Information Related to "The Beginning of the Universe"
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Has the universe always existed, or, at some definite point in time, did it have a beginning? It is on this question that much of the argument of a Creator God rests. After all, if the universe has always existed there clearly is no need for a being or outside intelligence to design and create it. On the other hand, if the universe came into being at a precise, specific time, something must have caused it to come into being.
Scientists are not in accord as to whether the universe had a beginning. A few still believe it is possible it has always existed. British physicist Stephen Hawking explains why. "So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be" (A Brief History of Time, pp. 140-141).
But this concept is no longer the dominant scientific view. Most scientists now accept that the universe began suddenly and at a specific point in time.
Discovery of a beginning
In the early 1900s astronomers discovered a phenomenon known as red shift-that light from distant galaxies is shifted toward the red end of the color spectrum. Astronomer Edwin Hubble realized this meant that the universe is expanding. He discovered that galaxies and clusters of galaxies are moving away from each other in all directions.
To envision this revolutionary discovery, imagine dots of ink on the surface of a balloon you are blowing up. As you inflate the balloon, the spots move further from each other in all directions. Hubble and other astronomers found that galaxies throughout the universe are speeding away from each other in the same way. They also found that, the farther a galaxy or cluster of galaxies is from us, the faster it is retreating.
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