• Question: do you think there was a big bang that started the universe and if so how did the gasses that reacted together got there in the first place

    Asked by samueleason to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Christine Switzer

      Christine Switzer answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Great questions! The short answer is I don’t know and I think physicists are studying these questions because they don’t completely know either. The big bang theory says that the universe started in a hot and dense state. It expanded quickly (the big bang) and this expansion caused matter to cool and settle into its present state. If this theory is proven correct, it still leaves a lot of questions. What caused the universe to be hot and dense in the first place? Where did the hot, dense stuff come from? Could it happen again somewhere? Related to the big bang theory, Hubble’s Law states that the universe is expanding. Edwin Hubble showed that there were galaxies other than our own and a number of other important discoveries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Hubble The Hubble space telescope was created to study the universe and its expansion and named in his honour. You might want to ask this question to the physicists over in the Quantum Zone.

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Most physicists who study this think that there was a big bang – I don’t know enough to say otherwise! However, as Christine points out, there is a LOT we don’t know or understand about this idea. The immediate question that I think about is what was before the big bang? Some scientists think that we might be in a universe where we constantly have big bangs followed by big ‘crunches’ where everything falls back in on itself, before another big bang and so on.

      We just don’t know!

      What I do find fascinating is how we can study huge phenomena in space (galaxy and star formation) and explain this through ideas we learn about the behaviour of tiny particles (quantum physics). It seems the very very large and the very very small are closely linked!

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hi samueleason! Wow, your questions are hard (in a good way!) 🙂

      I’m not a physicist… so I really don’t know very much about this! But I do know that scientists have been trying to recreate the big bang using something called a Large Hadron Collider. In November last year, they did it! They created a ‘mini big bang’ by smashing together lead particles at a high speed (practically the speed of light!). The collisions looked like this (pretty!): The collisions produce tiny fireballs at 10 million million degrees C, which is what scientists think the universe would have been like just after the big bang.

      Over 1000 scientists from all over the world worked on the experiment! There’s more information (with a video!) on the Hadron Collider here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7543089.stm

      As for your question about what was there in the first place… I guess that’s just one mystery that may never be solved! Maybe you could ask someone in the Quantum zone? Lots of physics boffins over there! 😛

Comments