During the second week of our Genesis series, we dived deep into the story of Creation. Many of you were perplexed to learn that the Sun, Moon, and Stars did not become visible until the fourth day, after the creation of vegetation. As a result, many of you asked the great, and natural question, "Where did the light come from prior to the Sun?"
Answer:
The sun is not the only source of light in the universe. Of course, the stars emit light. Nevertheless, that's not going to help because the sun and the stars were created on the same day. Light has to come before that. The primary confusion is over "light" meaning "visible light." Light is just electromagnetic radiation, and we only see a small fraction of the total spectrum. Besides what we see (ROY G BIV) there are, on the red side, radio waves, microwaves, and infrared waves. On the purple side there are ultra-violet rays, X-rays, and gamma rays. The most important for answer the question are the infrared frequencies of light. Infrared, as you know if you've ever seen Predator, is heat. Well, the Big Bang was immensely hot, and as soon as it cooled enough for the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, electromagnetism, and gravity to all break apart (they were initially one super force), there would be light at least in the form of infrared radiation. There was very likely light from all parts of the spectrum. Most importantly, the required cooling took place within millionths of the first second. So basically it went like this: BANG! --> LIGHT. At the point this happened, the universe really was separated into everything that was light and everything that wasn't light. An interesting consequence of the Big Bang is the Cosmic Background Radiation. It's the left over infrared heat signal from the Big Bang. You can pick it up with special listening equipment, so you can, in essence, hear the bang. Although, since the light has traveled some 15 billion light years, it has been so red-shifted by the Doppler effect that it's a very very low frequency infrared source that the bang sounds more like static. Nevertheless, it's really there, and it's the best evidence, apart from the red-shift observed in stars (that's what told physicists that the universe was expanding), for the big bang.
j Green
Answer:
The sun is not the only source of light in the universe. Of course, the stars emit light. Nevertheless, that's not going to help because the sun and the stars were created on the same day. Light has to come before that. The primary confusion is over "light" meaning "visible light." Light is just electromagnetic radiation, and we only see a small fraction of the total spectrum. Besides what we see (ROY G BIV) there are, on the red side, radio waves, microwaves, and infrared waves. On the purple side there are ultra-violet rays, X-rays, and gamma rays. The most important for answer the question are the infrared frequencies of light. Infrared, as you know if you've ever seen Predator, is heat. Well, the Big Bang was immensely hot, and as soon as it cooled enough for the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, electromagnetism, and gravity to all break apart (they were initially one super force), there would be light at least in the form of infrared radiation. There was very likely light from all parts of the spectrum. Most importantly, the required cooling took place within millionths of the first second. So basically it went like this: BANG! --> LIGHT. At the point this happened, the universe really was separated into everything that was light and everything that wasn't light. An interesting consequence of the Big Bang is the Cosmic Background Radiation. It's the left over infrared heat signal from the Big Bang. You can pick it up with special listening equipment, so you can, in essence, hear the bang. Although, since the light has traveled some 15 billion light years, it has been so red-shifted by the Doppler effect that it's a very very low frequency infrared source that the bang sounds more like static. Nevertheless, it's really there, and it's the best evidence, apart from the red-shift observed in stars (that's what told physicists that the universe was expanding), for the big bang.
j Green
