Anupam- The Dreamer

The BIG-BANG!!!!

I am sure if you would have looked at the night sky with a sense of awe and curiosity, some of these questions have definitely crossed your mind at some point of time in your life- “What was there at the beginning of this universe? Was something there even before the big bang explosion? If not, then how did big bang happen out of nothing? How we have come to the present state of being?” These questions are perplexing and at the same time ming-boggling!

From time immemorial, the human beings have been intrigued with the idea of the universe, its composition and its evolution. Earlier, it was thought that the Earth is the center of everything. As the understanding improved, we discovered that the universe is much much bigger than we ever thought. Infact, Earth or even our solar system does not even count in the larger scheme of things! We are sitting in the corner of just one among billions and billions of galaxies! Our value in the universe would be probably like the value of 1 dollar in the hands of Elon Musk, even smaller than that!

The legendary scientist Stephen Hawking in this theory of black hole and the space-time singularity proves that the universe had a beginning at the big bang and is constantly expanding since then! Stephen Hawking constantly flirts with the idea of a Creator or God who created this entire universe, otherwise it would not have been possible to be in the present state! Infact, he writes that the rate of expansion of the universe after the big bang was so perfect, that just after 1 second of big bang had it been smaller than 1 part in a hundred thousand million million, then it would have recollapsed even before reaching present size, and had it been larger by the same amount just after 1 second, then the universe would have become effectively empty till now! What an amazing discovery! That infinitesimal probability couldn’t have been true without a Creator!

This big-bang theory also postulates that there was a beginning of time! The thought that time was also created at some point of time is just crazyyy!!!! Universe had a beginning, and so did time! So, what was there before that- we don’t know! Maybe, it’s like starting from the scratch, so we need not think what was there before that. But, did we come out of the vacuum? Maybe, it is the harsh truth that we have to accept! But, now we are out from the realm of singularity (where the whole universe was nothing but a high-density single point mass) and into the realm of space-time, where the space and time both seem infinite. Our time and our existence on the planet Earth is very very finite as compared to the time of the universe and its future, as well as in comparison to the vast space around the universe. That is a humbling realization!

But, despite being finite, we carry in ourselves the atoms and space, that was created maybe 13.6 billion years ago, when there was big bang explosion! So, does that make us timeless beings? And from where does the consciousness come from? That means we are not just the summation of atoms and particles from the beginning of time, but much more than that! And where does this consciousness go after we are dead? Maybe, the concepts of heaven and hell before and after life can offer some explanations. And does life mean consciousness in the atomic particles or there is more to what meets the eye? All of this seems so humbling and beyond the domain of easy understanding!

Certainly, we have come very very far! But, still there is a lot more to be known! And we may not be there to witness the end of universe, because we all die with the death of our beloved Sun or even much before that!

Maybe, life and death are also relative terms! More on that thought, sometime later 😉

Till next time…..