Reasons to Believe

Massive Particle Accelerator to Test Big Bang Conditions

TNRTB Archive - Retained for reference information

Scientists have been retooling a massive particle accelerator to test their understanding of the conditions that existed shortly after the big bang. The temperature of the early universe started high enough that the most basic subatomic particles were not bound to one another. The resulting quark-gluon plasma eventually cooled, smoothly transitioning to an epoch where the subatomic particles scientists study today formed. The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) has already detected this quark-gluon plasma and is being reconfigured to search for where this transition occurs turbulently. If the scientists discover the turbulent transition, it will confirm the big bang picture of the universe and provide a landmark to further explore this early epoch. Such confirmation will also buttress RTB’s cosmic creation model.

o   Adrian Cho, “Scheme for Boiling Nuclear Matter Gathers Steam at Accelerator Lab,” Science 312 (2006): 190-91.


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o   Beyond the Cosmos, 2nd ed., by Hugh Ross

Subjects: Big Bang, Particle Physics

Dr. Hugh Ross
