The event which is believed to have started the universe's expansion. It is believed that the Big Bang occurred 18 billion years ago when all the matter in the universe was squeezed into a fireball. The fireball exploded, rapidly expanding the universe and sending particles into the newly created space.
Can you suggest some readings on this subject
2006-07-24 03:45:53 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Yes, currently I am reading "A Brief History of Time". It will be nice to have some other readings that is similar or parallel to it.
2006-07-24 04:01:41 · update #1
Yes
2006-07-24 03:51:28 · answer #1 · answered by kents411 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you search on expansion of universe or inflationary universe, you will find a wealth of information. It has been found that the universe IS expanding ( but I am not going to discuss any Big Bang; I wasn't there.)
What's even more unusual is that the universe seems to be expanding even more rapidly than it was before! There had been several theories. The first, the 'steady state' theory, was that the universe had always been here. The discovery of expansion put the kibosh on that, since it pointed to the implication that the universe had to have had some beginning point in time.
After the initial expansion, the question became, Will the universe A) expand forever, B) reach a balance point and just stop, or C), will gravity eventually overcome the expansion and drag everything back together into a sort of 'Big Crunch'?
B seemed kind of unlikely to me, but it could have been the case. We didn't see any antimatter aound her, but that didn't mean that there couldn't be plenty of it it elsewhere. If everything was perfectly balanced, I suppose that the expansion of the universe could just reach a point where it stopped and nothing grew or shrank after that.
By means of sophisticaed measurements with radio telescopes and satellite instruments, and doing calculations based on those, scientists have decided that the universe is not only expanding, but that the expansion is going faster than it was when the universe was young.
This is based on a number of large assumptions, the most important of which is that the physical laws of the universe are the same everywhere; for example that the speed of light is the same in all galaxies. We have no way of proving this, but we assume that is the case because it makes the caluclation simpler. (Indeed, I don't think they could calculate anything if they did not assume that. But if we someday figure that the speed of light changes once it was between galaxies, it might make our mental picture of the universe very different.)
So there is something that is apparently speeding up the expansion of the universe, which they have dubbed dark energy, because they don't know what it is or where it comes from. But the expansion is not speeding up as fast as they calculate it should be, so they figure there must be a lot of mass that we can't see (dark matter) slowing the accelerating expansion down bu its gravitational pull.
Got all that? Good, there will be a quiz, later.That's about as much of it as I can understand, anyhow. Good luck finding out more!
2006-07-24 11:17:01 · answer #2 · answered by cdf-rom 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The universe is still expanding. It can be measured by measuring the red shift in the light from distant galaxies. If the universe were not expanding, gravitation would make it start to collapse.
Presently, the best estimate for the age of the Universe is 13.7 billion years, based on the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR).
A good book with a simple and straightforward presentation is Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time".
2006-07-24 10:55:03 · answer #3 · answered by aichip_mark2 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, the universe is definitely still expanding.
The date of the Big Bang is actually known more accurately now: it is about 13.7 billion years ago. However, be careful because the Big Bang was not an explosion in the usual sense. It is space itself that is expanding. It is not about the galaxies going through space. The galaxies are 'going along for the ride' as the space expands.
2006-07-24 13:06:10 · answer #4 · answered by mathematician 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No doubt this is a strange Universe but all the other Universes out there are probably stranger. The mystery is as deep as ever even as science probes further and further.
The comment about the tornado, junk yard and 747 is simply a misunderstanding of what science is all about. I feel sad when I see comments like that
2006-07-24 12:16:25 · answer #5 · answered by andyoptic 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes the universe is believed to be expanding at this very moment. Hubbel's telescope discovered this, I think in the 70s?
When galaxies that are billions of light years away were observed, they were giving off a redish light. This red light or red shift is what let's us know everything is going away from our location. When things are moving towards us, they give off a blueish color or blue shift.
2006-07-24 10:56:01 · answer #6 · answered by Borat Sagdiyev 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Just because some stars are moving away from us does not mean that the universe is expanding. It could be oscillating around a fixed point, so ur question needs some scientific investigations into it
2006-07-24 11:07:22 · answer #7 · answered by Danushka B 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku
2006-07-24 20:20:06 · answer #8 · answered by irenaadler 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Believing in the big bang is like believing a tornado could sweep thru a junkyard and assemble a 747
2006-07-24 10:49:51 · answer #9 · answered by DesignR 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Universe is still expanding. The speed of expansion has been measured. Is not a tale, is a fact.
The scientits just look at the galaxies, measure their speed and when you look them together you see that they separate each other.
2006-07-24 11:01:16 · answer #10 · answered by Andres 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋