The
first problem that we will explore is, "Why is the universe so lumpy?"
The October 1991 issue of Astronomy magazine on pages 30 - 43 talk
a little about this problem. Here is what they say, "The smoothness of the hiss
[background radiation] shows that the Big Bang was the tidiest, most well-mannered
explosion that ever was - and yet soon after the Bang, galaxies appeared. Where did
they come from? Gravity could build a galaxy quickly, but it has to have a seed to
start with. The seed could be either a slightly denser clump of matter or a wrinkle
in the explosion. Cosmologists argue over the observations, which seem to show that
the early universe had neither, and they construct elaborate theories from which
galaxies spring forth instead out of such arcana as cold dark matter, false vacuunms,
or quantum tunneling." (p.33)
If the universe exploded from a singularity, the energy would have all
been moving away from each other at the exact same velocity (or speed).
Now since everything was moving away from each other, how could it begin
clumping together? The universe today should in actuality be just a enormous
body of cooling energy rather than lumpy stars....planets....galaxies...and
clusters. 
Something
had to of had to cause a wave in the expanding shell of the Big Bang to
cause the energy to bump into each other, causing them to join into larger
particles.
**NOTE** See Inflationary Model
The
next question to ask is, "Why does the universe have an equal temperature
everywhere we look in the sky?"
The is known as the Microwave Background Radiation discovered by two amateur
astronomers in 1965. This radiation covers the entire sky and maintains
the same temperature throughout. Astronomers believe that this is what
is left of the Big Bang radiation that the whole universe was formed. This
presents a big problem to astronomers today because light has not had enough
time to reach all the parts of the universe yet. The universe is roughly
12 billion years old but the size of the universe is twice that at about
24 billion light years across. Since light cannot travel 24 billion light
years in only 12 billion years, then nothing else can either. There should
be a variation in this radiation from where the light is traveling and
where it has not yet gotten.
There
is another theory that attempts to reconcile some of the problems with
the Big Bang, called the "Inflationary Theory". However, there is a
problem with that one as well and will be discussed in forthcoming
pages.
The same Astronomy magazine
also mentions more problems of the cosmos,
such as why the galaxies seem to cluster in groups. Here is what they say, "Why
do they [galaxies] group into clusters, clusters of clusters, and even higher
orders of organization? Every time astronomers push a survey to greater distances
and encompass larger volumes of space, they find ever-larger structures - filaments,
giant curving sheets and strings of galaxies, enormous yawing voids - until the
very fabric of the universe seems to be packed with foamy soapsuds."
Continue with the discussion on the next page.
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to the Main Page.
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