Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 6/28/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hello Sir,
       I had written to you a month back regarding educational queries.Thank you so much for your help sir and I will certainly follow it.

My Question- The Big Bang Theory is the most preferable theory for the birth of the universe. But actually I am not satisfied by this theory.It says that everything started from a teeny tiny ball but how is this possible, its not that I agree with the Steady State Theory but then where did the teeny tiny ball come from.According to the Hubble Theory the universe is expanding does this mean there is something outside the universe that we are not yet aware of that is something other than the Dark Matter or the Dark Energy.In short if everything started from the teeny tiny ball where was the teeny tiny placed and where did it come from and where is the universe expanding itself.

ANSWER: Steffi,
you are obviously young, and the main issue with youth is that it hates it when there are no answers.
But dear, science does not work like that.
Science has been so successful specially because it is dead pan straightforwars about what it knows and what is doesnt.
It does not substitute emotion, anger, frustration, and pet theories when confronted with absence of knowlesge about things.
Rather it kind of says.."Ok! Currently all the facts tell us reality is like this..the big band happened, the universe is expanding, the CMB is there, and we do NOT know what the universe is expanding into, nor do we know what existed before the bang.
These lacunae we hope to fill in due course, but till then lets not waste what little we do have with us!!"
I do hope you understand that too.
The reason I am taking this approach is because, it is very easy to get emotional and feel grumpy about how inadequate science is, but look at the alternative.
Do you have an alternate theory that will stand the questioning of the scientefic community? If not (days 1 person making a major discovery like einstien are long gone), if you cannot contribute you must accept.
That is the only way forward.
The questions you ask are trivial because NOT knowing their answer is NOT earth shattering, but rejecting what has been gathered over time, by hard work, will be earth shattering.
So please consider your approach, and join the collaborative effort we all call "doing science".
regards
Jayen

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Sir,
   I think you took my ouestion in a negative way. I never said that the big bang theory is incorrect or something like that, I only said that it fails to convince me & I don't think it's wrong at all. Every person can have his or her own point of view and that dosen't mean I need to have a theory to say I have doubt in the present one. And if it's necessary for me to comment only if I have my own theory then I'm sorry for my mistake I guess I should talk about it after I have the answer for my questions. When people agreed with the Steady State theory and a student like me who is just 16yrs old must have said that he does not agree with the one they accepted must have got a similar result but it was only when they knew about the hubble theory they agreed with him. I think I should wait for my pick.  I think that there are a lot things yet to be known in the universe and we should wait for them without making any conclusions....
Thanking You,
Steffi.

ANSWER: Hi,
Steffi, Indeed it is so.
Because it takes 1/2 a minute to say "hey all this big bang stuff is Bull, I simply dont understand it".
But it takes decades of painstaking research to say one way or another.
Those who argued for the steady state theory, did so because THAT seemed logical in the view of available facts, and not because some one took a fancy to that theory.
The moment the CMB was discovered by Panzias & co, scientefic opinion turned in favor of the expanding universe, conclusively.
This is because people were not entirely convinced the red shifting was not due to some other unknown property of the universe that we did not know yet. It was a gray area. The CMB discovery lent conclusive supoert to the red shift guys.
I still sense an undercurrent of dis-satisfaction / disappointment in your writing.
That is why I took the route I took last.
You see expressing disagreement is one thing, backing it up with something concrete is another.
Else it gets reduced to the "I wager", I feel" level which is not science at all. It is pet theory province, and sometimes plain arrogance.
Do not take what I write personally.
I am not implying you have been arrogant.
But I also have had arrogant louts who pose questions in mock seriousness and once you have answered them negating their thoughts, they bare their claws and say foul things and use the ratings like tools to get even with you.
I have seen it all.

The whole point is this...if by saying "I dont get this, It isnt true" you gain something concrete, its ok. But often people assume superior airs and say the above, as if they were young Chandrashekhar with his Black hole theory that eddington disapproved of and suppressed for a good 3 decades!!
And not everyone is a Chandrasekhar.
[refer:- the "para Sirius and its white dwarf companion" http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/BlackHoleFormation.html]

regards
Jayen


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hai Sir,
Thank you for your reply.
You may be wondering why I question so much about the birth of the universe, but that's my favourite topic.
What I want to ask now is about the reactions that took place after the big bang theory. A no of reactions had taken place and are still on. And is it actually possible to detect the going on reactions.
The black hole gallops things but it also gives away much of it. Has it ever been known of the materials a black hole can out from within. I know we don't have a black hole near by at least for light, light yrs away.
Sorry for not using scientific language, I hope you wouldn't mind.
Waiting for your reply......

Answer
Hi,
No Steffi, I am not aware of any such reactions.
And I am not clear what you mean by reactions.
Immediately after the Bang, superheavy elements were created, and black holes too.
It is said that a significant proportion of the energy released can be attributed to the radioactive decay of those superheavy elements.
But I am not aware of the exact value.
Hawking radiation out of black holes is largely theoretical work, and I don't thing any one has seen hawking radiation emerging out of any black holes yet.
regards
Jayen