The Universe Had a Beginning: Why That Shook Einstein

Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest and physicist, working with Einstein's equations, showed that Einstein's perfectly balanced cosmological constant was unstable; any slight perturbation would lead to collapse or heat death. Lemaître confronted Einstein in 1927, to which Einstein initially dismissed his physical intuition despite acknowledging the correct math. Other scientists, like Sir Arthur Eddington, also found the idea of a universe with a beginning "repugnant" and "preposterous," demonstrating a philosophical bias against the idea. Despite his personal distaste, Eddington later urged Einstein to meet Hubble, recognizing the observational evidence for expansion.

Einstein eventually visited Hubble at Mount Wilson Observatory in 1931. Two weeks later, he publicly admitted to the New York Times that he was wrong and the universe was not static. Stephen Hawking, in the 1960s at Cambridge, further developed this understanding. By extrapolating Einstein's theory backward in time, he concluded that the increasing density of matter would lead to infinitely tight curvature and infinite density, a point of zero spatial volume. This concept of a space-time singularity, detailed in his 1966 PhD dissertation, suggested that the universe began from nothing physical, akin to the theological concept of "creation out of nothing" (creatio ex nihilo). This highlighted that the Big Bang refers to the origin of matter, space, time, and energy itself.

The implications of a universe with a beginning are profoundly anti-materialistic. At a 1985 conference, Alan Sandage, a former PhD student of Edwin Hubble and a prominent astrophysicist, declared his conversion to Christianity, stating it was due to scientific evidence. He described the singularity at the beginning of the universe as a "supernatural event," something inexplicable by known physics. This idea of a definite beginning for the universe, echoing the biblical 'in the beginning,' directly contradicts the scientific materialist view of an eternal, self-existent universe, implying the need for an external cause beyond the material realm. The observed universe does not align with the expectation of "blind, pitiless indifference" but rather suggests a definite origin.

Darwinism proposed that life changes in an undirected and unguided way, making theological or spiritual explanations unnecessary. This led to scientific materialism or atheism, suggesting no guiding hand behind evolution, making it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. Richard Dawkins famously stated that biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of design, emphasizing the 'appearance' due to natural selection mimicking design without intelligence. Prominent figures like Lawrence Krauss, Stephen Hawking, and Stephen Weinberg have been proponents of this scientific materialism. Dawkins described the universe as having properties consistent with no design, no purpose, just "blind pitiless indifference," where matter and energy are eternal, self-existent, and self-organizing. However, this lecture argues there are at least three major discoveries that contradict this expectation.

The first significant discovery challenging scientific materialism was Edwin Hubble's observation in the 1920s. Using powerful telescopes, Hubble verified that nebular structures were galaxies beyond our Milky Way and that these galaxies are racing away from us in every direction, with further galaxies moving faster. This indicated a spherical expansion, like a balloon being blown up. Winding the clock backward implied that all matter would have originated from a single, infinitely dense point, marking the beginning of the universe. This discovery was primarily made in the United States by Hubble and Vesto Slipher.

Albert Einstein's theory of gravity, where massive bodies curve spacetime, had an implication: if gravity was the only force, all matter would collapse into a single point (a giant black hole). To counteract this and maintain a static universe, which he philosophically preferred over a universe with a beginning (as it sounded like the Genesis account), Einstein introduced the "cosmological constant" – an arbitrary outward-pushing force precisely balancing gravity. He later admitted this was his "greatest blunder in my life" as it was based on philosophical predispositions rather than evidence.