Poul Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), Introduction, pp. xi-xii.
"It's all one universe." (p. xi)
Everything that we can observe is part of a single universe. That sounds tautologous. But it is helpful to remember that everything is interconnected and is part of a single system.
Anderson refers to "...the primordial fireball..." (ibid.)
Is this phrase accurate? The initial state was one of high density and temperature. (See Big Bang.) So maybe that was a "fireball"? However, according to the same Wikipedia article, the Big Bang is not an explosion of matter moving out through already existing but empty space - it is not an explosion in space but an expansion of space and is continuing now.
I passed an Evangelical preacher who said, "In my experience, an explosion just makes a big mess!" Of course, he just wanted to ridicule the Big Bang, not to understand it. But it seems that it is not an explosion. My problem is that I do not understand the science.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
If you could have met Fr. Georges Lemaitre, you would have gotten a much more intelligent conversation! Not only was he a Catholic priest, he was also the scientist who worked out what came to be called the Big Bang hypothesis for the origins of the universe.
I get so IRKED with these Evangelical Protestants! They make Christians look like morons.
Ad astra! Sean
Partly it's a problem with the structure of English and Indo-European languages generally.
The language's grammar about time and space assumes time is linear and uniform, and space is infinite and "flat".
The idea of there not being an infinite amount of space to begin with is therefore hard to grasp.
When you say that initially the universe was tiny people automatically assume that this tiny dot was -in- something, some 'space'.
But it wasn't. That was all there was. It didn't expand into space, space itself expanded.
I'll leave aside more recent speculation about multiple universes!
The main point seems to be that this expansion really is not an explosion.
Paul: that's definitional.
It expanded -very rapidly-. Faster than the speed of light, in fact.
What's an explosion but a very rapid expansion?
So it is thought that there really was something FTL - although not mass.
Tachyons theoretically have to stay above light speed.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I don't think many evangelical Protestants give much thought to the structure and grammar of Indo-European languages. Their problem goes back to attachment to an antiquated hermeneutics for interpreting the Bible, insisting on only the most rigidly literal interpretation for EVERYTHING seen in the Scriptures.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yeah, including things that are obviously 'fictional' -in the Biblical context-.
We high church Anglicans have generally considered this... over-simple. Aka "dumb".
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I have my own beefs with the high church Anglicans, but I agree with them there.
The Book of Jonah makes moral and theological points using a fictional story. No need to believe Jonah was literally swallowed by a giant fish!
Ad astra! Sean
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