3.0+Origin+of+the+Universe

origin of the universe The most popular theory of our universe's origin centers on a cosmic cataclysm unmatched in all of history—the **big bang**. This theory was born of the observation that other galaxies are moving away from our own at great speed, in all directions, as if they had all been propelled by an ancient explosive force. Before the big bang, scientists believe, the entire vastness of the observable universe, including all of its matter and radiation, was compressed into a hot, dense mass just a few millimeters across. This nearly incomprehensible state is theorized to have existed for just a fraction of the first second of time. Big bang proponents suggest that some 10 billion to 20 billion years ago, a massive blast allowed all the universe's known matter and energy—even space and time themselves—to spring from some ancient and unknown type of energy. The theory maintains that, in the instant—a trillion-trillionth of a second—after the big bang, the universe expanded with incomprehensible speed from its pebble-size origin to astronomical scope. Expansion has apparently continued, but much more slowly, over the ensuing billions of years. Scientists can't be sure exactly how the universe evolved after the big bang. Many believe that as time passed and matter cooled, more diverse kinds of atoms began to form, and they eventually condensed into the stars and galaxies of our present universe. //taken from:http://science.nationalgeographic.com/space/universe/origins-universe-article///

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What Was the Big Bang?
//"If you're religious, this is like looking at God."(1)// A mystic, describing his vision in a trance? A poet, looking at the beauty of nature and seeing God? No, a Berkeley astrophysicist, commenting on the data he was making public in 1992 that seemed to confirm a basic expectation of the Big Bang theory. Just what is the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe? One scientist summed it up succinctly by saying: "The explosion from zero volume at zero time of a corpuscle of energy equivalent to the mass and radiation that now constitute the Universe."(2) What does that mean? It means that everything we now see or know about was once compacted into an unimaginably small blip that suddenly expanded in a huge explosion that created the very space and time it was expanding into. Or as Calvin of //Calvin and Hobbes// put it, "The Horrendous Space Kablooie." The Big Bang has become as much a part of our common science knowledge as dinosaurs, something we speak about with the same sense of familiarity we talk about atoms. But, like atoms, how much do we really know about this wondrous explosion of everything? In this essay we'll talk about what scientists mean by the Big Bang theory, why it's often in the news, why some scientists oppose it, what it tells us about our home the universe, and what we as Christians can learn from all of this. Science is often seen as attacking the God of the Bible, but in this case scientific discoveries seem to be revealing God's work. The Bible begins with the statement that God created the heavens and the earth, leaving no doubt that all we see had a beginning and had a Creator. But by the 1700s many people accepted an earlier theory that Immanuel Kant made more popular. The theory held that the universe is an infinite expanse with no beginning and no end. This fit the philosophy of the time, as people did not want to think that they might have to face judgment by a God who had the power to both begin and end the universe. In the roaring twenties, Edwin Hubble had begun to investigate mysterious masses of stars called nebulae. Some thought we were all part of one giant galaxy; others thought there might be a whole world of galaxies outside our own. Hubble was able to show that there are many galaxies besides our own. In 1929 he announced we were in a huge universe, so big it would take light billions of years to travel across it. Not only was it immense, but every part was moving away from every other part at incredible speeds, some receding at 100 million miles an hour! Priests do not enter into this story very often, but in the late 20s and early 30s a Belgian priest and mathematics teacher by the name of Georges Lemaître (who was fond of saying "There is no conflict between science and religion") first constructed and then published a theory that changed the course of cosmology in the twentieth century. Taking Hubble's observation that the galaxies were rapidly receding from one another, he ran the theory backwards to a time when all the matter in the universe was very close together. He called this the "primordial atom" and imagined a beginning when the whole universe exploded like "fireworks of unimaginable beauty" with a "big noise."(3) Thus was born the Big Bang theory.

Why Is Everybody Excited?
Geffory Burbidge has been complaining recently that his colleagues in astronomy have been all too quick to join "the First Church of Christ of the Big Bang." And what is causing this big rush? Findings from the Hubble Space telescope and the COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) satellite that are confirming the Big Bang theory in unprecedented detail. When the Big Bang was originally formulated about sixty years ago, not much thought was given to the conditions of the universe at the very beginning. But by the early 60s some scientists had realized that such an incredibly hot origin might have left slight traces behind. There might still be a whisper of the beginning of everything. This whisper would be a very small remnant of the heat of that first fiery instant. In 1965 two Bell scientists announced they had indeed found such a remnant, a cosmic background radiation. This radiation, the signature of the heat of a long ago creation, was very close to what several theorists had rather off-handily predicted some years before. Their paper had gone unnoticed because there was at that time no way to measure such a small signal, but when Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, of Bell Laboratories, published their short article, it was quickly seen as confirmation of the Big Bang, and they received the Nobel Prize in 1978. Then, in 1989, the United States launched the COBE satellite to look for details of the cosmic background radiation. The first evidence looked promising, but showed a background radiation so smooth that it was hard to understand how any cosmic structures like stars or galaxies could have formed. Unless there were some differences in the initial temperature of space, there would have been no reason for matter to cluster and form stars. Then, in a dramatic press conference in 1992, George Smoot and others announced that they had found ripples of temperature differences in the radiation data. Even Stephen Hawking, the wheelchair-bound English astrophysicist, proclaimed, "It is the discovery of the century, if not of all time."(4) Every major newspaper in the world carried stories about the "echoes of creation." And many assumed that the Big Bang was proved. But even as many scientists exulted in the new data, new questions also began to arise, but they were not questions about whether the Big Bang happened, but about how it progressed. For most scientists, the Big Bang theory is not "in trouble" as is sometimes reported. What is in question is how this sea of energy that was there in the first moments of the Big Bang was transformed into the myriad of galaxies, clusters, quasars, and other astronomical oddities. Science, by its very nature, attempts to find the best explanation for observed phenomena. But the Big Bang has drawn an impenetrable curtain across the stage of history. For some this is a frustration: "This view of the origin of the universe is thoroughly unsatisfactory . . . . [because] the origin of the Big Bang itself is not susceptible to discussion," fumes the editor of //Nature//.(5) But for others, the very impossibility of going behind the creation points to God in a powerful way. "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse" (Rom. 1:20).

"Big Bang Theory Collapses"
The banner headline in //Nature// magazine read "Down with the Big Bang."(6) Sounding more like a 60s chant about the Establishment, the editorial was, however, very serious. And //Nature// magazine is perhaps the most respected science publication in the world. Why was the editor so exercised about the leading cosmological theory? Because it was "philosophically unacceptable." "The origin of the Big Bang is not susceptible to discussion," fumed John Maddox. And besides that "Creationists . . . have ample justification in the doctrine of the Big Bang." So, for Maddox, a scientific theory that is only rivaled in acceptance by evolution is "thoroughly unsatisfactory" because (1) it says that scientists cannot know everything and (2) the theory might encourage belief in a creator. But materialists like Maddox are not alone. "Big Bang Theory Collapses" shouted the title of an article written in a creationist journal. It went on to make such remarks as "The Big Bang theory has received one body blow after another" and "A cruel fate has befallen the grandest theory of all." They reported the "death knell of the cold-dark-matter theory" as if this were the main theory cosmologists had developed. Remarks suggesting results from the COBE satellite "should really make them wish they had gone into some other field" came across as very unprofessional. The description of scientists as "smug in their assurance" about the cosmic background radiation seemed more descriptive of this article itself than the theory it was attempting to criticize.(7) Young earth creationists find the Big Bang theory a failure primarily because it does not fit an interpretation of Genesis 1 that requires the universe be created less than 50,000 years ago. But what are the scientific problems with the Big Bang? One continuing problem surrounding theories of the origin of the universe has been "How much matter is there in the universe?" It is generally agreed that there is indirect evidence of far more matter in the universe than we have been able to detect. But what form is this matter in? This so-called "missing mass" may, by some estimates, make up 90% of all the matter in the universe. But where is it? Several theories attempt to answer this question, but at the moment, there are not many ways to test competing theories. Another continuing problem is finding out what caused the clumpiness of the universe? When we look out into the sea of galaxies that surrounds our own, we find that the swirling pools of stars are not evenly distributed in space but rather segregated into "walls" separated by "voids." It is not yet known what accounts for this foam-like structure, but any theory of galaxy formation needs to provide an answer. So, while the Big Bang certainly has difficulties, and may be replaced some day, it has also been the basis for many correct predictions about the structure of the universe. Like any scientific theory, the Big Bang is not a static idea but a theory that is always open to new information that may change its basic form, or lead to its rejection, or merely confirm that it is indeed correct. But, especially for Christians, it's ironic that while most scientists have been searching for a naturalistic answer for the origin of the universe, they have instead, ended up with a theory that points strongly to a Creator.

A "Just Right" Universe
Imagine piles of dimes stacked on all of North America as high as the moon. More than you could possibly ever count. Then imagine a billion other continents covered over with more dimes. Now, somewhere in those billion piles, hide one red dime. What are the chances of taking a blind-folded person out into these piles and having them pick up the one red dime on the first try. Not likely? Well, the odds of the universe just happening to have the correct number of protons and electrons is the same as the odds for getting the red dime the first time. And if the universe did not have just the right ratio of these particles, galaxies, stars, and planets could never have formed, let alone people and all the rest of nature.(8) In the last fifteen years, scientists who study the make up of our solar system, and the stars in our galaxy, have come to the conclusion that unless conditions had been perfectly fine-tuned for us, life could never have arisen on planet Earth even by evolution. Every time we learn something about the form of the universe, we find new reasons to glorify God, and to thank Him for His creation. Arno Penzias, who with Robert Wilson was awarded the Nobel Prize for detecting the cosmic background radiation in 1965, much later remarked that: "Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say supernatural') plan."(9) Robert Griffiths summarized it nicely when he said: "If we need an atheist for a debate, I go to the philosophy department. The physics department isn't much use."(10) Obviously those physicists know too much. When Paul talks about what all people know about God, he points to the natural world as the foremost witness (Rom. 1:20). And, in these last years of the twentieth century, as we discover more and more about the conditions necessary for life, we find everywhere signs that we could not possibly be here by chance. Every detail of the basic structure of nature, even such things as how far away the moon is from the earth, must be fine-tuned to an unprecedented degree for us to live here on earth. In the design of the universe, in the construction of our solar system, and in the very systems of our own earth, there is immense evidence of planning. The Big Bang theory provides strong evidence of fine tuning so clear that even a dogmatic atheist such as Sir Fred Hoyle was moved to affirm that "a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology"(11) to create a world for humans to live in. Will we give glory to God for His great creation, or will we continue to proclaim that we are merely the chance creations of a random process of undirected evolution? The choice is ours.

What Can Christians Learn?
"The scientist's pursuit of the past ends in the moment of creation. This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible: In the beginning God created heaven and earth."(12) This has been a difficult lesson for scientists, and many have yet to learn it. But what lessons can Christians learn from the search for Big Bang? One of the primary lessons is that we need to know what it is a theorist is trying to prove. Often, as one reads the literature, one sees some rather clear statements about why certain possibilities are chosen. As is often the case, Sir Fred Hoyle is a good example: "This possibility [of a steady state universe] seemed attractive, especially when taken in conjunction with the aesthetic objections to the creation of the universe in the remote past."(13) Hoyle is very clearly saying that, because he disliked the idea that the universe might have been "created" sometime in the past, perhaps by God, he would seek to develop another theory that avoids that possibility. A second lesson is that we must be careful of the role we give to science. A scientist very astutely observed that "We live...in an age obsessed with scientific sanctification and technological authority.' If creationism is judged scientific, America will respect it."(14) His point is that Christians, like everyone else, have fallen prey to the idea that if an idea is judged "scientific" it must be right. The phrase "scientific creationism" is an excellent example of this tendency. But is science really the final judge of truth? For the Christian, and anyone else who believes that not all of what makes humans both beautiful and unique is measurable, the answer must be "No." Science is a good companion, but not a good guide. Whenever Christians have wedded themselves to a scientific theory they have suffered through painful divorces when that theory has proved to be an unfaithful guide to the world. The church's acceptance of an Aristotelian unmoved earth is but one example of the church not recognizing that science can and will change. The Big Bang may be today's best theory, but, as one of the best scientific authors on the Big Bang has written: "[O]ne ought to take the extrapolations back to the beginning of time with a healthy dose of skepticism. The Big Bang cosmology may yet be superseded."(15) Whether we are young earth creationists or materialistic evolutionists, this warning is equally true. The Big Bang is the best answer we have at this moment. It may change next year, and by next century it will almost surely have changed, perhaps dramatically. If science fully supports our view of Scripture now, will we be willing to change it when science changes? The Bible is beautifully clear that "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands" (Psalm 19:1), but we must admit that we are not always clear exactly what the details of the message are. It is God's glory that we must be clear about. //taken from:http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/origuniv.html //

You are here: [|Creation] >> Origin Of The Universe
= The Origin of the Universe = In 1959 a survey was conducted of scientists across America concerning their understanding of the physical sciences. One particular question asked “What is your concept of the age of the Universe?” More than two thirds of the scientists polled responded that there was no origin of the Universe. They believed that the Universe was eternal. Then five years later, in 1964, radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered a microwave signal buried in their data. They attempted to filter out the signal, assuming that it was merely unwanted noise. However, they soon realized what the signal actually was; they had inadvertently discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The CMB had been predicted by a theory that few believed at the time called the Big Bang. This discovery was the first evidence that the Universe had a beginning.

The Big Bang
Once it was understood that the Universe had a beginning, scientists began to ask “//how// did it come into existence, and //what// existed before it?” Most scientists now believe that the answer to the first part of the question is that the Universe sprang into existence from a singularity -- a term physicists use to describe regions of space that defy the laws of physics. We know very little about singularities, but we believe that others probably exist in the cores of black holes. The second part of the question, as to what existed before the Big Bang, has scientists baffled. By definition, nothing existed prior to the beginning, but that fact creates more questions than answers. For instance, if nothing existed prior to the Big Bang, what caused the singularity to be created in the first place? Once the singularity was created (however it happened), it began to expand through a process called inflation. The Universe went from very small, very dense, and very hot to the cool expanse that we see today. This theory is now referred to as the Big Bang, a term first coined by Sir Fred Hoyle during a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) radio broadcast in 1950. Interestingly, there really wasn’t any sort of explosion (or bang) as the name suggests, but rather the rapid expansion of space and time. It is like blowing up a balloon, as you blow air in, the exterior of the balloon expands outward.

= = =**Origin of the Universe - Theism vs. Atheism**=

In general, theists attribute the origin of the universe to some sort of transcendent, intelligent Designer. Atheists envision a natural, undirected process by which universes spring into existence spontaneously. Prior to the 20th century most atheists believed the universe was eternal. This changed however as discoveries throughout the 20th Century rendered that view untenable. Einstein’s theory of gravity (which has been thoroughly validated by extensive experimental confirmation) and Hubble’s astronomical observations preclude an eternal universe. We now know beyond a reasonable doubt that the universe began at some point in the finite past.

Now we understand that there are only two legitimate options for the origin of the universe:

(1) Someone made the universe (Intelligent Design), or (2) The universe made itself (Random Chance).

The third option, the universe has always been here, is no longer a feasible alternative -- it contradicts empirical science. No other scientifically plausible theories for the origin of the universe have ever been proposed.

The implications of various 20th century discoveries have put atheists in an awkward position. Logic now requires that they identify an uncontrolled mechanism by which the universe could have initiated, designed, created and developed itself without an Intelligent Director. Otherwise, intellectual honesty requires the necessity of a Creator God. So began the effort to propose an atheistic mechanism for the origin of the universe. Enter the Big Bang Theory and Darwinian Evolution. The original Big Bang Theory seeks to explain the sudden appearance of everything from nothing, while Darwinian Evolution seeks to explain the origin of complex life forms from their supposed simpler ancestors. The premise of the Big Bang is that the entire universe was compacted into a teeny tiny little ball, which, after randomly coming into existence for no apparent reason in the first place, exploded into all space, time, matter and energy in an instant. Yes, that's the theory. No Ph.D. required. The Big Bang Theory provided an atheistic explanation for the origin of the universe, but its obvious simplicity was subject to multiple attacks. As a result, the original theory is no longer the dominant scientific explanation for the atheistic origin of the universe. While the original Big Bang Theory is now "dead," from its ashes have emerged the various Inflationary Universe Theories (IUTs). Starting with Alan Guth in the late 1990's (//The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins//), the scientific community has now proposed roughly 50 different IUT variants. Scientists hope that one of the current IUTs will sire an accurate reconstruction of the birth of our universe, though it is universally acknowledged that all of the current IUTs have their problems. It seems the only way to get realistic calculations to match an IUT model is to make assumptions that are poorly justified.
 * Origin of the Universe - The Big Bang Theory**
 * Origin of the Universe - The Inflation Universe Theories**

taken from:http://www.allaboutcreation.org/origin-of-the-universe.htm

The Answer
The cosmological model of the origin of the Universe is a big subject, and I will only be able to give you a short sketch in this email, but there are many excellent books written by researchers for the general public that you can refer to. In 1912 American astronomer Vesto Slipher noticed that virtually every spiral galaxy he observed had a redshifted spectrum. The instrument he used split the light from the galaxies into a spectrum, in the same way a prism splits the light from the Sun into a rainbow. Looking at light in this way, you can measure the intensity as a function of wavelength. Elements found in the galaxies each have "fingerprints": the spectral lines they emit. Since it is straightforward to measure the wavelength at which these spectral lines are emitted in different elements in the laboratory, looking at the spectrum of galaxies can give us a tremendous amount of information. In addition to seeing that the lines appear, astronomers can measure how far the wavelength we see them at differs from the "rest" wavelength. If the galaxy is moving, the lines will be Doppler shifted: they will appear at shorter wavelengths (bluer) if moving toward us, and at longer wavelengths (redder) if moving away. Edwin Hubble realized in the 1920s that when we look at the motions of all of the galaxies, measured in this way, there is a definite trend. The galaxies are speeding away from each other, consistent with a general expansion of the Universe. This was the first observational evidence to indicate an initial starting point of the Universe as a sort of explosion, from which everything is now still expanding. This is called the Big Bang. Hubble noticed that the measured recession velocity of a galaxy was proportional to its distance from us. This is called Hubble's Law, and the constant of proportionality is called the Hubble constant---the value of which is currently still a very active area of modern observational astronomy. Hubble's Law has a very interesting implication for the history of the Universe. If we know how fast something is traveling away from us, it is a simple matter to calculate how long it has taken that thing to reach its present distance. If we assume the velocities of the galaxies we measure have been constant in time, then we can conclude that at a time= 1./(Hubble constant) all the galaxies were virtually at the same location, starting their expansion. This time turns out to be about 13 billion years (using a value of the Hubble constant of 75 kilometers per second per megaparsec). It is this beginning that is known as the Big Bang. The Big Bang theory has many predictions. In the 1940s, physicist George Gamow realized that the very early Universe must have been very dense and very hot. As the Universe expanded and cooled down, this hot radiation should cool down, eventually being observable in the radio region of the spectrum. In the 1960s Penzias and Wilson discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation: a uniform radio hiss that implied a temperature of about 3 degrees Kelvin. Later, the COsmic Background Explorer (COBE) took very detailed measurements of the spectrum and spatial distribution of this radiation, confirmed that it is extremely uniform, is of the spectral shape predicted by theory, and corresponds to a temperature of 2.7 degrees Kelvin. This observation provides strong support for the Big Bang theory. There are many fascinating branches of the story that I haven't even mentioned. Here are some references you should look at: S. Hawking "A Brief History of Time", C. Sagan, "Cosmos", S. Weinberg "The First Three Minutes". All are extremely readable, and written by great science communicators. takem from: []

In general, theists attribute the origin of the universe to some sort of transcendent, intelligent Designer. Atheists envision a natural, undirected process by which universes spring into existence spontaneously. Prior to the 20th century most atheists believed the universe was eternal. This changed however as discoveries throughout the 20th Century rendered that view untenable. Einstein’s theory of gravity (which has been thoroughly validated by extensive experimental confirmation) and Hubble’s astronomical observations preclude an eternal universe. We now know beyond a reasonable doubt that the universe began at some point in the finite past.
 * __Origin of the Universe - Theism vs. Atheism __**

The Big Bang Theory provided an atheistic explanation for the origin of the universe, but its obvious simplicity was subject to multiple attacks. As a result, the original theory is no longer the dominant scientific explanation for the atheistic origin of the universe. While the original Big Bang Theory is now "dead," from its ashes have emerged the various Inflationary Universe Theories (IUTs). Starting with Alan Guth in the late 1990's (//The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins//), the scientific community has now proposed roughly 50 different IUT variants. Scientists hope that one of the current IUTs will sire an accurate reconstruction of the birth of our universe, though it is universally acknowledged that all of the current IUTs have their problems. It seems the only way to get realistic calculations to match an IUT model is to make assumptions that are poorly justified.
 * Origin of the Universe - The Inflation Universe Theories **



[]

When it comes to the origin of the universe, the " Big Bang Theory " and its related Inflation Universe Theories (IUTs) are today's dominant scientific conjectures. According to these interrelated notions, the universe was created between 13 and 20 billion years ago from the random, cosmic explosion (or expansion) of a subatomic ball that hurled space, time, matter and energy in all directions. Everything - the whole universe -- came from an initial speck of infinite density (also known as a "singularity"). This speck (existing outside of space and time) appeared from no where, for no reason, only to explode (start expanding) all of a sudden. Over a period of approximately 10 billion years, this newly created space, time, matter and energy evolved into remarkably-designed and fully-functional stars, galaxies and planets, including our earth.

taken from:http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/origin-of-the-universe.htm

= What Is The Bing Bang (The Origin Of The Universe) ? =

===The **Big Bang** is the prevailing [|cosmological] [|theory] of the early development of the [|universe]. Cosmologists use the term //Big Bang// to refer to the idea that the universe was originally extremely hot and dense at some finite [|time] in the past and has since cooled by [|expanding] to the present diluted state and continues to expand today. The theory is supported by the most comprehensive and accurate explanations from current [|scientific evidence][|observation]. According to the best available measurements as of 2010, the initial conditions occurred around 13.3 to 13.9 billion years ago. and [|[update]]=== ===[|Georges Lemaître] proposed what became known as the Big Bang [|theory] of the origin of the Universe, although he called it his "[|hypothesis] of the primeval [|atom]". The framework for the model relies on [|Albert Einstein]'s [|general relativity] and on simplifying assumptions (such as [|homogeneity] and [|isotropy] of space). The governing equations had been formulated by [|Alexander Friedmann]. After [|Edwin Hubble] discovered in 1929 that the distances to far away [|galaxies] were generally [|proportional] to their [|redshifts], as suggested by Lemaître in 1927, this observation was taken to indicate that all very distant galaxies and clusters have an apparent velocity directly away from our vantage point: the farther away, the higher the apparent velocity. If the distance between galaxy clusters is increasing today, everything must have been closer together in the past. This idea has been considered in detail back in time to extreme [|densities] and [|temperatures],and large [|particle accelerators] have been built to experiment on and test such conditions, resulting in significant confirmation of the [|theory], but these accelerators have limited capabilities to probe into such [|high energy regimes]. Without any evidence associated with the earliest instant of the expansion, the Big Bang theory //cannot// and //does not// provide any explanation for such an initial condition; rather, it //describes// and //explains// the general evolution of the Universe since that instant. The observed abundances of the light elements throughout the cosmos closely match the calculated predictions for the formation of these elements from nuclear processes in the rapidly expanding and cooling first minutes of the Universe, as logically and quantitatively detailed according to [|Big Bang nucleosynthesis]. === ===[|Fred Hoyle] is credited with coining the term //Big Bang// during a 1949 radio broadcast. It is popularly reported that Hoyle, who favored an alternative "[|steady state]" cosmological model, intended this to be pejorative, but Hoyle explicitly denied this and said it was just a striking image meant to highlight the difference between the two models.[|[9]][|[10]][|[11]] Hoyle later helped considerably in the effort to understand [|stellar nucleosynthesis], the nuclear pathway for building certain heavier elements from lighter ones. After the discovery of the [|cosmic microwave background radiation] in 1964, and especially when its spectrum (i.e., the amount of radiation measured at each wavelength) sketched out a [|blackbody] curve, most scientists were fairly convinced by the evidence that some Big Bang scenario must have occurred. ===