted in the observed large-scale galactic structure of the universe. Creation of matter continues to this day, though on a very much reduced scale.