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Narlikar's “Creation” of the Big Bang Universe was a Mere Origination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Adolf Grünbaum
Adolf Grünbaum*
Affiliation:
Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
*
†Send reprint requests to the author, Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260-6125, USA.
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Abstract

In Grünbaum (1989, 374, 390), I objected to Narlikar's (1977, 136–137) designation “event of ‘creation’” for a supposed first cosmic instant t = 0, which he imports into the big bang cosmology of the general theory of relativity (GTR). Narlikar (1992, 361–362) does reject a theological construal of the “creation”. But, endeavoring to justify his secular creationism, he now points out that, in the GTR, the usual derivation of matter-energy conservation from Hilbert's stationary action principle cannot be extended to include the putative first instant t = 0. Narlikar reasons that this “breakdown” in the derivation of energy conservation at t = 0 qualifies the putative initial event as the “creation event”. I argue that this inference is multiply fallacious.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , December 1993 , pp. 638 - 646
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1993

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