the big bang ( Questions from a Teen )

i have some questions, first off, just what was it that came together to one single point in the universe, and y?and then y did it start spinning? and y did it explode?and to my understanding when it exploded all of time and space expanded allmost instantly, y?

It didn't start spinning.

no? so it just came together to one piont and then exploded?

No, it started out as one point, and then expanded. It never "came together", as far as I know.

Eh. No. The other way around.Nothing exploded. The universe expands continously. As we get further back in time, the universe would thus be smaller and smaller.So it starts out as a singularity (think a point in space) and then it expands. Nothing blew up.

I'm hoping that Eta Carinae or Sylas will come and help with your questions. Eta is our resident astrophysisist and Sylas is...well...Sylas is Sylas. Either one is fully qualified to answer you...now I just hope they can dumb it down enough for the rest of us.

---

AdminAsgara
Queen of the Universe

lol.ok cool, so in the biginning there was a dot in the universe and it exploded? y did it explode?[This message has been edited by teen15m6, 04-02-2004]

ok so if nothing blew up y is it called the big bang?and how is it that it was just a single dot "." cuz there r lots of other planets, or it that if we were to see the universe it would look like a "."?

You know, there has been a lot of people getting very confused or angry over the name big bang.Nothing banged. The name is totally missleading in that sense.The reason it's called the big bang is that is shows the early universe as expanding outward, in a similar way as the shockwave and fire and such from a bomb does. But there were nothing like a bomb involved or anything.[This message has been edited by Melchior, 04-02-2004]

The stars and planets and such was formed later, out of the material that was initially in this point. Matter sort of clumps together due to gravity, to form things like stars more or less by itself, if there is enough 'stuff' nearby.

ok so what does certain planets spinning the wrong way have to do with the big bang if it was never spinning and if it never exploded, and y do the planets in the solar system spin? and where did they come from?

The spinning of the planets in the solar system (and any extrasolar planets) have absolutely nothing whatever to do with the Big Bang. The angular momentum of the planets is an extremely small part of the angular momentum of the universe, so even if the universe was spinning, the direction planets were moving around their suns would be irrelevant. And, the universe isn't spinning.Some (though maybe not most) creationists say that planets should all be spinning the same direction on account of the Big Bang, but they are wrong.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the big bang. For all the model says, planets can spin any way they want.You might be interested in this short animation (with commentary) from NASA that illustrates how the solar system formed out of a slowly rotating gas nebula. No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~idh/solar/cap/misc/ssanim.htm

ok thanks for clearing that up for me[This message has been edited by teen15m6, 04-02-2004]

quote:

---

ok so if nothing blew up y is it called the big bang?

---

If I remember right, when the theory was first proposed one of the people against the theory called it a "big bang". Somehow, the name stuck. It should probably be called the Big Expansion, but it doesn't sound quite as romantic, wouldn't you say?