Page 18 - The Miracle in the Atom

THE MIRACLE IN THE ATOM
According to the Doppler effect,
if a galaxy stays at a constant
distance from the earth, the
spectra of light waves will appear
in the "standard" position (top).
If the galaxy is moving away from
us, the waves will seem stretched
and red shifted (middle). If the
galaxy is moving towards us, the
waves will seem squashed up and
blue shifted (bottom).

Further observations on the expansion of the universe gave way to new
arguments. Starting from this point, scientists ended up with a model of a
universe that became smaller as one went back in time, eventually contrac-
ting and converging at a single point, as Lemaître had argued. The conclusi-
on to be derived from this model is that at some point in time, all matter in
the universe was crushed together in a single point-mass that had "zero vo-
lume" because of its immense gravitational force. Our universe came into be-
ing as the result of the explosion of this point-mass that had zero volume and
this explosion has come to be called the "Big Bang".
The Big Bang pointed to another matter. To say that something has zero
volume is tantamount to saying that it is "nothing". The whole universe is
created from this "nothing". Furthermore, this universe has a beginning,
contrary to the view of materialism, which holds that "the universe has exis-
ted from eternity".

Big Bang with Evidence
Once the fact that the universe started to form after a great
explosion was established, astrophysicists gave a further bo-
ost to their researches. According to George Gamow, if the
universe was formed in a sudden, cataclysmic explosion,
there ought to be a definite amount of radiation left over
from that explosion which should be uniform througho-
ut the universe.
In the years following this hypothesis, scientific fin-
dings followed one another, all confirming the Big Bang. In
George Gamow
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