Page 59 - The Origin of Life and the Universe - International Conference 2016

The Origin of Life and the Universe

). 0 that could be derived from a universe where
everything moves away from everything else is
/ 3 / 3 that the universe constantly "expands".
Hubble had found observational evidence for
The 1920s were important years in the deve- something that George Lemaitre had anticipated
lopment of modern astronomy. In 1922, the Russian a short while ago and one of the most important
physicist Alexandra Friedman produced compu- minds of our age had recognized almost fifteen
tations showing that the structure of the universe years earlier. In 1915, Albert Einstein had concluded
was not static and that even a tiny impulse might that the universe could not be static because of
be sufficient to cause the whole structure to calculations based on his recently-discovered
expand or contract according to Einstein's Theory theory of relativity (thus anticipating the conclusions
of Relativity. George Lemaitre was the first to re- of Friedman and Lemaitre). Shocked by his
cognize what Friedman's work meant. Based on findings, Einstein added a "cosmological constant"
these computations, the Belgian astronomer Le- to his equations in order to make the answer
maitre declared that the universe had a beginning compatible with the atheist view, because astro-
and that it was expanding as a result of something nomers assured him that the universe was static
that had triggered it. He also stated that the rate and there was no other way to make his equations
of radiation could be used as a measure of the af- match such a model. Years later, Einstein was to
termath of that "something". admit that his cosmological constant was the
The theoretical musings of these two scientists biggest mistake of his career.
did not attract much attention and probably would Hubble's discovery that the universe was ex-
have been ignored except for new observational panding led to the emergence of another model
evidence that rocked the scientific world in 1929. that needed no fiddling around with to make the
That year the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, equations work right. If the universe was getting
working at the California Mount Wilson observatory, bigger as time advanced, going back in time
made one of the most important discoveries in meant that it was getting smaller; and if one went
the history of astronomy. Observing a number of back far enough, everything would shrink and
stars through his huge telescope, he discovered converge at a single point.
that their light was shifted towards the red end of The conclusion to be derived from this model
the spectrum and, crucially, that this shift was di- was that at some time, all the matter in the
rectly related to the distance of the stars from universe was compacted in a single point-mass
Earth. This discovery shook the very basis of the that had "zero volume" because of its immense
universe model held until then. gravitational force. Our universe came into being
According to the recognized rules of physics, as the result of the explosion of this point-mass
the spectra of light beams travelling towards the that had zero volume. This explosion has come to
point of observation tend towards violet while the be called the "the Big Bang" and its existence has
spectra of light beams moving away from the repeatedly been confirmed by observational evi-
point of observation tend towards red. (Just like dence.
the fading of a train's whistle as it moves away There was another truth that the Big Bang
from the observer) Hubble's observation showed pointed to. To say that something has zero volume
that according to this law, the heavenly bodies is tantamount to saying that it is "nothing". The
were moving away from us. Before long, Hubble whole universe was created from this "nothing".
made another important discovery; The stars we- And furthermore this universe had a beginning,
ren't just racing away from Earth; they were racing contrary to the view of materialism, which holds
away from each other as well. The only conclusion that "the universe has existed for eternity".

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