cosmology and religion — an outsider’s study - kfkihorvath/talks/2010/hephy2010cosm.pdf ·...

Cosmology and Religion —An Outsider’s Study

(Big Bang and Creation)

Dezso Horvá[email protected]

KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics (RMKI),

Budapest

and Institute of Nuclear Research (ATOMKI), Debrecen

Dezso Horváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 1/46

Outline

Big Bang, Inflation.

Lemaître and Einstein.

Evolution and Religion.

Big Bang and Hinduism, Islam,Christianity.

Saint Augustine on Creation.

Saint Augustine on Time.

John Paul II and Stephen Hawking.


Warning

Physics is an exact science (collection of formulae)

It is based on precise mathematical formalism.

A theory is valid if quantities calculated with it agreewith experiment.

Real physical terms are measurable quantities, wordsare just words.

Behind the words there are precise mathematics andexperimental evidence

What and how: PhysicsWhy: philosopy?

And theology?


What is Cosmology?

Its subject is the Universe as a whole.

How did it form? (Not why?)

Static, expanding or shrinking?

Open or closed?

Its substance, composition?

Its past and future?


The Story of the Big Bang Theory

Red Shift of Distant Galaxies

Henrietta S. LeavittDistances to galaxies

1908–1912

Vesto SlipherRed shift of galaxies

1912

Edwin HubbleRed shift ∼ distance

1929


Expanding Universe

Cosmological principle: if the expansion linear

v(B/A) = v(C/B) ⇒ v(C/A) = 2v(B/A)

the Universe is homogeneous, it has no special point.

Expanding metric (space, coordinates)

local gravity ⇒ local inhomogenity

Alexander Friedmann, 1922 and Georges Lemaître, 1927

theoretically deduced from general relativity

Nobody believed it (least of all Einstein)

A. Friedmann

G. Lemaître


Hypothesis of the Primeval Atom

Monsignor Georges Henri JosephEdouard Lemaître (1894 – 1966)

Belgian catholic priest and physicsprofessor

(Catholic University of Leuven)

G. Lemaître: The Beginning of the World from the Point ofView of Quantum Theory,

Nature 127 (1931) 706.

The Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation(A Day Without Yesterday)

A sarcastic Fred Hoyle who believed in a steady Universe:Big Bang theory


Lemaître and EinsteinEinstein in 1927 on Lemaître’s deduction of an

expanding Universe on the basis of general

relativity:

Your math is correct, but your physics is

abominable

Einstein in 1933 at a conference, after

Lemaître’s presentation of the Hypothesis of

the Primeval Atom (although he did not quite

believe it): This is the most beautiful and

satisfactory explanation of creation to which I

have ever listened Lemaître and Einstein, 1933

Slowly developing experimental-theoretical evidence for 30 years

Final proof: Cosmic background radiation, 1964


Cosmic background radiationArno Penzias and Robert Wilson, 1964

(Nobel Prize, 1978)Irreducible microwave background radiation

Model: T = 3 K cosmic MW background (CMB)

COBE: COsmic Background ExperimentT = 2, 728 K, precise temperature curve

Cooling of primordial 3000 K photonsat (1000-fold!) expansion

Local spatial anisotropy: seeds of galaxy formation(Quantum fluctuations before inflation (fast

expansion)?)

Much more precise confirmation:WMAP: Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe

John C. Mather and George F. Smoot (COBE):Nobel Prize, 2006

The COBE space probe


Anisotropy of WMAP, 2001-2003


The Big Bang TheoryVisible matter:

∼ 75% hydrogen, ∼ 25% helium, < 1% restHydrogen → helium in stars only, how come so much?

⇒ hot primordial Universe

Origin of Cosmic Microwave Background:30 min after Big Bang: plasma, T = 300 000 000 K.

Radiation dominates, photons in opaque (non-transparent)medium of charged particles

380000 years: cooling to 3000 K, neutral atoms,transparent for photons

By now: space expansion, photons cooled down

Origin of galaxies:Space anisotropy ⇒ gravity wells of dark matter

⇒ dense baryonic matter ⇒ stars form


Big Bang, Inflation, Radiation


Hubble telescope: Deep Universe

Observation of a dark spot for 250 days ⇒

> 10000 young galaxies more than 1010 years ago


Hubble telescope: results

Formation of first galaxies500-800 million years after BigBang already

Early galaxies are smaller andless symmetric ⇒ fastformation

Black holes in centers ofgalaxies usual

On the farthest picturesformation of stars seen

Part of Ultra Deep Fieldpicture

galaxies 1010 years ago


Time sequence after Big Bang

Event time temperature ρ1/4

Planck time (inflation ↓?) 10−36 s 1018 GeVGrand Unification 10−32 s 1016 GeVElectroweak ↑?

(bariogenesis) 10−6 s 1015 K 100 GeVQuarks → hadrons 10−4 s 1012 K 100 MeVNucleons 1–1000 s 109 − 1010 K 0,1 – 1 MeVDecoupling 105 year 2500 K 0,1 eVStructure formation > 105 yearToday 13,7 G year 2,7 K 3 · 10−4 eV

Present picture: accelerating expansion of the Universe


Dark energy??

Cosmological constant: Λ > 0

Einstein’s biggest blunder, but true

Gravitating energy of vacuum, > 70% of the total mass!

Large after Big Bang, smaller in early Universe, grows withspace expansion

Dominant today. What is it?

Not vacuum energy: lower by 10−120!(World record for disagreement between theory and

experiment :-)

Not really energy, constant in an equation!

Many models, speculations: inflaton, quintessence,multiverse...


Matter balance today

Friedmann equation (X0: value today, normalized by /H2

0)

8πG3H2

0c2

(ρR0 + ρM0) − kc2

a2

0H2

0

+ Λ

3H2

0

≡

ΩR + ΩM − Ωk + ΩΛ = 1Radiation + matter - curvature + cosm. const. = 1

Universe is flat if Ω0 = ΩR + ΩM + ΩΛ = 1

Present picture: flat, matter-dominated (ΩM >> ΩR)Universe

Cosmological parameters: ΩR, ΩM = ΩB +ΩCDM, ΩΛ, H0

Radiation small, ΩR ∼ 0Baryonic matter (stars, black holes, dust, gas): ΩB ∼ 4%Clustering, non-baryonic, cold dark matter: ΩCDM ∼ 22%

Accelerating expansion: dark energy ΩΛ ∼ 74%


The Story So Far


Evolution and Religion

Evolution is crucial forinterpretation of Big Bang

Protestantism mostly rejects evolution

Pius XII already in the 1950’saccepted a partial evolution.

Vatican now fully accepts it.Pope Pius XII


Pope John Paul II on Evolution

John Paul II, Pontifical Academy of Sciences,

1996:

Today ... new knowledge has led to the

recognition of the theory of evolution as more

than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that

this theory has been progressively accepted by

researchers, following a series of discoveries in

various fields of knowledge. The convergence,

neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of

work that was conducted independently is in

itself a significant argument in favor of the

theory.

http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm


Evolution and the VaticanFebruary 2009: Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, President

of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vaticanconference for the 150th Anniversary of the publication of

Origin of Species by Charles Darwin:

Although Vatican was hostile to Darwin’s theory in the past,... it has never been formally condemned by the RomanCatholic Church, nor was the book banned. The idea of

evolution could be traced to St Augustine and St ThomasAquinas.


St Thomas Aquinas on Evolution

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274):Summa Theologica

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/

For St. Thomas primordial matter is the common ground ofsubstantial change, the element of indetermination in

corporeal beings. It is a pure potentiality ... It is producedout of nothing and can only cease to be by falling back into

nothingness.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10053b.htm


Protestantism: Reformed ChurchAs the Reformed Church is not hierarchical, I could not find

official statements, but what I found on the web did notsupport evolution or the Bing Bang theory, interpreting the

Holy Script literally.

Reformed Church in America http://www.rca.org

Protestant Reformed Church in Americahttp://www.prca.org

The first attack against Holy Scripture is rooted in thetheory of the Big Bang. This false teaching ... maintains...

(Beacon Lights, Vol. LIX, No. 7; July 2000)

... claims that the world had its origin in a "big bang" andthat man came from a monkey. It is all rather silly to claim to

find such preposterous things ...Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, April 1997, p. 35


Protestantism: Evangelists

Evangelical Lutheran Church in Americahttp://www.elca.org

Discussion forum on evolution and cosmology

Search: Cosmology — 83 papers, Big Bang — 101 papers

Essays of Big Bang as possible Creation and the role ofGod.

They watch and discuss both science and Vatican theology


Judaism and Modern Science

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/judaism

/FAQ/06-Jewish-Thought/section-4.html

Judaism has a long tradition of not interpreting thecreation narrative of Genesis 1 literally

Maimonides: Literal reading of the opening ofBereshis [Genesis] is for the masses.. Mose ben Maimon

1138 – 1204Some present solutions of the conflict

Rejection of scientific data, complicated interpretation of fossils.

Invoking relativity or whatnot to show that 15 billion years can be5758 years in another frame of reference.

Multiple creation times (dinos belong to a previous one).

Rejection of a literal read of the Torah.


Judaism and Big Bang

http://www.judaism.com

Genesis and the Big Bang — The Discovery of HarmonyBetween Modern Science and the Bible

by Gerald L. Schroeder

... this volume presents a compelling argument that theevents of the billions of years that cosmologists sayfollowed the Big Bang and those of the first six days

described in Genesis are, in fact, one and the same —identical realities described in vastly different terms.


Hinduism and CreationDick Teresi: Lost Discoveries : The Ancient Roots of Modern

Science–from the Babylonians to the Maya, Simon & Schuster, 2002(excerpts)

Indian cosmologists ... the first to estimate the age of the earth at morethan 4 billion years. They came closest to modern ideas of atomism,

quantum physics, and other current theories. India developed very early,enduring atomist theories of matter. Possibly Greek atomistic thought was

influenced by India, via the Persian civilization.

The cycle of creation and destruction continues forever, manifested in theHindu deity Shiva, Lord of the Dance, who holds the drum that sounds the

universe’s creation in his right hand and the flame that, billions of yearslater, will destroy the universe in his left. Meanwhile Brahma is but one of

untold numbers of other gods dreaming their own universes.


Hinduism and CreationR.A.S. Kocha: The Big Bang and the Bhagavad Gita,

Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai, 1991 (excerpts)The early saints of modern day Hinduism knew about this cosmic event

through mystic insight

Brahman representing the Ultimate Reality in Hindu religion appears to benothing but an implicit reference to the Big Bang itself. The word Brahmanis derived from the Sanskrit root brh which means to grow big without limit

and can be an oblique reference to an explosion.... As the point ofsingularity, Brahman is the impersonal absolute of pure timeless

existence.

Various branches treat Creation differently, but all accept evolution.

The Kashmiri cult of Shaivism: The whole universe was at firstconcentrated at one point or dot (Bindu). It is the Primordial Seed of

creation. After a period of germination it undergoes an explosion (Sphota)resulting in the sound (Nada) of creation (OM).


Shintoism and Creation

Creation of Heaven and Earth

Initially, both were combined into a substance analogous toan egg. This mass contained germs within indefinite

borders. As this composition separated, the purer, clearelement rose out, forming Heaven. The denser, impure

substance sank to become Earth. Heaven formed easily,thus was completed first. Earth, however, evolved with

more trouble, and therefore developed later.

http://creationtheologies.tripod.com/creationtheologies/id2.html


Islam and Creation

Mirza Tahir Ahmad: The Quran and Cosmology

http://www.alislam.org/library/books/revelation/part_4_section_5.html

... the concept of the continuous expansion of the universeis exclusive to the Quran. No other Divine scriptures even

remotely hint at it.

Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earthwere a closed-up mass (ratqan), then We clove them

asunder (fataqna)? And We made from water every livingthing.

ratqan: (1) ’the coming together of something and theconsequent infusion into a single entity’; (2) ’total darkness’.

Black hole?


St Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, 354–430Confessions of St Augustine of Hippo, A.D. 397

(Translated from Latin by J.G. Pilkington,revised by Kevin Knight)

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1101.htm

Autobiography and discussions with Godabout the Holy Script

Structured to Books and Chapters

Translators usually supply each with asubject as title, although the Latin original

has none. A chapter can be severalpages long or as short as a paragraph.

St Augustine

(Painted by Philippe de

Champaigne, XVIIth c.)

His world view was very close to modern cosmology


Confessions of St Augustine, Book XICreation

Chapter V: God Created the World Not from AnyCertain Matter, But in His Own Word.

Chapter VI: He Did Not, However, Create It by aSounding and Passing Word But there was nothingcorporeal before heaven and earth; or if there were,certainly Thou without a transitory voice had createdthat.

Recurring question: What God Did Before the Creationof the World?

Chapter XI: They Who Ask This Have Not as YetKnown the Eternity of God, Which is Exempt from theRelation of Time.


Confessions of St Augustine, Book XI

Understand time: what it is and how it can be measured

Chapter XIII: Before the Times Created by God, TimesWere Not.

Chapter XIV: Neither Time Past Nor Future, But thePresent Only, Really is.At no time, therefore, had Thou not made anything,because You had made time itself.


Confessions of St Augustine, Book XITime is measured by motion, but not identical to motion

Chapter XXIV: That Time is Not a Motion of a BodyWhich We Measure by Time

Chapter XXX: ...nor will I endure the questions of men,who ... say "What did God make before He madeheaven and earth?" or "How came it into His mind tomake anything, when He never before madeanything?". Grant to them, O Lord, to think well whatthey say, and to see that where there is no time, theycannot say "never". Let them therefore see that therecould be no time without a created being.

Thus time had to be created at Creation


Confessions of St Augustine, Book XIIGod created formless matter

Chapter IV: From the Formlessness of Matter, the Beautiful

World Has Arisen

Chapter VII: Out of Nothing God Made Heaven and Earth.

For Thou, O Lord, hast made the world of a formless matter ...

Of which invisible and formless earth, of which formlessness,

of which almost nothing, You might make all these things of

which this changeable world consists, and yet consists not;

whose very changeableness appears in this, that times can be

observed and numbered in it. Because times are made by the

changes of things, while the shapes, whose matter is the

invisible earth aforesaid, are varied and turned.


Confessions of St Augustine, Book XII

What does “Heaven” in Genesis really mean?

Chapter IX: For, doubtless, that heaven of heavens,which Thou in the Beginning created, is someintellectual creature, which, although in no wiseco-eternal unto You, the Trinity, is yet a partaker of Youreternity, and ... does greatly restrain its own mutability.

Chapter XIII: Of the Intellectual Heaven and FormlessEarth, Out of Which, on Another Day, the FirmamentWas Formed


Confessions of St Augustine, Book XII

Back to Creation:What did Moses mean by the first sentence of Genesis:

’In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’

Chapter XXIV:For his thoughts might be set upon the very beginningof the creation when he said, "In the beginning"; andhe might wish it to be understood that, in this place,"the heaven and the earth" were no formed andperfected nature, whether spiritual or corporeal, buteach of them newly begun, and as yet formless.


Big Bang and Creation: Pope Pius XII

In 1951, much earlier than the physicist community Pius XIIhad welcomed the Big Bang theory as the Creation of the

World.

The proofs for the existence of God in the light of modernnatural science,

Address of Pope Pius XII to the Pontifical Academy ofSciences, November 22, 1951.

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12EXIST.HTM

51. Hence, creation took place in time. Therefore, there is aCreator. Therefore, God exists! Although it is neither explicit

nor complete, this is the reply we were awaiting fromscience, and which the present human generation is

awaiting from it.


Big Bang and Pope Pius XII, 1951

Edwin Hubble received a letter from a friend asking whetherthe Pope’s announcement might qualify him for “sainthood.”The friend enthused that until he read the statement in themorning’s paper, “I had not dreamed that the Pope wouldhave to fall back on you for proof of the existence of God.”

Georges Lemaître and the Vatican’s science advisor knewthat it is a contested theory and worried what might be theeffect if the Pope pinned the Catholic faith too much on its

proving true. They spoke privately to Pope about theirconcerns, and the Pope never brought up the topic again in

public.


Big Bang and Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 1996:

...it would seem that present-day science, with one sweepback across the centuries, has succeeded in bearing

witness to the august instant of the primordial Fiat Lux [Letthere be Light], when along with matter, there burst forth

from nothing a sea of light and radiation, and the elementssplit and churned and formed into millions of galaxies. ...

Thus, with that concreteness which is characteristic ofphysical proofs, [science] has confirmed the contingency ofthe universe and also the well-founded deduction as to the

epoch when the world came forth from the hands of theCreator. Hence, creation took place. We say: therefore,

there is a Creator. Therefore, God exists!


Big Bang and Pope John Paul II

Stephen W. Hawking discussed the Big Bang with JohnPaul II who advised they should not inquire into the Big

Bang itself because that was “the work of God.”

Hawking: I was glad then that he did no know the subject ofthe talk I had just given at the conference — the possibility

that space-time was finite but had no boundary, whichmeans that it had no beginning, no moment of Creation.

I cannot see any controversy here...


Thanks for your attention!


Result of WMAP, 2001-2003

Acoustic spectrum:vibration modes

Peak locations:dark matter is not

baryonic

Flat Universe,k = 0; Λ 6= 0


Distance scales in curved space-timeCo-moving coordinates: (t, r, Θ, Φ)

Euklidic distance: dℓ2 = dr2 + r2(dΘ2 + sin2 ΘdΦ2)In curved space:

dℓ2 = a2(t)[

dr2

1−kr2 + r2(dΘ2 + sin2 ΘdΦ2)]

a(t): 2D space-time corveture k: 3D space-time curvature

k = 0 k > 0 k < 0flat universe closed universe open universe

Distance of galaxies ∼ a(t) ⇒ expansion


Friedmann’s equation

Changeof

scalefactor

(

aa

)2

≡ H2 = 8πG3c2 ρR + 8πG

3c2 ρM − kc2

a2 + Λ

3

∼ a−4 ∼ a−3 ∼ a−2 ∼ a0

Radiation matter curvature vacuum

Dominance sequence(some may be missed)


Matter balance today

Friedmann’s equation (X0: , /H2

0)

8πG3H2

0c2

(ρR0 + ρM0) − kc2

a2

0H2

0

+ Λ

3H2

0

≡

ΩR + ΩM − Ωk + ΩΛ = 1

Flat Universe if Ω0 = ΩR + ΩM + ΩΛ = 1

At present: flat, matter-dominated (ΩM >> ΩR)

Cosmological parameters: ΩR, ΩM = ΩB +ΩCDM, ΩΛ, H0

Baryonic matter (stars, black holes, dust, gas): ΩB ∼ 4%Clustering non-baryonic, cold dark matter: ΩCDM ∼ 22%

Accelerating expansion ⇒ dark energy: ΩΛ ∼ 74%


cosmology and religion — an outsider’s study - kfkihorvath/talks/2010/hephy2010cosm.pdf ·...

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