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Topic: Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics Prove the Existence of God? (Read 1506 times) |
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Fox
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Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics Prove the Existence of God?
« on: 2005-11-30 16:10:10 » |
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Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics Prove the Existence of God?
- by John M. Cimbala
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
The Pennsylvania State University
http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/j/m/jmc6/second_law.html
In this short article, I summarize my ideas about the second law of thermodynamics, and why I believe it points to a creator God.
This article also appears in the book In Six Days - Why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation, edited by John F. Ashton, and published by Master Books, Green Forest, AR. Copyright 2000 by John F. Ashton. It is available on-line from Answers in Genesis .
A formal definition of the second law of thermodynamics is "In any closed system, a process proceeds in a direction such that the unavailable energy (the entropy) increases." In other words, in any closed system, the amount of disorder always increases with time. Things progress naturally from order to disorder, or from an available energy state to one where energy is more unavailable. A good example: a hot cup of coffee cools off in an insulated room. The total amount energy in the room remains the same (which satisfies the first law of thermodynamics). Energy is not lost, it is simply transferred (in the form of heat) from the hot coffee to the cool air, warming up the air slightly. When the coffee is hot, there is available energy because of the temperature difference between the coffee and the air. As the coffee cools down, the available energy is slowly turned to unavailable energy. At last, when the coffee is room temperature, there is no temperature difference between the coffee and the air, i.e. the energy is all in an unavailable state. The closed system (consisting of the room and the coffee) has suffered what is technically called a "heat death." The system is "dead" because no further work can be done since there is no more available energy. The second law says that the reverse cannot happen! Room temperature coffee will not get hot all by itself, because this would require turning unavailable energy into available energy.
Now consider the entire universe as one giant closed system. Stars are hot, just like the cup of coffee, and are cooling down, losing energy into space. The hot stars in cooler space represent a state of available energy, just like the hot coffee in the room. However, the second law of thermodynamics requires that this available energy is constantly changing to unavailable energy. In another analogy, the entire universe is winding down like a giant wind-up clock, ticking down and losing available energy. Since energy is continually changing from available to unavailable energy, someone had to give it available energy in the beginning! (I.e. someone had to wind up the clock of the universe at the beginning.) Who or what could have produced energy in an available state in the first place? Only someone or something not bound by the second law of thermodynamics. Only the creator of the second law of thermodynamics could violate the second law of thermodynamics, and create energy in a state of availability in the first place.
As time goes forward (assuming things continue as they are), the available energy in the universe will eventually turn into unavailable energy. At this point, the universe will be said to have suffered a heat death, just like the coffee in the room. The present universe, as we know it, cannot last forever. Furthermore, imagine going backwards in time. Since the energy of the universe is constantly changing from a state of availability to one of less availability, the further back in time one goes, the more available the energy of the universe. Using the clock analogy again, the further back in time, the more wound up the clock. Far enough back in time, the clock was completely wound up. The universe therefore cannot be infinitely old. One can only conclude that the universe had a beginning, and that beginning had to have been caused by someone or something operating outside of the known laws of thermodynamics.
Is this scientific proof for the existence of a Creator God? I think so. Evolutionary theories of the universe cannot counteract the above arguments for the existence of God. Evidence such as this helped to convince me to believe in God, and to accept His plan of salvation through His son Jesus Christ. For further detailes about my conversion to Christianity, I have written a short testimony.
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David Lucifer
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Re:Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics Prove the Existence of God?
« Reply #1 on: 2005-11-30 22:33:56 » |
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I could just as easily argue that the fact the universe is winding down suggests there is no god.
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gaiaguerrilla
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Re:Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics Prove the Existence of God?
« Reply #2 on: 2005-12-01 22:53:31 » |
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"Since energy is continually changing from available to unavailable energy, someone had to give it available energy in the beginning!"
This is where you lost me. Explaining thermodynamics is not relevant to your point. Had you opened with such a statement, I would give you the benefit of the doubt. According to bubble theory, the beginning of this universe can easily be the branching off of another universe.
3 main arguments I cannot accept for the existence of God-
*If nothing we clearly know of started it, God did.
*If things are so complex, God made it.
*If a similarity of personal instances surprise you, God's working.
One more thing that troubles me beyond belief.
People that attempt a scientiffic argument for God often jump to the same old mantra with Him, Lord, Jesus Christ. And throwing in such a disconnected statement is a foul pollution to discredit all the work they took to make the scientiffic claim in the first place.
Why do you insist on "Him" not "Her" not "That."? I extend a great deal of consideration to those that can argue for whatever creator they believe in without old sexism. Falling into male superiority complexes is an iron slab barricade to my interest and respect.
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Hermit
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Re:Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics Prove the Existence of God?
« Reply #3 on: 2005-12-01 23:38:44 » |
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Getting from the "Quantum Universe" of the first few instants of existence for our Universe to the current "GR" Universe is possible and has been modeled. Currently two major schools of thought exist. One based in the "chaotic inflation" proposal of Andrei Linde, where the universe is instantiated in a completely random state, where some regions of matter will be more energetic than others, so that inflation could ensue, producing the observable universe (and such a model can be used to predict the results we have seen from CBM measurements). The second major contender is quantum cosmology where we apply quantum theory to the entire universe. Ideally this approach requires a theory of quantum gravity (which does not yet exist), but there are several possible approaches and a number of competing but well supported approaches to a quantum gravityless approximation. My weyken is that Richard Feynman's "path integrals" are the most useful explanatory mechanism (though not essential to the theory - e.g. In the 90s I successfully modeled QC using a set theory approach). In essence, Path Integral asserts that the probability that a system in an initial state A will evolve to a final state B may be calculated by summing the contributions from every possible history of the system that starts in A and ends in B. For this reason a path integral can be described as a "sum over histories". For large systems, contributions from similar histories cancel each other in the sum and only one history is important. This is the history predicted by classical physics. While there are many issues, mathematical and theoretical, with path integral formulation of quantum gravity, and while more recent hypothesis about quantum gravity (such as string/M-theory) don't seem to co-exist particularly well with path integrals, we have developed ways to formulate path integrals on a background with four spatial dimensions (rather than our "everyday" three spatial one time dimensions). "Analytic continuation" allows us to translate between the necessary four spatial dimension geometry using the same imaginary component "j" (or the root of negative one), notations and conversions as are used in electrical engineering to deal whith phase shift. This has allowed us to map "imaginary time" as a dimension and in consequence to build models which calculate quantities that can be independently derived (e.g. black hole temperatures). While calculating probabilities in quantum cosmology using the full path integral is formidably difficult and an approximation has to be used, this has been done, and the results correlate dramatically well with those predicted. We refer to this as a "semi-classical approximation" because its applicability is between classical and quantum physics but (as currently applied) the results approach the validity of classical GR physics. In the semiclassical approximation we note that most four dimensional geometries occurring in the path integral make trivial contributions to the solution. This means that we consider only those few geometries, instantons, that cause a significant contribution. While not all boundary three geometry can be described in terms of instantons, geometries described by instantons are much more probable than those that aren't. Extensive modeling in this domain shows that instantons describe the quantum process of universe creation. This is a mechanism (like proton instantion and evaporation (which both exist, occur naturally all the time, and are measurable) which cannot be described using classical general relativity. Valid instantons appear most likely to result for small three geometries (i.e. excluding time), corresponding to the instantiation of "timeless" small universii taking the same form as we weyken was the case for the BB. This reflects the results which we expected from quantum mechanics, i.e that the instantiation of the Universe occurred outside of all space time possibilities, and instantiated spontaneously (a gravitational fluctuation which particle instantiation/evaporation suggests occurs continuously in the flux) at sub-Planck scales. Once sufficient expansion resulted in QM being displaced by GR, time came into effect.
The Universe was a solid mass crammed into a singularity as it was instantiated. Such an object simply cannot exist in the Universe today. The mass had the capability to become anything, as the rules governing this mass were equipotent (it was a naked singularity). By 10E-35 baryonic rules dominated and further expansion occurred as it would today. So it was actually in the 10E-43 to 10E-35 PBB period that the rules that currently predominate in our Universe became possible at all (See, e.g. FAQ: Timeline). Our current consensus understanding is that there are in excess of ten thousand possible rulesets that could have become established instead. Under those rulesets the Universe would be different - and we would not be here having this discussion.
Note that instantiation (not "creation", "creation" requires "intent") of a universe cannot occur in some other spacetime arena. QM deals only with the very small – where the rules of GR and spacetime are not applicable. As such, Quantum Casmology describes the spontaneous appearance of a universe from literally nothing. If spacetime were present, the posited mechanism could not exist. Assuming that this model is correct, and COBE and successor have shown that it too makes remarkably good predictions, e.g. Dating of the Big Bang to 13.7 billion (109) years before present (GBP) at an accuracy within 1% from William Harwood, "Age of the Universe", 2003-02-11, then the instantiation of our Universe occurred outside of spacetime; the instantiated Universe was (at least for a few moments), without GR, and without GR or spacetime the second law of thermodynamics is utterly inapplicable, never mind not suggesting gods of whatever nasty nature it would take to create a Universe as brutish as ours.
In consequence, I suggest that Professor John M. Cimbala of the Pennsylvania State University is (as too many academics do) pontificating out of field. The fact that he argues from his conclusion, "Only the creator of the second law of thermodynamics could violate the second law of thermodynamics, and create energy in a state of availability in the first place. " and imagines that this is persuasive tells us that he is clearly off base and out of touch. While his thinking (such as it is) might benefit from a solidly grounded course in elementary physics or cosmology, this is unlikely to persuade him of the inappropriateness of delivering "personal testimony" about his delusional belief system under the aegis of academic credentials. I suggest that John M. Cimbala should perhaps seek a position at some institution where such "testimony" is more appropriate. A bible college perhaps.
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Gods Imaginary ...
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Re:Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics Prove the Existence of God?
« Reply #4 on: 2006-02-12 22:35:02 » |
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I find this line of questioning a case of not being able to see the forest for the trees, please don't read that as arrogant, I just like using the expression. We know that given the chemicals in existence a few billion years ago on earth we can create life. They have mixed ammonia and other gases of that time in a lab, added a spark of electricity and found that amino acids have formed. Once you have amino acids you have the beginning of evolution. Genetic evolution carries us to a few hundred thousand years ago when memetic evolution kicked in as the dominant form of change for humans on this planet. We can now see that everyone’s actions are a combination of physics, genetics and memetics.
Given this understanding that few would refute, there is no longer a place for God. Our actions are purely a result of self-determinism. So If God does not effect the shift from inert to living, or the thoughts of a single human being, why bother contemplating it's existence? The pillars of any mainstream religion have already been undermined. How does a discussion over what caused the big bang effect humanity at all if God has played no part for at least four billion years?
That said, I agree with what gaiaguerrilla, David Lucifer and Hermit wrote as well.
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Hermit
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Re:Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics Prove the Existence of God?
« Reply #5 on: 2006-07-02 04:46:05 » |
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From the present to the past
[Hermit: In an interesting case of sychronicity, this article speaks to a number of issues previously discussed here and comes to much the same conclusions as those earlier advocated by a number of Virians. Feel the glow!]
Source: Physics Web
Authors: Not Credited
Dated: 2006-06-30
Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking and his CERN colleague Thomas Hertog have proposed a radical new approach to understanding the universe that studies it from the "top down" rather than the "bottom up" as in traditional models. The approach acknowledges that the universe did not have just one unique beginning and history but a multitude of different beginnings and histories, and that it has experienced them all. But because most of these other alternative histories disappeared very early after the Big Bang to leave behind the universe we observe today, the best way to understand the past, they say, is to trace our knowledge back from the present (Phys. Rev. D 73 123527).
Most models of the universe are bottom-up, that is, you start from the well-defined initial conditions of the Big Bang and work forward. However, Hawking and Hertog say that this method is flawed because we do not and cannot know the initial conditions present at the beginning of the universe and that we only know the final state -- the one we are in now. Their idea is therefore to start with the conditions we observe today -- like the universe is 3D, nearly flat and expanding at an accelerating rate -- and work backwards in time to determine what the initial conditions might have looked like.
The new theory aims to get round a fundamental problem of string theory -- the most popular candidate for a "theory of everything" -- which is that it allows the existence of a multitude of different types of universes as well as our own. Each possible universe in this "landscape" has its own fundamental constants and even different numbers of space-time dimensions. Moreover, string theory does not favour any particular universe over another, which is not a good state of affairs as we clearly live in a universe with a particular set of physical properties.
To address this, Hawking and Hertog say that all these alternative universes of string theory may have actually existed together in the first few instants after the Big Bang. At this time, the universe was in a "superposition" of all these possible worlds. However, most of these universes then quickly faded away to leave behind our present-day universe. By tracing our universe back from the present to the past, we can ignore most of other branches that the universe took because they are too different from the current universe.
While this idea sounds fantastic, it is based on Richard Feynman’s "sum over paths" formulation in quantum theory, which says that the probability that a photon, say, arrives at a particular place can be calculated by summing up over all the different possible trajectories of the photon. Although the photon could follow lots of different paths, the straight-line path dominates over all the others so this is the one we see. In the same way, Hawking and Hertog say that the universe did not take just one path through time to arrive in its present state, but took a multitude of paths, or histories. The "sum over all histories" is therefore the universe we observe today.
The new top-down theory could also explain why some constants of nature seem to have finely tuned values that have allowed life to evolve in our universe. For example, the cosmological constant, Λ -- the force that appears to be causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate, or the density of dark energy -- has a small positive value; if it were any smaller or bigger then life would not exist. According to the new theory, the current universe must have "chosen" those histories that led to the "correct" value of Λ otherwise we would simply not be here to experience it -- a theory also known as the "anthropic principle".
Hawking and Hertog also say their model could be tested by comparing observations of the patterns of minute intensity variations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation with those calculated by their theory when it is more developed. The CMB is the radiation left over from the Big Bang and should contain "imprints" of some of the very early alternative histories within it.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Does the Second Law of Thermodynamics Prove the Existence of God?
« Reply #6 on: 2006-07-02 11:30:40 » |
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I regret that I did not reply to this thread sooner. My answer is simple. The second law of thermodynamics proposes a closed system. A closed system is actually an ideal that we have yet to discover. Ironically the very act of discovering one would immediately transform it into a slightly open system due to observer effects. To whatever extent a local (or even more universal) system is not closed, the second law doesn't apply. Indeed if a system is significantly thermodynmically open, it creates ever more complex engergy dissipating structures. Order for free, even mindlessly so. Stuart Kauffman proposes such things in his thesis "The Origins of Order". In such a scheme we are simply the resulting mechanisms evolved to ever more efficiently dissipate excess energy flowing through a thermodynamically open system . . . rather than the apple of some creator's eye.
Much more mundane, and yet strangely profound.
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