MYFUNZONE: June 2011

Origin Of humans - UFO in history??

6:37 AM | Labels: Science facts and news

The True Origins of Human Beings - Can You Handle It?

Starting with the Sumerians, the first great culture 6,000 years ago that spawned the Bablylonians, Persians, and Assyrians, through ALL subsequent "Intelligent advanced civilizations" and "non-advanced" indigenous cultures including the American Indians of North America, Mayan and Inca empires of South America, Aborigines of Australia, ancient Chinese and Hindu text scriptures from the Far East, Egyptians, of the Middle East, Dogons of Africa, and the Greek and Roman Gods of "mythology", every culture accepted for a fact that heavenly beings (Or Gods) had created Man kind - homosapiens- (In their own likeness, no less). Some coincidence to be a "myth", huh? To read more about the above mentioned myths, and view petrographs/petroglyphs from around the globe,

This is an illustration depicting a sighting of a burning wheel in the year 900 over Japan.

This is an illustration depicting a sighting of a burning wheel in the year 900 over Japan.

Native American folklore, where legends of "Star Beings" can be harvested from the American Southwest to Tierra Del Fuego. In story-telling traditions dating back to antiquity, the gods once descended from heaven to impregnate barren females in remote villages. Mothers bearing these strange seeds would then nurture and raise the "Star Children" until the age of six or thereabouts, when the gods would return to reclaim their progeny, leaving villagers staring up into the infinite night. Every pre-christian culture has a similar tale.

The "Missing Link" has evaded science to date. The ultimate enigma in seeking the answer to mankind's most puzzling question: Who are we, and where did we come from? The orthodox explanation, largely derived from Charles Darwin is that humans evolved from apes by way of some intermediate species.

But evolution cannot account for the appearance of *Homo sapiens*, which happened virtually overnight instead of the millions of years evolution requires and with no evidence of earlier stages that would indicate a gradual change from *Homo erectus*. The hominid of the genus *Homo* is a product of evolution. But *Homo sapiens* is the product of some sudden evolutionary event. He appeared inexplicably some 300,000 years ago, millions of years too soon. The scholars have no explanation. But I do. The Sumerians and Babylonian texts do, the Old Testament does. *Homo sapiens*-- modern man-- was brought about by the ancient gods.

So Why Not Reveal The Truth? Could You Hande It?

This is an illustration of a sighting that occured in the french town of Angers in the year 842. I'm not sure when this illustration was done or who it was by however.

A peek into the mind of government relating to the UFO/ET phenomenon and the processes at work on the community of nations is best described by Dr. Pierre Guerin an astronomer associated with the French GEPAN (Study Group Into Unidentified Atmospheric Phenomenon). Dr. Guerin feels there is an intelligence behind the UFO phenomenon and it is not human. Governments of earth understand that this intelligence coexists on the planet with humanity. There is a very high possibility that this intelligence is responsible for the creation of humanity. The impact of this truth on the world community if it became widely known would undermine the ability of the nations of Earth to maintain geopolitical order.[27] Dr. Pierre Guerin's reflections if true, compromise humanities evolutionary and historical self-perception and undermines all major human institutions worldwide. Dr. Guerin's views give us insight to the common denominator that allowed a worldwide cover-up of the UFO phenomenon's reality to evolve and the reasons for the continued maintenance of this policy.

Former CIA official Victor Marchetti spelled out indirectly in 1979 everything the American people needed to know about the UFO phenomenon. His reflections are not far distanced from what Dr. Pierre Guerin described as the reason for the coverup. According to Marchetti, "We have, indeed, been contacted......and the U.S. government, in collusion with other national powers of the Earth, is determined to keep this information from the general public..."

"The purpose of the international conspiracy is to maintain a workable stability among the nations of the world and for them, in turn, to retain institutional control over their respective populations. Thus, for these governments to admit that there are beings from outerspace... with mentalities and technological capabilities obviously far superior to ours, could, once fully perceived by the average person, erode the foundations of the earth's traditional power structure. Political and legal systems, religions, economic and social institutions could all become meaningless in the mind of the public. The national oligarchical establishments, even civilization as we now know it, could collapse into anarchy... Such extreme conclusions are not necessarily valid, but they probably accurately reflect the fears of the 'ruling class' of the major nations, whose leaders (particularly those in the intelligence business) have always advocated excessive governmental secrecy as being necessary to preserve national security.

If beings from another world did visit our ancient ancestors, those offworld entities would have certainly been included in the legends of civilizations the world over and, sure enough, strange visitors are found in legends and religions from every corner of the earth be it Biblical angels or the warring sky people from ancient India. These "gods" had seemingly magical powers, unsurpassed wisdom and brought special gifts and experiences to those with which they came into contact.

This is a tapestry called Summer's triumph and was created in Bruges in 1538. It now resides at the Bayerisches
National Museum. You can clearly see several disc shaped objects in the top of the tapestry. Someone has
speculated that they are islands, if so, then these islands are floating in the sky!

This is a tapestry called Summer's triumph and was created in Bruges in 1538. It now resides at the Bayerisches
National Museum. You can clearly see several disc shaped objects in the top of the tapestry. Someone has
speculated that they are islands, if so, then these islands are floating in the sky!

What actually transpired was that the original Mesopotamian writings were recorded as history. This history was later rewritten to form a base for foreign religious cults--first Judaism and then Christianity. The corrupted dogma of the religions then became established as 'history' and because the contrived dogma (the new approved history) was so different from the original writings, the early first-hand records were labeled 'mythology.'

But that would mean challenging the very traditional Judeo-Christian-Muslim concept of "God"!!! No easy task, given the power, properties, money and 'god-spell attitude' presently existing on Planet Earth. Maybe the Buddhists, Hindus, American Indians, Tibetans, Mayan, Inca, Aztec and other theories of creation could also be added. An Intercultural Institute of Evolutionary Creationism - IIEC! Yeah, that's it!

This image is by flemish artist Aert De Gelder and is entitled The Baptism of Christ It was painted in 1710 and hangs in the Fitzwilliam Musuem, Cambridge. A disk shaped object is shining beams of light down on John the Baptist and Jesus.

This image is by flemish artist Aert De Gelder and is entitled The Baptism of Christ It was painted in 1710 and hangs in the Fitzwilliam Musuem, Cambridge. A disk shaped object is shining beams of light down on John the Baptist and Jesus.

All over the planet, you find the ancient legends and accounts of "gods" from another world who interbred with humanity to create a hybrid network of bloodlines. Many claim that they actually created humanity by splicing their genes with that of neanderthal to make you and I. Certainly would solve the "missing link" debate as the timeline is right on. The Old Testament, for example, talks about the "Sons of God" who interbred with the daughters of men to create the hybrid race, the Nefilim. Before it was translated into English, that passage read "the sons of the gods", plural. But the Bible accounts are only one of so many that describe the same theme.

The Sumerian clay tablets, found in what we now call Iraq in the middle of the 19th century, tell a similar story. It is estimated they were buried around 2,000 BC, but the stories they tell go back long before that. The tablets talk of a race of "gods" from another world who brought advanced knowledge to the planet and interbred with humans to create hybrid bloodlines. These "gods" are called in the tablets, the "Anunnaki", which apparently translates as "those who from heaven to earth came."

The ancient accounts tell us that these hybrid bloodlines, the fusion of the genes of selected humans with those of the "gods", were put into the positions of ruling royal power, especially in the ancient Near and Middle East, in advanced cultures like Sumer, Babylon, and Egypt. Now, 20 years ago, had I discussed this, it would have been immediately perceived as nutty. But now that we've mapped the human gnome, we actually have the same technology that could perform the exact same scenario. We can now fuse genes and make countless new species, and make clones of anything with a DNA strand. Doesn't seem so far fetched anymore, would you not agree?TaDa! Missing link explained! And no donation required! :)

Could the Ancients Fly?

The first picture shows a fresco entitled The Crucifixion and was painted in 1350. Two objects with figures inside can be seen in the top left and top right of the fresco. Two enlargements of these objects are shown above. The fresco is located above the altar at the Visoki Decani Monestary in Kosovo, Yugoslavia

Throughout history there have been many common myths and legends of flying machines or devices, the familiar flying carpets of ancient Arabia; Bi-lical figures such as Ezekiel and Solomon flying from place to place and the magical chariots, or Vimanas, of ancient India and China.

There are many Chinese legends of flight, including a legendary flying chariot belonging to an ancient Chinese prince and the more recent Wan Hoo--of the 15th century A.D. or so. He allegedly built a sturdy wooden framework around a comfortable chair and attached 47 skyrockets to the back of the seat. Atop it he fastened two large kites. After strapping himself to the chair, he raised his hand and servants carrying blazing torches advanced toward the vehicle and ignited the skyrockets. A moment later there was a mighty blast, followed by an impressive cloud of black smoke. Wan Hoo vanished, leaving nothing behind but a legend.

Among the more famous ancient texts that mention aerial cars (Vimanas) are the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Other lesser known texts include the Samarangana Sutra-dhara, the Yuktikalpataru of Bhoja ( 12th century A.D.) the Mayamatam (attributed to the architect Maya celebrated in the Mahabharata), the Rig Veda, the Yajurveda and the Ataharvaveda.

1660 - The illustration depicts a sighting by two Dutch ships in the North Sea of an object moving slowly in the sky. It appeared to be made by two disks of different size. The source for this account is one of the books entitled :Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Admiral Blaeu. These books were compilations of articles by different
authors and consisted of detailed accounts of long engagements at sea, cartography information etc.

According to the Indian historian Ramachandra Dikshitar who wrote the still classic text on ancient Indian warfare, other texts which mention aerial vehicles and travels are the Satapathya Brahmanas; the Rig Veda Samhita; the Harivamsa; the Makandeya Purana; the Visnu Purana; the Vikramaurvasiya; the Uttararamacarita; the Harsacarita; the Tamil text Jivakocintamani; and the Samaranganasutradhara. In the Manusa, the most elaborate details for building aerial machines are set down. The Samarangana Sutradhara says that they were made of light mterial, with a strong, well-shaped body. Iron, copper, mercury and lead were used in their construction. They could fly to great distances and were propelled through air by motors.

The Samarangana Sutradhara text devotes 230 stanzas to the building of these machines, and their uses in peace and war: Strong and durable must the body be made, like a great flying bird, of light material. Inside it one must place the Mercury-engine with its iron heating apparatus beneath. By means of the power latent in the mercury which sets the driving whirlwind in motion, a man sitting inside may travel a great distance in the sky in a most marvelous manner.

This strange suited figure was found in Kiev and its dated to around 4,000 BC.

This strange suited figure was found in Kiev and its dated to around 4,000 BC.

Similarly by using the prescribed processes one can build a vimana as large as the temple of the G-d-in-motion. Four strong mercury containers must be built into the interior structure. When these have been heated by controlled fire from iron containers, the vimana develops thunder-power through the mercury. And at once it becomes a pearl in the sky.

Moreover, if this iron engine with properly welded joints be filled with mercury, and the fire be conducted to the upper part it develops power with the roar of a lion. The Ramayana describes a vimana as a double-deck, circular (cylindrical) aircraft with portholes and a dome. It flew with the speed of the wind and gave forth a melodious sound (a humming noise?). Ancient Indian texts on Vimanas are so numerous it would take several books to relate what they have to say. The ancient Indians themselves wrote entire flight manuals on the control of various types of Vimanas, of which there were basically four: the Shakuna Vimana, the Sundara Vimana, the Rukma Vimana and the Tripura Vimana.

These images of two crusaders date from a 12th century manuscript Annales Laurissenses (volumes/books about historical and religion events)and refer to a UFO sighting in the year 776, during the siege on Sigiburg castle, France. The Saxons besieged and surrounded the French people. They both were fighting when
suddenly a group of discs (flaming shields) appeared hovering over the top of the church. It appeared to the
Saxons that the French were protected by these objects and the Saxons fled

The Vaimanika Sastra is perhaps the most important ancient text on Vimanas known to exist. It was first reported to have been found in 1918 in the Baroda Royal Sanskrit Library. Baroda is located north of Bombay and south of Ahmedabad in Gujerat. No earlier copies have been reported, however, Swami Dayananda Saraswati in his comprehensive treatise on the Rig Veda dated 1875 references the Vaimanaik Sastra in his commentary, as well as other manuscripts on Vimanas.

The Vaimanika Sastra refers to 97 past works and authorities, of which at least 20 works deal with the mechanism of aerial Flying Machines, but none of these works are now traceable. Says Sanskrit literature professor Dileep Kumar Kanjilal, Ph.D. of the West Bengal Senior Educational Service, Since the transcripts of the work date from early 20th century the authenticity of the Vail Sastra may be pertinently questioned. On careful analysis it has been found that the work retained some antique features pertaining to an old Sastra. Like the Sutras of Panini the rules have been laid down in an aphoristic style with the explanation couched in Vrittis and Karikas.

The Sutra style is to be found in the earliest works on grammar, Smrti and Philosophy, while the use of Karikas is as old as Batsyayana, Kautilya and others of the early Ch-istian era. Bharadwaja as the author of a Srauta Satra and Smrti work is well-known and a sage Bharadwaja as the seer of the 6th Mandala of the Rig Veda is also well-known. Panini also referred to him in VII. II.63. Kautilya had also shown that Bharadwaja was an ancient author on politics. The Mbh. (Mahabharata, Santiparva Ch. 58.3) refers to Bharadwaja as an author on politics. Authors on politics have very often been found to have written on the technical sciences also. The genuineness, therefore, of any treatise on technical sciences composed by Bharadwaja cannot be ignored.

Says the Vaimanika Sastra about itself: In this book are described in 8 pregnant and captivating chapters, the arts of manufacturing various types of Aeroplanes of smooth and comfortable travel in the sky, as a unifying force for the Universe, contributive to the well-being of mankind.

This is an illustration from a book Ume No Chiri (Dust of Apricot) published in 1803. A foreign ship and crew witnessed at Haratonohama (Haratono Seashore) in Hitachi no Kuni (Ibaragi Prefecture), Japan this strange object. According to the explanation in the drawing, the outershell was made of iron and glass, and strange letters shown in this drawing were seen inside the ship.

This is an illustration from a book Ume No Chiri (Dust of Apricot) published in 1803. A foreign ship and crew witnessed at Haratonohama (Haratono Seashore) in Hitachi no Kuni (Ibaragi Prefecture), Japan this strange object. According to the explanation in the drawing, the outershell was made of iron and glass, and strange letters shown in this drawing were seen inside the ship.

That which can go by its own force, like a bird, on earth, or water, or air, is called Vimana.' That which can travel in the sky, from place to place, land to land, or globe to globe, is called Vimana by scientists in Aeronautics. The ancient manuscript claims to give:

The secret of constructing aeroplanes, which will not break, which cannot be cut, will not catch fire, and cannot be destroyed.

The secret of making planes motionless.

The secret of making planes invisible.

The secret of hearing conversations and other sounds in enemy planes.

The secret of receiving photographs of the interior of enemy planes.

The secret of ascertaining the direction of enemy planes approach.

The secret of making persons in enemy planes lose consciousness.

The secret of destroying enemy planes.

The India of 15,000 years ago is sometimes known as the Rama Empire, a land that was contemporary with Atlantis. A huge wealth of texts still extant in India testify to the extremely advanced civilization that is said by these texts to go back over 26,000 years. Terrible w-rs and subsequent earth changes destroyed these civilizations, leaving only isolated pockets of civilization.

The devastating wa-s of the Ramayana and particularly of the Mahabharata are said to have been the culmination of the terrible -ars of the last Kali Yuga. The dating process is difficult, in that there is no exact way to date the yugas because there are cycles within cycles and yugas within yugas. A greater yuga cycle is said to last 6000 years while a smaller yuga cycle is only 360 years in the theory expounded by Dr. Kunwarlal Jain Vyas. His papers said that Rama belongs to the twenty-fourth small yuga cycle and that there is an interval of 71 cycles between Manu and Mahabharata period, which comes out to be 26,000 years.

Painting is by Carlo Crivelli (1430-1495) and is called The Annunciation (1486) and hangs in the National Gallery, London. A disk shaped object is shining a pencil beam of light down onto the crown of Mary's
head. A Blow up of the object is next to the painting.

The legacy of Atlantis, the ancient Rama Empire and Vimanas reaches us up to today. The mysterious airship wave of the 1890s may well have been a sighting of ancient craft, still in working order, meandering slowly over the pre-flight world of late 19th century America.

In the late years of the last century, a number of unusual airship sightings were made which may well have been of Vimana craft. In 1873 at Bonham, Texas, workers in a cotton field suddenly saw a shiny, silver object that came streaking down from the sky at them. Terrified, they ran away, while the great silvery serpent, as some people described it, swung around and dived at them again. A team of horses ran away, the driver was thrown beneath the wheels of the wagon and ki-led. A few hours later that same day in Fort Riley, Kansas, a similar airship swooped down out of the skies at a cavalry parade and terrorized the horses to such an extent that the cavalry drill ended in a tumult.

The great Airship Flap of 1897 actually started in November, 1896 in San Francisco, California when hundreds of residents saw a large, elongated, dark object that used brilliant searchlights and moved against the wind, traveling northwest across Oakland. A few hours later reports came from other northern California cities; Santa Rosa, Chico, Sacramento and Red Bluff, all describing what appears to be the same airship, a cigar-shaped craft. It is quite possible that this craft was heading for Mount Shasta in northern California.

The airship moved very slowly and majestically, flying low at times, and at night, shining its powerful searchlight on the ground. It is worth noting here, as Jacques Vallee did in his book Dimensions, that the airship could do exactly as it cared to, because unlike today, it ran no risk of being pursued. There were no jet squadrons to be scrambled after the aerial intruder, nor anti-aircraft guns or surface to air missiles to shoot down this trespassing craft in the sky.

A question sometimes asked by Vimanas researchers is whether the ancient Indians and Atlanteans ever went to our moon or to Mars? If mankind had such craft in ancient times, would they have created bases on the moon and Mars just as we are planning to do today? If they had set up permanent bases, would they still be occupying them today?

Check back soon! We'll be adding data from many of our sites including amazing photo's of petroglyphs and petrographs from all over the planet that will certainly blow your mind.

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First Human -Search of Adam

6:31 AM | Labels: Science facts and news

A SEARCH FOR THE FIRST HUMAN

For many of us, the word "genetics" conjures vague thoughts of disease, the human genome, and genetic engineering.

Birth of Adam by Machael Angelo

Spencer Wells thought "genetics" and forged a unique career that combines his love for history with his passion for biology. A geneticist, adventurer, author, filmmaker, and historian—the man adds new dimension to the term multi-tasking—he is using the cutting-edge of technology to explore human history.

He has traveled the world, collecting blood samples from people of far-flung cultures: Aborigines in Australia, the Chukchi tundra dwellers of Siberia, farmers in the hills of Afghanistan, and nomads in the deserts of Africa. By studying the DNA of modern humans, he seeks to learn who we are, where we traveled to populate the world, and how closely we are all related.

"Each drop of blood is essentially a historical document," Wells said. "Our DNA tells the story of the journey of our species."

New DNA studies suggest that all humans descended from a single African ancestor who lived some 60,000 years ago. To uncover the paths that lead from him to every living human, the National Geographic Society launched the Genographic Project, headed by Spencer Wells. The quest for "Adam" is the subject of a new television documentary that airs on the National Geographic Channel in the U.S. this Sunday.

The project is a five-year endeavor undertaken as a partnership between IBM and National Geographic. It will combine population genetics and molecular biology to trace the migration of humans from the time we first left Africa, 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, to the places where we live today.

Ten research centers around the world have received funding from the Waitt Family Foundation to collect and analyze blood samples from indigenous populations (such as aboriginal groups), many in remote areas. The Genographic Project hopes to collect more than a hundred thousand DNA samples to create the largest gene bank in the world. Members of the public are also being invited to participate.

"Our DNA tells a fascinating story of the human journey: how we are all related and how our ancestors got to where we are today," Wells said. "This project will show us some of the routes early humans followed to populate the globe and paint a picture of the genetic tapestry that connects us all."

Tracing Human History

"As often happens in science," said Wells, "technology has opened up a field to new ways of answering old questions—often providing startling answers."

One of the old questions that intrigued Wells was the question of human origins. Whether early humans evolved in Africa or elsewhere, when they began outward migration, and where they went, are issues that have been argued among archaeologists, anthropologists, and evolutionary biologists for decades.

By analyzing genetic changes in the Y-chromosome of people in all regions of the world, Wells and colleagues concluded that all humans alive today are descended from a single African man.

"We're all effectively cousins, separated by 2,000 generations," he said.

In his book, The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey, Wells describes the exodus from Africa that began around 60,000 years ago, and the path we took to populate the world.

Following the southern coastline of Asia, the first early travelers crossed about 250 kilometers [155 miles] of sea, and colonized Australia by around 50,000 years ago. The Aborigines of Australia, Wells says, are the descendants of the first wave of migration out of Africa.

A second wave left Africa around 45,000 years ago and settled in the Middle East, with smaller groups going off to India, northern China, and southern China. As the glaciers of the Ice Age began to retreat around 40,000 years ago and temperatures warmed up, humans moved into Central Asia and multiplied quickly.

Small groups left Central Asia around 35,000 years ago for Europe. Around 20,000 years ago, another small group of Central Asians moved farther north, into Siberia and the Arctic Circle.

He and his colleagues' paper, published in the September 2003 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, added evidence to the debate on the peopling of the Americas. The earliest archaeological evidence of human habitation in North America dates to 11,500 radiocarbon years old. Artifacts at a site in Monte Verde, Chile, are in the 12,500-year-old range. However, there are scientists who believe there is some linguistic and archaeological evidence suggesting the possibility that people may have arrived as much as 30,000 years ago.

Mutations in the Y-chromosome of populations in North and South America put an upper limit on human arrival at somewhere between 18,000 to 15,000 years ago. "I would put the number at closer to 15,000," said Wells.

Legacy of Genghis Khan

In another study that looked at blood samples collected over a period of ten years from more than 40 populations living in and around the former Mongol empire of Genghis Khan, Wells and colleagues found that nearly 8 percent of the men living in the region carry nearly identical Y-chromosomes. That translates to roughly 16 million descendants living today.

Archaeological finds and texts describing the history and culture of the region provide some insight into how this one lineage could be so successful, said Wells.

Khan's empire at the time of his death extended across Asia. His military conquests frequently entailed the wholesale slaughter of the vanquished, wiping out many populations. Contemporary documents report that after a conquest, looting, pillaging, and rape were the spoils of war for all soldiers, but that Khan got first pick of the beautiful women. In addition, his male descendants were markedly prolific. They extended the empire and maintained power in the region for several hundred years, in a culture in which harems and concubines were the norm. Khan's eldest son is reported to have had 40 sons. His grandson, Kublai Khan, had 22 legitimate sons, and was said to add 30 virgins to his harem each year.

"This is a clear example that culture plays a very big role in patterns of genetic variation and diversity in human populations," said Wells.

Lost Empires

In addition to a general passion for history, Wells has an abiding interest in lost empires. One of his current projects involves trying to track down the Phoenicians, a civilization that extended from roughly 3000 B.C. to 332 B.C.

"There's remarkably little archaeological evidence of them, and yet they were the dominant culture of the time," said Wells. "Egyptian texts starting from about 1200 B.C. talk about marauding warriors arriving from the sea, yet we really have no idea who they were or where they came from and where they went."

The Phoenicians were a seafaring people who settled a number of independent city-states around the Mediterranean in modern-day countries Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Tunisia, Greece, and Spain. United by a common language, their alphabet became the prototype for the Greek and Roman alphabets; they were the first people to circumnavigate Africa, and may even have reached America.

But where did they come from and where did they go? For that we'll have to wait for the next installment of Spencer Wells' exploration.

Even if people were not created, but evolved, shouldn’t there be a First Human? Who was this person? And when did he/she appear?

Evolution of Human Race

It sounds like a natural question, right? My parents are human... and my grandparents are also human...

and my grandparents’ parents are human, too... But if we go back in time like this, when does the chain

of our ancestors end? If we were created, as for example the Bible says, then of course the chain ends at

our creation point. But suppose for a moment that we were not created at a point in time as the Bible tells

us, but evolved rather gradually, as science tells us — then what? The chain can’t go backwards forever,

because we know there were no human beings, for example, 1 million years ago. So? Doesn’t there have

to be a First Human even in the case of evolution, a pair perhaps — an “Adam” and an “Eve” — who

became the progenitors of our kind? Doesn’t the biblical story have to be true anyway?Some readers

who have read this other page of mine, on the origins of life, have contacted me asking the above question.

In that page I state that there was no first living being, and I try to explain why. Nonetheless, some readers

disagree, and argue for the creation of the First Human even under the assumption of evolution, as I just

explained in the previous paragraph. They see the conclusion as necessarily following by common sense

and pure logic. I would like to show in the present page how it can be logically possible that there was

no First Human. The reasoning is simple, but we need an analogy to make it easier to understand.

Let’s think about something related: the evolution of a language instead of the evolution of humans. Let’s

use a particular language as an example: the evolution of Greek, from the ancient, to the modern language.

(Don’t worry, you don’t need to know a single word of that language to understand this analogy,

guaranteed!

) I’ll tell you how Greek evolved from ancient to modern, without ever having a “first

modern Greek speaker”. What we’ll learn about Greek is true for every other language that evolved from

an older to a later stage (including English, for example), but I prefer Greek because I am more familiar

with the evolution facts of that language, and so I will not make false statements. But the point is that, not

only it doesn’t matter which language we use as example, but also the analogy carries over to what we are

interested at: just as there was no first speaker of a modern language, there was no First Human either. And

the analogy is true even in some of its details! Let’s see first what happened to speakers of Greek.

Add caption

Look at the figure above. Time runs from left to right. The green color is the time when speakers of Greek

were speaking the ancient language, and the blue color is for speakers of the modern language.

Underneath the colored band I drew a large number of very short vertical lines, each of which is supposed

to represent one individual. A single line is one person, and the line to its left is one of this person’s parents,

whereas the line to its right is one of this person’s children. There should be many more lines, actually, but

there is not enough horizontal space to make the drawing realistic. (Other things are not realistic either, such

as the lengths of the ancient and modern stages — but realism is not necessary here.)Now, let’s see what

we have. Each person’s “color” corresponds to the particular version of Greek that the person was speaking.

The difference between colors shows how different the versions were. For example, “very green” means

“typical ancient Greek”, and “very blue” means “typical modern Greek”. Somewhere in-between there is

a region where the language changes. The change is smooth, but also somewhat sudden, if we look at the

overall picture. Indeed, since around 300 BC, after Alexander’s death (that’s Alexander III the Great, king

of Macedon), until around a couple of centuries after Christ, the change was complete. The historical reasons

for the change do not concern us here. What concerns us is the color. Notice this property of the color:

Every parent has a color which is very similar to the color of his/her children. Indeed, from parent toChild,

the difference seems imperceptible. In language terms, every parent speaks almost the same language like

their children. There is some difference, but it is so imperceptible that neither the parent nor the child notice it.

(It could be a few words with a different meaning, some new syntactic structure that the child uses, some

imperceptible difference in pronouncing a vowel, and so on.) As a result, they can communicate with each

other perfectly: the parent understands perfectly the child, and the child understands perfectly the parent.

But now look what happens if we take an ancestor-descendant pair that do not have an immediate parent-child

relationship. How much they could understand each other (if they had lived at the same time) depends on

how much they differ in color; not on how distant they were in time. For example, we can take two ancient

people, both in the very green area on the left, but differing by several centuries from each other — let’s say

800 years. These two people would understand each other, if they could somehow miraculously be brought

together. But if we take a pair where the ancestor is from around 300 BC, and the descendant from around

200 AD (making a difference of 500 years), these two people would not be able to communicate (or, in reality,

the communication would be extremely limited).

Is there any point in time that we can single out and say, “There! That’s when the first speaker of modern

Greek appeared”? Of course not. There is a smooth change, not an abrupt appearance of the first modern

Greek speaker. But even though every parent can communicate with their children (and with their grandchildren,

clearly), still, the change within those centuries is such that the ancient speaker would not be able to communicate

with the modern one, if they could be brought together in time.

Exactly the same idea can be carried over to the notion of change from our ancestor species Homo erectus

(that corresponds to “ancient Greek”) to our own species, Homo sapiens (that corresponds to “modern Greek”).

Let’s take a look at the following figure.

Is anything different between this figure and the previous? Not really. Only the terms have been changed. And

the important points in our analogy are the following:

What was previously language, now corresponds to the DNA of an individual;

and the ability to communicate between two individuals corresponds to

the ability to mate and produce fertile children.

So, if we take any two individuals from among “our kind”, Homo sapiens, which is the clear red region, no matter

how distant in time, these two individuals would be able to produce fertile children after mating (assuming they were

a man and a woman), because their DNA’s would be sufficiently similar. The same thing would happen if we took

two individuals of our ancestor species, Homo erectus, from the clear magenta region in the figure. Again, the

DNA’s of these two individuals, no matter how distant in time, would be sufficiently similar to allow the birth of

fertile children. That’s why we say these two belong to the same species, H. erectus, and those two belong to

another species, H. sapiens. But if we take one “purple” and one “red” individual, their DNA’s would be different

enough to not allow fertile children to be born. It could be that the chances to succeed in having a healthy child

would be nearly zero (say, one in a million). Or, that sometimes children would be born, but those children would

be unable to have children of their own, so they would be sterile, “dead ends” as far as propagation of genes is

concerned.Nonetheless, the magenta region does not change sharply to red, but gradually. There is never any

“First Red” individual. If we take any two opposite-sex individuals that belong to succesive generations (but not

to the same family obviously, avoiding incest), these two individuals (one from the parent’s generation and the other

from the child’s generation) would be able to mate and produce fertile children. They would belong to the “same

kind”, even if they were taken from the transitional time of around 200,000 to 150,000 years ago, because their

DNA’s would be sufficiently close.

How do we know all this? How sure are scientists that the above is true? Have we ever examined the DNA of

a H. erectus, and compared it with the DNA of a modern human?

No, no one has retrieved DNA from fossil bones as old as those of H. erectus. The oldest DNA that has been

retrieved at the time this text was written (ca. 2005) is a few tens of thousand years old. But paleoanthropologist

s (scientists who study the origins of the human kind) examine fossils, and are experienced enough to tell with

some confidence when a skeleton should belong to one species, and when to another. In reality, we will be nearly

100% certain only when we obtain the DNA of a H. erectus individual, and this will take time, because the older

the fossil the more improbable it is that the DNA has been preserved somewhere. But it is not impossible to find

it, somewhere on this planet. Perhaps deep frozen under the vast unexplored ice sheets of Siberia (if H. erectus

ever reached there).

But suppose that we find such a DNA molecule, and after we compare it with a modern DNA molecule we realize

— to our surprise — that in fact the two DNA’s are similar enough to qualify as “same species”: the two individual

s would in principle be able to have fertile children after mating. Would this discovery demolish the explanation

presented in the previous paragraphs, about the nonexistence of a “First Human”?

Not at all. Such a discovery would simply push the species-distinction era further back in time. All right, so it would

not be what we call H. erectus the species of which we would have the honor to be the descendants. We would be

the same species with them, in that case. So? There would be another species, further back in time, that would have

sufficiently different DNA to disallow mating and production of offspring with “us”. But still the change between that

species and the erectus-sapiens species would be gradual-and-yet-abrupt, as the figure with the magenta and red

colors depicts it. And so, still there would be no “First Human”.

This notion of “gradual-and-yet-abrupt” change, by the way, is a hard one to grasp, because the words sound

self-contradictory: is it gradual, or is it abrupt? But I think the colored figures, above, depict in a nice way how the

change can be both gradual and abrupt, without any contradiction:

The change is gradual because between any two successive generations the difference (in DNA, in language structure) is minimal; so, successive generations can “communicate” (pass on their genes, mutually understand their ideas). Thus, the change is gradual when we take the magnifying glass and look at it from up close.
But the change is also abrupt when viewed at a larger scale: for a very long time, there is almost no change at all (same species, same language), which is called stasis in biology; but within a very short period of time (“short” relatively speaking), changes occur and accumulate “fast”, and we arrive at a different “kind” (another species, another language). The change is abrupt when we zoom out and look at the overall picture from afar, taking a bird-eye view.

Naturally, the previous discussion is true for any two species that have an immediate ancestor-descendant relationship; it is not confined to the human ancestry case.

Though not relevant to the “First Human” question, for the benefit of some readers who objected to the above, I feel I should also mention the following related issues.Some people feel uncomfortable when reading these things. One (unfortunately still common) reaction is: “But does that mean we evolved from the chimpanzees?”

No, the chimps aren’t our ancestors; but we share a common ancestor with the chimps. So, we are like “cousins” with them. But then, so what? We also share a common ancestor with the dogs and cats; and with horses; and with birds; and with fish; and with plants; and with bacteria; and with every living being on this planet. What’s the big deal with poor chimps?

In truth, there is something special between us and chimps. It is that of all living beings on Earth, chimps have a DNA structure which is most similar to ours. This is a hard fact, like “the Earth is round”; it cannot be disputed: you take the chimp-DNA molecule in the lab (an average of some living individuals), and the modern human DNA (again, an average), you compare them, and find some differences. If you do this with any other living being on Earth, you’ll find that the chimp DNA has the fewest differences from our DNA. That’s all that there is to it. And that’s why we look more similar to chimps than to rhinos.

And if you continue your DNA-explorations, you’ll find that the next-most-similar DNA to ours after the chimp (the two species of chimps, actually: the common and the bonobo), is the one of the gorilla. And after the gorilla follows the orangutan. And then the gibbon, the “lesser ape”. And then, more distant, are the DNA’s of monkeys and other primates. But still, all these DNA’s are closer to our DNA than, say, the elephant’s DNA.

All these are indisputable facts. And the theory of evolution explains these facts. It says, for example, that our common ancestor with the chimps lived more recently than our common ancestor with the gorilla. It is as if we are first cousins with the chimps, but second cousins with the gorillas (and third cousins with the orangutans, and so on). If some readers feel shame that we have such relatives, I would say, I feel more proud of being related to the peaceful bonobo chimps, rather than to some people such as Hitler and Pol Pot. What about you?

Opinions expressed by readers after reading this pageA reader from a discussion group wrote the following (in their forum, the full text can be found here):

Apparently this individual [i.e., I, the author of the present page] is not familiar with the logical fallacy of “false analogy”. He explains, he proves his argument by referring to an analogy. The only problem is that we can prove anything by using an analogy.
In this particular case, an individual can switch between a “old Greek” speaker to a “modern Greek speaker”, and switch back again at pleasure. The barrier between old Greek and modern Greek is easily penetrated. Actors can speak with many different accents and languages.
However, there is a barrier between living and non-living, between a cat and a dog, between a human being and some other creature. That barrier cannot be penetrated at will. I can move back and forth from green to blue, but I cannot move back and forth between human and non-human at will (except for science fiction, of course == “The Human Fly”, and other such nonsense.
He bases his argument, the foundation of his argument is an analogy which is fundamentally flawed.

The above reader’s view is wrong on a couple of counts:

1. I don’t attempt to “prove” anything with this analogy. Firstly, real proofs do not exist in any domain other than mathematics. Every use of the word “proof” elsewhere is sloppy. But setting sloppy language aside, and replacing “he proves” (in the first quoted paragraph, above) by “he brings evidence for”, even this idea is wrong: I don’t attempt to bring evidence for anything. An analogy does not bring evidence; it simply invites the mind to remove its blinders and expand its horizon by making a mapping between an unfamiliar idea or situation, and a hopefully more familiar one. An analogy is a thinking aid, not a proving tool.

2. The above reader’s main point is that mine is a “false analogy”, because there is a barrier (I adopt his terminology) between species (e.g., a cat cannot become a dog, and vice versa), whereas there is no such barrier between speakers of languages such as ancient and modern Greek. This idea is wrong for two reasons:

2a. It is not true that speakers can switch between languages such as ancient and modern Greek. I am talking about native speakers.⁽³⁾ Ancient Greek, as we all know, is a dead language, meaning that there is no native speaker of it alive today. A dead language cannot be revived: we cannot have native speakers of ancient Greek today, no matter which way we try. For to have a native speaker a community of other native speakers is required, and an individual must grow up in that community from a very early age. (There is a “window of opportunity”, well-known in developmental linguistics, available to every mentally normal child, that appears from birth to the early teenage years; a child who is not exposed to a given language during this window of opportunity cannot become a native speaker of that language.) Given that there is no community of speakers speaking ancient Greek, it follows that we cannot have a native speaker of ancient Greek in our times.

2b.Even if the above point (2a) were not true, i.e., even if there were really no barrier between ancient and modern Greek, one must have a sense of which features of an analogy are essential, and which are irrelevant. An analogy is not an isomorphism, forcing every detail to be identical between the two mapped structures. For example, the DNA is propagated by sexual reproduction (at least in the cases of species concerning us here), so a female and a male individual are required; but there is nothing analogous to sexual reproduction in language. On the other hand, a language has a mandatory spoken form and an optional written one, but there is nothing analogous to this in the DNA case. Also, language speakers can be bilinguals or even trilinguals, etc., i.e., native speakers of more than one language, if they grow up in suitable multi-language-speaking environments; but living beings cannot belong to more than one species. All these differences (as well as the purported one suggested by the reader) are irrelevant for the analogy, the essence of which is that just as one does not need to postulate a single initial speaker of a language, so one does not need to postulate a single (or a couple of, male and female) initial ancestor(s) of a species. (Again, this is not a “proof”, or evidence for anything; it is simply a suggestion that it is logically possible to not have a single individual, or couple, as the progenitor of an entire species.)

Other opinions, expressed either in public or in private (by email to me) will be answered here, if in my view they raise some interesting point. The privacy of the opinion holder is guaranteed upon request.

Footnotes (clicking on the number brings back to the text)

1. How do we know this? Because no fossil skeleton or single bone of our kind, Homo sapiens, has been found that is older than around 200,000 years ago.

2. But in case you do happen to be interested in the historical reasons, they are related to Alexander’s conquests. In the centuries after his death, a lot of people in Asia and N. Africa learned to speak Greek. So did the educated among the Romans. Thus, Greek became a “lingua franca”, the international language of those times. However, because it started being spoken not only by native Greeks, but also by “barbarians” (as the Greeks were calling all non-Greeks, but not in the modern derogatory sense), the Greek language was “eroded”. This phenomenon has been repeated many times in history — take, for instance, English and its difference between its modern varieties and the English of Chaucer’s time (1340?-1400). Also, contrary to the modern era, in the ancient times there was no television or radio so as to standardize Greek and let one dialect prevail (e.g., the Attic dialect). Today the so-called “common American” is heard and understood throughout the English-speaking world, thanks to Hollywood and TV series. Back then, however, neither Athens nor any other Greek city had such privileges, so the rest of the Greek speakers eventually brought about the changes that led to the Greek language of the Byzantine times, which are easily understood by modern speakers of Greek.

3. Why the analogy works with native speakers only? Because languages are determined largely by the utterances produced by their native speakers. Non-native speakers can induce changes in a language and cause it to evolve in a catalyst-like fashion, as footnote 2 explains, but they do not determine what the language is. If we include, for example, my ungrammatical Italian as part of the Italian language (because I happen to know a few Italian words and can surmise about how to put them together), and we do this for every non-native speaker of Italian, then the Italian language will lose its character; it will cease to be what it is it will hardly be recognized as Italian.

4. The following thought experiment is possible, however: a number of ancient Greek aficionados gather in a place and form a community. They all know ancient Greek as a second language, i.e., they are not native speakers of it. But they all live in the same locality, marry only with members of their community, and raise their children by speaking to them whatever ancient Greek they know. Modern linguistic theory then predicts that the children raised in this way will become native speakers of ancient Greek (or a close approximation thereof), automatically correcting the non-native errors of their parents. (We have to assume that the parents are very good non-native speakers, otherwise the children might converge to a language that differs substantially from true ancient Greek.) Examples of such a situation come from communities speaking pidgin languages, where children raised within such communities became native speakers of creolized languages.

However still the evolution of Human has unsolved mysteries.

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Origin Of Universe

6:29 AM | Labels: Science facts and news

ORIGIN OF UNIVERSE

The problem of the origin of the universe, is a bit like the old question: Which came first, the chicken, or the egg. In other words, what agency created the universe. And what created that agency. Or perhaps, the universe, or the agency that created it, existed forever, and didn't need to be created. Up to recently, scientists have tended to shy away from such questions, feeling that they belonged to metaphysics or religion, rather than to science. However, in the last few years, it has emerged that the Laws of Science may hold even at the beginning of the universe. In that case, the universe could be self contained, and determined completely by the Laws of Science.

Formation of universe

The debate about whether, and how, the universe began, has been going on throughout recorded history. Basically, there were two schools of thought. Many early traditions, and the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions, held that the universe was created in the fairly recent past. For instance, Bishop Usher calculated a date of four thousand and four BC, for the creation of the universe, by adding up the ages of people in the Old Testament. One fact that was used to support the idea of a recent origin, was that the Human race is obviously evolving in culture and technology. We remember who first performed that deed, or developed this technique. Thus, the arguement runs, we can not have been around all that long. Otherwise, we would have already progressed more than we have. In fact, the biblical date for the creation, is not that far off the date of the end of the last Ice Age, which is when modern humans seem first to have appeared.

On the other hand, some people, such as the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, did not like the idea that the universe had a beginning. They felt that would imply Divine intervention. They prefered to believe that the universe, had existed, and would exist, forever. Something that was eternal, was more perfect than something that had to be created. They had an answer to the argument about human progress, that I described. It was, that there had been periodic floods, or other natural disasters, which repeatedly set the human race right back to the beginning.

Both schools of thought held that the universe was essentially unchanging in time. Either it had been created in its present form, or it had existed forever, like it is today. This was a natural belief in those times, because human life, and, indeed the whole of recorded history, are so short that the universe has not changed significantly during them. In a static, unchanging universe, the question of whether the universe has existed forever, or whether it was created at a finite time in the past, is really a matter for metaphysics or religion: either theory could account for such a universe. Indeed, in 1781, the philosopher, Immanuel Kant, wrote a monumental, and very obscure work, The Critique of Pure Reason. In it, he concluded that there were equally valid arguements, both for believing that the universe had a beginning, and for believing that it did not. As his title suggests, his conclusions were based simply on reason. In other words, they did not take any account of observations about the universe. After all, in an unchanging universe, what was there to observe?

In the 19th century, however, evidence began to accumulate that the earth, and the rest of the universe, were in fact changing with time. On the one hand, geologists realized that the formation of the rocks, and the fossils in them, would have taken hundreds or thousands of millions of years. This was far longer than the age of the Earth, according to the Creationists. On the other hand, the German physicist, Boltzmann, discovered the so-called Second Law of Thermodynamics. It states that the total amount of disorder in the universe (which is measured by a quantity called entropy), always increases with time. This, like the argument about human progress, suggests that the universe can have been going only for a finite time. Otherwise, the universe would by now have degenerated into a state of complete disorder, in which everything would be at the same temperature.

Another difficulty with the idea of a static universe, was that according to Newton's Law of Gravity, each star in the universe ought to be attracted towards every other star. So how could they stay at a constant distance from each other. Wouldn't they all fall together. Newton was aware of this problem about the stars attracting each other. In a letter to Richard Bentley, a leading philosopher of the time, he agreed that a finite collection of stars could not remain motionless: they would all fall together, to some central point. However, he argued that an infinite collection of stars, would not fall together: for there would not be any central point for them to fall to. This argument is an example of the pitfalls that one can encounter when one talks about infinite systems. By using different ways to add up the forces on each star, from the infinite number of other stars in the universe, one can get different answers to the question: can they remain at constant distance from each other. We now know that the correct proceedure, is to consider the case of a finite region of stars. One then adds more stars, distributed roughly uniformly outside the region. A finite collection of stars will fall together. According to Newton's Law of Gravity, adding more stars outside the region, will not stop the collapse. Thus, an infinite collection of stars, can not remain in a motionless state. If they are not moving relative to each other at one time, the attraction between them, will cause them to start falling towards each other. Alternatively, they can be moving away from each other, with gravity slowing down the velocity of recession.

Despite these difficulties with the idea of a static and unchanging universe, no one in the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth or early twentieth centuries, suggested that the universe might be evolving with time. Newton and Einstein, both missed the chance of predicting, that the universe should be either contracting, or expanding. One can not really hold it against Newton, because he was two hundred and fifty years before the observational discovery of the expansion of the universe. But Einstein should have known better. Yet when he formulated the General Theory of Relativity to reconcile Newton's theory with his own Special Theory of Relativity, he added a so-called, ``cosmological constant''. This had a repulsive gravitational effect, which could balance the attractive effect of the matter in the universe. In this way, it was possible to have a static model of the universe.

Einstein later said: The cosmological constant was the greatest mistake of my life. That was after observations of distant galaxies, by Edwin Hubble in the 1920's, had shown that they were moving away from us, with velocities that were roughly proportional to their distance from us. In other words, the universe is not static, as had been previously thought: it is expanding. The distance between galaxies is increasing with time.

The discovery of the expansion of the universe, completely changed the discussion about its origin. If you take the present motion of the galaxies, and run it back in time, it seems that they should all have been on top of each other, at some moment, between ten and twenty thousand million years ago. At this time, which is called the Big Bang, the density of the universe, and the curvature of spacetime, would have been infinite. Under such conditions, all the known laws of science would break down. This is a disaster for science. It would mean that science alone, could not predict how the universe began. All that science could say is that: The universe is as it is now, because it was as it was then. But Science could not explain why it was, as it was, just after the Big Bang.

Not surprisingly, many scientists were unhappy with this conclusion. There were thus several attempts to avoid the Big Bang. One was the so-called Steady State theory. The idea was that, as the galaxies moved apart from each other, new galaxies would form in the spaces inbetween, from matter that was continually being created. The universe would have existed, and would continue to exist, forever, in more or less the same state as it is today.

The Steady State model required a modification of general relativity, in order that the universe should continue to expand, and new matter be created. The rate of creation needed was very low: about one particle per cubic kilometre per year. Thus, this would not be in conflict with observation. The theory also predicted that the average density of galaxies, and similar objects, should be constant, both in space and time. However, a survey of extra-galactic sources of radio waves, was carried out by Martin Ryle and his group at Cambridge. This showed that there were many more faint sources, than strong ones. On average, one would expect that the faint sources were the more distant ones. There were thus two possibilities: Either, we were in a region of the universe, in which strong sources were less frequent than the average. Or, the density of sources was higher in the past, when the light left the more distant sources. Neither of these possibilities was compatible with the prediction of the Steady State theory, that the density of radio sources should be constant in space and time. The final blow to the Steady State theory was the discovery, in 1965, of a background of microwaves. These had the characteristic spectrum of radiation emited by a hot body, though, in this case, the term, hot, is hardly appropriate, since the temperature was only 2.7 degrees above Absolute Zero. The universe is a cold, dark place! There was no reasonable mechanism, in the Steady State theory, to generate microwaves with such a spectrum. The theory therefore had to be abandoned.

Another idea to avoid a singularity, was suggested by two Russians, Lifshitz and Khalatnikov. They said, that maybe a state of infinite density, would occur only if the galaxies were moving directly towards, or away from, each other. Only then, would the galaxies all have met up at a single point in the past. However, one might expect that the galaxies would have had some small sideways velocities, as well as their velocity towards or away from each other. This might have made it possible for there to have been an earlier contracting phase, in which the galaxies somehow managed to avoid hitting each other. The universe might then have re-expanded, without going through a state of infinite density.

When Lifshitz and Khalatnikov made their suggestion, I was a research student, looking for a problem with which to complete my PhD thesis. Two years earlier, I had been diagnosed as having ALS, or motor neuron disease. I had been given to understand that I had only two or three years to live. In this situation, it didn't seem worth working on my PhD, because I didn't expect to finish it. However, two years had gone by, and I was not much worse. Moreover, I had become engaged to be married. In order to get married, I had to get a job. And in order to get a job, I needed to finish my thesis.

I was interested in the question of whether there had been a Big Bang singularity, because that was crucial to an understanding of the origin of the universe. Together with Roger Penrose, I developed a new set of mathematical techniques, for dealing with this and similar problems. We showed that if General Relativity was correct, any reasonable model of the universe must start with a singularity. This would mean that science could predict that the universe must have had a beginning, but that it could not predict how the universe should begin: for that one would have to appeal to God.

It has been interesting to watch the change in the climate of opinion on singularities. When I was a graduate student, almost no one took singularities seriously. Now, as a result of the singularity theorems, nearly everyone believes that the universe began with a singularity. In the meantime, however, I have changed my mind: I still believe that the universe had a beginning, but that it was not a singularity.

The General Theory of Relativity, is what is called a classical theory. That is, it does not take into account the fact that particles do not have precisely defined positions and velocities, but are smeared out over a small region by the Uncertainty Principle of quantum mechanics. This does not matter in normal situations, because the radius of curvature of spacetime, is very large compared to the uncertainty in the position of a particle. However, the singularity theorems indicate that spacetime will be highly distorted, with a small radius of curvature, at the beginning of the present expansion phase of the universe. In this situation, the uncertainty principle will be very important. Thus, General Relativity brings about its own downfall, by predicting singularities. In order to discuss the beginning of the universe, we need a theory which combines General Relativity with quantum mechanics.

We do not yet know the exact form of the correct theory of quantum gravity. The best candidate we have at the moment, is the theory of Superstrings, but there are still a number of unresolved difficulties. However, there are certain features that we expect to be present, in any viable theory. One is Einstein's idea, that the effects of gravity can be represented by a spacetime, that is curved or distorted by the matter and energy in it. Objects try to follow the nearest thing to a straight line, in this curved space. However, because it is curved, their paths appear to be bent, as if by a gravitational field.

Another element that we expect to be present in the ultimate theory, is Richard Feynman's proposal that quantum theory can be formulated, as a Sum Over Histories. In it simplest form, the idea is that a particle has every possible path, or history, in space time. Each path or history has a probability that depends on its shape. For this idea to work, one has to consider histories that take place in ``imaginary'' time, rather than the real time in which we perceive ourselves as living. Imaginary time may sound like something out of science fiction, but it is a well defined mathematical concept. It can be thought of as a direction of time that is at right angles to real time, in some sense. One adds up the probabilities for all the particle histories with certain properties, such as passing through certain points at certain times. One then has to extrapolate the result, back to the real space time in which we live. This is not the most familiar approach to quantum theory, but it gives the same results as other methods.

In the case of quantum gravity, Feynman's idea of a ``Sum over Histories'' would involve summing over different possible histories for the universe. That is, different curved space times. One has to specify what class of possible curved spaces should be included in the Sum over Histories. The choice of this class of spaces, determines what state the universe is in. If the class of curved spaces that defines the state of the universe, included spaces with singularities, the probabilities of such spaces would not be determined by the theory. Instead, they would have to be assigned in some arbitrary way. What this means, is that science could not predict the probabilities of such singular histories for spacetime. Thus, it could not predict how the universe should behave. However, it is possible that the universe is in a state defined by a sum that includes only non singular curved spaces. In this case, the laws of science would determine the universe completely: one would not have to appeal to some agency external to the universe, to determine how it began. In a way, the proposal that the state of the universe is determined by a sum over non singular histories only, is like the drunk looking for his key under the lamp post: it may not be where he lost it, but it is the only place in which he might find it. Similarly, the universe may not be in the state defined by a sum over non singular histories, but it is the only state in which science could predict how the universe should be.

In 1983, Jim Hartle and I, proposed that the state of the universe should be given by a Sum over a certain class of Histories. This class consisted of curved spaces, without singularities, and which were of finite size, but which did not have boundaries or edges. They would be like the surface of the Earth, but with two more dimensions. The surface of the Earth has a finite area, but it doesn't have any singularities, boundaries or edges. I have tested this by experiment. I went round the world, and I didn't fall off.

The proposal that Hartle and I made, can be paraphrased as: The boundary condition of the universe is, that it has no boundary. It is only if the universe is in this ``no boundary'' state, that the laws of science, on their own, determine the probabilities of each possible history. Thus, it is only in this case that the known laws would determine how the universe should behave. If the universe is in any other state, the class of curved spaces, in the ``Sum over Histories'', will include spaces with singularities. In order to determine the probabilities of such singular histories, one would have to invoke some principle other than the known laws of science. This principle would be something external to our universe. We could not deduce it from within the universe. On the other hand, if the universe is in the ``no boundary'' state, we could, in principle, determine completely how the universe should behave, up to the limits set by the Uncertainty Principle.

It would clearly be nice for science if the universe were in the ``no boundary'' state, but how can we tell whether it is? The answer is, that the no boundary proposal makes definite predictions, for how the universe should behave. If these predictions were not to agree with observation, we could conclude that the universe is not in the ``no boundary'' state. Thus, the ``no boundary'' proposal is a good scientific theory, in the sense defined by the philosopher, Karl Popper: it can be falsified by observation.

If the observations do not agree with the predictions, we will know that there must be singularities in the class of possible histories. However, that is about all we would know. We would not be able to calculate the probabilities of the singular histories. Thus, we would not be able to predict how the universe should behave. One might think that this unpredictability wouldn't matter too much, if it occurred only at the Big Bang. After all, that was ten or twenty billion years ago. But if predictability broke down in the very strong gravitational fields in the Big Bang, it could also break down whenever a star collapsed. This could happen several times a week, in our galaxy alone. Thus, our power of prediction would be poor, even by the standards of weather forecasts.

Of course, one could say that one didn't care about a breakdown in predictability, that occurred in a distant star. However, in quantum theory, anything that is not actually forbidden, can and ~will happen. Thus, if the class of possible histories includes spaces with singularities, these singularities could occur anywhere, not just at the Big Bang and in collapsing stars. This would mean that we couldn't predict anything. Conversely, the fact that we are able to predict events, is experimental evidence against singularities, and for the ``no boundary'' proposal.

So what does the no boundary proposal, predict for the universe. The first point to make, is that because all the possible histories for the universe are finite in extent, any quantity that one uses as a measure of time, will have a greatest and a least value. So the universe will have a beginning, and an end. However, the beginning will not be a singularity. Instead, it will be a bit like the North Pole of the Earth. If one takes degrees of latitude on the surface of the Earth to be the anallogue of time, one could say that the surface of the Earth began at the North Pole. Yet the North Pole is a perfectly ordinary point on the Earth. There's nothing special about it, and the same laws hold at the North Pole, as at other places on the Earth. Similarly, the event that we might choose to label, as ``the beginning of the universe'', would be an ordinary point of spacetime, much like any other, the laws of science would hold at the beginning, as elsewhere.

From the analogy with the surface of the Earth, one might expect that the end of the universe would be similar to the beginning, just as the North Pole is much like the South Pole. However, the North and South Poles correspond to the beginning and end of the history of the universe, in imaginary time, not the real time that we experience. If one extrapolates the results of the ``Sum over Histories'' from imaginary time to real time, one finds that the beginning of the universe in real time can be very different from its end. It is difficult to work out the details, of what the no boundary proposal predicts for the beginning and end of the universe, for two reasons. First, we don't yet know the exact laws that govern gravity according to the Uncertainty Principle of quantum mechanics. Though we know the general form and many of the properties that they should have. Second, even if we knew the precise laws, we could not use them to make exact predictions. It would be far too difficult, to solve the equations exactly. Nevertheless, it does seem possible to get an approximate idea, of what the no boundary condition would imply. Jonathan Halliwell and I, have made such an approximate calculation. We treated the universe as a perfectly smooth and uniform background, on which there were small perturbations of density. In real time, the universe would appear to begin its expansion at a minimum radius. At first, the expansion would be what is called inflationary. That is, the universe would double in size every tiny fraction of a second, just as prices double every year in certain countries. The world record for economic inflation, was probably Germany after the First World War. The price of a loaf of bread, went from under a mark, to millions of marks in a few months. But that is nothing compared to the inflation that seems to have occurred in the early universe: an increase in size by a factor of at least a million million million million million times, in a tiny fraction of a second. Of course, that was before the present government.

This inflation was a good thing, in that it produced a universe that was smooth and uniform on a large scale, and was expanding at just the critical rate to avoid recollapse. The inflation was also a good thing in that it produced all the contents of the universe, quite literally out of nothing. When the universe was a single point, like the North Pole, it contained nothing. Yet there are now at least 10 to the 80 particles in the part of the universe that we can observe. Where did all these particles come from? The answer is, that Relativity and quantum mechanics, allow matter to be created out of energy, in the form of particle anti particle pairs. So, where did the energy come from, to create the matter? The answer is, that it was borrowed, from the gravitational energy of the universe. The universe has an enormous debt of negative gravitational energy, which exactly balances the positive energy of the matter. During the inflationary period, the universe borrowed heavily from its gravitational energy, to finance the creation of more matter. The result was a triumph for Reagan economics: a vigorous and expanding universe, filled with material objects. The debt of gravitational energy, will not have to be repaid until the end of the universe.

The early universe could not have been exactly homogeneous and uniform, because that would violate the Uncertainty Principle of quantum mechanics. Instead, there must have been departures from uniform density. The no boundary proposal, implies that these differences in density, would start off in their ground state. That is, they would be as small as possible, consistent with the Uncertainty Principle. However, during the inflationary expansion, they would be amplified. After the period of inflationary expansion was over, one would be left with a universe that was expanding slightly faster in some places, than in others. In regions of slower expansion, the gravitational attraction of the matter, would slow down the expansion still further. Eventually, the region would stop expanding, and would contract to form galaxies and stars. Thus, the no boundary proposal, can account for all the complicated structure that we see around us. However, it does not make just a single prediction for the universe. Instead, it predicts a whole family of possible histories, each with its own probability. There might be a possible history in which Walter Mondale won the last presidential election, though maybe the probability is low.

The no boundary proposal, has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe. It is now generally accepted, that the universe evolves according to well defined laws. These laws may have been ordained by God, but it seems that He does not intervene in the universe, to break the laws. However, until recently, it was thought that these laws did not apply to the beginning of the universe. It would be up to God to wind up the clockwork, and set the universe going, in any way He wanted. Thus, the present state of the universe, would be the result of God's choice of the initial conditions. The situation would be very different, however, if something like the no boundary proposal were correct. In that case, the laws of physics would hold, even at the beginning of the universe. So God would not have the freedom to choose the initial conditions. Of course, God would still be free to choose the laws that the universe obeyed. However, this may not be much of a choice. There may only be a small number of laws, which are self consistent, and which lead to complicated beings, like ourselves, who can ask the question: What is the nature of God? Even if there is only one, unique set of possible laws, it is only a set of equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations, and makes a universe for them to govern. Is the ultimate unified theory so compelling, that it brings about its own existence. Although Science may solve the problem of ~how the universe began, it can not answer the question: why does the universe bother to exist? Maybe only God can answer that.

Big Bang Theory - The Premise

Bigbang theory Origin and evolution of universe

The Big Bang theory is an effort to explain what happened at the very beginning of our universe. Discoveries in astronomy and physics have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that our universe did in fact have a beginning. Prior to that moment there was nothing; during and after that moment there was something: our universe. The big bang theory is an effort to explain what happened during and after that moment.

According to the standard theory, our universe sprang into existence as "singularity" around 13.7 billion years ago. What is a "singularity" and where does it come from? Well, to be honest, we don't know for sure. Singularities are zones which defy our current understanding of physics. They are thought to exist at the core of "black holes." Black holes are areas of intense gravitational pressure. The pressure is thought to be so intense that finite matter is actually squished into infinite density (a mathematical concept which truly boggles the mind). These zones of infinite density are called "singularities." Our universe is thought to have begun as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense, something - a singularity. Where did it come from? We don't know. Why did it appear? We don't know.

After its initial appearance, it apparently inflated (the "Big Bang"), expanded and cooled, going from very, very small and very, very hot, to the size and temperature of our current universe. It continues to expand and cool to this day and we are inside of it: incredible creatures living on a unique planet, circling a beautiful star clustered together with several hundred billion other stars in a galaxy soaring through the cosmos, all of which is inside of an expanding universe that began as an infinitesimal singularity which appeared out of nowhere for reasons unknown. This is the Big Bang theory.

Big Bang Theory - Common Misconceptions
There are many misconceptions surrounding the Big Bang theory. For example, we tend to imagine a giant explosion. Experts however say that there was no explosion; there was (and continues to be) an expansion. Rather than imagining a balloon popping and releasing its contents, imagine a balloon expanding: an infinitesimally small balloon expanding to the size of our current universe.

Another misconception is that we tend to image the singularity as a little fireball appearing somewhere in space. According to the many experts however, space didn't exist prior to the Big Bang. Back in the late '60s and early '70s, when men first walked upon the moon, "three British astrophysicists, Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the Theory of Relativity and its implications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which they extended Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to include measurements of time and space.^{1, 2} According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy."³ The singularity didn't appear in space; rather, space began inside of the singularity. Prior to the singularity, nothing existed, not space, time, matter, or energy - nothing. So where and in what did the singularity appear if not in space? We don't know. We don't know where it came from, why it's here, or even where it is. All we really know is that we are inside of it and at one time it didn't exist and neither did we.
Big Bang Theory - Evidence for the Theory
What are the major evidences which support the Big Bang theory?

First of all, we are reasonably certain that the universe had a beginning.

Second, galaxies appear to be moving away from us at speeds proportional to their distance. This is called "Hubble's Law," named after Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) who discovered this phenomenon in 1929. This observation supports the expansion of the universe and suggests that the universe was once compacted.

Third, if the universe was initially very, very hot as the Big Bang suggests, we should be able to find some remnant of this heat. In 1965, Radioastronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered a 2.725 degree Kelvin (-454.765 degree Fahrenheit, -270.425 degree Celsius) Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) which pervades the observable universe. This is thought to be the remnant which scientists were looking for. Penzias and Wilson shared in the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics for their discovery.

Finally, the abundance of the "light elements" Hydrogen and Helium found in the observable universe are thought to support the Big Bang model of origins.

Big Bang Theory - The Only Plausible Theory?
Is the standard Big Bang theory the only model consistent with these evidences? No, it's just the most popular one. Internationally renown Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis explains: "People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations….For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations….You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that."⁴

In 2003, Physicist Robert Gentry proposed an attractive alternative to the standard theory, an alternative which also accounts for the evidences listed above.⁵ Dr. Gentry claims that the standard Big Bang model is founded upon a faulty paradigm (the Friedmann-lemaitre expanding-spacetime paradigm) which he claims is inconsistent with the empirical data. He chooses instead to base his model on Einstein's static-spacetime paradigm which he claims is the "genuine cosmic Rosetta." Gentry has published several papers outlining what he considers to be serious flaws in the standard Big Bang model.⁶ Other high-profile dissenters include Nobel laureate Dr. Hannes Alfvén, Professor Geoffrey Burbidge, Dr. Halton Arp, and the renowned British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, who is accredited with first coining the term "the Big Bang" during a BBC radio broadcast in 1950.

Big Bang Theory - What About God?
Any discussion of the Big Bang theory would be incomplete without asking the question, what about God? This is because cosmogony (the study of the origin of the universe) is an area where science and theology meet. Creation was a supernatural event. That is, it took place outside of the natural realm. This fact begs the question: is there anything else which exists outside of the natural realm? Specifically, is there a master Architect out there? We know that this universe had a beginning. Was God the "First Cause"? We won't attempt to answer that question in this short article.

Why is our Universe the way we see it to be? And what will ultimately become of it? These are two fundamental questions which have long interested humankind. Since the 1929 discovery that Universe is expanding, we have made some significant steps in understanding how the Universe began and how it must have evolved to be what it is today. We know this: galaxies and clusters of galaxies formed from tiny fluctuations in the early Universe. We can measure these fluctuations by mapping the cosmic background radiation and relate them to the structures which we observe today. However, many challenges remain such as:

What is the Age of the Universe? - or - How Fast is the Universe Expanding?

In the 1920s, Edwin Hubble used the 100" telescope (2.5 meters) at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California to detect variable stars in nebulae. He discovered that the stars he observed had the same characteristic variations in their brightness as a class of stars called Cepheid Variables. Earlier, astronomer Henrietta Levitt had shown there was a precise correlation between the periodic change in brightness of a Cepheid Variable and its luminosity. Hubble was able use this correlation to show that the nebulae containing the variable stars he observed were not within our own Galaxy; they were in external galaxies far beyond the edge of our Milky Way.

Evolution of Universe

Hubble determined the distances to the galaxies and the velocities that they were moving at, relative to Earth. From this, he discovered an amazing thing: the farther galaxies were away from us, the faster they were moving away from us. In other words, the Universe was expanding!

What is the Shape of the Universe?

The density of the Universe determines its geometry or shape. If the density of the Universe exceeds the so-called "critical density", then the shape of space is curved like the surface of a huge sphere. If the density of the Universe is less than the "critical density", then the shape of space is curved like the surface of a saddle. If the density of the Universe exactly equals the "critical density", then the shape of the Universe is flat like a sheet of paper. Astronomers are still trying to accurately measure the shape of the Universe. The most widely accepted theory predicts that the density of the Universe is very close to the critical density, and that the shape of the Universe should be flat, like a sheet of paper.

What is the Fate of the Universe?

Cosmologists envision two possible fates for the Universe: The Big Freeze or the Big Crunch. The evolution of the Universe is determined by a struggle between the outward momentum of expansion and the inward pull of gravity. The strength of gravity depends on the density of the Universe. If the density of the Universe is less than the critical density, then the Universe will expand forever. If the density of the Universe is greater than the critical density, then gravity will eventually win, and the Universe will collapse back on itself.

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