Amici, Americani, Compatriotae,
The Old Testament reading in the daily Divine Liturgy for 02/12/2019 concludes the account of creation with Genesis 1:20-2:3. As I promised previously, this post provides a correlation between the six 24 hour days of Genesis with the actual multi-billion year age of the universe. Now first a note to my readers – traditional Catholics, as well as Pentecostal and Evangelical Protestants – who take a very literal view of the account of Genesis: you are correct but in a way that you do not suspect. First, however, in order to understand how you can be correct about a literal set of six 24 hour days of creation, and science can be correct about a multi-billion year age of the universe, you must understand something about physics: per Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, time is completely relative to the frame of reference of an observer. If an observer is near a large gravity well like a black hole, then time for him will pass more slowly as time in the external universe seems to speed up. Likewise as an observer approaches light speed, then time for him will pass more slowly as time in the external universe seems to speed up. We absolutely know for certain that this phenomenon is fact because we have seen it demonstrated in particle accelerators where radioactive nuclei are accelerated close to light speed and their decay time increases. Likewise we have to adjust communications between satellites in Earth orbit and cell phones on Earth’s surface to account for this time differential, else the GPS location feature of the cell phone would be exceedingly inaccurate. Therefore, 2nd Peter 3:8 is literally correct when it states, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” The passage of time for the Lord is different than the passage of time for us terrestrials. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that a universe age of 13, 14 or 15 billion years to our terrestrial perspective is merely day 7 of creation for the Lord. Time as recorded in Genesis chapter 1 is given from the perspective of God and NOT from the perspective of us terrestrial observers looking backward to the Big Bang – the creation event where God said, “Let there be light.”
You see, dear reader, if we measure time at the rate at which it had passed when the first particle of matter appeared (i.e., the proton) out of the Big Bang event when God created space and time, matter and energy, then we find a natural log relationship between this and the rate at which time currently passes in our present epoch on Earth. The first six days of creation described in Genesis are measured with respect to local time when protons coalesced out of the primordial Big Bang. This allows billions of years to transpire until the present with respect to current local time on Earth while preserving the veracity of the ancient Biblical record that the Universe was created in six 24 hour days. Said another way, the six days are told from the standpoint of Someone (i.e., God) at the beginning when protons first appeared out of the “soup” of quarks and leptons. That Someone, being outside space and time, saw the whole saga unfolding over a duration of six primordial 24 hour days as measured locally to the Big Bang.
Remember that for pure energy (i.e., the photon, a particle of light) time is at a stand-still. Thus, time began to progress when the first particles of matter coalesced out of the Big Bang and that’s the time perspective of the Creator. As the density of the mass in the early universe decreased with the expansion that occurred after the Big Bang, the rate of the passage of time increased locally. The equation for this can be given as:
A = [(-Ao/ln(2))*e^(-ln(2) * t)] / 365.25
where:
Ao = [ proton threshold temperature (1.0888E+13 Kelvin) ] / [ the current microwave background temperature (2.725 Kelvin) ].
ln(2) = natural log of 2 or 0.693
e = 2.71828
t = the Genesis day
A = the number of years into the past (will be a negative number)
NOTE: We divide by 365.25 to convert days to years.
Please see attached screen capture photos for a graph on the Age of the Universe and an associated data table.
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| Days of Creation - Graph |
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| Days of Creation - Data |
Dr. Gerald Schroeder explains this correlation in the following way at his web site and provides a correction to due universe inflation just after the Big Bang where the stretching of the fabric of space-time accounts for the difference between the calculated 15.6 billion year age of the universe and the observed 13.73 billion year age. We know from the Biblical record that this stretching occurred because both Psalm 104:2 and Isaiah 40:22 talk about the stretching of the heavens like a fabric. Therefore, what the good doctor writes below is reasonable – God created the 13.73 billion year old universe in six 24 hour days.
Today, we look back in time and we see approximately 14 billion years of history and those years went by. But how would they be perceived from the Bible’s perspective of time? Looking forward from when the universe was very small – billions of times smaller – the Bible teaches that six days passed. In truth, they both are correct. What’s exciting about the last few years is that we now have quantified the data to know the relationship between the perception of time from the beginning of stable matter, the threshold energy of protons (their nucleosynthesis), looking forward and our measure of the history of the universe. It’s not science fiction any longer. A dozen physics textbooks all bring the same generalized number. The general relationship of the stretching of space between the era of proton anti-proton formation, that time near the beginning at the threshold energy of protons when the first stable matter formed, and time today is a million million. That’s a 1 with 12 zeros after it. Space has stretched by a million million. So when a view from the beginning looking forward says “I’m sending you a pulse every second,” would we see a pulse every second? No. We’d see one every million million seconds. That’s the stretching effect of the expansion of the universe on the perception of time.
The biblical text shows us (and the Talmud confirms) that the soul of Adam was created five and a half days after the big bang creation. That is a half day before the termination of the sixth day. At that moment the cosmic calendar ceases and an earth based calendar starts. How would we see those days stretched by a million million? Five and a half days times a million million, gives us five and a half million million days. Dividing that by 365 days in a year, comes out to be 15 billion years. NASA gives a value of just under 14 billion years. Considering the many approximations, and that the Bible works with only six periods of time, the agreement to within a few percent is extraordinary. The universe is billions of years old but from the biblical perspective those billions of years compress into five and a half, 24 hour days.
The five and a half days of Genesis are not of equal duration. Each time the universe doubles in size, the perception of time halves as we project that time back toward the beginning of the universe. The rate of doubling, that is the fractional rate of change, is very rapid at the beginning and decreases with time simply because as the universe gets larger and larger, even though the actual expansion rate is approximately constant, it takes longer and longer for the overall size to double. Because of this, the earliest of the six days have most of the 15 billion years sequestered with them.
Following a talk I gave at AZUSA Pacific University, February 2011, a participant noted that when calculating the expansion ratio of space (that is, the fraction by which space had stretched) from the era of proton formation to our current time, I had neglected to correct for the fact that the rate of universal expansion is actually increasing. The million million expansion ratio is gotten by calculating the averaged ratio of the temperature of space now (2.76 K) relative to the threshold temperature of proton anti-proton pair production that marks the start of the biblical clock. The correction for this increase in the rate of universal expansion is in the order of 10%. Had the expansion been constant [and not super-linear resulting from the increased expansion rate], the temperature of space would be, not the currently observed 2.76 K, but 3.03 K. Introducing this correction reduces the expansion factor of the million million ( that is, a trillion) cited above, by 10% to 900 billion. As discussed above, the biblical time prior to the creation of the soul of Adam is 5 and half days. Expanding those biblical pre-Adam five and a half, 24 hour days by the expansion factor, 900,000,000,000, (i.e., 900 billion) results in age of the universe as viewed from our perspective of 13.6 billon years.
An exponential equation can be developed that details the number of years as measured from our perspective of time compressed within each of the five and half 24 hour days of Genesis Chapter One, taking each day as one “half life.” However rather than using the highly rounded off expansion factor of 900 billion, this equation uses the exact expansion factor (the ratio of the energy or temperature of space at the threshold energy of protons [10.9 x 1012 K ] to the “AZUSA” corrected current energy or temperature of space [3.03 K ]). The result gives an overall age of the universe of 13.9 billion years and also the number of those 13.9 billion years of cosmic history held compressed within each of the biblical five and a half, 24 hour days of Genesis prior to the creation of the human soul of Adam. Starting with Day One, the results are, approximately: 7; 3.5; 1.8; 0.9; 0.5; 0.2 billions of years compressed within each successive 24-hour biblical day. This is in close agreement with the NASA number of 13.7 billion years. Interestingly, several years ago an article in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal, Nature, used this identical approach to discuss the time from the beginning of the universe, but with a totally different agenda and so started its clock at the very creation which they projected as a singularity. The significance of this is that this respected science journal has given its stamp of approval for the methodology used here.
Today, we look back in time and we see approximately 14 billion years of history and those years went by. But how would they be perceived from the Bible’s perspective of time? Looking forward from when the universe was very small – billions of times smaller – the Bible teaches that six days passed. In truth, they both are correct. What’s exciting about the last few years is that we now have quantified the data to know the relationship between the perception of time from the beginning of stable matter, the threshold energy of protons (their nucleosynthesis), looking forward and our measure of the history of the universe. It’s not science fiction any longer. A dozen physics textbooks all bring the same generalized number. The general relationship of the stretching of space between the era of proton anti-proton formation, that time near the beginning at the threshold energy of protons when the first stable matter formed, and time today is a million million. That’s a 1 with 12 zeros after it. Space has stretched by a million million. So when a view from the beginning looking forward says “I’m sending you a pulse every second,” would we see a pulse every second? No. We’d see one every million million seconds. That’s the stretching effect of the expansion of the universe on the perception of time.
The biblical text shows us (and the Talmud confirms) that the soul of Adam was created five and a half days after the big bang creation. That is a half day before the termination of the sixth day. At that moment the cosmic calendar ceases and an earth based calendar starts. How would we see those days stretched by a million million? Five and a half days times a million million, gives us five and a half million million days. Dividing that by 365 days in a year, comes out to be 15 billion years. NASA gives a value of just under 14 billion years. Considering the many approximations, and that the Bible works with only six periods of time, the agreement to within a few percent is extraordinary. The universe is billions of years old but from the biblical perspective those billions of years compress into five and a half, 24 hour days.
The five and a half days of Genesis are not of equal duration. Each time the universe doubles in size, the perception of time halves as we project that time back toward the beginning of the universe. The rate of doubling, that is the fractional rate of change, is very rapid at the beginning and decreases with time simply because as the universe gets larger and larger, even though the actual expansion rate is approximately constant, it takes longer and longer for the overall size to double. Because of this, the earliest of the six days have most of the 15 billion years sequestered with them.
Following a talk I gave at AZUSA Pacific University, February 2011, a participant noted that when calculating the expansion ratio of space (that is, the fraction by which space had stretched) from the era of proton formation to our current time, I had neglected to correct for the fact that the rate of universal expansion is actually increasing. The million million expansion ratio is gotten by calculating the averaged ratio of the temperature of space now (2.76 K) relative to the threshold temperature of proton anti-proton pair production that marks the start of the biblical clock. The correction for this increase in the rate of universal expansion is in the order of 10%. Had the expansion been constant [and not super-linear resulting from the increased expansion rate], the temperature of space would be, not the currently observed 2.76 K, but 3.03 K. Introducing this correction reduces the expansion factor of the million million ( that is, a trillion) cited above, by 10% to 900 billion. As discussed above, the biblical time prior to the creation of the soul of Adam is 5 and half days. Expanding those biblical pre-Adam five and a half, 24 hour days by the expansion factor, 900,000,000,000, (i.e., 900 billion) results in age of the universe as viewed from our perspective of 13.6 billon years.
An exponential equation can be developed that details the number of years as measured from our perspective of time compressed within each of the five and half 24 hour days of Genesis Chapter One, taking each day as one “half life.” However rather than using the highly rounded off expansion factor of 900 billion, this equation uses the exact expansion factor (the ratio of the energy or temperature of space at the threshold energy of protons [10.9 x 1012 K ] to the “AZUSA” corrected current energy or temperature of space [3.03 K ]). The result gives an overall age of the universe of 13.9 billion years and also the number of those 13.9 billion years of cosmic history held compressed within each of the biblical five and a half, 24 hour days of Genesis prior to the creation of the human soul of Adam. Starting with Day One, the results are, approximately: 7; 3.5; 1.8; 0.9; 0.5; 0.2 billions of years compressed within each successive 24-hour biblical day. This is in close agreement with the NASA number of 13.7 billion years. Interestingly, several years ago an article in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal, Nature, used this identical approach to discuss the time from the beginning of the universe, but with a totally different agenda and so started its clock at the very creation which they projected as a singularity. The significance of this is that this respected science journal has given its stamp of approval for the methodology used here.
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