Christian Theological/Philosophical Book Club discussion
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A Universe From Nothing (Chapters 5-6)
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Chris Warns wrote: "Chapter 5- Is the universe accelerating "outwards"? This chapter brings us to our next journey through the mind of theoretical physicists, conjuring up new ad hoc conclusions to support a big bang ..."Chris, I appreciate your data-based critique of Krauss's book and conclusions. Your compelling points have given me a lot to think about.
I'm no scientist so...Does Krauss actually do testable science? Is he in a lab repeating experiments and validating them? Or is he just in a dark room thinking and assuming his work is legit?
Bonus question: Do other scientists actually give a rip what Krauss thinks? Or only angry militant atheists on the internet and the Universities that encourage them? Or does he only do similar crap to that of Dawkins? (which is to mostly sit around and complain about religion and how it doesn't appreciate HIS Scientific absolutes.)
Just curious.
I know that William Lane Craig seems to have many of the same concerns.
Rod- Testable science? Mmmmm...Kind of. Krauss and essentially all other theoretical physicists are bent on creating "novel" theories that are constructed using mathematics. And if the mathematical equations seems to fit then the theorist has done his job. But most of what they do is research. There are computers that actually manipulate a natural environment in which theories can be implemented to ultimately show how the theorem will manipulate the environment. Of course some of them, all together don't even work (one of them being natural selection). One thing to take in though, is that equations in themselves can work in its own system but may have difficulty actualizing in the real world due to differing systems in our cosmos. Not all of course. The major systems that are incredibly different, to the point where we still don't fully grasp its essence, consist of quantum (micro-level), classical ("regular" physics), and astrophysics(macro-level). Its not that mathematics behaves differently within each of these systems. Rather these "separated" systems affect the mathematical equations in turn creating much more complex frameworks for looking at the universe. So creating a model for the beginning of the universe becomes a very tricky one. If you start with the Bible as your premise, you may find yourself incredibly amazed at how clear the Genesis account is concerning a cosmological model for beginnings. Referring to your second question,I have no idea really lol. From all I've seen, Michio Kaku, Brian Greene, and Richard Dawkins are the only individuals who applaud Krauss; all scientists that I consider to be pseudo. The most upsetting part about the whole thing though, is the disturbing rejection to classical scientific methodology and investigation. We need to get back to the way Newton, Galileo, and Kepler went at their scientific endeavors.
It's amazing how often Krauss' name comes up. Atheists blindly worship guys like this. (maybe more of a prophet?)
Chapter 6- Krauss must now explain how the big bang model has fabricated the universe to be flat, in order to further explain where the energy to expand the universe is coming from. The big bang model deduced by Alan Guth is what is used to satisfy Krauss's theory. In this model, at the beginning of the universe, the matter that came from the singularity was compacted to a size smaller than a proton and then expanded outward to about 3 in.; all within the spans of a second. The matters expansion rate then stops in some sort of static state due to the matters "preferred lower energy state" and the amount of pressure. The matter then begins to cool off and expand again. This rapid expansion is used to explain how the fabrication of a flat universe came to be. The incredibly rapid expansion that happens before the universes static position would have to, according to Krauss, go faster then the speed of light. This is impossible according to Einstein's theory of special relativity. Krauss actually recognizes this, but ends up justifying his model with this remark, "...one has to be like a lawyer and parse this a little more carefully. Special relativity says nothing can travel through space faster than the speed of light. But space itself can do whatever the heck it wants, at least in general relativity." This is completely unscientific and nonsensical to use as support for a theorem. All space is, is a three-dimensional matrix where objects that have mass may exist. It is, in fact, physically nothing. Our author uses this as the foundation for comparing the potential and kinetic energy of the whole universe, as a system, to equal zero. The reason this hypothesis is silly is because he is comparing two different systems of Newtonian gravitational effects. The first is one where you throw a ball with enough energy that it reaches its escape velocity (basically exiting the system being observed). The second is now the the whole universes expansion in the same matter. Krauss then explains how this shows that the total energy of the universe is equal to zero, thereby having "negative pressure" which then does work on empty space. An that is where the energy comes from.