The Creation of the Universe
Since the dawn of civilization, it seems to be that no culture or tribe, no society or nation has been able to ignore the itching question that seems so universal to humanity throughout the ages: why and how are we here? Every culture has its creation story and that story is a reflection of that culture.
It fascinates our minds as the beginning seems to have this infinite degree of complexity and mystery in both the why and the how. Whether that mystery is expressed in the ancient fire-side stories of the Babylonian and Hebrew tribal epics and poems (speaking of the why) or whether that mystery is expressed in Einstein’s scientific theories (speaking of the how), there continues to be a continual evolution of perspective in relation to these questions, and for those with enough humility to allow a deconstruction of their preconceptions for how the universe functions and why it does, these new perspectives give birth to an elevation of thought and (like the child who has, for the first time, tasted ice cream) a certain euphoric joy for the one who has encountered these revelations.
In this PBS special on The Creation of the Universe, the leading scientific minds of our age (an age where the echoes of a potent Scientific Revolution beckon loudly) tell the creation story of our culture. It is a story that emphasizes the how over the why (as science does), and in that, there is so much beauty in speaking of our universe. The consistency and integrity of the many ironies and astonishments which compose our known universe paint a picture of reality that sets one at awe as we encounter the reflection of infinity in the everyday tossing stone – being cognizant of the many galaxies of stars and orbits (of which our earth, and that stone, is but a small part), which are then made up of miniscule atoms, which are, in turn, comprised of galaxies and orbits of their own to an equally infinite degree; and as the numbers of great distances and masses increase and decrease beyond conception, as theorized multiple dimensions bend and set into a dizzy spin our desperate attempts to control and comprehend our reality, our fervent faith in seemingly steady Newtonian physics is entirely subverted by new revelations in quantum mechanics, our many attempts to fit the heavens into our minds humbles the sane observer into realizing that when dealing with the infinite, if we are to stay true and honest in our observations, we mustn’t attempt to demand comprehension but develop a flexibility in framework which allows for an infinite reality. As G.K. Chesterton writes in his book Orthodoxy, “Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; [the maniac] seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite.”
So, as observed in the film, in the progressing age of our evolutionary process, scientists begin to sound much more like poets in their pursuit of understanding our universe by a common allegiance and faith to the integrity of beauty. And so we hear men like Leon Lederman, American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate in Physics, commenting on the scientific prejudice that “there’s something simple beneath all this,” as we remain unsatisfied with the complicated and ugly mathematical equations and convoluted explanations for the way things are, he states, “there is a deep feeling that the current picture is not beautiful and that drive for beauty, simplicity, and symmetry has been an unfailing guidepost with how to go with physics.” And we hear Steven Weinberg, an American physicist and also a Nobel laureate in Physics, say, “We haven’t gotten to the bottom level yet, but as we approach it we pick up information of the underlying beautiful theory whose beauty we can only dimly see at the present time. We don’t know that it’s true (that there really is a beautiful underlying theory) and we don’t know, as a species, we are smart enough to learn what it is, but we do know that if we don’t assume that there is a beautiful underlying theory and that we are smart enough to learn what it is, we never will.” And this assumption of faith, while illuminating the illusion of pure objectivity also illuminates the reality of humanity’s deep-seeded faith, a faith in what is good, true and beautiful.
We hear John Archibald Wheeler, an eminent American theoretical physicist, the man who coined the term “black hole,” and one of the later collaborators of Albert Einstein, say, “To my mind, there must be at the bottom of it all, not an utterly simple equation, but an utterly simple idea. And, to me, that idea when we finally discover it, will be so compelling, so inevitable, so beautiful that we will all say to each other, Oh how could it have been otherwise?” And so, after thousands of years, some of the most influential and brilliant scientists of our age are beginning to sound remarkably like the ancient poets. Carlo Rubbia, an Italian physicist at CERN who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984, speaks of humanity and the universe by saying, “There is nothing deader than an equation. You write that down on a square on a tile floor, then on another tile you write another equation which you think will be a better description of the universe. And you keep writing down more and more equations hoping to get a better and better equation for explaining why the universe acts the way it does. And then when you work your way out to the end of the room and have to step out you wave your wand and tell the equations to fly, and that one of the equations will fly. But the universe flies. It has a life to it that no equation has and that life to it is a life in which we also are tied up.”
Like the ancient poets of old, these physicists, despite the depths to which they have swam in the sea of how, cannot refuse the intense attraction and gravity of why. As Allan Sandage, acclaimed American Astronomer and student of Edwin Hubble, says, “The design that one sees in the universe may be as natural as an outcome of the differential equations, but the mystery is why is the world describable in terms of differential equations.” And Steven Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA a British theoretical physicist, possibly put best the current scientific zeitgeist when saying, “From the age of 15 or 14, I wanted to know how the universe worked and why it is what it is. And now I have some idea of how the universe works, but I still do not really understand why.”
As we continue to explore the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, the possibilities at discovering a simplistic and aesthetically appealing equation to the Grand-Unifying Theory, the nature of galactic and sub-atomic activity; and as our current assumptions are subverted by observation, our story is constantly evolving with new understanding and elevating/deepening our perspectives to better understand how and why that which is, is; and perhaps the fields of philosophy, theology, and science will one day cease to fear each other so much, but acknowledge a unity in their pursuits – for in all, we are unified by a common faith in that which is good, true and beautiful despite disagreements in our expressions of that faith. Each field, in its diverse and distinct expression, brings to humanity a deepening of perspective; no discipline has an exclusive claim to goodness, truth and beauty, for just as we are all human we all share this common faith, so let us speak as a unified mosaic about this universe in a common humility and faith.
Leave a Reply