Page 52 - The Creation Of The Universe

50 THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE

cientists are in general agreement that, on the basis of calculations,
the Big Bang took place about 17 billion years ago. All the matter
S making up the universe was created from nothingness but with the
wonderful Creation that we talked about in the first two chapters.
Nevertheless, the universe that emerged from the Big Bang could have
been much different from the one that did emerge–ours.
For example, if the values of four fundamental forces were different, the
universe would have consisted of only radiation and become a tissue of
light with no stars, galaxies, human beings, or anything else. Due to the ex-
traordinary perfect balance of those four forces, "atoms"–the building-

blocks of that which is called "matter"–came into being.
Scientists are also in general agreement that the first two simplest ele-
ments–hydrogen and helium–began to form during the first fourteen sec-
onds after the Big Bang. The elements were formed as a result of a reduc-
tion in the universal entropy that was causing matter to scatter everywhere.
In other words, at first the universe was just an amassing of hydrogen and
helium atoms. If it had remained so, again there could have been no stars,
planets, stones, soil, trees, or human beings. It would have been a lifeless
universe consisting of only those two elements.
Carbon, the fundamental element of life, is a much heavier element than
hydrogen and helium. How did it come into being?
Searching for an answer to this question, scientists stumbled upon one
of the most surprising discoveries of this century.

The Structure of the Elements

Chemistry is a science that deals with the composition, structure, and
properties of substances and with the transformations that they undergo.
The bedrock of modern chemistry is the periodic table of elements. First
laid out by Russian chemist Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev, the elements in
the periodic table are arranged according to their atomic structures.
Hydrogen occupies the first place in the table because it is the simplest of