Astronomy Information:

The Bang that Started it All

By Ted Nichols II

"At present the preponderance of cosmological data favors the Big Bang Theory; as the reader may know, the Big Bang is the modern version of creation, a topic of fascination since the dawn of Humanity" (Silk 2). The Big Bang theory is the most widely believed and feasible theory behind man's existence. Man's universe has captivated his wonder since his beginning, and the story of creation has differed from age to age. Now, in an age of science, and space, scientists are actually able to factually and scientifically come up with a theory regarding our universe's creation. The Big Bang theory has existed for years, and its age shows it is not something to be easily discarded. This paper will attempt to scientifically, ethically, and factually prove that the Big Bang Theory is the best possible explanation for the creation of man's universe.

The universe has caused man to wonder about its creation since the beginning of human existence. However, to understand its creation one must first understand what the universe is. The study of the universe covers all of space and its contents. The study of the universe is called cosmology. The universe is estimated to have an age of ten to twenty billion years; it certainly is far from young. However, the universe is not old either; it is in its prime. The universe mostly contains empty space with galaxies floating throughout . The most distant detected galaxies and quasars lie about 10 billion light years from the earth. The surprising fact to some is that all of the galaxies are moving in an expanding universe (Couper 6). Researchers have detected that the further away from the center of the galaxy, the greater the red shift. In essence, it means the further out the galaxy, the faster the speed at which it is moving. To understand the galaxy, here is an example of what happens in our universe. Imagine mixing dough together for raisin bread and putting the raisins in the dough, then the dough in a bread pan. One would then put that pan in the oven and as the bread baked, the raisins would move away from each other at different speeds. The further out the raisin, the faster it "rises" out . To put that into scientific terms, one needs to understand that the universe is like bread. As the universe ages, it expands. The universe continues to expand as it ages, and as it ages, galaxies move further apart at different speeds. The universe, in turn, could be referred to as a big highway; the further out in the boonies the highway is, the faster the speed limit (Couper 10).

The universe is the totality of all space, time, matter, and energy. It contains all things presently observed by men alive at the present time. Several theories have existed to attempt to tell the tale of the universe's creation; however, only one has drawn as much popularity and support as the Big Bang Theory. In reality, the Big Bang has been accepted by most scientists, for every new thing discovered in this universe supports the theory and does not contradict it (Couper 10). The former contradictory Steady State Theory has since been proved wrong since the universe has been shown to be expanding which negates the former assumption that the universe is static, leaving only the Big Bang Theory as man's scientific explanation for the universe's creation. Thus, so far, the idea of the universe's creation is best described by the Big Bang Theory.

The Big Bang Theory lays a path for the universe to begin. In the evolution of the universe, there are two main eras, the radiation and matter eras. The radiation era was when radiation was in control, and matter was dominated by radiation (Chaisson 590). When the tides of time began to change, matter gained control, helping to create the universe and thus the matter era. The change from radiation to matter occurred during the nuclear epoch. The change from radiation to matter occurred when the protons and neutrons fused together into heavier nuclei. Due to changing conditions, radiation would soon lose control and matter would dominate and continue dominating till present (Chaisson 593). However, prior to the Big Bang, the universe did not exist; there was no time or space or explanation as to why nothing became something. Time has proven not to be an ever-rolling stream, and the flow of time is linked to space, as well as to matter and gravity. Researchers realize nothing happened prior to the Big Bang because there was nothing prior to the Big Bang, and without time, nothing could happen or exist (Couper 8). Nothing could exist, however, without space, and man's universe not only came from nothing, but from nowhere (Couper 9). However, something did happen, the Epoch of Decoupling. Occurring almost parallel to the Atomic Epoch, prior to matter taking control, nuclei and electrons combined to form atoms (Chaisson 596). At this point in time, the universe was nearly transparent and radiation could travel on forever, causing it to form the cosmic microwave background. The formation of structure in the cosmos started out with a mixture of dark and normal baryonic matter. The dark matter, since it was heavier began to clump, causing the formation of structure in the cosmos. Most of these clumps are the galaxies man observes today, and his own Cold Dark Matter consists of heavy particles while hard dark matter contains lighter weight particles (Chaisson 603). The epoch of inflation then occurred. The universe doubled (and doubled) in size very quickly. The happening of this ruled out two prior contradictions to the Big Bang. After the rapid expansion, the universe slowed back to its normal speed but much bigger than before (Chaisson 599). Taking all this into account, the age of the universe is another question. Edwin Hubble originally determined the universe to be two billion years old, but his measurements were determined to be incorrect, and sceintists later determined the universe is actually 10-20 billion years old. All because of this thing called the Big Bang, our universe became that old (Couper 6).

This theory called the Big Bang was created by a fellow known as Le^Maitre, in the 20th century. According to Le^Maitre, in the beginning, approximately 13 billion years ago, everything started out with an explosion, not in one place but everywhere (Couper 6). Space and time were created as a result of this (Couper 10). The name the Big Bang is an exaggeration ,however. The bang was actually small and not really a bang at all. The separation of time and space allowed the creation and expansion of the universe to occur, liberating space as a whole (Couper 11.) Starting out hot and full of radiation, it expanded, cooling as it went, and allowing particles to diffuse and disappear in some cases. As it expanded, the density fell; if it would have continued like this, nothing much would have happened, but something miraculous happened; it blew up, hence the bang part of the Big Bang (Couper 12). Only one second old and still very hot, the first elements came to be. In the next three minutes the cosmos cooled and allowed the construction to begin. By the end of the third minute, protons and neutrons were created, and the first three elements were created, Hydrogen, Helium, and Lithium (Couper 19). After three minutes, the universe settled down and would be settled down for more than a quarter of a million years. The next thing to occur produced great evidence, visible even today. Radiation lost control of the universe to matter (as mentioned before). Hydrogen and Helium had at it and it created a gravitational pull on Dark Matter (Couper 21). The pull created ripples with voids and filaments therein, and our galaxy, as well as many others were formed (Couper 22). Galaxies were born from warm gas clouds, then violent outbursts occurred inside them, and once it settled down, suns, planets, stars, and everything else contained in a universe was created, or was given the opportunity to be created. The universe, however, began to grow at a high speed, a hundred trillion trillion trillion trillion times, and dropped from scorching to zero degrees. The huge inflation came to an end and is referred to as cosmic inflation (Couper 16). Inflation still continues to this day but at a slower speed. Inflation is what made our universe so smooth and big in general. Next, lots of subatomic particles fought it out for superiority; antimatter and matter also fought it out, and radiation now dominated aided in the fight. However, in the end, matter prevailed. Research on the present and past has helped the Big Bang to be scientifically accepted.

In recent years many things have happened to help prove or lend support to the Big Bang. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle revealed the concept of Quantum Mechanics. This states all physical quantities are subject to unpredictable and uncaused changes. The Big Bang certainly was unpredictable and just happened. Another example that points to the Big Bang being true is Einstein's equation. E=MC2, which informs man that matter is a form of energy and if enough energy is concentrated, matter can be created. Obviously, there was enough energy to create the matter within man's universe (Davies 2). In 1918 George Gamow theorized that if a bang occurred, it would have left traces of radiation which would still be evident to this day. He calculated and came up with the theory that radiation would have cooled just a few degrees above absolute zero. Gamow was proved correct when Arne Penzias and Robert Wilson detected faint radiation coming from all over the sky that met Gamow's calculations. Edwin Hubble, who found that all the galaxies are moving, allowed Milton Humason to determine that some are moving at 1/4 the speed of light. This proved the universe was expanding, and the implications were enormous. The theory of expansion is a key part of the Big Bang Theory, and if it didn't happen the Big Bang would not hold up, but it did. However, in 1919 a Dutch astronomer used Einstein's theory of relativity to prove the universe was expanding, adding more peas to the soup in essence (Engelbert 58). Henrietta Swan, in 1908, discovered the Cepheid Variable. The Cepheid Variable shows that the brightness of a star changes in a regular manner. Brighter starts had longer periods than dimmer shorter period starts. This helped to show that the size, brightness, and the whole shebang, differed from item to item. In 1914, Vesto Slipher presented measurements detailing the velocity of 17 spiral nebulae and found they were moving away from the sun. He also found that they were moving very fast, and most interpreted that as meaning they were outside of man's own galaxy and were, perhaps galaxies of their own. Edwin Hubble, who founded the principles for the Hubble Law, which stated all galaxies are moving in different directions and becoming further away, is a key element in the reasoning of this theory. Hubble, in 1923, used 2 large telescopes in identifying the Cepheid variable of the outer regions of 2 nebulae. He found their distance to be 930,00 light years away, and similar to our own galaxy. This proved they were, in fact, galaxies of their own . In 1905, Ejnar Hertzsprung compared the width of stellar lines to the brightness of a star, finding that the absolute brightness of a star using a spectrum, can help determine its distance, something Hubble would later use (Big 3). In recent years, several "new" discoveries, more modern than those of the past, have been helpful to the Big Bang's cause.

In 1992, NASA launched COBE. Its mission was to look into space. [The findings included that] it detected tiny temperature changes in cosmic background radiation. This lends evidence that there may have been gravitational disturbances in the early universe. It also discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background, which is a fossil remnant of the primeval fireball from which out universe arose (Chaisson 584). Shortly thereafter, the Space Shuttle Endeavour detected helium gas in space. Finding this shows 90% of matter created during the creation was hydrogen, and most of the rest was helium. This eliminated the missing mass riddle, and since helium absorbs light, scientists will be able to determine many things from the gas (Cooke 1). The ending of the universe also may shadow back to the Big Bang itself, and the creation, therefore allowing us to determine what originally actually happened, however no one will exist then to analyze the data.

Our galaxy and the universe is still in its prime but will eventually use up all of the raw materials, and the open universe will become a graveyard of cosmic objects. We will exist as a cold, expanding emptiness, or so authors and scientists say. If our universe is indeed open, as the big bang says, it will continue to expand and cool forever, which in essence is a slow death. The cosmic clock is ticking, the beginning seconds determined the fate of our universe. In 5 billion years, we will see how the Big Bang destined our universe to die.

While there are many versions of how the universe was created, the Big Bang theory is the most plausible. In the book The Big Bang, author Joseph Silk states, "The bulk of the Big Bang Theory however rests more on fact than speculation"(Silk 2). The Big Bang Theory is, in fact, scientifically accepted by most scientists and believed to be fact. Le^Maitre truly created a Big Bang during the time when he brought this idea up, and was probably laughed at, but few would dare scoff at this theory today. Judging by all the evidence that supports the Big Bang, and there being no questions to the theory, the Big Bang is indeed the best explanation for the universe's creation.

Works Cited

"Big Bang Theory." Online. Gale Research. Discovering Science. 10/15/99.
Chaisson, Eric and Steve McMillan. Astronomy Today. New York: Prentice Hall, 1997.
Cooke, Robert. "Support for the Big Bang Theory." Newsday. June 13, 1995: A08. Online. Infonautics. Electric Library. 10/15/99.
Couper, Heather and Nigel Henbest. Big Bang: The Story of the Universe. New York: PK Publishing, 1997.
Engelbert, Phillis. "Big Bang Theory." (Astronomy & Space, Vol. 1, Edited by Jane Hehnen) New York: UXL an Imprint of Gale, 1997.
Silk, Joseph. The Big Bang. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1997.