By Steven J. Grisafi, PhD.
Please keep an open mind for a moment and ask yourself this: Do I think it is conceivable that the universe has an infinite future? Now, if you can accept the possibility that the universe has an infinite future, why can you not accept the possibility that it has had an infinite past? Supposing that you do accept the possibility that the universe can have an infinite future, and that it may have an infinite past, quite rightly you could assert that a possibility does not prove the reality. Then, perhaps, one would counter the inquiries of the questioner by asking: How does one explain all of the evidence demonstrating that the Big Bang did occur? So, let us examine the evidence.
The primary fact in support of the hypothesis that the universe began in an instant is the observation of the cosmic microwave background, discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. No one doubts the existence of the cosmic microwave background. But now one must ask: How does the observation of the cosmic microwave background relate to the hypothesis that the universe began in an instant? For this connection we have George Gamow to thank. He asserted that this uniform heat distribution, of approximately 2.3 degrees Kelvin, is the energy residual of an immense explosion with which the universe began. He interpreted this explosion to be a prediction of the mathematical singularity, a division by zero, occurring within the equations of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Rather than do what would be the custom of cautious mathematical research, and assign an indeterminacy to the mathematical singularity, Gamow assigned to it a physical mechanism.
If we proceed cautiously, arguing that we cannot associate a physical mechanism to a failure of the mathematics, then the burden of explaining the origin of the cosmic microwave background falls upon us. Before the development of Resonance Universe Theory no one had any inclination to presume that empty space is a dielectric and can dissipate energy into heat. Although we can accept the proposal that the uniform heat distribution, which the cosmic microwave background represents, is a consequence of the transport of electromagnetic radiation throughout the universe, doing so was a tremendous intellectual hurdle for the giants of nineteenth century thermodynamics. To Clausius, Rankine, Von Helmholtz and Lord Kelvin the hypothesis of the Heat Death was very real and not easily dispensed with. Quite ironically, it was only until Edwin Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe that we came to escape the fate of the Heat Death hypothesis. It was the presumption of a static universe that hindered the great minds of the nineteenth century from fully understanding the mechanics of their world. That mechanics is dynamic, not static. It is only because there is a dynamic balance of energy transfer between the observable universe and its mirror image that our universe escapes the consequences of the Heat Death. Our world can be eternal because of its expansion.
Using the language of differential geometry, scientists believe that all physical evidence indicates that the space of our universe is flat. The expansion of a flat universe continues forever. The isotropy of the universe indicates to us that our earth does not occupy some privileged location within space. Accepting the hypothesis that the universe has both an infinite future, and an infinite past, means that our earth does not occupy a special place in time either. Incredibly though, physics thinking is so crippled by relativity theory that scientists give credence to anthropic principles. The actual state of science knowledge is such that we really don’t know if the universe had an infinite past or that it began in an instant. We do think it will continue expanding forever. But this issue is hampered with the assertion that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. While I am a vigorous proponent of Resonance Universe Theory, the theory, by itself, cannot distinguish everlasting time from time with an origin. Yet, we do know that whoever asserts an origin for time must explain its origin without attribution to the supernatural.