search on yahoo...key words +hinduism +science ..... reveals heaps of interesing stuff....here is a sample
THE HINDU UNIVERSE
With some help from Einstein's Theories of Relativity (where he deals with the nature of time) and Christian Doppler's "Doppler effect", scientists were able to conclude that the universe is presently expanding and this led way to the Big Bang theorem. The theorem is as follows : "He [Georges Lemaître] believed that the Universe started from a very, very dense "primeval atom", or "cosmic egg", in which all the matter of the entire Universe was crammed at the beginning. This cosmic egg exploded (fissioned) and started the expansion. But at some time during the expansion there was a "battle" between the force of cosmic repulsion trying to keep the stars apart and gravity trying to keep them together. The result was a "pause" in the expansion. Cosmic repulsion finally won the "battle" and the expansion has continued ever since." - "The Web of Space-Time", Struble, pp.145. The passage continues - "He [George Gamow] believed it was a fusion process rather than a fission process as Lemaître thought.
In the beginning, George believes that this object consisted of tons and tons of energy (photons) but only pounds of matter - mostly neutrons. At the explosion of this very dense ball of energy - which is called the big bang, or cosmic fireball - it's temperature dropped from hundreds of billions of degrees to about a billion degrees in five minutes. Within a day, it cooled to forty million degrees and within the next thirty thousand years it cooled to about six thousand degrees. But all during this time, energy was being converted into matter. Neutrons decayed into protons and electrons, which in turn formed the chemical elements that make up most of the Universe - hydrogen and helium. But it was not until some 250 million years later that matter began to dominate the Universe, that is, tons and tons of energy had become tons and tons of matter in the form of galaxies." Gamow's idea is now accepted as the most likely.
In the Hindu account of the creation of the Universe, Brahma (the creator in Hinduism) was born from a "Golden egg" which "contained" all of the "worlds". The Universe was then created by Brahma by reciting the word "Om". With the "Om", enormous amounts of sakthi (Sanskrit for energy) was released and the Universe was born. Sound familiar?
This is where the significance of the word "Om" comes from. "OM is the Primal Sound; the Cosmos proliferated from it. It is composed of three letters: A (as in par), U (as in put) and M. All sounds, utterable are subsumed by OM. So, OM represents all words which describe God in all languages at all times. OM fades into Silence; descriptions of God have also to end in Silence. The Process of reciting OM, until Silence is reached, is the process of attaining the Universal Absolute, through the contemplation of God with a form and attributes." - Sathya Sai Baba.
Now we know that the Universe is currently expanding. But what scientists are unsure of is whether the Universe has negative curvature (which means that the Universe will continue to expand infinitely), or whether it has positive curvature which would result in a "pulsating" universe that is created, expands, stops expanding and then begins to contract. After a while such a Universe would contract no further and then "The Crunch" would occur where the Universe is reduced once again to the "cosmic egg", and the process of creation would again repeat infinitely. In Hindu tradition, it is believed that the Universe has gone through the "Hindu creation" process many times and will continue do so infinitely (called the "days and nights" of Brahma), suggesting positive curvature. The "Hindu Universe" is created (Brahma), preserved (Vishnu) , destroyed (Shiva), and recreated many times. (discussed further next update)
What is interesting about Hinduism is that it's texts indicate that the ancient Hindu's had a good understanding of the universe around them. The model of the Solar System in both ancient and modern Hindu temples places the Sun at the center with earth and the other planets revolving around it (discussed further next update). Moreso, the Hindu moon god is called the "Residing Deity Of The Mind". While this might at first seem odd its explanation may startle.
It is a well known fact that during times of full moon the ocean reaches high tide and when the moon is at its first phases the ocean reaches its lowest tides. The Earth is over two thirds water.
The Human body also is constituted majorly by water. As such, the phases of the moon also affect the water within the human body. Mental Institutions have found that its patients act most irrationally during times of full moon. The ancient Hindus noted the same influence of the moon on the human mind and thus encouraged fasting during times of full moon in order to reduce the amount of water in the body. Thus the moon is truely the "Residing Deity Of The Mind".
(This section is yet to be updated and concluded)
[This message has been edited by who---me (edited June 23, 2001).]
