The blogosphere and the mainstream media has had much to say about Stephen Hawking's recent comments about his forth coming book The Grand Design.
Hawking claims “because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist… It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”
Personally, I would like to ask how something can come from nothing. If we are speaking of "nothing," in the correct philosophical sense, then how could the law of gravity be included in the so-called "spontaneous creation" of the universe. That would be something rather than nothing.
Regardless, the media is celebrating Hawking's forthcoming release; however, as mathematician John Lennox points out in this article, Hawking's claims are nothing new.
Some other thoughts in regard to Hawking's comments and latest book can be found here:
Courage and Godspeed,
Chad
Hawking claims “because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist… It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”
Personally, I would like to ask how something can come from nothing. If we are speaking of "nothing," in the correct philosophical sense, then how could the law of gravity be included in the so-called "spontaneous creation" of the universe. That would be something rather than nothing.
Regardless, the media is celebrating Hawking's forthcoming release; however, as mathematician John Lennox points out in this article, Hawking's claims are nothing new.
Some other thoughts in regard to Hawking's comments and latest book can be found here:
- Dr. William Craig's Questions for Stephen Hawking Current Events Audio Blog (13:56)
- Hawking's Book Fails to Disprove God- The Science and Values Blog
- Why God Is Still Necessary by Stan Guthrie (Thanks to Chad V., a Truthbomb team member, for this link!)
Courage and Godspeed,
Chad
Comments
By the way, Hawking never said he disproved the existence of gods. He's only saying our current laws of physics alone can adequately explain how the universe came into being, and thus there's no need for a god of gaps any more. That means god believers can continue to believe their gods, but they can't tell us the universe has to be created by gods.
Thank you for visiting Truthbomb and for taking your time to comment.
You wrote:
“The phenomenon of spontaneous creation has already been observed on the atomic scale as previously predicted by quantum mechanics.
How exactly is this an example of something coming from nothing?
Did you get a chance to listen to Dr. Craig’s brief pod cast?
Respectfully
But contrary to what Hawking claims, physical laws can never provide a complete explanation of the universe. Laws themselves do not create anything, they are merely a description of what happens under certain conditions.
Great quote from Lennox! Thank you!
Godspeed
Yes; I think you raise a valid point. This certainly is the "prime time" for Hawking to release a book saying that "we don't need God to explain the universe."
Really though, I was talking with a thoughtful guy at church yesterday, who has been reading up on Hawking, M-Theory, etc., and he was amazed at how so many skeptics are treating Hawking's latest opinion as gospel truth.
I told him that I agreed and while Christians are many times accused of the "Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" type of thinking, it seems that many skeptics have fallen prey to the "Hawking says it, I believe it, that settles it," type of thinking.
Thanks for commenting and have a great day!
Godspeed
The following is the extract of the second paragraph under the sub-title of “Negative Pressure” for the main subject of the ‘Nature Of Dark Energy’ as shown in the website address http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy:
According to General Relativity, the pressure within a substance contributes to its gravitational attraction for other things just as its mass density does. This happens because the physical quantity that causes matter to generate gravitational effects is the Stress-energy tensor, which contains both the energy (or matter) density of a substance and its pressure and viscosity.
As the phrase, the physical quantity that causes matter to generate gravitational effects is mentioned in the extracted paragraph, it gives the implication that physical quantity of matter has to exist prior to the generation of gravitational effects. Or in other words, it opposes the principality that gravitational effects could occur at the absence of matter. As it is described pertaining to Dark Energy, it implies that Dark Energy could only be derived from the existence of the physical quantity of matter. This certainly rejects Stephen Hawking’s theory in which dark energy could exist prior to the formation of the universe as if that dark energy could exist the support or influence from the physical quantity of matter.
The following is the extract of the third paragraph under the sub-title of ‘Cosmological Constant’ for the main subject of the ‘Nature of Dark Energy’ that has been extracted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy:
The simplest explanation for dark energy is that it is simply the “cost of having space”: that is, a volume of space has some intrinsic, fundamental energy. This is the cosmological constant, sometimes called Lambda (hence Lambda-CDM model) after the Greek letter Λ, the symbol used to mathematically represent this quantity. Since energy and mass are related by E = mc2, Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicts that it will have a gravitational effect..
E = mc2 has been used to be related to Dark Energy. As energy and mass are related in according to General Relativity and if m = 0, no matter how big the number that c could be, E (the dark energy) would turn up to be 0 since no matter how big the number c is E is always equal to 0 when 0 (that is the mass) is multiplied by c2. Or in other words, E (the dark energy) should be equal to 0 at the absence of substance (the mass). Stephen Hawking’s theory certainly contradicts Eistein’s theory in the sense that he supports that dark energy ( E > 0) could exist even though there could not be any matter (that is m = 0) existed prior to the formation of the universe.
Every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force directed along the time of centers for the two objects that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely separation between the two objects. Fg = G(m1 m2)/r2. (Fg is the gravitational force; m1 & m2 are the masses of the two objects; r is the separation between the objects and G is the universal gravitational constant. From the formula, we note that Fg (the gravitational force or in replacement of dark energy) has a direct influence from two masses (m1 & m2). If either of the m is equal to 0, Fg would turn up to be 0. Isaac Newton’s theory certainly opposes Stephen Hawking in which gravity or the so-called, dark energy, could exist at the absence of matter prior to the formation of this universe in this energy or gravity could create something out of nothing.
Stephen Hawking might comment that Eistein’s and Isaac Newton’s principles are wrong. However, Stephen Hawking was not born at the time prior to the formation of this universe to visualize how the universe could be formed initially. To jump into the conclusion that the gravity could be created from something out of nothing is simply out of his own imagination. Not only that, his theory contradicts both Eistein’s and Isaac Newton’s principles pertaining to gravity.
Refer to the above website 17th line after the title of ‘Introduction to general relativity. It is mentioned that general relativity also predicts novel effects of gravity such as, gravitational waves, gravitational lensing and an effect of gravity of time known as gravitational time dilation. Let’s examine all these factors, i.e. gravitational waves, gravitational lensing and gravitational time dilation below:
Refer to the website address, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave, pertaining to gravitational waves. It is mentioned in this website 10th line after the title of ‘Gravitational wave’ that the existence of gravitational waves is possibly a consequence of the Lorentz invariance of general relativity since it brings the concept of a limiting speed of propagation of the physical interactions with it. The phrase, Lorentz invariance of general relativity…brings… the physical interactions…, here gives the implication that gravitational waves have to be dealt with physical interactions or masses. As gravitational masses have to be dealt with masses, it opposes Stephen Hawking’s theory in which Hawking mentioned that gravitational wave could exist at the presence of substances or masses prior to the formation of this universe. As gravitational waves have to be dealt with substances or masses, it is irrational for Stephen Hawking to use it to support that gravity or dark energy could exist at the absence of masses so as to create something out of nothing.
Refer to the website address, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lensing, pertaining to the gravitational lens. It is mentioned that a gravitational lens refers to a distribution of matter (such as a cluster of galaxies between a distant source (a background galaxy) and an observer, that is capable of bending (lensing) the light from the source, as it travels towards the observer. The phrase, a distribution of matter (such as a cluster of galaxies) between a distant source (a background galaxy) and an observer, gives a strong proof for a must to have matters or substances in order to activate a gravitational lens. Thus, gravitational lens in general relativity needs to rely on masses or substances in order to be generated and this opposes Stephen Hawking’s theory that gravity could exist at the absence of substance to create something out of nothing.
Refer to website address, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_time_dilation, pertaining to gravitational time dilation. It is mentioned that gravitational time dilation is the effect of time passing at different rates in regions of different gravitational potential; the lower the gravitational potential, the more slowly time passes. Albert Einstein originally predicted this effect in his theory of relativity and it has since been confirmed by tests of general relativity.
The gravitational potential (V) is the potential energy (U) per unit mass:
U = mV
where m is the mass of the object. The potential energy is the negative of the work done by the gravitational field moving the body to its given position in space from infinity. If the body has a mass of 1 unit, then the potential energy to be assigned to that body is equal to the gravitational potential. So the potential can be interpreted as the negative of the work done by the gravitational field moving a unit mass in from infinity
From the above formula above, it is obvious that U (the potential energy or dark energy or gravity) has a direct relationship with m (the mass of the object). If m = 0, U (the dark energy would turn up to be 0 since U (the potential energy) would turn up to 0 whatever the number that V has when V is multiplied by m that is equal to 0. Thus, the generation of potential energy in general relativity would certainly have found to have conflict with Stephen Hawking’s theory in which dark energy or gravity could exist at the absence of masses or substances prior to the formation of this universe so as to create something out of nothing.
Nevertheless, Stephen Hawking has abused general relativity to support his quantum theory in which something could be created out of nothing since general relativity demands masses or substances in order to generate dark energy or gravity.