Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,
by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
Click here to order the hardbound 8th edition (2008) and other materials.
The stretching explanation, proposed here, has similarities and differences with the big bang theory. [See Table 26.] Both the big bang and stretching explanations describe a very rapid expansion of the universe soon after time began, but before the laws of physics were in place. As one big bang authority, Andrei Linde, stated:
In its standard form, the big bang theory maintains that the universe was born about 15-billion years ago from a cosmological singularity—a state in which the temperature and density are infinitely high. Of course, one cannot really speak in physical terms about these quantities as being infinite. One usually assumes that the current laws of physics did not apply [during the big bang’s rapid expansion—called inflation2]. ... One may wonder, What came before? If space-time did not exist then, how could everything appear from nothing? What arose first: the universe or the laws determining its evolution? Explaining this initial singularity—where and when it all began—still remains the most intractable problem of modern cosmology.3 [emphasis added]
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|
|
Big Bang |
Big Stretch |
| SIMILARITIES |
The universe and time began before the laws of physics came into operation.3 Energy and matter appeared out of nothing.4 |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Space expanded in all directions faster than the speed of light. Wave lengths of light were stretched (redshifted). Stars and galaxies were carried outward by expanding space. |
Yes |
Yes |
| DIFFERENCES |
When time began, the mass of the universe was what it is today, but it was all concentrated in a
|
point, one quadrillionth the size of an atom. |
volume, that was several light-days in radius. |
|
|
What expanded? |
space, light, and matter |
space (the heavens) and light |
|
|
Expansion occurred |
within a fraction (10-32) of a second after time began |
on Day 4 of Creation Week |
|
|
After the accelerated expansion, the universe was |
the size of a basketball, but the outward momentum has continued for 13.7-billion years |
nearly the size it is today |
|
|
Expansion energy came from |
inside the universe |
outside the universe |
|
|
The earliest universe was filled with |
only hydrogen, helium, and lithium; half was matter, and half was antimatter |
only matter, including most of today’s chemical elements |
|
|
Stars, galaxies, planets, and black holes began forming |
after 420,000,000 years of expansion5 |
before the expansion, only a few thousand years ago |
|
|
The initial temperature was |
nearly infinite |
finite |
|
|
Some materials, if they once exceed certain temperatures, will never take the form we see them in today. Therefore, temperatures were never “nearly infinite.”) 6 |
||
The stretching proposal, in contrast to the big bang theory, does not begin with a singularity—an infinitesimal point (a mathematical fiction).7 Nor does the energy expended in stretching out the heavens mysteriously come from within the universe or during its first trillionth of a trillionth of a ten-billionth of a second (10-32 second), as with the big bang theory. Energy flowed into the universe as stretching progressed. According to the big bang theory, stars, galaxies, and black holes began forming after 420,000,000 years. According to the stretching explanation, these bodies were present near the beginning of time—early in the creation week. You can decide which explanation the following, surprising evidence supports.