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Chapter 2, Our Designer Universe Fine-Tuned for Life
Since I cannot anticipate the degree of knowledge each reader has about the sciences of astronomy and cosmology, I must now give a description of the workings of the universe we have appeared in. This will not be a complicated analysis, because I am not an expert in either discipline, but I have been an avid reader of the books they have produced for the lay person. This description must be understood first in order for the reader to follow my reasoning for presenting this chapter with the title it has. Although the physical laws that underlie the mechanics of the universe are not fully understood, an amazingly accurate set of theories have been discovered in the 20th Century, have been confirmed by experimentation, and is called The Standard Model, in cosmology the basic Big Bang Theory, and in quantum mechanics, the theories of the four forces. (The Whole Shebang, Timothy Ferris, 1997)
According to the Model, the universe began approximately 15 billion years ago in a massive explosion from a singularity, a mathematical concept of a point of infinite curvature of space with infinite density, infinite temperature, and infinite pressure, where the equations of general relativity break down. Both space and time were created at this instant. Let me repeat that: both space and time were created. The cosmologists claim they can take their theories back to an instant equal to 10-43 of the first second of time, the point at which the equations break down. That is a fraction of a second with a one placed over 10 followed by 42 zeros! The early universe then “inflated” at a rate of 1050 (10 followed by 49 zeros) faster than the current expansion rate, resuming the present rate at a time indicated by the fraction 10-30 of the first second. The universe has continued expanding at this slower rate ever since. All of that activity in such minute fractions of the first second is estimated from formulas developed by theoretical mathematicians based on astronomical observations and the characteristics of high-energy particles. (Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Timothy Ferris, 1988)