The Age of the Universe

[ZiSunka]

One of the most obvious perceived contradictions between Torah and science is the age of the universe. Is it billions of years old, like scientific data, or is it thousands of years, like Biblical data? When we add up the generations of the Bible, we come to 5700-plus years. Whereas, data from the Hubbell telescope or from the land based telescopes in Hawaii, indicate the number at 15 billion years.

In trying to resolve this apparent conflict, it's interesting to look historically at trends in knowledge, because absolute proofs are not forthcoming. But what is available is to look at how science has changed its picture of the world, relative to the unchanging picture of the Torah. Because the Torah doesn't have the option of changing. (I refuse to use modern Biblical commentary, because modern commentary already knows modern science, and so it is influenced by that always.)

In 1959, a survey was taken of leading American scientists. Among the many questions asked was, "What is your concept of the age of the universe?" Now, in 1959, astronomy was popular, but cosmology - the deep physics of understanding the universe - was just developing. The response to that survey was recently republished in Scientific American - the most widely read science journal in the world. Two-thirds of the scientists gave the same answer. The answer that two-thirds - an overwhelming majority - of the scientists gave was, "Beginning? There was no beginning. Aristotle and Plato taught us 2400 years ago that the universe is eternal. Oh, we know the Bible says 'In the beginning.' That's a nice story, it helps kids go to bed at night. But we sophisticates know better. There was no beginning."

That was 1959. In 1965, Penzias and Wilson discovered the echo of the Big Bang in the black of the sky at night, and the world paradigm changed from a universe that was eternal to a universe that had a beginning. Science had made an enormous paradigm change in its understanding of the world. Understand the impact. Science said that our universe had a beginning, that the first word of the Bible is correct. I can't overestimate the import of that scientific "discovery." Evolution, cave men, these are all trivial problems compared to the fact that we now understand that we had a beginning....

http://aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/Age_of_the_Universe.asp

 

[No gods]

Originally posted by lambslove
Science said that our universe had a beginning, that the first word of the Bible is correct. I can't overestimate the import of that scientific "discovery." Evolution, cave men, these are all trivial problems compared to the fact that we now understand that we had a beginning....

http://aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/Age_of_the_Universe.asp

I think most all creation stories have a beginning, not just the biblical creation story. So where does that leave us?

 

[ZiSunka]

You didn't read the whole thing. To continue the thesis, go to the website.

 

[unworthyone]

Thats amazing. Thanks Lambslove. Maybe the author of Genesis was just a genius.

Oh yeah I guess He would have been, I mean, He is a God.

 

(thinks in the back of his mind: "But I don't wanna be a gorilla." )

 

[Sinai]

Thank you, Lambslove, for again pointing out one of the most striking examples of how scientific discoveries over the past 75 years have helped to bring mainstream scientific thought into rather close alignment with the Bible's account of creation.

Since you say that you "refuse to use modern Biblical commentary, because modern commentary already knows modern science, and so it is influenced by that always," you might find it especially beneficial to go back to the Hebrew scriptures and to the ancient Jewish commentaries on Genesis written over 700 years ago. I think it is quite interesting how similar many of their conclusions (based solely upon their close study of the Hebrew wording) are to modern scientific theory.

 

[John MacNeil]

Realistically, we can't put an age on the universe. When scientists say that the universe is so many billion of year old, they are merely making a framework in which they can try and formulate their ideas about the nature of cosmology. The universe, in reality, is much more likely to be trillions or qiuntillions of year old than it is to be a mere billions of year old.

In that article is the statement;

--"Albert Einstein taught us that Big Bang cosmology brings not just space and matter into existence, but that time is part of the nitty gritty." --Dr. Schroeder

This is a complete misrepresentation of Einstein's view. Einstein thought the Big Bang cosmology that dictated an expanding universe was not the product of objective thought and he said so right up until the day he died. Here is a letter on that very subject that he wrote to his collegue Max Born. The letter was sent a decade before Einstein's death:

--"We have become Antipodean in our scientific expectations. You believe in the God who plays dice, and I in complete law and order in a world which objectively exists, and which I, in a wildly speculative way, am trying to capture. I firmly believe, but I hope that someone will discover a more realistic way, or rather a more tangible basis than it has been my lot to find. Even the great initial success of the quantum theory does not make me believe in the fundamental dice-game, although I am well aware that our younger collegues interpret this as a consequence of senility. No doubt the day will come when we will see whose instinctive attitude was the correct one."--Albert Einstein, 7 September, 1944

So you can see from his own words that Einstein didn't believe in the direction that science was headed with the aberration of the quantum theory. Einsten was the one who first enunciated quantum theory and he was the one who discovered relativity. There would be no one better qualified than him who would know how best they could be used. Einstein's work has been falsely used by many people who say it agrees with their own theories, when in actual fact there are very few people even today, if any, who actually understand relativity. For anyone to claim that relativity confirms the Big Bang! cosmology is certain indication that they do not understand relativity.

There is no place in Genesis, at least in my recently acquired version of the Bible, which is the New International Version, that says God created the universe. I have read the King James version of the Bible before and I don't remember any passage from there that said God created the universe. If someone's Bible does say He did create the universe, please type up the passage. I do believe that something of the meaning is lost in all these translations which are meant to modernize the Bible to match current language. Anyway, in my Bible it says;

Genesis: 1:14: And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 1:15: and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light upon the earth." And it was so. 1:16: God made two great lights--the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 1:17: God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 1:18: to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 1:19: And there was evening, and there was morning--the fourth day.

This paragraph describes the sun, the moon, and the stars that we can see with the naked eye. It doesn't describe all the stars in the galaxy, let alone describe all the galaxies in the universe.

If the sun and the moon and the stars just became visible on the fourth day, then this would lead us to believe that the atmosphere was silted up, or clouded up, or in some way blocking those bodies from sight. The scientists say that an asteroid strike could raise sufficient dust and particulate matter so that it would block out the sun and darken the sky for years. Perhaps this type of scenario has some bearing on the events of that time. If God formulated an event that wiped out the previous hardy populations of animals on this planet, or if He found it in a chaotic state and repaired it to a life-sustaining environment, then that would explain a lot of what science has found.

From Dr. Schroeder's account, there is reason to believe that a literal translation of the bible from the original language would be most helpful in determining what actually happened back then. The edition I have says it was a committee of fifteen people who oversaw the current translation. I can't help but think that they did the best they could for turning it into modern language, but perhaps there are other versions which are more exact. If someone knows of a version that is a literal translation from the original text, please post it.

 

[Sauron]

Originally posted by lambslove
One of the most obvious perceived contradictions between Torah and science is the age of the universe. Is it billions of years old, like scientific data, or is it thousands of years, like Biblical data? When we add up the generations of the Bible, we come to 5700-plus years. Whereas, data from the Hubbell telescope or from the land based telescopes in Hawaii, indicate the number at 15 billion years.

In trying to resolve this apparent conflict, it's interesting to look historically at trends in knowledge, because absolute proofs are not forthcoming. But what is available is to look at how science has changed its picture of the world, relative to the unchanging picture of the Torah. Because the Torah doesn't have the option of changing. (I refuse to use modern Biblical commentary, because modern commentary already knows modern science, and so it is influenced by that always.)

"By trends in knowledge", the author is trying to imply that a correction to some scientific 'mistake' (which he will undoubtedly introduce later on) proves that science is getting closer to what the bible / torah says.  If only that were true....

In 1959, a survey was taken of leading American scientists. Among the many questions asked was, "What is your concept of the age of the universe?" Now, in 1959, astronomy was popular, but cosmology - the deep physics of understanding the universe - was just developing.

Not really true.  Britannica:

Three great ages of scientific cosmology can be distinguished. The first began in Greece in the 6th century BC ...

[...]

The Copernican revolution ushered in the second great age.

[..]

The third great age began in the early years of the 20th century, with the discovery of special relativity and its development into general relativity by Albert Einstein. These years also saw momentous developments in astronomy: extragalactic redshifts were detected by Vesto Slipher; extragalactic nebulae were shown to be galaxies comparable with the Milky Way; and Edwin Hubble began to estimate the distances of these galactic systems. Such discoveries and the application of general relativity to cosmology by Wilhelm de Sitter, Alexander Friedmann, and Georges Lemaître eventually gave rise to the view that the universe is expanding. The basic premise of modern cosmology is the principle that asserts that the universe is homogeneous in space (on the average all places are alike at any time) and that the laws of physics are everywhere the same. The principle is plausible because of the observed isotropy of the universe (on the average all directions are alike).

As you can see, cosmology was in a renaissance by the start of the 20th century.  Einstein himself was very much wrapped up in questions of the origin of the universe. Moreover, the Big Bang theory was first postulated by Gamow in the 1940s - quite a number of years before the 1959 benchmark put forth by the author of this article, Schroeder.

 

The response to that survey was recently republished in Scientific American - the most widely read science journal in the world. Two-thirds of the scientists gave the same answer. The answer that two-thirds - an overwhelming majority - of the scientists gave was, "Beginning? There was no beginning. Aristotle and Plato taught us 2400 years ago that the universe is eternal. Oh, we know the Bible says 'In the beginning.' That's a nice story, it helps kids go to bed at night. But we sophisticates know better. There was no beginning."

I would have to see the survey iteslf.

That was 1959. In 1965, Penzias and Wilson discovered the echo of the Big Bang in the black of the sky at night, and the world paradigm changed from a universe that was eternal to a universe that had a beginning. Science had made an enormous paradigm change in its understanding of the world. Understand the impact. Science said that our universe had a beginning, that the first word of the Bible is correct. I can't overestimate the import of that scientific "discovery." Evolution, cave men, these are all trivial problems compared to the fact that we now understand that we had a beginning....

Well, this is vastly oversimplified.  Currently, we do not know if our present universe is the first and only universe, or if it is just one of a series of universes (oscillating).  In addition, Stephen Hawking and Andrei Linde were working on a model of an universe that was able to spawn an infinite number of baby universes from itself, like a fractal that keeps regenerating.  So even if our universe has a beginning, the mega-universe might not have one.



 

 

[lithium.]

So even if our universe has a beginning, the mega-universe might not have one.

Isn't it great, when our universe dies in a few trillion years in ice, we can just goto another universe, a young, and warm universe.

 

[John MacNeil]

Sauron, there is more to the Big Bang! genesis than that. The Big Bang! theory is a Christian invention that is used to direct the thought of the general science minded population. It was first proposed by the Belgian catholic priest, Georges Lemaitre, in 1927, as this site shows;

http://belgium.fgov.be/abtb/science/en_60302.htm

Two year later, in 1929, the devout Christian, Edwin Hubble, used the observations of redshift that V.M.Slipher discovered, to claim verification of Lemaitre's postulation of the expanding universe. Lemaitre's idea was that all the universe originated from a single atom. I've always thought the idea was too much like a strict creationist format to be believeable, but it must have some believeability because most of the present scientific communuity, and almost all of the laypeople, wholeheartedly endorse it.

 

[chickenman]

macneill, I don't know much physics, but based on your past record with biology, i'm willing to bet you're talking out of your posterior re: relativity

 

[Sauron]

Originally posted by John MacNeil
Sauron, there is more to the Big Bang! genesis than that. The Big Bang! theory is a Christian invention that is used to direct the thought of the general science minded population.

It was not a christian invention.  It was a theory proposed by a skilled astronomer and cosmologist.  He might have been a christian himself; but I'm also sure that he didn't intend this theory to "direct the thought of the general science minded population." 

It It was first proposed by the Belgian catholic priest, Georges Lemaitre, in 1927, as this site shows;

http://belgium.fgov.be/abtb/science/en_60302.htm

Actually, the site says nothing about this being a christian invention.  In fact, there's little reason to believe that christianity had any influence at all on Lemaitre's studies and research in this area.  Britannica again:

A civil engineer, Lemaître served as an artillery officer in the Belgian Army during World War I. After the war he entered a seminary and in 1923 was ordained a priest. He studied at the University of Cambridge's solar physics laboratory (1923-24) and then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (1925-27), where he became acquainted with the findings of the American astronomers Edwin P. Hubble and Harlow Shapley on the expanding universe. In 1927, the year he became professor of astrophysics at the University of Louvain, he proposed his big-bang theory, which explained the recession of the galaxies within the framework of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. Although expanding models of the universe had been considered earlier, notably by the Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter, Lemaître's theory, as modified by George Gamow, has become the leading theory of cosmology.

 

(Weird, isn't it?  Half the christians claim the big bang is the work of the devil, and the other half are trying to give christianity the credit for it.)

Two year later, in 1929, the devout Christian, Edwin Hubble, used the observations of redshift that V.M.Slipher discovered, to claim verification of Lemaitre's postulation of the expanding universe.

Yes, but again - there's little reason to suspect that christianity had anything to do with his work:

Hubble's interest in astronomy flowered at the University of Chicago, where he was inspired by the astronomer George E. Hale. At Chicago, Hubble earned both an undergraduate degree in mathematics and astronomy (1910) and a reputation as a fine boxer. Upon graduation, however, Hubble turned away from both astronomy and athletics, preferring to study law as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford (B.A., 1912). He joined the Kentucky bar in 1913 but dissolved his practice soon after, finding himself bored with law. A man of many talents, he finally chose to focus them on astronomy, returning to the University of Chicago and its Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin. After earning a Ph.D. in astronomy (1917) and serving in World War I, Hubble settled down to work at the Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, Calif., and began to make discoveries concerning extragalactic phenomena.

Also note that Hubble's calculation of the expansion constant was incorrect - VERY incorrect, and almost got his idea thrown out.  The Hubble constant had to be revised drastically:

Although Hubble was correct that the universe was expanding, his calculation of the value of the constant was incorrect, implying that the Milky Way system was larger than all other galaxies and that the entire universe was younger than the surmised age of the Earth. Subsequent astronomers, however, revised Hubble's result and rescued his theory, creating a picture of a cosmos that has been expanding at a constant rate for 10 billion to 20 billion years.

So McNeil:  since you're so eager to claim that any new idea or thought that a christian formulates is suddenly a "christian invention' - - are you also willing to state that this was another christian blunder in science?

Lemaitre's idea was that all the universe originated from a single atom. I've always thought the idea was too much like a strict creationist format to be believeable, but it must have some believeability because most of the present scientific communuity, and almost all of the laypeople, wholeheartedly endorse it.

Huh? 

It doesn't rest on "believability"; science is not a contest of gut feelings. 

The Big Bang theory is widely accepted because the objective evidence and the tests to date have been very successful in validating its claims.  You don't have to trust your feelings, or the "believability"; you can examine the data.

 

[lithium.]

Originally posted by Sauron
It was not a christian invention.  It was a theory proposed by a skilled astronomer and cosmologist.  He might have been a christian himself; but I'm also sure that he didn't intend this theory to "direct the thought of the general science minded population." 



Actually, the site says nothing about this being a christian invention.  In fact, there's little reason to believe that christianity had any influence at all on Lemaitre's studies and research in this area.  Britannica again:

A civil engineer, Lemaître served as an artillery officer in the Belgian Army during World War I. After the war he entered a seminary and in 1923 was ordained a priest. He studied at the University of Cambridge's solar physics laboratory (1923-24) and then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (1925-27), where he became acquainted with the findings of the American astronomers Edwin P. Hubble and Harlow Shapley on the expanding universe. In 1927, the year he became professor of astrophysics at the University of Louvain, he proposed his big-bang theory, which explained the recession of the galaxies within the framework of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. Although expanding models of the universe had been considered earlier, notably by the Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter, Lemaître's theory, as modified by George Gamow, has become the leading theory of cosmology.

 

(Weird, isn't it?  Half the christians claim the big bang is the work of the devil, and the other half are trying to give christianity the credit for it.)




Yes, but again - there's little reason to suspect that christianity had anything to do with his work:

Hubble's interest in astronomy flowered at the University of Chicago, where he was inspired by the astronomer George E. Hale. At Chicago, Hubble earned both an undergraduate degree in mathematics and astronomy (1910) and a reputation as a fine boxer. Upon graduation, however, Hubble turned away from both astronomy and athletics, preferring to study law as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford (B.A., 1912). He joined the Kentucky bar in 1913 but dissolved his practice soon after, finding himself bored with law. A man of many talents, he finally chose to focus them on astronomy, returning to the University of Chicago and its Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin. After earning a Ph.D. in astronomy (1917) and serving in World War I, Hubble settled down to work at the Mount Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, Calif., and began to make discoveries concerning extragalactic phenomena.

Also note that Hubble's calculation of the expansion constant was incorrect - VERY incorrect, and almost got his idea thrown out.  The Hubble constant had to be revised drastically:

Although Hubble was correct that the universe was expanding, his calculation of the value of the constant was incorrect, implying that the Milky Way system was larger than all other galaxies and that the entire universe was younger than the surmised age of the Earth. Subsequent astronomers, however, revised Hubble's result and rescued his theory, creating a picture of a cosmos that has been expanding at a constant rate for 10 billion to 20 billion years.

So McNeil:  since you're so eager to claim that any new idea or thought that a christian formulates is suddenly a "christian invention' - - are you also willing to state that this was another christian blunder in science?



Huh? 

It doesn't rest on "believability"; science is not a contest of gut feelings. 

The Big Bang theory is widely accepted because the objective evidence and the tests to date have been very successful in validating its claims.  You don't have to trust your feelings, or the "believability"; you can examine the data.

Nice post Sauron, The last part the completely right.

 

[JohnR7]

Originally posted by Sauron
Although expanding models of the universe had been considered earlier, notably by the Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter, Lemaître's theory, as modified by George Gamow, has become the leading theory of cosmology.[/i] 

Nachmanides in the 13 th century felt that the universe started out the size of a mustard seed. His belief was based on the  Kabbalists and also it was said to be based on the oral tradition that goes back to Moses. So the idea of a expanding universe was not new by any means. Hubble was just the first to come up with a mathmatical formula to show the rate & consistancy of the expanding universe.

I had a dream when I was around 12 years old, where God showed me that the universe was expanding. He tried to show me how it would all be brought back together again. But it would go though a transformation first.

 

[lithium.]

Nachmanides in the 13 th century felt that the universe started out the size of a mustard seed. His belief was based on the Kabbalists and also it was said to be based on the oral tradition that goes back to Moses. So the idea of a expanding universe was not new by any means. Hubble was just the first to come up with a mathmatical formula to show the rate & consistancy of the expanding universe

John I havn't ever heard this. I have always learned that Edwin Hubble was the first to figure out the universe is expanding. I have never heard of someone in the 13 th century figured out that the universe was expanding. I am not saying it's impossible maybe someone did, but I have never read or heard anything about that.

 

[John MacNeil]

Of course everyone is free to believe whatever they want, and in reality whatever the origin and construction of the universe is means exactly nothing to everyone in a literal sense. Postulating whether the universe is the chaotic result of an explosive expansion from a single atom or an organized system as would be defined by a Unified Field Theory is all just a mental game.

The fact that Georges Lemaitre became a catholic priest in 1923 and then was appointed to a proffessorship at the catholic university at Louvain in 1927, whereupon he immediately proposed the universe from an atom theory, is probably just coincidence. The fact that the universe from an atom theory was then substantiated by Hubble, whose whole family was known to be devout Christians, is probably just coincidence, too. The fact that Edwin Hubble, who always sought the limelight before he made the confirmation, forever more, or at least for the rest of his life, refused to answer any questions put to him about his endorsing the universe from an atom theory, is probably just another coincidence, too, the same as the earlier coincidences.

Halton C.Arp, the renowned astronomer, wrote a book in 1987 called "Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies", in which he explained that the redshift observed emanating from galaxies is not indicative of recession velocity, thereby nullifying Hubble's qualification of redshift indicating an expanding universe. He has many photographic plates which show that redshifted galaxies can be close or far, and many of them are in orbits that have long been determined to be stable relative to our local area. Therefore that proof shows that the Big Bang! theory is just another bag of wind theory.

Funny thing happened, though, because when Arp presented his photographic evidence to the physical society, he was hounded out of his position as astronomer of the Palomar Observatory. They couldn't have anyone disputing their precious Big Bang! theory, you see? So Arp had to go. This in spite of the fact that he was the recipient of many prestigious awards, and was president of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. In short, he was one of their few bright, shining lights, but all that he'd accomplished, including the Arp catelogue of galaxies which is still in use by professionals and amateurs alike, counted for nothing the minute he decided to publish the truth.