Expert: Tom Whiting - 9/29/2008

Question
Tom:

I watched History Channel last night, and saw that Big Bang was proven in 1965 by Princeton scientists.

It also said that universe is finite, because it began when Big Bang occurred.

It showed Big Bang exploding out of a compact, pod looking object.

Question?  Where did pod looking object come from.  Was that God?  Was the object of mass that Big Bang exploded out of finite or infinite.  I.E.,  Was it always there waiting to explode and eventually give rise to you and I?

Answer
Hi Mike,
Yes, the discovery of the remnant radiation by Arno Pensias and
Robert Wilson in 1965, who eventually were awarded the Nobel prize
for their accidental discovery in the microwave portion of the
radio spectrum.  This was later re-confirmed by the COBE and WMAP
satellites recently. (See Cosmic Background Explorer and WMAP
on Google if you are interested).

While the matter in the Universe is probably finite, the spacial
expansion may not be, OR is so huge that it may as well be. Current thinking is that our Universe early on went through an inflationary phase, so the space-time continuum may be 10 to the 80th power lightyears across or bigger, virtually nearly infinite from our viewpoint. (Only matter is limited by lightspeed, not space and
spacial expansion.).

As far as a "pod" shaped object, well movies have to use 'something'
but in reality, no one knows what the 'beginning' object looked like.
That's a descriptive movie taking 'literary license' and that's all.
The current thinking is that 'something' happened down at the
quantum level (sub sub sub atomic level) that released all the latent
vacuum energy...that began our Universe, but in all honesty, we just
don't know (as yet) what caused the Big Bang, or what existed prior
to the Big Bang.  As far as God, isn't that what we ALWAYS invoke
when we've reached our current scientific limit of the day?  Yes.

Our ancestors thought forest fires were "God" but then one day someone saw the forest fire was started by lightning, so then they thought lightning was "God", then some intelligent individual figured out that clouds caused lightning, so the clouds became "God" then they figured out that clouds were caused by thunderstorms, so thunderstorms became "God". Then they figured that thunderstorms were caused by evaporated water vapor, so water became "God"...
and so on and so on.  Once we reach the scientific limit of the day,
then we tend to invoke a theological explanation, which ultimately
provides the wrong answer as more information becomes available.
Is that not correct?

But the honest answer is, we just don't know where the Big Bang
came from, or what existed prior, what the initial cause was, or even what we are expanding into, as yet.
We still don't even know what dark energy and dark matter
are made up of, even though they constitute 96% of our Universe.
(We only see 4% of the matter in our Universe). For more information
on the Big Bang and the correct timeline, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Big_Bang

Hope this helps,
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA
PS...also realize, the only elements made from the Big Bang were
hydrogen and helium (and just a trace of #3, Lithium). All the other
90 elements are formed and distributed from past Supernovae explosions that occurred prior to the Solar System formation some
4.6 billion years ago. So realize, there's this huge gap in time between the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, to the Solar System
formation 4.6 billion years ago. (Over 9 billion years)!!
So we didn't directly come from the Big Bang.  BUT, we owe our very existence (at least in the physical sense) to the fact that for billions of years, the original H-He mix was enriched with the other 90 elements by supernovae events....carbon, iron, silicon, oxygen, nickel, etc etc.
And so we are products of the stars, we are all stardust, at least in the physical sense. Look around you, everything you see, including
ourselves, are nothing more than supernovae remnants, except for
a little bit of hydrogen and helium.
Just a passing thought.
Tom