The Big Bang

No one remembers the Big Bang, when the world officially began. Not many witnesses. God may exist, but he, she, and it is too wise to be available for an interview. That leaves me to describe this event to you. This is an epic event definitely suitable for presentation with the omniscient point of view. I just don't have the energy to do it as a human.

The closest event I can relate to the Big Bang was when I squirted out between my mother's legs cloaked in an embarrassing suit of blood and mucous. That seems like light years and many galaxies ago. At least  I was life from life, and something from something. But how can something come from nothing? And if something could come from nothing, you would think that nothing would be something, not nothing. Anyway, you'd think that the matter in this universe would at least come in its finished state-- not any cheap freeze-dried, make-your-own universe by first requiring that it come together in a dense and compact ball so great that it would be compelled to explode in a "big bang." I guess it just takes faith.

The way many scientists figure it is that this compacted ball, the entire universe at that time, was hotter than we can imagine and smaller than an atom, smaller than any object visible to a human. Imagine it! The universe before the "big bang" so small! As incredible as it sounds, does that not sound like some universal, microscopic seed? Plant it, and away it goes! It's still a little unclear to me what would be outside the universe. Maybe that just means blank space. I mean after all that is as close to nothing as you can get, right? Before you answer, though, keep in mind hat the currently held theories on our universe maintain that our Milky Way galaxy's main disk is surrounded by a huge globe of dark matter that we can not presently distinguish. Astronomers have made calculations that indicate the galaxy's mass can only be accounted for by this mass of some non-visible matter. The current widely held theory is that the visible matter in our Milky Way galaxy is supported by this mysterious dark matter-- like the cream  swirling on the top of a cup of coffee. You have to give it to whoever named our galaxy Milky Way! Were they intuitive, or what?

Well, this incredibly dense and compacted ball that today we call the universe must have blown sky high like a tightly wound womb expelling its creation. This incredibly hot, compacted ball began to expand at a phenomenal rate, mushrooming at or near the speed of light. Being matter without awareness has certain advantages in such situations. This matter had no no need to apologize, kind of a like a baby when it's born. When this matter exploded, it just kept on going, to this day, in fact, expanding-- no looking back, show me the highway, don't fence these molecules in, baby, I'm outta here... gotta be where I was told to be...

Most scientists believe that today matter is NOT expanding; rather, the space between the matter is expanding. Such is reality as we know it. Some scientists theorize this expansion of the space between matter will stop one day, and, like a dog that's run too far attached to a rubberized leash, will simply just snap back, and go splat against the dog house, or some other kind of matter.

I'm not losing sleep over this happening in my lifetime. I'm not a rocket scientist but  I play the odds and they say our life in this universe is a trillionth gabillionth of a blink of the time before this next big bang would happen, and, that, my friend, is a big exaggeration. Such is the universe and time. So, if the car wreck does not get you, the heart attack will... or, if you're lucky, good ole' reliable old age. Don't sweat the coming of the next big bang, if it comes...

Russian-American physicist George Gamow's 1948 modification of Lemaitre's theory of the primeval atom into the big bang theory of the origin of the universe has objectively and ultimately stood the test of time-- well over a half century of time anyway. There are lots of other prominent scientists who believe this expansion of the universe will last forever or slow down and reach a steady state of stasis. After all, Gamow maintained from the start that as the universe expanded, the residual radiation from the big bang would continue to cool, until now it should be a temperature of about -270 Celsius (-454 Fahrenheit). This relic radiation was detected for the first time by radio astronomy in 1965, providing what most astronomers consider to be the confirmation of the big bang theory. The phenomena of background radiation, or low-temperature microwave radiation, arrives at the earth's surface from all directions in outer space. It is so named because it forms a background to all the discrete radio sources that have been detected by radio telescopes. For most serious physicists, this background radiation represents the lingering remains of the once incredibly hot conditions that prevailed in the first moments of the big bang.

According to the big bang theory, some 15,000 million years ago a gigantic explosion created the universe--all matter, energy, space, and time were created-- and that the various elements observed today were produced within the first minutes after the big bang, when the extremely high temperatures and density of the universe would fuse subatomic particles into the chemical elements. In the beginning, all energy was unified. That sounds scientific and religious, but such are the most widely held theories. Such is the fundamental universal unity of all life-- and non-life.

Recent calculations by prominent astronomers and other physicists have indicated that hydrogen and helium would have been the primary products of a big bang, forming within minutes of the explosion, with heavier elements being produced later over millions and millions of years within stars. The transition from the high density at the time of the explosion set the universe expanding rapidly, as many scientists have compared it to a balloon that is being blown up. As it expanded, the hydrogen and helium would cool and condense into stars and galaxies. This explains the observed expansion of the universe and the physical basis of Hubble's Law. Astronomers have ascertained that galaxies in all directions seem to be receding from our own Milky Way galaxy, which, by the way, is believed to be about 100,000 light-years in diameter. Hubble's Law states that the more remote the galaxy, the higher was its recession velocity, ascertainable by its red hue profile.

Because galaxies in all directions seem to recede from the Milky Way, one might want to conclude that the Milky way was at the center of the universe; however, scientists have concluded that the universe is like a balloon with evenly spaced dots painted on it. As the balloon is blown up, an observer on each spot would see all the other spots expanding away from it, just as observers see all the other galaxies receding from the Milky Way. The analogy also provides a simple explanation for Hubble's Law; the space in the universe is expanding like the space on the outer surface of an inflating balloon...

How far has this balloon-like universe expanded beyond the microscopic particle that existed prior to the Big Bang blew it sky high? Today astronomers routinely keep an eye on galaxies over 6 billion light years away! Using devices such as highly sensitive infrared detectors called large-format arrays, astronomers at Hawaii's Mauna Kea Observatory have recorded hundreds of the the faintest galaxies ever recorded. Because light from these most remote viewable galaxies has been traveling for some 6 billion years, the universe at the point the light is emanating from can be observed as it appeared in the distant past some 6 billion years ago, give or take a million years or so. An anomaly in this ancient view of the universe is that instead of a mixture of galactic types, only one type predominates: a class of  small, compact galaxies rich with black holes and containing far  fewer stars than the Milky way or others of its kind. The spiral and elliptical galaxy model such as our own Milky Way, much closer to be observed and a closer unity between appearance at this moment and reality, may be how these distant galaxies are REALLY today-- at this moment-- 6 billion years after the light that is reaching us today from that distant point in outer space... what we could be seeing in those distant galaxies is how our own galaxy may have looked 6 billion years or so ago. How does that point in outer space look today? Maybe like our own galaxy? Maybe destroyed billions of years ago in some fateful ill-fated convergence? To find out we would need to wait another 6 billion years, so grab a chair... do you have any board games? Really only one thing is certain: that whatever we see today in those distant galaxies is how they looked to any local observer in that faraway place some 6 billion years ago.

1,000 million years after the Big Bang, material started to come together, as space expanded and temperatures reduced. Around 3,000 million years after the Big Bang, galaxies began to take shape. Some 2 ,000 to 3,000 million years after the Big Bang, quasars evolved. Quasars can be thought of as very dense, bright stars. From them the galaxies were seeded and continued to expand. Our Galaxy, the Milky Way, formed into a disc shape 5,000 million years after the Big Bang. The Sun was born 10,000 million years after the Big Bang. The earth and other planets in our solar system evolved from the cosmic debris, the Earth's core forming from iron and being adhered to and coated by other elements. 

The first life forms appeared on earth about 12,000 million years ago after the Big Bang. Dinosaurs lived 190 million years ago. Humans have been around for just 2 million years-- a tiny fraction of the Universe's life. The present time is about 15,000 million years after the Big Bang.

What will happen to the Universe? Scientists have different views about this. Some scientists think it will have no definite end, but will gradually slow its expansion. This is the Open Universe theory position. Others think it will stop expanding and start to contract until it is compressed and hot again. This is the Closed Universe theory position. Most scientists believe that the mass of the universe will determine if the system is open or closed. Mathematical formulas have been put forward to model how much mass the universe would need to go either way. The weight of the universe and its proportionment is what most physicists believe will determine if the the cosmology of universe is at basis cyclical, or Closed, or linear, and Open. Measurements of the universe's mass remain inconclusive. There's always that mysterious black matter to weigh and that will keep scientists into the next century burning their fuel-efficient equivalent of the midnight oil. Other scientists believe particular characteristics of plasma may play a major role in this determination of weight and whether the system is Open or Closed. Barring any big breakthroughs in medicine or super coupon special from God, we will not be around anyway. Ultimately, we will all as individuals make our own conclusions and leave the rest to the universe.

Moments come and go just like us living things. Life is about transition, about space and time... so let's move on now... Human life is like a necklace of strung glass beads, each distinct, linear but elliptical. Life is like a movie, so let's transition now to a new frame... or would you rather take a trip to the refreshment stand for popcorn and a Coke?