Cosmology and Religion — an Outsider's Study

Cosmology and Religion — An Outsider’s Study (Big Bang and Creation) Dezs˝oHorváth [email protected]

KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics (RMKI), Budapest and Institute of Nuclear Research (ATOMKI), Debrecen

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 1/46 Outline

Big Bang, Inﬂation. Lemaître and Einstein. Evolution and Religion. Big Bang and Hinduism, Islam, Christianity. Saint Augustine on Creation. Saint Augustine on Time. John Paul II and Stephen Hawking.

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 2/46 Warning

Physics is an exact science (collection of formulae) It is based on precise mathematical formalism. A theory is valid if quantities calculated with it agree with experiment. Real physical terms are measurable quantities, words are just words. Behind the words there are precise mathematics and experimental evidence

What and how: Physics Why: philosopy?

And theology?

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 3/46 What is Cosmology?

Its subject is the Universe as a whole.

How did it form? (Not why?) Static, expanding or shrinking? Open or closed? Its substance, composition? Its past and future?

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 4/46 The Story of the Big Bang Theory

Red Shift of Distant Galaxies

Henrietta S. Leavitt Vesto Slipher Distances to galaxies Red shift of galaxies 1908–1912 1912

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 5/46 Expanding Universe

Cosmological principle: if the expansion linear A. Friedmann v(B/A) = v(C/B) ⇒ v(C/A)=2v(B/A) the Universe is homogeneous, it has no special point.

Expanding metric (space, coordinates) local gravity ⇒ local inhomogenity

Alexander Friedmann, 1922 and Georges Lemaître, 1927 theoretically deduced from general relativity G. Lemaître Nobody believed it (least of all Einstein)

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 6/46 Hypothesis of the Primeval Atom

Monsignor Georges Henri Joseph Edouard Lemaître (1894 – 1966) Belgian catholic priest and physics professor (Catholic University of Leuven)

G. Lemaître: The Beginning of the World from the Point of View of Quantum Theory, Nature 127 (1931) 706. The Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation (A Day Without Yesterday) A sarcastic Fred Hoyle who believed in a steady Universe: Big Bang theory

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 7/46 Lemaître and Einstein

Einstein in 1927 on Lemaître’s deduction of an expanding Universe on the basis of general relativity: Your math is correct, but your physics is abominable

Einstein in 1933 at a conference, after Lemaître’s presentation of the Hypothesis of the Primeval Atom (although he did not quite believe it): This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened Lemaître and Einstein, 1933 Slowly developing experimental-theoretical evidence for 30 years Final proof: Cosmic background radiation, 1964

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 8/46 Cosmic background radiation

Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, 1964 (Nobel Prize, 1978) Irreducible microwave background radiation Model: T = 3 K cosmic MW background (CMB) COBE: COsmic Background Experiment T = 2, 728 K, precise temperature curve Cooling of primordial 3000 K photons at (1000-fold!) expansion Local spatial anisotropy: seeds of galaxy formation (Quantum fluctuations before inflation (fast expansion)?) Much more precise confirmation: WMAP: Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe John C. Mather and George F. Smoot (COBE): The COBE space probe Nobel Prize, 2006

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 9/46 Anisotropy of WMAP, 2001-2003

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 10/46 The Big Bang Theory Visible matter: ∼ 75% hydrogen, ∼ 25% helium, < 1% rest Hydrogen → helium in stars only, how come so much? ⇒ hot primordial Universe Origin of Cosmic Microwave Background: 30 min after Big Bang: plasma, T = 300 000 000 K. Radiation dominates, photons in opaque (non-transparent) medium of charged particles 380000 years: cooling to 3000 K, neutral atoms, transparent for photons By now: space expansion, photons cooled down Origin of galaxies: Space anisotropy ⇒ gravity wells of dark matter ⇒ dense baryonic matter ⇒ stars form

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 11/46 Big Bang, Inﬂation, Radiation

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 12/46 Hubble telescope: Deep Universe

Observation of a dark spot for 250 days ⇒ > 10000 young galaxies more than 1010 years ago

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 13/46 Hubble telescope: results

Formation of ﬁrst galaxies 500-800 million years after Big Bang already Early galaxies are smaller and less symmetric ⇒ fast formation Black holes in centers of galaxies usual On the farthest pictures formation of stars seen Part of Ultra Deep Field picture galaxies 1010 years ago

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 14/46 Time sequence after Big Bang

Event time temperature ρ1/4 Planck time (inﬂation ↓?) 10−36 s 1018 GeV Grand Uniﬁcation 10−32 s 1016 GeV Electroweak ↑? (bariogenesis) 10−6 s 1015 K 100 GeV Quarks → hadrons 10−4 s 1012 K 100 MeV Nucleons 1–1000 s 109 − 1010 K 0,1 – 1 MeV Decoupling 105 year 2500 K 0,1 eV Structure formation > 105 year Today 13,7 G year 2,7 K 3 · 10−4 eV

Present picture: accelerating expansion of the Universe

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 15/46 Dark energy??

Cosmological constant: Λ > 0 Einstein’s biggest blunder, but true Gravitating energy of vacuum, > 70% of the total mass! Large after Big Bang, smaller in early Universe, grows with space expansion Dominant today. What is it? Not vacuum energy: lower by 10−120! (World record for disagreement between theory and experiment :-) Not really energy, constant in an equation! Many models, speculations: inﬂaton, quintessence, multiverse...

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 16/46 Matter balance today

2 Friedmann equation (X0: value today, normalized by /H0 ) 8πG kc2 Λ 2 2 (ρ 0+ ρ 0) − 2 2 + 2 ≡ 3H0 c R M a0H0 3H0 ΩR + ΩM − Ωk + ΩΛ = 1 Radiation + matter - curvature + cosm. const. = 1

Universe is ﬂat if Ω0 = ΩR + ΩM + ΩΛ = 1

Present picture: ﬂat, matter-dominated (ΩM >> ΩR) Universe

Cosmological parameters: ΩR, ΩM = ΩB + ΩCDM, ΩΛ, H0

Radiation small, ΩR ∼ 0 Baryonic matter (stars, black holes, dust, gas): ΩB ∼ 4% Clustering, non-baryonic, cold dark matter: ΩCDM ∼ 22% Accelerating expansion: dark energy ΩΛ ∼ 74%

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 17/46 The Story So Far

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 18/46 Evolution and Religion

Evolution is crucial for interpretation of Big Bang Protestantism mostly rejects evolution Pius XII already in the 1950’s accepted a partial evolution. Vatican now fully accepts it. Pope Pius XII

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 19/46 Pope John Paul II on Evolution

John Paul II, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 1996: Today ... new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory. http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 20/46 Evolution and the Vatican

February 2009: Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontiﬁcal Academy of Sciences at the Vatican conference for the 150th Anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species by Charles Darwin:

Although Vatican was hostile to Darwin’s theory in the past, ... it has never been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, nor was the book banned. The idea of evolution could be traced to St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas.

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 21/46 St Thomas Aquinas on Evolution

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274): Summa Theologica http://www.newadvent.org/summa/

For St. Thomas primordial matter is the common ground of substantial change, the element of indetermination in corporeal beings. It is a pure potentiality ... It is produced out of nothing and can only cease to be by falling back into nothingness. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10053b.htm

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 22/46 Protestantism: Reformed Church As the Reformed Church is not hierarchical, I could not find official statements, but what I found on the web did not support evolution or the Bing Bang theory, interpreting the Holy Script literally. Reformed Church in America http://www.rca.org Protestant Reformed Church in America http://www.prca.org The first attack against Holy Scripture is rooted in the theory of the Big Bang. This false teaching ... maintains... (Beacon Lights, Vol. LIX, No. 7; July 2000) ... claims that the world had its origin in a "big bang" and that man came from a monkey. It is all rather silly to claim to find such preposterous things ... Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, April 1997, p. 35

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 23/46 Protestantism: Evangelists

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America http://www.elca.org Discussion forum on evolution and cosmology Search: Cosmology — 83 papers, Big Bang — 101 papers

Essays of Big Bang as possible Creation and the role of God.

They watch and discuss both science and Vatican theology

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 24/46 Judaism and Modern Science

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/judaism /FAQ/06-Jewish-Thought/section-4.html

Judaism has a long tradition of not interpreting the creation narrative of Genesis 1 literally

Maimonides: Literal reading of the opening of Bereshis [Genesis] is for the masses.. Mose ben Maimon 1138 – 1204 Some present solutions of the conﬂict Rejection of scientiﬁc data, complicated interpretation of fossils. Invoking relativity or whatnot to show that 15 billion years can be 5758 years in another frame of reference. Multiple creation times (dinos belong to a previous one). Rejection of a literal read of the Torah.

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 25/46 Judaism and Big Bang

http://www.judaism.com

Genesis and the Big Bang — The Discovery of Harmony Between Modern Science and the Bible by Gerald L. Schroeder

... this volume presents a compelling argument that the events of the billions of years that cosmologists say followed the Big Bang and those of the ﬁrst six days described in Genesis are, in fact, one and the same âA˘Tˇ identical realities described in vastly different terms.

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 26/46 Hinduism and Creation Dick Teresi: Lost Discoveries : The Ancient Roots of Modern Science–from the Babylonians to the Maya, Simon & Schuster, 2002 (excerpts)

Indian cosmologists ... the ﬁrst to estimate the age of the earth at more than 4 billion years. They came closest to modern ideas of atomism, quantum physics, and other current theories. India developed very early, enduring atomist theories of matter. Possibly Greek atomistic thought was inﬂuenced by India, via the Persian civilization.

The cycle of creation and destruction continues forever, manifested in the Hindu deity Shiva, Lord of the Dance, who holds the drum that sounds the universe’s creation in his right hand and the ﬂame that, billions of years later, will destroy the universe in his left. Meanwhile Brahma is but one of untold numbers of other gods dreaming their own universes.

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 27/46 Hinduism and Creation R.A.S. Kocha: The Big Bang and the Bhagavad Gita, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai, 1991 (excerpts) The early saints of modern day Hinduism knew about this cosmic event through mystic insight

Brahman representing the Ultimate Reality in Hindu religion appears to be nothing but an implicit reference to the Big Bang itself. The word Brahman is derived from the Sanskrit root brh which means to grow big without limit and can be an oblique reference to an explosion.... As the point of singularity, Brahman is the impersonal absolute of pure timeless existence.

Various branches treat Creation differently, but all accept evolution.

The Kashmiri cult of Shaivism: The whole universe was at ﬁrst concentrated at one point or dot (Bindu). It is the Primordial Seed of creation. After a period of germination it undergoes an explosion (Sphota) resulting in the sound (Nada) of creation (OM).

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 28/46 Shintoism and Creation

Creation of Heaven and Earth

Initially, both were combined into a substance analogous to an egg. This mass contained germs within indeﬁnite borders. As this composition separated, the purer, clear element rose out, forming Heaven. The denser, impure substance sank to become Earth. Heaven formed easily, thus was completed ﬁrst. Earth, however, evolved with more trouble, and therefore developed later.

http://creationtheologies.tripod.com/ creationtheologies/id2.html

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 29/46 Islam and Creation

Mirza Tahir Ahmad: The Quran and Cosmology http://www.alislam.org/library/books/ revelation/part_4_section_5.html

... the concept of the continuous expansion of the universe is exclusive to the Quran. No other Divine scriptures even remotely hint at it.

Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were a closed-up mass (ratqan), then We clove them asunder (fataqna)? And We made from water every living thing. ratqan: (1) ’the coming together of something and the consequent infusion into a single entity’; (2) ’total darkness’. Black hole?

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 30/46 St Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, 354–430 Confessions of St Augustine of Hippo, A.D. 397 (Translated from Latin by J.G. Pilkington, revised by Kevin Knight) http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1101.htm

Autobiography and discussions with God about the Holy Script Structured to Books and Chapters Translators usually supply each with a subject as title, although the Latin original has none. A chapter can be several St Augustine pages long or as short as a paragraph. (Painted by Philippe de Champaigne, XVIIth c.) His world view was very close to modern cosmology

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 31/46 Confessions of St Augustine, Book XI Creation

Chapter V: God Created the World Not from Any Certain Matter, But in His Own Word. Chapter VI: He Did Not, However, Create It by a Sounding and Passing Word But there was nothing corporeal before heaven and earth; or if there were, certainly Thou without a transitory voice had created that. Recurring question: What God Did Before the Creation of the World? Chapter XI: They Who Ask This Have Not as Yet Known the Eternity of God, Which is Exempt from the Relation of Time.

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 32/46 Confessions of St Augustine, Book XI

Understand time: what it is and how it can be measured

Chapter XIII: Before the Times Created by God, Times Were Not. Chapter XIV: Neither Time Past Nor Future, But the Present Only, Really is. At no time, therefore, had Thou not made anything, because You had made time itself.

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 33/46 Confessions of St Augustine, Book XI Time is measured by motion, but not identical to motion

Chapter XXIV: That Time is Not a Motion of a Body Which We Measure by Time Chapter XXX: ...nor will I endure the questions of men, who ... say "What did God make before He made heaven and earth?" or "How came it into His mind to make anything, when He never before made anything?". Grant to them, O Lord, to think well what they say, and to see that where there is no time, they cannot say "never". Let them therefore see that there could be no time without a created being.

Thus time had to be created at Creation

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 34/46 Confessions of St Augustine, Book XII God created formless matter Chapter IV: From the Formlessness of Matter, the Beautiful World Has Arisen Chapter VII: Out of Nothing God Made Heaven and Earth. For Thou, O Lord, hast made the world of a formless matter ... Of which invisible and formless earth, of which formlessness, of which almost nothing, You might make all these things of which this changeable world consists, and yet consists not; whose very changeableness appears in this, that times can be observed and numbered in it. Because times are made by the changes of things, while the shapes, whose matter is the invisible earth aforesaid, are varied and turned.

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 35/46 Confessions of St Augustine, Book XII

What does “Heaven” in Genesis really mean? Chapter IX: For, doubtless, that heaven of heavens, which Thou in the Beginning created, is some intellectual creature, which, although in no wise co-eternal unto You, the Trinity, is yet a partaker of Your eternity, and ... does greatly restrain its own mutability. Chapter XIII: Of the Intellectual Heaven and Formless Earth, Out of Which, on Another Day, the Firmament Was Formed

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 36/46 Confessions of St Augustine, Book XII

Back to Creation: What did Moses mean by the ﬁrst sentence of Genesis:

’In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’ Chapter XXIV: For his thoughts might be set upon the very beginning of the creation when he said, "In the beginning"; and he might wish it to be understood that, in this place, "the heaven and the earth" were no formed and perfected nature, whether spiritual or corporeal, but each of them newly begun, and as yet formless.

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 37/46 Big Bang and Creation: Pope Pius XII

In 1951, much earlier than the physicist community Pius XII had welcomed the Big Bang theory as the Creation of the World. The proofs for the existence of God in the light of modern natural science, Address of Pope Pius XII to the Pontiﬁcal Academy of Sciences, November 22, 1951. http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12EXIST.HTM 51. Hence, creation took place in time. Therefore, there is a Creator. Therefore, God exists! Although it is neither explicit nor complete, this is the reply we were awaiting from science, and which the present human generation is awaiting from it.

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 38/46 Big Bang and Pope Pius XII, 1951

Edwin Hubble received a letter from a friend asking whether the Pope’s announcement might qualify him for “sainthood.” The friend enthused that until he read the statement in the morning’s paper, “I had not dreamed that the Pope would have to fall back on you for proof of the existence of God.”

Georges Lemaître and the Vatican’s science advisor knew that it is a contested theory and worried what might be the effect if the Pope pinned the Catholic faith too much on its proving true. They spoke privately to Pope about their concerns, and the Pope never brought up the topic again in public.

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 39/46 Big Bang and Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II, Pontiﬁcal Academy of Sciences, 1996: ...it would seem that present-day science, with one sweep back across the centuries, has succeeded in bearing witness to the august instant of the primordial Fiat Lux [Let there be Light], when along with matter, there burst forth from nothing a sea of light and radiation, and the elements split and churned and formed into millions of galaxies. ... Thus, with that concreteness which is characteristic of physical proofs, [science] has conﬁrmed the contingency of the universe and also the well-founded deduction as to the epoch when the world came forth from the hands of the Creator. Hence, creation took place. We say: therefore, there is a Creator. Therefore, God exists!

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 40/46 Big Bang and Pope John Paul II

Stephen W. Hawking discussed the Big Bang with John Paul II who advised they should not inquire into the Big Bang itself because that was “the work of God.” Hawking: I was glad then that he did no know the subject of the talk I had just given at the conference — the possibility that space-time was ﬁnite but had no boundary, which means that it had no beginning, no moment of Creation. I cannot see any controversy here...

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 41/46 Thanks for your attention!

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 42/46 Result of WMAP, 2001-2003

Acoustic spectrum: vibration modes

Peak locations: dark matter is not baryonic

Flat Universe, k = 0; Λ =6 0

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 43/46 Distance scales in curved space-time Co-moving coordinates: (t, r, Θ, Φ) 2 Euklidic distance: dℓ2 = dr2 + r2(dΘ2 + sin ΘdΦ2) In curved space: 2 2 dr2 2 2 2 2 dℓ = a (t) h 1−kr2 + r (dΘ + sin ΘdΦ )i a(t): 2D space-time corveture k: 3D space-time curvature

k = 0 k > 0 k < 0 ﬂat universe closed universe open universe Distance of galaxies ∼ a(t) ⇒ expansion

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 44/46 Friedmann’s equation

2 Change a˙ 2 8πG 8πG kc2 Λ ≡ H = 3 2 ρR + 3 2 ρM − 2 + 3 of ³ a ´ c c a −4 −3 −2 0 scale ∼ a ∼ a ∼ a ∼ a factor Radiation matter curvature vacuum

Dominance sequence (some may be missed)

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 45/46 Matter balance today

2 Friedmann’s equation (X0: , /H0 ) 8πG kc2 Λ 2 2 (ρ 0+ ρ 0) − 2 2 + 2 ≡ 3H0 c R M a0H0 3H0 ΩR + ΩM − Ωk + ΩΛ = 1

Flat Universe if Ω0 = ΩR + ΩM + ΩΛ = 1

At present: ﬂat, matter-dominated (ΩM >> ΩR) Cosmological parameters: ΩR, ΩM = ΩB + ΩCDM, ΩΛ, H0

Baryonic matter (stars, black holes, dust, gas): ΩB ∼ 4% Clustering non-baryonic, cold dark matter: ΩCDM ∼ 22% Accelerating expansion ⇒ dark energy: ΩΛ ∼ 74%

Dezs˝oHorváth: Cosmology and religion Wien, 10.03.2010 – p. 46/46