THE SPEED OF THE EXPLOSION
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The explosive vigour of the
universe is thus matched with almost unbelievable
accuracy to its gravitating power. The big bang
was not evidently, any old bang, but an explosion
of exquisitely arranged magnitude.
Paul Davies, Professor of Theoretical
Physics 1
In the first
chapter we examined the universe's creation from
nothingness as a result of a great explosion.
Let us now consider some of the implications of
this.
Scientists estimate
that there are over 300 billion galaxies in the
whole universe. These galaxies have a number of
different forms (spiral, elliptical, etc) and
each contains about as many stars as the universe
contains galaxies. One of these stars, the Sun,
has nine major planets rotating around in it in
great harmony. All of us live on the third of
those planets counting from the sun.
Look about you:
Does what you see appear to be a disordered jumble
of matter haphazardly scattered this way and that?
Of course not. But how could matter have formed
organized galaxies if it had been dispersed randomly?
Why has matter accumulated at certain points and
formed stars? How could the delicate balance of
our solar system have emerged from a violent explosion?
These are very important questions and they lead
us to the real question of how the universe was
structured after the Big Bang.
If the Big Bang
was indeed a such cataclysmic explosion then it
is reasonable to expect that matter should have
been scattered everywhere at random. And yet it
is not. Instead it is organized into planets,
and stars, and galaxies, and clusters of galaxies,
and superclusters of galaxies. It is as if a bomb
that exploded in a granary caused all the wheat
to fall into neat sacks and bales on the backs
of trucks ready to be delivered instead of showering
the grains every which way. Fred Hoyle, a staunch
opponent of the Big Bang theory for years, expressed
his own surprise at this structure:
The big bang theory
holds that the universe began with a single
explosion. Yet as can be seen below, an explosion
merely throws matter apart, while the
big bang has mysteriously produced the opposite
effect- with matter clumping together in the
form of galaxies.2
That the matter produced
by the Big Bang should have formed such tidy and
organized shapes is indeed an extraordinary thing.
The occurrence of such a harmony leads us to the
realization that the universe was the result of
its perfect creation by Allah.
In this chapter
we will examine and consider this extraordinary
perfection and excellence.
The
Speed of the Explosion
People hearing
of the Big Bang but not considering the subject
at length do not think about what an extraordinary
plan must lie behind this explosion. That's because
the notion of an explosion doesn't suggest harmony,
plan, or organization to most people. In fact
there are a number of very puzzling aspects to
the intricate order in the Big Bang.
One of these puzzles has to do with the acceleration
caused by the explosion. When the explosion took
place, matter certainly must have begun moving
at an enormous speed in every direction. But there
is another point that we need to pay attention
to here. There must also have been a very big
attractive force at the first moment of the explosion:
an attractive force that was strong enough to
gather the whole universe into one point.
Two different
and opposing forces are at work here. The force
of the explosion, driving matter outward and away,
and the force of attraction, trying to resist
the first and pull everything back together. The
universe came into being because these two forces
were in equilibrium. If the attractive force had
been greater than the explosive, the universe
would have collapsed. If the opposite had been
true, matter would have been splattered in every
direction in a way never to unite again.
Then how sensitive
was this equilibrium? How much "slack" could there
have been between the two forces?
Paul Davies: "The evidence is strong enough
to acknowledge the existence of a conscious
cosmic design." |
The mathematical physicist
Paul Davies, a professor at the University of
Adelaide in Australia, performed lengthy calculations
of the conditions that must have existed at the
moment of the Big Bang and came up with a result
that can only be described as astonishing. According
to Davies, if the rate of expansion had
differed by more than 10-18 seconds (one quintillionth
of a second), there would have been no
universe. Davies describes his conclusion:
Careful measurements
puts the rate of expansion very close to a
critical value at which the universe will
just escape its own gravity and expand forever.
A little slower and the cosmos would collapse,
a little faster and the cosmic material would
have long ago completely dispersed. It is
interesting to ask precisely how delicately
the rate of expansion has been "fine tuned"
to fall on this narrow dividing line between
two catastrophes. If at time I S (by which
the time pattern of expansion was already
firmly established) the expansion rate had
differed from its actual value by more than
10-18, it would have been sufficient to throw
the delicate balance out. The explosive vigour
of the universe is thus matched with almost
unbelievable accuracy to its gravitating power.
The big bang was not evidently, any
old bang, but an explosion of exquisitely
arranged magnitude.3
Bilim
Teknik (Science Technique, a Turkish scientific
periodical) quotes an article that appeared in
Science in which the phenomenal equilibrium that
obtained in the initial phase of universe is stated:
If the density of
the universe was a little bit more, in that
case, according to Einstein's relativity theory,
the universe would not be expanding due to
the attraction forces of atomic particles but
contracting, ultimately diminishing to a spot.
If the initial density had been a little bit
less, then the universe would rapidly be expanding,
but in this case, atomic particles would not
be attracting each other and no stars and no
galaxies would ever have formed. Consequently,
man would never come into existence! According
to the calculations, the difference between
the initial real density of the universe and
its critical density, which is unlikely to occur,
is less than one percent's one quadrillion.
This is similar to place a pencil in
a position so that it can stand on its sharp
end even after one billion years… Furthermore,
as the universe expands, this equilibrium becomes
more delicate.4
It
is We Who have built the universe with
(Our creative) power, and, verily,
it is We Who are steadily expanding it.
(Surat adh-Dhariyat: 47) |
Even Stephen
Hawking, who tries hard to explain away the
creation of the universe as a series coincidences
in A Brief History of Time, acknowledges the
extraordinary equilibrium in the rate of expansion:
If the rate of expansion one
second after the big bang had been smaller by
even one part in a hundred thousand million
million, the universe would have recollapsed
before it ever reached its present size. 5
What then does
such a remarkable equilibrium as this indicate?
The only rational answer to that question is that
it is proof of conscious design and cannot possibly
be accidental. Despite his own materialist bent,
Dr Davies admits this himself:
It is hard to resist
that the present structure of the universe,
apparently so sensitive to minor alterations
in the numbers, has been rather carefully thought
out… The seemingly miraculous concurrence of
numerical values that nature has assigned to
her fundamental constants must remain the most
compelling evidence for an element of cosmic
design.6
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