The day time began

[lekh l'kha]

I was doing some research. Actually, I was trying to find the name of the Jewish Hebrew-Uni Prof, who developed a thesis which seeks to prove that since time-space is stretched/warped in an ever-expanding universe (and I'm putting into my own words what he said), the earth and the universe can be both old and young at the same time, since the universe is roughly 3.5 billion years old only according to our position in stretched/warped time-space (which is relative, since universal time-space is stretched/warped), and what may be 3.5 billion years in stretched/warped time-space may in reality be only around 10,000 years.

But I didn't find it, because the article has been removed from the Jewish website which originally published it.

Instead, I found the following articles somewhere else, written by another scientist, PAUL DAVIES.

The things he said I find absolutely fascinating and eye-opening:

This is copied and pasted from a web-site, the link to which I will give at the bottom of this article:

"PAUL DAVIES is a theoretical physicist and professor of natural philosophy at the University of Adelaide. He has published over one hundred research papers in the fields of cosmology, gravitation, and quantum field theory, with particular emphasis on black holes and the origin of the universe. He is also interested in the nature of time, high-energy particle physics, the foundations of quantum mechanics, and the theory of complex systems. He runs a research group in quantum gravity which is currently investigating superstrings, cosmic strings, higher-dimensional black holes, and quantum cosmology. Davies is well known as an author, broadcaster, and public lecturer. He has written over twenty books, ranging from specialist textbooks to popular books for the general public. Among his better-known works are God and the New Physics; Superforce; The Cosmic Blueprint; and The Mind God. His most recent books are The Last Three Minutes and It's About Time. He was described by the Washington Times as "the best science writer on either side of the Atlantic." He likes to focus on the deep questions of existence, such as how the universe came into existence and how it will end, the nature of human consciousness, the possibility of time travel, the relationship between physics and biology, the status of the laws of physics, and the interface of science and religion."

O.K. So there's the man's credentials. And here are some of the fascinating facts he talks about (next post):

[lekh l'kha]

"THE DAY TIME BEGAN

Don't ask me what came before the big bang,says physicist Paul Davies. Time and space only popped into existence at that instant, so the question doesn't apply. But what made it happen and where did the laws of physics come from?

CAN science explain how the Universe began? Even suggestions to that effect have provoked an angry and passionate response from many quarters.

Religious people tend to see the claim as a move to finally abolish God the Creator.

Atheists are equally alarmed, because the notion of the Universe coming into being from nothing looks suspiciously like the creation, ex nihilo, of Christianity.

The general sense of indignation was well expressed by writer Fay Weldon. " Who cares about half a second after the big bang," she railed in 1991 in a scathing newspaper attack on scientific cosmology. "What about the half a second before?"

What indeed. The simple answer is that, in the standard picture of the cosmic origin, there was no such moment as "half a second before."

To see why, we need to examine this standard picture in more detail. The first point to address is why anyone believes the Universe began at a finite moment in time.

How do we know that it hasn't simply been around for ever?

Most cosmologists reject this alternative because of the severe problem of the second law of thermodynamics.

Applied to the Universe as a whole, this law states that the cosmos is on a one-way slide towards a state of maximum disorder, or entropy.

Irreversible changes, such as the gradual consumption of fuel by the Sun and stars, ensure that the Universe must eventually "run down" and exhaust its supplies of useful energy. It follows that the Universe cannot have been drawing on this finite stock of useful energy for all eternity.

'The Universe cannot have been drawing on this finite stock of useful energy for all eternity'

Body of evidence

Direct evidence for a cosmic origin in a big bang comes from three observations.

The first, and most direct, is that the Universe is still expanding today.

The second is the existence of a pervasive heat radiation that is neatly explained as the fading afterglow of the primeval fire that accompanied the big bang.

The third strand of evidence is the relative abundances of the chemical elements, which can be correctly accounted for in terms of nuclear processes in the hot dense phase that followed the big bang.

But what caused the big bang to happen? Where is the centre of the explosion? Where is the edge of the Universe? Why didn't the big bang turn into a black hole?

These are some of the questions that bemused members of the audience always ask whenever I lecture on this topic. Though they seem pertinent, they are in fact based on an entirely false picture of the big bang.

To understand the correct picture, it is first necessary to have a clear idea of what the expansion of the Universe entails. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the explosive dispersal of galaxies from a common centre into the depths of a limitless void.

The best way of viewing it is to imagine the space between the galaxies expanding or swelling.

The idea that space can stretch, or be warped, is a central prediction of Einstein's general theory of relativity, and has been well enough tested by observation for all professional cosmologists to accept it.

According to general relativity, space-time is not a static arena, but an aspect of the gravitational field. This field manifests itself as a warping, or curvature, of space-time geometry, and when it comes to the large scale structure of the Universe, such a warping occurs in the form of space being stretched with time.

A helpful, albeit two-dimensional, analogy for the expanding Universe is a balloon with paper spots stuck to the surface.

As the balloon is inflated, so the spots, which play the role of galaxies, move apart from each other.

Note that it is the surface of the balloon, not the volume within, that represents the three-dimensional Universe.

Now, imagine playing the cosmic movie backwards, so that the balloon shrinks rather than expands. If the balloon were perfectly spherical (and the rubber sheet infinitely thin), at a certain time in the past the entire balloon would shrivel to a speck. This is the beginning.

Translated into statements about the real Universe, I am describing an origin in which space itself comes into existence at the big bang and expands from nothing to form a larger and larger volume.

The matter and energy content of the Universe likewise originates at or near the beginning, and populates the Universe everywhere at all times.

Again, I must stress that the speck from which space emerges is not located in anything. It is not an object surrounded by emptiness. It is the origin of space itself, infinitely compressed.

Note that the speck does not sit there for an infinite duration. It appears instantaneously from nothing and immediately expands.

If the big bang was the beginning of time itself, then any discussion about what happened before the big bang, or what caused it-in the usual sense of physical causation-is simply meaningless.

Why should time suddenly "switch on"? What explanation can be given for such a singular event? Until recently, it seemed that any explanation of the initial "singularity" that marked the origin of time would have to lie beyond the scope of science.

However, it all depends on what is meant by "explanation." All children have a good idea of the notion of cause and effect, and usually an explanation of an event entails finding something that caused it.

It turns out, however, that there are physical events which do not have well-defined causes in the manner of the everyday world. These events belong to a weird branch of scientific inquiry called quantum physics.

Mostly, quantum events occur at the atomic level; we don't experience them in daily life. On the scale of atoms and molecules, the usual commonsense rules of cause and effect are suspended.

The rule of law is replaced by a sort of anarchy or chaos, and things happen spontaneously-for no particular reason.

Particles of matter may simply pop into existence without warning, and then equally abruptly disappear again. Or a particle in one place may suddenly materialize in another place, or reverse its direction of motion.

Again, these are real effects occurring on an atomic scale, and they can be demonstrated experimentally.

A typical quantum process is the decay of a radioactive nucleus. If you ask why a given nucleus decayed at one particular moment rather than some other, there is no answer. The event "just happened" at that moment, that's all.

You cannot predict these occurrences. All you can do is give the probability-there is a fifty-fifty chance that a given nucleus will decay in, say, one hour. This uncertainty is not simply a result of our ignorance of all the little forces and influences that try to make the nucleus decay; it is inherent in nature itself, a basic part of quantum reality.

The lesson of quantum physics is this: Something that "just happens" need not actually violate the laws of physics. The abrupt and uncaused appearance of something can occur within the scope of scientific law, once quantum laws have been taken into account. Nature apparently has the capacity for genuine spontaneity.

It is, of course, a big step from the spontaneous and uncaused appearance of a subatomic particle-something that is routinely observed in particle accelerators-to the spontaneous and uncaused appearance of the universe.

But the loophole is there. If, as astronomers believe, the primeval universe was compressed to a very small size, then quantum effects must have once been important on a cosmic scale.

Even if we don't have a precise idea of exactly what took place at the beginning, we can at least see that the origin of the universe from nothing need not be unlawful or unnatural or unscientific. In short, it need not have been a supernatural event.

Inevitably, scientists will not be content to leave it at that. We would like to flesh out the details of this profound concept. There is even a subject devoted to it, called quantum cosmology.

Two famous quantum cosmologists, James Hartle and Stephen Hawking, came up with a clever idea that goes back to Einstein. Einstein not only found that space and time are part of the physical universe; he also found that they are linked in a very intimate way.

In fact, space on its own and time on its own are no longer properly valid concepts. Instead, we must deal with a unified "space-time" continuum.

Space has three dimensions, and time has one, so space-time is a four-dimensional continuum.

In spite of the space-time linkage, however, space is space and time is time under almost all circumstances.

Whatever space-time distortions gravitation may produce, they never turn space into time or time into space.

An exception arises, though, when quantum effects are taken into account. That all-important intrinsic uncertainty that afflicts quantum systems can be applied to space-time, too.

In this case, the uncertainty can, under special circumstances, affect the identities of space and time. For a very, very brief duration, it is possible for time and space to merge in identity, for time to become, so to speak, spacelike-just another dimension of space.

The spatialization of time is not something abrupt; it is a continuous process.

Viewed in reverse as the temporalization of (one dimension of) space, it implies that time can emerge out of space in a continuous process. (By continuous, I mean that the timelike quality of a dimension, as opposed to its spacelike quality, is not an all-or-nothing affair; there are shades in between. This vague statement can be made quite precise mathematically.)

The essence of the Hartle-Hawking idea is that the big bang was not the abrupt switching on of time at some singular first moment, but the emergence of time from space in an ultrarapid but nevertheless continuous manner.

On a human time scale, the big bang was very much a sudden, explosive origin of space, time, and matter. But look very, very closely at that first tiny fraction of a second and you find that there was no precise and sudden beginning at all.

So here we have a theory of the origin of the universe that seems to say two contradictory things: First, time did not always exist; and second, there was no first moment of time. Such are the oddities of quantum physics.

Even with these further details thrown in, many people feel cheated. They want to ask why these weird things happened, why there is a universe, and why this universe. Perhaps science cannot answer such questions. Science is good at telling us how, but not so good on the why. Maybe there isn't a why. To wonder why is very human, but perhaps there is no answer in human terms to such deep questions of existence. Or perhaps there is, but we are looking at the problem in the wrong way.

Well, I didn't promise to provide the answers to life, the universe, and everything, but I have at least given a plausible answer to the question I started out with: What happened before the big bang?

The answer is: Nothing."

(End quote)

Quote from: "What happened before the Big Bang, by Paul Davies:

http://members.fortunecity.com/templarser/big-bang.html

and "The Day Time Began", by Paul Davies:

http://members.fortunecity.com/templarser/daybegan.html

I know why it happened:

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Gen 1:1)

lekh

Edited July 5, 2009 by lekh l'kha

[lekh l'kha]

Quote:

'Time does not switch on in Hartle and Hawking's theory, it emerges continuously from space. There is no first moment at which time starts, but neither does it extend backwards for all eternity'

unquote

(From "The Day Time Began")

[abbershay]

to me it seems like a book , with the characters asking what happened before it was penned trying to find lost pages that dont exsist because they are not written but in the mind of the author.

[lekh l'kha]

to me it seems like a book , with the characters asking what happened before it was penned trying to find lost pages that dont exsist because they are not written but in the mind of the author.

That's a brilliant analogy, abbershay Wow!

I was struck by the fact that this article shows that scientists know that the big bang suddenly occurred, bringing time, space and matter into existence from nowhere and from nothing, yet they freely admit that they cannot explain why and still won't admit that this is what the Bible has said all along - that the heavens and the earth were created "in the beginning" of time, space and matter, and that 1 millionth of a second before this, there was nothing (except God).

In fact, there wasn't even a millionth of a second before, because there was no time before. It just happened - in the beginning of time, space and matter.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Gen 1:1)

Edited July 5, 2009 by lekh l'kha

[MorningGlory]

to me it seems like a book , with the characters asking what happened before it was penned trying to find lost pages that dont exsist because they are not written but in the mind of the author.

That's a brilliant analogy, abbershay Wow!

I was struck by the fact that this article shows that scientists know that the big bang suddenly occurred, bringing time, space and matter into existence from nowhere and from nothing, yet they freely admit that they cannot explain why and still won't admit that this is what the Bible has said all along - that the heavens and the earth were created "in the beginning" of time, space and matter, and that 1 millionth of a second before this, there was nothing (except God).

In fact, there wasn't even a millionth of a second before, because there was no time before. It just happened - in the beginning of time, space and matter.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Gen 1:1)

I've said this for years but....so many just don't get that the 'Big Bang' and 'In the beginning....' are one and the same.

[Guest shiloh357]

I was doing some research. Actually, I was trying to find the name of the Jewish Hebrew-Uni Prof, who developed a thesis which seeks to prove that since time-space is stretched/warped in an ever-expanding universe (and I'm putting into my own words what he said), the earth and the universe can be both old and young at the same time, since the universe is roughly 3.5 billion years old only according to our position in stretched/warped time-space (which is relative, since universal time-space is stretched/warped), and what may be 3.5 billion years in stretched/warped time-space may in reality be only around 10,000 years.

This reminds of the theory of "time dilation" that was forwarded by Dr. Gerald Schroeder who is a scientist out of Israel. He believes that the long history of the earth can be reconciled with the six days of creation by this theory. To put it simply he believes that the earth is roughly 15 billion years old from man's perspective, but only six days long from God's perspective. Not sure I really go along with that. I only mention it because what you posted reminds of it.

[sysvr4]

I had already started a thread about this theory, however it was promptly overrun by bickering. Hopefully it can survive and be of use here:

The omniverse may be expressed as a multi-dimensional array, infinite in scope and density. Within the array patterns observed would necessarily be unpredictable, non-indicative anomalies of the scope of the array and therefore insignificant.

To answer your question, a quantifiable beginning of time would appear impossible to know.

[MorningGlory]

I had already started a thread about this theory, however it was promptly overrun by bickering. Hopefully it can survive and be of use here:

The omniverse may be expressed as a multi-dimensional array, infinite in scope and density. Within the array patterns observed would necessarily be unpredictable, non-indicative anomalies of the scope of the array and therefore insignificant.

To answer your question, a quantifiable beginning of time would appear impossible to know.

Well....yeah....no one was THERE except God.

[Fez]

He gives the analogy of a baloon being blown up all of a sudden.

Job 33:4 The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.