MYSTERIES
OF CREATION
(Part 3)
An orderly universe
Astrophysicist
Paul Davies marvels that “the universe conforms to an orderly scheme and is not
an arbitrary muddle of events”60 But of course. The world was not
created in a random manner. Albert Einstein once sagely said: “God does not
play dice with the universe.” That truth has been in Scripture for some 3,000
years: “The lot is cast into the lap; but
the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD” (Prov 16:33 ).
A new field of mathematics called
“Chaos Theory” is devoted to the study of random effects. “Mathematicians,
however, have been unable to prove the physical existence of randomness,” according
to author Chuck Missler (Cosmic Codes, 2004).
The search for randomness may prove to be a futile pursuit. The apostle Paul tells
us: “For God is not a God of disorder…” (1
Cor 14:33 -34a, NIV).
Solomon knew that heaven and earth
had been intelligently created and arranged in certain ways for certain reasons.
“By wisdom the LORD laid the earth's
foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place…” (Prov 3:19, NIV).
Size of the universe
On
a clear night, a person with good eyesight may be able to count about 1,029
stars in the sky. With a pair of binoculars or a low-power telescope, he or she
can raise the number to some 3,300 stars. As late as 1915, astronomers thought
the Milky Way made up the entire universe. Then, in 1925, Edwin Hubble, using
his new 100-inch mirror telescope, reported there were as many galaxies as
there were stars in the Milky Way, our home galaxy. Current observations indicate
there are at least 100 billion galaxies in observable space – each having no
less than 100 billion stars – totaling some 10,000 billion billion stars in the
universe.
Estimates
place the diameter of the cosmos at no less than 40 billion light years; the Milky
Way, 80-100 thousand light years wide and 6,000 light years thick. Earth is
25,000-30,000 light years from the galactic center and about 100,000 light
years from the center of the universe.
However,
University of Arizona
Cosmic
shape.
Most
scientists assume that after the Big Bang matter agglomerated into stars and galaxies,
forming an "island universe" in a "sea" of space.
In Einstein’s general theory of
relativity, the universe is spherical in shape and finite, with boundaries. He
had built his concept around a system by German mathematician Georg Riemann,
who said that three-dimensional space curved in every direction in a constant
curvature. Thus, a ray of light always curved back on itself over the same
path, endlessly. Could there be anything “outside” that spherical universe?
Other cosmological models assume that
the universe has no edges. D. Russell Humphreys explains: “In the big bang's mathematical model, space itself expanded outward with
the ball of hot matter, with the matter completely filling space at all times.
There would never be a large empty part. In the most favored version of the big
bang, if you traveled very fast in any given direction, you would arrive back
at your starting point without ever encountering a large region of empty space.
That makes it impossible to define a boundary around the matter.”62 Hence, a border cannot outline the shape of the universe
because, without any space around it, the universe has no outer edges.
How many dimensions?
The
Bible says God can do many things with the heavens (space): “I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth
forth the heavens…” (Isa 44:24b); “Which
alone spreadeth out the heavens” (Job 9:8a); “He bowed the heavens…” (2
Sam 22:10a); “the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll…” (Isa 34:4b);
“Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens…” (Isa 64:1a); “I will shake the heavens…” (Hag 2:6b); “And
as a vesture shalt thou fold them up…”
(Heb 1:12a); “The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is
rolled up…” (Rev 6:14 ,
NASU).
If
all those things can be done to the “heavens,” there must be some sort of
“room” around space wherein it can be manipulated – another dimension or
dimensions conjoined to space! There are several known, as well as theorized,
numbers of dimensions:
3 dimensions. Greek mathematician Euclid
4 dimensions. In 1854, Georg Riemann proposed
that “forces” were the result of a distortion of geometry. Almost sixty years
later, Albert Einstein published his famous Theory of Relativity, making use of
a four-dimensional Riemannian geometry, with “time” as the fourth physical
dimension.
5 dimensions. Scientists seek a “theory of
everything” (General Unified Theory) that would integrate all the forces in the
cosmos. Albert Einstein tried, but failed to unify gravity and
electromagnetism. About 1915 the German-Polish mathematician Theodor Kaluza and
Swedish physicist Oskar Klein proposed that the two could be mathematically
unified if the universe had five dimensions. As a result, many particle
scientists now treat light as a vibration in the fifth dimension.
6 dimensions. Philosophers during the Middle
Ages taught their students that there were no less than six visually
perceptible physical dimensions: before, behind, left, right, above, and below.
10 dimensions. Thirteenth century Jewish sage
Nachmanides concluded from his study of Genesis chapter 1 that the universe had
ten dimensions – four are knowable, six indiscernible. Quantum scientists
arrived at the same numbers after British physicist Paul Dirac developed the
“string theory” in 1950. Quantum particles like quarks, electrons, and
neutrinos, usually considered "points" without length, width, or
height, are more easily described when viewed as “strings,” which have only one
dimension -- length. Their particular vibrations give different particles their
appearances. But strings are said to occur outside the four dimensions of space-time,
curled up within themselves, so at least six additional dimensions are needed
to detect them.
Interestingly,
the number “10” is the gematria or
numerical value of the Hebrew letter yod
(“Y”), the initial of the sacred Name of God.
26 dimensions. The addition of “supersymmetry” to
the String Theory has led to even more novel “superstring” theories, which are
now the frontrunners in the quest to unify the four fundamental forces of
nature. Some variations of “superstring” theories require as many as 26
dimensions to explain particle properties and interactions.
Coincidentally, “26” is also the
sum of the four Hebrew letters that spell the Tetragrammaton
(Y/10+H/5+W/6+H/5=26).
60Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma, 2006, pp. 15-16
61Quoted
by Andrew Chaikin, “Are There Other Universes?”, Science Tuesday, 05
February 2002, Internet
62D. Russell Humphreys,
“Seven Years of Starlight and Time,” Internet
(Excerpted from Chapter 3,
Conundrums of Creation, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets
of Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)
