If God created us, who created God? This is the question often raised by atheists. Most theists will answer this question by saying that God has no cause (discussion). Similarly, if you ask a physicist: what is the origin of the physical laws? He may answer that the physical laws have no cause.
We know our universe has something, but something cannot arise from nothing. We must assume certain things that are self existent (the aseity). In theology, God is the aseity while in science physical laws are the aseity. Since we are trying to understand the Kingdom of God from a scientific point of view, we shall accept physical laws as the aseity.
The "Physical God"
Most people will agree that "God" can be defined as the creator of the three-dimensional world that we live in. According to the string theory, our three dimensional world is a braneworld embedded in a higher dimensional space (possibly 10 dimensions). As shown in previous articles, our braneworld could be created by the highly intelligent life living in the bulk space (the space outside of any branes). The highly intelligent life in the bulk space is the "God" we are referring to.
By this definition, God should also be made up of matter. The elementary particles that constitute His matter are entirely different from us (see What is the Kingdom of God Made of?). However, they should still be governed by the physical laws that apply to all kinds of particles. These general physical laws include the conservation of energy, the second law of thermodynamics, the Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and the Einstein's equation that relates energy to the mass of a particle: E = mc2.
We do not know the initial condition of the bulk universe. The most natural assumption is that it started with an empty space. That is, before any matter was created, the bulk universe contained only vacuum. As shown below, physical laws allow highly intelligent life (God) to evolve from the vacuum.
How could matter be created from vacuum?
According to Einstein's equation, the particles that constitute matter contain energy. On the other hand, the energy conservation law states that the total energy of a closed system must be a constant. It is impossible to create or reduce the total energy. Then, how could matter be created from vacuum? Would it violate the energy conservation law?
The key point that matter can be created from vacuum is that the gravitational potential energy is negative, which may cancel the positive mass energy of the matter. This possibility even surprised Albert Einstein, as told by George Gamow in his book My World Line. In the 1940s, a colleague of George Gamow had an idea that a star could be created out of nothing if its negative gravitational energy precisely cancels out its positive mass energy. One day, Gamow mentioned this idea to Einstein while they were walking in Princeton. Einstein immediately stopped in his tracks and fell into deep thought. Since they were crossing a street, several cars had to stop to avoid running them down.
In reality, a star is unlikely to be created out of nothing because its gravitational energy is too small to cancel out its huge mass energy. However, there is a mechanism that can facilitate the creation of small particles from vacuum: quantum fluctuation.
Quantum fluctuation
According to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, we cannot determine energy and time precisely. Therefore, it is possible for a group of particles with non-zero total energy to appear naturally and then disappear within a short time. The more the total energy is created, the shorter the lifetime. This process is known as the quantum fluctuation. Because of quantum fluctuation, the vacuum cannot be absolutely nothing. It should still have some energy (the vacuum energy).
In the past several decades, quantum fluctuation has been widely used by cosmologists to explain the origin of the Big Bang that started our braneworld. However, the Big Bang involves the creation of a huge amount of energy that is unlikely to arise from quantum fluctuation. A more likely scenario is that the Big Bang was created by God in the bulk space and the Kingdom of God was created by quantum fluctuation.
Although the lifetime of the particles created by quantum fluctuation is short, they may decay into other types of particles or interact with each other to form stable particles during their lifetime. As time proceeded, some structures equivalent to our atoms could be formed. Eventually, a habitable environment and life could be developed. Since the bulk universe is eternal, there was plenty of time for an intelligent life to evolve from tiny particles.
Restriction in our braneworldNearly all elementary particles that constitute ordinary matter in our braneworld contain electric charges. These matter particles are restricted by the charge conservation law. Thus, the creation of a particle usually requires the creation of its antiparticle (with identical mass, but opposite charge). However, a particle can annihilate its antiparticle, making self-creation of matter particles by quantum fluctuation virtually impossible in our braneworld. In the labs, physicists can only observe the self-creation of the lightest particles, the electron-positron pair (positron is the antiparticle of the electron), which exists only for a very short time.
The elementary particles in the Kingdom of God are entirely different from ordinary particles in our braneworld. Most of them may not have electric charges. Without the charge-conservation restriction, the self-creation of particles may be quite common in the bulk space.
We know our universe has something, but something cannot arise from nothing. We must assume certain things that are self existent (the aseity). In theology, God is the aseity while in science physical laws are the aseity. Since we are trying to understand the Kingdom of God from a scientific point of view, we shall accept physical laws as the aseity.
The "Physical God"
Most people will agree that "God" can be defined as the creator of the three-dimensional world that we live in. According to the string theory, our three dimensional world is a braneworld embedded in a higher dimensional space (possibly 10 dimensions). As shown in previous articles, our braneworld could be created by the highly intelligent life living in the bulk space (the space outside of any branes). The highly intelligent life in the bulk space is the "God" we are referring to.
By this definition, God should also be made up of matter. The elementary particles that constitute His matter are entirely different from us (see What is the Kingdom of God Made of?). However, they should still be governed by the physical laws that apply to all kinds of particles. These general physical laws include the conservation of energy, the second law of thermodynamics, the Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and the Einstein's equation that relates energy to the mass of a particle: E = mc2.
We do not know the initial condition of the bulk universe. The most natural assumption is that it started with an empty space. That is, before any matter was created, the bulk universe contained only vacuum. As shown below, physical laws allow highly intelligent life (God) to evolve from the vacuum.
How could matter be created from vacuum?
According to Einstein's equation, the particles that constitute matter contain energy. On the other hand, the energy conservation law states that the total energy of a closed system must be a constant. It is impossible to create or reduce the total energy. Then, how could matter be created from vacuum? Would it violate the energy conservation law?
The key point that matter can be created from vacuum is that the gravitational potential energy is negative, which may cancel the positive mass energy of the matter. This possibility even surprised Albert Einstein, as told by George Gamow in his book My World Line. In the 1940s, a colleague of George Gamow had an idea that a star could be created out of nothing if its negative gravitational energy precisely cancels out its positive mass energy. One day, Gamow mentioned this idea to Einstein while they were walking in Princeton. Einstein immediately stopped in his tracks and fell into deep thought. Since they were crossing a street, several cars had to stop to avoid running them down.
In reality, a star is unlikely to be created out of nothing because its gravitational energy is too small to cancel out its huge mass energy. However, there is a mechanism that can facilitate the creation of small particles from vacuum: quantum fluctuation.
Quantum fluctuation
According to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, we cannot determine energy and time precisely. Therefore, it is possible for a group of particles with non-zero total energy to appear naturally and then disappear within a short time. The more the total energy is created, the shorter the lifetime. This process is known as the quantum fluctuation. Because of quantum fluctuation, the vacuum cannot be absolutely nothing. It should still have some energy (the vacuum energy).
In the past several decades, quantum fluctuation has been widely used by cosmologists to explain the origin of the Big Bang that started our braneworld. However, the Big Bang involves the creation of a huge amount of energy that is unlikely to arise from quantum fluctuation. A more likely scenario is that the Big Bang was created by God in the bulk space and the Kingdom of God was created by quantum fluctuation.
Although the lifetime of the particles created by quantum fluctuation is short, they may decay into other types of particles or interact with each other to form stable particles during their lifetime. As time proceeded, some structures equivalent to our atoms could be formed. Eventually, a habitable environment and life could be developed. Since the bulk universe is eternal, there was plenty of time for an intelligent life to evolve from tiny particles.
Restriction in our braneworldNearly all elementary particles that constitute ordinary matter in our braneworld contain electric charges. These matter particles are restricted by the charge conservation law. Thus, the creation of a particle usually requires the creation of its antiparticle (with identical mass, but opposite charge). However, a particle can annihilate its antiparticle, making self-creation of matter particles by quantum fluctuation virtually impossible in our braneworld. In the labs, physicists can only observe the self-creation of the lightest particles, the electron-positron pair (positron is the antiparticle of the electron), which exists only for a very short time.
The elementary particles in the Kingdom of God are entirely different from ordinary particles in our braneworld. Most of them may not have electric charges. Without the charge-conservation restriction, the self-creation of particles may be quite common in the bulk space.
1 comment:
Truly inspiring.
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