re: No matter what direction we point a telescope, we always look toward the Big Bang - why?

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Amazing

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Thanks.

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No matter what direction we point a telescope, we always look toward the Big Bang

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I haven’t read the entire thread, but this description is taking some liberties. It’s more accurate to say that no matter what direction we point a telescope, we always see the cosmic microwave background radiation. The CMBR is the oldest electromagnetic radiation (e.g. light) that we can see. This is a somewhat important distinction. Let’s assume the Big Bang theory is correct for the sake of argument:

Immediately after the Big Bang, the universe expands rapidly. This is referred to as the period of inflation. The universe consists of a hot, dense plasma which is cooling as the universe expands. As the plasma cools, subatomic particles are combining to create larger and larger particles. First quarks and gluons, then hadrons, then protons and neutrons, then electrons, and then photons. The universe cools enough to form these particles over the first ~10 seconds.

At this point, the plasma contains a ton of photons but also a ton of free electrons. The interaction between the photons and free electrons/protons leads to an effect known as scattering, which effectively turns the plasma into a glowing fog.

For the next ~20 minutes, nuclear fusion occurs as neutrons and protons combine to create atomic nuclei. However, the overall substance remains a plasma and free electrons continue to scatter the light. The universe is effectively opaque.

Now the universe continues to cool while the rate of expansion slows down for the next ~370,000 years. Eventually the universe cools enough for the plasma to “recombine” into ordinary matter - although “recombination” is a bit of a misnomer since it was never combined in the first place. Recombination is basically the equivalent of condensation or freezing. The plasma’s temperature drops to the point where the free electrons and atomic nuclei combine to create hydrogen atoms. At this point the expansion rate slows down considerably.

This process happens quickly (relatively speaking) across the universe. Think about it like if you have a pot full of sugar dissolves in water and cool it until it becomes supersaturated. Once it starts crystallizing, the entire pot clouds up with sugar particles. Only in this case, the “opaque” universe actually becomes transparent because the free electrons are no longer blocking/scattering photons. Additionally, recombination itself releases photons as the hydrogen atoms are formed.

The photons released from recombination are what we know as the CMBR. Now let’s look at the special aspect of this. The picture below from Wikipedia gives an idea of how scientists think the universe expanded after the Big Bang:



The “afterglow pattern” is the CMBR. Basically, if you were at any point in space at the time of recombination, you would see a bright glow in all directions, originating from your immediate surroundings, as the plasma combined into hydrogen atoms.

After a year, the light from your immediate surroundings would have dissipated and the space would be transparent. However, the light from recombination that happened one light-year away would just be arriving.

100 years after that, you would be surrounded by 100 light-years of transparent space but you would still see the light (which I’ll just call CMBR from now on) that originated 100 light-years away.

Fast forward 200-400 million years. Now the matter in the universe has finally combined (due to gravity) and started to form plasma again - creating the first stars. So at some point you start seeing light from stars in all directions. At 600 million years, you are seeing light from stars that are <200 million (or so) light years away. You see nothing at all 200-570 million light years away. And at about 570 million light years away, you see the CMBR.

At no point can you see past the CMBR because the universe was opaque at that point, blocking any light beyond the CMBR from reaching you. So you can’t “see” the Big Bang.. but you see the glow from its aftermath in all directions.

What is the Webb Telescope going to see that makes Big Bang unworkable.

Webb can "only" see infrared about 13.6 billion light years

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lostinbr

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I think the graphic you posted is what has confused some folks. I think they believe that to be a representation of what we should see. They don't understand the time axis and what the visual is supposed to convey.

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Because Penny is fricking hot.

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The only scientifically proven point in this whole thread

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CMBR

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Well that opens a can up.

Big Bang Theory existed before CMBR detection. CMBR kind of jacked up their theory, so they invented inflation. There is zero scientific proof of inflation, but it is needed to make Big Bang work with CMBR.

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Which brings me back to, it would be a more sane argument of a Grand Designer (since God offends a few here) than there was nothing and then there was something.

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Sometimes overly zealous scientists, in an effort to prove creation without any involvement of a creator, bend over backwards to come up with outlandish theories that require more faith than the possibility that a deity could have placed order, structure, or the building blocks required to expand our universe.

Believing that radiation/energy was always there to spontaneously generate matter and anti-matter to form the universe is an interesting theory, but we can't pretend it's more plausible than an uneducated person's belief that something supernatural caused the universe's expansion. In the end, both ideas require a measure of faith.

If the Big Bang theory is ever proven true, then it would still not disprove the possibility of a deity guiding creation. Even my first LSU biology professor wasn't closed to the idea that the "Let there be light" in Genesis was God starting the Big Bang.

Our desire to understand science and the universe does not run counter to faith in a deity. Both religion and science can complement each other.

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We don't because, the best we know, it is expanding at the speed of light.

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That’s not nice to talk about a woman’s arse like that.

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That is why people should quit with the Big Bang "Theory" is what happened.

Big Bang is a placeholder and thus my comment God would be a better placeholder and easier to grasp.

Big Bang is the ultimate "magic" and people eat that crap up as settled truth

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The law(s) of Entropy say the Big Bang is impossible.

To me that says the Big Bang (assuming that's what happened) IS proof of the existence of God.

To me, and again this is just one man's opinion, the Big Bang is where science and God meet.

A) Big Bang theory works, it explains to a huge degree what we can observe today.

B) By the laws of physics we know the Big Bang is impossible.

And there's where God comes in.

It is either that or our universe is on the opposite end of another universe's black hole to that the infinity of information/entropy in their universe gets transferred to our creation thereby maintaining the idea that matter (thus energy) can neither be created or destroyed.

But even then you end up back at God... who created that other universe's big bang that later led to a black hole that created ours.

God has to be somewhere in there if the Big Bang happened.