Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe by Simon Singh

From the Publisher

We've all heard of the Big Bang, and yet few of us truly know what it is.

Renowned for making difficult ideas much less difficult than they might first appear, Simon Singh is our perfect guide to explaining why cosmologists believe that the Big Bang is an accurate description of the origin and evolution of the universe.

This highly readable and entertaining book tells the story of the many brilliant, often eccentric scientists who fought against the establishment idea of an eternal and unchanging cosmos. From such early Greek cosmologists as Anaximander to recent satellite measurements taken deep in space, Big Bang is a narrative full of anecdotes and personal histories. With characteristic clarity, Simon Singh tells the centuries-long story of mankind's attempt to understand how the universe came to be, a story which itself begins some 14 billion years ago (give or take a billion years). Simon Singh shows us that it is within the capability of all of us -- in his expert hands -- to understand the Big Bang: the fundamental theory in all of science, and a high point -- perhaps the high point -- of human achievement.

The New York Times - William Grimes

It is hard to imagine a grander, more thrilling story than the one Simon Singh tells in Big Bang. His fast-paced history of the Big Bang theory encompasses all of recorded human history, from the first attempts to measure Earth and the stars to the discovery of quasars and dark matter. It moves, smoothly and rapidly, from the Greeks to Copernicus and then to Einstein and the rest of the 20th-century theorists whom Mr. Singh calls the "mavericks of the cosmos." It is an interplanetary voyage that transports the reader, in space and time, from the cramped confines of the Ptolemaic system to the current expanding universe, created in an explosion some 10 billion to 20 billion years ago, with distances measured in billions of light years. Big Bang. is, quite literally, cosmic.

The Washington Post - Dennis Drabelle

Above all, Singh keeps track of the human stories behind the evolution of an idea. … Like Singh himself, Gamow could both do the science and make it comprehensible to lay readers, becoming famous for his fantasy Mr. Tompkins in Hollywood, "in which the speed of light was just a few kilometres per hour, so that a bicycle ride would reveal the weird effects of relativity. . . ."

Library Journal

Writing in a manner that almost any reader will understand and enjoy, best-selling author Singh (Fermat's Enigma) here presents a brief history of the origins of the universe, taking on the most important scientific theory ever postulated. He begins with a historical overview of how scientific thought changed from mythology to cosmology, then moves to the debate between the steady state model of an eternal universe and the Big Bang theory, which saw the universe as beginning at a unique moment that was followed by rapid expansion. Rejected by Einstein, the Big Bang theory lost favor with the scientific community, but over time, astronomers used increasingly powerful telescopes to provide the proof needed to sway scientific minds. Singh shows that this debate was fought long and hard, moving into the public sector as a result of several popular books and radios broadcasts. While the Big Bang model is now widely accepted as the way in which the universe was created, the question remains, What came before the Big Bang? This readable book provides an accessible overview of this complex scientific theory. Recommended for all college collections and larger public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/04.]-Gloria Maxwell, Penn Valley Community Coll., Kansas City, MO Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A historical overview of the science leading to acceptance of the Big Bang theory. Former BBC producer Singh (Fermat's Enigma, 1997; The Code Book, 1999) takes advantage of his sweeping subject to cover a wide swath of scientific history. After a glance at creation myths from around the world, he turns to the Greek philosophers, the first to base their speculations on actual data. Ptolemy's system, with Earth at the center of a small universe, gave way to Copernicus's Sun-centered scheme, bolstered by early telescopic observations and given a solid foundation by Newton's gravitational law. Over the next two centuries, astronomers made it clear that the universe was both larger and older than had been believed. After Einstein refined Newtonian gravitation, the Russian mathematician Alexander Friedman found that Relativity implied an expanding universe. Astronomical observations-notably by Edwin Hubble-soon provided confirmation. That led the Belgian priest and astronomer Georges Lemaitre to propose that the universe had grown from a single point at some time in the past: the germ of the Big Bang theory. In the early 1940s, Lemaitre's speculation was fleshed out by George Gamow and his student Ralph Alpher; at the same time, the British astronomers Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold entered the debate with the proposition that the universe had no distinct beginning, the Steady State theory. Singh effectively profiles the often-colorful scientists who took part in the controversy, especially as the story moves closer to the present. He also gives belated credit to several figures slighted by the scientific establishment. (Among them, Alpher and Hoyle almost certainly deserved Nobel prizes.) The onlydisappointment comes in the final pages, where such key issues as post-Big Bang inflation are skimmed over a bit too quickly in the summing-up. Still, a clear, lively, and comprehensive view of the way science arrived at the leading theory of how everything began. Author tour. Agent: Patrick Walsh/Conville & Walsh

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Reading Group Guide
• Read a Sample Chapter

Table of Contents

Reading Group Guide

Introduction

Discussion Questions

About the author

Read a Sample Chapter

Chapter One

In the Beginning

Our universe is dotted with over 100 billion galaxies, and each one contains roughly 100 billion stars. It is unclear how many planets are orbiting these stars, but it is certain that at least one of them has evolved life. In particular, there is a life form that has had the capacity and audacity to speculate about the origin of this vast universe.

Humans have been staring up into space for thousands of generations, but we are privileged to be part of the first generation who can claim to have a respectable, rational and coherent description for the creation and evolution of the universe.The Big Bang model offers an elegant explanation of the origin of everything we see in the night sky, making it one of the greatest achievements of the human intellect and spirit. It is the consequence of an insatiable curiosity, a fabulous imagination, acute observation and ruthless logic.

Even more wonderful is that the Big Bang model can be understood by everyone.When I first learned about the Big Bang as a teenager, I was astonished by its simplicity and beauty, and by the fact that it was built on principles which, to a very large extent, did not go beyond the physics I was already learning at school. Just as Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection is both fundamental and comprehensible to most intelligent people, the Big Bang model can be explained in terms that will make sense to non-specialists, without having to water down the key concepts within the theory.

But before encountering the earliest stirrings of the Big Bang model, it is necessary to lay some groundwork.The Big Bang model of the universe was developed over the last hundred years, and this was only possible because twentieth-century breakthroughs were built upon a foundation of astronomy constructed in previous centuries. In turn, these theories and observations of the sky were set within a scientific framework that had been assiduously crafted over two millennia. Going back even further, the scientific method as a path to objective truth about the material world could start to blossom only when the role of myths and folklore had begun to decline. All in all, the roots of the Big Bang model and the desire for a scientific theory of the universe can be traced right back to the decline of the ancient mythological view of the world.

From Giant Creators to Greek Philosophers

According to a Chinese creation myth that dates to 600 BC, Phan Ku the Giant Creator emerged from an egg and proceeded to create the world by using a chisel to carve valleys and mountains from the landscape. Next, he set the Sun, Moon and stars in the sky; he died as soon as these tasks were finished. The death of the Giant Creator was an essential part of the creation process, because fragments of his own body helped to complete the world. Phan Ku's skull formed the dome of sky, his flesh formed the soil, his bones became rocks and his blood created rivers and seas. The last of his breath forged the wind and clouds, while his sweat became rain. His hair fell to Earth, creating plant life, and the fleas that had lodged in his hair provided the basis for the human race. As our birth required the death of our creator, we were to be cursed with sorrow forever after.

In contrast, in the Icelandic epic myth Prose Edda creation started not with an egg, but within the Yawning Gap. This void separated the contrasting realms of Muspell and Niflheim, until one day the fiery, bright heat of Muspell melted the freezing snow and ice of Niflheim, and the moisture fell into the Yawning Gap, sparking life in the form of Imir, the giant. Only then could the creation of the world begin.

The Krachi people of Togo in West Africa speak of another giant, the vast blue god Wulbari, more familiar to us as the sky. There was a time when he lay just above the Earth, but a woman pounding grain with a long timber kept prodding and poking him until he raised himself above the nuisance. However,Wulbari was still within reach of humans, who used his belly as a towel and snatched bits of his blue body to add spice to their soup. Gradually, Wulbari moved higher and higher until the blue sky was out of reach, where it has remained ever since.

For the Yoruba, also of West Africa, Olorun was Owner of the Sky. When he looked down upon the lifeless marsh, he asked another divine being to take a snail shell down to the primeval Earth. The shell contained a pigeon, a hen and a tiny amount of soil. The soil was sprinkled on the marshes of the Earth, whereupon the hen and pigeon began scratching and picking at it, until the marsh became solid ground.To test the world, Olorun sent down the Chameleon, which turned from blue to brown as it moved from sky to land, signalling that the hen and pigeon had completed their task successfully.

Throughout the world, every culture has developed its own myths about the origin of the universe and how it was shaped. These creation myths differ magnificently, each reflecting the environment and society from which it originated. In Iceland, it is the volcanic and meteorological forces that form the backdrop to the birth of Imir, but according to the Yoruba of West Africa it is the familiar hen and pigeon that gave rise to solid land. Nevertheless, all these unique creation myths have some features in common. Whether it is the big, blue, bruised Wulbari or the dying giant of China, these myths inevitably invoke at least one supernatural being to play a crucial role in explaining the creation of the universe ...