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Re: Creation



At 06:11 PM 12/4/97 -0700, Dan wrote:

When we say that the
universe is expanding or that space is expanding, what we really mean
is that the galaxies (or rather, clusters of galaxies) throughout the
observable universe are getting farther apart.

Dan, isn't it the case that the galaxies are fleeing from each other for TWO
reasons? Now I am stuck for layman language: They are "moving" apart *and"
the distance between them is getting bigger. How does one say that to a lay
person?

we can calculate what happened during the first few
minutes of time as we know it:

... Even if there were, I don't think anybody
knows how to talk about the first 10^43 second, much less what happened
"before" that, if this concept has any meaning at all.

Aren't there some first cause theories? -- I forget the names. "Quantum
fluctuations" seem to be at their heart. Quantum fluctuation of what is a
mystery and is usually buried in the hand waving

And if we can say something helpful to lay people about the first
(relatively long) minute or so, (after all National Geographic did it) how
do we answer the question of what happened before that minute -- Is it that
here was NO such thing as time or was it that nobody was around to start
counting. (:-)

Your phrase
"ex nihilo" seems to imply a time before the beginning when there was
nothing, and this bothers me.

Well, it bothers everybody -- or at least ought to -- but then some people
are willing to talk about other universes -- which presumably *could* have
been created billions of years before ours -- I confess to really stretching
things here.

Further, ex nihilo also implies that at 10^-42 sec before the 10^-43 sec
after creation there weren't nothin' there -- where ever "there" was.

If you haven't read Weinberg's The First Three Minutes, I highly
recommend it.

I shall review this book -- Weinberg usually uses language that even *I* can
understand.

In sum, I take it that the language I offered is lacking (at least in part)
because it actually assumes a "beginning", but do you object to my expanding
language?

Jim