Cosmology: Oscillating Universe?

[Hunter]

Hello Folks! Its me again. I've been talking with a creationist friend of mine, and according to him, the Oscillating Universe Theory was thrown out the window in favour of a "Newtonian Heat-Death of the Universe" type of scenario.

He also claims that (and I find these figures very suspicious) that according to scientists, the chances of life, the world and everything else forming of their own accord is less than 1 in an AVL ( A VERY LARGE NUMBER) Something on the order of 3X10 to the 900th power or the like.

Since my knowldge of cosmology is limited mostly to "huh?". I have come to you O' wise beings of the scientific forums to ask for your input on these matters.

 

[Yahweh]

Your Creationist friend most likely has the idea the universe exists in certain region of space in some era of time. This makes sense intuitively, but it is incorrect. See Special and General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, but the gist follows that space and time exist within the universe, if this were not the case then your friend's "oscillating universe has been rejected" would have some credence.

Heat Death of the universe will occur eventually, but not for a long long time. Until then, there is still usable kinetic energy to power this little universe of ours.

So Heat Death and Oscillating Universe are compatible.


Your friend also appeals to big numbers. I am willing to bet your friend is referring to Einstein's Cosmological Constant. At the same time, I'll be willing to bet your friend understands neither the uses, nor the discovery, nor the derivations of the 25 or so fundamental constants in the universe. The general Creationist argument says "if the constants were off by any more than +/- 0.002%, the universe would not exist" (some Creationists cite Penrose for the numbers). Somehow, the mere existence of the universe implies the universe is fine-tuned to permit existence. As the logic does not follow, nor does the premise the constants are highly sensitive to change follow as well.

See Stenger - Is the Universe Really Fine-tuned? for lots of very good information. To summarize:
Under all imaginable scenarios, and with the assistence of a supercomputer and much labor, the constants were randomized and hypothetical universe allowed to proceed with the new values. Of the universes, about 50% of the universes were viable (i.e. could sustained long-lived stars, lengthy organic molecules, etc.) when the constants were randomized by a factor of 1000% or more. See TalkOrigins - Intelligent Design for a layman's explanation and pretty diagram.

Flip a coin: Heads viable universe, Tails dead universe. We just happen to live in a universe which landed heads. (And furthermore, the "what if the constants were different" approach is bizarre. What if Pi were different? There numbers of the constants are not picked arbitrarily, in fact I cannot logically fathom a universe where 1 + 1/2^2 + 1/3^2 + 1/4^2 + ... would not eventually add up to pi^2/6. Appeals to the fundamental constants is moot to say the least.)


Your Creationist friend's claims are full of hot-air to say the least, not necessarily a bad thing: plenty of people believe the same material.


Just for fun, a Standford critique of Creationist Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/creationism/

Here an excerpt from the conclusion:

Creationism in the sense used in this discussion is still very much a live phenomenon in American culture today — and in other parts of the world, like the Canadian West, to which it has been exported. Popularity does not imply truth. Scientifically Creationism is worthless, philosophically it is confused, and theologically it is blinkered beyond repair.

Edit to add: Where is that spider avatar of yours?

 

[neutrino_cannon]

As usualy, Yahweh has beaten me to posting a link to talkorigins. Also, look up the abiogenesis calculations section there, it kinda sounds like what you're looking for.

Also, the name escapes me now as does so much else, there were a number of experiments in which amino acids (IIRC, everything you hear from me that I cannot cite should be subject to a healthy does of skepticism and further research) formed under conditions like those of a theroretical early earth.

The chances of planets forming seem very good to me. Atoms have gravity, atoms are attracted to each other. Atoms form large lumps of matter that float freely through the cosmos. Smaller ones are lumpy and are called meteoroids, asteroids and comets. Slightly larger ones are planets. Up from there are brown dwarfs, stars of various grade and so on.

 

[Yahweh]

Also, the name escapes me now as does so much else, there were a number of experiments in which amino acids (IIRC, everything you hear from me that I cannot cite should be subject to a healthy does of skepticism and further research) formed under conditions like those of a theroretical early earth.

Those would be the Urey-Miller experiments.

The experiments have been replicated under a very very wide set of conditions. The conclusion: The conditions necessary for the formation of life is rather malleable.

A quick google search on the Miller-Urey experiments will turn up much data. If you do not feel like googling, here is lots of useful data from the little .txt document I keep scattered amongst many other .txt's on my computer:

The Miller-Urey Experiments are quite misunderstood. Many people do not realize that since his first experiment, Miller and others (including Stribling, Schlesinger, Chang, etc.) have experimented with other atmospheric compositions, as well. Those simple amino acids will form under a wide range of pre-biotic conditions. Its also important to note that life could have developed from deep-sea hydrothermal vents making atmospheric conditions less relevant.


The Miller-Urey experiments demonstrated that the processes to lead up to life can occur completely naturally without any "intelligent" intervention.
There is quite a bit of study behind Chemogenesis to support this:
Research into the formation of long proteins.(Rode BM, Son HL, and Suwannachot Y., 1999 (May). Thecombination of salt induced peptide formation reaction and clay catalysis: away to higher peptides under primitive earth conditions. OrigLife Evol Biosph 29:273-86.)(Orgel LE., 1998. Polymerization on therocks: theoretical introduction. Orig Life Evol Biosph 28: 227-34.)(FerrisJP, Hill AR Jr, Liu R, and Orgel LE., 1996. Synthesis of long prebioticoligomers on mineral surfaces. Nature 381: 59-61.)

· Synthesis of complex molecules in space. (Kuzicheva EA & Gontareva NB,1999. The possibility of nucleotide abiogeneticsynthesis in conditions of 'KOSMOS-2044' satellite space flight. Advances inSpace Research 23(2): 393-396.)( Schueller,Gretel, 1998 (12 Sep.). Stuff of Life. New Scientist, http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/astrobiology/stuffof.jsp)

· Research into molecule formation in differentatmospheres. (http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB035.html)

· Synthesis of constituents in the"iron-sulfur" world around hydrothermal vents. (Cody, GD et al.,2000. Primordial carbonylated iron-sulfur compoundsand the synthesis of pyruvate. Science 289:1337-1340.)( Russell, M.J. and Hall, A.J., 1997. Theemergence of life from iron monosulphide bubbles at asubmarine hydrothermal redox and pH front. Journal ofthe Geological Society of London154: 377-402.)( Russell M.J., Hall A.J., Daia D, Turner D. and Rahman L.,1997. The emergence of life from iron sulphidecompartments at a submarine hydrothermal redox and pHfront. http://www.gla.ac.uk/projects/originoflife/html/2001/pdf_files/Russell_&_Hall.pdf)

 

[Hellbound]

Edit to add: Where is that spider avatar of yours?

Psst!!! I'm over here!!!

 

[SGT]

The probability of an event that has occurred is 1 (100%). The fact that we are posting at this forum shows that both the Universe and life are possible, no matter what the a priori probabilities were.

 

[Yahweh]

Oops!

Psst!!! I'm over here!!!

Oh! Howdy!