Quantum Cosmology – Part 1
[Excepted from our series “The New Scientific Evidence that Points to the Existence of God – Part 1.” Edited for publication. See our store at jashow.org to order this entire series.]
Dr. John Ankerberg: We’re going to look at the work of Stephen Hawking and how his work reinforced the conclusion of a cosmic beginning, but then how Hawking and other scientists attempted to get around his own conclusion, though ultimately to no avail.
Let’s first review, Stephen, some of the discoveries that first led astronomers to conclude that the universe did have a beginning. I’d like you to start with Edwin Hubble. What did he discover that really started things in motion?
Dr. Stephen Meyer: Well, Hubble was able first to determine that there were galaxies beyond our own Milky Way. And then secondly, that the light coming from those distant galaxies was being stretched out in a way that gave it a redder color than it should otherwise have. It’s called the redshift; the light was redshifted. That indicated that the galaxies, and indeed the universe, was expanding in all directions of space; that space was actually being created, or expanding, as the galaxies receded away from us. And then thirdly, he discovered that the further the galaxies were away, the faster they were moving away, which implied something like a spherical expansion of the universe, like a great balloon being blown up.
But then if you wind that picture of the universe backwards in time, at any finite time in the past the universe would have been smaller and smaller and smaller. The galactic material would have been closer and closer and closer together. And eventually you would get to a point where you couldn’t back extrapolate any further, where everything would have converged to a point that marked the beginning of the expansion, and arguably the beginning of the universe itself.
But, in addition to the observational astronomy or astronomical evidence of Hubble, there was a parallel development in theoretical physics that was a consequence of Einstein’s new theory of general relativity. Because Einstein’s theory implied that massive bodies curve the fabric of space or space-time around those bodies. And that, for Einstein, implied that there must be some other force at work that accounts for the empty space around bodies. Because if the only force that were operative in the universe was gravitation, then all the different massive bodies would move towards each other, they would curve space around that clump very tightly, and you’d end up with a giant black hole.
But we don’t live in that kind of universe. We live in a universe with empty space between the planetary bodies, and therefore there must be a countervailing force that’s pushing outward. Einstein called that the cosmological constant. On its face it implied a dynamic and expanding universe. Though Einstein for a time attempted to circumvent that conclusion, he later accepted that the universe was expanding outward and did have a beginning.
And those two lines of evidence, the evidence supporting general relativity, and the evidence of observational astronomy, were synthesized by the great Belgian physicist Georges Lemaitre, and that became known as the big bang theory.
Dr. John Ankerberg: Alright. Let’s talk about theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who built on Einstein’s ideas to provide further support for the idea that the universe had a beginning. He didn’t want to do that, but that’s what he ended up doing.
Dr. Stephen Meyer: Well, it’s a fascinating story, actually, and it’s told nicely in the little film Theory of Everything, about Hawking’s life. He’s a grad student at Cambridge, doing his PhD in physics in the 1960s, the early 1960s. And he, of course, becomes afflicted with ALS, the Lou Gehrig’s disease.
But he decides after some personal reflection, to continue. And during his PhD years, he comes up with an idea that applies Einstein’s theory of general relativity to our understanding of cosmology, of the origin of the universe. And he realizes that if Einstein’s idea is true—that massive bodies curve space—then as the universe is expanding, as we know it is from the observational astronomy, then space is getting less and less curved because the matter of the universe is getting more and more diffuse.
But then he begins to think about, well, what would the condition have been like in the universe at any progressive point back in the past? At each point the matter would be more densely concentrated, and therefore space would be more tightly curved. And as you go back a million years, a billion years, eventually, however far back you go, you’re going to reach a point where that matter is congealing into that starting point.
But at that point, space is going to be getting really, really tightly curved. And eventually you’re going to reach a limiting case where the density of matter is so compact, and space is so tight, that space goes to an infinite curvature. And an infinitely curved spatial volume corresponds to something that’s so small that you can’t put anything in it. It corresponds to a zero spatial volume, which is now what physicists call the singularity, the point from which the universe sprang forth.
What Hawking did was very technical. He solved something called the field equations of general relativity in order to prove that this singularity must have been the starting point of the universe: the universe must have started in a singularity of zero spatial volume.
Dr. John Ankerberg: What were all the ingredients that went back into this little singularity? You’ve got matter, you’ve got space, you’ve got time. What else was back then?
Dr. Stephen Meyer: Well, the idea really intuitively, or philosophically, if you think about it, is that once you get to a point of infinite curvature, then you’re also to point of zero spatial volume: you have no space into which you can put anything. And so the picture of the origin of the universe, based on general relativity, and the solution of Einstein’s equations by Hawking and later in collaboration with George Ellis and Roger Penrose, is a picture that implies the universe coming into existence out of literally nothing physical. Like the old medieval theological concept of creatio ex nihilo, creation out of nothing. And so, this was mind blowing. And Hawking realized that if this were true, this had powerful anti-materialistic implications, because prior to the origin of matter, space, time, and energy, there would be no matter, space, time, or energy to do the causing of the origin of the universe. Therefore, if you want to have a causal explanation for the origin of the universe, you would need to think about something that transcends those domains of matter, space, time, and energy. You need to posit an entity which is not bound by space and time, and which is not material. And to a lot of scientists that sounded an awful lot like God, especially when you consider that there is an abrupt change of state at the beginning: from nothing to everything that exists.
And that suggests a volitional act; that what would be required to explain the origin of the universe, from that point of singularity, would be an entity that transcends matter, space, time, and energy, and which is capable of exercising volition to cause a change of state.
(Discussion will continue in Part 2)
