Hi, Mark.
There are some nit-picky details about the way some things were phrased, and I may take the time to bring some of them up. However, the description of Big Bang I think is a bit more serious:
quote:
Recognizes evidence indicating that the Big Bang occurred around 13.7 billion years ago, when all matter exploded into the universe ” from what is believed to have been an infinitesimal speck.
This can be very misleading. First, although if one extrapolates the expansion of the universe backwards, one does get a "beginning" when the universe is a singularity; however, our current understanding of the laws of nature doesn't allow us to push back before a certain point in time. Before this, our current understanding is insufficient to truly describe accurately what the universe was like -- in fact, it may very well be that there was no singularity and our ideas of what the universe might have been like might be totally off.
Second, I don't like the phrase, "matter exploded into the universe". It implies that the universe existed before the singularity (which, as far as we know, it did not, and, in fact, there was no "before" before the singularity) and that matter came from somewhere else (and, by definition of "universe", there is no somewhere else).
Finally, the Big Bang was not an explosion. An explosion is a sudden release of energy that causes matter to fly apart; this is not what is happening. Matter is moving apart because it is the nature of space itself to expand (or to contract). This was not a one time event; space is still expanding, carrying the galaxies within it farther apart. There wasn't a sudden, one time push that caused matter to move apart. It is simply that nature of space-time itself that matter should be moving apart (or moving together).
A better description of Big Bang, in my opinion, would be:
At one time the universe has a very, very small volume, was very, very dense, and very, very hot, and expanding. You can work out the wording yourself, of course, but that is the idea of Big Bang.
Actually, if their god makes better pancakes, I'm totally switching sides. --
Charley the Australopithecine