Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 7/24/2004

Question
"Hello my name is lucy and I am 15 and have been interested in astrology for a few years . I was wondering if you could bring some clarity to a few gaps of understanding in my knowledge .

The first is the big bang , I understand the general theory but do not understand that if the big bang created everthing , then how did the material that created it get their in the first place . Our their any recent theories on what created the original matter that caused the big bang , amd doesnt this create some vital flaws in the big bang theory ( although their is evidence of it e.g redshift e.t.c )

My second question is about black holes . When light and planets have been sucked in and crushed in black holes where does all the matter go

I would be grateful if you could help me understand these difficult subjects futher
thank you

Lucy  

Answer
Hi Lucy,
I will say you must use the HUGE repository of knowledge that is out there on the web, just waiting to be tapped by people like you! One thing will always lead to another till all gaps are filled.

   Now to your questions..
1 - Lucy the Big bang created everything but that is true   
   only when you look at it ina certain way.

   What actually happened is that it created only
   radiation first!

   Because the initial temperature after the bang was too
   high for matter of any kind to exist.

   Some time after the bang, after the universe had
   expanded and cooled sufficiently, Energy "decoupled"
   from matter.

   This yielded wast quantities of elementary hydrogen.
   
   It is estimated that for some unknown reason, both
   matter and anti-matter were initially created, but the
   latter was "less" in quantity and soon lost by mutual
   annihilation after coming in contact with normal matter.
   The excess of normal matter continued to evolve into
   stars and then supernovas and thence to their "ash"
   which constitutes all the elements found on the
   periodic table from hydrogen to the heaviest possible
   element.

   No Lucy, all this does not in any way suggest any flaws
   in the big bang.
   
   Only that it suggests that like all theories the big
   bang theory rests on certain premises.

   cheifly that it all started in a bang from a "point"
   source that cannot be described except that it was very
   hot, and happened 10 billion years ago!

   Everything rests on some premise or another. Even those
   who believe in God, have to quietly refrain from asking
   "And who then created the god"?
   
   We can never escape (even gods) the chicken - egg
   problem..ie what came first!

2 - regarding what happens to anything that falls into
   black holes...frankly we do not know! (no harm in
   saying that at all!).

   That is so because, there is no known method of
   experimentally verifying the "after fall" part.

   At least not as of now.

   Presently that question falls in the category of "why
   cant entropy be reversed"?
   
   Asimov wrote a nice hugo award winning story on that
   and god! read it if you can find it. it was called
   the "last question".
   
   The last sentence in that story was "let there be
   light"! (super nice i say!).

   read all about it at :
   http://www.sgmt.at/LifeMan/LifeManagementE.htm

   happy surfing!
Jayen

post script:- Lucy sorry about that last web link i posted.
The whole story is available verbatim on this site:-
http://dookaloosy.dyndns.org/wail_-_thoughts_on_a_book_-_Asimov1.htm
jayen