Mysteries of the Universe and Planet Earth

Through a cosmic event that was designed to provide for the life of man—known in scientific parlance as “The Big Bang” —all the physical laws, energy, time, elements and processes that would ever be needed for a material universe came into being. (Genesis 1:1) It happened in an instant, out of nothing. This was not an explosion in the ordinary sense that would yield disorder and destruction, but a cataclysmic release of energy and mass carefully designed by the Creator with all the properties that now operate and govern the universe and our planet Earth.
Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists of all time, provided evidence in 1916 that the universe was expanding rather than remaining static. Apart from the Bible no known book or essay of science, philosophy, or theology written previous to the twentieth century even hinted at the universe’s ongoing expansion.
An important discovery took place recently that may explain the means by which the void of space suddenly became full of objects “in the beginning.” At the site of the world’s biggest atom smasher, the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), scientists announced the observation of the so-called Higgs boson, or “God particle.” Existence of this particle could help explain why all matter has mass since the beginning of the universe. The idea of this mysterious particle was first proposed by Peter Higgs at the University of Edinburgh almost 50 years ago. It is thought-provoking that scientists used the term “God particle,” in view of the fact that in the beginning the void of space suddenly became masses of objects as biblically described. Scientists tell us that the boson particle is necessary for invisible energy to become physical and visible mass, even though the particle disintegrates in a fraction of a second.
Jeffrey Kluger of Time magazine stated that CERN team leader Fabiola Gianotti and her colleagues were grappling with something bigger than mere physics, something that defies the mathematical and brushes up—at least fleetingly—against the spiritual. Kluger went on to say when that happened, faith and physics, which don’t often “shake hands,” shared an embrace.
Discovery of the Higgs boson helps explain nothing less than why our existence is possible. This God-created particle is likely the very reason any mass exists at all in the universe. Energy is easy to understand. But energy and matter are like steam and ice, two different states of the same thing. If you can’t ping energetic particles with something—the Higgs boson, we now believe—then planets, suns, galaxies, nebulae, moons, comets, dogs and people cannot exist.
Not that God needed mathematics to set up the universe, but man in ancient times—though he beheld the glory—could not understand how it all works and why. As early as c408−355 BC (Greek mathematician Eudoxus) the rudimentary ideas of calculus were introduced to understand the processes, especially that of change and volume. The universe operates on change, such as day changes to night, summer changes to winter, planets move around the sun, stars change their brightness, the moon changes the tides, rain changes to snow, and so on.
It was not until the 20th century that formal calculus was fully developed through the efforts of many mathematicians. It was now understood that change could be defined as a series of minutely different locations of matter “banded” together. The use of calculus simply sums the series of matter locations to derive a value for the observed change. Ultimately, it became evident that calculus was useful in all aspects of astronomy to gain a more precise understanding of the nature of space, time and motion.
Nowadays, calculus mathematics is the basis for a great host of activities that man understands and performs. The list is huge, such as design of telescopes, design of mirrors, understanding celestial mechanics laws that determine positions and movement of planets and comets, and understanding planetary atmospheres and star spots.