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| Virtual particles/dark energy |
1. The second law of thermodynamics
"Applying the second law of thermodynamics to the universe we will conclude that it must have began to exist. Since the universe is a closed system, with enough time the universe will suffer a heat death or thermodynamic equilibrium."
There are two incorrect assumptions being made here. The first is that the sum of energy in the universe is those of visible matter and the second is that "the universe is a closed system".
With regards to entropy and the energy of the universe, using the model in Tzortzis's drawing of the two boxes you would assume that when the barrier is lifted, the gas moves and gradually slows down until it finally stops when it occupies the whole box. The truth is, however, the universe is not slowing down but rather is accelerating in expansion - it's speeding up. Have a look at this very brief report or for detailed evidence, read this paper.
From the second paper above;
"In recent years the Hubble space telescope and several modern observatories on Earth seem to have found strong evidence that the expansion of the universe is actually accelerating. If so, then it could be accounted for in the context of general relativity only by a non-zero cosmological constant..., with the implication that the universe is infinite and will expand forever (at an accelerating rate)."
The second assumption about the universe being closed. There are three opinions on the geometry of the universe; closed, open and flat. Recent research has proven without doubt that the universe is infact a flat system. In a flat universe there can be zero total energy and thus can come from nothing.
2. The absurdity of an infinite history of past events
Here Tzortzis talks about infinity and how he is struggling to grasp the concept. The problem here is that infinity is indeed difficult to imagine in the natural world, but not so much in the mathematical world - which is where he should be looking. Infinity does exist, we just find it difficult to understand. But saying that, this issue is not really relevant to the topic at hand. The point about the creation of the universe is related to energy that exist and does not exist. Virtual particles that have been detected to come out of nothing and disappear again.
The atoms that everything is made up of contain a nucleus centre orbited by electrons. The diameter of the atom itself could be over 100,000 times the size of the nucleus (depending on the atom), thus you can imagine that the nucleus takes up a very tiny space compared to the atom as a whole. But looking at the mass of the atom; the nucleus holds about 99.9% of the total mass! Thus the electrons and the majority of the area the atom occupies has negligible mass. Now within the nucleus there are protons and neutrons and within the protons and neutrons there are quarks. Now you'd think that the 99.9% of the mass of atoms (and thus of everything that atoms make up - matter in the universe) would then be in those quarks. The answer however is no, the majority of the mass of the atom is infact in the empty space between the quarks. The majority of mass of all matter comes from virtual particles. Infact, 74% of all mass in the universe comes from virtual particles - also known as dark energy. This energy comes and goes out of existence, understanding infinity in this particular issue is not relevant. Energy that makes up the majority of the universe is constantly appearing and disappearing, and this has been scientifically measured.
3. Astrophysical evidence
This section is basically a repetition of the previous where the question of what happened before the big bang is stretched to fill a page. The answer is as above, dark energy makes up the majority of the universe and exists and then disappears, this is called quantum fluctuation.
The rest of the article either takes very old science, missunderstood science, or scientists out of context. This way or that, I do believe the above responds to all the points being made by Tzortzis.
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