Formation Of The Universe & Earth

Formation Of The Universe & Earth

The formation of the Universe and the Earth has been a topic of philosophical discussion ever since the dawn of humanity. Was it the Earth that had come first or was it the universe? From the likes of the Greeks, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and Anaximenes of Miletus. According to their respectful times have believed the Earth to be at the centre of the entire universe.  “Does the Earth have pillars?” “Is it flat?” “ Is our galaxy the only one in existence? 

To the modern-day scientific questions such as “Could there potentially be life outside our planets?” “When exactly will the Universe come to an end?”   In Christianity, the process of the universe coming into existence is described in a 7 day span which had occurred within a 24-hour solar system cycle. In ancient times before practical telescopes, the process was believable by many. The flaws have come to into perspective of many individuals who are analyzing the scriptural text. 

In the next few posts, quotes will be extracted from the Biblical literature and will be compared to the discoveries of modern-day science. However, in this post. We will discover more in regards to our universe. 

The word universe derives from the Old French word univers, which in turn derives from the Latin word universum. The Latin word was used by Cicero and later Latin authors in many of the same senses as the modern English word is used. The Universe is composed almost completely of dark energy, dark matter, and ordinary matter. Other contents are electromagnetic radiation (estimated to be from 0.005% to close to 0.01%) and antimatter. The total amount of electromagnetic radiation generated within the universe has decreased by 1/2 in the past 2 billion years.  Over the centuries, more precise astronomical observations led Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) to develop the heliocentric model with the Sun at the center of the Solar System. In developing the law of universal gravitation, Sir Isaac Newton (NS: 1643–1727) built upon Copernicus's work as well as observations by Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) and Johannes Kepler's (1571–1630) laws of planetary motion. Further observational improvements led to the realization that our Solar System is located in the Milky Way galaxy and is one of many solar systems and galaxies. It is assumed that galaxies are distributed uniformly and the same in all directions, meaning that the Universe has neither an edge nor a center. Discoveries in the early 20th century have suggested that the Universe had a beginning and that it is expanding at an increasing rate. The majority of mass in the Universe appears to exist in an unknown form called dark matter. The Universe can be defined as everything that exists, everything that has existed, and everything that will exist. According to our current understanding, the Universe consists of space-time, forms of energy (including electromagnetic radiation and matter), and the physical laws that relate them. The Universe encompasses all of life, all of history, and some philosophers and scientists suggest that it even encompasses ideas such as mathematics and logic.

The space-time of the Universe is usually interpreted from a Euclidean perspective, with space as consisting of three dimensions, and time as consisting of one dimension, the "fourth dimension". By combining space and time into a single manifold called Minkowski space, physicists have simplified a large number of physical theories, as well as described in a more uniform way the workings of the Universe at both the super-galactic and subatomic levels.

General relativity describes how space-time is curved and bent by mass and energy. The topology or geometry of the Universe includes both local geometry in the observable universe and global geometry. Cosmologists often work with a given space-like slice of space-time called the comoving coordinates. The section of space-time which can be observed is the backward light cone, which delimits the cosmological horizon. The cosmological horizon (also called the particle horizon or the light horizon) is the maximum distance from which particles can have traveled to the observer in the age of the Universe. This horizon represents the boundary between the observable and the unobservable regions of the Universe. The existence, properties, and significance of a cosmological horizon depend on the particular cosmological model.

An important parameter determining the future evolution of the Universe theory is the density parameter, Omega (Ω), defined as the average matter density of the universe divided by a critical value of that density. This selects one of three possible geometries depending on whether Ω is equal to, less than, or greater than 1. These are called, respectively, the flat, open and closed universes.

Observations, including the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), and Planck maps of the CMB, suggest that the Universe is infinite in extent with a finite age, as described by the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) models.  These FLRW models thus support inflationary models and the standard model of cosmology, describing a flat, homogeneous universe presently dominated by dark matter and dark energy.

The size of the Universe is somewhat difficult to define. According to a restrictive definition, the Universe is everything within our connected space-time that could have a chance to interact with us and vice versa. According to the general theory of relativity, some regions of space may never interact with ours even in the lifetime of the Universe due to the finite speed of light and the ongoing expansion of space. For example, radio messages sent from Earth may never reach some regions of space, even if the Universe were to exist forever: space may expand faster than light can traverse it.  

Distant regions of space are assumed to exist and to be part of reality as much as we are, even though we can never interact with them. The spatial region that we can affect and be affected by is the observable universe. The observable universe depends on the location of the observer. By traveling, an observer can come into contact with a greater region of space-time than an observer who remains still. Nevertheless, even the most rapid traveler will not be able to interact with all of space. Typically, the observable universe is taken to mean the portion of the Universe that is observable from our vantage point in the Milky Way.

Now to The Bible. 

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And it was so. God made two great lights--the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.

(Genesis 1:1-16)

In brief: 

Day 1: Sky, Earth, light.
Day 2: Water, both in ocean basins and above the sky.
Day 3: Plants and Vegetation
Day 4: Celestial Bodies (Sun, Moon & stars.)
Day 5: Fish, birds, land animals, reptiles.
Day 6: Humans.
Day 7: Vacation.

Please visit the succeeding posts for the progress of formation.