Can we see the big bang happen?

Question

Ok stay with me on this one for a minute while I try and explain.

If we take a telescope with amazingly good magnification and then work out when and where the big bang happened then we will know by the speed of light exactly how far the light will have traveled from the start of the big bang.

If we travel to some point just outside of where the light has not yet reached and use our super powerful telescope to look into the now aproaching light then would we be able to see in the distance the universe bieng created as the light reaches our telescope?

Using the same calculations if we viewed from a closer position of a few million light years then could we see the human race bieng born?

I know there is not curent technology available for this but maybe in the future?

Answer 1

"where" the big bang happened doesn't make sense because it happened to the whole universe. And since it happened to the whole universe, there is no place where there wasn't light from the Big Bang. It is also impossible for us to travel to somewhere that light has not reached, no matter our level of technology, because nothing can travel faster than the speed of light according to Einstein's theory of Special Relativity. To even go at the speed of light, we would have to literally not exist, we would have to be massless - essentially, we would have to be light. No amount of technology can change that physics.

Also, even if all of that wasn't true, we couldn't see the Big Bang. The last thing that we can see is what is known as "the surface of last scattering" which refers to when the universe was so hot that it was entirely ionized. Before this time, light was being emitted, but it couldn't pass freely through space which was filled with a plasma and the photons just got knocked around. Basically, the universe was opaque. Only after the universe cooled did the universe become transparent as it is today. And as it happens, cosmologists are looking back as far as they possibly can at the light that comes from the surface of last scattering. This research is known as Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation research (CMBR Research).

Answer 2

There all sorts of assumptions in your question.
Contrary to one reply, ideas about the origin of the universe are not subject to the scientific method - such ideas cannot be observed, tested and repeated, which is what we do with operational science, which has led to computers, and mapping the genome, etc.
The Big Bang is a conjecture about the past which is a philosophical position. Many adherents are atheists, and use the Big bang to justify their disbelief in God. This is not science.

In fact, the Big Bang has very many problems which even evolutionists acknowledge.
For example, most of the matter in the universe is supposed to be 'dark matter' (required to make the Big Bang 'work'), yet noone has ever provided any evidence that dark matter exists. Likewise dark energy.

The Big Bang conjecture relies on a very big unprovable assumption - the cosmological principle. It essentially states that the universe is both homogeneous (no matter where we view it from it always looks the same) and isotropic (it looks identical in whichever direction we look) and that the laws of physics are the same everywhere. An implication of this is that the universe has no centre and no edge.

The Creationists position - that God created the universe - is an alternative philosophical position, and provides a better explanation of the actual observed evidence.

To believe in Creation is no unscientific, it is just to have different assumptions, and a different worldview within which to do science.

I prefer to believe that the universe has a centre and an edge.

If you're interested to find out more there are loads of articles (some quite technical) at AiG.

Answer 3

No. First of all, there is no one point the big bang occured at. We can point our telescopes in any direction and see the early universe. Second, to see the process actually occure, one would need to observe from an outside point which existed beforehand. As far as we are concerned, there is no such point.

At best, we can hope to see the universe when it was just a few hundred years old. If you consider the fact that 1 billion years, in terms of the universe, isn't all that much, to see it at 400,000 years is really really good. Much of this observing has to be done at frequencies other than visible light. Visible light can only tell us so much information, and the universe didn't actually light up with visible light for some time.

Answer 4

If we are right about our understanding of a "big bang", then in theory we could detect its earliest moments. IN fact, it is thought this has been done -- that the "background temperature" of the universe, instead of being very nearly absolute zero, is actually manifesting energy of the first few moments after the big bang.
You should realise, though, that big bang is not as easy as that: before it time was meaningless, and during it. the physical laws of the universe were in a state of flux -- as if not quite "decided" yet. You could probably not "see" the big bang because there is nothing against which to see it -- but we may one day be able to determine something about conditions a few moments from the big bang. It i s almost cetainly (most cosmologists think) an "event horizon" -- you can get close to it but never actually "get" there, like a black hole in reverse. For example if you watch a planet falling into a black hole, you will only observe it getting nearer and nearer the event horizon -- taking eternity (to your own eyes) to get there. So looking backward at the big bang may well be like looking forward into a black hole: it would take endless time to get back there -- but you would be getting closer all the time -- as close as you care to define! VIewing events in our own time line drawn backward would be possible too -- but it would be very difficult to isolate a particular moment as the further back, the more time is "stretched out" to our eyes.

Answer 5

No. Your question would require one of two equally impossible things to occur.

1. Travel faster than the speed of light. Precluded by theory of relativity.
2. Fold the fabric of space-time and travel along the fold to an observation point outside of the space-time that exist. The space-time continuum isn't yet defined there to travel to.

The whole big bang theory is a mess anyway. String theory, which the singularity is dependent upon has proven to be an invalid theory in measurement (reality). The o(3) framework seems to be valid by comparison.

Answer 6

Yet another question caused by people trying to visualise something that cannot be visualised.
The big bang was not an explosion in space, it was a sudden expansion of space. There is no center, no outside and whatever direction you look you will see the fading glow as the universe expands and hence cools.

Answer 7

Also, remember that the big bang didn't happen at any particular point. It wasn't an explosion as we conventionally think of it. Rather, every point in space suddenly shot away from every other point as mind-boggling speeds. After a fraction of a second, most of the universe we observe today was generated, and a period of decellerating expansion.

Answer 8

It is conceivable, but I would vote for building a Time Machine, such as H.G.Welles wrote about. However we must wait for the discovery/invention of a material that I shall name Kryptonite.
However, I do forsee a difficulty: If we go back in time to when Kryptonite (or other materials the machine is made of) those parts will "disolve" because they haven't been discovered/invented yet. Damn! Always another problem.

Answer 9

This has already been done. Radio waves have been observed in deep space (the further away you look, the further back in time you look) that were probably produced during or very shortly after the big bang.

Answer 10

In theory yes,time as Einstein said is relative,so maybe one day we may be able to witness it,We can however listen to the result of it,as the background noise in between radio stations