Big Bang Theory : The-origin-of-the-universe

The Big Bang: For decades the Big Bang theory has been the leading theory on the beginning of our universe. Alternate theories come and go, but mainly go. As new data and research are continually eliminating alternatives to the standard model of cosmology, the Big Bang just keeps getting stronger. Before discussing the alternate theories to the Big Bang theory, the basics of the early universe should first be understood. The main points opposing the theory are based around a few aspects that will be defined in the explanation of the early universe. These points include inflation, dark matter and dark energy, the cosmic microwave background (CMB), and red shift. The theory states that the universe sprung from a singularity an infinitely dense point. A process called inflation took over from there, and all the matter expanded exponentially from one very small point to something the size of a basketball in a fraction of a second. Inflation is very important to the Big Bang theory, as it is required to explain the uniformity of particles in the very early universe, among other problems. The inflation period ended, but the expansion continued, and continues today. Expansion will be discussed further later. The Big Bang theory cannot be proven through visual observation. Most people are aware that the light from an object 3 million light years away will take 3 million years to reach the Earth. In this way, scientists can "look" back in time to see far into the history of our universe. This is

limited, however, as at one point the universe was dark. Even the most powerful telescopes of the future will not be able to look into the first billion years of our universe. Adam Frank (2006) describes this early, and dark, period of our universe in his article describing the "First Billion Years." According to the Big Bang theory, (and Frank), immediately after the initial event and inflation took place, our universe was a consistent and smooth "soup" of particles....

Black holes are one of the most fascinating and unrealistic seeming objects in the world to many people. They seem to be right out of a science fiction novel, along with white holes, and wormholes. So far white holes and wormholes are still only science fiction. A white hole is a reverse of a black hole. And a wormhole is a combination of a white a black hole said to be a place of time travel. However, even quite a long time ago some members of our society realized that the black hole is not science fiction, but is very real and is very interesting. I plan to take you with me on my road to discovering black holes; the history of black holes, what is a black hole, how are they formed, singularity and event horizon, are black holes black and how to detect them, accretion disk, and black holes and evaporation. About two centuries ago an English geologist named John Michell came to the conclusion that it is tentatively possible for gravity to be so overpowering that nothing, not even light traveling at the speed or 186,000 miles an hour could escape. To produce this much gravity, the source would have to be tremendously massive and exceptionally dense. In that day in time it was thought to be impossible for something such as a "dark star" to exist. In 1916 the German astronomer tried to theorize how a star could shrink and become what was then typically called a frozen star. He then predicted that our sun would reduce in size two miles in radius. He also

predicted that even though the sun had shrunk that its mass and weight would stay the same. This would leave the planets unaffected and continuing on their orbits. There was a question still remaining whether the star would become compacted or not. In 1934 F. Zwicky and W. Baade calculated that the collapse of a star would cause the strip the atoms of their electrons, thus becoming a neutron star. Sometime in the 1960's a man name John Archibald Wheeler came up with the term black hole for what had...

Simple Representation
The big bang is an vital scientific theory about the origin of the universe. It occurred about 15 to 18 billion years ago. It marked the instantaneous creation of all matter in the universe. The explosion that took place was not a normal explosion; starting as a point of infinite density, thus called the primordial nucleus. It expanded at speeds equal to and even greater then light. However, according to the Big Bang theory, the universe will continue to expand for billions of years. The galaxies do not expand. The galaxies will get farther apart and farther apart as time moves on. All forms of matter were formed during this time period. This theory impacted the scientific world and still is an integral part of the scientific world and in the formation of the universe. According to the Big Bang theory the universe should consist of approximately seventy five percent of hydrogen and twenty-five percent of helium. The universe for a short yet brief time was stuck in a false vacuum. Then it from the state of being a false vacuum to a true vacuum, the state the universe is in today. As the universe has expanded, it has also cooled down 10 -35 seconds, the temperature was at 10 -27 degrees K. at this crucial temperature, the

universe underwent what is called a phase of transition, something like the process that happens when the liquid water freezes into ice. The strong nuclear force, which acts at a very short distances and holds the protons and neutrons together, separate to form the other forces. Physicists have named this process symmetry breaking and it released a tremendous amount of energy. Then, in an extraordinary instant theorists have labeled it inflation, the universe expanded exponentially. Things slowed down a bit after the inflationary epoch. There were photons, quarks, neutrinos, and electrons, and then protons and neutrons condensed out all in less than one second after the Big Bang. Space expanded and cooled down a bit. It was believed that the universe had no beginning or end and was truly infinite. The origin of the Big Bang Theory can be credited to Edwin Hubble. Hubble made the observations that the universe is constantly expanding from every direction. He discovered that a galaxys velocity is propotional to its distance. Galaxies that are twice as far from the earth and move twice as fast. An additional consequence is that the universe is expanding in every direction. This means that has taken every galaxy the same amount of time to move from a common starting position . NASAs COBE satellite was able to detect cosmic microwaves coming outer reaches of the universe. However, the satellite also discovered that as a universe began to cool down and was still expanding, small fluctuations began to exist due to temperature differences. These fluctuations verified prior calculations of possible cooling and development of the universe provided a more explicit description of the first moments after the Big Bang. As more observations are made and more research conducted, the Big Bang theory becomes more fully developed and our knowledge of the origins of the universe more tangible. Immediatley after the Big Bang,as one might imagine, the universe was extremely hot resulting from the particles of both matter and anti- matter rushing apart in all directions. As the cooling started there was an almost equivalent and assymetrical amount of matter and anti-matter. Familiar

particles started to form as the universe expanded further. The particles were baryons, including photons, neutrinos, electrons and quarks. These were the building blocks of matter and life. After the universe had cooled to about three thousand billion degrees Kelvin, a fundamental transition began, which, has been linked to the phase transition. Consolidated particles such as , protons and neutrons, called hadrons, became the common state of matter after this transition. Although lighter partcles, called leptons, also existed, they were prohibited from reacting with the hadrons to form more complex states of matter. These leptons, which included electrons, neutrinos and photons, would soon be able to join their hadron kin union that would define present day common matter. After about one to three minutes had passed since the creation of the universe, protons, and neautrons began to react with each other to form deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen. Most scientists believe that there was one helium nucleus for every ten protons within the first three minutes of the universe. After further cooling, these excesses proton would be able to capture an electron to create a common hydrogen. Known as singularity, this is the moment before creation when space and time did not exist. Cosmology theorists combined with the observations of their astronomy colleagues have been able to reconstrust the primordial chronology of events known as the Big Bang. Quantum theory suggests that moments after the explosion at 10-43 seconds, the four forces of nature, strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic, and gravity were combined as a single super force. Elementary particles known as quarks begin to bond in trios, forming photons, positions and neutrinos were created along with their anti- particles. At the time of this creation of particles the universe was going through a rate of expansion many times the speed of light. The universe at this instant was an ionized plasma where matter and radiation were inseparable. Also there was an equal amount of particles and anti-particles. Eventually. The remaining neutrons combine in pairs and form helium nuclei.

Stephen Hawking:
My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all (Boslough77). Stephen Hawking quoted this in one of his lectures. Throughout human life people have been questioning how life was created. Theories have been thought about and created. Stephen Hawking has played an immense part creating theories of how this world was created, despite all of the difficulties he has faced. Stephen Hawking has overcome adversity such as: divorce, oppositions to his theory, and ALS and is still considered to be one of the most prominent scientists ever. Frank and Isobel Hawking gave birth to their first child, Stephen Hawking on January 8, 1942. The Hawkings family lived in Oxford, England. Stephen had to deal with moving when he was young. They lived in London, England, but moved shortly after Isobel was pregnant. They moved, because at the London was under attack Luftwaffe. Frank Hawking later described some of the events of the dispute, telling people that a German V-2 missile hit only several streets away. Shortly after the war was over the Hawkings family moved back to London. When Stephen Hawking was eight they then moved again to St Albans, Hertfordshire. He attended St. Albans high school for Girls. At that time boys were allowed to be there until the age of 10. He attended St. Albans School until the age of 11. He was a good kid, but wasnt the best student. Hawkings still stays in connection with that school and has one of the buildings named after him. Stephen Hawking is known for many of his works. He is also known for being a very popular author. Throughout his life he has written 19 books, and a couple he wrote alongside of his daughter Lucy Hawking. Hawking also holds many lectures at Cambridge University where he

taught for over 30 years. One of Hawkings most notable works is the M Theory. The M Theory is Hawkings theory on how the earth was created. Most of Hawkings books are based off his theories and beliefs on how the world came to be. Hawking has won many awards and medals, because of his books, speeches, and teachings in science. In 1965 Stephen Hawkings life would change. He met Jane Wilde, who was a language student and would soon get married. Hawking describes this as a major turning point in his life. Before Jane Wilde knew Hawking had a terrible illness that she would have to cope with. It would later affect their marriage. During their marriage they had three children: Lucy, Timothy, and Robert. Their daughter Lucy Hawking would later become a novelist. Their son Robert would later immigrate to the United States, married, and later had a son. Jane Wilde and Stephen Hawking were married for 26 years. In 1991 the couple separated, because of the fame and intensifying disability. After the divorce Jane Wilde published a memoir named: Music to Move the Stars. This writing described the marriage and failure. Ten years later she published a more modified version called: Traveling to Infinity, My Life with Stephen. In 2007, Stephen and Janes family reunited. Four years later in 1995, Stephen Hawking found love once again. He married Elaine Mason who was his nurse. They were married for 11 years. Elaine Masons previous marriage was with David Mason who was the creator of Hawkings talking computer. In 2006, Hawking filed for divorce. Reasoning for the divorce was because Hawking claimed she was abusing him. After these marriages Stephen quoted his view on how to live life. Hawking said, seek the greatest value of our action(Hough).

After an innovative discovery of how the universe began by young cosmologist, Roger Primrose, Hawking became fascinated with how this earth began. He spent 45 years trying to find the theory to everything and how Earth became what it is today. When he first started learning about evolution he believed that the Big Bang Theory was weak. He would later compose several ideas of various components of evolution and create M-theory. This would lead to another whole outlook on how this world came to be. In 1968, Hawking joined the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge. After years of research, Hawking published his first book: Large Scale Structure of Space Time. He grouped with Primrose on this book to get a bigger outlook on Hawkings thinking. In 1974, Hawking would become a celebrity with his new thought of the original black hole theory. This would lead to Hawkings belief of evolution. Hawking showed scientists how matter in radiation, is possible to escape the gravitational force of a warped star. The world would soon see how Hawkings theory would be very possible. In 1970, Hawking developed a more complex theory of general relativity. He created mathematical proofs to learn the mass, angular momentum, and electric charge of the Black Holes. These were only a couple of singularity theories he proved to forming M-theory. String theory had existed for 20 years and with Hawking creating the Mtheory it has simplified this theory dramatically. M -theory simply brought all the string theories together to create a more conceivable theory on life. By finding this it made strings a one-dimensional objects that could make the Big Bang more possible. M-theory stated that the string would start off as a one-dimensional figure and would evolve to higher dimensions. After the string becomes a five-dimensional body it come grow into membranes as large as the universe. M-theory is still in

the process of being complete, but the fundamental construction of the calculation has been made and agrees with all the string theories, and also with all of our scientific thoughts of the universe. Furthermore, it has passed many tests of internal mathematical consistency that many other attempts to combine quantum mechanics and gravity had failed (Introduction to M-theory). For the M-theory to be fully concluded our technology would have to improve considerably. Stephen Hawking stated that the M-theory could be the Theory of Everything but the mathematics and physics will never be fulfilled. With Hawking generating M-theory he has brought an enormous amount of attention to the Theory of Everything. Evolution was originally founded by Charles Darwin. In 1859, Darwin published a book titled Origin of Species, describing a new theory that would change the outlook of The Beginning. Darwins theory of evolution stated that organisms evolve from more simple-minded ancestors naturally over time. He also stated that genetic mutations would randomly form and affect the organisms genes. After time, these organisms would adapt to survival they would gain natural selection which is a process that allows the organism to get advantages to survive the difficulties of its climate. Darwins theory also said that microorganisms formed amoeba which then formed plants, trees, and worms, then later animals would evolve. Darwin would be the stepping stone to the theory of evolution. Since the 1920s, the theory of creationism challenged the theory of evolution. Creationism is based on the religious belief that the Earth, humankind, and universe were created by a supernatural being, often referring to the Abrahamic God. The Genesis chapter in the Holy Bible narrates the story of how God created the world.

Black Holes:
A black hole is a region of space from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform space-time to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is an undetectable surface called an event horizon that marks the point of no return. It is called "black" because it absorbs all the light that hits the horizon, reflecting nothing, just like a perfect black body What happens when I drop a clock into a black hole? According to Einstein's theory of general relativity, massive objects create distortions in space and time. Near a black hole, these distortions become so strong that time behaves in unexpected ways. If we imagine that we are on a spaceship near a black hole and if we drop a clock into the black hole and compare its time to the time of an onboard clock the falling clock runs progressively slower. It never crosses the event horizon of the black hole, but stays frozen in space and time. The falling clock also becomes continuously redder, since its light loses energy as it escapes from the black hole's vicinity. What should be the size of the Earth in order for it to have the same gravitational field strength as a black hole? The size of the Earth should be as small as a marble for the Earths gravitational field strength to be the same as the gravitational field strength of a black hole.

The theory of Black Holes and its process is one of the most unique studies of the universe, in that with each discovery made, we un-lock closed doors to knowledge of how the universe was made. In 1798 a French Mathematician Pierre Simon de Laplace came up with the first theory of a Black Hole. He agreed with Newton, that when enough mass is added to a star like the sun, the gravitational pull would become so great that the escape velocity would equal the speed of light. Therefore, the star would blink out and become an invisible star. More than a century later, Einstein, came up with the theory of relativity. It states that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, therefore, no matter can escape it. (O.N.L. 47-56) Karl Schwarzschild, in 1917 used Einstein theory to calculate that if a star of a curtain mass was to shrink pasted the critical point it would become a Black Hole. The theory is named in his honor, the Schwarzschild radius. When stars begin to collapse, it depends on how big the star is and how much it collapses on itself. For a star whose mass is less than about 1.2 times the mass of the sun, the subsequent contraction does not become a violent collapse. Although the star can no longer support itself by thermal pressure, as gravity pulls it even father inwards the star discovers a new source of pressure: electrons in the stars atoms are being compressed more and more tightly together, and they resist such compression, even at low temperatures. Consequently the thermal pressure is gradually replaced by electrons degeneracy pressure, which eventually become sufficient to halt the stars contraction and which eventually supports it completely against the inward pull of gravity (Hawking 7). The star is now essentially dead. It continues to shine weakly for a few billion years, gradually losing all heat. Astronomers continue to see it during that time and call it a

White Dwarf Star (Wald 77-78). If a White Dwarf continues to collapse, it will reach appoint where the gravitational pull will almost equal the speed of light and will cause the star to essentially blink-out and become whats known as a Neutron Star. This is the smallest stage of a star, before it theoretically becomes a Black Hole. When a star is at its largest stage it is called a Super Giant Star or a Massive Star. The bigger the star is the more it collapses on itself. The smaller the collapsing star becomes, the greater its mass (and hence its gravitational pull), and the greater its mass the more the star shrinks to a diameter of a few kilometers or less (Wald 77-78). The Super Giant Star or Red Giant, when in the process of collapsing, can experience a Super Nova which can reach temperatures of thousands billions of degrees. When its in the process of this extreme amount of heat, the outside layer of the star is burned or exploded off. In this explosion, catalyzed by gravitational collapse, the sun suddenly becomes brighter than a billion suns. After about a year the brightness of the exploding stars dies out, and what is left is an expanding gas cloud and recollapses to form new stars (Wald 77-78). A super Giant Star is about 3 solar masses or more. If, however, the stars mass is larger than 3 solar masses, no amount of such a huge force can stave off the over whelming pull of gravity in which the star will continue its catastrophic collapse (Raychaudhuri et al. 180). Its surface will become like a one-way membrane through which things can fall into, but can never get out. Its called the Event Horizon. The surface of the star will then rush inside its event horizon and thus give birth to a black hole. There are two or more ways to observe Black Holes; radio-waves, and

telescopes. When looking for a Black Hole we could not except to detect a tiny black speck a few miles across the sky, so we must direct our search to Black Hole in interaction with their astrophysical neighborhood or seek their unique fingerprints on their environment(Thompson 61). One way that we can see a Black Hole is the Doppler shift, which is when a companion star is circling a Black Hole. The stars matter is being suck into the Black Hole and this causes the star to be hotter at the end pointing towards the Black Hole. This effect causes the star to be different colors varying from blue to red, from the far side of the star to the star to the closest side to the Black Hole. The light from a star in such a system periodically increases and decreases in frequency as the star moves towards and away from us, exhibiting the well-know Doppler Shift. If the characteristic Doppler shift of a start of a star is detected but its companion star is invisible. Then the unseen companion could be a Black Hole or just a very dim star. By analyzing the Doppler Shift and the frequency spectrum of the visible star a knowing distance to the binary system, an approximate mass of the unseen companion can be inferred. If this mass is larger than three solar masses and if some additional information indicates that the unseen companion is too small in size to a normal star still burning nuclear fuel, then the evidence is that it is a Black Hole (Raychaudhuri et al 180). One of the biggest problems in observing astrophysical finger prints of a Black Hole is the atmosphere. Light from the star is diffused and distorted by the earths atmosphere. To the casual stargazer, that produces a beautiful twinkle, but to the astronomers it is a tragic blur. Scientist have now over come this obstacle by making a space telescope that obits the Earth it is called the Hubble Spacecraft. It will be out of the earths atmosphere, so it will

not be affected by it. The Hubble literally views the stars in a new light: the space observatory can see ultraviolet radiation that fails to reach ground telescopes because it is largely blocked by the earths ozone shield. It offers the clearest picture yet of the most distant objects in the universe. (Thompson 61). This comes in handy with the finding and study of Black Hole and their unique finger prints on their neighbors. When a star is near a Black Hole, gases from the star are sucked into the Black Hole. The Black Hole speeds up the gases to a point at which the gases, from the star, heat up and makes x-rays. The x-rays can be recorded through devises which can read radio-waves. Therefore, if radio-waves are detected, there is a great possibility that it is a Black Hole. In theory, a Black Hole continues to collapse to what is known as a singularity, body of zero radius and infinite density. Inside, the Black Hole is usually cut-off from the rest of the universe. Nothing inside a Black Hole can have any effect on anything outside the Black Hole. The mathematical equations also allows for the existence of White Holes, in which matter flows through the Black Hole singularity and into another universe through what has been called a Worm Hole. Some astronomers have suggested that quasars are White Holes in which Black Holes matter from another universe flows into our universe. Such ideas are extremely speculative at this time (Lemonick 55). Current theory of observations made suggest that there are a total of 100 billion stars out there in space and out those 100 million will actually become a Black Hole. However, this is uncertain, because we havent seen a massive star go through the whole process and become a Black Hole. It also been suggested that there are super massive Black Hole

out there in the center of our universe controlling the winds of the universes. In the last couple of years there have been finding of substantial amounts that there are Black Holes out there. One of the areas being studies is called the Great Annihilator; a mysterious region close to the center of the Milky Way galaxy. It has been submitting a lot of high radiation from it. I t was believed to be a gigantic Black Hole with the gravitation pull of millions of stars. This theory was laid to rest by some scientist in New Mexico. By using a very large telescope called the Very Large Array radio they found out the truth about the Great Annihilator. It does indeed seem to be a Black Hole, but its only as massive as a single star (Davis 27). There are many possibilities that there are Black Holes in the universe, but scientists are still working to prove this theory.

In September 2010, Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow published a book called The Grand Design. Although sub-titled New answers to the ultimate questions of life and hailed as a major step is solving the mystery of how the universe began, it is in fact a rather short book which speculates about creation using arguments that are by no means new. As one reviewer says, It reads like a stretched magazine article there is too much padding and too much recycling of longstale material I doubt whether The Grand Design would have been published if Hawkings name were not on the cover (The Times Saturday Review, 11 September 2010). Nevertheless, it hit No.1 spot on the New York Times best-seller list and the media were quick to seize on its purple passages which claim that

there was no need for a Creator to light the blue touch-paper and initiate a big-bang origin of the universe. Why is no Creator needed? Because, says Hawking, the laws of science created the universe out of nothing, all on their own. Put another way, of course, this means that the laws of science are God. But this claim opens conceptual black holes from which there is no escape. Stephen Hawking didnt discover black holes but he has contributed notably to our understanding of them. A black hole is formed when a massive star burns out and collapses under the force of its own gravity. As the star shrinks, its internal gravitational field gets stronger and stronger until eventually even light can no longer escape from the collapsing star which simply winks out leaving behind a literal black hole. Black holes seem to lie at the centre of many galaxies including our own. The gravitational attraction of a black hole is so huge that anything close by gets sucked into it and simply disappears. No one knows what happens inside a black hole because the laws of physics no longer apply there. However, Hawking showed theoretically that although light cant escape from it, a black hole should radiate energy. Vigorous attempts are currently being made by NASA and others to detect this Hawking radiation experimentally. This is important, since the ability to test theories by experiment is what distinguishes real science from speculation masquerading as science. Philosophy is dead? Philosophy is dead, declare the authors (p.5) but then proceed to whisper sotto voce, Long live philosophy! By pronouncing philosophy (and theology) dead, they plant in our minds the idea that science now offers the only hope of advancing knowledge. But having cleared the field of rivals, they then quietly abandon the time-honoured view of science (as a discipline limited to theories that

can be tested by experiment) in favour of a new definition that embraces unverifiable speculation. By redefining science in this way, The Grand Design can claim that science renders God redundant. But this is nonsense; they have simply replaced God by atheistic philosophical assumptions. This is a subtle ploy and will no doubt convince some readers. The fact is, however, that the authors base their conclusions on mathematical constructions (like parallel universes and self-creating laws) that by their very nature can never be verified scientifically. In fact they quietly admit that their opinions are philosophical rather than scientific by telling us; This book is rooted in the concept of scientific determinism, which implies that there are no miracles, or exceptions to the laws of nature (p.34). Scientific determinism is philosophy not science. The multiverse: Hawking and Mlodinow declare: According to M-theory, ours is not the only universe. Instead, M-theory predicts that a great many universes were created out of nothing. Their creation does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god. Rather, these multiple universes arise naturally from physical law. They are a prediction of science (p.9). So what is this magical M-theory? The authors are rather coy about it. M-theory, they say, Is not a theory in the usual sense. It is a whole family of different theories, each of which is a good description of observations only in some range of physical situations (p.8). Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin is more explicit: we still do not know what Mtheory is, or whether there is any theory deserving of the name (The trouble with physics, Allen Lane, 2007, p.146). The fact is that M-theory is an untestable mathematical construction which many scientists believe has no bearing on physical reality. But that doesnt deter our authors because they dont believe in objective reality anyway. What we think is real, they say, is simply a model

assembled in our brains from raw data input by our senses. But, confusingly, the authors then claim that the best models are those that reflect the way things really do happen in the real world appealing to the very objective reality they say does not exist! Confused? Me too. But it gets worse. They claim that M-theory (whatever it might be) predicts not one universe but a multiverse a vast collection of universes which cannot be observed or known to us in any way. On their own criterion, this makes M-theory a very bad model indeed. So its hardly a useful replacement for God.

Self-creating laws: I have space for only one further example of Hawkings philosophical black holes. The Grand Design assures us that these multiple universes arise naturally from physical law. They were created from nothing by the operation of laws of nature such as quantum mechanics and gravitation (no God required). But, as Alice might say, this gets curiouser and curiouser, for what do we mean by the laws of nature? They are rules that describe the way nature behaves. These laws are descriptions of the way the cosmos works and can therefore have no existence apart from the cosmos. They are an integral part of the created order. How, then, could they have created the universe in the first place? It would mean that they created themselves, which is a huge philosophical leap of faith. And even if these laws did pre-exist the universe (as they would have to in order to create it) in what form did they exist? Where, exactly, were they located? The obvious answer would be in the mind of God but according to Hawking no such mind exists. Black holes can be very dark.

The God of creation The Grand Design actually says nothing that has not been said and refuted before. The laws of nature are what constitute science and make it possible, but neither science nor Stephen Hawking can tell us where those laws came from. Nor can science explain why we human beings can understand and use the laws of nature, which are often elegant and always mathematical. But the Bible gives us some straightforward answers. We can understand (in measure) how the cosmos works because the laws that control its working are themselves the product of an intelligent mind the creator we call God. And because, as human beings, we are made in the image of God it follows that we can have insight into the mind of God. As Johannes Kepler cried on discovering the laws of planetary motion, O God, I am thinking your thoughts after you! But God is much more than just a mathematical mind. He is the Lord of heaven and earth who not only created mankind but desires our worship and to that end forgives the sins of all who embrace the saving work of his son, Jesus Christ.

Which was the first?

The first black hole to be discovered was Cygnus X-1 in the 1970s. It was first shown to be part of a binary systemtwo stars orbiting about each otherbut the other star appeared to be missing. Black holes are discovered through indirect observation and radio telescopes. When astronomers noticed that stars seemed to be orbiting an invisible object, it was realized that there was something there, something with a powerful gravitational field. To confirm this, radio telescopes were used to detect the light rays emitted from the black holes. These particular celestial objects are messy eaters. Once cosmic material reaches the event horizon, the apparent point of no return when

being devoured by the black hole is inevitable, the collected matter is called the accretion disk. As the accretion disk is meets its end, gamma rays and x-rays, the two forms of radiation with the highest energy levels, are given off along with some excess matter, launched at a slower velocity. After decades of using this technique to gauge the location of these high-powered matter-eating monsters, a new way to locate black holes is emerging.

Black holes are so massive they change the contours of space-time around them, causing a phenomenon known as frame dragging. This, in turn, leads to the distortion of light particles called photons. If this particular form of twisted, rotating light can be detected, a black hole will be as well. Also, the ability to detect this twisted light would help scientists find direct evidence as to whether or not black holes rotate, as it is, it has only been assumed that black holes rotate. Another interesting consequence of frame dragging is the effect on time. Once the event horizon of a black hole is approached, time seems to slow down--at least thats how it seems to an outside observer.

Image courtesy of Gene Smith, University of San Diego Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences.

Formation:
Black holes can form in three types of ways. The first, and most wellknown, is the result of high energy cosmic event-- a supernova. A supernova occurs when a massive star, many times greater than that of our Sun, reaches the end of its life, when it has run out of hydrogen-the fuel for nuclear fusion, the stars energy source-- and sheds its outer layer of matter. Afterward, only the core remains. Under the force of gravity, the core collapses into a dense, pinpoint of matter, a black hole. Less massive cores go on to become neutron stars, incredibly dense stars composed of neutrons that have an unusually

strong magnetic field. The second method of black hole formation is through stellar collisions. When a black hole collides with a neutron star, it is thought that a new black hole will appear. The final option for black hole birth is the melding of many black holes into one huge black hole, a supermassive black hole, as Hawking predicted in 1970. An event that will take place once the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies collide and merge.

Types:
It appears that black holes do not only form in different ways, but also come in different sizes and types-- some theoretical, others proven. There are microscopic black holes, black strings, stellar mass black holes, a strange energetic type called a quasar, and supermassive black holes. Microscopic black holes could be formed by a particle accelerator, such as the Large Hadron Collider, also known as the LHC. Black strings are, in short, hyper-dimensional black holes that could only exist if there were more dimensions of space than meet the eye. They exist in five dimensions, giving them an elongated shape, a bit like a cylinder. Black strings also form the same way as three dimensional black holes, through extreme matter compression, but would be unstable. Any distortion in the strings shape would cause

little,connected black bubbles to form which would then merge into one big black hole. Stellar mass black holes are the type formed from supernovae. Typically, they weigh in at approximately ten to twenty-four times more massive than the Sun. Astronomers believe that there could be millions of stellar mass black holes in our galaxy alone. Some stellar mass black holes are found in binary systems, having a star orbit about. Quasars, short for quasi-stellar radio source, are thought to be massive black holes that emit vast amounts of radio waves and are the most distant objects astronomers have studied. They are thought to be black holes because only matter being drawn into a black hole can parallel the amount of energy exhibited by a quasar. As a quasar has never been found close to home and are quite rare, they are a bit difficult to study. Some have even suggested that the quasar is a type of galaxy in its own right. Supermassive black holes are, as stated above, the meshing together of multiple black holes, as is the case when galaxies with black holes at their centers merge.They are extremely massive, having been estimated at millions of solar masses. The best example of supermassive black holes is the one located in the M87 galaxy which is over six billion times the size of our Sun and has an event horizon that is close to three times the size of Plutos orbit. They are typically found in the center of large galaxies, even our own Milky Way. However, one has been spotted in a small, dwarf galaxy.

Wormholes, a favorite method of travel in science fiction, have also been linked to black holes. Wormholes are portals through the universe that are created from the fabric of spacetime being folded, connecting distant areas of space. They were originally known as Einstein-Rosen bridges because they were first theorized by Albert Einstein and fellow physicist Nathan Rosen. They discovered that the theory of general relativity predicted the existence of a kind of cosmic bridge. Together, they discovered that the theory of general relativity predicted the existence of a kind of cosmic bridge. The problem is, these 'cosmic tunnels' are unpredictable and close at any second. Some could even simply exist for less than a second, making the method of travel even less plausible. The closest black hole to our little solar system is Sagittarius A-star, or SgrA*, is the black hole in the center of the Milky Way and has a mass equal to approximately one million solar masses.

A graphic representation of a wormhole. Image courtesy of daviddarling.

How to Find Them:

The finding of a black hole in the center of a relatively small neighboring galaxy, Henize 2-10, has shed some light on one of astronomys issues--the chicken-and-egg question of what came first, supermassive black holes or their galaxies? The discovery of Henize 210s black hole is cited as further evidence that black holes formed before the galaxies they inhabit. The first bit of evidence used to support this belief was the relationship between the mass of a galaxys black hole and the mass of its bulge, or central cluster of stars. The bulge and black hole seem to influence the others growth in a galaxy. However, further research has revealed that earlier in the Universe, galaxies in their youth contained black holes that exhibited a larger mass than the present black hole to bulge ratio, supporting the theory that galaxies actually formed after their central black holes.

Stephen Hawking discovers atheism September 3, 2010:

Cosmologist Stephen Hawking apparently concludes in his forthcoming book The grand design that physics has eliminated the need for God to have created the universe. Instead, he claims, the universe (or multiuniverse) was created from nothing by the laws of science (e.g. the

law of gravity). But this is an ontological black hole, for if he is right (which he isnt of course) the laws of nature must have had a prior and independent existence before the nature they describe came into being. In what matrix, we must ask, did these laws exist in the absence of the material universe? The theist might answer (as Hawking himself formerly answered) that they existed in the mind of God. But now Hawking has abandoned that view, where, pray, were these laws located before creation occurred? In fact, it is a philosophical leap of faith to suppose that the laws of nature can have an existence in the absence of the nature they describe. It certainly isnt science. From a scientific perspective the laws of nature are an integral part of nature and thus of the divinely created order. In fact, most of Hawkings arguments (such as the appeal to multiverses and a confused understanding of what constitutes the the laws of nature) are considered and refuted in Who made God?, published just a year ago! How did the scientists come to know that an entire universe could come out of nothing? Or, how did they come to know that anything at all could come out of nothing? Were they present at that moment when the universe was being born? As that was not the case at all, therefore they did not get that idea being present at the creation event. Rather they got this idea being present here on this very earth. They have created a vacuum artificially, and then they have observed that virtual particles (electron-positron pairs) are still appearing spontaneously out of that vacuum and then disappearing again. From that observation they have first speculated, and then ultimately theorized, that an entire universe could also come out of nothing. But here their entire logic is flawed. These scientists are all born and brought up within the Christian tradition. Maybe they have downright rejected the Christian world-view, but they cannot say that they are all ignorant of that world-view. According to that world-view God is omnipotent, omniscient and

omnipresent. So as per Christian belief-system, and not only as per Christian belief-system, but as per other belief-systems also, God is everywhere. So when these scientists are saying that the void is a real void, God is already dead and non-existent for them. But these scientists know very well that non-existence of God will not be finally established until and unless it is shown that the origin of the universe can also be explained without invoking God. Creation event is the ultimate event where God will have to be made redundant, and if that can be done successfully then that will prove beyond any reasonable doubt that God does not exist. So how have they accomplished that job, the job of making God redundant in case of creation event? These were the steps: 1) God is non-existent, and so, the void is a real void. Without the presupposition that God does not exist, it cannot be concluded that the void is a real void. 2) As virtual particles can come out of the void, so also the entire universe. Our universe has actually originated from the void due to a quantum fluctuation in it. 3) This shows that God was not necessary to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going, as because there was no creation event. 4) This further shows that God does not exist. So here what is to be proved has been proved based on the assumption that it has already been proved. That an entire universe can come out of nothing is not a scientifically proven fact, rather it is merely a speculation. This speculation is also based on a logically flawed assumption, the assumption that the void is a real void. Here scientists have assumed that our universe is a Godless universe, and that therefore the void is a real void. But it may be true that this is a Godless universe, or it may not be true. As the believers cannot claim that they know with certainty there is a God, so also scientists cannot claim that they know with certainty there is no God. However there is a definite way to know with certainty that there is no God. Here I am not claiming that there is a definite way to know with certainty there is a God, but I am only saying that there is a definite way to know with certainty there is no God. And this definite way is the

scientific way. If scientists ultimately become successful in explaining everything in this universe, including its origin also, without invoking God, then we will have no other option but to admit that the universe we live in is a Godless universe. But there is a very big IF here, if they become successful. Until and unless they achieve their success here, they do not know whether they will be ultimately successful or not. So until and unless they achieve their success here, they do not know whether it is a Godless universe or not. All their earlier successes cannot give them any assurance that in future also they will be equally successful. If anybody claims that there is no reason as to why they will not be successful, then I will have to bring in Hume here, but I think it will not be necessary. It is like climbing a mountain peak. So long as you are not there at the peak, you do not know whether you will be able to reach there at all. But once you have reached there, you know with certainty that you have done it. So in order to coming to the conclusion that we live in a Godless universe scientists will have to be able to give scientific explanation for each and every single fact, every single event, or every single phenomenon of this natural world, and not a single fact, single event, or single phenomenon should be left unexplained. Covering a big part of the series by scientific explanation and leaving the remaining part unexplained will not do. If the scientists claim here that they have explained almost everything of this natural world without invoking any kind of god, then I will have to point out to them that the origin of the universe has not yet been explained in a properly logical way. Before proceeding further here I want to quote a single line (or, a part of it) from an essay by Keith M. Parsons, an atheist philosopher: prima facie the most promising location for a Creator would be in the creation event itself, the origin of the universe. (No Creator Need Apply: A Reply to Roy Abraham Varghese (2006)). If the most promising location for a Creator would be in the creation event itself, then this Creator must have to be eliminated first from the creation event, because that act only can ensure that there is no such Creator. So until and unless this so-called Creator has been eliminated from the creation event by providing a most plausible, and natural, scientific explanation for it (A), we cannot have any idea as to whether the void is

a real void (B) or not. This is because if there is a creator God, then as per the religionists that God is everywhere and therefore the void is no longer a real void. So let A be provided first by the scientists. Then only we can be sure that the void is a real void. Therefore A should always come first, and then only can come B. But in the case under consideration B has come first, and then came A. And that makes all the difference. Let me try to make my point more clear. Let e0 be the event zero, the origin/birth/creation of the universe, and let e1 to en be all the events that have so far happened in this universe after its origin. Let ne0 be the natural explanation for event zero, and let ne1 to nen be the natural explanations for events e1 to en respectively. Let us now suppose that scientists have already been able to provide ne1 to nen, but that they have so far failed to provide ne0. Will this situation allow us to conclude that there is no God? No, we cannot come to any such conclusion, because if there is a God then there will definitely be His hand behind the event zero. Yes, we can say this with absolute certainty, because God, if He is really God, and if He is really there, will not be our God at all, and neither will we recognize Him as such, if He has no control over our destiny. In other words, if this universe is not His creation. So in order to prove that there is no God one must have to show that there is no hand of God behind the creation event. All the other natural explanations ne1 to nen put together cannot prove that there is no God. But once ne0 is given, it is firmly established that God does not exist. Therefore so far as the question of non-existence of God is concerned, we can say that when ne0 has already been given, ne1 to nen will become unnecessary, and when ne0 has not yet been given, ne1 to nen are simply useless. And thus we can say that the necessary and sufficient condition for establishing the non-existence of God is that there will have to be a natural explanation for the origin of the universe (ne0). Therefore so long as ne0 has not been given, we cannot come to the conclusion that there is no God. And therefore so long as ne0 has not been given, neither can we conclude that the void is a real void. And therefore so long as ne0 has not been given, neither can we say that as virtual particles can appear from out of nothing, so also an entire

universe. Here scientist Victor J. Stenger will perhaps say that so long as there is no proof for the existence of God, the default position is that there is no God. So in that case they are fully entitled to treat the void as a real void. But it might also be the case that this universe has actually been created by a God who is non-interventional, that is, after creating the universe He has withdrawn Himself, and has not intervened in it at all. In that case this universe will not display any proof of His existence. So from the mere fact that so far there is no proof of the existence of God it cannot be concluded that this universe is a Godless universe. In such a case the matter regarding the existence or non-existence of God can only be settled at the creation event itself. So scientists are in no way entitled to treat the void as a real void until and unless it is firmly established that this void is really a void, that is, until and unless the creator God is eliminated from the creation event by providing a natural explanation for it. Scientists usually say that as there is no evidence for the existence of God, so it is reasonable to believe that there is no God. Here I have very clearly shown that neither there is any evidence that something can come out of nothing. On the basis of this lack of evidence we can also say that it is reasonable not to believe that the universe has actually originated from nothing. We can also demand that scientists should immediately stop deceiving us in the name of science. No man no matter how intelligent is able to remember the things that transpired when he was born or in his infancy. That is you or me as a new born baby knowing what made you cry or smile. But gradually after infancy we start remembering things and retaining them in our memories. Even as adults we cant pinpoint the exact time when this consciousness occurred. So if cant tell our own beginning how can we tell the beginning of the universe of which we are just a very tiny part. If the scientist call the beginning active nothingness and religionist call it living nothingness then all of them believe in a beginning that existed before the beginning of the universe; and its wise to say that the only possible means to have a limitless universe is to say let there be a limitless universe!

Although the baby cannot remember its birth or early days, its parents can and do and often speak of them in years thereafter. So if it is true (as I believe) that In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth it is wholly consistent that the same eternal God, as the progenitor of the universe, should thereafter reveal and talk about those creation events as He does throughout the Scriptures. So we are not left in darkness about the reality and source of creation. What is God? I mean what are the properties of a god. If god is a thing then we must be able to define it in terms of properties.. What makes a god a god? We all have our own conceptions of Godthe god of the bible the Hebrew god most of all.

Despite the misleading name, a black hole is not an empty hole in space, but a highly compressed point of matter with a powerful gravitational field, so much so that even light is not fast enough to escape it. Artistic representation of a black hole. Black holes are the afterlife of stars several times more massive than our solar systems Sun and have been a source of cosmic mystery for decades.

The existence of black holes was first proposed by a French

mathematician by the name of Pierre-Simon Laplace in the 1700s as he imagined the possibility of an object with the peculiar property of having an escape velocity that exceeds the speed of light, valued at 186,000 miles per hour or 300,000 kilometers per second, though he did not refer to that object by its current title of black hole, a term coined by physicist John Wheeler in the late 1960s. Robert J. Oppenheimer and Hartland Snyder reintroduced the idea into mainstream science after finding that Einsteins theory of general relativity predicts the objects presence. The theory of general relativity tells that gravity can, in a sense, overpower light and bends its path. This lead to the conclusion that there could be an object so massive it can actually trap light. However, the current champion of theoretical physics as it pertains to black holes is Stephen Hawking, the man responsible for a great deal of our knowledge of black holes today..

REFERENCES:
A Brief History of Time & The Universe in a Nutshell Stephen Hawking ISBN 978-0-307-29117-2 Introducing Stephen Hawking by J.P McEvoy and Oscar Zarate ISBN 1-84046-096-2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaitre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Friedmann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Schwarzschild http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_holes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking