As with many scholarly studies, the historical and scientific quest to understand the origins of the universe might well begin with the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Teaching the doctrine that the "fundamental" elements of our universe are Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, Aristotle began a millennium-long tradition of underestimating the identity and import of the smallest elements of our universe. Ironically, preceding even Aristotle’s tradition, the word "atom" was assigned to designate the smallest of particles; Democritus in 400 BC wrote "By convention there is color, by convention sweetness, by convention bitterness, but in reality there are atoms and space." His convention differed, of course, from today’s conventional wisdom, which most eighth graders can tell you includes the presence of particles which bear the name "sub-atomic."

While the presence of these sub-atomic particles has been known for some time, their nature has always been poorly understood. In his 1988 best seller A Brief History of Time, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking writes, "if neutrinos are not massless…." He then suggests that this is highly improbable; ask him again today and he’ll likely recant this statement.

Hawking’s new stance is due to an astounding discovery announced at the Neutrino ’98 Conference. This remarkable finding was resultant from the Super-Kamiokande Experiment’s collection and analysis of neutrinos formed when cosmic rays hit the earth’s upper atmosphere. The implications profoundly impact studies of astrophysics as well as the interface between cosmology and religion.

Neutrinos are elementary matter particles that lack any charge. The three forms of neutrinos–the electron (e) neutrino, the muon (m) neutrino, and the tau (t) neutrino–comprise three of the six types of leptons (non-quark particles). Neutrinos are produced through a variety of decays. For example, a neutron decays into a proton, an electron, and an anti-neutrino (the particle which collides with a neutrino to annihilate the mass and release energy). Neutrinos are formed easily and are generally unreactive with matter; thus they are extremely abundant in the universe. Until last year, they were also presumed to be massless, but the discovery that they do have mass makes essential a recalculation of the total mass present throughout the universe. While this figure might seem to hold a significance no greater than the chance to placate the discoverer’s ego, it may foretell the ultimate future of our universe.

This understanding of the universe’s fate could also conceivably provide an illustration of its past, back to its very beginnings.

While some individuals reject the Big Bang theory as contradictory to the Bible’s story of Creation and vice versa, many scientists have worked to reconcile what they believe to be a superficial conflict between religion and science. Albert Einstein and Hawking, despite their efforts to unravel the physics behind the Big Bang, never lost faith in the teachings of their respective religions. Similarly committed to a scientific understanding of the Bible, Gerald Schroeder, in his book Genesis and the Big Bang, combines careful analysis of biblical texts and the concepts of time dilation and general relativity to create a cohesive theory for the creation of the universe. His hypothesis suggests that with proper scientific examination, the six days during which God created the world and the physics behind the Big Bang are consistent.

Essentially, the theory asserts that God created the universe from nothing by initiating the Big Bang. In the moment that He created matter, the matter was all located in one infinitely small space, hence of infinite density (mass/volume). At an estimated temperature of 1032°C (ten million billion billion times hotter than the center of our sun), the extremely rapid motion of the particles caused violent collisions. Energy and matter were in a fluid interchange explained by Einstein’s equation E=mc2. The expansion of the matter in our universe, still present today, is attributable to this forceful explosion of energy. Observation of other solar systems reveals that the universe is still experiencing expansion, for our relativistic view shows everything moving away from our small planet in the Milky Way.

However, this outward expansion force is combated by the gravitational pull of the universe’s mass towards the center of the universe. There exists a critical density above which the gravitational force will eventually exceed the outward momentum, first leading to an arrest in the expansion and then causing a contraction of the universe. The sum of all visible, or "light" matter, of the universe does not even come close to this critical threshold. In fact, it is only responsible for approximately one percent of the matter in the universe.

"Dark matter," which can’t be seen, exists in such forms as dead stars. Neutrinos are considered dark matter. While the matter measured prior to the discovery that neutrinos have mass could not suffice to create a closed universe, the total mass of the ubiquitous neutrinos and other sources of dark matter may be sufficient to surpass the critical density, eventually sending our universe into state of contraction. Despite the extraordinarily small mass of each neutrino, they are so abundant that according to theoretical physicists, they alone could tip the scale. Arising from this theory is the belief that the universe’s expansion ought to be slowing; this would continue until the expansion graph hits a maximum, and the universe would then begin to contract.

This contraction, however, cannot be perpetual. Eventually, the totality of the matter reaches the center, an infinitely small space. The result would be another Big Bang…and a never-ending cycle of expansion, contraction, implosion, and explosion ad infinitum. Prior to the discovery of neutrino mass, Schroeder stated, "Estimates of cosmic mass indicated the universe will not collapse." His universe, the work of God, was stable. New neutrino notions may jeopardize this conception.

The theory Schroeder and other religious scientists purport describes God creating the universe through the Big Bang, with all matter and all formations being connected to His hands. However, if neutrino mass prophecizes contraction, which eventually produces implosion, and implosion causes an explosion which creates the universe again, then our universe will be destroyed and recreated infinitely. In fact, our universe might not be the first of its kind. Can our universe, then, still be the work of God? Did He "in the beginning" create the world simply to destroy it? Is this even the world which He created, or is our inability to measure time before the Big Bang precluding us from understanding the nature of this universe’s relative place in the space-time dis-continuum ?

Experiments with the Hubble Space Telescope are presently seeking to directly measure the expansion rate of our universe to determine whether it is open or closed. Some evidence for a positive cosmological constant, which claims that expansion actually accelerates with time due to developing repulsive forces, obviates the need for neutrinos to create a closed universe. On the other hand, neutrino mass helps to explain why stars orbit galaxies so quickly and why galaxy clusters orbit around the center of mass at such a rapid speed. The neutrino mass evidence fits well into certain cosmological schema, but defies others, necessitating the need for further research.

With a discovery as profound as neutrino mass, all former theories must be reconsidered. Physics textbooks and theses on biblical philosophy alike must be reexamined, recalculated, and rewritten. Hawking and Schroeder must make the revisions to their respective books, and the world must anxiously await the answer the Hubble Telescope will reveal. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…." And in the end, perhaps we will understand something of its nature and its complexities.