Cultural Retreat

S.W. Hawkins    The problem of the origin of the universe, is a bit like the old question: Which came first, the chicken, or the egg. In other words, what agency created the universe. And what created that agency. Or perhaps, the universe, or the agency that created it, existed forever, and didn't need to be created. Up to recently, scientists have tended to shy away from such questions, feeling that they belonged to metaphysics or religion, rather than to science. However, in the last few years, it has emerged that the Laws of Science may hold even at the beginning of the universe. In that case, the universe could be self contained, and determined completely by the Laws of Science. The debate about whether, and how, the universe began, has been going on throughout recorded history. Basically, there were two schools of thought. Many early traditions, and the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions, held that the universe was created in the fairly recent past. For inst...