2:117 He is the Originator of the
heavens and the earth; and when He wills a thing to be He says unto it, " Be"-
and it is.
Any body of matter in our universe has a certain
temperature and as a result of this, and nothing else, radiates at a certain wavelength.
Depending on how hot it is, it may give off x -rays, visible rays, radio rays, etc. Human
body, for example, with characteristic temperature of 98.6 C radiates in the infrared
range which is the basis of infrared cameras used not only in searches in natural
disasters such as earthquakes, but also in wars in search of enemies as we saw in the Gulf
War. Sun with an average surface temperature of 7000K radiates in the optical range. It
has almost equal mixtures of red, green and blue which make it more or less white with a
slight tinge of yellow. Hotter stars, about 12000K, radiate primarily in blue and cooler
ones, about 3000K, radiate in red.
This principle holds throughout the universe. This
paper, the chair , the walls, frozen foods in your refrigerator all radiate at a certain
wavelength. The only exception, the only truly dead object in God's universe would be one
with zero degree absolute temperature(-273C), but this is only a theoretical possibility,
with nothing reaching this state. By the way, is it any wonder that God uses the allegory
of Hell and fire to describe the infinite misery since there is no limit to it whereas
there is a limit how cold an object can get?
History of universe at the earliest times is still
extremely speculative, despite considerable progress we have made. It is almost certain ,
however, that at some point during the first fraction of a second it consisted of 10
billion particles of anti matter for every 10 billion PLUS one particles of matter, a
tiniest imbalance, asymmetry. As expected matter and antimatter collided, annihilated each
other totally, resulting in burst of radiation and matter. All that we see today, all the
stars, all the galaxies, all the planets...is the result of that tiny imbalance, one extra
particle for every 10 billion. It is said many times , no doubt by those who believe in a
chance creation of universe, by those who do not know and do not believe that God has
counted all things; that "the world barely made it at birth."
At these earliest times; impossible even to imagine,
the temperature was many trillions of degrees, but dropping fast as it expanded, until
finally one second into the expansion, one second after the Big Bang, it reached 10
billion K. Now universe consisted primarily of electrons, protons, neutrons and photons,
essentially particles of matter and radiation. In the next few minutes as temperature
dropped further it became cool enough for protons and neutrons to coalesce, forming nuclei
but still too hot for electrons to bind with nuclei forming free atoms of H,HE and
Lithium. As soon as an electron joined a nuclei, it would be torn apart, the result being
essentially a sea of charged particles( plasma)and photons.
This was the situation until temperature dropped below
10,000K about 100,000 years after T=0, after Big Bang. Now a most significant change
occurred. Electrons were now able to bind with nuclei forming H,HE and Lithium atoms and
as a result charged particles began disappearing. Prior to this time all photons were
trapped inside the plasma, unable to move freely, because they completely interacted with
charged particles, technically we say photons were" scattered" and as a result
the universe was completely opaque until then. Even if you were present then and there you
would not have been able to see anything as if in a thickest fog imaginable, total
darkness.
By the time temperature reached 4000K about 300,000
years after the Big Bang the scattering of photons ceased completely and now they were
able and did move in all directions , permeating the universe then and for all time.
Scientifically it is said that at that time the radiation "decoupled" from
matter and lo and behold Universe became transparent , the fog was suddenly lifted , as it
were and it may be said, the statement "Let there be light and there was light"
came to pass there and then. Of course there was tremendous amount of radiation prior to
decoupling era but as indicated this was bound to matter and could not escape and could
not be seen. At earlier time there was also tremendous amount of radiation but the
temperature was too hot and according to rules explained at the beginning of this paper ,
all radiation then was primarily in the form of x-rays, etc.
We need to emphasize the fact that universe , prior to
decoupling era, is totally hidden from view, then , now and for all times to come. All
that we see come to us from decoupling era and not the Big Bang itself, no relics, no
remnants from the earlier era at all. The most remote galaxies we can possibly observe
today are billions of years old, however, the universe was already few billion years old
when these galaxies were formed. The only possibility we may be able to get closer to the
Big Bang, would be primordial neutrinos which decoupled from matter one second into the
expansion, but as you know neutrinos are probably the most elusive of all particles and it
is not clear whether we will ever be able to detect a significant number of them.
Finally as indicated when temperature reached 4000K
photons burst free in all directions and it was these very photons that hit radio antenna
of Penzias and Wilson in 1965, in what is considered the most significant discovery in a
long time, possibly ever, establishing the validity of what came to be known as the Big
Bang theory of the creation of universe. By then of course photons had cooled, as it were,
to about 3K. Precise measurements later on indicated these relic photons, microwave
background radiation have a temperature of 2.736K . It is these relic photons that take us
back to as close to T=0 as we ever hope to get and you experience these very photons every
time you go outdoor, hitting every part of your body at the rate 1000 trillion per second,
the same way they hit every other object in the universe.
Glory be to God
- Hossein Kowsari
