The Birth of the Universe: The Big Bang Theory

There are various theories about the origin of the universe among scientists. Some of these theories, which emerged in different eras, were later refuted and still others are still hypothetical. Of these, the Big Bang theory is now widely accepted by scientists around the world. It is not possible to say exactly what year it was. Not only the methods of counting years, but also man and the earth, the home of man, will take place billions of years from now on. There is only darkness and unbearable heat all around. But in this darkness, something unprecedented is happening. A very small, but unimaginably dense, dot-shaped object is rapidly expanding. This object (if it can be defined as an object) also undergoes certain chemical reactions. 

Smaller objects relative to the larger one are emerging in it, colliding with each other, being destroyed, and re-emerging. Time goes by. Not in seconds, but in millions of years. Instead of a very small object of high density and temperature at the beginning, there is now a very small, very small object of low density and temperature. It is further expanding. Inside it is a relatively small spherical object that evolves into some kind of intelligent organism. These so-called 'humans' later discovered the 'Big Bang theory'.

The "big bang"

Many people misunderstand this argument because of this word. This is not to say that the universe began with a 'big bang'. The term "big bang" was coined as a result of a conspiracy by a dissident scientist to discover the theory.

During the 1900s and 1920s, it was widely believed that the universe was a static structure. That is, it was believed at the time that the universe existed in the present as it did in the past, and that it would not change in the future. Apart from this, Albert Einstein also accepted this view. (But he later admitted that the universe was not static.) However, the basis for the Big Bang theory lies in 1912, when the mathematician Vesto Silver observed the Doppler effect on a spiral galaxy.

George Lematre

Here he discovered that this galaxy was slowly moving away from Earth. Later, in 1922, Alexander Friedman, a Russian scientist who used Einstein's theory of relativity to present the Friedmann equation, fired the first shot at the concept of a 'static universe'. Georges Lematre, a Belgian Catholic priest and scientist who associates the Friedmann equation with the argument that the universe is expanding, proposed the Big Bang in 1927.

According to the Big Bang theory, at the beginning, the entire universe existed as a point-like object. This was what Lematre called the 'Primeval Atom'. (This event is now also known as Singularity.) Nothing existed before the initial event.

It has been speculated that time also began at the same time that this dotted universe, with its high density and high temperature, began to expand rapidly. At the beginning and until some time after that, there was only hot, white smoke called 'hydrogen plasma' in the universe.

Over time, the density and temperature of the universe decreased, and protons (positively charged subatomic particles) and electrons (negatively charged subatomic particles) merged to form neutrons (neutral subatomic particles). Gradually, celestial bodies were created along with such complex chemical processes that lasted for thousands of years.

No matter how much the universe expands, the celestial bodies within it do not expand. For example, if we look at the Milky Way galaxy and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, the two galaxies do not expand as the universe expands. What happens is that the two galaxies only move away from each other. This process can be compared to raisins in a cake baking in the oven.

In line with this argument, there are several published theories about the future of the universe. (Although the theory was discovered by George Lematre, it should be emphasized that later different scientists nurtured it from their own ideas and findings.) Some of them are as follows.

1. The universe will continue to expand and at some point will collapse with all celestial bodies beyond the maximum limit of expansion. (This is called the Big Crunch.) Then it rises again to the same high density and temperature as at the initial stage, and the Big Bang process repeats itself.
2. The universe will continue to expand at a ever-decreasing rate and will never end or collapse. But stars pass through their lifetimes and gradually become neutron stars, black holes, and dwarf stars. (An article on stellar evolution will follow.) Collisions between these will result in the formation of larger black holes, eventually leaving a universe composed of only black holes with no energy circulating at any temperature, equal to absolute zero (Kelvin 0/273 degrees Celsius). has. This event is called Heat Death.

Decades after the Big Bang theory was unveiled, criticism, insults, and satire abounded. Since George Lematre was a Catholic priest, many thought that this was fabricated to justify creationism scientifically. Even many scientists were reluctant to accept Lematre's view.

In an interview with BBC Radio, British astronomer Fred Hoyle, a pioneer in the field of modern stable theory, once asked, "Can Lematre believe the universe came about by a big bang?" He said insultingly. It was then that Lematre's theory of the birth of the universe became known as the 'Big Bang Theory'.

However, a few years later, Edwin Powell Hubble's Hubble's Law of Observations and the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation with Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, discovered in 1964 by two American astronomers, Robert Woodrow Wilson and Arno Allen Pencius. Was accepted in the scientific world beyond controversy.