One that day—without warning and for no special reason—matter, radiation, space and time suddenly burst into existence in a searing hot fireball: the Big Bang. As the fireball expanded and cooled, galaxies and stars condensed out. Around some of these stars, planets formed. And on at least one planet chemical processes gave rise to what we call life. But this picture of our cosmic origins hasn't always been so clear. The ancient Chinese primordial cloud separated out into the havens the cosmos was made from the body parts of gods or mythical creatures.
Early ideas about cosmology — the study of the Universe — took their cue from religion. The Chinese in the 1st century BC believed that our Universe began life as a shapeless, abstract cloud. Those elements of the cloud that were pure and clear rose up to become heaven. Those that were heavy and opaque sank down to become the mortal world: the Earth. The ancient Chinese believed that pure, heavenly materials merged together more easily than those of the less pure mortal world, and so it was that the heavens formed long before the Earth.
Even further back, in the 12th century BC, the Mesopotamians believed that the god Marduk cleaved the body of the primeval mother, Tiamat, in two — one half formed the Earth, the other the heavens. On the other hand, Polynesian myths tell the tale of how the deity Ta-aroa hatched from a cosmic egg and made the world from himself and the egg shell.
Even today, some followers of Christianity believe that the heavens and the Earth – the Universe – were forged in seven days, by God. Every culture has nurtured its own religious beliefs, each with its own version of the events that brought the Universe into being. So which one do we believe?
New beliefs
Believers accept the scenarios above on the grounds of faith rather than reason. Anyone can invent such a myth about the Universe and its beginning, without worrying too much whether or not it tallies with the available evidence. To get to the
truth, what we need is a method of thinking that is based on reason and logic. It should let us construct theories about the Universe, which we can then test by comparing the theories' predictions with real observations. In fact, we already have just such a method. It's called science.
The world's first scientist, at least in recorded history, was Thales of Miletus. Thales lived between the 6th and 7th centuries BC in Ionia, on the eastern shores of the Aegean Sea. The Ionians were a practical people, a trait borne out not only by their workers but also by their thinking men. Ionian scholars were in their element poking and prodding the world around them to find out how it worked.
Thales rejected the idea that the heavens and Earth were created by mysterious and unfathomable gods. Instead, he argued that the Universe was shaped by forces of nature, which he believed human beings were capable of understanding. One of his early theories supposed that the Universe is a great sea of water, upon which floats a disc that is the Earth. Using this theory –essentially the first scientific theory of cosmology -he was able to explain earthquakes.
Of course, the theory was wrong. Today, views returned by spacecraft and powerful telescopes show us immediately that the Universe isn't made of water and the Earth isn't a disc. Thales simply lacked the technology to make such observations. Nevertheless, his system of reasoning, comparing theories with experimental observations – the scientific method – was sound. Indeed, our current understanding of the cosmos relies on it.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Alan Benson
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