The Big Bang-1

It was in 1916 that Einstein published his general theory of Relativity. It was a defining moment not only for physics or science but for mankind as a whole. It would forever change the way we look at the universe. Before Einstein came out with his theory of relativity space was considered static. But Einstein’s space is dynamic. It curves and bends due to the presence of mass in it. It appears almost like a living entity which reacts to its surrounding. Einstein’s general theory of relativity thus stated that the planets which moves in orbital paths around the sun or the way in which every other heavenly body moves is not due to the action of the force of gravity but are actually moving in the simplest of paths that is formed due to curving of space.

When Einstein’s equations of general theory of relativity were applied to the space a more startling and bewildering discovery was made. It was found out that the space was actually expanding. The idea was so adverse to common sense logic that Einstein became convinced that there must be something wrong in his equations. So Einstein went again to his drawing board to reintroduce a cosmological constant in his equations to stabilize the expanding universe that his equations predicted. But Einstein was going to fix something that wasn’t broken. The fact that universe was expanding was shown by Edwin Hubble.

(Hubble knew that for a light source moving towards the observer the waves emitted by it would get compressed and so the light would appear to be blue in color. On the other hand for a light source that is moving away from the observer the waves would get stretched and the light would appear reddish in color. With this knowledge in mind and armed with the hooker telescope Hubble saw that most of the galaxies were red shifted and the further the galaxies were the faster were they moving apart.) 

Einstein paid a visit to Hubble and saw this with his own eyes. 

Einstein later admitted that changing the equations would have been his greatest scientific blunder. Hubble and Einstein jointly came to the conclusion that if the universe was expanding now then at some time in the past the universe must have had a beginning.  If the future was taking the galaxies far away, then it stood to reason that in the past they must have been closer together. So close ultimately that the matter’s compression might result in what Einstein’s equations predicted to be a point of singularity. (Upanishad’s rishis also said the same thing thousands of years ago and the termed the singular point ‘Dahar’)

The fact of physics pointed to clues that eventually made the case for a cosmic explosion as the event that kicked off the expansion of universe. Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest conceived the idea, and British astronomer Fred Hoyle, in jest coined the term “Big Bang” to describe the explosion.

It is however important to note that it was an explosion of the space itself and not an explosion in any existing space. In the expanding universe today, it is the space between galaxies that is expanding. There was no space before; it appeared along with the Bang.

My discussion on Big Bang and reality continues in my next article...But before that let me discuss about the weird nature of quantum world because this infinite universe was shaped by this weird quantum world at its infancy...Om tat sat