Posted on 05/23/2002 3:02:41 AM PDT by lavaroise
Despite an aging Albert Einstein's famous comment, "God does not play dice with the universe," renowned cosmologist Stephen Hawking and his academic collaborator Thomas Hertog now suggest that God did roll the dice at least once – at the moment of creation.
Like that familiar wizened sage atop the highest peak, God cast that first die down a mountain of potential energy where, according to Hawking and Hertog, it rolled like a snowball, growing, expanding and inflating into the universe we know today.
"The quantum origin of our universe implies one must take a 'top down' approach to the problem of initial conditions in cosmology," Hawking and Hertog write in their latest paper on the subject – "Why does inflation start at the top of the hill?"
Inflation – and creation – started at the top of a potential energy mountain, the two cosmologists claim, where fundamental field particles acted like snowflakes that coalesced into cosmological snowballs. A rolling stone may gather no moss, but the rolling die of creation – known to physicists as a subatomic particle called the "Hawking-Moss instanton" – gathered these snowflake-like particles.
"The early evolution of our universe is a bit like a ball of snow that grows while rolling down a hill," Hertog told WorldNetDaily in an exclusive interview. Hertog equated the growing snowball to a field of particles. "Our calculations show that our universe was most likely created by this field at the top of a 'potential hill.'"
Like mischievous children, quantum fluctuations in the early universe rolled the cosmological snowball down the hill and it expanded.
"Because of Heisenberg's famous uncertainty principle, the field at the top of the hill fluctuates," Hertog explained. "Because the top of the hill is an unstable point, these fluctuations eventually cause the field to roll all the way down."
The snowball of creation eventually settled into a valley and became the universe that surrounds us today, Hertog explained. Although this valley is lower than it was at the beginning of everything, "the bottom of the valley doesn't seem to be at sea level," Hertog said. Cosmological sea level may be described by Einstein's famous "cosmological constant that cosmologists are measuring," he added.
Hawking and Hertog assert that their "top down" approach to cosmology is a fundamental departure from scientific tradition.
"The usual approach to the problem of initial conditions for inflation is to assume some initial configuration for the universe and evolve it forward in time," Hawking said. "This could be described as the 'bottom up' approach to cosmology."
The quantum nature of the cosmos, however, dictates the "top down" approach, Hawking claims, because the history of the universe depends on the mountain, the dice, the snowflakes and the snowballs. In other words, the universe "depends on the observables being measured."
God may play dice then, but only if the dice are loaded. If the universe depends on observables, it also depends on we the observers, so the dice had to somehow guarantee that we humans would emerge. Physicists call this idea the so-called "Weak Anthropic Principle" from the Greek "anthropos," which means "man" or "human."
"The top-down approach is a mathematical formulation of the Weak Anthropic Principle," Hawking writes, in which observed values of all physical and cosmological quantities are restricted by the requirement that carbon-based life must exist.
"The top-down approach incorporates the Weak Anthropic Principle because it takes into account certain observed features of our universe – such as the fact that it expands – in order to explain its origin," Hertog said. "In other words, a top down approach does not tell us how the universe should be, but why the universe is the way it is."
"If Hawking speaks, we should probably listen," Randolph-Macon College physics professor George Spagna told WorldNetDaily from Ashland, Va.
"The approach Hawking and Hertog apply in their paper is to work backwards from the current state of the universe to its possible origins, rather than attempting to cook up the appropriate initial state and see if it evolves forward into something resembling the present universe," Spagna explained. "Hence, it is akin to attaching mathematics to the Weak Anthropic Principle, because we obviously inhabit a universe whose conditions permit our very existence in the first place."
Mike Martin regularly reports on breaking science news for ScienceNewsWeek, United Press International and other publications. View his other stories at sciencenewsweek.com.
Just like on the Bullwinkle and Rocky Show...
I think I recall his conclusions to this as being before the first three seconds of the Universe's creation from using Hubbel's expansion theory to support a "regressive" origin timespan of 15 by - yet the Universe has a beginning.
Other notable scientists didn't like the idea, because if the Universe had a point of finite singularity in its origin, it suggests the Universe requires a Creator which is in opposition to their preconceptions. Hawking's theory too closely paralleled the Biblical accounts of "In the beginning, God created" for their comfort zone.
Like a crime case, when overwhealming evidence points an investigator in the direction of a particular suspect, only those who dismiss evidence which doesn't support their preconceptions would turn away from the obvious - and in so doing, their conclusions become lies...
Psalms Ch 19 V 1 "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork."
Because of Heisenberg's famous uncertainty principle...
He is assuming that God is as limited as man is, just because something is uncertain to US, doesn't make it uncertain to God.
Mr Hawking has crapped out, God did not 'roll the dice' but he does play poker. He always has the best hand and never bluffs though.
Nowhere. But when I get down into the basement, I can see in great detail how the work was done.
Priceless.
What both of these miss is the Biblical statement "In the beginning, God" is not a reference to God's beginning - but to that of us and of our Universe. I too, am often guilty of trying to ID God into the physical realm as we know it.
If Hawking is right with his "point of singularity" theory, the Universe, time, space, and all matter began from that singular point. That is enough to prove we have no concept of an existence not bound to time/space - that place where God dwells. It is so fitting that Jesus said "they know not what they do"...
Regards,
Az
I like his writings, too. I've learned that when he gets "techie", it's because he's "overstayed his welcome" on the subject and has run out of new revelation - but I'm amazed at the depth of applicable knowledge he possesses...
Regards,
Az
I refer to this "Significant Input" of the Universe as God....
Lots of things in life are like that. Oh, well.
I always found the Doomsday scenario to be the most amusing aspect of the WAP (it helps to have an appreciation for jet-black humor) - we're all dead, and Real Soon Now, too ;)
I LOVE IT! Go get 'em, aardvark1.
I find it interesting that "intellectuals" refer to us as ignorant if we point to God to explain the unexplainable, but one of the "best and brightest" has just done the same thing.
By the way, from Isaiah 42:5, here's how the universe expanded:"Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth,and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:"
All the impossible-to-answer questions in that passage, asked in rapid-fire succession were designed to let Job know in no uncertain terms that God is not obliged to answer silly questions concerning His motives. He might, but He is not required to do so. He is LORD. He made the rules. Job understood.
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