Physical Evidence of a Finite Past
There are two kinds of physical evidence that point to the finitude of the past: thermodynamic
considerations, and evidence of cosmic expansion. Thermodynamics dictates that the entropy
(disorder) of the universe increases over time. Had the universe already existed for an infinite
length of time, we would have reached the state of heat death -- the state in which all energy is
uniformly distributed in the form of a constant temperature Second, we observe that the universe
is expanding uniformly in all directions. Had the universe existed for an infinite period of time,
the density of matter would have become zero. In fact, we have increasingly good scientific
evidence of a physical singularity, an absolute beginning to space and time, about 16 billion
years ago. From this singularity, our universe arose in a "Big Bang" event.
The weight of current evidence seems to be on the side of the hypothesis that the universe will go
on expanding forever -- that the power of gravity is insufficient to bring about a reversal of the
expansion. This seems to rule out the possibility of an eternally oscillating universe, one in which
every Big Bang is eventually followd by a Big Crunch. Thus, the evidence suggest that the Big
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- Fall '09
- JorgeRigol
- General Relativity, Kant, Big Bang
-
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