Is the Big Bang in the Bible?

[Buster's Uncle]

Physics professor says she has proof that black holes don't exist

http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=11597.0

[Buster's Uncle]

Epic Big Bang Discovery Might Just Be Space Dust

http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=11603.0

[Buster's Uncle]

Stephen Hawking makes it clear: There is no God
The physicist explains that science now offers more convincing explanations for existence. He is therefore an atheist.
CNET
by  Chris Matyszczyk @ChrisMatyszczyk/September 26, 2014 9:33 AM PDT



Stephen Hawking comes right out and says it. He is an atheist.  Hadoualex/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET


If I were a scientist, I'd stick to the Goldman Sachs principle: bet on both sides.

"Believe in science, believe in God" seems to cover all the possibilities and gives you the best chance for a cheery afterlife.

For a time, it was thought that astrophysicist Stephen Hawking had also left a tiny gap in his credo window for a magical deity. However, he has now come out and declared that there is no God.

He gave an interview to Spain's El Mundo in which he expressed his firm belief that el mundo was the work of scientifically explainable phenomena, not of a supreme being.

Hawking said: "Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation."

I'm not sure whether there was a specific moment in which science overtook the deistic explanation of existence. However, El Mundo pressed him on the suggestion in "A Brief History of Time" that a unifying theory of science would help mankind "know the mind of God."

Hawking now explained: "What I meant by 'we would know the mind of God' is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God. Which there isn't. I'm an atheist."

He added: "Religion believes in miracles, but these aren't compatible with science."

Perhaps. But some look at, for example, the human eye and wonder how that exciting ball of jelly could have come about scientifically.

Hawking's been tending toward such an absolute pronouncement for a while. In a speech last year, he offered an explanation of how the world came to being without God. He mused: "What was God doing before the divine creation? Was he preparing hell for people who asked such questions?"

I do worry, though, about Hawking's sweetly divine faith in humanity. He told El Mundo: "In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind."

If that's true, the human mind still has to develop exponentially to explain everyday phenomena, such as social networking. And then there's Hawking's insistence that his speech synthesizer, which gives him a curiously American accent, has had this consequence: "With the American accent, I've had far more success with women."

We definitely need some serious research to explain that.

http://www.cnet.com/news/stephen-hawking-makes-it-clear-there-is-no-god/#ftag=YHF65cbda0

[gwillybj]

I'm not surprised, but Mr. Hawking needs to be careful. Nietzsche once wrote boldly: "God is dead." Not long after, God pronounced definitively: "Nietzsche is dead."

[Yitzi]

Stephen Hawking makes it clear: There is no God
The physicist explains that science now offers more convincing explanations for existence. He is therefore an atheist.
CNET
by  Chris Matyszczyk @ChrisMatyszczyk/September 26, 2014 9:33 AM PDT



Stephen Hawking comes right out and says it. He is an atheist.  Hadoualex/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET


If I were a scientist, I'd stick to the Goldman Sachs principle: bet on both sides.

"Believe in science, believe in God" seems to cover all the possibilities and gives you the best chance for a cheery afterlife.

For a time, it was thought that astrophysicist Stephen Hawking had also left a tiny gap in his credo window for a magical deity. However, he has now come out and declared that there is no God.

He gave an interview to Spain's El Mundo in which he expressed his firm belief that el mundo was the work of scientifically explainable phenomena, not of a supreme being.

Hawking said: "Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation."

I'm not sure whether there was a specific moment in which science overtook the deistic explanation of existence. However, El Mundo pressed him on the suggestion in "A Brief History of Time" that a unifying theory of science would help mankind "know the mind of God."

Hawking now explained: "What I meant by 'we would know the mind of God' is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God. Which there isn't. I'm an atheist."

He added: "Religion believes in miracles, but these aren't compatible with science."

Perhaps. But some look at, for example, the human eye and wonder how that exciting ball of jelly could have come about scientifically.

Hawking's been tending toward such an absolute pronouncement for a while. In a speech last year, he offered an explanation of how the world came to being without God. He mused: "What was God doing before the divine creation? Was he preparing hell for people who asked such questions?"

I do worry, though, about Hawking's sweetly divine faith in humanity. He told El Mundo: "In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind."

If that's true, the human mind still has to develop exponentially to explain everyday phenomena, such as social networking. And then there's Hawking's insistence that his speech synthesizer, which gives him a curiously American accent, has had this consequence: "With the American accent, I've had far more success with women."

We definitely need some serious research to explain that.

http://www.cnet.com/news/stephen-hawking-makes-it-clear-there-is-no-god/#ftag=YHF65cbda0

Hawking is probably qualified to talk about whether the existence of the universe can serve as a proof for God, but not about other potential proofs for God (e.g. historical ones), much less whether God exists period.

[Buster's Uncle]

Hawking stopped letting whether he was qualified to render an expert opinion while talking to reporters bother him DECADES ago...

[Buster's Uncle]

Pope Francis says Big Bang theory does not contradict role of God
Reuters  October 28, 2014 2:45 PM



VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Scientific theories including the "Big Bang" believed to have brought the universe into being 13.7 billion years ago and the idea that life developed through a process of evolution do not conflict with Catholic teaching, Pope Francis said on Tuesday.

Addressing a meeting of the Pontificial Academy of Sciences, an independent body housed in the Vatican and financed largely by the Holy See, Francis said scientific explanations for the world did not exclude the role of God in creation.

"The beginning of the world is not the work of chaos that owes its origin to something else, but it derives directly from a supreme principle that creates out of love," he said.

"The 'Big Bang', that today is considered to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the creative intervention of God, on the contrary it requires it," he said.

"Evolution in nature is not in contrast with the notion of (divine) creation because evolution requires the creation of the beings that evolve," the pope said.

The Church once opposed early scientific explanations of the universe that contradicted the account of creation in the Bible, famously condemning the 17th century astronomer Galileo Galilei who showed that the earth revolved around the sun.

However, more recently it has sought to shed its image as an enemy of science and the pope's comments largely echoed statements from his predecessors.

Pope Pius XII described evolution as a valid scientific approach to the development of humans in 1950 and Pope John Paul reiterated that in 1996.

In 2011, the former Pope Benedict said scientific theories on the origin and development of the universe and humans, while not in conflict with faith, left many questions unanswered.

(Reporting by Antonio Denti; writing by James Mackenzie; editing by Ralph Boulton)

[Rusty Edge]

Well finally, somebody infallible has weighed in on the subject. I guess that's settled, then.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He ( Hawking ) added: "Religion believes in miracles, but these aren't compatible with science."

Maybe belief in miracles is  a matter of faith to keep an imaginary explanation of the universe internally consistent.

Then again, Science believes in dark matter and dark energy, for whatever the reason.


Sometimes I think religion and science aren't so very different, just two different reflections of the human mind.

[Geo]

Sometimes I think religion and science aren't so very different, just two different reflections of the human mind.

Just like those 'opposite' emotions like love and hate.

[Buster's Uncle]

Not Particles, But Chunks: Dark Matter Gets Stranger
http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=13433.msg61906#msg61906

[Buster's Uncle]

Big Bang's Echo May Reveal Skeleton of the Universe
http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=13505.0

[Buster's Uncle]

GPS joins the hunt for dark matter in time-warping cosmic kinks
http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=13588.msg62298#msg62298

[Buster's Uncle]

CERN scientists discover 2 new subatomic particles
http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=13589.msg62301#msg62301

[gwillybj]

Study Says Gravity and Higgs Boson Interacted to Save the Universe
EARTHSKY // SCIENCE WIRE, SPACE
RELEASE DATE: NOV 22, 2014

One second after the Big Bang, the Higgs boson should have caused a Big Crunch, collapsing the universe to nothing. But gravity saved the day.


Time line of the universe via NASA/WMAP Science Team
(view much larger: http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx/news/hires/2013/bigbang.jpg)

Since the Higgs boson was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland in 2012, researchers have studied this mysterious particle – which is responsible for giving mass to all particles – to learn its contributions to our universe’s inner workings. One startling announcement earlier this year was that the Higgs boson should have made our universe collapse less than one second after it began expanding outward from the Big Bang. The universe did not collapse – it has been known for decades to be expanding – and now European physicists say they can explain why without the need for “new physics.”

Publishing in Physical Review Letters on November 17, 2014, the researcher describe how the spacetime curvature – in effect, gravity – provided the stability needed for the universe to survive expansion in that early period.

The team investigated the interaction between the Higgs particles and gravity, taking into account how it would vary with energy. They show that even a small interaction would have been enough to stabilize the universe from collapsing back to nothing, within a second after the Big Bang. Arttu Rajantie of the Department of Physics at Imperial College London said in a press release:

The Standard Model of particle physics, which scientists use to explain elementary particles and their interactions, has so far not provided an answer to why the universe did not collapse following the Big Bang

Our research investigates the last unknown parameter in the Standard Model – the interaction between the Higgs particle and gravity. This parameter cannot be measured in particle accelerator experiments, but it has a big effect on the Higgs instability during inflation [a faster-than-light expansion just after the Big Bang]. Even a relatively small value is enough to explain the survival of the universe without any new physics!

The team says it will now use observations of the universe on the largest scales to look at this interaction in more detail. In particular, they say, they will use data from current and future European Space Agency missions measuring cosmic microwave background radiation and gravitational waves. Rajantie explained:

Our aim is to measure the interaction between gravity and the Higgs field using cosmological data. If we are able to do that, we will have supplied the last unknown number in the Standard Model of particle physics and be closer to answering fundamental questions about how we are all here.

Bottom line: A second after the Big Bang, the Higgs boson should have caused a Big Crunch, collapsing the universe to nothing. But gravity stepped in to save the day.

Via phys.org (http://phys.org/news/2014-11-gravity-universe-big.html#jCp)

http://earthsky.org/space/new-study-says-gravity-and-higgs-boson-interacted-to-save-the-universe


So who/what created/made the Higgs Boson and Gravity? What went on before 13.7 billion years ago?

[Yitzi]

Study Says Gravity and Higgs Boson Interacted to Save the Universe
EARTHSKY // SCIENCE WIRE, SPACE
RELEASE DATE: NOV 22, 2014

One second after the Big Bang, the Higgs boson should have caused a Big Crunch, collapsing the universe to nothing. But gravity saved the day.


Time line of the universe via NASA/WMAP Science Team
(view much larger: http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx/news/hires/2013/bigbang.jpg)

Since the Higgs boson was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland in 2012, researchers have studied this mysterious particle – which is responsible for giving mass to all particles – to learn its contributions to our universe’s inner workings. One startling announcement earlier this year was that the Higgs boson should have made our universe collapse less than one second after it began expanding outward from the Big Bang. The universe did not collapse – it has been known for decades to be expanding – and now European physicists say they can explain why without the need for “new physics.”

Publishing in Physical Review Letters on November 17, 2014, the researcher describe how the spacetime curvature – in effect, gravity – provided the stability needed for the universe to survive expansion in that early period.

The team investigated the interaction between the Higgs particles and gravity, taking into account how it would vary with energy. They show that even a small interaction would have been enough to stabilize the universe from collapsing back to nothing, within a second after the Big Bang. Arttu Rajantie of the Department of Physics at Imperial College London said in a press release:

The Standard Model of particle physics, which scientists use to explain elementary particles and their interactions, has so far not provided an answer to why the universe did not collapse following the Big Bang

Our research investigates the last unknown parameter in the Standard Model – the interaction between the Higgs particle and gravity. This parameter cannot be measured in particle accelerator experiments, but it has a big effect on the Higgs instability during inflation [a faster-than-light expansion just after the Big Bang]. Even a relatively small value is enough to explain the survival of the universe without any new physics!

The team says it will now use observations of the universe on the largest scales to look at this interaction in more detail. In particular, they say, they will use data from current and future European Space Agency missions measuring cosmic microwave background radiation and gravitational waves. Rajantie explained:

Our aim is to measure the interaction between gravity and the Higgs field using cosmological data. If we are able to do that, we will have supplied the last unknown number in the Standard Model of particle physics and be closer to answering fundamental questions about how we are all here.

Bottom line: A second after the Big Bang, the Higgs boson should have caused a Big Crunch, collapsing the universe to nothing. But gravity stepped in to save the day.

Via phys.org (http://phys.org/news/2014-11-gravity-universe-big.html#jCp)

http://earthsky.org/space/new-study-says-gravity-and-higgs-boson-interacted-to-save-the-universe


So who/what created/made the Higgs Boson and Gravity? What went on before 13.7 billion years ago?

My theory (answering "yes" to the title question of the thread) is that that's Genesis 1:1-2.