BIG BANG—A PLANNED EVENT
One of the current astronomical theories is what is called the ‘Big Bang.’ The universe was estimated to be singular around 13.8 billion years ago. Then, a primordial matter came into existence, which some scientists have called a “super-atom,” and all its components were violently drawn inwards. Then, this primordial matter exploded. As a result of this explosion, its components began to spread outwardly, and eventually, the present universe with all its stars and planets was formed.
According to the news published in The Times of India (December 11, 1977), two scientists from California have arrived at new facts showing that the Big Bang was a much calmer and more orderly event than is generally understood. In a statement from the American space agency NASA, Dr Richard A. Muller (b. 1944) and Dr. George Fitzgerald Smoot (b. 1945) said they found in their research that the universe is completely around them and spreading at the same speed.
Most scientists believe that the universe began with a big bang. Some think that it was in a dispersed state, which created the quality of a vortex in matter. However, the latest evidence clearly shows that no “explosion” occurred in the known sense. Instead, it was a quiet event of a release of energy, a reality that the scientists could not understand even till now. It was a much more complex event than it is currently understood.
Both theories are based on the background radiation detected by the sensitive instruments on NASA’s U-2 aircraft. An aircraft was flown to an altitude of 20,000 meters. It is believed that a ray was released during the initial explosion. These rays were first discovered in 1965. The U-2 spacecraft has found certain rays in every part of the universe. There is so much order and arrangement in them that the speed of celestial bodies can be measured with utmost accuracy.
However, from the measurements, they have found an exception in the discipline. The Earth, our solar system, and our galaxy (in which the solar system is located) are moving apart at a speed of a million miles per hour compared to the rest of the celestial bodies. Smoot said, “Because if our galaxy were to keep up with the expansion of the rest of the universe, it would have to travel at 1/6th of its current speed.” We do not know the reason for this. The answer to this fundamental question is still unknown: Why did the initial movement or explosion in the matter of the universe start?
The Big Bang Was Not at all that Big
Reuters published this news on December 10, 1977. These are the words:
“Two California scientists have come up with new data suggesting that the Big Bang, ‘which brought the universe into being some 15 billion years ago, was a much smoother and more orderly event than popularly imagined.’
In an announcement from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently, Dr. Richard Muller and Dr. George Smoot of the University of California said they had found that the universe was expanding constantly in almost all directions.
The new findings ‘take the simplistic Big Bang theory a long step down the road and give us a model that will eventually help to unravel the mystery of how the universe was formed,’ Dr. Smoot said in an interview.
Most astronomers believe the universe began with a massive explosion. Some think this was a chaotic mess, occurring at different speeds in different places, giving rise to great swirls of matter.
Others see it as a homogeneous event, sending newly formed matter out in all directions at the same speed.
However, the new findings indicate that the Big Bang was smoother than the ‘homogeneous school’ had expected.
‘It appears,’ said Dr Smoot, that ‘there was no explosion such as a Super Nova (large exploding star), but rather some energy release which we don’t understand yet.
‘We’re really giving added weight to the Big Bang theory. But it is an infinitely more complex process than the originators conceived.’” (Washington, December 10 [Reuters])
Background Radiation
The two scientists, Dr. Richard Muller and Dr. George Smoot of the University of California base their ideas on readings of background radiation detected by sensitive instruments aboard the NASA U-2 aircraft at an altitude of 20,000 meters. This plane, a type that was most famous for spy flights over the Soviet Union and Cuba in the late 1950s and early 1960s, is also used for photography of agricultural and Earth resources, NASA said.
Background microwave radiation, discovered in 1965, is thought to be the heat left over after the bang.
But U-2 fighters found that the radiation was the same in all the sky sectors, indicating no central core of the universe and no single primal explosion at one “spot” took place.
The radiation is so regular that it allows the measurement of the motion of heavenly bodies, just as water resistance allows the ship’s speed to be measured.
These measurements reveal one exception to regularity: the earth, our solar system and our galaxy—the Milky Way—are out of step with the rest of the Hydra at the speed of more than one million miles per hour.
“This is a slight paradox,” Dr. Smoot said. “Because if our galaxy was constant with the rest of the universal expansion, it should only be travelling at about one-sixth that rate of speed.”
Why the Milky Way is acting this way remains unknown, though Dr Bernard Jones of England’s Cambridge Institute of Astronomy has suggested that the entire universe might be slightly top-sided, with more matter on one side than the other.
The gravity of this matter could be tugging the Milky Way, but other galaxies would be affected in that case.
The two scientists found none of the swirls of radiation a chaotic explosion might have caused.
The basic Smoot-Muller model of the universe is one of the clusters of galaxies moving away from one another at a constant rate towards the end of the universe—if it has ended.
More complex than the idea of a messy explosion, the model still leaves the fundamental question unanswered: how did the original bang come about?
Some astronomers speculate that the collision of matter and anti-matter caused it. This theory holds that there was originally slightly more matter than anti-matter, so some matter was left over after the blast. (The Times of India, December 11, 1977)
This model explains that the Big Bang was not big. This background microwave radiation, discovered in 1965, was considered “heat left over after the bang.” Referring to this radiation, known as the ripple remnants of the Big Bang in outer space, the American scientist Joel Primack (b. 1945) remarked that they “are no less than the handwriting of God.” Further, the exception found in our Milky Way raises the question: who caused this exception? These scientific discoveries point to the existence of a Planner, which is another name for God.
