The Big Bang Theory Is Probably True

Because his arguments do not have titles, I will create titles to create some organization in my argument. RI. The First Law of ThermodynamicsThe first law of thermodynamics basically states that you can't get something from nothing. What my opponent is trying to argue is that the Big Bang Theory is a violation of the first law of thermodynamics in his first set of arguments. RIA. MatterA consequence of the first law of thermodynamics is the law of conservation of mass, which states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. Classically, this is true, but when quantum mechanics is considered, the rules can be "stretched" - this is where the idea of quantum fluctuations come from. During a quantum fluctuation, energy is created and two particles form - one particle and one antiparticle form. Now this leads to two difficult concepts to grasp - one, because of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which in one form states that one cannot simultaneously know the energy and time, which allows for violations in the conservation of energy for short periods; and two, an antiparticle is the opposite of a regular particle, and adding the two leads to zero, which means that there is no apparent violation in the law of conservation of mass. This quote explains it more in the context of the Big Bang Theory itself: "In the beginning, there was not yet any matter. However, there was a lot of energy in the form of light, which comes in discrete packets called photons. When photons have enough energy, they can spontaneously decay into a particle and an antiparticle. (An antiparticle is the exact opposite of the corresponding particle--for example, a proton has charge +e, so an antiproton has charge -e. ) This is easily observed today, as gamma rays have enough energy to create measurable electron-antielectron pairs (the antielectron is usually called a positron). It turns out that the photon is just one of a class of particles, called the bosons, that decay in this manner. Many of the bosons around just after the big bang were so energetic that they could decay into much more massive particles such as protons (remember, E=mc^2, so to make a particle with a large mass m, you need a boson with a high energy E). The mass in the universe came from such decays. "[1]RIB. EnergyAnother consequence of the first law of thermodynamics is the law of conservation of energy, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. I already explained how this law can be "stretched" by using the energy/time uncertainty. Further, there are different types of energy, some of which are positive, and some of which are negative. In much the same way that particle-antiparticle pairs sum to net zero matter, the same idea can be extended to energy: "In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero. "[2][5]My opponent's other argument is that energy can only be converted, never used up. I will address this with two points - one, if the net energy of the universe is zero, there is no energy to be used up; and two, the positive energy made matter come into existence and the negative energy (i. e. the gravitiational energy) made it agglomerate - this is the universe we have today. In conclusion, "[I]n the inflationary scenario, the mass-energy of matter was produced during that rapid initial inflation. The field responsible for inflation has negative pressure, allowing the universe to do work on itself as it expands. This is allowed by the first law of thermodynamics. "[6]RII. The Second Law of ThermodynamicsThe second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy in an isolated system can never decrease - in other words, order cannot come from disorder. My opponent, in trying to argue that the "ordered" universe could not have come from an explosion, essentially cites this law. However, not only is my opponent's idea flawed, his very assumptions are flawed. He assumes that the universe grew more organized as time has continued, but this are false. The entropy of the early universe has been shown to be very low – a lot lower than it is today. Take, for example, the CMBR; it is very ordered. Now compare this with what we see today- a universe filled with complicated, disorderly distributions of galaxies, stars and gas. Current universal entropy is enormous. Therefore, entropy has actually increased dramatically, not decreased. [3]But what about the supposed orderliness of the current universe and the order of, say, the solar system? "Calculations done assuming ten planets per star, 100 billion stars per galaxy and 100 billion galaxies (which is what current estimates suggest it is) show that the ordering of the planets produces changes in entropy of only one part in 10^11 of the total current entropy. " For those in math, that’s a ~0.00000000001% decrease in entropy over the course of every planet in the universe, which is basically nothing. Compare this with the vast increases in entropy of the course of the universe’s existence, and the planet’s alignment’s contribution to entropy is basically null. [4]Esssentially, ". .. if we consider the universe to be a sphere of radius R that is increasing, the maximum allowable entropy increases as the square of R, while the actual entropy of the universe increases less rapidly, only linearly with R. Thus even if the initial universe was at maximum entropy for its size, as the universe expands its entropy can increase while still being easily able to accommodate the increasing order we see. "[4]Most of my opponent's argument is based around the idea that order could not have come from explosion, which witnessed matter flying in all directions. However, I've already explained how stars are actually very choatic instead of orderly. But there is still the question of where stars came from, and we must look no further than the law of universal gravitation - at sufficiently large scales, gravity outweighs the other three forces. Stars and galaxies are the inherent result of a large collection of matter to agglomerate into a smaller space because of gravitational forces. The law of universal gravitiation forces systems, such as solar systems, to operate in an orderly manner (in order words, forces systems to act in a repeating manner). RIII. The "First Mover"My opponent's conclusion to his arguments argues for the necessity of a "first mover" to cause something. However, I will simply reply this: "The assumption that every event has a cause, although common in our experience, is not necessarily universal. The apparent lack of cause for some events, such as radioactive decay, suggests that there might be exceptions. There are also hypotheses, such as alternate dimensions of time or an eternally oscillating universe, that allow a universe without a first cause. Further, by definition, a cause comes before an event. If time began with the universe, "before" does not even apply to it, and it is logically impossible that the universe be caused. Finally, this claim raises the question of what caused God. If, as some claim, God does not need a cause, then by the same reasoning, neither does the universe. "[7]RIV. Misconceptions about the Big Bang TheoryI raised a probably very confusing point in my last argument - that time began with the Big Bang. It will be in this final argument that I explain that, and in addition, help to banish some misconcpetions my opponent has made about the Big Bang Theory. Many have argued that the universe arose out of a black hole, which is very reasonable to argue because of the nature of the singularity. Becuase of relativity, time does not move inside a black hole, and therefore, there was no time before the big bang. [8]There is one assumption my opponent makes - that the Big Bang Theory describes the origin of the universe; however, "That the universe is expanding and cooling is the essence of the big bang theory. You will notice I have said nothing about an 'explosion' - the big bang theory describes how our universe is evolving, not how it began. " In other words, it could be argued that most of my opponent's argument is irrelevant to the resolution, but it still needs to be addressed after the big bang itself. [3][9]Sources[1]: . http://curious.astro.cornell.edu... [2]: . http://machineslikeus.com... [3]: . http://www.talkorigins.org... [4]: . http://machineslikeus.com... [5]: Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time. [6]: Stenger, Victor. Has Science Found God? [7]: . http://www.talkorigins.org... [8]: . http://www.nature.com...[9]: . http://www.sciam.com...