Entropic Creation: Religious Contexts of Thermodynamics and Cosmology (Science, Technology and Culture, 1700-1945)

pp. 100-101 (PDF pp. 107-108) are on Fr. Secchi, S.J., pioneer of stellar spectroscopy Cantor consulted Franzelin, S.J. p. 94 (PDF p. 91) regarding the reality of ∞: pp. 94-5 (PDF pp. 101-2): > Cantor suggested that Thomas Aquinas’ rejection of the actual infinite should not be understood in an absolute sense, as was it impossible, but only in the sense that it was an improbable concept. His correspondent [Gutberlet](https://isidore.co/calibre#panel=book_details&book_id=7669), who expressed concern about the theological significance of the transfinite numbers, accepted Cantor’s argument and so did the Austrian-born cardinal [Johannes Franzelin](https://isidore.co/calibre#panel=book_details&book_id=4246), a leading Jesuit philosopher and theologian whom Cantor consulted.166 According to Gutberlet, the actual infinite existed in the absolute mind of God, but only in this ideal or non-physical sense (Cantor maintained that the transfinite also existed *in concreto* ). As mentioned, Gutberlet categorically denied that the number of objects in the physical universe could be infinite. His arguments were criticized by Isenkrahe, who found them to be unconvincing and objected to his theological use of infinite quantities.167 * * * For over three millennia, most people could understand the universe only in terms of myth, religion, and philosophy. Between 1920 and 1970, cosmology transformed into a branch of physics. With this remarkably rapid change came a theory that would finally lend empirical support to many long-held beliefs about the origins and development of the entire universe: the theory of the big bang. In this book, Helge Kragh presents the development of scientific cosmology for the first time as a historical event, one that embroiled many famous scientists in a controversy over the very notion of an evolving universe with a beginning in time. In rich detail he examines how the big-bang theory drew inspiration from and eventually triumphed over rival views, mainly the steady-state theory and its concept of a stationary universe of infinite age.In the 1920s, Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lema�tre showed that Einstein's general relativity equations possessed solutions for a universe expanding in time. Kragh follows the story from here, showing how the big-bang theory evolved, from Edwin Hubble's observation that most galaxies are receding from us, to the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Sir Fred Hoyle proposed instead the steady-state theory, a model of dynamic equilibrium involving the continuous creation of matter throughout the universe. Although today it is generally accepted that the universe started some ten billion years ago in a big bang, many readers may not fully realize that this standard view owed much of its formation to the steady-state theory. By exploring the similarities and tensions between the theories, Kragh provides the reader with indispensable background for understanding much of today's commentary about our universe.

Entropic Creation is the first English-language book to consider the cultural and religious responses to the second law of thermodynamics, from around 1860 to 1920. According to the second law of thermodynamics, as formulated by the German physicist Rudolf Clausius, the entropy of any closed system will inevitably increase in time, meaning that the system will decay and eventually end in a dead state of equilibrium. Application of the law to the entire universe, first proposed in the 1850s, led to the prediction of a future 'heat death', where all life has ceased and all organization dissolved. In the late 1860s it was pointed out that, as a consequence of the heat death scenario, the universe can have existed only for a finite period of time. According to the 'entropic creation argument', thermodynamics warrants the conclusion that the world once begun or was created. It is these two scenarios, allegedly consequences of the science of thermodynamics, which form the core of this book.

The heat death and the claim of cosmic creation were widely discussed in the period 1870 to 1920, with participants in the debate including European scientists, intellectuals and social critics, among them the physicist William Thomson and the communist thinker Friedrich Engels. One reason for the passion of the debate was that some authors used the law of entropy increase to argue for a divine creation of the world. Consequently, the second law of thermodynamics became highly controversial. In Germany in particular, materialists and positivists engaged in battle with Christian - mostly Catholic - scholars over the cosmological consequences of thermodynamics.

This heated debate, which is today largely forgotten, is reconstructed and examined in detail in this book, bringing into focus key themes on the interactions between cosmology, physics, religion and ideology, and the public way in which these topics were discussed in the latter half of the nineteenth and the first years of the twentieth century.

Entropic Creation is the first English-language book to consider the cultural and religious responses to the second law of thermodynamics, from around 1860 to 1920. According to the second law of thermodynamics, as formulated by the German physicist Rudolf Clausius, the entropy of any closed system will inevitably increase in time, meaning that the system will decay and eventually end in a dead state of equilibrium. Application of the law to the entire universe, first proposed in the 1850s, led to the prediction of a future 'heat death', where all life has ceased and all organization dissolved. In the late 1860s it was pointed out that, as a consequence of the heat death scenario, the universe can have existed only for a finite period of time. According to the 'entropic creation argument', thermodynamics warrants the conclusion that the world once begun or was created. It is these two scenarios, allegedly consequences of the science of thermodynamics, which form the core of this book. The heat death and the claim of cosmic creation were widely discussed in the period 1870 to 1920, with participants in the debate including European scientists, intellectuals and social critics, among them the physicist William Thomson and the communist thinker Friedrich Engels. One reason for the passion of the debate was that some authors used the law of entropy increase to argue for a divine creation of the world. Consequently, the second law of thermodynamics became highly controversial. In Germany in particular, materialists and positivists engaged in battle with Christian - mostly Catholic - scholars over the cosmological consequences of thermodynamics. This heated debate, which is today largely forgotten, is reconstructed and examined in detail in this book, bringing into focus key themes on the interactions between cosmology, physics, religion and ideology, and the public way in which these topics were discussed in the latter half of the nineteenth and the first years of the twentieth century. "Entropic Creation is the first English-language book to consider the cultural and religious responses to the second law of thermodynamics, from around 1860 to 1920. According to the second law of thermodynamics, as formulated by the German physicist Rudolf Clausius, the entropy of any closed system will inevitably increase in time, meaning that the system will decay and eventually end in a dead state of equilibrium. Application of the law to the entire universe, first proposed in the 1850s, led to the prediction of a future 'heat death', where all life has ceased and all organization dissolved. In the late 1860s it was pointed out that, as a consequence of the heat death scenario, the universe can have existed only for a finite period of time. According to the 'entropic creation argument', thermodynamics warrants the conclusion that the world once begun or was created. It is these two scenarios, allegedly consequences of the science of thermodynamics, which form the core of this book."--Jacket Cover 1 Contents 6 1 Introduction 8 2 Some Early Ideas on Decay and Creation 16 3 Thermodynamics and the Heat Death 30 4 The Entropic Creation Argument 54 5 Concepts of the Universe 110 6 Post-1920 Developments 200 7 Shadows from the Past 228 Bibliography 242 Index 272 A 272 B 272 C 272 D 273 E 274 F 274 G 274 H 275 I 275 J 275 K 275 L 276 M 276 N 277 O 277 P 277 R 277 S 278 T 278 U 279 V 279 W 279 X 279 Y 279 Z 279 Entropic Creation is the first book to consider the cultural and religious responses to the second law of thermodynamics, and the theory proposed by certain Christian scholars during the period 1860 to 1920 that the entropic creation argument is proof of a divine creation of the world.