Well, Copernicus’ birthday came and went (Feb. 19th) and I am sure it was a fleeting thought at best for 99.99% of the world. I was only made aware of it because I subscribe to Wired News.
It immediately reminded me of a great book on the origins of the Universe by Simon Singh (The Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe). The author does a great job highlighting the people behind the theories, technological breakthroughs and stages of status quo (religious and scientific) without getting muddled too much in science. From Aristarchus, the fifth century BC Ancient Greek astronomer who theorized a sun centered Universe, to the COBE Project, which provided the evidence (CMB radiation variations) to scientifically prove the Big Bang theory in 1992, you can get your arms around what it took to prove something so complex.
The creativity, determination and insanity of people (Aristarchus, Copernicus, Kelper, Einstein, Alpher, etc.) to just go out and disprove reality (i.e. Earth centered Universe) without having or waiting for the necessary technology (i.e. Telescope) is inspiring. There wasn’t an “It can’t be done,” or “Why bother?” in their minds. They simply could not help themselves and spent their lives doing the best they could with whatever means they had. In doing so, they pushed the limits of technology by inspiring others to come up with better ways of seeing and measuring (i.e. Galileo, Hubble, Smoot). Who wouldn’t want to help some 15 year old kid, which happened to be Einstein in this case, figure out whether or not he or she could see himself in the mirror when traveling the speed of light?
One thing is for sure, there are no limits to creativity and we were all put here to ask more questions than provide answers. So what is your Big Bang?