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The Big Beginning?
But what about the Big Bang model? Doesn’t it imply a beginning to the universe? In Step One I addressed some of the limitations in the Big Bang model’s ability to formulate an understandable beginning to the universe. But is there a way to reconcile a model that seems to imply a beginning with this theory of an eternal universe?
One possible explanation is that the Big Bang model is simply wrong – or incomplete. While it is currently the most widely accepted scientific model of how the universe is behaving, it is by no means universally accepted. Alternative models abound. A recent theory by Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok, for example, posits multiple universes shaped like undulating membranes floating with magnificent grace through a higher dimensional space called “the bulk.”(14) Occasionally these “branes” collide, and when they do, new universes are born at the point of collision. Our own universe, they speculate, may have been conceived in one such collision. It’s possible then that our universe, as described by the Big Bang model, is finite and did have a birth, but as part of a larger multi-verse system that is itself eternal.
But lets assume the Big Bang model does accurately describe how the universe is working. Cosmologists are pretty certain that “normal physics” breaks down at the extreme compression and temperatures found in the universe’s earliest state. Under such conditions, space could be warped and twisted into itself and even into additional dimensions. It’s conceivable that time, so intimately related to space, would suffer similar kinds of distortion. Perhaps time is also twisted, turned and warped into unknown dimensions, so much so that it forms a Mobius strip of temporality that defines eternity.
A third possibility. We know from relativity theory that time and space are intimately and essentially related. We also know that, at least in some ways, this marriage is an inverse relationship. For example, the faster an object moves through space, the slower it moves through time, and vice versa. It’s possible that this inverse relationship also holds true for compression. Perhaps as space is compressed, time expands; and as space approaches infinite compression, time approaches infinite expansion. If this dynamic is accurate, time would expand towards infinity as space approached the compression of the singularity at the beginning of the Big Bang. In other words, that “beginning” would never be reached. There would be no beginning with a bang; the universe would simply be an eternal process.
There are reasons to believe this may be the case. We know from general relativity that time slows down as gravitational force increases – a phenomenon called gravitational time dilation. For example, a person hovering in the intense gravity near the event horizon of a black hole may experience the passage of a few minutes while several lifetimes pass by on earth. It’s not hard to imagine how immense the gravitational force would be where the total of all matter and energy in the universe was compressed into a tiny space. Looking again at Hawking’s developmental formula and working backwards in time, as the total physical material of the universe devolves from matter to energy to pure gravitational energy, imagine what must happen to time. In a universe comprised solely of gravitational energy, time must surely be slowed almost to a stop (a full stop in time would occur at infinity).
What about looking in the other direction? Is there any indication that time is compressing as space expands? Well...yes...maybe. Observations and calculations of our expanding universe have shown, contrary to what many expected, that the rate of expansion seems to be accelerating. This was a surprise because, as the energy of the Big Bang dissipates and the gravitational pull of the universe’s substances takes over, one would expect the rate of expansion to slow, if not eventually to stop. This acceleration could be explained, however, if time compresses while space expands. Spatial expansion through a compressing or contracting time would give more than just the appearance of acceleration, expansion would actually be accelerating. What we experience as history, then, becomes an eternally changing dynamic between space and time.
One or more of these possible explanations may be valid, or they may all be wrong. They are hardly exhaustive, and other more accurate answers may exist. It does seem clear, however, that eternity is built into the very structure of reality, whether our universe is solitary or just a piece of a larger multiverse. That the universe has always existed makes sense from a rational and scientific perspective – certainly much more sense than the belief that all matter and energy suddenly appeared out of nothing at the whim of some supernatural entity, a Being who nevertheless claims eternity for Himself.
So we now have an answer to the Primordial Existential Question, why is there something rather than nothing? As would be expected, the answer is simple, elegant and makes sense – a scientific answer asking that you understand the mechanism of reality with your rational mind rather than retreating to faith. I have faith in the scientific answer to reality. If I am wrong, like my Paleolithic ancestor, I’ll shake my head, shrug and return to my fire and family to eat, sleep (and dream) and wonder again another day.
(For a discussion of how you as a human being fits into all this, see the sidebar: Who Do You Think You Are?)