Viewing the big bang

[chunx]

Just looking for some clarification, If light emitted from the big bang is continually bent around large gravitational fields into a path coinciding with earth, is it possible to see the initial explosion if there were a telescope capable of such power?

[macaw]

is continually bent ...... into a path coinciding with earth,

Where did you learn such a thing?

is it possible to see the initial explosion

The BB is not "an explosion".

[Shaula]

The furthest back it is possible to see is the surface of last scattering, light emitted when the universe first became transparent. That light is all around us redshifted to be the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR).

[George]

Just looking for some clarification, If light emitted from the big bang is continually bent around large gravitational fields into a path coinciding with earth, is it possible to see the initial explosion if there were a telescope capable of such power?

Welcome aboard, chunx.

Big Bang Theory demonstrates that light would have not been allowed to propogate due to the high energy state of matter. As the universe continued to expand, it continued to cool. Once the tempetaure reached around 3000K the electrons joined to form atoms. Because of the amazing uniformity (isotropy) of the universe at that, it was a sudden and universal event. The light that had been bouncing around suddenly was unencumbered and has been traveling forward ever sense, except for the ones that have crashed into things, of course.

Intense gravitational fields of other galaxies do help astronomers see objects at extreme distances due to the lensing effect of those fields.

[WayneFrancis]

^^^^ What they all said.

The best we can do is "see" to the surface of last scattering which was about 379,000 after the big bag. We can see that very well but not optically because of the expansion of the universe all that light has been red shifted into very long wave lengths. We use radio telescopes to observe it. But because of its nature it isn't very exciting. It is VERY uniform with changes of less then 1 part in 10,000. Let me give you an analogy. look at a wall of a solid colour. The is probably about the same amount of variation in that wall's paint job.

Here is the typical, and greatly contrast enhanced, image.

http://www.astronomynotes.com/cosmolgy/cmbr-cobemap.jpg

[chunx]

Thanks for the info guy's analoges help a lot ....after all i am just a layman lol !!!!!

[Cougar]

If light emitted from the big bang is continually bent around large gravitational fields into a path coinciding with earth, is it possible to see the initial explosion if there were a telescope capable of such power?

The light wouldn't need to be bent around large gravitational fields - space is flat, so it could come directly to us. Even with a microwave antenna we would be able to 'see' the beginning of the expansion, EXCEPT the mass and radiation at the time was so hot and dense, it would be similar to fog - you couldn't see a thing. Or soup. You can't see through soup. Hot soup of just hydrogen and helium nuclei and high-energy radiation that keeps knocking the electrons from attaching to the nuclei.

As others mentioned, once the universe expanded enough and the hot soup cooled enough, the electrons attached to the nuclei, making electrically neutral atoms, and the 'soup' essentially became transparent, which allowed the radiation to travel unimpeded. As previously mentioned, this occurred about 380,000 years after the beginning of the expansion, when the universe had cooled sufficiently. Then things got interesting.