One theory likens the universe to a giant casino. "God doesn't play dice with the universe."
Why do we need a single theory?
The E = MC2 theory breaks down in the micro world of sub atomic particles. In the 1980s the answer was String Theory. String theories avoid problems associated with the presence of point-like particles in quantum physics. String Theory is a set of models of fundamental physics whose building blocks are one-dimensional extended objects (strings) rather than the zero-dimensional points. Huh? Don't worry about it, because the new thought is that string theory is flawed too. Even the "super strings" are out of vogue. The big wrestle is now between Supergravity and Supersymetry. More on that some other time.
Einstein said boldly: "God doesn't play dice with the universe." In quantum mechanics, many events look like they happen by absolutely random chance. Einstein believed these events had causes even though the causes were, at that time, known only to God. This "causal" idea had no chance of prospering in the face of the theory of Macro-Evolution. Random chance leading to forward leaps in higher order and improvement are the heart of evolution as it's taught today.
That's how leading physicists at England's Cambridge University have started calling the universe a giant casino. The idea is that the larger the bet placed the more it might hurt the casino operator, but in reality most bets are small and the odds of winning are tilted against the small time gambler. In respect to the universe they are asking us to believe that, since every other improvement known to us happened through the random chance of evolution, it's a good bet (pardon the pun) to believe that the Big Bang itself had no cause. It was a chance happening.
I like these Cambridge guys. They are consistent in the message in which they ask you to place your faith.
Its only when they seek to be "scientific" in their support of their faith statement that things go awry. For example, Stephen Hawking, in his new book, The Universe in a Nutshell, has some very entertaining mental gymnastics. He takes us first to the concept of real numbers.
That's when you draw a line. Place zero in the middle and all the way to the right you put one to infinity. Then on the left you place minus one and all the way in the other direction. Hawking now adds the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers. That's where you draw a line up and down on the zero and add positive and negative numbers there. Mathematicians get very animated if you say imaginary numbers are only in their heads. They argue that imaginary numbers enable us to take square roots of negative numbers. You can't do that if you limit yourself to real numbers. Why us ordinary folks need the root of a negative number we don't yet know. You even get complex numbers when you add a real number to an imaginary number. Not many carpenters are using these!
Back to how the universe began. Stephen suggests we do the same thing with time that the math guys did with numbers. Let's add "imaginary time" to our consideration of the universe's past. He admits that these aren't real seconds, hours and years, but rather "a mathematical construct." He says we must take a positive view of these theories even when they explain "effects we've not been able to plot or measure and yet nevertheless believe in for other reasons." If I hear Hawking right he's saying that in imaginary time we don't need a cause for the big bang and thus have a universe arising out of the spin of the cosmic casino wheel.
The Bible says that once you've decided not to glorify God, your thinking "becomes futile and your foolish heart is darkened." IQ seems to be no exception!
|