Big Bang Theory? Evidence for the Theory
The Big Bang theory is an effort to explain what happened at the very beginning of our universe. Discoveries in astronomy and physics have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that our universe did in fact have a beginning. Prior to that moment there was nothing; during and after that moment there was something: our universe. The big bang theory is an effort to explain what happened during and after that moment.
Big Bang is the cosmological model of the initial conditions and Subsequent development of the Universe that is supported by the most Comprehensive and accurate explanations from current scientific evidence and observation. According to Cosmologists, the term Big Bang generally refers to the idea that the Universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some finite time in the past, best available measurements in Year 2009 suggest that the initial conditions occurred around 13.3 to 13.9 billion years ago, and continues to expand to this day.
Georges Lemaitre proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the Origin of the Universe, although he called it as “hypothesis of the primeval atom”. The framework for the model relies on Albert Einstein’s general relativity and on simplifying assumptions (such as homogeneity and isotropy of space).? The governing equations had been formulated by Alexander Friedmann. After Edwin Hubble discovered in year1929 that the distances to far away galaxies were generally proportional to their red shifts, as suggested by Lemaitre in 1927, this observation was taken to indicate that all very distant galaxies and clusters have an apparent velocity directly away from our vantage point, the farther away, the higher the apparent velocity. If the distance between galaxy clusters is increasing today, everything must have been closer together in the past.
This idea has been considered in detail back in time to extreme densities and temperatures, and large particle accelerators have been built to experiment on and test such conditions, resulting in significant confirmation of the theory, but these accelerators have limited capabilities to probe into such high energy regimes.
Without any evidence associated with the earliest instant of the expansion, the Big Bang theory cannot and does not provide any explanation for such an initial condition; rather, it describes and explains the general evolution of the Universe since that instant. The observed abundances of the light elements throughout the cosmos closely match the calculated predictions for the formation of these elements from nuclear processes in the rapidly expanding and cooling first minutes of the Universe, as logically and quantitatively detailed according to Big Bang nucleosynthesis.
Fred Hoyle is credited with coining the term Big Bang during a 1949 radio broadcast. It is popularly reported that Hoyle, who favored an alternative “steady state” cosmological model, intended this to be pejorative, but Hoyle explicitly denied this and said it was just a striking image meant to highlight the difference between the two models. Hoyle later helped considerably in the effort to understand stellar nucleosynthesis, the nuclear pathway for building certain heavier elements from lighter ones. After the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964, and especially when its spectrum (i.e., the amount of radiation measured at each wavelength) sketched out a blackbody curve, most scientists were fairly convinced by the evidence that some Big Bang scenario must have occurred.
According to the many experts however, space didn’t exist prior to the Big Bang. Back in the late 1960?s and early 1970?s, when men first walked upon the moon, “three British astrophysicists, Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the Theory of Relativity and its implications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which they extended Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity to include measurements of time and space. According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy.” The singularity didn’t appear in space; rather, space began inside of the singularity. Prior to the singularity, nothing existed, not space, time, matter, or energy – nothing. So where and in what did the singularity appear if not in space? We don’t know. We don’t know where it came from, why it’s here, or even where it is. All we really know is that we are inside of it and at one time it didn’t exist and neither did we.
Is the standard Big Bang theory the only model consistent with these evidences? No, it’s just the most popular one. Internationally renowned Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis explains: “People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observation.? He said that For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observation. You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.
In 2003, Physicist Robert Gentry proposed an attractive alternative to the standard theory, an alternative which also accounts for the evidences listed above. Dr. Gentry claims that the standard Big Bang model is founded upon a faulty paradigm (the Friedmann-lemaitre expanding-space time paradigm) which he claims is inconsistent with the empirical data. He chooses instead to base his model on Einstein’s static-space time paradigm which he claims is the “genuine cosmic Rosetta.” Gentry has published several papers outlining what he considers to be serious flaws in the standard Big Bang model.? Other high-profile dissenters include Nobel laureate Dr. Hannes Alfven, Professor Geoffrey Burbidge, Dr. Halton Arp, and the renowned British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, who is accredited with first coining the term “the Big Bang” during a BBC radio broadcast in 1950.
According to the standard theory, our universe sprang into existence as “singularity” around 13.7 billion years ago. What is a “singularity” and where does it come from? Well, to be honest, we don’t know for sure. Singularities are zones which defy our current understanding of physics. They are thought to exist at the core of “black holes.” Black holes are areas of intense gravitational pressure. The pressure is thought to be so intense that finite matter is actually squished into infinite density (a mathematical concept which truly boggles the mind). These zones of infinite density are called “singularities.” Our universe is thought to have begun as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense, something – a singularity. Where did it come from? We don’t know. Why did it appear? We don’t know.
After its initial appearance, it apparently inflated (the “Big Bang”), expanded and cooled, going from very, very small and very, very hot, to the size and temperature of our current universe. It continues to expand and cool to this day and we are inside of it: incredible creatures living on a unique planet, circling a beautiful star clustered together with several hundred billion other stars in a galaxy soaring through the cosmos, all of which is inside of an expanding universe that began as an infinitesimal singularity which appeared out of nowhere for reasons unknown. This is the Big Bang theory.