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The Mystery of Time's
Arrow
.
Physics
and the Bible
by Lambert Dolphin
Time is the most mysterious of the four usual
dimensions of our space-time continuum.
"It's not so much that there's
something strange about time," said Dr. John A. Wheeler, the famous
Princeton cosmologist, "the thing that's strange is what's going
on inside time. We will first understand how simple the universe is
when we recognize how strange time is."
However, whether time flows backwards or
forwards usually makes no difference in the math.
But in our everyday world we never see this
happening.
The fact that, in our experience, time is
observed to always flow inexorably from past to present to future in real life
is known as "time's arrow."
There are several ways physicists delineate
time's arrow.
The Psychological Arrow is our subjective sense
of time, the fact that we remember events in one direction of time, but not the
other.
The Electromagnetic Arrow of time is described
by retarded solutions of Maxwell's equations, not advanced ones. (Maxwell's
equations describe the propagation of radio waves and light).
There is an overall classification of
"time's arrow" referred to as the Thermodynamic Arrow.
This involves the Law of Entropy - the observed
behavior that all the universe progresses from order to disorder as a net
function.
The Law of Entropy is, of course, also known as
the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
One current debate in cosmology is whether the
thermodynamic arrow arose from boundary conditions prior to the Big Bang, or
whether it developed early in the Big Bang expansion.
Time's Arrow is an important but mysterious
property of the world we live in.
Theoretically, in the situations covered by
Newton's Laws, forward time and backward time are indistinguishable.
For instance, when the film of a tennis match is
reversed (during a rally after a serve), it is not apparent to the viewer
whether time is running forwards or backwards.
But, in the case of an ice cube melting, there
is an immediately noticeable difference when the film is run backwards! Heat
flow is involved when ice melts and the thermodynamic arrow is immediately
evident.
The kettle boils only after we have set it on
the stove, never before. The apple ripens only after the blossom falls, and all
of us grow older with time, not younger.
However, even in atomic physics, though some
processes can appear to run in reverse, time is not one of them-some very
recent research has confirmed this.
Experiments with transformations of charge (C),
parity (P), and time (T) in certain meson interactions have yielded several
fascinating anomalies.
But the arrow of time is apparently still
intact at the subatomic level. The main impetus for most of the recent
research regarding CPT is to better understand the evolutionary concept of the
Big Bang.
A host of related questions are now under
vigorous investigation.
When the universe began, did it contain an equal
number of particles and antiparticles? If so, what happened to all the
anti-matter?
Do mirror universes exist?
Why are we stuck with time's arrow? Because
science cannot answer questions about origins, these questions naturally
overflow into metaphysics and philosophy.
However, the Big Bang model tacitly assumes that
God does not exist-or if he does, He plays no observable role in the ongoing
history of the universe.
Those of us who know and experience the living
God know otherwise.
Our relationship is with the Creator Himself,
and we have the privilege of having our minds enlightened by the Holy Spirit
who indwells us.
He illuminates the Word of God for us and gives
us discernment based on that Word when we view the natural world.
Many Christians find reasons to question the
basic assumptions of Big Bang cosmology in the first place.
For Christians, we understand from Genesis that
God originally created a very different universe than the one we now live in.
His creative work in building the universe took
place over a unique period of time, a time never again to be repeated, during
which God created the raw materials of the universe (space, time, energy and
matter) and then formed them into a well-ordered, low-entropy, self-renewing
system.
Genesis speaks of a definite beginning to the
universe-and predicts a definite end as well. Here science and the Bible agree.
The Bible confirms that the Second Law of
Thermodynamics is also true-entropy always shows a net increase with the
passage of time.
But from the standpoint of the Bible, the Second
Law is not a feature of the universe as it was originally created; it is a
result of the subsequent introduction of fatal flaws into the machinery by an
Enemy of God and of man.
These flaws were not part of the original
design.
The clues to this catastrophe begin in Genesis
3. A rebellion among the angels took place in the early history of things, and
the angels play a major role in God's government of nature as well as nations.
In addition to introducing sin and death into
the human race, the angelic rebellion wrecked the delicately tuned and finely designed
mechanisms of the physical and spiritual realms, setting into motion an
irreversible downhill course towards decay, disorder, and the increasingly
unavailability of energy resources.
In Proverbs, Solomon identifies the Creator with
the Son of God, begotten by the Father (Proverbs 8:22).
It was He who spoke the universe into existence
and it is He who understands all its workings. Wisdom, personified in the
feminine, speaks as follows:
“The LORD brought me forth (begat) at the
beginning of His work, the first of His acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at
the first, before the beginning of the earth.
“When there were no depths I was brought
forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains
had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth; before He had made the
earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world.
“When He established the heavens, I was
there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep, when He made firm the
skies above, when He established the fountains of the deep, when He assigned to
the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress His command, when He
marked out the foundations of the earth, I was beside Him, like a master
workman; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing before Him always, rejoicing in
His inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men.
“And now, my sons, listen to me: happy are
those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it.
“Happy is the man who listens to me,
watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors.
“For he who finds me finds life and
obtains favor from the LORD; but he who misses me injures himself; all who hate
me love death.” -
Proverbs 8:22-35
For those mystified by Old Testament Wisdom
Literature, John's gospel says the same thing more plainly:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all
things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was
made.
“In Him was life, and the life was the
light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not
overcome it.
“He was in the world, and the world was
made through Him, yet the world knew Him not. He came to His own home, and His
own people received Him not.
“But to all who received Him, who believed
in His name, He gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of
blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among
us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son
from the Father.” - John 1:1-14
There was a time when you and I did not exist.
Then we were created, formed in the womb, and born into the world.
We are trapped in time and cannot go back and fix
yesterday's mistakes.
However, behind the scenes, a loving God is
involved in all the details of ongoing history and He interacts with us in ways
that cannot be discovered, thus allowing each of us a multitude of
opportunities to make choices for good or for ill.
The master plan for the construction of the
universe and all of history began with a design of the universe in the Mind of
the Father, a plan executed by the Son of God.
So, history itself is headed toward an
endpoint-a terminus.
There, at the end, where the arrow of time is
pointing, stands the same Jesus; Creator, Savior, Lord-and now the Judge of
all.
Meeting Him is unavoidable.
Each person will either receive from Him
a "Welcome home" or "Be banished
forever into the outer darkness of eternal separation."
Today we do have the opportunity to make
decisions which will outlast time. We can choose God or continue in rebellion
against Him.
And, at the end of time, we will find that He
has accepted our decisions. Each of us will either belong to Him... or not.
Lambert Dolphin
From time to time I write, and rewrite, short studies
based on my understanding of the Bible. These thoughts are not the last word on
a subject, but often just working papers that are incomplete or sketchy. You
are welcome to quote from, or use, these essays--but please reference the source.
Your email is most welcome. The Library is where most everything is located.
You might also like:
.
Time Travel
Dream or Possible
Reality
CLICK HERE . . . to view . . .
https://puricare.blogspot.com/2020/04/time-travel-dream-or-possible-reality.html
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