09/19/2024
Question of the Week: Does the universe really need a Creator? I've heard that a quantum fluctuation could have created the universe. Could it?
My Answer: Physicists have shown that quantum spacetime fluctuations can produce virtual particles. Counter to what was claimed by theoretical physicist Lawrence Kraus in his book, A Universe from Nothing, quantum spacetime fluctuations are not nothing. Both quantum spacetime fluctuations and virtual particles are real physical entities. However, the virtual particles produced by quantum spacetime fluctuations are called virtual particles because very rapidly, in less than a trillionth of a second, they revert back into quantum spacetime fluctuations. The more massive these particles, the faster they revert into quantum spacetime fluctuations. For something as massive as the observable universe the reversion time is less than 10^-120 seconds. Astronomers’ measurements and even the lifetime of a bacterium show that the universe is very, very much older than 10^-120 seconds! Furthermore, quantum spacetime fluctuations require the existence of space and time. The spacetime theorems prove that space and time are created entities. They had a beginning that coincides with the beginning of the universe. Therefore, the spacetime theorems establish that a Causal Agent beyond space and time created the universe. For much more thorough answers see my book, The Creator and the Cosmos, 4th edition. Anyone can get a free chapter at reasons.org/ross
