Exploratory Essay: The Big Bang

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Tobias Mann

College Comp 2

Mr. Reynolds

Feb 1, 2012

Exploratory Essay ~ The Big Bang

I have always been interested in space. I don’t know what it was, whether my

fascination with rockets, Apollo Thirteen, Armageddon, or just Big Boy from Austin

Powers, I always have loved space, and anything regarding astronomy. Having been

fostered in a free thinking family, I had always been encouraged to think openly, and

consider other ideas as equally credible as my own. The idea to learn more about the

“Big Bang” came from my childhood. What makes more sense than a space age

creation theory, for someone for which space meant so much? I had always declined to

think about the beginning, as It had always been a very controversial topic. Leading my

mind places I didn’t want it treading lightly. I wasn’t raised religious, my life lacking a

creation story other than what, I could figure out on my own. The big bang has been a

key theory for describing creation of our universe, but I have never completely

understood it.

Whether the big bang will answer my questions about the universe, whether it will

open my eyes, to what actually happened back before time itself, I don’t know. Perhaps

I will find that the question is better left unanswered, left to me to find my own answers



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in my own way. All I can do is interpret this theory as it is given to me. After all it is just a

theory. It is up to the masses to make it what it is.

The McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science explains that approximately sixteen

billion years ago the universe was a super dense singularity from which the universe

sprung forth. This expansion is believed as having been unfathomably quick, growing

billions of times over in only a very short period of time. The evidence for the big bang

is rather compelling. McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science puts it rather well. “ First, the

universe is expanding uniformly, with objects at greater distances receding at a greater

velocity.” This concept is ideal for a singular point, as in such an event expansion would

begin from a sphere, a singularity, but it would also denote an origin for the universe as

a whole. This is something I am not entirely comfortable with. If the universe has a

center what is it, and what does it mean. I am neither one to side solely on the side of

faith, but I am not one to completely illuminate it from such an important part of my

world. The second point of evidence that is given goes as follows. “The Earth is bathed

in the cosmic background radiation, an isotropic glow of radiation that has the

characteristics expected from the remnant of a hot primeval fireball (1).” This for me is

far more concrete. the ability to pick up the cosmic remnants of such an event seems far

more relevant especially when one takes into account the first point. Raw data collected

from all over the Earth, is something I can’t begin to argue with. It seems as though

such an event, however distasteful for those of great Christian faith, is just as much

interpretation, as this theory is.

The idea that the universe has a beginning also begs question of whether or not

the universe has an end, a rebirth, or could it simply be perpetual. For this it seems only



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theories. McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science references two very distinct, widely

accepted theories for the end of the universe. The first suggests the possibility of an

infinite universe, one where expansion will continue forever. This is described as being

an open universe. I however find issue with this. The idea of an infinite universe seems

like one that would have no meaning, independent of life. In such a world life has no

meaning in the scheme of things. My life would hold no meaning other than which I can

create from my own imaginations. The idea of a finite universe is something that is far

more intriguing to be and somehow more full-filling, It almost gives meaning to life,

whether my own, or that of any other human being on earth, the idea there is an end to

the madness is somehow comforting. Even if the end is a vast ocean compared to most

minute of our petty lives. Perhaps the most intriguing theory is that of expansion to a

point in which it sieces to expand and begins to contract. Perhaps back to the point it all

began? Perhaps signifying a rebirth, a reboot, a restart of the entire system? Perhaps it

just a huge game, one with a limited number of turns before a restart?

In the end I will never know, or if I ever do I won’t have anyone to share it with.

The big bang is but a theory, one to be improved changed, ridiculed, and challenged.

From a singularity at the beginning of time, to a vast expansion of particles, to the

coalescing of galaxy and solar systems. There had to be a beginning, but with the

knowledge of that and only that how can you really know what it all means. That I may

never know.



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Work Cited

"big bang theory." McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. TheMcGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2005. 02 Feb. 2012. Web.

Exploratory Essay: The Big Bang

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