Will it be possible to determine the cause of the Big Bang and the birth of our universe?
545813
Time was born along with space and energy in the Big Bang. \nSo, it has no sense at all asking for the "cause" of the BB. Causes precede effects in time. But there was NO time before the BB. Even the statement "before the big bang" is flawed. But our linear minds find it very difficult -if not impossible- to conceive.
631597
Just one doubt about your  theory,how do you know that only one big bang has taken place as you say that a second one is coming up???And tell me how you would accelerate something to the speed of light as the mass would become infinite.\nAnd according to your theory the total energy in the universe will go on increasing.You are stuck in a viscious circle!!!
368430
Okay considering this scientifically (ie not just assuming there is a God) at the moment no one is sure how the big band happened. However the big bang was the start of time as well as space so it is difficult to talk about before. Some scientists believe that the big band was caused by tiny fluctuations of the vacume. Something like the universe can be forever just by never stopping or by time ending much as it began in a 'big crunch'. It is possible that there is something beyond the universe. M-theory suggests that there are many different dimensional universes floating around in a larger dimensional space. All of these are of course theories the point is to try to use these to make observable predictions which will either support or contradict the theory.
725562
The essence of the Big Bang theory is pretty simple:  sometime billions of years ago the universe began;  everything now in the universe was created from energy/matter that was compacted into a really, really small volume/space, and indeed that really, really small volume/space was all there was to the universe at that moment; and since the universe began, it's been expanding.  These are the essential points of the theory.  Over time, we've added new details, such as pinning down the age of the universe to within a few hundred million years (last I heard, we thought it was 13.7 +/- 0.2 billion years old).  And a lot of theoretical and observational work have gone into investigating and refining the theory.\n\nAs to why we think that there was a Big Bang instead of, say, a universe which had always existed or a universe which came into being pretty much fully formed, the main reason and the reason we started thinking there was a Big Bang in the first place is because of very peculiar observations that we can make of distant galaxies.  This observation is that, except for a bunch galaxies which are both nearby and gravitationally bound to our own galaxy, all the galaxies we can see are moving away from both our galaxy and all other galaxies.  Also, the speed with which a galaxy is moving away from us depends directly on how far away from us it is (e.g. galaxies farther away from us are moving away from us faster than galaxies which are closer).  And the reason we first infered a Big Bang from this is that if you imagine running this movement backwards, doing a cosmic rewind if you will, then all the galaxies will be moving back towards each other, and eventually will all find themselves in the same place.\n\nSeveral years after this observation, a key predicition of the Big Bang theory was verified.  When the universe was young, it was also really hot and so for a time would have given off light all its own (I'm simplifying things a bit, but these are the essential facts as we know them).  It was predicted that some of this light should still be around.  And, lo and behold, at the very same time that people were making this prediction and beginning to think of looking for it, practically right down the road some experimentalists stumbled upon it accidentally.\n\nSo, in short and hopefully simple words, that's what the Big Bang is and why we think it happened.
385811
The big bang was the starting point of time and the universe, and I think there is enough corroborating evidence to show that it is most likely true.
841480
We're still sorting most of that out.  \n\nThe thing about science is that it's not afraid to say, "you know what, we're not sure yet."  And the exact mechanisms as to how we got from bang to here are still being worked on.  But that doesn't mean God said, "let there be light," it just means we don't know.\n\nIf you've never heard of string theory, then you're in ZERO position to comment on big bang.
205397
It is the theory that this universe was cause by a large explosion from which hydrogen atoms where release forming different elements and what not. I have no idea, but I don't know how they came up with such theory. I believe it's plausible, but I doubt it's accurate.
604533
If you believe the theory of creation, found in all major religions, you don't have a problem answering your own question.  If you subscribe to the 'Big Bang' theory (or a derivitive thereof), I would have to ask 'Who lit the fuse?'
621334
I am assuming you mean in "historical times" or otherwise it would have to be the "big bang" that supposedly created the known universe.\n\nThat aside, in 1908 (I think it was) in a remote area of Siberia called Tunguska, a huge meteor, comet, or something, alien craft for all anyone knows entered the atmosphere at such high speed it vaporized well above the ground like an "air burst" bomb.  It leveled hundreds of square miles of forest, set fires, killed all wildlife (and any nomads that may have been there) and was heard over most of the future Soviet Union and much of central Asia.  There are lots of old black and white photos taken by Russian exploration teams sent to find out what happened.  That one gets my vote. Search for "1908 Siberian meteor"
316386
Who knows? Don't you think that speculating about the beginning of the universe is far reaching enough, you want scientists to posit ideas which predate that for which there would be zero testable merit to? Maybe there are other 'universes' outside ours some quadrillion light years away popping off big bangs all the time. Maybe before the big bang there was a big collapse where all this matter and energy fell together into a ginourmous abyss-hole. Who knows how many orders of existence could be identified beside what is within our range to observe.\n\nI mean trying to see the forest through the trees is one thing, but trying to see the sattellite image through a microscope is just ridiculous.
310924
Emerging scientific basis\nSee also: Timeline of cosmology and Timeline of the Big Bang \nThe theoretical scientific exploration of the ultimate fate of the universe became possible with Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity. General relativity can be employed to describe the universe on the largest possible scale. There are many possible solutions to the equations of general relativity, and each solution implies a possible ultimate fate of the universe. Alexander Friedmann proposed one such solution in 1921. This solution implies that the universe has been expanding from an initial singularity; this is, essentially, the Big Bang.\n\nAn important parameter in fate of the universe theory is the density parameter, Omega (Ω), defined as the average matter density of the universe divided by a critical value of that density. This creates three possible ultimate fates of the universe, depending on whether Ω is equal to, less than, or greater than 1. These are called, respectively, the Flat, Open and Closed universes. These three adjectives refer to the overall geometry of the universe, and not to the local curving of spacetime caused by smaller clumps of mass (for example, galaxies and stars).\n\nObservational evidence was not long in coming. In 1929, Edwin Hubble published his conclusion, based on his observations of Cepheid variable stars in distant galaxies, that the universe was expanding. From then on, the beginning of the universe and its possible end have been the subjects of serious scientific investigation. In 1933, Georges-Henri Lemaître set out a theory that has since come to be called the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. In 1948, Fred Hoyle set out his opposing theory of a static universe, called the Steady state theory. These two theories were active contenders until the 1965 discovery, by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, of the cosmic microwave background radiation, a fact that is a straightforward prediction of the Big Bang theory, and one that the Steady State theory cannot account for. The Big Bang theory immediately became the most widely held view of the origin of the universe.\n\nWhen Einstein formulated general relativity, he and his contemporaries believed in a static universe. When Einstein found that his equations could easily be solved in such a way as to allow the universe to be expanding now, and to contract in the far future, he added to those equations what he called a cosmological constant whose role was to offset the effect of gravity on the universe as a whole in such a way that the universe would remain static. After Hubble announced his conclusion that the universe was expanding, Einstein wrote that his cosmological constant was his "greatest blunder."\n\nStarting in 1998, observations of supernovae in distant galaxies have been interpreted as consistent with a universe whose rate of expansion is accelerating. Subsequent cosmological theorizing has been designed so as to allow for this possible acceleration, nearly always by invoking dark energy and dark matter. Hence recent theorizing about the ultimate fate of the universe allows for a nonzero cosmological constant.\n\n[edit]\nRole of the shape of the universe\nSee also: Shape of the universe \nThe ultimate fate of the universe depends on its overall shape, and on how much dark energy it contains.\n\n \nThe overall geometry of the universe is determined by whether Ω is less than, equal to, or greater than 1.[edit]\nClosed universe\nIf Ω>1, then the geometry of space is closed like the surface of a sphere. The sum of the angles of a triangle exceeds 180 degrees and there are no parallel lines; all lines eventually meet. The geometry of the universe is, at least on a very large scale, elliptic.\n\nIn a closed universe lacking the repulsive effect of dark energy, gravity eventually stops the expansion of the universe, after which it starts to contract until all matter in the universe collapses to a poi
78705
I think you are confused a bit. If you look around at nature, it is incredibly complex. The more we study it and the more we analyze i and measure it, the more complicated it appears. \n\nThe scientific theories and laws are attempts to put some order into this mass of complicated observations, to try to explain what is happening. Predictions based on these scientific theories can be made, and if it is a good theory, then the prediction will be verified by data. \n\nThe big bang is just one theory for the origin of the universe that attempts to explain what we observe: hubble's law, the microwave background radiation, etc. It is an attempt to produce a simpler theory to explain a very complicated and confusing set of observations.
1024461
The discovery of  the universe expansion(doppler red shifted spectrum lines) was the source of the Big Bang theory (i think)\n\nBTW: this is a SCIENCE thread, all you Jesus Freak back off!\nthe theory of the Big Bang is compatible with the concept of a god.\nwhat was there before the big bang ..let there be light....BANG.
857388
I think it is some calculation based on the most distant objects we can see (with radio telescopes etc.) and interpretation of 'background' radio echos attributed to the big bang. One figure gave the universe a diameter of 26 billion light years.\nI have heard about the big bang theory and people say they have evidence and the scientist are not really disputing it. As a lay reader this will do it for me.\nBut other possibilities do exist that remain consistent with what we have found out about our universe.\nIs this the first big bang in this universe, could we be expanding in the wake of the last such explosion that occurred in this part of a larger universe?.\nHow many universes are there?\nFrom a mental point of view I find it hard to assign a boundary to the universe and just accept there is nothing beyond it.
360105
at the present time, the only widely accepted, scientifically valid theory of the origin of the universe is the "big bang" theory.  british astronomer fred hoyle gave the theory this name to ridicule it.  the big bang is substantially supported by evidence.  for the first 380 000 years, the universe was opaque.  light could not travel far without interacting with a charged particle (electron or atomic nucleus, mostly hydrogen and helium nuclei).  the universe became transparent when the electrons and nuclei combined to form atoms.  light could travel unhindered because the atoms have no electric charge.  because of the expansion of the universe, we see this light at much longer microwave wavelengths.  this is called the cosmic microwave background, and we can see nothing of the universe before this.  within the first fraction of a second, however, the universe became much larger during an extremely short fraction of a second.  this super-fast expansion is called inflation.\n\ni can't really say much about the many myths of the origin of the universe, what the universe is, or even if the universe had an origin.
1138756
It resulted from the big bang. Time and space and matter and energy all started then. What existed before and why it occurred is for the philosophers to ponder. I'm content with the fact that we don't know everything right now. We might someday though.
844940
We already now know that the birth of our Universe may very well be a random quantum fluctuation, and that these quantum events are based on probability, not "cause and effect".\n\nBut the human drive to discover the "Ultimate Truth" is not contigent upon there being a sensible answer, or even an answer. It is simply not enough to just exist, or accept what has been given to us (as someone has suggested). If God exists, then God has given us the desire to seek knowledge, wisdom, and truth. To know the Universe is to know God.