The Bible
is not meant to be a science textbook; we should not look for scientific facts
or errors in it. However, in its own way, it tells the truth: in the account of
the creation of the world, the elements that make up the universe were ordered
in the same way as they are ordered in science today. God created time and
space almost simultaneously, followed by matter.
The Composition of the Universe
In recent
times we have witnessed great advances in physics regarding the origin and
nature of the universe. However, it is precisely in this science that the
mystery continues to abound. Given its immensity and our relative smallness,
there is much more what we don’t know than what we do know about the universe,
and much of what is known are only conjectures, or hypotheses that lack
experimental verification.
In our
quest to find the Trinity or the transversal tridimensionality in everything
that the One and Triune God has created, we along with most physicists have come
to the conclusion that the universe is composed of Time – Space – Matter. Some
might say that energy is a fourth element, but this is not so: with
Einstein’s general theory of relativity, we come to know that matter and energy
are transmutable, that is, matter is a form of energy and energy is a form of
matter.
In a way we
could say that matter or mass is solidified or condensed energy and energy is
volatile matter. Out of His trinitarian nature, in the the beginning God created three things:
time, space and matter. Therefore, the universe is composed of time, space, and matter/energy. The
universe is a continuum of matter that turns into energy and energy that turns
into matter in a space-time continuum.
From the
way our logical minds work, we are led to think that matter/energy is somehow
the content of the universe while space and time are, respectively, the place
and the moment when matter changes into energy, and vice versa. That is, the
universe is composed of an active matter/energy element, and two passive ones,
time and space.
The theory
of relativity and quantum physics have come to challenge the logic of our
thinking in the sense that none of the three components are passive, all three
interact with each other, in a very complex way that makes none of the three
elements more important than the other two.
As
discussed in the case of tridimensionality of the human family, the existence
of one element assumes the existence of the other two; we can also say here
that each one of the three elements cannot exist by itself separately from the
other two, or all three exist concomitantly or none of the three exist at all.
The Beginning of Universe
For
centuries, atheist scientists have based their atheism on the fact that the
universe has no beginning and no end, that it has always existed, and have poked fun
at the Bible and the Church which have always defended that the world has its
beginning and end in God. We know that the universe is composed of time, space
and matter; if it were eternal, time would not have been part of this equation,
the universe would have been static, or at best cyclic.
Albert
Einstein in 1915, with his theory of relativity, established a relation between
matter, space, time and gravity, as well as the equivalence and transmutability
between energy and matter. As we have already said, he discovered further that
the universe is not static, but that it contracts or expands.
In 1927, the
Roman Catholic priest Georges
Lemaître formulated on theoretical grounds, and confirmed observationally soon
after by Edwin Hubble, that the universe is expanding. Therefore, he concluded that there was
a day, once upon a time, without a yesterday, that is, that the universe is the
result of a cosmic explosion (the Big Bang) that occurred 13.8 billion years
ago.
In 1929, Edwin Hubble observed using
the world’s largest telescope (100-inch Hooker Telescope) that the galaxies
beyond the Milky Way were moving away from us at a speed directly proportional
to the distance from the Earth, that is, the further they are from us the
faster their speed. His observations proved beyond a doubt not only the theory
of the expansion of the universe, but that the expansion is accelerating.
In addition to these
observations, in 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered the cosmic background
radiation, known as the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) that is
present throughout space. This background radiation is what is observed when we
tune into a television channel that is not occupied by a television station.
The noise that we hear is an echo of the Big Bang and the pixels that we see resemble a photograph taken 380 thousand years after the Big
Bang, when the universe was still very hot and dense.
In the beginning, therefore, there existed a single infinitesimally dense point hotter
than the interior of a star, to which physicists call a singularity. With the
explosion of this singularity and the ensuing rapid expansion, time, space, and
later matter were created. The fact that the universe is not static but is in a
state of expansion makes it inconceivable that it had always existed and will
continue to exist eternally in expansion; in other words, the universe must have had a
beginning. This beginning was the Big Bang.
The graphic
representation of the universe in expansion, as shown by the picture above, is
triangular in shape, the vertex of the triangle coinciding with the most
intense light source: the Big Bang. If we want to have an idea of how the Big
Bang took place, we just need to turn on a flash light in the darkness: we will
see that the light follows a triangular path, and that this triangle expands
until the light fades in the distance.
Similarly what happens in all fields of human knowledge is that everything that begins
to exist had a cause. Therefore, if the universe began to exist, its existence
was the result of a cause. This cause, however, has to be in itself not caused
by another cause, must be immutable, timeless, immaterial and personal, in other word, God.
An Oscillating Universe
Sensing the
rug being pulled from under their feet, the atheists not being able to deny the
Big Bang, began to argue that in the
distant future the universe will reach a point of maximum expansion, and will
then begin its reverse movement through which all matter will be reunited again by the force of gravity, to subsequently explode and
expand into a simultaneously new and recycled universe. In other words, the
universe is in a perpetual consecutive
succession of Big Bangs and Big Crunches.
Consequently,
the universe would behave like a yo-yo, a large explosion followed by
expansion that would slow down and stop when the force of expansion equals the
force of gravity. At that point the universe would start to do the opposite of
expansion, and would start to shrink vertiginously as the force of gravity surpasses
and annuls completely the expanding force until an implosion occurs, and a new
singularity is created, this would then be followed by a new Big Bang and so on.
The
universe would be oscillating, like an elastic that expands rapidly just short
of its maximum point, the expansion then slows down to a stop followed
immediately by a contraction that is as rapid as its expansion, until it
reaches a Big Crunch, that is, to the infinitely dense point that would give
rise to a new Big Bang.
Availing
this theory, we have the first law of thermodynamics (nothing is created,
nothing is lost, everything is transformed), the amount of matter is always the
same, recycling perpetually so that the universe has no beginning and no end.
In philosophy, this idea is represented by the theory of eternal return – that
history repeats itself, as some historians like to point out. In religion, we
have the theory of reincarnation and the cyclical concept of time, as
understood by the Greeks: spring, summer, fall, winter and so on.
However,
this is not what is happening since observations made with the Hubble
telescope prove differently. The launching of a rocket may give us an idea of
what happens. A rocket travels through the atmosphere because it has
a force greater than the gravitational force pulling it down to the earth. If
it runs out of fuel before it can escape from the gravitational influence of
the Earth, it will stop going up and gravity will pull it back down to its
starting point. However, if it does not run out of fuel and rises more than
12 km/s, it will never return to earth and will distance itself from us indefinitely.
This is
what happens with our universe: the cosmic acceleration of expansion is so
large and the density of matter (that is proportional to gravity) is so low that all objects will continue to move away from us forever.
The End of the Universe
In a closed
universe, gravity would stop the expansion when it reaches its limit and would
be followed by a contraction. But our universe is open and unlimited, so it can
expand indefinitely, and all observations indicate that the expansion is
accelerating.
The speed
of expansion of the galaxies is too large for their gravities to reverse the
motion. Even if they were to slow down in the distant future, they would
already be too far for gravity to pull them back to the starting point.
Therefore, the expansion is irreversible because there is not enough matter in
the universe for the force of their gravities to stop the expansion. So, or at
a given moment, the universe freezes or expands until it uses up all its energy
and dies.
Furthermore,
the decrease of mass due to the depletion of energy decreases the force of
gravity, making the reversal of the motion impossible. The universe will expand
until death which will occur when it has expended all its energy.
According
to the first law of thermodynamics, in the transmutation between energy and
matter, nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, and everything is
transformed, which would be in accord with an eternal and oscillating universe.
However, in terms of the second law of thermodynamics, the transformation of
matter into energy is not possible without the deterioration or expenditure of
the former. In this sense, the known natural processes are quantitatively
conservative (1st law) and qualitatively degenerative (2nd
law).
At first
glance, it may seem that the first law gives reason to atheists and to the idea
of an oscillating universe. If energy cannot be created or destroyed, this
means that energy can be recycled ad
aeternum.
Yes and no. It is true that
energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be changed or transformed
from more useful forms to less useful ones. In each energy transfer or
transformation in the real world, a certain amount of energy is converted into
forms that cannot be reused. In most cases, this non-renewable energy takes the
form of heat.
It is true that heat in ideal
conditions can be reused. However, it can never be transformed into the type of
mechanical energy with the same performance and efficiency of 100%. Therefore,
every time an energy transfer takes place, a certain amount of useful energy
(though still in conformity with the 1st law) will change to the
non-renewable category (in conformity with the 2nd law or the law of
entropy). If this were not the case, if only the 1st law existed, it
would be possible to build an engine that would work forever using only the
energy that itself produces.
The reason the universe cannot
resurge to give rise to another Big Bang, even if it did contract, is that the universe
is extremely inefficient (entropy): far from saving, it wastes energy. In fact,
the universe is so inefficient that the chance of it resurging after its
collapse would be about 0.00000001% of the original Big Bang. Such an
insignificant chance of resurging would result in a new collapse almost
immediately and the universe would end up becoming a giant black hole for the
rest of eternity.
The Analogy of the Sun
Everything in the universe
takes place in an analogous way. In our little world, the solar system is
composed of a star – the sun – with eight planets orbiting around it, of which
ours is the third. We owe life to the star king, but it is no longer young,
already showing streaks of white hair. In fact, just like a candle where the flame
blazes before it goes out, or like a sick person who seems to get well just before
death, within a billion years the sun’s brightness will increase and will
occupy two thirds of our sky. The oceans will dry up, the atmosphere will disappear.
Long before this, however, our planet will not be able to provide the minimum conditions
necessary for life.
The sun was formed about 4,500
million years ago from a great cloud of dust and hydrogen, which by the effect
of gravity swirled like a hurricane. This gravitational attraction caused the
density to increase and, again like a hurricane, the temperature of the central
nucleus also increased until it reached around 10 million degrees Celsius. Under
these conditions, nuclear fusion occurred and the star began to emit light.
It has been estimated that the
hydrogen in the sun has already been reduced by forty percent. It is also
estimated that the Earth emerged 3,500 million years ago and that it still has
one billion years left till its end. That being the case, and although it seems
that there are still many more years left, putting time in perspective, however,
we are already in the last quarter of our planet’s life.
Each star has its fate marked
from the moment of its birth: the mass it has on the day of its birth, so it
shall have upon its death. As our sun ages it will first become a red giant
whose radius is 100 times greater than it is now thus engulfing the inner
planets of its solar system including the Earth. It will then turn into a
planetary nebula, and when it has lost all its glow into a white dwarf, and
eventually when it has cooled significantly it will become an almost invisible
black dwarf.
A star that is forty times bigger
than the sun will become a black hole in its final phase. Like the stars, the
universe will expand until it no longer has the energy to keep the heat going,
and without the heat it will die of cold when it has spent all its fuel.
Time
In physics, the concept or the
coordinate of time is a measure that determines the duration of something
subject to a change. There are, therefore, three types of time:
The psychological time or human time is what each one of us
experiences – our historical memory of what happened and is no longer happening,
the present that is now occurring and flowing in the direction of a future that
is to come.
The cosmic time is associated with the universe that began on
the day of the Big Bang, a day without a yesterday and which will end when the
world ceases to exist.
The
thermodynamics time
is associated with the increase in entropy, that is, according to the 2nd
law of thermodynamics matter does not convert to energy without undergoing some
wear and tear; if this was not the case, it would be possible to make an engine
that produced exactly the same energy it consumes, an eternal engine. But this
is not possible, systems that dissipate energy are not irreversible.
Einstein
discovered that time is not absolute, but relative: same two clocks that have
been synchronized can measure different times if one is moved at a substantial
speed while the other is kept still. For this reason, Einstein prefers to speak
of space and time as a single entity, space-time. In truth, the German
philosopher Immanuel Kant had already understood that space and time were
essential for the understanding of human experiences, as everything happens
simultaneously in a time and space continuum.
Time
decreases in direct proportion to speed: the faster the movement of an object,
the less time elapses for it. Increase the speed and everything slows down
around the person who is moving: from his watch to his thoughts. The moving person
does not realize this, but an outside observer does. Here lies the basis of the
famous paradox of the two twins.
In this two
twins paradox, one of the twins takes a trip into space travelling at 90% the
speed of light; the watch on this twin moves 44% faster than the other twin who
remained on Earth. After 5 years, when the twin returns from space, he would be
only 5 years older while his twin brother would already be 100. This paradox is
a thought experiment that defies conventional thinking, and yet it is pure
reality in the theory of relativity.
Space
In the time
before the Big Bang, space had a dimension of zero, that is, it was
nonexistent. With the big explosion it started gaining dimensions until today
and continues in accelerated expansion, continuing to grow.
Space is
understood as the areas of the universe that is relatively empty, outside the
atmosphere of the celestial bodies. However, today we know that it is not
totally empty of matter because it contains particles of hydrogen, although of
low density, as well as some electromagnetic radiation. Today we also know that
it contains unknown forms of matter and energy, such as dark matter and dark
energy.
There is a
space that is real because it can be observed and then there is a space that we
intuit it exists, but we have no way yet to observe it. Light travels at a
speed of 300 thousand kilometers per second; the light of any star takes
thousands of years to reach the Earth and that of the galaxies millions of
years. There are bodies that are so far away that their light has not yet
arrived here since they were formed, that’s why we cannot see them and yet they
do exist.
As it
happened with the conception of time, the space also defies our conventional
mind. We imagine the space to be linear extending in all directions, as a
measurable three-dimensional continuum of height, width and depth that surrounds
everything. However, this is not so: space in fact curves due to the forces of
gravity that the stars exert on it which may be large or small depending on the
mass of the star. For example, on earth we weigh eight times more than we do on
the moon. Einstein saw that the force of gravity did more than just bend the
space: it is a geometric spatiotemporal manifestation.
Energy
At the time
of the Big Bang, when space had a dimension of zero, it was infinitely hot.
Like the light and the heat emanating from a burning pile diminish as they move
away from the source, as it happens with expansion, so the universe is cooling
as it moves away from the Big Bang in space and time. During the moments
following the Big Bang, matter were not yet present, there were only photons,
protons, neutrons and electrons. With the continued expansion of the universe
and the subsequent lowering of the temperature, these particles began to combine
to form the nucleus of heavy hydrogen atoms which then combined with more
neutrons and protons and formed the helium nucleus.
With the
sudden drop in temperature, these early particles no longer had enough energy
to overcome the electromagnetic attraction between them and began to form
atoms, which are the building blocks of matter.
In Greek,
energy means activity, force in action. Energy is an abstract concept because
it does not refer to a physical object. However, according to the theory of
special relativity there is an equivalence between mass and energy so that all
bodies, by being made up of matter, contain energy. Let’s look at some forms of
energy:
Kinetic
energy – It is what
bodies possess in motion, depending on their mass and velocity.
Electrical
energy – It is
produced by the attraction or repulsion between electrically charged bodies.
Nuclear
energy – It is
produced from the rupture or splitting of atoms. In the case of the nuclear
energy used for the production of electricity, it is the breakdown of an atom
of a heavy element such as uranium when it is bombarded with neutrons in a
process known as nuclear fission. Now, nuclear fusion where two or more atomic
nuclei fuse together is only possible inside of stars, our sun is a good
example of nuclear fusion where the core temperature reaches to 15 million
degrees Celsius.
Potential
energy – It is the energy
contained in an object due to its position relative to some reference point. A
bottle sitting on the shelf, for instance, has potential energy given the position
it occupies, as it may fall.
Chemical
energy – It is the
absorbed, stored and released energy in chemical reactions between atoms and
molecules. Plants, for example, use the sunlight to produce chemical energy which
they store in organic molecules.
Radiant
or luminous energy –
Energy that propagates in the void in form of electromagnetic waves: visible
light, x-rays, gamma rays, ultraviolet rays, infrared rays; visible light is
only one form of radiant energy.
Thermal
energy – When a
fire is lit and wood burns, thermal energy is produced – the heat flows from
bodies with higher temperature to bodies with lower temperature.
Dark
energy – This is
the last form of energy which was discovered relatively recently in 1999. There
is more that we don’t know than we do know about this dark energy because it is
not observable with what’s available to us today. Is it a manifestation of
gravity or of matter-energy? The dark energy corresponds to 72% of the
universe, being composed of 23% of dark matter. Only 4.6% of the universe are
atoms, that is, matter, galaxies, stars and planets.
Matter
At the
microscopic level, matter is formed by molecules and these in turn by atoms
which are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. In addition to this,
there is a set of subatomic particles that make up the electrons, protons and
neutrons called quarks.
Macroscopically,
our solar system, our galaxy and all the galaxies that make up the observable
universe are matter. Fundamentally, our universe at the level of matter is
composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, 75% and 24%, respectively; only 1% of
the known matter is composed of all the other elements. All visible celestial
objects known, galaxies, stars, planets and clouds of dust constitute 10% of
the mass of the universe; the rest is unidentifiable, undetectable mass which
astronomers have termed the dark matter.
Matter has
two main characteristics: it occupies a place in space and has a mass. Mass is
a fundamental physical magnitude that can be defined as the measure of the
amount of matter a body has and which determines its inertia and gravitational
properties.
As we have
already mentioned, there exists a correspondence between matter and energy and
vice versa. Matter can be transformed into energy and energy can likewise be
transformed into matter; we can look at matter as a form of energy or energy as
a form of matter. However, matter is not energy, nor energy is matter. The flame of a candle, for example, is
composed of a mixture of fuel in the form of vapor, oxygen, carbon dioxide,
carbon monoxide and water, hence we can call it a matter. However, the light
that is produced by the flame is energy; the heat produced is also energy, not
matter. The fire in itself, however, is a state of matter.
As an
example of energy transforming into matter and matter into energy, we take the
combustion of the sun which transforms mass, that is, matter into energy. In
turn, by photosynthesis, this energy absorbed by plants is transformed into
mass, because it is responsible for their growth.
Matter
exists in nature in three states:
Gas – The molecules that make up a gas
almost do not attract each other, reason why they move in the void at great
speed, with much separation from each other.
Liquid – Liquid molecules are not as close
as solid molecules, but are closer than the gas molecules.
Solid – Because it opposes or puts up
resistance to changes in shape and volume. The molecules of a solid object have
great cohesion between them, so they adopt well-defined forms, resisting
therefore, any change of volume or shape.
Plasma –
There is a fourth state of matter which is fundamentally a gas made up of
electrons and positively charged ions. In our understanding, plasma is not
considered a fourth state of matter because it is not a true state, but rather
a process; it refers to the exact moment when matter becomes energy. Therefore,
it can be considered both as a form or state of matter, and as a form or state
of energy.
Our sun is
made of plasma. On Earth, thunderbolts are plasma that occur when the
atmospheric gas is heated to high temperatures and is ionized by electric
currents. Another form of plasma is the solar wind that interacts with the
Earth’s magnetic field, creating the aurora borealis. Finally, a form of plasma
closest to us, after the plasma TVs disappeared because of their high energy
consumption, are the fluorescent lamps that we contemplate every day.
Conclusion
The future
of our precious universe does not depend on visible energy or matter, because
these are in the minority in the universe. It depends first on the dark energy
and dark matter. These two are in struggle with one another, like good and
evil; dark matter exerts a centripetal force on the universe; if this wins, the
world will collapse on itself.
The dark
energy, on the other hand, exerts a centrifugal force on the universe, so if
this last one wins the battle, the universe will disintegrate completely: the
stars, the solar systems, the galaxies and finally the very atoms, protons,
neutrons, electrons and quarks that make up these. It would be the end of the
universe.
Since the
dark energy corresponds to 72% of the universe, with only 23% being made up of
dark matter, it is expected that the dark energy will win out. Collapsing on itself, in case the dark matter
wins, or disintegrating if the winner is the dark energy, either way, the universe
is doomed. Our only consolation is that we won’t be here to witness it, by then
the whole Humanity will be living with its Creator, God.
Our planet Earth
is in the last quarter of its life, it has still a billion years left. The universe
has been existing for 14 billion years, it may still have 5 billion years more.
These facts should be enough to kill any anxiety about an imminent end. What
counts though is the principle that the universe had a beginning in God its
Creator and in Him will have its end. He who has created everything from
nothing, only He can dissolve everything into nothing again.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
