Mathematics of Eternity Prove The Universe Must Have Had A Beginning

Cosmologists use the mathematical properties of eternity to show that although universe may last forever, it must have had a beginning

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).

I believe that before sin, God’s creation was perfect.

I freely admit it is mainly conjecture what a perfect world would look like, but didn’t God say he gave them the plants and fruit of the trees for food?

I’m an old school COBOL programmer so by my reckoning it is easy to see that it would require a far superior intelligence to write [and then after the fall re-write] the DNA that varies from approx one half-billion lines of quad-code [a, c, t, & g] for bacteria upto approx 50 billion for some of the more exotic and often times extinct DNA code found [i.e. the Marbled Lungfish, and the Paris Japonica with the largest known genome]. Incidentally, the larger the genome the more they are prone to extinction so it is good that mankind only has approx 3 billion LOC. But it is also very interesting the man made in God’s image is still considered to be the highest, and most complex life form which must be attributed mainly to intrinsic qualities not found in the physical genome.

Did you know man’s brain has an estimated 6 peta byte capacity [mega, giga, tera, then peta] and our brain [mainframe] and nervous system/spinal column [network] is over a million times as powerful as modern day personal computers?

In my own imaginations none of the present plants nor animals are the same as they were in Paradise. None of them needed a digestive tract that expelled waste b/c all food was 100% nutritious. So no carnivores [no sharp teeth nor claws] b/c none were meat-eaters. No plants were poisonous nor bacteria, or virii deadly. The whole creation was cursed by sin with death and destruction.

In the millennial reign of Christ, Revelation indicates the original order will be restored, the lamb will lie down with the lion, and even a child will place his hand in a nest of adders and not be harmed.

Furthermore, I believe the Noahic Flood brought forth the first rain, along with the bursting of the fountains of the great deep, and the tearing open of the upper atmosphere - Gen 7:11 and subsequently all manner of natural disasters, many local floods and the ice-ages. I also believe Dr. Brown has found much astrological, geological and fossil evidence in support of this in addition to what the Bible only hints.

Lastly, I would not doubt that mankind got too smart for his own good and is primarily responsible for all manner of natural disasters ~ in Noah’s day he most likely drilled approx 10 miles deep into Earth’s crust [probably mining for precious metals] and caused the fountains of the great deep to explode open [1 pint of supercritical water = 1 stick of dynamite], resulting in 40 days of torrential rain, tearing a rift in the crust and up through the upper atmosphere mostly north/south and circumventing the globe, caused the breaking up of the continents and tech-tonic plates, vulcanism, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons, major uplifts of mountain ranges and even deeper crevasses in the oceans [crevasses that just happen to parallel all the major mountain ranges. This is a brief description of the hydroplate theory ~ for more see section II of:
Center for Scientific Creation - In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/IntheBeginningTOC.html

Is it really any wonder that the Bible records life spans for man of almost 1000 years pre-flood and only 120 years post-flood?

103 posted on Tuesday, May 01, 2012 1:41:30 PM by BrandtMichaels

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