Preparing for the Miraculous

sri aurobindo and the big bang 197something like a Big Bang model, he was vehemently attackedand even ridiculed. (In the history of science, therehas never been a new proposition which was not attackedand covered with ridicule.)Around 1950, in the years Sri Aurobindo wrote the linesquoted from Savitri, the controversy raged between Hoyle,Bondi and Gold’s “Steady State” model of the universe andthe theory of the explosion, the Big Bang at the beginningof time. In 1953 the majority of astronomers had not yetaccepted the Big Bang model of the universe, and clung totheir conservative view of an eternal universe. Throughoutthe 1950s the scientific community remained divided. In1959 the Science News-Letter conducted a survey and askedthirty-three prominent astronomers to declare their positionon the controversy. “The results showed that elevenexperts backed the Big Bang, eight stood by the SteadyState model, and the remaining fourteen were either undecidedor thought that both models were wrong.” It wasonly in the 1960s that the Big Bang model became preponderant.8 The 1964 discovery of the cosmic background radiationby Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, and later themapping of the entire sky by the COBE satellite, were supposedto confirm the theory. Still, in a 1980 poll, 69% of theastronomers supported the Big Bang, only 2% stuck withthe Steady State theory, and 29% were unsure. 9This means that Sri Aurobindo wrote what he had seenas the truth at a time that science was still far from havingconverted to the Big Bang, namely that “a gas explodedfrom an invisible fire,” and that “of its dense rings wereformed these million stars” – in other words, that the materialuniverse had begun with an explosion.8 Simon Singh: Big Bang, pp. 365 ff.9 Id., p. 438 (emphasis added).