Simplicity and Why the Universe Exists

Philosophy 72 (279):125 - 132 (1997)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

If big bang cosmology is true, then the universe began to exist about 15 billion years ago with a 'big bang', an explosion of matter, energy and space from a singular point. This singularity is spatially and temporally pointlike; that is, it has zero spatial dimensions and exists for an instant (at t=0) before exploding with a 'big bang'. The big bang singularity is also lawless; Stephen Hawking writes: A singularity is a place where the classical concepts of space and time break down as do all the known laws of physics because they are all formulated on a classical space time background. ... [T]his breakdown is not merely a result of our ignorance of the correct theory but represents a fundamental limitation to our ability to predict the future [of the singularity], a limitation that is analogous but additional to the limitation imposed by the normal quantum mechanical uncertainty principle. [1] The lawlessness of the singularity entails that it 'would thus emit all [possible] configurations of particles with equal probability' [2]. Paul Davies describes this vividly: 'Anything can come out of a naked singularity -in the case of the big bang the universe came out.' [3].

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,486

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-12-28

Downloads
263 (#106,046)

6 months
27 (#121,882)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

References found in this work

Theism, atheism, and big bang cosmology.William Lane Craig & Quentin Smith - 1993 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Quentin Smith.
Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology.Richard Swinburne - 1995 - Philosophical Review 104 (2):337.
Thesim, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology.Richard Swinburne - 1995 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 37 (2):123-125.

Add more references