Mr Jack has proposed that backround radiation proves that the Big Bang happened
My understanding is that the background radiation is evidence that before 13.7 billion years ago what we know as the universe was filled with a plasma that (1) was too high energy to allow "cooler" subatomic particles, like photons, to condense and (2) was "opaque" to the passage of photons
and (3) was {dense \ compact \ hot} enough for this level of {energy \ "pressure"} to exist.
This means that it was hot and opaque
and contained in a smaller volume than at present, as is predicted by the (standard) big bang model.
There are other theories that also make similar predictions
but that diverge from the standard model for what happened before this point in development of the universe, and the evidence that can differentiate between them has not been observed, yet.
The (cosmic microwave) background radiation observed is consistent with the predictions from the theoretical expansion of the universe from a large hot ball of plasma 13.7 billion years ago. What is not determined is whether that ball of plasma came from the inflation of a singularity or the collision of multidimensional branes or some other mechanism.
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[This message has been edited by AbbyLeever, 03-25-2004]
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