The start of everything! It is tough to fathom the thought that before the big bang occured, there earth was void.  Coming from a religious background, Genesis 1-7 has always been the standard text for the origin of the universe. It is mind blowing to read about other different texts from dedicated scientists and astronomers who have dedicated their lives to proofing their theories correct.

Let there be light! Has always been the magic word, but after sitting in a lecture with Professor Kocevski and carefully listening to the possible proofs of the big bang theory. The astronomers have it all together down to the wire. It is fascinating to see how different generations pass on and constructively criticize each other’s knowledge and research works. History in this subject has driven the research to greater heights.  Einstein introduced the cosmological constant; vacuum energy that would counteract expansion of the universe and Hubble built his research off this constant.

How big will the universe potentially be? This was a question ringing in my headed throughout the lecture. The rate of expansion is increasing while gravity does not have enough mass to suppress this expansion. The universe might as well be on its way to infinity. If the everything is moving away from us, there is no potential boundary to this expansion. The string theory states that collision of higher dimensional membranes gave rise to our three-dimensional universe.

The big bang has been a topic of research to the extent that astronomers can reproduce the occurrence down to the last few seconds using the cosmic microwave background . Accurate calculations of the speed of light now enable the re-creation of the event in supercolliders. I would pay to see that! The PowerPoint illustrations presented by Professor Kocevski  served as captivating visual evidence of this man-made phenomenon. Strikes me as a nature vs man ordeal.

It is said that the universe borrowed the initial energy it used to expand exponentially shortly after the bang. Such claims retract me from fully placing my faith in this theory. Where did that energy come from? If nothing existed prior to the bang, how possible was it to generate energy to synthesize hydrogen. This unanswered question reverts me into believing that there must have been a creator. Apart from that, the primary origin of the universe theory faces other problems such as the isotropy of the CMB, flatness of the space (another really compelling counter-argument) and the lack of anti-matter. If the bang really occurred, going by the laws of physics — There should have been equal amount of matter and anti-matter in the universe.  Millions of dollars are still being pumped into this research of the big bang theory because indeed, every story needs a beginning and an ending (which we might not be alive to hear about)