Has Our World Vanished And
Reappeared?
COSMOLOGICAL DATA obtained through modern and powerful telescopes indicate that the universe is getting larger and larger with the passage of time.1 We can think of the universe as a big pink balloon with black dots along its surface. As the balloon grows larger, two things happen: The dots move away from the center of the balloon, and they move away from each other. This gives us a rough picture of what scientists mean when they say that the universe is expanding. The dots correspond to galaxies (collections of stars), and the whole system acts as though it exploded from a "point in space" 13 to 15 billion years ago.
Is the Expansion Eternal?
Measurements obtained through modern telescopes indicate that the universe is expanding, and that it has been doing so from the time it came into existence. But despite the evidence that this is so, some have found it difficult to abandon the idea that the universe is eternally existing. The purpose of this chapter is to examine some of the ideas that have been put forth to defend an eternally existing universe.
For example, at least one person has argued that the background radiation measured by Penzias and Wilson may not have been from the Big Bang,2 and that it can be explained in other ways.3 If so, then it can be argued that although the universe is expanding, it may have been doing so forever.
The problem with this idea, however, is that as the universe expands, we
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are seeing the stars destroying themselves and creating energy in the process. If the universe has been expanding forever, these stars would have had "forever" to destroy themselves. If this were true, then no stars would exist today. Since the stars do exist, it means that the present expansion of the universe has not been going on forever.
The only conceivable way for stars to destroy themselves "forever," and yet still be here today, is for there to be an unlimited amount of matter in the universe to destroy. One person has actually theorized as to how an unlimited supply of matter might be possible.4 But were one to believe that the present universe has been expanding forever, it would be necessary to also believe that there is an infinite source of new matter within the universe that is participating in the stellar destruction process. Otherwise, the stars would diminish in number and eventually perish.
Unless there is a limitless source of physical matter which replenishes stars, they cannot continue to exist and, at the same time, destroy themselves forever. But is such a limitless universe rational?5 It would be a universe of unlimited matter moving through unlimited space, and expanding over unlimited time. Yet to believe in such a thing is to believe in a universe that can neither be verified nor proven false. As such, it is an unscientific universe that has no more credibility than a child's fairy tale. At best, it is a story that one is free to accept — but certainly not on any scientific basis. Simply put, there is no data to support the belief that the universe has been expanding forever in this way.
Does Our World Go In and Out of Existence?
Another way to defend the idea that physical matter is eternally existing is to accept that the universe had a beginning, but to assume that it was not the only time that it began. In other words, there was more than one beginning.
As a practical matter, virtually every scientist is convinced that the world had a beginning. They have reached this conclusion not only on the basis of the background microwave radiation, but also from other related discoveries during the past decade. For example, the radio telescope at Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona discovered a modified form of hydrogen gas (called deuterium) in the Cone Nebula three thousand light years away from earth in concentrations ten thousand times greater than that found in our solar system.
Likewise the 200-inch Hale telescope at Mount Palomar, and the 150-inch telescope near Siding Springs, Australia, both detected pure hydrogen gas in clouds believed to be billions of light years distant from the earth. These materials were discovered in space around 1980, and are regarded as the original residue from the Big Bang origin of the universe. There are also other evidences that our universe had a beginning. For example, the fact that three independent measuring techniques all yield finite ages for the universe is itself proof that it isn't infinitely old.
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But even so, the question arises, why is it necessary for the Big Bang to have been the only beginning? Could our universe have begun more than once? Why must a beginning limit our options to only one beginning? The answer is that, in principle, it doesn't.6
Let's suppose that the universe did explode into existence billions of years ago. Why does this have to be the only time that it did so? For example, why couldn't this event have been the millionth explosion? Or the billionth explosion? Some have suggested that after each explosion, the universe first expands, but then undergoes collapse only to explode and expand again. It may be that this "outward explosion" and "inward collapse" have been going on forever. If so, it would mean that the universe has been here forever. Thus, the measurement of a beginning does not necessarily prove that the universe has not been here forever. The reason is that it may have been repeatedly exploding outward, and then collapsing inward, only to reexplode outward again. In this scenario, each explosion is a "beginning" that repeats itself over and over again forever.
The Cosmic Yo-Yo
This line of thought ultimately leads us back to an eternally existing world in which nothing is really ever created. Instead, the world is just changing its form while eternally existing. The measured background radiation is then understood as coming from the last explosion, so that it gives us the appearance of a beginning. In this picture, the Big Bang becomes just one of billions of explosions that have happened in eternity past, and that will continue to occur in eternity future. In this sense, the universe is like a cosmic Yo-Yo that is continually going out and in, out and in, and so on.
The "cosmic Yo-Yo" idea, that the world has been going out and in forever, introduces "eternity," not in terms of one universe that has been expanding forever but an infinite number of universes that take turns exploding into existence one at a time. Each of these explosions expands into a universe that exists for "only" billions of years before it collapses. Thus if the cosmic Yo-Yo idea were true, the present universe would be just one of an infinite number of explosions that have occurred in eternity past, and that will continue to occur into eternity future. Moreover, we are able to observe and discuss the expansion because we just happen to be living at a time when the universe is getting bigger rather than smaller.
The notion that the universe is a "cosmic Yo-Yo" is untrue. However, it has proved appealing to some because it appears to preserve the universal validity of the First Law of Thermodynamics, the law that says you can't get something from nothing. But as nice as the Yo-Yo idea may seem, it has a string attached to it (pun intended). The problem is that the Yo-Yo can't perform in the way described because, figuratively speaking, the stars chew up its string.
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Scientists have known for over eighty years that matter and energy are different forms of the same basic "stuff" — in much the same way that ice and steam are different forms of water. When we study the matter and energy of the stars, the origin of their material shows us that the cosmic Yo-Yo can't continue to go in and out forever. Let's see why.
Stellar Destruction
Stars are made up of matter, and improved telescopes have shown us that the stars in the universe are destroying themselves. They are creating energy at the expense of the matter of which they're composed. This means that during each explosion, additional stars are destroyed in a process that accumulates "heat energy" within the universe with each new explosion.7 Scientists have shown that because this heat energy is cumulative, the process by which the stars "sell off" their matter for energy is one that ultimately requires the universe to have had a one-time beginning.
The entire universe accumulates heat energy during expansion because the stars are destroying themselves and creating energy. And if it's hotter, then it's bigger with each Big Bang.
But if the universe gets bigger with each new bounce then it must have been smaller on the preceding bounce. In other words, during each preceding explosion, the universe is smaller. Thus as we go back in time, with each earlier bounce the universe must have been smaller and smaller. As we look back into the past, we find a series of explosions that progressively shrink, the further back we go.
Scientists have shown that this progression back into time converges to a beginning, so that the cosmic Yo-Yo cannot have continued forever. Moreover, scientists have mathematically studied these explosions and concluded that they converge down into a first explosion — they funnell in toward a beginning.8 This means that there had to have been a first bounce. This is another way we know that the universe had a beginning.
The cosmic Yo-Yo idea is called the "Oscillating Universe." The theory behind it asserts that physical matter exists forever, but is cyclically transformed into an infinite number of universes, each of which first gets bigger as it expands, and then becomes smaller as it contracts. If this is true, then at the present time the universe is getting bigger in an "expansion phase," but, in future generations, it will get smaller and ultimately collapse into a "point" concentration of mass. When that happens, the theory calls for another explosion and expansion (Big Bang) to occur to make another universe.
Physical matter thus oscillates in and out with the passage of time. Although the stars destroy themselves during the expansion phase, their physical matter is alleged to be "recreated" from energy when the universe gets smaller. This is the proposed explanation for how stars can continue to exist and
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yet be destroyed in a universe that's here forever. They disappear into energy as the universe gets bigger, but then their physical matter returns from that energy when it gets smaller.
Can the Universe Reexplode?
The Oscillating Universe theory is based on the assumption that the universe can go backwards. But how do we know that it can reverse itself? Is it able to go out, then come back in, and go back out again, and so on indefinitely? The answer is no. In many ways, the universe is like a car that is traveling down a one-way street so narrow that it must continue in the same direction because it cannot turn around. The universe cannot go in and out repeatedly because the stars are destroying themselves and creating energy, and this energy heats up the entire physical system of mass and energy in a cumulative way.9
Were the universe to reverse itself during contraction along the same path that it traveled in its expansion phase, then the entire system of mass and energy would need to cool down in order to converge to a point from which to explode again. But the cooling process means that the energy must change back into matter along the same path that the energy was created. The problem with this, however, is that the reversible change of energy back into matter is prohibited by what scientists call the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This law, which is discussed in a later chapter, teaches that the universe cannot go in and out forever because there is no way for the energy which is created when the stars destroy themselves, to convert back into mass along paths that permit another explosion to occur. This means that the system of mass and energy is not eternally existing, and that the universe must have had a beginning.
Perhaps a simple picture can help us to understand better what is being said. Imagine that the entire world consists of nothing but a gigantic ice cube. Let's now suppose that the ice cube gets bigger, and it begins to melt and change into water.
The water that was once an ice cube continues to become larger and larger until, finally, we imagine the cube to be entirely melted, and to be as large as an ocean. Let's assume that at this point the cube has expanded as far as it can; the ocean into which it has changed begins to shrink. We can imagine the ocean becoming smaller and smaller — and as it gets smaller, the water gets colder. Soon it begins to freeze. And eventually it changes back into an ice cube. The ice cube itself becomes smaller until eventually it returns to its original size. Once back to its original size, the ice cube stops shrinking and the entire cycle repeats itself. The ice cube again starts to grow and as it grows, it again changes into water. The water again expands until it reaches the size of an ocean. The ocean then starts to shrink. As
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the volume of water gets smaller, it freezes back into an ice cube. This cycle then repeats itself over and over and over again.
This is a picture of what some people have thought the world was doing. It is a picture of a pulsating or oscillating universe. Loosely speaking, matter can be thought of as the ice, and energy as the water. But when we take a closer look at what's happening, we can see that as the water expands, some of it becomes steam which can be thought of as energy that is unrecoverable. If during each cycle some of the water becomes steam, then less energy (water) is available to cool back into matter (ice). If the world were here forever, then eventually we would lose all of the water into steam, and no energy would remain to cool back into matter. It would all be gone because all of the water would have changed into steam. Although the ice cube picture that we've presented is intended to be tutorial and therefore incomplete, it nonetheless portrays the essence of what occurs. Thus, we conclude that the universe can't cycle in this way. It can't go in and out forever.
How Does Science Know We Began?
We have seen that the universe is not expanding forever, nor is it a cosmic Yo-Yo. When improved telescopes are used to study the stars, figuratively speaking we see that some of the water turns into steam. In a sense, this is what the stars do. When matter turns into energy, it's like part of the water turning into steam. It does not all return. In our ice cube picture, were the ocean (energy) to shrink back into the ice cube (matter), part of its water would be gone. The water that is lost as steam can be thought of as energy in a form that cannot be recovered. With each new expansion, more of the water turns into steam so that, on the return trip, even less water is available to freeze into ice.
The change of energy into a form that cannot be recovered is due to the nature of physical matter and is described by the Second Law. It results from an inability of the universe to return along the same path that it travels during expansion.10 Once matter changes into energy, the energy cannot reversibly change back into matter. Thus, the universe can't go in and out; it can't oscillate. This means that it has not been here forever and that it had a one-time beginning.
Are There Yet Other Ways We Know We Began?
Imagine taking a motion picture of someone throwing a stone into a pond. Later, we play the movie both forward and backward to people who were not at the pond. Do they know which way is correct? Yes! But how? Because no one has ever seen ripples start from the rim of a pond, move toward the center, and hurl a stone up and into the air. It's easy to see why. We can't simultaneously start all of the forces around the rim of the pond at exactly the same time. The reason is that signals take time to travel. The
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universe is like a pond. Physical matter from its "rim" must ripple toward its center as we go back in time. Were the universe to contract, it would require simultaneous cooperation among all the forces at its boundary. Otherwise, material along its boundary will not later converge to a common point.
If the universe were bouncing in and out forever, it would need to shrink back each time to the same starting point. If it's possible to simultaneously coordinate the forces around the rim of a pond, imagine trying to do it around the rim of a 30 billion light-year wide-universe! The universe cannot reverse and shrink back to its starting point because it is physically impossible to simultaneously coordinate the boundary conditions necessary to make it happen. It therefore must have had a beginning.
There is yet another way that we know the universe had a beginning. Scientists routinely study the light from stars, which consists of waves that originate from the different materials that compose a star.11 Since the materials in the stars differ, the light waves that leave the stars and come to the earth are different. The different light waves can be thought of as the material's fingerprint. Measurements of the light coming from many stars show that the universe is made up of the same atomic materials that we find on earth.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics, a law embracing physical things on earth, and in the universe at large,12 governs how these materials can behave. Just a short time ago, this law had limitations that prevented its application to the entire universe.13 But recently it was modified, and the revision (called the New Generalized Second Law of Thermodynamics) is vastly more powerful than the older Second Law.14
The New Generalized Second Law teaches that if the universe had been here forever, all of its materials would have reached a state of rest. But we do not see such when we study the universe with telescopes. And if the universe is not in a state of rest, it could not have been here forever; it must have had a beginning.
The universe, therefore, had a beginning — a fact taught by the first verse of every Bible and now accepted by most of the scientific world. Every Bible begins with the statement: "In the beginning God created . . . " Now science says, "There was a beginning."
Chapter Three || Table of Contents
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12. Buchdahl H. The Concepts of Classical Thermodynamics (1966) Cambridge University Press.
13. Lewis G. & Randall M. Thermodynamics (1961) McGraw-Hill.
14. Yourgrau W. et.al. Treatise On Irreversible & Statistical Thermophysics (1982) Dover.
