Posted: 02 September 2010 at 7:56am | IP Logged | 4
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There are two ways to look at this. (Well, there are a bajillion ways to look at it, but bear with me.)First, for a long time, proponents of the Big Bang have held that "nothing", ie the state (or more precisely non-state) of things before the Universe popped into being, is inherently unstable. Nothing "wants" to be something. So physical laws are not required per se in order for the Universe to happen, but when it does, they come into being at the same instant, and help foster that moment of spontaneous creation. One cannot exist without the other, and they are so tightly interwoven that to say the Universe comes into being is the same as saying the physical laws come into being, and vice versa. On the other hand, with M Theory (for "Membrane" or "Brane Theory"), which is my personal preference, our Universe is merely the latest (at least, from our perspective) in an infinite progression of such things, and as such physical laws do, indeed, predate our Universe. One of the elements that makes Brane Theory appealing is that it helps explain how this can be -- plus, it eliminates the need for "inflation", which is a rather clumsy way of getting the Universe to where it needs to be, AND the initial moment of "creation" in a "Brane" universe would read exactly the same as the Big Bang. Only difference, it happens everywhere at once, instead of everything spewing forth from a single incredibly dense point. In any case, Hawking's statement is nothing new, not even to him. He long ago caused ripples by saying that while God might not be dead, He was unnecessary.
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