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- Posted: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 02:18:37 +0000
Many of you seem to be under the impression that the Big Bang theory is not only illogical, but doesn't even work scientifically. However, most of you probably don't even know what it is, so let me attempt to explain with the help of Stephen Hawking. For the record all of the following quotations are taken from his lecture "The Beginning of Time". Please keep in mind that I am undecided in my opinion of the Big Bang, and am not trying to "convert" anyone. I am just offended by the number of ignorant jackasses who claim to have proven the Big Bang theory false with no knowledge of what it even is.
Hopefully this except from his lecture provides at least a slight bit of insight as to what the Big Bang theory actually is, for those of you who have "disproven" it without ever reading up on it. While the theory will probably never be proven, as the extent of human knowledge is very limited, at this point it is the most widely accepted theory of the beginning of the universe. Do you really think a 13-year-old teenager busy trying not to fail the school's on-level science courses can effectively disprove a theory widely supported by veteran cosmologists? Most likely not.
EDIT 1/7/2005:
While obviously at this point the Big Bang theory cannot be proven or disproven, and will probably never be proven (as mankind will undoubtably eliminate itself long before that kind of discovery could ever be made), cosmologists don't accept the Big Bang theory because they're senseless sheep. They accept it because it has the most scientific evidence in support of it, and it makes sense. There have been records of radioactive material supposedly left over from the explosion itself floating in space.
Cosmic microwave background radiation
Did the Big Bang make noise?
Kudos to Zoch for taking the time to find the two above links.
Stephen Hawking
At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang.
Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them. This kind of beginning to the universe, and of time itself, is very different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier. These had to be imposed on the universe by some external agency. There is no dynamical reason why the motion of bodies in the solar system can not be extrapolated back in time, far beyond four thousand and four BC, the date for the creation of the universe, according to the book of Genesis. Thus it would require the direct intervention of God, if the universe began at that date. By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside.
Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them. This kind of beginning to the universe, and of time itself, is very different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier. These had to be imposed on the universe by some external agency. There is no dynamical reason why the motion of bodies in the solar system can not be extrapolated back in time, far beyond four thousand and four BC, the date for the creation of the universe, according to the book of Genesis. Thus it would require the direct intervention of God, if the universe began at that date. By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside.
Hopefully this except from his lecture provides at least a slight bit of insight as to what the Big Bang theory actually is, for those of you who have "disproven" it without ever reading up on it. While the theory will probably never be proven, as the extent of human knowledge is very limited, at this point it is the most widely accepted theory of the beginning of the universe. Do you really think a 13-year-old teenager busy trying not to fail the school's on-level science courses can effectively disprove a theory widely supported by veteran cosmologists? Most likely not.
EDIT 1/7/2005:
While obviously at this point the Big Bang theory cannot be proven or disproven, and will probably never be proven (as mankind will undoubtably eliminate itself long before that kind of discovery could ever be made), cosmologists don't accept the Big Bang theory because they're senseless sheep. They accept it because it has the most scientific evidence in support of it, and it makes sense. There have been records of radioactive material supposedly left over from the explosion itself floating in space.
Cosmic microwave background radiation
Did the Big Bang make noise?
Kudos to Zoch for taking the time to find the two above links.
Isaac Asimov
Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something someone dreamt up after being drunk all night.