THE BIG BANG THEORY

THE BIG BANG THEORY Birth of the Beginning D O NOT those who deny the truth see that the heavens and the earth were joined together and that We then split them asunder? And that We have made every living thing out of water? Will they still not believe? E. O. WILSON (b. 1929), hailed as the father of sociobiology, once said in an interview that the Big Bang theory is more interesting than any religious theory regarding origin of the universe. In fact, the Big Bang theory is clearly mentioned in the above verse of the Quran (21: 30). The Quran is here addressing all humankind. It is speaking beyond the level of time to all humankind. It is bringing the attention of human beings to the proof of the existence of One God in the universe before their eyes. Why then do they deny it? In 1912, the American astronomer Vesto Melvin Slipher (d. 1969) discovered from his observation of the stars from Lowell Observatory in America that some galaxies were rapidly moving outwards. This theory was later confirmed by Edwin Hubble and Milton Humason. In fact, their observations through the 100-inch telescope at Mount Wilson showed that all galaxies were moving in an outward direction. The Dutch astronomer, Willem de Sitter later accumulated further evidence in support of the theory that the universe was exponentially expanding. In 1965, New Jersey scientists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation emitted by the Big Bang that marked the origin of the universe. So much evidence has been accumulated in support of the Big Bang Theory that it has now come to be regarded as an established fact. This theory implies that the universe is not infinite in time. It had a definite beginning. It shows that we live in an expanding universe. On all sides of us galaxies are careering outwards at a stupendous pace. It has been calculated that if this outward movement were to be reversed, it would take 20,000 million years for the whole strung-out universe to converge into one mass. The Big Bang Theory has proved the existence of God from the law of nature, for only an external agent at a specific instance in time could have made a point mass into an everexpanding universe.