Does the Big Bang Crash?
Discussing the relevance of mathematics to the Big Bang theory as presented in the Physics and the God of Abraham Talks from earlier in the week, the notion was presented to me about how the inadequecy of mathematics relates to the Big Bang. As cosmologists formulate theories about the beginnings of the world, they gather data from what we see in the world around us, describe those relationships in terms of math, then extrapolate back to the genesis.
Problems arise though, when we put all our eggs in a basket with holes in it. Science and math do not perfectly account for everything in the universe. They work well to establish relationships between some variables. However, they are limited and do not handle equivacations of variables well. For example, in a mathematical equation of say 2x + 1 = 3x - 1, the value of "x" has to always be the same. In reality, this can start to cause problems because of the complexity of the world. Math misses things; it is an incomplete description of the universe.
What cosmologists have done though, is take this incomplete model of the universe (math) and use it to project their story back to the Big Bang. Now at this point, the math breaks down. Temperature, density, and curvature all equal infinity from time equal to zero (the Big Bang) to time equal to 10^-43 seconds. So, having used an incomplete model to arrive at a conclusion that doesn't work with that model, they then revise the incomplete model to fit with their story. This seems analogous to standing in a tree with a rope. You hold one end of the rope and swing the other out into the air. As soon as the end of the rope reaches its maximum height and momentarily pauses before returning to earth, you pretend to be Tarzan and expect to swing from the rope like a pendulum. Sadly, the other end of the rope was attached to nothing and you and your string crash into the ground. So too, we swing this incomplete theory of math back through time to the point where it stops, then once it gets us to infinity we jump and hope for a new model.
Maybe the connection between Physics (as presented in the conference) and the God of Abraham was merely hatred.
Problems arise though, when we put all our eggs in a basket with holes in it. Science and math do not perfectly account for everything in the universe. They work well to establish relationships between some variables. However, they are limited and do not handle equivacations of variables well. For example, in a mathematical equation of say 2x + 1 = 3x - 1, the value of "x" has to always be the same. In reality, this can start to cause problems because of the complexity of the world. Math misses things; it is an incomplete description of the universe.
What cosmologists have done though, is take this incomplete model of the universe (math) and use it to project their story back to the Big Bang. Now at this point, the math breaks down. Temperature, density, and curvature all equal infinity from time equal to zero (the Big Bang) to time equal to 10^-43 seconds. So, having used an incomplete model to arrive at a conclusion that doesn't work with that model, they then revise the incomplete model to fit with their story. This seems analogous to standing in a tree with a rope. You hold one end of the rope and swing the other out into the air. As soon as the end of the rope reaches its maximum height and momentarily pauses before returning to earth, you pretend to be Tarzan and expect to swing from the rope like a pendulum. Sadly, the other end of the rope was attached to nothing and you and your string crash into the ground. So too, we swing this incomplete theory of math back through time to the point where it stops, then once it gets us to infinity we jump and hope for a new model.
Maybe the connection between Physics (as presented in the conference) and the God of Abraham was merely hatred.
posted by Charlie at 11:17 PM
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