What’s in the Universe? Everything – All matter and energy that exists now, in the past and in the future.

What’s in the What’s in the Universe?Universe?

Everything –

All matter and energy that exists now, in the past and in the future

The ‘Big Bang’ is a scientific theory about how the universe began.

It attempts to explain our ideas about what is happening to the universe RIGHT NOW and what we can conclude from that.

© Juliet Davies 2008

The Big BangThe Big Bang Is this the true Is this the true

story of the story of the universe and universe and how life came how life came to exist?to exist?

Did the Did the universe have universe have a beginning? a beginning?

If so – what If so – what was that like? was that like?

In 1927, the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître came up with the idea that the universe began with an explosion.

In 1929, astronomer Edwin Hubble made his greatest discovery…

It was that the light coming from other galaxies was redder than expected –

“YEAH… AND…”

What he discovered was ‘Red Shift’.

(It’s about wave length)

Something moving away very fast looks red. If everything we could see in the universe looks red = then we can conclude that everything in the universe is moving away from us.

The most distant galaxies were also the biggest

It’s like the Doppler effect with sound waves

‘Sound’ (eg a siren) makes a different noise approaching us, alongside us and moving away from us. From sound we can tell where a thing is…

likewise, from observing light we can work out the positions of everything in the galaxy.

Hubble discovered that distant galaxies in every direction are all moving away from us

This leads to a belief that the whole universe is expanding today at a rapid rate.

With no gravitational pull to stop it, the universe just keeps on expanding into empty space.

Penzias and WilsonPenzias and Wilson In 1963, Arno Penzias In 1963, Arno Penzias

and Robert Wilson had and Robert Wilson had been studying the universe through an enormous satellite dish – looking far into the universe.

They kept hearing interference though – a kind of background hiss - with no explanation.

What was the hiss? After a number of failed After a number of failed

attempts to understand what attempts to understand what was causing the hiss…was causing the hiss…including cleaning the pigeon including cleaning the pigeon poop off the satellite dish - poop off the satellite dish - they suddenly realised that they suddenly realised that the hiss was the most the hiss was the most important thing they could be important thing they could be listening to. listening to.

What they were hearing was an echo of an explosion – the Big Bang – they had discovered the oldest sound in the universe – the cosmic microwave background (CMB).

So how did the universe begin? There are two There are two

theories. One is theories. One is string theory – which string theory – which has yet to find has yet to find evidence to support itevidence to support it

– – the other is that the other is that the universe began the universe began as a small, incredibly as a small, incredibly dense and hot dense and hot sphere that contained sphere that contained particles – it was particles – it was thousands of times thousands of times smaller than a smaller than a pinhead. pinhead.

A huge cloud of dust and gasses was formed by this explosion.

Particles combined and eventually became the universe – our sun, planets and earth…

The Universe that we know was born.

It was hotter and denser than anything we can imagine. Then matter and anti-matter combined and it suddenly exploded.

Let’s put it another way…. Here’s Nibbler from ‘Futurama’.

Nibbler poops dark matter that is incredibly dense (the Planet Express team use it as starship fuel).

Imagine we put Nibbler’s poop into a microwave – subjecting it to radiation until it becomes super-heated …

Eventually it would explode.

Explosions normally cause chaos…

But according to this theory – all the matter in the universe was produced from this one galactic event… creating everything.

In the next few slides we are going to think about the size and importance of planet earth in terms of the universe…

Let’s see that again in reverse… Let’s see that again in reverse…

Think about how massive the universe is – Think about how massive the universe is – and how big we THINK our planet is. and how big we THINK our planet is.

Horton hears a ‘who’

In this Dr Zeus children’s film, Horton the elephant discovers a tiny microscopic universe on a speck of dust on a flower. It is inhabited by a race of ‘who’s – who have no idea how big the universe outside their world is.

In terms of how vast the universe is compared to planet earth – we are the race of ‘who’s on a speck of dust!

Summary in brief so far…. There was a massive

explosion.

In a fraction of a second, the Universe grew from a dense, tiny sphere - smaller than a single atom - to bigger than a galaxy.

And it kept on growing at a fantastic rate and is still expanding today.

The exam will ask you whether the Big Bang theory proves that there is no god.

Be careful – because this theory doesn’t even mention the idea of God.

You could say that because no one knows : 1. where the matter in the explosion came from …2. what caused it to explode …3. or how life started!

…that this it’s perfectly possible to believe the scientific idea AND a religious one.

“It is perfectly reasonable for Christians to believe in a creator God and to accept the Big Bang theory.” Do you agree? Give reasons for your answer. 10 marks AE