The Three Echoes

Press, 23 September 1983, Page 18

The Three Echoes

The Three “Echoes” are the main evidence to support the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. They are:

® Expansion of the universe is observable. Distant galaxies are receding from us at immense speeds. The more distant they are, the faster they are moving.

© Microwave radiation reaching the earth from all parts of the heavens can be explained as a dying flicker from the primeval explosion. 0 The relative amounts of hydrogen and helium in the universe can be accounted for by processes that would have occurred in the first seconds after the Big Bang. The Four Forces

The four Forces of Nature are: @ Gravity, which dominates the universe on the largest scale.

• Electromagnetism, which dominates in the properties of ordinary matter. © The so-called “strong” force, which binds the atomic nucleus together. @ The “weak” force that is involved in some kinds of radioactivity. These forces appear to be completely different. The strong force, for example, is billions of times more powerful than gravity*. Great Universal Theories — G.U.T.S — attempt to explain the three nongravitional forces by a single theory. The weak force and elec-tro-magnetism have been successfully unified. There has been some progress in including the strong force. Gravity is still too difficult. In all G.U.T.S the three non-gravi-tational forces are assumed to have been one in the conditions that prevailed immediately after the Big Bang.