What Was the Beginning of the Universe Like? Chaos?

[Beggar for the Spirit]

I thought that many of you would very much appreciate seeing exact quotes from some of the most renown Theoretical Physicists and Cosmologists in our modern day about the initial condition of the universe.  I think these are important because when we are witnessing to atheists, agnostics or anyone interested in how or if science can provide some evidence of intelligent design or a Creator, rather than getting into any kind of debate about whether a "Big Bang" occurred or not, here is 1 thing that all of the top scientists agree on - that the initial condition of the universe was not chaotic or random at all, but the complete opposite. They all agree that there was a high degree of order.

How much order?

Well their statements express it very clearly. I hope that these quotes and this idea of using the "special" initial condition of the universe to give an excellent witness to others which facts are backed by the scientific community will help any and all who will listen to us. 

 

Max Tegmark - Cosmologist and Professor at MIT 

 "Our universe started out in a very unusual orderly state" 
 

Brian Greene - Professor and Theoretical Physicist at Columbia University and Author of "Fabric of the Cosmos"

 "The ultimate source of order, of low entropy, must be the very beginning of the universe"

 

Sylvester James Gates Jr. -  Theoretical physicist, Professor at University of Maryland, serves on President Obama's Council of Advisors on Science

"The Big Bang is a highly ordered state, it is probably the most ordered event in all of physics"

 

Sir Roger Penrose -  Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, 1 of the world's leading mathematical physicists and joint winner of the Wolf prize with Stephen Hawking for their contribution to the understanding of the universe:

(speaking about the special initial state of the universe and the low entropy)

"...you can actually work this out, it's so special that the odds against the special initial state coming about by chance are less than one part in 10 to the power, 10 to the power (123)... So if you try to write this out 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000(continue)… to put one zero on every particle of the observable universe you’d be way short... I just want to give you some feeling for how special the initial state of the universe was!"

 "I cannot even recall seeing anything else in physics whose accuracy is known to approach, even remotely, a figure like 1 part in 10 to the power, 10 to the power (123)."

[New World Explorer]

Very shortly solid answer to the origins of our beautiful Universe will sound loud and clear ...   (Armageddon)

Thank you for the quotes , very useful in the ministry.

[jwhess]

I often think of specialty fireworks or directional explosives.  If someone wants to display a certain pattern in the sky when a firework is launched, it requires a great deal of thinking, chemical analysis, planning, calculating, assembling and care to get it just right.  Those great explosions in the sky are not random or haphazard events.  This example is just a puny human creative  effort that is over in an instant.  Jehovah's creation is still lighting up the sky after billions of years.

[vern]

That last quote is amazing.... can't even imagine a number so vast that writing it down won't even fit into the observable universe...

 

 

 

Is. 40:26  “Lift up your eyes to heaven and see. Who has created these things?+ It is the One who brings out their army by number; He calls them all by name.+ Because of his vast dynamic energy and his awe-inspiring power,+ Not one of them is missing."

 

 

I like to point out that Jehovah named all the stars before he made the universe and then after he made the universe not one was missing.... proving that some kind of "universal DNA"(my words-  who knows.... just an interesting thought) directed the creation..... were all just organized energy from Jehovah.  The other scripture(lazy to go get it)  likens the universe to a tent and that he inflated it....thus the expansion point...

 

nice post brother Neil

 

[AH173]

If there's a word :SYMPHONIUOS! 

 

I would like to believe it was HIGHLY ORGANIZED. Him and Jesus, (utilizing Jehovah's Holy Spirit) it's hard to comprehend. 

[ChocoBro]

Awesome, thanks for this inspiring thread and subsequent posts, very humbling and thought-provoking.

[New World Explorer]

I would love to contribute to the discussion but I am busy writing one part in 10 to the power, 10 to the power (123) ... 

Sorry I'll be gone for long time LOL  

Attaching photo of my current progress. ......

[Beggar for the Spirit]

[Witness1970]

21 hours ago, vern said:

Is. 40:26  “Lift up your eyes to heaven and see. Who has created these things?+ It is the One who brings out their army by number; He calls them all by name.+ Because of his vast dynamic energy and his awe-inspiring power,+ Not one of them is missing."

 

The theory is that eventually stars burn out.  They then explode or go Nova.  Does this mean that that star is now missing?  The matter from the star still exists!  Just thinking out loud.

 

I feel that even if a star goes Nova the fact that the matter from the star still exists agrees with the scripture stating that not one of them is missing.

[pnutts]

27 minutes ago, Witness1970 said:

a star goes Nova

What a Blast. The matter  is the theory of human scientists. Maybe Jehovah is playing with their minds? . Jehovah does have style. Or... that is a way to spread matter around the universe.

[Pjdriver]

"We are stardust, we are golden
We are billion year old carbon
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden."

 

could the old  song be right?

 

 

 

[vern]

well... we are just made from Jehovah's energy... if you really get down to it...

[New World Explorer]

5 hours ago, Witness1970 said:

The theory is that eventually stars burn out.  They then explode or go Nova.  Does this mean that that star is now missing?  The matter from the star still exists!  Just thinking out loud.

 

I feel that even if a star goes Nova the fact that the matter from the star still exists agrees with the scripture stating that not one of them is missing.

None of them is missing perhaps is like "constant" stock-count (inventory) in ever changing Universe.

Jehovah knows what is going on .. in a sense none of them is missing from his count.

 

[Beggar for the Spirit]

Hi Brother Randall,

Good thinking and question:

"The theory is that eventually stars burn out.  They then explode or go Nova.  Does this mean that that star is now missing?  The matter from the star still exists!  Just thinking out loud."

 

You will be glad to know that someone had written in to the Branch from Africa asking a similar question to yours and a good explanation was given to them and then this was printed in 1 of the Awake articles for all of us. But what is also interesting is that the FDS had already given an answer in a Question from Readers years before this, so apparently many intelligent brothers and sisters like you have been asking this similar question about stars and ISA 40:26 for many years. So I copied parts of the articles below for you 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

*** g93 2/8 p. 30 From Our Readers ***
From Our Readers
Universe

 I must say thank you for the mind-boggling information in the series “Unlocking the Secrets of the Universe.” (March 22, 1992) But by what authority are we saying that red giants, pulsars, and black holes are stages in the life [and death] of stars? Isaiah 40:26 says of stars that “not one of them is missing.”
E. W., Sierra Leone

This Bible text is not discussing whether stars have a cataclysmic end. Rather, it is highlighting God’s unfathomable knowledge and wisdom. As Creator, God knows the situation of each individual star. None are “missing” as far as he is concerned. (See “The Watchtower” of September 15, 1989, page 31.)—ED.
 

*** w89 9/15 p. 31 Questions From Readers ***
Questions From Readers
▪ Scientists hold that some stars burn out or explode, so why does Isaiah 40:26 say that “not one of [the stars] is missing”?
Jehovah is not here discussing whether he permits stars to disappear. He is emphasizing the extent of his wisdom and ability.

Scientists estimate that there are thousands of millions of stars in our Milky Way galaxy, and there are some one hundred thousand million galaxies. Yet, God knows each star by name, either an individual name or a namelike designation, perhaps in divine language. He is in command of their situation. Like a general able to muster the troops, Jehovah could call the stars to muster. If he did so, none would be “missing.” Knowing the situation of each star, even if some of them do come to a natural end, it is no surprise to the One who knows all that is occurring.—Compare Isaiah 34:16.

Astronomers and physicists think that stars burn out or explode. In Red Giants and White Dwarfs, Robert Jastrow theorizes how this might happen: “Within the . . . star a series of nuclear reactions set in, in which all the other elements of the universe were manufactured out of the basic ingredient, hydrogen. Eventually these nuclear reactions died out, and the star’s life came to an end. Deprived of its resources of nuclear energy, it collapsed under its own weight, and in the aftermath of the collapse an explosion occurred, spraying out to space all the materials that had been created within the star during its lifetime.”
Supposedly some stars, consuming their hydrogen, change into red giants and then develop into white dwarfs or supernovas, some finally ending up as neutron stars or, theoretically, black holes.

Yes, human scientists are very limited as to what they really know and can know. How different it is, though, with the Creator. His knowledge and dynamic energy certainly merit our awe. The psalmist rightfully said: “He is counting the number of the stars; all of them he calls by their names. Our Lord is great and is abundant in power; his understanding is beyond recounting. . . . Praise Jah, you people!”—Psalm 147:4, 5, 20.

[Pjdriver]

I can't even keep track of my keys. 

[vern]

What's your name brother.... so and so...  well glad to meet you brother.......... i forgot your name already......

[Qapla]

Let's say I buy a 10 lb bag of potatoes. When I get it home I put it in my pantry. The next day I decide to make baked potatoes and I use 4 of them. A couple days later I use a few more to make mashed potatoes. There are now only 5 lbs of potatoes in the bag.

 

Someone asks me if I have any potatoes and I say yes, I have a bag of them and I know just where they are. Actually, I only have half a bag, but I can rightly use the expression that I have a bag of them because, to me, since I was the one who used the other 5 lbs, I now consider the remaining 5 lbs as a "bag" of potatoes.

 

The point is, I do not view the 5 lbs that I cooked as "missing" since I know exactly where they went.

 

The same can be said of Jehovah. Just because He allows a star to burn out/explode/die/warp/time travel/whatever - to Him it is not missing.

[New World Explorer]

2 minutes ago, Qapla said:

Let's say I buy a 10 lb bag of potatoes. When I get it home I put it in my pantry. The next day I decide to make baked potatoes and I use 4 of them. A couple days later I use a few more to make mashed potatoes. There are now only 5 lbs of potatoes in the bag.

 

Someone asks me if I have any potatoes and I say yes, I have a bag of them and I know just where they are. Actually, I only have half a bag, but I can rightly use the expression that I have a bag of them because, to me, since I was the one who used the other 5 lbs, I now consider the remaining 5 lbs as a "bag" of potatoes.

 

The point is, I do not view the 5 lbs that I cooked as "missing" since I know exactly where they went.

 

The same can be said of Jehovah. Just because He allows a star to burn out/explode/die/warp/time travel/whatever - to Him it is not missing.

That's right broader scope of thinking is required to understand the meaning of "missing"

missing

(ˈmɪsɪŋ)

adj

1. not present; absent or lost

2. not able to be traced and not known to be dead: nine men were missing after the attack.

3. go missing to become lost or disappear

 

 

[Witness1970]

 

22 hours ago, Witness1970 said:

The theory is that eventually stars burn out.  They then explode or go Nova.  Does this mean that that star is now missing?  The matter from the star still exists!  Just thinking out loud.

 

I feel that even if a star goes Nova the fact that the matter from the star still exists agrees with the scripture stating that not one of them is missing.

 

I originally asked this question of an elder back in the 1980's.  He was unsure of the answer.  I was never bothered by it because I believe the bible and I knew there was an explanation.  I later decided that the fact that the matter still exists was a good enough answer for me.  I was away from the truth during most of the 1980's and did not read the answer in the QFR in the Awake.

 

I like the idea of an inventory given by Gregexplore. 

17 hours ago, Gregexplore said:

None of them is missing perhaps is like "constant" stock-count (inventory) in ever changing Universe.

Jehovah knows what is going on .. in a sense none of them is missing from his count.

 

None of them are missing from Jehovah's viewpoint.

[Pjdriver]

Also...."missing" can denote that the whereabouts of a person or thing is unknown.

"a child is missing", "my keys are missing", etc... Like looking for something that you don't know what happen to it.

Jehovah is well aware of what happens to these stars when they "die" sort of speak.

Just as he knows when one of his servants die. They're not missing in the sense of being "lost" or their whereabouts unknown. None is missing in that sense.

[AH173]

I wouldn't let the English translated word 'missing' distract me from what the focal point from what the question from readers is clearly stating. 

 

A little  research on Hebrew transliteration of word for missing. 

[Tortuga]

On 1/6/2017 at 8:32 AM, Pjdriver said:

"We are stardust, we are golden
We are billion year old carbon
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden."

 

could the old  song be right?

Let us know when you get to Woodstock...