Do you believe in the Big Bang?

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Yes, I believe in the Big Bang. I believe that God said, “Let there be . . .”, and BANG!!! There it was! 😃

(Full disclosure: I do not believe in a 6,000-year-old universe or Earth. I believe that however it was happening at the beginning of this space/matter/time continuum, God was there controlling it.)
 
For those that might know the history:
  1. At the beginning of the 20th century, science’s view of the universe was that of the classical paradigm. Newton explained the motion of the stars and planets and replaced the Ptolemaic system with a static universe that existed without a beginning and consisted of a single galaxy in which the planets circled the sun. William Herschel suspected that nebulae were distant galaxies but bowed to the classical paradigm and agreed that they were patches of interstellar gas.
  2. In 1914, Vesto Slipher, an American astronomer, announced that characteristic spectral lines observed in the light from the mysterious, fuzzy objects called nebulae were not at frequencies one would expect. Instead they were shifted away from the position exhibited by the corresponding elements in the laboratory. The shift was attributed to the Doppler-effect. Spectral lines for cosmic objects moving away from us are shifted toward the low frequency or red end of the spectrum. The greater the displacement of a spectral line from its laboratory value (its red shift), the greater is the recession velocity. Of course, a light emitting object such as a star or a galaxy coming toward us would have its spectra shifted toward the blue end. Slipher was amazed to find that the spectra for all the nebulae exhibited a red shift, none a blue shift. This was surprising because if the nebulae were pockets of gas within the our galaxy, we would expect both red and blue shifts since the objects of our galaxy move both toward and away from us.
  3. In 1916 Einstein introduced the General Theory of Relativity and when he applied it to the universe he found that it predicted an expanding universe. He was influenced by the classical paradigm, which assumed a static universe that existed forever, so he added a constant to his equation to rectify what he thought was a problem but which in retrospect was one of his most amazing predictions. In 1922 Alexander Friedman reworked the problem and discovered that Einstein made a mistake and even with the addition of the cosmological constant the theory predicted an expanding universe. But there was no proof and it was ignored.
  4. In 1924, Edwin Hubble using the new 100 inch Mt. Wilson telescope measured the distance to several nebula using a method devised by Henrietta Leavitt in 1912 using cepheid variables. He found that nebulae were much farther away than the most distant stars in the Milky-Way galaxy and in fact were themselves were galaxies. In 1929, Hubble discovered in analyzing red-shift data that greater the distance to a galaxy the faster it was receding from us. This was proof that the universe was immense and expanding.
  5. In 1931 George Lemaitre, a Catholic priest realized that an expanding universe implied that the universe was expanding from something. Extrapolating the universe backwards in time, he concluded that the universe emerged from an infinitesimal object he called the primeval atom. Given the scientific communities predilection for paradigmatic thinking, the idea of a big bang did not become acceptable science and Lemaitre’s work was ignored.
  6. In the 1940’s George Gamow, et.al. calculated that the remnant of the big bang and suggested that it should be detectable. They calculated that the afterglow would be about 5o Kelvin. In the 1950’s, Fred Hoyle devised a steady state model to explain the expansion without the universe emerging from an infinitesimal object. He derisively coined the name ‘big bang’.
  7. The competition between the steady state and big bang models continued until 1964 when Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at BTL’s Holmdel Laboratory, while developing antennas for satellite communication, were troubled by a background noise coming from all parts of the sky. Since the noise could not be attributed to any particular cosmic object, they assumed that the problem was associated with their equipment. They worked for over a year to find its source. They disassembled and rebuilt the equipment, scraped pigeon dirt from the antenna, and repainted to no avail. They measured the level of the background noise and found it to be about three degrees Kelvin.
  8. Meanwhile a group of physicists led by Jim Peeples and Robert Dicke at Princeton University, a short distance from Holmdel, ( without knowledge of Gamow’s early calculation)were setting up to search for a signal from space. The Princeton group had deduced that the remnants of the explosion should be present as an extremely low temperature radiation spread throughout the universe. The signal that the Princeton group was looking for was the one that Gamow had proposed earlier. Eventually, Dicke’s group heard about Penzias and Wilson’s “noise” observation; the two groups made contact and realized that the noise that Penzias and Wilson were trying to eliminate was the signal the Princeton group was looking for. The signal that caused so much consternation in Holmdel came to be called the cosmic background radiation (CBR), the remnants of the big bang. It established the big bang theory as accepted science.
Yppop
 
meltzerboy said:
Having just viewed a Nova program on PBS talking about the hypothesis of a multiverse–a possibly infinite number of universes–which is supported by string theory and the concepts of dark energy and endless inflation, I’m more in favor of a multitude of big bangs rather than only one. This kind of multidimensional perspective does, I admit, put somewhat of a dent in one’s belief that our microscopically tiny Earth is the only place in which G-d revealed Himself. Perhaps I’ll begin another thread on this topic.
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Meltzer:

Either way: one and only Big-Bang-Universe or millions of them, we must still go back to a very “first” one, even in string theory. Otherwise, what you are describing is a series of purely finite occurrences that cannot regress infinitely. Said another way, what you have here is an aggregation of purely finite structures that one is attributing the “idea” of infinity to. An aggregate of finite structures can never add up to infinity. Why? I’m sure you can answer this.

Besides, it appears that every expression of string theory has run into problems, including taking string-theory out to 10-dimensional (11-dimensional actually) m-theory, resulting in them being highly speculative, at best, and, at worst still retaining properties that require a beginning. The current Big Bang cosmology is still the far more likely candidate.

Perhaps you are right in saying that there may well be other planets in a fully, or partially, anthropic universe/multiverse that are hospitable not just to life, in general, but also to intellectual life. We’ll most likely never know.

God bless,
jd
 
yppop said:
For those that might know the history:
  1. At the beginning of the 20th century, science’s view of the universe was that of the classical paradigm. Newton explained the motion of the stars and planets and replaced the Ptolemaic system with a static universe that existed without a beginning and consisted of a single galaxy in which the planets circled the sun. William Herschel suspected that nebulae were distant galaxies but bowed to the classical paradigm and agreed that they were patches of interstellar gas.
  2. In 1914, Vesto Slipher, an American astronomer, announced that characteristic spectral lines observed in the light from the mysterious, fuzzy objects called nebulae were not at frequencies one would expect. Instead they were shifted away from the position exhibited by the corresponding elements in the laboratory. The shift was attributed to the Doppler-effect. Spectral lines for cosmic objects moving away from us are shifted toward the low frequency or red end of the spectrum. The greater the displacement of a spectral line from its laboratory value (its red shift), the greater is the recession velocity. Of course, a light emitting object such as a star or a galaxy coming toward us would have its spectra shifted toward the blue end. Slipher was amazed to find that the spectra for all the nebulae exhibited a red shift, none a blue shift. This was surprising because if the nebulae were pockets of gas within the our galaxy, we would expect both red and blue shifts since the objects of our galaxy move both toward and away from us.
  3. In 1916 Einstein introduced the General Theory of Relativity and when he applied it to the universe he found that it predicted an expanding universe. He was influenced by the classical paradigm, which assumed a static universe that existed forever, so he added a constant to his equation to rectify what he thought was a problem but which in retrospect was one of his most amazing predictions. In 1922 Alexander Friedman reworked the problem and discovered that Einstein made a mistake and even with the addition of the cosmological constant the theory predicted an expanding universe. But there was no proof and it was ignored.
  4. In 1924, Edwin Hubble using the new 100 inch Mt. Wilson telescope measured the distance to several nebula using a method devised by Henrietta Leavitt in 1912 using cepheid variables. He found that nebulae were much farther away than the most distant stars in the Milky-Way galaxy and in fact were themselves were galaxies. In 1929, Hubble discovered in analyzing red-shift data that greater the distance to a galaxy the faster it was receding from us. This was proof that the universe was immense and expanding.
  5. In 1931 George Lemaitre, a Catholic priest realized that an expanding universe implied that the universe was expanding from something. Extrapolating the universe backwards in time, he concluded that the universe emerged from an infinitesimal object he called the primeval atom. Given the scientific communities predilection for paradigmatic thinking, the idea of a big bang did not become acceptable science and Lemaitre’s work was ignored.
  6. In the 1940’s George Gamow, et.al. calculated that the remnant of the big bang and suggested that it should be detectable. They calculated that the afterglow would be about 5o Kelvin. In the 1950’s, Fred Hoyle devised a steady state model to explain the expansion without the universe emerging from an infinitesimal object. He derisively coined the name ‘big bang’.
  7. The competition between the steady state and big bang models continued until 1964 when Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at BTL’s Holmdel Laboratory, while developing antennas for satellite communication, were troubled by a background noise coming from all parts of the sky. Since the noise could not be attributed to any particular cosmic object, they assumed that the problem was associated with their equipment. They worked for over a year to find its source. They disassembled and rebuilt the equipment, scraped pigeon dirt from the antenna, and repainted to no avail. They measured the level of the background noise and found it to be about three degrees Kelvin.
  8. Meanwhile a group of physicists led by Jim Peeples and Robert Dicke at Princeton University, a short distance from Holmdel, ( without knowledge of Gamow’s early calculation)were setting up to search for a signal from space. The Princeton group had deduced that the remnants of the explosion should be present as an extremely low temperature radiation spread throughout the universe. The signal that the Princeton group was looking for was the one that Gamow had proposed earlier. Eventually, Dicke’s group heard about Penzias and Wilson’s “noise” observation; the two groups made contact and realized that the noise that Penzias and Wilson were trying to eliminate was the signal the Princeton group was looking for. The signal that caused so much consternation in Holmdel came to be called the cosmic background radiation (CBR), the remnants of the big bang. It established the big bang theory as accepted science.
Yppop
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Yppop:

What an excellent and informative summary of the history of the Big Bang. Thank you.

God bless,
jd
 
The big bang theory only makes me marvel at how powerful God really is. Such a tremendous amount of energy can only come from an infinitely powerful being. The mere fact that it has only happened once in more than 13 billion years tells me that it is not a random thing. I don’t see this as a contradiction to the Bible at all. God made the universe and He did so in an incredibly powerful way.

And how does the creation story contradict this ??? who can say how long a day is in God’s time frame. To God a moment can be millions of years, a day could be billions.
 
My vote: I do not have enough knowledge to vote.

I do like your choice of words: Believe!

To be honest, in my opinion, the number of people who know is LOW.

I should rephrase that, the number of people that believe they have knowledge from research is really low. I would love to know the actual number!

I have asked on this forum who to calculate the mass in the point of matter just before that Big Bang. How could they do the math if we do not know the size of the universe now? How can we calculate backward if we do not know the size of the universe now?

Also, if the universe is infinite, how can math handle infinite? How can math handle “infinites”?

Also, the major players in the science, why do the limit human reason to math, physics and chemistry? Philosophy was developed, just like math and science, by the same intellect. And there are many philosophers that know some being or beings had to design the universe. There is no reason to limit the research to math and science. The human reason should be allowed full expression. This is a liberal and flexible idea.
 
Jim_Baur said:
My vote: I do not have enough knowledge to vote.

I do like your choice of words: Believe!

To be honest, in my opinion, the number of people who know is LOW.

I should rephrase that, the number of people that believe they have knowledge from research is really low. I would love to know the actual number!

I have asked on this forum who to calculate the mass in the point of matter just before that Big Bang. How could they do the math if we do not know the size of the universe now? How can we calculate backward if we do not know the size of the universe now?

Also, if the universe is infinite, how can math handle infinite? How can math handle “infinites”?

Also, the major players in the science, why do the limit human reason to math, physics and chemistry? Philosophy was developed, just like math and science, by the same intellect. And there are many philosophers that know some being or beings had to design the universe. There is no reason to limit the research to math and science. The human reason should be allowed full expression. This is a liberal and flexible idea.
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Jim:

Interestingly, the mass of the observable universe has been postulated. It is 1053 kg
 
I believe in the Big Bang, and it supports my beliefs rather than falsifies them, because it posits a beginning of the universe.

Taking William Lane Craig’s argument for God’s existence,
  1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
  2. The universe began to exist.
  3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
This cause must be extremely powerful, transcending time and space, and immaterial. I call this cause God.
 
followingtheway said:
Some Christians (including Catholics) take a literal account of the Biblical creation. Although some do not believe in it, and some are undecided.

Which one are you? 😃
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I believe that God created the world in seven days, seven successive epochs of logical creative activity. At the same time, the Big Bang is an interesting theory. It does seem to confirm the fact that the universe had a beginning. At the same time, it proposes the idea that God was not directly involved in the workings of creation. I don’t necessarily accept that creation formed in the order that current science pretends. If Scripture is correct, Heaven and earth existed before the creation of the sun, of the stars and of the other planets. But this involves a lot of complications for purely scientific explanations. I guess I accept the findings of science as a way to gain a greater understanding of the universe. But I don’t accept them as fact, and thus, as final.
 
I cannot understand how any Catholic does not believe that God created the world!

Don’t you think He is capable of creating the world?

Do you think He was in Heaven and heard “the big bang” and decided to take a closer look?

Baffling!

If God wanted to, He could create 100 worlds like ours in a split second so why the disbelief?
 
JDaniel

Thanks!

“Interestingly, the mass of the observable universe has been postulated. It is 1053 kg”

THANKS!!!
 
Nelka said:
I cannot understand how any Catholic does not believe that God created the world!

Don’t you think He is capable of creating the world?

Do you think He was in Heaven and heard “the big bang” and decided to take a closer look?

Baffling!

If God wanted to, He could create 100 worlds like ours in a split second so why the disbelief?
Click to expand...
If God is the cause of the Big Bang, then it does not undermine the fact that God created the universe as you suggest.
 
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