Science says that the total
amount of matter and energy in the universe has always been constant, except at
the beginning when it all sprang from nothing in the Big Bang. In other words,
scientists ask us to allow them one big miracle at the very beginning and they will explain all the
rest from there.
By winding General Relativity
backward to the split second when the universe was no bigger than a grain of
sand, scientists arrive at the moment when the electroweak force ruled. Experiments in particle
accelerators have confirmed the reality of this primordial force at high temperatures
and densities. From this one primordial force came the four forces that are fundamental today. None of the current theories of what physics was like prior to
this electroweak era are testable because such experiments would require
energies a trillion times greater than are now possible. So, the testing will never be done.
Scientists believe that the entire universe was initially packed into a bundle smaller than the Planck length.
Not only do theories fail at the instant the Big Bang started, but the conflict between General Relativity and Quantum
Mechanics also raises its ugly head. These failures could mean that there are flaws in either GR or QM. As a result, scientists cannot be sure about the very
beginning of the universe.
The most glaring problem with the
Big Bang theory comes from the very Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation
that is used as proof of the Big Bang theory. The CMB was generated about
400,000 years after the Big Bang when the hot plasma cooled enough for atoms to
begin forming. At that point, the expansion of the universe was so fast in
theory that not even light could travel from one side of the universe to the
other. And, if not even light could distribute itself across the universe,
neither could heat. Even the slightest differences in temperature would have
been magnified by the expansion of the universe, yet the CMB temperature varies no
more than one part in 100,000. This could only happen if
the universe had smoothed out its energy at a very small size and then puffed
out at a faster-than-light rate followed by a
slowing of the expansion to the rate currently being observed. Such a weird pattern of expansion acceleration has no explanation. But physicists say superluminal expansion is okay so long as it was spacetime itself that was doing the faster-than-light
expansion and the stuff inside was just drug along for the ride.
Were inflaton particles
responsible for inflation or did gravity flip briefly to antigravity and back
again. If so, what caused the flip? Or did dark energy have an extra strong moment? If so, why has it weakened? Or, was some other kind of repulsive force field
briefly at work? If so, why did it disappear? Or, was some phenomenon from the multiverse at work? Nobody knows,
yet virtually everyone believes. Inflation is a greater miracle than turning
water into wine but, since it supposedly happened without God, it’s perfectly acceptable. Scientists exercise faith when until they find a better explanation.