The Time-Zero Imprint,
Or Not, Of the Hand of God!
Well, in the previous section, we were ‘lucky’ that the mass density measurement turned out to be zero and thus did not violate the conservation of energy. Was it really ‘luck’, though? No, for it was fact, plus it should ever be that ‘luck’ will never fail when one is on the right track.
The Grand Designer, God, supposedly inserted the design of the universe at its creation—so, we should therefore expect to see some degree [even any degree, actually] of order possessed at that zero-time.
This expectation of order is often expressed in terms of the 2nd law of thermodynamics: the total entropy or disorder of a closed system must either remain constant or increase with time. Now, was the universe always a closed system or was order imparted from the outside by God at the beginning?
Prior to 1929, the ‘necessary’ outside influence was a strong argument for a miraculous creation. Then this stock-market of an idea crashed, for Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding, the galaxies moving away from each other. Thus, an expanding universe could have started in total chaos and still formed localized order consistent with the 2nd law.
But, did it? Of course, due to this 2nd law, the total entropy of the universe must increase as the universe expands; however, the maximum possible entropy increases even faster, leaving increasingly more room for order to form.
The reason is that the maximum entropy is that of a black hole. The expanding universe is not a black hole. Back at the earliest definable moment, the Planck time, the universe was confined to the smallest definable region of space, it having the radius of the Planck length. As must be the case, the universe at that time had lower entropy that it has now; however, that entropy was as high as it possibly could have been for an object that small. Note that this is because a sphere of Planck dimensions is equivalent to a black hole, from which no information can be extracted.
How is it, then that this ‘maximal’ entropy when the universe began can be ever increasing ever since? It is because the entropy of the universe now is higher for its current size, but not maximal, as we said, since it is no longer a black hole.
Also, remember that there is no time interval that can be defined that is smaller than the Planck time. This is implied by Heisenburg’s uncertainty principle, again showing that no information can escape. Thus, there is no need for a theory of quantum gravity to describe the physics earlier than the Planck time.
The definition of time is: that which is counted off as an integral number of units of the Planck time. This is discrete, but we can, as in calculus, treat it as continuous in mathematical physics since the units are small compared to anything we measure in practice.
So, we extrapolate through the Planck intervals. Because we can do it ‘now’, we can do it at the earliest Planck interval where the big bang’s description begins. At that time, the disorder was complete; it was maximal.
Thus the universe began with no structure. None. The universe has structure today since its entropy is no longer maximal. The universe thus began with no organization, either designed or otherwise. In fact it was chaos! There was no initial design built in to the universe at its beginning! There was no time zero imprint left by a Creator.
Lucky are we again that there was not even a hint of an imprint at the ‘creation’? Yes and no, for the facts can never fail in this endeavour.
Now, if it could have turned out otherwise, then we would have provided some evidence for a Creator. This would have only been if the universe was a firmament, as it is in the Bible, instead of an expanding one. This ‘revealed’ Biblical universe would have had a high degree of order imposed at the beginning from the outside, it then being a universe whose entropy was lower than the maximum allowed in the past.
Or Not, Of the Hand of God!
Well, in the previous section, we were ‘lucky’ that the mass density measurement turned out to be zero and thus did not violate the conservation of energy. Was it really ‘luck’, though? No, for it was fact, plus it should ever be that ‘luck’ will never fail when one is on the right track.
The Grand Designer, God, supposedly inserted the design of the universe at its creation—so, we should therefore expect to see some degree [even any degree, actually] of order possessed at that zero-time.
This expectation of order is often expressed in terms of the 2nd law of thermodynamics: the total entropy or disorder of a closed system must either remain constant or increase with time. Now, was the universe always a closed system or was order imparted from the outside by God at the beginning?
Prior to 1929, the ‘necessary’ outside influence was a strong argument for a miraculous creation. Then this stock-market of an idea crashed, for Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding, the galaxies moving away from each other. Thus, an expanding universe could have started in total chaos and still formed localized order consistent with the 2nd law.
But, did it? Of course, due to this 2nd law, the total entropy of the universe must increase as the universe expands; however, the maximum possible entropy increases even faster, leaving increasingly more room for order to form.
The reason is that the maximum entropy is that of a black hole. The expanding universe is not a black hole. Back at the earliest definable moment, the Planck time, the universe was confined to the smallest definable region of space, it having the radius of the Planck length. As must be the case, the universe at that time had lower entropy that it has now; however, that entropy was as high as it possibly could have been for an object that small. Note that this is because a sphere of Planck dimensions is equivalent to a black hole, from which no information can be extracted.
How is it, then that this ‘maximal’ entropy when the universe began can be ever increasing ever since? It is because the entropy of the universe now is higher for its current size, but not maximal, as we said, since it is no longer a black hole.
Also, remember that there is no time interval that can be defined that is smaller than the Planck time. This is implied by Heisenburg’s uncertainty principle, again showing that no information can escape. Thus, there is no need for a theory of quantum gravity to describe the physics earlier than the Planck time.
The definition of time is: that which is counted off as an integral number of units of the Planck time. This is discrete, but we can, as in calculus, treat it as continuous in mathematical physics since the units are small compared to anything we measure in practice.
So, we extrapolate through the Planck intervals. Because we can do it ‘now’, we can do it at the earliest Planck interval where the big bang’s description begins. At that time, the disorder was complete; it was maximal.
Thus the universe began with no structure. None. The universe has structure today since its entropy is no longer maximal. The universe thus began with no organization, either designed or otherwise. In fact it was chaos! There was no initial design built in to the universe at its beginning! There was no time zero imprint left by a Creator.
Lucky are we again that there was not even a hint of an imprint at the ‘creation’? Yes and no, for the facts can never fail in this endeavour.
Now, if it could have turned out otherwise, then we would have provided some evidence for a Creator. This would have only been if the universe was a firmament, as it is in the Bible, instead of an expanding one. This ‘revealed’ Biblical universe would have had a high degree of order imposed at the beginning from the outside, it then being a universe whose entropy was lower than the maximum allowed in the past.
