The idea of an antigravitational force goes back to Einstein. In the 1920s, Einstein was working on the assumption that the universe was static. But his equations would not allow a universe to exist in a static state. The attractive force of gravity would cause all the matter in the universe to contract. To balance this attractive force, Einstein added to his equations a “cosmological constant,” called λ (lambda), to balance the force of gravity. When cosmologists accepted an expanding universe, they lost interest in the idea of a cosmological constant tied to equations describing a static universe. But now it turns out that the expanding universe model itself appears to require λ. What exactly does λ measure? It does not measure the force of any kind of light or dark matter. Cosmologists have been reduced to proposing that λ “measures the energy content of empty space” (Rees 2000, p. 154). The current measured value of λ appears to be quite special. “A higher-valued λ would have overwhelmed gravity earlier on, during the higher-density stages,” stated Rees (2000, p. 99). “If λ started to dominate before galaxies had condensed out from the expanding universe, or if it provided a repulsion strong enough to disrupt them, then there would be no galaxies. Our existence requires that λ should not have been too large.”
Q
According to the Big Bang cosmology, our universe started out as a small dense globular mass of extremely hot gas. As it expanded, it became cooler. If the globe of gas had been perfectly smooth, then as the expansion continued the atoms of gas would have distributed themselves evenly in space. In order for matter to have organized into structures like stars, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, there had to have been some variations in the smoothness of the original globular cloud of gas. Some regions had to have been slightly denser than others. In these slightly more dense regions, the atoms became attracted to each other by the force of gravity, eventually becoming stars and galaxies. Rees (2000, p. 106) explains the measure of this force: “The most conspicuous structures in the cosmos—stars, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies—are all held together by gravity. We can express how tightly they are bound together—or, equivalently, how much energy would be needed to break up and disperse them—as a proportion of their total ‘rest-mass energy’ (mc2). For the biggest structures in our universe—clusters and superclusters—the answer is about one part in a hundred thousand. This is a pure number—a ratio of two energies—and we call it Q.” In other words, it would not take very much energy to overcome the force of gravity holding galaxies and clusters of galaxies together.
Q is necessarily related to the original density variations in the fireball of the early stages of the Big Bang. If there were no density variations at all, then the matter in the universe would have expanded completely evenly, so that there would have been no clumping of matter in the more dense regions. So according to the present value of Q (one in a hundred thousand, i.e. 10-5), the initial variations in the energy of the Big Bang universe were no greater than one hundred thousandth of its radius. Scientists plan to confirm this with space satellites that can very accurately measure minute variations in the cosmic microwave background radiation, which scientists take to be the remnants of the original Big Bang fireball.
It turns out that Q’s present value (10-5) is just about the only one that allows for the kind of universe in which there can be stable stars and planets on which life as we know it could exist. What if Q were smaller than 10-5? Rees (2000, p. 115) said “the resulting galaxies would be anaemic structures, in which star formation would be slow, and inefficient, and ‘processed’ material would be blown out of the galaxy rather than being recycled into new stars that could form planetary systems.” If Q were still smaller (smaller than 10-6), then “gas would never condense into gravitationally bound structures at all, and such a universe would remain forever dark and featureless” (Rees 2000, p. 115). But what would happen if Q were much greater than 10-5? Rees (2000, p. 115) said in such a universe most matter would quickly collapse into huge black holes and any remaining stars “would be packed too close together and buffeted too frequently to retain stable planetary systems.” So although the current value of Q is critical for our existence, there is no particular reason why Q has that value. As Rees (2000, pp. 113–114) put it, “The way Q is determined . . . is still perplexing.”
I do not want to leave the impression that there are no problems with the general scenario of galaxy formation implicit in this discussion. Although scientists do believe that stars and galaxies form more or less automatically according to physical laws during the condensation of gas clouds in space, they have not been able to accurately model the process on computers. Rees (2000, p. 110) noted that “nobody has yet performed a simulation that starts with a single cloud and ends up with a population of stars.” In other words, the evidence for the fine tuning of constants combined with the inability of scientists to accurately model the process of star and galaxy formation may lead us to the conclusion that more is required than matter acting according to certain laws. The overall active intervention of a supreme being may also be required. In other words, God is not necessary just to fill in the gaps, but as an overall enabling and coordinating factor.
D: the number of Dimensions
The number of spatial dimensions, D, determines important features of our universe. For our universe D is three. If D were two or four
482 Human Devolution: a vedic alternative to Darwin’s theory
or some other number, life as we know it could not exist.
In our universe gravity and electricity obey the inverse square law. If you move an object twice as far away from you as it is now, the force of its gravity upon you will be only one quarter of what it was. Four is the square of two (1/2 × 1/2), and one quarter is the inverse square of two (2 × 2). If the object is moved four times as far away, its gravitational force
becomes one sixteenth of what it was, one sixteenth being the inverse square of four.
In a four dimensional world, gravity would follow an inverse cube law instead of an inverse square law. This would have a devastating effect, according to Rees (2000, p. 135): “An orbiting planet that was slowed down—even slightly—would then plunge ever-faster into the Sun, rather than merely shift into a slightly smaller orbit, because an inverse-cube force strengthens so steeply towards the center; conversely, an orbiting planet that was slightly speeded up would quickly spiral outwards into darkness.” Only an inverse square law of gravity allows for stable orbits of planets. The same is true for orbits of electrons. If gravity and electromagnetism operated according to anything other than an inverse square law, there would be no stable atoms (Rees 2000, p. 136; Barrow and Tipler 1996, pp. 265–266).
If there were only two dimensions, it would be difficult for a functioning brain to exist. Barrow and Tipler (1996, p. 266), citing the work of Whitrow (1959), said, “He argues that if the spatial structure were of dimension two or less then nerve cells (or their analogues) would have to intersect when superimposed and a severe limitation on informationprocessing of any complexity would result.”