(ORDO NEWS) — There is no person who does not admire the star-studded sky. And everyone probably thought about the question “did the Universe have a beginning?”
D. Blok, professor of astronomy, says: “The idea that once the Universe did not exist has always been received with hostility.”
But in recent decades, enough evidence has emerged to believe that the universe had a beginning. Today, almost all scientists come to the conclusion that the Universe appeared due to an explosion, after which matter began to spread in different directions.
What led scientists to this conclusion?
Einstein’s theory that the universe is either expanding or contracting went against the generally accepted theory of a stationary universe at the time.
Einstein introduced into his calculations a quantity that he called the “cosmological constant”. By this he tried to harmonize his theory with what was then considered scientific truth.
But already 4 years later, Einstein had accumulated enough evidence to recognize his amendment as the “greatest mistake”. Such evidence came when a 100-inch telescope was installed at an astronomical observatory in California. Observations of the universe with this telescope have proven that it is indeed expanding.
Prior to this, it was possible to consider only some of the stars of the Milky Way. Blurry spots, known as nebulae, were also observed, but they were mistaken for gas formations. But with the help of this powerful telescope, it turned out that this is not gaseous matter, but galaxies like ours. Today, there are up to 125 billion galaxies, each containing billions of stars.
Then it turned out that these galaxies are moving away from us. And the farther away the galaxies are, the faster they move away from us. The rate of removal of galaxies, scientists determine using a spectrograph. Light that comes from distant stars is passed through a prism, decomposed into different color components.
Light from a receding object, red. It’s called redshift. And the light from approaching objects is purple. Accordingly, it is called the violet shift.
It was noticed that only with the exception of a few galaxies close to us, all the rest have a redshift. So it turned out that the galaxy is expanding, moreover, according to certain laws. The expansion rate is determined by the degree of redshift of the spectrum.
If we consider the reverse process of the expansion of our Universe, as if it were all filmed, we can see how the Universe does not expand, but contracts. And in the end, she would return to the starting point. From this we can safely conclude that once upon a time the Universe had a beginning.
Until quite recently, it was believed that the universe had no beginning. Freud Hoyle, for example, argued that if there was a “big bang”, then it should have left its mark in the form of some kind of cosmic microwave background radiation.
Later, scientists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered background radiation – flash reflections after the “big bang”. It seemed that after that the Big Bang theory was proven.
But after this discovery, new questions began to arise. If the Big Bang theory is correct, then why aren’t there weak, inhomogeneous distributions of this radiation? In order for galaxies to form, colder, denser zones were required where matter could contract. But experiments done by astronomers have not found such inhomogeneities.
Later, when the satellite was launched, the discoveries made by him became historical. It turned out that the small swell was the inhomogeneity that remained in space after the Big Bang.
The fact that the universe had a beginning speaks in favor of the fact that it was created. Scientist Penzias, who was involved in the discovery of background radiation, concludes that these discoveries lead to a unique conclusion: the universe was created from nothing.
And George Smoot, who leads the group, said: “We have found evidence for the emergence of the universe.” He also added that being a witness to such discoveries is like seeing God.
And yet, not all scientists recognize that the universe had a beginning, or a moment of creation. They are struggling to find alternative theories for the origin of the universe.
—
Online:
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.