Big Bang, Little Us :: General Science

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March 20, 2006

Big Bang, Little Us

According to findings based on data from NASA's WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) satellite, a 2-decade-old physics theory called "inflation" which describes how the cosmos grew over 13.7 billion years from a subatomic flicker into a vast expanse of stars and galaxies, is amazingly accurate. It appears that the universe expanded rapidly - growing from the size of a marble to billions of light years across - within the first trillionth of a second after its cataclysmic birth, and in what may be a surprise to many people on our planet, we just may not be as important a part of the universe as many of us would like to believe.

(...) "It never ceases to amaze me that it is possible to tell what is going on in the first moment of the universe," says team leader Charles Bennett of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

(...) In its latest results, the WMAP team analyzed the polarization of that radiation, basically the amount of glare put off by the universe's initial super-fast expansion. The glare observed by WMAP indicates how much room electrons had to bounce off each other in the early universe, providing a measure of scale for the infant cosmos.

(...) WMAP "is telling us that the universe is vastly bigger than we ever imagined -- so big that we no longer have any reason to believe that our tiny patch of it is representative of the whole thing," said Stanford University physicist Leonard Susskind via e-mail.

(...) "We, and all we can see, are at most a tiny dot in an unimaginably large sea of space and time," Susskind said.

Ponder, for a moment, the part about us and all we can see being a "tiny dot in an unimaginably large sea of space and time". Then consider the great probability that the very same thing applies to the cumulative knowledge of our entire existence, of our relationships with our world and with each other, and especially with the cause of that "subatomic flicker".

Regardless of one's belief in God, or lack of it, it is certain that there is much more that we don't know then we do, and one would have to be a most unappreciative fellow not have strong feelings for whoever or whatever made that first "subatomic flicker" - flick!

Other readings:
Text of talk by Vatican Observatory director on 'Science Does Not Need God. Or Does It? A Catholic Scientist Looks at Evolution'

GOD AND THE BIG BANG - AND OTHER ARGUMENTS ABOUT SCIENCE AND FAITH

Hat tip - Harry Owens

Posted by Richard at March 20, 2006 6:21 AM

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