Singularity
Singularity is an event that due to its nature is assumed to only happened once[1] and that has no natural explanation. Most frequently the term is used in connection with origin of universe. When scientific principles were first being developed into the scientific method, scientists like Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, and William Kelvin distinguished between primary and secondary (natural) causes. A primary cause was a first cause to explain singularities.[2] Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica argued that when it comes to causes, it is not possible to go to infinity (either there is a first cause or there is no cause at all) and he referred to the first cause as the ultimate cause. He identified it with God, because at least in one respect, a first cause exhibits an important property of the divine: It is uncaused. According to David Berlinski this is a weak (Aquinas's conclusion might not be definitively confirmed as true or false) but not absurd argument that is frequently met with inept objections.[3] Berlinski also argues that the concept of singularity belongs essentially to mathematics and singularities are not experimentally accessible objects that could be weighted, measured, assessed, replicated, balanced, or seen by any modality of the senses.[4]
When contemporary physicists refer to a singularity they are generally referring to an event or situation in which one or more physical quantities (like temperature or density) approach infinite value[5] as another parameter goes to zero. There is however a problem how to interpret in the realms of physics such terms as an infinite temperature, infinite mass, infinite energy or infinite force. That's why many naturalistic physicists assume that there is some new set of physical laws or some new way of looking at the problem needed to make the apparent singularity go away.[6]
The big bang singularity
The big bang singularity refers to a conjectured state at the beginning of universe in which material particles were at no distance from one another and the temperature, density, and curvature of the universe were infinite. The inference to this state is based on the evidence that the universe is expanding and thus it has established a clear path into the past. If expanding things (the large scale structure of the universe) are now far apart, they must at one point have been close together. At the singularity itself, a great many physical parameters zoom to infinity. This posts however a great problem for attempts for naturalistic explanations of the beginning of the universe since as the astronomer Joseph Silk observed, an indefinitely dense universe is where the laws of physics, and even space and time, break down.[3] He further asserts that a state of infinite density is completely unacceptable as a physical description of the universe.[4]
Naked singularity
The naked singularity is referred to as "a troublesome sibling" of the black hole, which is then considered one of the strangest ideas the modern science ever introduced. Both terms pertain to fate of a massive star that reached the end of its life. Naturalistic scientists believe large star eventually collapses to a black hole or suggest it might instead become a so-called naked singularity. Sorting out what actually happens is declared one of the most important unresolved problems in astrophysics. The speculations about undiscovered naked singularities are part of the quest for a unified theory of physics and they do not provide any direct observational tests of such a theory.[7]
References
- ↑ John C. Lennox. God's undertaker. Has science buried God?, 204. ISBN 978-0-7459-5371-7. “Apart from the obvious fact that no one observed [the origin of the universe], scientist of the Big Bang as a singularity in the past, an unrepeatable event...”
- ↑ Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks (1990). "10. Questions about Science and Evolution", When Skeptics Ask. Victor Books, Baker Books, 213-215. ISBN 978-0-8010-7164-5. Retrieved on 25.1.2012.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 David Berlinski. "The Cause", The Devil’s Delusion. Basic Books, New York, 2009, 74, 79-82. ISBN 978-0-465-01937-3.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 David Berlinski (2009). "Was there a Big Bang?", The deniable Darwin. Seattle, USA: Discovery Institute Press, 226-228. ISBN 978-0-9790141-2-3.
- ↑ Edgar Anrews (2010). Who made God? Searching for a theory of everything.. Carlisle, PA, USA: EP Books, 93, 101, 121. ISBN 978-0-85234-707-2.
- ↑ What is singularity and why do all laws of physics break down at singularity?. PhysLink.com.}
- ↑ Pankaj S. Joshi (January 21, 2009). Do Naked Singularities Break the Rules of Physics?. Scientific American Magazine (February 2009). “A black hole has two parts. At its core is a singularity, the infinitesimal point into which all the matter of the star gets crushed. Surrounding the singularity is the region of space from which escape is impossible, the perimeter of which is called the event horizon. Once something enters the event horizon, it loses all hope of exiting. Whatever light the falling body gives off is trapped, too, so an outside observer never sees it again. It ultimately crashes into the singularity. Conventional wisdom has it that a large star eventually collapses to a black hole, but some theoretical models suggest it might instead become a so-called naked singularity. Sorting out what happens is one of the most important unresolved problems in astrophysics.The discovery of naked singularities would transform the search for a unified theory of physics, not least by providing direct observational tests of such a theory.”
