No Beginning for the Big Bang?

What Is a Singularity?

A singularity is something that is not mathematically defined. We all are familiar with at least one singularity, division by zero. I remember learning this early in my education, probably late in elementary school. When my teacher told the class that we could not divide by zero, one student pressed the teacher, asking her what would happen if we did divide by zero. The teacher stood her ground, saying that we can’t divide by zero because it is undefined. I recall that the student and teacher went through several rounds of this question and answer before the student finally gave up.

I can illustrate two ways how dividing by zero is undefined. First, try dividing a number, say one, by 1/10. If you must use a calculator for this, go ahead, but I chose the number one because it is easy to calculate it in our heads if we remember that when we divide by a fraction, we invert the fraction and multiply. Therefore, one divided by 1/10 is 1 x 10 = 10. Now divide one by 1/100; the answer will be 100. Division by 1/1000 results in 1000. We can continue to divide by a fraction that is one-tenth smaller each time indefinitely without ever reaching zero. Each time we decrease the divisor by ten, the quotient increases by a factor of ten. Noting this trend, some people may say that as we approach division by zero, the answer approaches infinity. However, infinity is a concept, not a number. It is more proper to say that as we approach division by zero, the answer increases without bound. Since division must result in a number, and infinity is not a number, how could we define what division by zero is?

But there is a more jarring example that illustrates what happens when we attempt to divide by zero. Start off by letting

x = 1.

Square either side to get

x² = 1.

Since x and x2 are both equal to one, we can equate the two:

x² = x.

x² - 1 = x - 1.

The left side of the equation is the difference of two squares, so we can factor it,

(x - 1)(x + 1) = (x - 1).

Noticing that there is a common factor on either side, we can cancel the common factor, leaving

x + 1 = 1.

Recall that x = 1, so substituting that back in,

1 + 1 = 1,

or

2 = 1.

Obviously, two is not equal to one, so something must have gone badly wrong. If you carefully check, you will find that everything was fine until we canceled the common term on either side, but after that, nothing was right. In algebra, we so often cancel common terms on either side of an equation that it is easy to forget that this cancelation is division by the common term. But since x = 1, dividing by x – 1 amounts to dividing by zero. Division by zero messes up the otherwise smooth operation of mathematics. This is the sort of thing that happens when singularities are involved.

Singularities in Astrophysics and Cosmology

Since the 1960s, astrophysicists have been dealing with singularities related to black holes.

Since the 1960s, astrophysicists have been dealing with singularities related to black holes. Close to a black hole, the physics equations used to describe it produce singularities. Our mathematics works up to a region around a black hole called an event horizon, but closer to the black hole, our equations no longer work because they end up in singularities, things that are not mathematically defined. Thus, the event horizon effectively marks the boundary of a black hole. The event horizon also limits our understanding: we do not know what is going on inside the event horizon. It would require a breakthrough in physics, or at the very least a breakthrough in mathematics, to push our physics any closer to a black hole.

Big bang cosmologists have long encountered such a limitation in their models too. The universe appears to be expanding. Therefore, in the far past, the universe must have been much denser and hotter than it is today. Cosmologists use their understanding of physics to extrapolate the current conditions of the universe into the past. This extrapolation eventually leads to such a high-density state in the early universe that amounts to a singularity. This is how scientists came up with the notion that the universe began in an event called the big bang, with the universe suddenly emerging from a singularity. For some time, cosmologists viewed the appearance of the singularity as the moment of creation, the big bang itself.

The Shift in Thinking About the Big Bang Coming from a Singularity

Not only would the early big bang universe be much smaller and denser than today’s universe, but the early universe would also have been much hotter.

However, over the years that view has changed. Not only would the early big bang universe be much smaller and denser than today’s universe, but the early universe would also have been much hotter. The very high temperature of the early universe changes everything. It has long been recognized that atoms could not exist for a few hundred thousand years after the big bang. It was also long recognized that atomic nuclei could not exist until a few minutes after the big bang. Prior to the existence of atomic nuclei, there would have been only protons and neutrons. But even protons and neutrons could not exist much closer in time to the big bang. Instead, at an even earlier time, only quarks, the things that make up protons and neutrons, could exist. But earlier still, even quarks could not exist. What existed before there were quarks? No theoretical physicist yet knows the answer to that question, but it is a question undergoing intense study.

As theoreticians probe back into hypothetical earlier times in the universe, the temperature continually increases at an exponential rate. Higher temperature corresponds to higher energy. Physicists recognize four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces. Physicists believe that all four forces can be unified into a single theory. However, that single theory explains all four fundamental forces only at very high energy. Consequently, originally in the universe there was only one force, but as the universe expanded and cooled, each of the fundamental forces one by one “froze out” from the other forces, appearing to act independently of one another for the first time. The first to freeze out was gravity. Shortly thereafter, the weak nuclear force and electromagnetic force separated from the strong nuclear force.

Why do physicists refer to this as “freezing”? Notice that the point that the fundamental forces separate depends upon temperature. So do the three states of matter that can exist today. At high temperatures, matter exists as a gas, but with cooler temperatures, matter transitions to a liquid and then into a solid. These states of matter are fundamentally different from one another. In similar manner, theoretical physicists believe that the universe behaved very differently as each fundamental force separated from one another, so the analogy to freezing is a good one.

. It is ironic that the primary objection to the big bang originally was that it required the universe to have a beginning, but now the big bang model has morphed into an eternal universe.

The current thinking is that the big bang was not a beginning of space, time, and energy. Rather, the belief is that what we call the big bang was merely a transition from an earlier state to the state that we see today. That is, the universe is only the present physical realm that conforms to our understanding of physics. Our physics cannot probe back any earlier, but it would be an error to think that physical reality began with the instant that physics as we know began. Presumably, there was a physical reality prior to what we call the big bang, but that reality is unknown to us because of the limitations of our understanding of its physics. How long has this chain of transitions been going on? No one knows, but it could have been going on forever. That is, our universe which appears to be finite in age may just be one phase transition in an eternal cycle. It is ironic that the primary objection to the big bang originally was that it required the universe to have a beginning, but now the big bang model has morphed into an eternal universe: one day, the universe may even transition into an entirely new physical reality as it undergoes yet another phase transition. It is unknown whether mankind would survive such a new freezing out; the new physics in such a realm may make life impossible.

Conclusion

Some people have viewed this shift in the big bang model as evidence that the big bang model is in trouble. But that conclusion hardly follows. Any model undergoes revision, and the big bang model is no exception. These refinements are necessary as new data arises or as new factors are considered. The big bang model has undergone far more tweaks than most other models, but these changes are not necessarily signs of a weakness in the model. Nor should the different directions that current research is going on this subject be taken as a problem either. Despite what some people think, the big bang model probably is not going away any time soon. That won’t happen until there is some other alternative available, but no alternative is currently on the horizon.

What is the biblical response to the idea that the big bang may be just the latest phase in an eternal universe? Some professing Christians, such as Hugh Ross and William Lane Craig, have embraced the big bang as compatible with the Bible. They argue that the big bang proves that the universe had a beginning, indicating that there is a Creator. Their argument continues that they would like to introduce unsaved people to that Creator and the redeeming work of his Son, Jesus Christ. This shift in the big bang model is a return to an eternal universe, a notion that the big bang model supposedly eliminated. And if the universe had no beginning, then there is no room for a Creator. Therefore, Ross, Craig, and others like them must strenuously resist this new approach to the big bang because it completely undermines their argument.

We at Answers in Genesis have always maintained that the big bang model is incompatible with Scripture. No one starting from the Bible would ever have come up with the big bang model.

We at Answers in Genesis have always maintained that the big bang model is incompatible with Scripture. No one starting from the Bible would ever have come up with the big bang model. Rather, those who claim to see the big bang in the Bible start by assuming the big bang model is true and then read the big bang into the Bible. This return to an eternal universe within the big bang model is indicative of the foolishness of relying upon man’s ideas to interpret Scripture.