.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
The "Impossible" Universe
A. The Impossible Beginning
B. Impossible "Coincidences"
C. Impossible Creatures
D. Impossible Earth
A. The Impossible Beginning
There are two major rational possibilities to explain the beginning of our "impossible" universe: Either a creator who has always existed brought it into being, or, the universe has always existed and by some natural cyclic process keeps renewing itself.
The only theory that provides an acceptable answer for many scientists is one that excludes a creator. So, although it is no more difficult to imagine an intelligent being who has always existed than to imagine a highly complex, decaying universe that has always existed, these scientists have produced a theory of a "closed universe." This theory is that there is a cycle of "beginnings" and "endings" for the universe that continues forever. (The idea, apparently, is that it's easier - at least emotionally, for many - to believe in a universe that has always existed [and always will] than to believe in an intelligent creator who has always existed.)
There is strong evidence for the Big Bang theory (or something similar) that approximately 13.7 billion years ago the universe started in a compressed ball of matter (or energy) which exploded out in all directions (and is still expanding today in all directions away from that original point), cooled, and formed the galaxies, stars, planets, etc. that we know today.
The closed universe theory includes the Big Bang Theory. Starting with the Big Bang, then, these theorists say the universe will continue to expand and cool until, after trillions of years (or so), the stars have burned out, and the gravity of all the remaining matter left in that expanding universe slows and then stops the expansion.
At this point the remaining dead matter of the entire universe will begin to pull together again (because of the internal gravity of the whole mass) and eventually compress to a point where the terrific gravitational pressure will generate so much heat and energy that a new Big Bang will be produced. Then, say these theorists, a new universe will arise like a phoenix from the "ashes" of its previous existence, and the cycle will thus continue forever.
The one necessity these scientists have not been able to verify is the amount of matter remaining in the universe. A certain minimum is required to produce enough gravity to stop the universe's runaway expansion. If there is not enough matter, they admit, the universe must have come into being, once for all time, in a Big Bang and, left to itself, will cool, die, and expand forever (an open universe). This scenario, to most reasonable people, demands a creator, an initial cause!
But scientists have been able to confirm the existence of less than 10% of the matter required to "close" the universe! They have produced some incredible ideas to try to account for the "missing" matter but no real evidence. (See note concerning "dark matter" in appendix.)
But, even IF there were enough matter left in the universe to cause it to stop its rapid expansion and begin to contract, we would STILL not have a "closed universe".
Consider the research of Sidney Bludman, a physicist at the University of Pennsylvania. (See Science `84 - July/August, pp. 7, 10.) Bludman has calculated what would happen IF there were enough matter still left in the universe to eventually stop the expansion and cause a contraction.
Instead of "bouncing" back in a new Big Bang as some physicists have previously speculated, Bludman's calculations
Now consider what happened during the Big Bang and for billions of years thereafter:
Whether the "Big Bang" started as an incomprehensible ball of energy, some of which was converted into the matter of the universe in the process, (which fits well into my concept of the Creator's method) or whether it started as a big ball of matter which (through tremendous gravitational forces) produced an incomprehensible amount of energy isn't really important.
The same formula developed by Einstein shows the seemingly infinite amount of energy required in the Big Bang and the incomprehensible amount of energy being produced by the billions of billions of stars even today. Much of this energy has been lost as far as a "closed universe" is concerned. The tremendous heat and light has dissipated (and is dissipating today) by the conversion of the universe's matter into energy.
The Big Bang itself lost a tremendous amount of matter from the system as dissipated energy, and 13.7 billion years (or more) with billions of billions of stars converting their masses into energy has lost a tremendous amount more!
("To better understand the elusive nature of antimatter, we must back up to the beginning of time.
In the first seconds after the Big Bang, there was no matter, scientists suspect. Just energy. As the universe expanded and cooled, particles of regular matter and antimatter were formed in almost equal amounts.
But, theory holds, a slightly higher percentage of regular matter developed [?] -- perhaps just one part in a million -- for unknown reasons. That was all the edge needed for regular matter to win the longest running war in the cosmos.
'When the matter and antimatter came into contact they annihilated, and only the residual amount of matter was left to form our current universe,' Share says." - "The Reality of Antimatter" By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 07:00 am ET - 29 September 2003.)
So, even IF one Big Bang left enough matter to close the universe once, it would not be able to reach that critical density required for a new Big Bang. But even IF it did, somehow, it is obvious that the process could not possibly have gone on forever! The amounts of matter/energy lost in each theoretical cycle are incomprehensibly large, but even if only a teaspoonful were lost each time it could not have lasted forever until now! (How many times can you keep making a new candle from the wax drippings of the old one?)
As physicist Bludman puts it:
In addition, astrophysicists have discovered an incredible number of clusters, groupings, and complex lattice-like structures of galaxies extending many hundreds of light-years in length. All of this structure is unexplainable to scientists. They say the Big Bang was extremely smooth and uniform, according to the background radiation it left behind. But such a smooth, uniform beginning, left to itself, should not have led to such massive and complex structures at this point in time. Noted astrophysicist Margaret Geller of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, admits she cannot begin to understand what she sees. Gravity alone cannot account for these amazing structures. "I often feel," she admits, "we are missing some fundamental element in our attempts to understand this structure."
Andre Linde, one of the originators of the popular inflationary version of the Big Bang theory, admits that there is simply no way (for non-Creationists) to account for the most fundamental and important question of all, "Explaining this initial singularity - where and when [and how] it all began - still remains the most intractable problem of modern cosmology."
Someone brought this universe into existence once, probably about 13.7 billion years ago, and carefully, meticulously intervened throughout its growth to ensure its present characteristics. That Someone has always existed, but this universe has not, and, without His intervention, this universe will die in trillions of years (or so). There cannot be a self-existent cycle of energy-bleeding universes for all eternity.
B. Impossible "Coincidences"
There is another problem for anti-creation scientists concerning the beginning of our universe. Science `84 explains,
Suppose, on the other hand, that the density had been a little too low in the beginning. Then there would have been no problem with a Big Burp. In fact, the universe would have continued to expand forever—but so rapidly that particles of matter never would have been able to catch each other. Stars and galaxies never would have formed. We wouldn't be here to worry about it.
... the early universe must have started out very close to a certain critical density of matter. The problem is that it had to be absurdly close. Princeton University physicists Robert H. Dicke and P. James E. Peebles, who were the first to discuss the problem in 1979, calculated that the real density must have differed from the critical density by less than one-quadrillionth of one percent ....
THIS CAN'T BE COINCIDENCE. - p. 50, January/February, 1984 issue.
Expanding on these scientific observations, Science Digest stated:
Consider, for example, the structure of atomic nuclei. The atom's protons and neutrons are bound tightly together within its nucleus by a strange cohesive force. But what would happen if this force were not so strong? A reduction of only a few percentage points would mean that the simplest composite nucleus, deuterium's—consisting of a single proton and a neutron glued together—would come unstuck and fly apart.
In that case, the sun, which uses deuterium in its fuel chain, would be in severe difficulties, as would most other stars. But if the nuclear force were very slightly stronger, an even worse catastrophe would ensue. As physicist Freeman Dyson has pointed out, it would then be possible for two protons to stick together....
If this strong-force condition had obtained when the Big Bang occurred, when all the cosmic material was highly compressed, such proton `marriages' would have proliferated, initiating a runaway nuclear reaction that would have denuded the universe of free protons, which are the nuclei of hydrogen. Without hydrogen there would be no stable stars that, like the sun, use hydrogen as their fuel.
Astrophysicist Brandon Carter has discovered yet another touch-and-go aspect of stellar structure. The life of a star is one long struggle between gravity, which tries to crush it, and the forces of electromagnetism, which supply the support that keeps the star from collapsing. The appearance of a star depends on a subtle and improbable balance of the numbers that characterize the strength of the force of gravity and that of electromagnetism. A truly minute shift would turn all stars into either blue giants or red dwarfs.
WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? [emphasis by Science Digest writer] .... Scientists are aware that if the catalog of `happy accidents'—of which I have given only a sample—had not worked out so propitiously, we should not be around to comment on the fact. Any old universe won't do—it has to be a well-organized job. - Science Digest, October 1983, p. 24.
And other "coincidences" are constantly being discovered. Take the type of planets to be found in a star system. For higher life forms to survive on an earth-type planet there must be other planets. Specifically there must be a giant with the mass of our Jupiter at the proper distance from the life-bearing planet.
George Wetherill, a planetary scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington D.C., reached this conclusion after simulating the birth of solar systems on a desktop computer. In every simulation he ran, rocky planets similar in size to Earth assembled from small chunks of debris orbiting near the central star. Larger, gaseous planets formed farther out, along with scads of icy comets zinging around in eccentric orbits.
As long as one of those gaseous planets has the mass and gravitational pull of Jupiter, Wetherill found, most of the comets never get the chance to collide with one of the inner planets. .... In systems lacking Jupiter-size planets, however, the small inner worlds are relentlessly bombarded. Without a full-size Jupiter, Wetherill estimates, Earth would have been struck by comets at least 1000 times more often, and catastrophic impacts of the kind that probably exterminated the dinosaurs would have occurred every 100,000 years or so instead of every 100 million.
`It may well be that if Jupiter weren't there, we wouldn't be here either,' says Wetherill. - p. 15, July 1993, Discover.
C. Impossible Creatures
(For a more detailed discussion see the 15 July 1978 Watchtower.)
There are at least 5 pitfalls to the evolutionary theory for the beginning of life.
1. There is simply no real evidence to support the speculation that the earth's atmosphere once had the necessary gases in the right proportion to start the chain reactions that most evolutionists believe led to spontaneous life production.
2. If such an atmosphere did exist at one time, and if the proper amino acids were produced, they would have been destroyed by the same source of energy that split the methane and water vapor in the first place. Dr. D. E. Hull wrote in the May 28, 1960, scientific magazine Nature:
"The conclusion from these arguments presents the most serious obstacle, if indeed it is not fatal, to the theory of spontaneous generation. First, thermodynamic calculations predict vanishingly small concentrations of even the simplest organic compounds. Secondly, the reactions that are invoked to synthesize such compounds are seen to be much more effective in decomposing them."
And John Horgan wrote in a 1991 Scientific American magazine:
"Laboratory experiments and computerized reconstructions of the atmosphere ... suggest that ultraviolet radiation from the sun, which today is blocked by atmospheric ozone, would have destroyed hydrogen-based molecules in the atmosphere ..... Such an atmosphere [carbon and nitrogen] would not have been conducive to the synthesis of amino acids and other precursors of life."
3. The odds against hundreds of thousands of "left-handed" amino acids (as are found in living things) coming together out of an original equal mix of "left-handed" and "right-handed" has been compared to a man making two kinds of bricks, red and yellow. After he has made a pile of millions of red and yellow bricks all mixed together he takes a gigantic steam shovel and scoops several hundred thousand bricks out of the pile, and, by chance, every one of them is a red brick! In the same way, by chance, every one of the hundreds of thousands of amino acids forming the simplest one-celled organism we need as the first life form must be "left-handed."
4. The different kinds of amino acids of our first living, reproducing organism must not only come together in the right kind and amount, they must also link together in the correct order. So the huge steam shovel must not only scoop up all red bricks (left-handed amino acids), but also accidentally drop them somehow each into its proper spot!
5. A cell membrane is extremely complex, made up of sugar, protein, and fatty molecules. It is essential for a living cell. But there is no plausible explanation how even the fats in the complex membrane could have originated by themselves (p.145, The Origin of Life, Bernal)!
To find the final overall odds for a chain of events leading up to a single result you must multiply the odds of each event. For instance, if Robin reaches into a hat that has one white marble and two black ones, there is one chance in three that she will draw the white one. However, if she is presented with two hats each containing one white marble and two black ones the odds multiply not add. Even though there are only 6 marbles altogether, the two events total up to odds of 1 out of 9 (not 1 out of 6). 1/3 x 1/3 = 1/9.
If there had been 3 marbles (1 white and 2 black) in each of three hats the odds would be 1 out of 27 (1/27) that she would draw the three white marbles (1/3 x 1/3 x 1/3 = 1/27), and so on.
So by multiplying the odds of the different events (considering only the chances of getting the right number and order of left-handed amino acids together as would be found in the simplest theoretically possible self-reproducing organism) we find the odds to be one out of 10 to the 79,360th power (1 followed by 79,360 zeros). It would take about 20 pages just to write the zeros for this number!
Remember, these are only the odds for the somehow already-formed amino acids accidentally coming together in the right kinds and right order. It ignores the odds of the universe accidentally forming in the first place, a planet of just the right type with just the right composition being found in exactly the right position relative to the right type of star, and all the other myriad "accidents" leading up to this point and all the myriad "accidents" after it (such as the right mixture of elements actually coming to life and functioning and reproducing, etc.)
Yes, these are just the odds for the already-made ingredients getting together properly (like Randy putting all the already man-made parts of his wrist watch into a sack and shaking them together into a whole watch). And there's only one chance out of a number so huge (1 followed by 79,360 zeros) that it would take 20 pages just to write its zeros!!
Dr. Emil Borel, an authority on probabilities, says that if there is less chance for something to happen than 1 in 10 to the 50th power (1 followed by 50 zeros), then it will never happen, no matter how much time is allowed! That number (1 followed by 50 zeros) can be written in barely over one line on this page:
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.
Actually, the odds for natural evolution are so incredibly poor that even noted evolutionists admit that it is virtually impossible, but they believe it anyway, because the only alternative (creation) is so repugnant to them.
Famed evolutionist Julian Huxley said:
"A little calculation demonstrates how INCREDIBLY IMPROBABLE the results of natural selection can be when enough time is available." When discussing the odds that a horse could have evolved from earlier animals through chance alone he referred to "the FANTASTIC ODDS against getting a number of favorable mutations in one strain through pure chance alone," and then added: "A thousand to the millionth power ... when written out, becomes the figure 1 with three million [zeros] after it; and that would take three large volumes of about five hundred pages each, just to print! Actually this is a meaninglessly large figure, but it shows what a degree of improbability natural selection has to surmount .... One with three million [zeros] after it is the measure of the unlikeliness of a horse—the odds against it happening at all. No one would bet on anything so improbable happening."
Notice that Huxley has only considered the odds starting with an already existing animal. He also assumes that the theory of evolution is a proven fact. The odds he cites are only for one simple, (but already living, reproducing) organism changing into a different more complex one over millions (or even billions) of years. Nevertheless, because the only alternative (a Creator) is emotionally unacceptable to him, Huxley then says: "Yet it has happened." - Awake!, 22 March 1973, p. 23.
Nobel Prize-winning biologist Dr. George Wald admits the same thing:
"One only has to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are—as a result I believe, of spontaneous generation."
This belief in the impossible by evolutionists is mainly because they don't want to believe in the alternative.
Biologist D. H. Watson once said: Evolution is
"universally accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." - Doctors Wald and Watson are quoted in The Watchtower, 15 July 1978, p.7.
These impossible odds, admitted by notable evolutionists, again take into account only a very small range of "impossible" and "accidental" events in the examination of the evolution chain. There are literally thousands of other "impossible" events that must be multiplied in to get a true picture. We have already examined a few of them in the first part of this paper. There is one more we will look at.
What do you think the odds are for the "accidental" fine tuning of the Earth's climate?
D. Impossible Earth
Science `83, July/August, p.100: "The climate of the Earth has varied considerably over time .... Yet what puzzles many scientists is not that the climate varies but that it has remained as stable as it has.
"The Earth, they point out, is quite literally poised between fire and ice. Consider, for example, what would happen if we somehow moved the Earth slightly closer to the sun.
"As the oceans grew warmer, more and more water vapor would begin to steam into the atmosphere ....
"In the end our planet would become a twin of unfortunate Venus, the next planet inward to the sun: a gaseous, dry searing hell, its surface covered with clouds, oppressed by a massive atmosphere of carbon dioxide, and hot enough to melt lead.
"Suppose, on the other hand, we moved the Earth further out from the sun. As the planet grew colder, glaciers would grind [toward the equator].... In the end, the Earth would gleam brilliantly—but its oceans would be frozen solid.
"Thus, the climate is balanced precariously indeed—so precariously that many geologists now believe that tiny, cyclic variations in the Earth's orbit, known as the Milankovitch Cycles, were enough to have triggered the ice ages.
"But geologists ... assure us that the oceans of the earth have remained .
warm and liquid throughout its 4.6 billion-year history
"Perhaps this is a lucky accident—after all, if the Earth had not formed at just the right distance from the sun to have liquid oceans, we would not be here to worry about it. But the astrophysicists point out that things aren't quite that simple.
"The sun [as must ALL stars of this life-supporting type] they say, ... is inexorably getting hotter with age. In fact, it is about 40 percent brighter now than when the Earth was born. So how could the climate possibly stay constant? If the Earth is comfortable now, then billions of years ago, under a colder sun, the oceans must have been frozen solid. But they were not. On the other hand, if the oceans were liquid then, why has the sun not broiled us into a second Venus by now?"
The Science `83 article concludes that if continuation of life on the Earth depended on an "accident" that has been
"followed by a remarkable fine-tuning of its atmosphere to a warming sun, then the hopes of finding other intelligence in the universe must be slim indeed."
On the contrary, it appears to me that the "accident" and the "remarkable fine-tuning" over billions of years provide evidence of another, much higher intelligence.
Here, then, is a very brief summation of a very few of the things that the "orthodox" anti-creation scientist has to believe just naturally, accidentally happened.
Somehow exactly the right amount of matter was compressed into a ball to just exactly the right critical density which set off a tremendous explosion. This explosion (the Big Bang) sent all matter (then an unbelievably hot ball of plasma, or superhot "gas") blasting out in all directions. This gas, as it began to cool, somehow began to clump together in areas. These clumps (due to their own gravity) compressed until galaxies, stars, and planets finally formed.
Somehow there has always been just enough matter to cause the expanding universe to stop expanding and then close and reach critical density time after time forever, in spite of the fact that incredible amounts of matter must be lost (in the form of energy) each time!
Somehow in this particular universe the Earth (and possibly other planets) had just the right mixture of gases in its atmosphere so that somehow just the right kinds of amino acids formed (at least 20 different kinds). Somehow just the right kind and amount of energy at the right time and right spot (which somehow did not also decompose them as it should have) helped form these amino acids. Somehow hundreds of thousands of only the left-handed amino acids came together at exactly the right spots in exactly the right order.
Somehow several hundred different chains of left-handed amino acids then joined together, and then somehow this collection of chains came to life! And somehow these now-living, joined-together chains began to function (take in food, excrete waste, etc.) and reproduce!
This theoretical first and simplest life form then somehow changed into ever more complex higher life forms over a few billion years. For this to happen we had to have a planet of the right size and chemical composition revolving around a special type of a star (which has somehow been allowed to form because of an incredibly precise balance between basic forces). And somehow this planet has had to maintain precisely the right temperature and climate despite the ever-increasing heat and light from that star for billions of years!
The odds against this chain of events are so high that there has never been enough paper (or trees to make the paper) to write all the zeros required to express it!!
Even if a person can't see the high probability of the existence of a creator, he must see the distinct possibility of a creator vs. the impossible materialistic belief in a long chain of extremely improbable "coincidences".
Recently two prominent British scientists, sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, admittedly were `driven by logic' to conclude that there MUST be a Creator. `It is quite a shock,' said Wickramasinghe, a professor of applied mathematics and astronomy. The Sri Lankan-born astronomer explained: `From my earliest training as a scientist I was very strongly brainwashed to believe that science cannot be consistent with any kind of deliberate creation. That notion has had to be very painfully shed. I am quite uncomfortable in the situation, the state of mind I now find myself in. But there is no logical way out of it.'
Though Wickramasinghe and Hoyle continue to believe that evolution controls the development of life forms, their calculations of the odds against life itself starting spontaneously moved the professors to write: `Once we see ... that the probability of life, originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favourable properties of physics on which life depends are in every respect "deliberate,"' or created.
Professor Wickramasinghe also said: `I now find myself driven to this position by logic. There is no other way in which we can understand the precise ordering of the chemicals of life except to invoke the creations on a cosmic scale .... We were hoping as scientists that there would be a way round our conclusion, but there isn't.'" - Quoted in The Watchtower, 1 Dec. 1981, p. 15.
Most scientists would agree with the idea expressed by "Occam's Razor." Occam's Razor is the concept that (1) the best theory is the one which properly answers the most questions, and (2) if more than one theory answers all the questions then you must choose the simplest one as the best theory.
Not only does the closed universe/evolutionary/"happy accidents" theory not answer all the questions, it even raises many new unanswered questions. It also is far from simple.
The creation concept, however, answers all the questions in the simplest possible way. The only difficulty is believing in an intelligence that has always existed and which we cannot see. Is this more difficult than believing in a universe that has always existed and a cyclic system of universe formation which we not only have not seen but which is provably impossible (because of the tremendous loss of matter each time) and a chain of such highly improbable events as to be absolutely statistically impossible?
It truly is an impossible universe if you deny its Creator!
"For since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking...." - Romans 1:20-21, RSV.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APPENDIX
Material to be analyzed, rewritten, and perhaps included in section A. "The Impossible Beginning":
EQUAL AMOUNTS OF MATTER AND ANTI-MATTER FORMED IN BIG BANG. SO WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE ANTI-MATTER?
"During such experiments [with `atom smashers', or accelerators], physicists confirmed a theory that seemed unbelievable when it was first put forth: every particle of matter has an equivalent particle made of a weird substance called antimatter. In effect, antimatter is a mirror image of ordinary matter. Now that the first such antimatter particles have been discovered inside accelerators, scientists have suggested that there may be vast regions out in space, perhaps even whole galaxies, made up entirely of antimatter. If such an antimatter galaxy were to bump into a galaxy made of ordinary matter, like our Milky Way, the two would totally annihilate each other in a cataclysmic explosion." - p.45. And, "Another explanation was that quasars might be created by the annihilation of matter and antimatter. Such an encounter could be far more violent than conventional nuclear reactions because all the matter and antimatter involved would be converted into energy." - p.106, Quasars, Pulsars, and Black Holes, Frederick Golden, Pocket Book Edition, 1977.
* * * * *
"About 15 billion years ago an infinitesimally small infinitely dense and hot point of energy erupted in a titanic explosion that created all of space and time and matter and energy - we call it the Big Bang.
"Packets of energy called photons raced through the early universe. Photons are massless, neutral particles that travel at the speed of light and carry electromagnetic energy, such as sunlight. In a sense the universe at this point was light.
"The photons' energy depended on the temperature of the universe. Although the temperature had cooled a lot since the inception of the universe less than a millionth of a second before, it was still enormously hot - hundreds of times hotter than a detonating hydrogen bomb. At these temperatures, matter emerged as elementary particles when photon collided with photon. Einstein's famous equation [E = MC2] beautifully documents this early era when energy and matter flowed back and forth interchangeably. This was also when other massless packets of energy such as neutrinos sprang into existence. But unlike photons, neutrinos very rarely interact with matter.
"The photon collisions produced particles such as electrons, protons, and neutrons. They also produced antiparticles [antimatter] - bits of matter with the same mass but the opposite electrical charge. (The antiparticle of the negatively charged electron, for example, is the positively charged positron.) When photon smashed into photon, it created particle and antiparticle PAIRS shooting off in different directions. Once separated, the particles lasted but instants before each collided with its antiparticle, whereupon the particles annihilated one another and set two photons flying free again.
"All the while the universe was expanding, cooling, and losing energy. The four presently known physical forces appeared - gravity, electromagnetic, and the weak and strong nuclear forces. At one critical moment the universe cooled enough to switch off the free interchange between photons and particles. In one final, annihilating burst the universe turned almost all its protons, neutrons, and electrons into light. This was truly momentous, for today's universe of matter very nearly disappeared forever in that instant. Only a slight overabundance of particles relative to antiparticles allowed particles to win out - and our present universe to exist." - August 1988, Astronomy, p. 81.
(So, "everything" was in existence, although in total, fluidic chaos, and then there was light!! - Gen. 1:1-3)
Although we know (from the basic theory itself as well as from countless observations of the production of antimatter within `accelerators' or `atom smashers') that equal amounts of matter and anti-matter are produced at the same time, the universe now contains extremely little, if any, anti-matter.
"Every second, millions of high-speed particles - mostly protons - arrive on Earth from thousands of trillions of miles away [every "corner' of the universe]. For over 20 years now, physicists have been monitoring these transient samples of the galactic and extragalactic environment, and the evidence is that not one of those cosmic rays started its journey as an antiparticle [anti-matter]." - Science Digest, p.36, Feb. 1985.
Scientists, then, are forced to believe that there were equal amounts of matter and anti-matter formed in the "Big Bang." They also know that within a fraction of a second the anti-matter was gone and only matter was left. To help them accept this "impossibility" [impossible without an intelligent designer/creator] they have had to assume that some "Original Flaw" caused the destruction of slightly more anti-matter than matter. So they speculate that this "flaw" [or "unknown Force"] somehow caused an overabundance of "one part in 10 billion excess of matter over antimatter." That relatively infinitesimal bit of excess matter that makes up our universe today, then, is all that exists of the initially enormous production of mass/energy. In other words, 20 billion times the amount of matter now existing was initially produced (as matter/anti-matter) and annihilated itself in matter/antimatter collisions! This kind of "impossible" universe certainly could not possibly keep on "recycling" by closing and renewing itself forever (or even more than once)!
"Dark Matter"
Many anti-Creation scientists have tried to "find" enough matter to "close" the universe by speculating on the amount of "Dark Matter" or matter that "must" be out there "somewhere" which we simply cannot detect. This speculation has "manufactured" an immense amount of "dark matter" through theoretical speculation only. Even so, this invented "invisible matter" still hasn't been quite enough to provide a "closed universe." But we find now that real evidence has shown much of this speculative "dark matter" to be in actuality much smaller than previously theorized.
Science News, Vol. 136, August 5, 1989, p. 84, tells us:
"But new observations indicate astronomers have overestimated by about a factor of 10 the amount of `dark' matter - mass hidden from view because it does not radiate at any observed wavelength - in the M96 galaxy group that contains the unusual ring. In addition, statistical analysis of 155 other small galactic groups suggests scientists have similarly misjudged the amount of dark matter in these systems...."
"...several astronomers say the revised estimates fit with other observations indicating the heavens hold only enough total mass to generate a relatively weak gravitational tug."
Strangely enough, the August 1989 issue of Scientific American reveals another recent study of a similar nature with similar results. Under the title "Pride and Prejudice" (pp. 16,17) this article tells us:
"Current cosmological prejudice requires that the universe be flat - just balanced between a universe doomed to recollapse [closed] and one destined to expand forever [open]. The cosmos, however, does not appear to be swayed by prejudice. ...the latest evidence [suggests] either that the universe will expand forever or that the bulk of its mass is hidden in exotic, undetected particles."
The article further states,
"All theoretical nucleosynthesis studies show that to produce the observed amounts of helium and deuterium the baryon [protons and neutrons formed by the `big bang'] density must be much less than the critical value, the density to transform the universe from open (ever expanding) to closed (doomed to recollapse)."
The article concludes:
"the two-standard-deviation lower limit to the baryon density of the universe is about 2 percent of the critical density, and the upper limit is about 10 percent.
"These numbers are not new but support previous claims that the universe cannot be closed by baryons alone. Theorists who claim that the universe is exactly flat are, once again, forced to invoke nonbaryonic matter to do the trick."
Our knowledge of the "dark matter" is further increased by a report in the November 1989 Discover magazine. This article tells us that in addition to the motion observed due to the overall expansion of the universe, "our Milky Way and the 20 or so other galaxies that make up the Local Group are all streaming through space at about 370 miles per second." The article explains that this movement is because "the Local Group must be streaming toward a huge mass - a Great Attractor."
"It consists of two dense superclusters - clusters of galaxy clusters - that are centered on a region 150 million light-years from Earth, in the direction of the constellations Hydra and Centaurus." - p. 20.
"The estimated density of the Great Attractor, however," this article concludes, "is so large that its very existence has called the cold-dark-matter theory into question. `The problem,' says MIT astrophysicist Edmund Bertschinger, `is that if perturbations are this large on large scales, they should be even larger on smaller scales. Galaxies ought to be more clustered than they are.' In other words, if enough time has elapsed since the Big Bang for galaxies to coalesce into huge attractors, there shouldn't be so many galaxies still floating in loose clusters; they should all be tightly bunched. At the very least, according to the cold-dark-matter theory, attractors should be rare. But the observations of Scaramella and other astronomers suggest they're not.
"All this makes theoreticians anxious, says Bertschinger - but not anxious enough to throw out cold dark matter. `Even if we were eager to abandon our theories,' he says, `we don't have good guidance for where to turn next.'" - p. 23.
He might as well have concluded: "And how could anyone but a `creationist' actually believe that the universe came into being in a single flash - out of nothingness? Impossible! Non-`creationists' must believe in an eternal, self-existent universe perpetually renewing itself."
Of course there must be some matter in the universe that can't be seen from earth, and measurements which examine the effects of gravity within galaxies and galaxy clusters bear this out according to an article in the December 1989 Astronomy magazine. However, similar measurements used for the entire universe show there simply is not nearly enough total matter (whether "dark" or not) to close the universe.
Science News tells us in its Jan. 20, 1990 issue that Gregory D. Bothun of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and his research team have data measurements which indicate the universe will never stop expanding on its own.
"Bothun, working with Margaret J. Geller and John P. Huchra of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., determined the velocity of a group of galaxies located on the `surface' of a huge bubble embedded in the so-called Great Wall.... Bothun's measurements show that the gravitational force exerted by the Coma cluster attracts the galaxies on the bubble surface, pulling them off course from the Universe's expansion. The strength of that attraction depends on how much the rest of the mass in the universe pulls the bubble galaxies away from the cluster. By calculating the Coma contribution, Bothun and his colleagues deduce that `the mean mass density' of the universe is less than one-third that required to reverse its outward expansion." - Science News, p. 45.
And Astronomy Magazine concludes:
"If the universe is closed, space of great distances should be curved. Cosmological tests for curvature - such as measurements of the mass and luminosity of nearby-versus-distant elliptical galaxies and counts of galaxies of various magnitudes in a given direction in the sky - consistently indicate a flat or open universe. So far, no measurements have implied a closed universe.
"This goes against what Parker calls a `prejudice' among astronomers for a closed universe. Although there are theoretical reasons to support this more philosophically satisfying concept, the problem is in finding enough mass to close the universe.
".... astronomers have measured galaxies and galaxy clusters and know [by the observable effects of the gravity within these structures] that matter is missing, but they can't identify it. In the case of the universe, however, `you measure and you find it's not there. But you want to believe it's there.'" - p. 119, Astronomy, December 1989.
* * * * *
"UNIVERSE APPEARS OPEN
....
"Using over 15 million test particles to trace the motion of mass through the universe, Bahcall and Cen [astronomers at Princeton University] looked at how matter clustered in their computer model. They found that their model best reproduced observed clustering by galaxies only for low densities, around 25 percent of the critical density. Their result is consistent with several other observable cosmological quantities, such as the recent Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite's discovery of fluctuations in the microwave background radiation.
"More importantly, they also found that models with a density near the critical density are inconsistent with clustering observations. They can construct flat [stable, neither expanding forever nor ultimately collapsing] universe models that agree with individual observations, but these models violate other constraints such as the COBE results or cluster frequency." - pp. 20,21, Astronomy, February 1993.
*****************
Worse yet, at the time of this update [Sept. 2003], it has been determined by measurements that the universe is not only not slowing its expansion, IT IS ACCELERATING!!!
Creation
