The Fallacies of Intelligent Design Theory
This temporary appearance-disappearance of particles from a vacuum is called a "vacuum fluctuation" and is commonplace in quantum field theory. It can be expected to happen randomly throughout the spacetime void, with no significant permanent result. One could say the particles briefly "borrow"the energy required for their creation, and then, a short time later, they pay the "debt" back and disappear again. Since these particles don't have a permanent existence, they are called virtual particles.
Another possibility exists that can lead to a significant and permanent result. The random fluctuation energy can appear in the curvature of space. Such a region of space is called a "bubble of false vacuum." This false bubble still contains no matter or radiation, but is no longer a true vacuum ("nothing") because it contains a tiny region of space that is curved or warped. A small amount of potential energy is contained in that spacetime curvature, somewhat like the potential energy stored in a strung bow. If a vacuum fluctuation now occurs in that region of space, the result is a nonzero energy density (curvature energy is transformed from the gravitational field of the universe). In accord with the de Sitter solution, the appearance of fluctuation energy in the presence of a spacetime curvature results in an exponential expansion of the bubble, in what is called "inflation."
In this scenario, as the empty universe expands, its own negative internal pressure works on the universe itself, increasing the internal energy of the system the way the external force applied by the crankshaft on a piston will increase the internal energy of the combustion gas in a cylinder of an automobile engine. No violation of the first law of thermodynamics takes place in this process. Our universe grows by many orders of magnitude in a tiny fraction of a second. A side note: since a particle produced by a vacuum fluctuation has no cause, god cannot be the only thing that can be uncaused.
In our universe, by the time the bubble had inflated to the size of a proton, in about 10-42 second, it contained sufficient energy to produce all the matter in the visible universe today. As the universe cooled, its structure spontaneously froze - just as formless water vapor freezes into snowflakes that have unique and complex patterns that arise from a combination of symmetry and randomness. As frictional processes brought inflation to a halt, particle production began, and we moved into the familiar linear big bang Hubble expansion.
The first galaxies in our universe began to assemble after about a billion years, eventually evolving into stable systems where stars could live out their lives and populate the interstellar medium with the complex chemical elements such as carbon that are needed for the formation of life as we know it.
The forces and particles that appeared were more or less random, governed only by symmetry principles (like the conservation principles of energy and momentum) that are not the product of design but exactly what one would expect in the absence of design.
Was There a Beginning to the Universe?
When did the universe happen? It occurred at any random time. It is possible to show that the universe did not necessarily have a beginning, i.e., t = 0 is an arbitrary point, and time exists in an operational sense on both the positive and negative sides of the time axis. Any random point on the time axis can be labeled t = 0. In fact, the most important law of physics, conservation of energy, demands that there be no distinguishably special moment in time. However, it is important to theists that there be a unique t = 0. The existence of a special point in time would imply the violation of energy conservation, leaving room for god to perform a miracle. Ironically, it is a steady-state universe that would have all the miracles theists need - constant violation of energy conservation to account for the expansion of the universe.
One notion that has been proposed is that the appearance of local quantum energy particle fluctuations in a tiny region of curved spacetime could result in an infinite number of universes popping off, each one different from the other. We just happen to be in the one where the forces and particles lent themselves to the generation of carbon and other atoms with the complexity necessary eventually to eventually evolve living and thinking organisms.
In modern cosmology, t = 0 is a random point on the time axis that defines the beginning of the inflationary epoch. At that instant, space is empty except for the zero point energy required by quantum mechanics, in this case stored in the curvature of space or in quintessence. In the de Sitter solution of Einstein's equations for curved, empty space, exponential inflation occurs on the positive side of the t-axis. But what defines the positive side? As first suggested by Boltzmann a century ago, the direction of time is by definition the direction in which the entropy of the universe, the bubble in our case, increases. That is, the positive side of the t-axis is the side in which entropy grows as you move away from t = 0.
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The Case for Design Based on Big Bang Creation: Pages 1, 2, (3). 4
