Science, Marxism and the Big Bang: A Critical
Review of 'Reason in
Revolt'
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Newton: belief and contradiction
Copernicus’ theory led to fresh speculation about the nature of the
universe. The modern concept of an infinite universe first began to emerge
here, linked to religious expressions of an infinite god.
Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727)
Newton did not prove but merely asserted that the world was infinite.
The idea of an infinite universe was undoubtedly extrapolated at least in
part from the belief that to the vast quantities of stars and space that
Galileo saw through his telescope there must be added vast quantities
more, without end, to the glory of god.
The universe, Woods writes,
was rapidly ‘expanded’ – in the minds of men – and… is now thought
to measure tens of billions of light years across, and time will show
that even the present calculations are nowhere near big enough. For
the universe, as Nicolas of Cusa and others thought, is infinite. (Reason
in Revolt, p184)
Recent calculations suggest that the universe is at least 156 billion
light-years wide. The German cardinal, Nicolas of Cusa (1401-1464),
anticipated Copernicus (1473-1543) by nearly a century, proposing that the
earth rotated and, as Woods rightly points out, argued that the universe
was infinite.
In 2002, Woods appeared to have changed his estimation of the width of
the universe. In his preface to the 2002 USA edition of Reason in
Revolt, Woods offers his support to a mainstream re-working of the old
speculative cyclical Big Bang theory. The idea that the universe
goes through cycles consisting of a Big Bang followed billions of years
later by a Big Crunch had been first suggested in the 1930s, soon after
observation suggested our universe had a hot dense origin a few billion
years ago. Woods supports reports carried in the popular media of
prominent physicists Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok’s version of this
theory, published in 2002. Steinhardt and Turok's theory, Woods says, is fully compliant with dialectical materialism,
subject to experimental proof, because these two physicists, at least in
their popular presentation, talked about a universe infinite in time.
Steinhardt and Turok’s cyclical big bang theory proposes that the
universe goes through a perpetual motion of Big Bangs followed by what
they term "big splats" as the universe reaches the end of the cycle.
Woods, in 2002, thus continues to defend an infinity of time, but not an
infinity of space, which expands and contracts perpetually with each
cycle, according to the model. Are we to conclude that Woods now concedes
that dialectical materialism does not prescribe to the universe an
infinity of space, as he originally asserted in 1995 when Reason in
Revolt was published?
Nicolas of Cusa argued that the universe is infinite because god is
infinite. Today the concept of an infinite god in infinite space is a
commonplace concept. Nicolas of Cusa developed this concept from the ideas
originating with the ancient Greek idealist philosopher Plato and the
school of philosophy which Plato established. Cusa argued against the
existing scholasticism based on the Aristotelian model of the finite
universe, which the Catholic church embraced at that time.
Thomas Diggs (1546-95), an early supporter of Copernicus, was the first
modern European astronomer to argue that the universe was infinite. He
said it reflected the greatness of god, although the church at the time
objected that an infinite universe left no room for heaven. This theme,
that god was infinite and that the universe should reflect this, began to
be adopted by the most far-sighted ‘theorists’ of the day, who had broken
from Aristotle’s influence, although it was not until the end of the
nineteenth century that it became an uncontested commonplace viewpoint.
William Shakespeare, a family friend of Diggs, reflected the
conflicting views of the universe in many allusions (some quite obscure)
in Hamlet. John Barrow cites, in The Infinite Book, a
mention of the concept of infinite space in one of Hamlet’s declamations:
"I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite
space." (Hamlet, Act II, scene ii)
Speculation about an infinite universe lacked a basis in fact, but was
linked to abstract religious considerations. The old concept that the
universe consisted of concentric spheres began to break down. Giordano
Bruno (1548-1600) was burned at the stake after refusing to recant his
belief in an infinite universe. He claimed that there was no limit to the
power of god and that god could have created an infinite universe.
Thus is the excellence of God magnified and the greatness of his
kingdom made manifest; he is glorified not in one, but in countless
suns; not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand
thousand, I say in an infinity of worlds. (On the Infinite
Universe and Worlds, 1584)
Bruno introduced many ideas that became commonplace in the later
centuries, such as that space with its infinite worlds extends without
limit in all directions and it has no central point. Bruno also suggested
that life exists on other planets.
Bruno was a Neo-Platonist mystic with no understanding of astronomy,
and today the concept of an infinite universe is often credited to
Copernicus. What is called the Copernican principle – that the sun-centred
solar system occupies no special place in the universe, and that the sun
is one of many stars – is perhaps better credited to Bruno.
Among Newton’s influences was his contemporary,
Henry More (1614–87). More was one of the leading philosophers of the
influential group of philosophical ‘divines’, now known as the Cambridge
Platonists, who broke with Aristotelian tradition. More believed that space
was infinite, since infinite, immaterial space is analogous to god, who
was an infinitely extended spirit.
In 1654, just a few years before Newton observed an apple fall and
wondered whether the same attraction of the apple to the earth might keep
the moon in tow, William Charleton wrote, in opposition to Aristotle, that
time "flow[s] on eternally in the same calm and equal tenor" and is
distinct from any measure of it. (Stanford University’s Stanford
Encyclopaedia of Philosophy website: Newton's Views on Space, Time and
Motion) These views on time, once again, can be attributed to the
influence of the thoroughly idealist philosopher Plato.
Newton’s infinite, absolute space and time
But it was Newton who most certainly set in motion what became our
‘common sense’ ideas about the universe, until the advent of Einstein’s
theories and then the Big Bang cosmology. Newton’s general views on
infinite time and space were essentially the same as these contemporaries.
In the closing discussion in his Principia, Newton explains why he
regards space and time to be infinite and absolute:
by existing always and every where, [god] constitutes duration and
space. Since every particle of space is always, and every
indivisible moment of duration is every where, certainly the
Maker and Lord of all things cannot be never and no
where. (Principia, book three, General Scholium,
p1,158)
For Newton, infinite absolute space was a meaningful concept for these
reasons. Gottfried Leibniz, one of the most prominent of Newton’s
scientific contemporaries in Europe, opposed this view. There was a
long-running, bitter dispute between the two. Newton must take most of the
blame for the bitterness, but the debate extended over a wide range of
issues and continued for decades among the most prominent scientists of
Europe.
Woods cannot, in fact, distinguish between Newton and Einstein on these
questions. Woods argues that "the greatness of Einstein" was to reveal the
relative character of "the ‘absolute truths’ of classical Newtonian
mechanics", but adds that the "relative aspect of time, was, however, not
new. It was thoroughly analysed by Hegel". (Reason in Revolt, p147)
This view cannot be supported. The examples Woods gives have no bearing on the
meaning of Einstein’s relativity in relation to time, the origin of which
will be touched on very briefly in its proper historical context. Woods
later gives examples such as: "A year on earth is not the same as a year
on Jupiter" (Reason in Revolt, p158), and so forth, in a series of
irrelevant commonplaces, which never escape from Newtonian physics.
Contradictions in Newton’s beliefs: absolute space
In fact, Newton grasped these issues more profoundly since he also
understood Galileo’s principle that we experience space as relative, and
admitted that he had failed to provide evidence of his belief in absolute
space.
In the opening Scholium, or discussion, of his Principia,
Newton asserts: "Absolute space, in its own nature, without regard to
anything external, remains always similar and immovable." He also
discusses relative space, which he assumes takes place in absolute
unmovable space. "Relative space is some movable dimension or measure of
absolute space." But Newton admits that absolute space cannot be detected:
"… the parts of that immovable [absolute] space, in which these motions
are performed, do by no means come under the observation of our senses."
Newton ruminates that "the thing is not altogether desperate" and provides
a range of arguments and suggests experiments that might detect absolute
space.
But Newton’s absolute space is undetectable because the Newtonian
concept of absolute space is false. It is relative space on which Newton’s
laws of motion are based.
|
|
Motion |
Universe |
Infinity |
|
Space |
Time |
Space |
Time |
|
|
Aristotle
|
Absolute |
Absolute |
|
|
Denied actual infinite |
|
|
|
|
Galileo
|
|
|
Finite (assumed) |
|
Showed paradoxes of infinite |
Newton
|
|
Infinite |
Infinite |
|
|
|
|
Table 3. Schematic summary of Newton’s views added to table 2.
Problems with Newton’s universal gravity
Newton admitted he had no idea what formed the basis of the mysterious
"action at a distance" by which his universal gravity binds tiny
planets in the vastness of space in their orbit round the sun. In his
concluding General Scholium of his Principia, he famously
says:
"But hitherto I have not been able to discover the causes of those
properties of gravity from the phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses."
(Principia, p1159)
More
frankly, in a letter to Richard Bentley in 1693, Newton writes that action
at a distance is "so great an absurdity that I believe no man who
has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall
into it". (Quoted in Newton: Philosophical Writings, Cambridge
University Press, p102) Woods falls into it.
Newton’s rival, Leibniz, famously said that Newton’s universal gravity
had an "occult quality". "The fundamental principle of reasoning",
Leibniz emphasised, "is, nothing is without cause," yet Newton, "is
admitting that no cause underlies the truth that a stone falls towards the
Earth." (Quoted by James Gleick, Issac Newton, p156) Newton did not
necessarily disagree. It is now widely recognised that Newton spent a
great deal of time on what would now be classed as the occult,
particularly alchemy. The economist John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many
of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated: "Newton was not the first of the
age of reason: he was the last of the magicians." (The Collected
Writings of John Maynard Keynes, Volume X, pp 363-4)
The reason he frames no hypotheses, Newton says, in the above quoted
passage from his Principia, is because hypotheses, "whether
metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have
no place in experimental philosophy". Science had not yet fully separated
itself from alchemy, astrology and the occult. Newton rules out neither
mechanical nor occult qualities to explain the action of gravity at a
distance but he does rule out hypotheses. He was searching for proof, not
hypotheses, and he was not able to discover any explanation for his
universal gravitation, despite a considerable amount of investigation into
the occult. Nevertheless, Keynes is not entirely correct. The
Principia, more than any other work of the era, was defining the new
ground of experimental physics and mathematical proof and, in addition,
replacing an interventionist god with a god that designed the physical
universe along rational and universal principles only at the moment of
creation.
The mechanists of the period were "labouring to banish occult
influences – mysterious action without contact," James Gleick points out
in his biography of Newton. Yet "Action at a distance, across the void,
smacked of magic. Occult explanations were supposed to be forbidden." (Issac
Newton, p96, p142) How did gravity mysteriously act on bodies
completely remote from them, with no intervening substance? Hegel chides
Newton for not developing laws which go beyond a mere description of the
actual mechanics of gravity’s effects. "Even Newton’s proofs," he says,
somewhat stretching the point, are "nothing more than mere jugglery and
window-dressing" (Science of Logic, p273), especially those which
merely gave mathematical expression to the motion of the planets which
Johannes Kepler had already discovered.
It was Einstein’s general theory of relativity that eventually resolved
this paradox, by showing how space and time are bent ("warped") by mass
and energy. It is this warped path in space-time that the planets follow.
There is no force acting at a distance through the void on the planets.
The planets do not depart from Newton’s first law, which says that no
object will depart from a straight path unless a force compels it to
change direction. No force is acting on the planets to make them move from
a straight path, but the space-time they inhabit is itself bent, as viewed
from the perspective of the solar system, and all paths bend with it. In
the dark vastness of space, the planets follow curved paths because space
and time are bent by the sun’s gravitational effect. It is a stunning
discovery, both mathematically and experimentally proven.
No longer could space and time, mass and energy, be treated as
absolutely independent of one another. The sun’s great mass dimples the
space-time around it so that the planets ploughing through space-time
naturally follow the curvature of space-time around the sun. Thus Newton’s
occult force which acts at a distance is replaced with a material effect.
In scientific terminology, the Newtonian term ‘gravitational force’ is
replaced with the term ‘gravitational effect’. Yet Woods disparages
Einstein’s general theory of relativity and wants to return to Newton. To
save science from mysticism, he wants to deliver it to the occult.
The near century that lies between Galileo’s discovery of the moons of
Jupiter and Newton’s publication of the Principia is a remarkable
period. Galileo demolished Aristotle and showed that there was corruption
in the spheres – the universe must have had a beginning and an end. He
further showed that space was relative and that the earth went round the
sun, and stood on trial before the Inquisition. Eight decades later Newton
reasserted that space and time were absolute and re-established a universe
that was infinite in space and time, so long as god was the Prime Mover.
Problems of the infinite: starlight
Not all scientists in Newton’s time, however, accepted an infinity of
space and time. Newton’s contemporary, Edmund Halley, who was the first to
calculate the orbit of a comet using Newton’s laws, attempted to refute
"the ancient notion, some have of late entertained, of the eternity of all
things". (Quoted in Stephen Jay Gould, Eight Little Piggies, p175)
This did not mean, as has been supposed, that Halley was a creationist.
On the contrary, Halley refused to take The Bible literally, which
caused John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, to oppose his appointment to
a post at Oxford University, saying he would "corrupt the youth of the
university".
Halley required evidence, and there was neither evidence for the
biblical creation, nor for an infinite universe. There was evidence
against in both cases, however. Halley noted a serious contradiction
in the concept of an infinite universe:
I have heard it urged that if the number of fixed stars were more
than finite, the whole superficies of their apparent sphere would be
luminous. (Quoted by John Barrow, The Infinite Book,
p151)
In other words, if the universe was infinite and therefore populated
with an infinity of stars, the night sky should be brilliantly
illuminated, as if it were day. This contradiction was rediscovered by
Wilhelm Olbers (1758-1840), and became known as Olbers’ paradox. Despite
many attempts, no explanation of this paradox (such as interstellar dust,
distance, etc), in the context of a universe infinite in space and time,
has been successful.
Suppose you are in a deep forest with an infinite amount of trees.
Every line of sight soon ends up at a tree. But if you are in a small wood
with a finite amount of scattered trees, every line of sight does not end
up at a tree. We live in a universe that has a finite amount of scattered
stars and galaxies, with great voids where there are no stars or galaxies.
Problems of the infinite: gravitational collapse
Woods contrasts his version of infinite space with that of Einstein’s,
which he says was "closed" and "static". This is not true. Einstein’s
theory allows for both an open and a closed universe, and makes no claims
that the universe is static. It was Newton who developed a view of an
infinite universe in a "static or a permanent state of equilibrium", as
Woods puts it.
If space is finite, Newton correctly argues, gravity would make stars
move "towards all the matter on the inside and by consequence fall down to
the middle of the whole space and there compose one great spherical mass."
But, Newton reasons, in infinite space it might be possible to position
each star so precisely that it is equally attracted by all on all sides.
Then, argued Newton, the stars would not be able to fall into one another.
But only a divine power could position the stars so exactly, as Newton
explains:
but that there should be a Central particle so accurately placed in
the middle as to be always equally attracted on all sides and thereby
continue without motion, seems to me a supposition fully as hard as to
make the sharpest needle stand upright on its point upon a looking
glass. For if the very mathematical centre of the central particle be
not accurately in the very mathematical centre of the attractive power
of the whole mass, the particle will not be attracted equally on all
sides…
Yet I grant it possible, at least by a divine power… they would
continue in that posture without motion for ever, unless put into new
motion by the same power. (Letters to Richard Bentley, 1692-3)
No scientific solution (as opposed to a spiritual one which invoked the
hand of god to initially set things in motion) could be found to this
apparent contradiction between the theory of gravity, Newton’s greatest
scientific discovery, and an infinite universe, Newton’s unshakable
belief.
Newton saw that the problem of gravitational collapse is posed for any
system, finite or infinite, however dynamic or static, so long as it
contains matter.
It makes no difference if there is, as Woods at
one point supposes, a "continual process of movement and
change, which involves periodic explosions, expansion and contraction,
life and death". (Reason in Revolt, p189) Or whether, "Long periods
of apparent equilibrium are interrupted by violent explosions." (Reason
in Revolt, p215) Whichever scenario you choose, continual movement or
interrupted equilibrium, neither scenario avoids the issue. Gravitational
attraction between places of equilibrium, or expansion and contraction,
would pull them together over a period of time that would be a blink of an
eye compared to an infinity of time, as Newton foresaw.
What is the answer to the conundrum of gravitational collapse? Why has
all the matter in space not collapsed in on itself in the universe?
Expansion of space
The definitive answer came in 1929-31 with Edwin Hubble’s earth-shaking
discoveries. Hubble provided the first evidence that the universe is
expanding. Using powerful telescopes, Hubble showed that galaxies are
generally receding from one another and from us, not simply moving this
way and that. Hubble also noticed another remarkable fact that was far
more significant.
It appeared that space itself was expanding. Hubble’s results showed a
universe expanding in such a way that clusters of galaxies move away from
ours at a speed that increases with distance. Galaxies are not all
receding from us at around 700 miles per second – 2.5 million miles per
hour – as Woods nonchalantly says. (Reason in Revolt, p155) In
general, at 100 million light-years away, galaxy clusters are moving away
from us at 5.5 million miles per hour, while those at 200 million light
years are moving away at twice as fast, at 11 million miles an hour, and
at 300 million lights years away, they are moving away three times as
fast. (Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos, p229)
Why is this? If a "great explosion", as Woods calls the Big Bang (Reason
in Revolt, p189), had torn apart some pre-existing primordial mass –
the equivalent on a much larger scale of a star going supernova – then the
speeds of the different objects observed would tend to be related to their
masses, with the lightest pieces being thrown further with the greatest
motion, compared to the heaviest. There would at least be a great
variation in speeds. Hubble did not find this.
Instead, Hubble saw the universal orchestration of an orderly
expansion. Hubble recognised that this could only be explained if what was
expanding was space itself.
In the same way, when a cake stuffed with raisins rises in the oven,
the raisins (the equivalent of galaxies) move apart from one another in a
simple relationship determined by the surrounding cake mixture – in
particular, the amount of self-raising flour in the mixture. If the cake
explodes, one sees quite a different dynamic.
It is this expansion of space which is such a significant indication of
a hot, dense origin of the universe and of space-time itself. The evidence
is not consistent with what Woods calls a "great explosion" taking place
in infinite space and time. (The term ‘Big Bang’ is a mischievous
misnomer, which amuses astrophysicists but trips up Woods. Ironically, it
was first coined by Fred Hoyle, who believed to the end of his life that
the universe was infinite in space and time but was forced to admit that
the Big Bang was the only existing satisfactory explanation for
astronomical experimental data. Hoyle used the term derisively, and was
perfectly aware of how misleading it was.)
Where gravity is strong enough to counteract it, it is thought that
this expansion of space is halted. Within galaxies and some clusters of
galaxies, for instance, this expansion of space is overcome and gravity
has taken over. Nevertheless, as a whole, the universe is expanding and
gravity has been unable to overcome this expansion, and thus has been
unable to cause the entire universe to collapse into "one great spherical
mass".
By the end of the nineteenth century, so ingrained in common sense was
the concept of an infinite universe (whether containing within it regions
of expansion and contraction or equilibrium), that even Einstein, who
seemed to question every common sense conception, did not at first
question it, and tried to solve the problems which Newton pondered. Only
hard scientific evidence provided by Hubble and reinforced by countless
observations since, caused Einstein to abandon the concept of an infinite
universe.
Woods does not seem to understand the nature of the problem: "The
Achilles’ heel of Einstein’s static, closed universe is that it would
inevitably collapse in on itself because of the force of gravity." (Reason
in Revolt, p204) Woods does not seem to realise that this is also the
Achilles’ heel of his universe where "Long periods of apparent equilibrium
are interrupted by violent explosions."
In his 1917 paper, Cosmological Considerations on the General Theory
of Relativity, Einstein considers the problem, and ruminates that "if
we really have to regard the universe as being of infinite spatial
extent", then, "It seems hardly possible to surmount these difficulties on
the basis of the Newtonian theory." This is because Newton’s infinite
universe suffers the same Achilles’ heel.
Einstein suggests that, "if it were possible to regard the universe as
a continuum which is finite (closed) with respect to spatial dimensions",
a solution can be found, but only if there was a repulsive force, which he
termed a cosmological constant, which could counteract gravity.
After learning that the universe was expanding so
that gravity is currently being overcome by the expansion, Einstein called
the addition of the cosmological constant to his general theory of
relativity his "greatest mistake". A cosmological constant could not in
any case keep the universe in equilibrium, it was found.
Why does Woods suggest that the problem of gravitational collapse
affects only a closed universe? Is he obscuring from Reason in Revolt’s
readers this significant and widely known contradiction: that a universe
infinite in time and space would inevitably collapse under its own weight?
Or is he simply unfamiliar with the science?
