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ACTIVITY: This Threshold Today

Purpose

In this activity, you will read news articles that reveal unexpected connections between today’s world and the Big Bang to understand how things we learn today are related to what we know about the Big Bang. Understanding the relevance to today should help you engage more with the theories related to the Big Bang, which are sometimes tricky.
"CMB Timeline300 no WMAP". Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Process

Out of the Big Bang came everything in the Universe. All of the matter that formed Earth, all of the materials that formed the stars and galaxies that light up the night sky, and all of the building blocks for everything in the Universe were once contained in a tiny singularity. Even space and time as we know them emerged from the Big Bang. All of these details help to explain why the Big Bang is considered the first “new complexity” in the Universe and the first major threshold of increasing complexity in this course. Scientists, along with the rest of us, continue to learn more about the Big Bang and how our Universe formed.
You can join in this process of discovery by searching for news stories about the Big Bang and the history of our Universe. Use some of the suggested articles below, or find ones on your own that highlight new information that you think contributes to a discussion of the Big Bang today. Be sure to carefully evaluate the articles you choose by thinking about the credibility of the authors and of the websites you have chosen:
Here are a couple of places to get started with your research:

For Further Discussion

Share a link to one of the news articles you found in the Questions Area below. Tell us what about the article interests you and how it connects the present day to the Big Bang.

Want to join the conversation?