1 Big Bang

Type: Largest “explosion” ever

I t’s only appropriate that¹⁶ the Big Bang be number one. However, the Big Bang was technically not an explosion. An explosion occurs when matter¹⁷ moves through space from a high pressure point to a low pressure point, and does so very, very rapidly. However, the Big Bang involved space itself expanding rapidly, not matter expanding through space. In fact, because the universe is still expanding, one could argue that the Big Bang is still occurring. Another misconception about the Big Bang Theory is that it does not explain how the universe began, or how matter and energy first came to be. It only explains how space rapidly expanded about 5.4×10-44 seconds after the universe began.

Name / 28 Nov, 2011 at 02:24 am

People still believe the Big Bang is a real thing? It makes zero sense. Might as well make a list of “Biggest Boat” and put Noah’s Arc¹⁸ at the top.

• DanF / 28 Nov, 2011 at 02:37 am Sorry, what has changed in the Scientific community that now disproves the Big Bang? I must have missed something.

• Metalwrath / 28 Nov, 2011 at 04:34 am Considering we still know the Universe is expanding from one specific point, the Big Bang is still a pertinent explanation.

  • magoopaintrock / 28 Nov, 2011 at 09:54 am Yeah ok, but scientists still need a bunch of other mysterious and under-defined things to help support the theory. Such as “dark energy” and “dark matter” (lmao).

• Dan / 28 Nov, 2011 at 05:28 pm Here is the thing…there is more evidence the big bang happened than ”noah’s ark” which has zero evidence.

Chris_C / 28 Nov, 2011 at 02:06 am The list could have done with a bit more variety. The Halifax explosion could have been included (3KT). Two munitions ships collideed. They found a twenty ton anchour about 5 miles away

Andres / 28 Nov, 2011 at 11:37 am Potentially stupid question: if the moon formed on the debris left after the collision of a Mars-sized object with the Earth (the giant impact hypothesis), could the impact classify as an explosion and therefore be the largest ever earthbound explosion (far surpassing the Cretaceous extinction event)? I’m just confused as to whether that would constitute an explosion or since both colliding objects were reasonably close in size, it would not be considered so, and if that’s the case, then where’s the line between a collision and a collision that causes an explosion. psychosurfer / 28 Nov, 2011 at 06:25 pm

Not so stupid. By Wikipedia’s definition of “explosion”, giant impact surely qualifies as one. Good call.

mom424 / 28 Nov, 2011 at 06:01 am None too shabby list this morning. Going to join the other Canadians; omitting the Halifax explosion is a big miss. It’s still the largest accidental explosion ever, caused a 60′ tsunami on the Halifax side of the harbour, killed over 2,000 people. They still find chunks during excavations and construction, all round the harbour.

Still, cool enough list anyway. Learned some new stuff. Good job.

• DanF / 28 Nov, 2011 at 06:10 am I mentioned it but I am not Canadian, I included it in a list i submitted last week about the worst manmade disasters. Hasn’t been published though unfortunately for me.

  • mom424 / 28 Nov, 2011 at 06:05 pm I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you – looking forward to it.

Task 1 Find 3 to 5 (fragments of) sentences that you couldn’t have written (for linguistic reasons) and would’ve expressed in a different way. How would you have written them? Is your way correct/better/worse/etc in some way?

A fragment from the text	My way of putting it	Comment

2 Find and underline 3 to 5 (fragments of) sentences in the text where you can’t explain the grammar. 3 Find 3-5 useful collocations and write your own examples with them. Please, don’t go for specialized terms – choose something you can actually use in everyday speech. 1

2

3

4

5

4 Comprehension questions This time there are no comprehension questions, but be prepared to give a short summary about each event and the most important points made in the comments. The aim here is to make your summaries short but informative, consisting of no more than two sentences. Example: The Tunguska Event was a huge explosion in Russia. The majority of the scientific community believes that it was caused by a meteoroid that exploded in mid-air.

1 Actually, there were 10 explosions in the original list, but I deleted two. Please follow the link in e-class if you’d like to read about FOAB (Father of All Bombs) and the (ironically named) Minor Scale – two of the biggest man-made explosions ever.

2 to blow up: to explode

3 to estimate: to guess the number without calculating it exactly

4 TNT: a type of an explosive (тринитротолуол)

5 the majority: большинство opp: the minority

6 impact: the act of one object hitting another OR the force with which this happens. Example: craters made by mereorite impacts

7 to occur: to happen

8 remote: distant, faraway

9 to witness: быть свидетелем

10 Just a reminder, as we’ve studied this. ash: пепел crop: урожай (crop failure: неурожай) famine: голод

11 a ray: луч (Example: X-ray: рентген)

12 to last: продолжаться

13 approximately = roughly /'rʌflɪ/ = about = ~ (There are approximately 7 billion people on Earth at the moment.)

14 volume: объём

15 to go off (collocates with a bomb) - explode

16 This is a kind of fixed phrase. It means ‘It’s extremely/entirely appropriate (= correct, good)’

17 matter: вещество

18 Noah’s Arc: Ноев ковчег