Big Bang 122

According to present knowledge, the universe originated from an infinitely small singularity after the BIG BANG approximately 13.7 billion years ago. All light, all matter, and all life therefore originated from one tremendous eruption of energy that has led to an almost incomprehensible variety of forms and colours, realities and worlds. It is not known whether we should hereby assume a singular event or whether the space beyond our cosmic bubble is again filled with innumerable other universes. In order to learn more about this origin, the world’s largest civilian systems – particle accelerators and detectors – were built to generate most intensive collisions between subatomic particles. The extremely complex recording and analysis of the particle traces within such explosions allow for an epistemological process that intends to reproduce the standardised physical laws at the time of the Big Bang as accurately as possible, in order to verify the forecasts of theoretical physics and thus the bases of today‘s conception of the world. Microscopic particle collisions, macroscopic explosions, as well as the cosmic Big Bang, all have a common denominator on different scales: they are highly energetic processes which accelerate entropy as measure of disorder in physical systems, which is the origin of nature’s power to self-create based on its infinite variety. Edition of 2