The Universe– A Story, A Science and a Philosophical View By Riya

Inspired by my Guide V.A who constantly guides and motivates me to pursue what I love and to never give up in searching and learning new frontiers

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It is the time of quarantine, where we are unable to work or perform our usual duties, that I start to think about humans as we are today, what is our existence about?  Why do we believe ourselves to be an important race compared to other living beings. To understand our existence we need to go back billions of years ago to understand the Earth, Solar System, and the vast Universe.

My observations revolve mainly on the main topics and people in history that made revolutionary changes in the area of Philosophy and Science.

The entire Science revolving around the existence of the Universe, Earth or Evolution will cross paths with the same topics of Theology, Science and Philosophy and without a doubt History. Modern Scientist scrap religion from the equation of Science as religion is more of a Philosophical view of how they view the world.

But in my opinion, Ancient Philosophers curiosity ignited the very image of God due the immense need to understand the meaning of our existence.

From Plato to Aristotle to the Ancient Egyptians. Every theory holds an important part in our quest to understand the very meaning of our existence and meaning of life.

Approximately 13.7 billion years ago the Universe emerged from a single bang known as the “Big Bang”  with more than  millions of galaxies among them the  milky way where sits our Earth among 8 other  planets in our solar system with an approximate age of 4.5 billion years old.

My question is how can theUniverse exist from nothing. Was the space an empty piece of nothing? Or was our Universe created from the clash of another universe? Did the destruction of another Universe actually create our Universe? And therefore will the destruction of our Universe create a new Universe billions of years from now?

When compared to human life and birth cycle we are merely a tiny existence in this immaculate space of time. The earth itself went through many phases in 4.5 billion years, among which include the ice age, Jurassic Age and currently what we have evolved into now.  The Earth was merely created by dust and stone 5 billion years ago upon evolution it is what it is today, with various species co-existing on this planet.

Aristotle described the Universe as a potentially infinite space. He reserved the status of actual infinite to the Prime mover or God. This is a first cause argument for the very existence of God. Who is God, Where is God and Who created the Universe. If Scientist were able to  understand what matter and form are they still have no answer as to why matter and form exist.

Which then come the next question, where does the world start and end? if there is a corner where are the corners? If there is no corner what is infinity?

Aristotle and Ptolomey’s idea is that which passed into the Christian era with their cosmic view that earth is in the centre and that the sun and planets orbited around the Earth. This was called a Geocentric model of the Universe.

In 1543, Nicholas Corpenicus  then said that the Earth orbits the sun, a theory based only in theory  but did not have the tools to prove, until 50 years later when Galilea used his telescope to prove the Corpenicus theory to be true. This was called the heliocentric model. His Heliocentric claim was not entirely accepted by the Church.

50 years later, in the year 1609 Galileo Galilae ( 1564- 1642) used the first astronomical telescope to proof  that the universe was much larger than they thought it was.

In 1610, Galilae published Sidereus Nuncious where he provided a description of his telescopic work. I attach the excerpt herewith as I cannot summarise his beautiful explanation in a more clearer  expression.

Below is an excerpt :

“ THE ASTRONOMICAL MESSENGER

Containing and setting forth Observations lately made with the

aid of a newly invented Telescope respecting the Moon’s

Surface, the Milky Way, Nebulous Stars, an

innumerable multitude of Fixed Stars, and

also respecting Four Planets never before

seen, which have been named

THE COSMIAN STARS.³

…After such an instrument has been prepared…Method of measuring small angular distances between heavenly bodies by the size of the aperture of the telescope… distances remains for inquiry, and this we shall accomplish by the following contrivance:—”

Galilea thereafter was persecuted by the Church for heresy as it was unacceptable to proof otherwise than what the bible stated regarding the Earth being the centre and the Sun and everything else orbiting around the Earth.

Below is what Galileo wrote in a letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany in 1615 regarding his predicament:

“…Persisting in their original resolve to destroy me and everything mine by any means they can think of, these men are aware of my views in astronomy and philosophy. They know that as to the arrangement of the parts of the universe, I hold the sun to be situated motionless in the center of the revolution of the celestial orbs while the earth revolves about the sun. They know also that I support this position not only by refuting the arguments of Ptolemy and Aristotle, but by producing many counter-arguments; in particular, some which relate to physical effects whose causes can perhaps be assigned in no other way. In addition there are astronomical arguments derived from many things in my new celestial discoveries that plainly confute the Ptolemaic system while admirably agreeing with and confirming the contrary hypothesis. Possibly because they are disturbed by the known truth of other propositions of mine which differ from those commonly held, and therefore mistrusting their defense so long as they confine themselves to the field of philosophy, these men have resolved to fabricate a shield for their fallacies out of the mantle of pretended religion and the authority of the Bible. These they apply with little judgement to the refutation of arguments that they do not understand and have not even listened to….”

Since his propositions were contrary to the bible he was damned as being heretical and in his later life was life imprisoned in his own home due to his old age, he was under house arrest until his death. At a time where religion was the core importance of society, revolutionary scientific ideas were not accepted as truth.

In 1687, Sir Isac Newton (1642-1727) with his theory of Gravity extensively explained in his book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, where he laid down the law of motion and the inverse square rule. He pointed out the three main laws on motion and gravity.

Law 1 – Everybody perseveres in its state of rest or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon. (Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica)

This means that every object is stagnant unless a force compels them to move. With reference to the Universe all planets stay stationary unless a force compels them to shift otherwise.

Law 2- The Alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed. (Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica)

This means that acceleration is directly proportional to force and inversely proportional to the mass of the object.

Hence, the acceleration of a planet in space will be proportional to the force exerted upon and inversely proportional to its weight, hypothetically if the weight of a planet  was 10kg and the force that was exerted upon it 5N then the rate of acceleration of the planet will be 5m/s2 based on the formula

F=m/a or f=m*a this is the calculation to determine the rate of acceleration of a planet

Law 3- To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction; or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts (Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica)

This explains that gravitational force is in direct proportion to the size of both masses and inversely proportionate to the distance between the two masses With relation to the gravitation force between the earth and the Sun depends on the weight of the two masses divided by the distance between them.

Thereafter,  Albert Eisntein’s Theory of Relativity was explained in detail in his book (Relativity- The Special and General Theory)

He believed that nothing travels faster than the speed of light. Black holes that exist in space are extremely dense objects from which no light can escape, is a prediction of general relativity. They represent the most extreme distortions of the fabric of space-time, and are famous for how their immense gravity affects light in weird ways that only Einstein’s theory could explain.

Albert Einstein’s Theory is that “When massive bodies accelerate or whip around each other, they literally disturb the fabric of space, causing it to ripple like a disturbance in a pond” when their dance of death ends it makes a larger black hole, in other words where time does not exist anymore.

I conclude in my findings that just like the Universe, time is also an obscure topic. If Galilea and Newton’s theory of time being constant has been believed to be true there is also another possibility that time may not be what we see it as it is today.

Unless and until every aspect of the Universe can be explained only then we can make a clear separation between Science, Theology and Philosophy. Until then every aspect of it is inter-related and there is no one element  without the other.