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Location:
Tucson, Arizona
Synopsis:
The journey continues to the other side of the United States as Matt and Tiffany
venture up into the mountains just outside of Tucson, AZ.
The location takes
advantage of some of the clearest skies around the world, providing a perfect
vantage point for the Kitt Peak National Observatory, the largest and most
diverse gathering of astronomers and astronomical instruments in the world.
The two students meet with John Feldmeier,
a young and upcoming astronomer, who gives them a fascinating
tour of the WIYN Telescope, the newest and second
largest telescope at the Observatory.
While checking out the “toys”,
they talk about some of the classic ideas in cosmology such as the Big Bang,
as well as what astronomers think about the notion of God.
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BIG
BANG — The reigning theory of how the universe
was created. From the 1940s through the 1960s it
overtook the previous “steady state” model,
especially because of the increase of evidence
that the universe is expanding. The assumption
is that if you “wind back” an expanding
universe to a starting point it had to follow a
huge explosion of matter. It is a theory that is
not supported by all of the data, but is generally
not questioned by the majority of astronomers.
Still, science has yet to explain what could have
caused such an explosion. Interestingly, the Bible
also declares that the universe is expanding: {God] “Who
stretches out the heavens….” Isaiah
40:22, 44:24. Literally, the Hebrew words mean
in the present tense: “IS stretching.”
MATERIALISM — The belief that material
is “all
there is” and that it produces new material
(without the need of God) by time and chance
happenings influenced by natural law. This is
fundamental to all forms of natural evolution,
starting with the Big Bang and proceeding to
atomic evolution, chemical evolution and biological
evolution.
View the Glossary
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