Atheism Hits a Second Brick Wall: The Second Law of Thermodynamics

In Chuck Misslers book "The Creator Beyond Time and Space", he states; There have been several variation of the Big Bang Theory proposed during the past several decades. Each new theory has been proposed, in part, to explain away the fact that the universe had a beginning. The most popular and enduring attempt to get around a beginning is the "Oscillating Universe Model."

Hugh Ross in his book "The Creator and the Cosmos", states; Here's where the oscillating universe shows imagination. It suggests that rather than crunching back into a "singularity" (an infinitely shrunken space where representing the boundary at which space ceases to exist or at which space comes into existence), the imploding universe somehow bounces back and begins a new cycle of expansion. Some unknown bounce mechanism is invoked to make this happen.

According to Princeton physicist Robert Dicke, an infinite number of these cycles of expansion and contraction of the universe would "relieve us of the necessity of understanding the origin of matter at any finite time in the past." The creation event becomes irrelevant, and our existence could be attributed to one lucky bounce. After all given infinite number of bounces, it is argued that surely one would produce all the conditions necessary to convert particles and atoms into human beings through strictly natural processes

Again Chuck Missler; The first problem for the Oscillation Model is that there is not enough mass in the Universe to cause it to re-collapse. As the mass of the Universe moves rapidly away from its point of origin, the force of gravity acts upon it to pull it back together. The Oscillation Model proposes that all the mass in the universe will eventually be forced to re-collapse into another Cosmic Egg which explodes again. However, even the most optimistic calculations show that there is not enough mass in the universe to both reverse the expansion and accomplish a re-collapse.

NASA scientist, Robert Jastrow, notes that, under the force of gravity, in order for the universe to collapse back on itself, it would need to have an average density of at least one hydrogen atom in a volume of ten cubic feet. According to Jastrow, the known amount of matter in the universe is 1000 times to small to reverse the expansion. Consequently, for decades cosmologists have speculated that there is an enormous amount of invisible "dark matter" that is acted on by gravity which would help to accomplish a re-collapse of the universe. Recently, indirect evidence for such matter has been found. However, even if we assume that 99% of the matter in the universe is non-visible, cold-dark matter, there is still not enough by a factor of ten. Again Robert Jastrow;

Yet, although the estimated density of matter in the universe is greatly increased as a result of this determination (adding cold dark matter), it is still more than ten times too small to bring the expansion of the universe to a halt... Thus, the facts indicate that the universe will expand forever!"

To understand the second part of this paper we need to understand the Second Law of Thermodynamics; The Second Law of Thermodynamics asserts that as time advances the universe progresses from a state of order to a greater state of disorder. This law also declares that the energy available to perform work in the universe progresses from a state of order to a state of greater disorder and decrease in usable energy is called the development of "entropy." Therefore, when applied to the universe, the second law predicts that the orderliness of the universe is steadily decreasing and it is cooling off. An example will help you fully understand this law.

If you take a deck of cards in bridge order, (A new deck cards is always arranged in bridge order. In bridge order the cards are arranged in order from aces, kings, queens, jacks, etc... down to the two cards from top to bottom.) and begin to shuffle them, you will notice that the orderly arrangement of the cards will quickly become random and disordered. Common sense tells us that it would never go the other way. In fact the Second Law is so certain, that if you did observe a random deck of cards go into bridge order with shuffling, you could be certain you were experiencing a time reversal!

Some cosmologist have asserted that the Second Law does not apply to the universe as a whole. However, there is not one shred of evidence for such a claim. In fact, the evidence from decaying stars (novae [exploding stars] and supernovae) indicates just the opposite. The universe is wearing out and winding down!

The absolute certainty of the Second Law has also been declared by Sir Arthur Eddington, professor of astronomy at Cambridge University in England;

The law that entropy always increases (the Second Law of Thermodynamics) holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations [on electricity], then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations... But if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; There is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."

Even if sufficient dark matter can be found, the Second Law of Thermodynamics poses another insurmountable problem for the Oscillation Model. Applied to the cosmos, the Second Law demands the total available energy in the universe will diminish as time progresses. Without a doubt, the expenditure of an enormous amount of energy. The Second Law assures that energy expended to expand the universe in one Big Bang is never recycled for the next Big Bang or expansion event. It is dissipated as unreclaimable heat. Therefore, all the energy in the universe will eventually be lost in unreclaimable form.

The example of a bouncing ball will help to illustrate this point. When a ball is dropped on the ground, we notice that it never bounce back as high as when it first dropped. This is lost in the form of heat. Therefore, less energy is available to push the ball back up into the air, just as the Second Law predicts. After each successive bounce, the ball goes up less and less until all the energy used to raise the ball in the first place is dissipated as heat. The Oscillation Model, in effect, proposes that a dropped ball would continue to bounce forever.

Again, Hugh Ross states; A ball with high mechanical efficiency, for example a volleyball blown up to high air pressure, may bounce a dozen times before it comes to a stop on the floor. A ball with a low mechanical efficiency, for example a very soft foam-rubber ball, may bounce only twice before it stops.

But the universe has far less mechanical efficiency than a foam rubber ball. In 1983 and 1984, American astrophysicists Marc Sher, Alan Guth and Sidney Bludman demonstrated that even if the universe contain enough mass to halt its current expansion, any ultimate collapse would end in a thud, not a bounce. In terms of mechanical energy, the universe more closely resembles a wet lump of clay than a pumped up volleyball. Sher and Guth confidently entitled their paper "The Impossibility of a Bouncing Universe."

Even if the universe could expand and contract numerous times, there would still be a net loss of energy as dictated by the Second Law. Therefore, there could only be a limited number of Big Bangs. We are now back to the question that plagues the scientist, if our universe was spontaneously generated by one finite Big Bang, then why was it so ordered at the beginning (who or what arranged the card deck (Universe) into bridge order?).

Consider this provocative quote by Gordon Van Wylen in his book, Thermodynamics:

"A final point to be made is that the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the principle of increase in entropy have great philosophical implications. The question that arises is how did the universe get into a state of reduced entropy [highly organized, non-random] in the first place, since all natural processes known to us tend to increase entropy [disorder]...The author has found that the Second Law tends to increase his conviction that there is a Creator who has the answer for the future destiny of man and the universe"

The implications of the great "mystery" of an orderly, decaying universe were squarely addressed by materialist and physicist H.J. Lipson when he wrote:

I think, however, that we must go further than this and admit that the only accepted explanation is Creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it."

The dilemma of an orderly, aging universe was also recognized in 1983 by Pennsylvania State University physicist Don Page. Writing in the British Journal, Nature, Page stated;

"The time asymmetry of the universe is expressed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, that entropy (randomness) increases with time as order is transformed into disorder. The mystery is not that an ordered state should become disordered but that the early universe was in a highly ordered state...."

In his book, The Mysterious Universe, Cambridge University astronomer, Sir James Jeans, declares that the orderly state of the universe requires a "creation" event at a finite time in the past.

"A scientific study of the universe has suggested a conclusion that may be summed up... in the statement that the universe appears to have been designed by a pure mathematician... The more orthodox scientific view is that the entropy (randomness or disorder) of the universe must forever increase to its final value. It has not yet reached this: we should not be thinking about if it had. It [ entropy or randomness ] is still increasing rapidly...there must have been what we may describe as 'creation at a time not infinitely remote."

References

- Mark Eastman, M.D. and Chuck Missler, "The Creator Beyond Space and Time", Copyright 1996, The Word For Today, p. 13, 18-23

-Hugh Ross, "The Creator and the Cosmos", Copyright 1993 by Reasons to Believe. Revised edition, copyright 1995. NavPress, p. 63-64, 66.

-Robert H. Dicke, et al., "Cosmic Black-Body Radiation," Astrophysical Journal Letters, 142 (1965), Page 415.

-Alan H Guth and Marc Sher, " The Impossibility of a Bouncing Universe" Nature, 302 (1983), pages 505-507; Sidney A. Bludman, "Thermodynamics and the End of a Closed Universe," Nature, 308 (1984), pages 319-322

-Jastrow, "God and the Astronomers", p. 111, 125

-Roy Peacoc, "A Brief History of Eternity", (Good News Publishers, Wheaton, III.), p.75

-Don Page, "Nature:, July, (1993) Volume 304:39-40

-Sir James Jeans, "The Mysterious Universe", Cambridge University Press, p.181

-Physics Bulletin Vol.31, (1980), p. 138

-Gordon Van Wylen, "Thermodynamics", New York: John Wiley & Sons, (1959), p. 169

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