As far as theoreticalphysicsgo , the Big Bang theory is one of the more concrete concepts out there . Although we still do n’t quite understand what causedthe Big Bang itself , grounds of its natural event is so potent that it ’s developed from a theory into an established fact . speak of facts , here are eight interesting things you might not know about the birth of theuniverse .
1. The Big Bang theory was first proposed by a Catholic priest.
Perhaps astonishingly , the first person to put the Big Bang theory into words was a Belgian Catholic non-Christian priest . Well , a priest who was also an acclaimed mathematician and uranologist . Georges LeMaître came up with the estimate in 1927 while consider at MIT . observe that galaxies were move aside from each other , LeMaître guess they must have been closer to each other in the past times — so nigh that , at one point in time , they might have been compressed to the size of it of a “ primeval mote , ” the press of which return an explosion of unimaginable proportion .
Although LeMaître came up with thetheoryof the Big Bang , he was not the one to strike its iconic name . That honour break to Sir Fred Hoyle , an English uranologist belonging to an enclave of scholars who insisted that the creation was neither thrive nor contracting , but stational . He first used the term during aBBC radiocommunication broadcastin 1949 , which he attended to rebut the case ’s existence .
2. The Big Bang may have actually happened over 26 billion years ago.
If the beingness of the Big Bang could be inferred from the turn aloofness between wandflower , so could the point in meter that it happened . Using the red shift — the changing wavelength of cosmic light — LeMaître and uranologist Edwin Hubble , the namesake of theHubble Space Telescope , could decide a galaxy ’s velocity and speed . Hubble , using incorrect calculation , forecast the universe to be only around 2 billion years sometime [ PDF ] .
next generation of scientists corrected the tiny misapprehension in Hubble ’s math , revealing that the universe was far honest-to-god than previously believed , with the Big Bang bechance at least 13.8 billion age ago . Even that figure is n’t certain , though . In 2023 , the find of “ super - old ” stars on the fringe of the cosmos conduct a researcher from theUniversity of Ottawatoproposethat the Big Bang could have hap as far back as 26.7 billion age ago .
3. Even Albert Einstein didn’t believe in the Big Bang at first.
Though based on solid reflection , the Big Bang theory was dismissed for decade before it became commonly accepted . Among the disbelievers wasAlbert Einstein , who rejected the theory when it was push first by LeMaître and later by a Soviet physicist named Alexander Friedmann . Einstein’stheory of general relativityhad been the most groundbreaking development sinceIsaac Newton , and while it explained many inscrutable cosmic phenomena , the Big Bang was not one of them .
This is because , according to universal relativity , the universe is supposed to be static , unmoving . If galaxies are n’t moving asunder in the future , they were n’t nigher together in the past , urinate the Big Bang out of the question . This explains Einstein ’s emphatic reaction to LeMaître : “ Your calculations are correct , but your physics is atrocious ! ” Even after the Big Bang became widely accepted , Einsteinbriefly revisitedthe possibility of a static universe , according toa manuscriptfound after his death .
4. You can see the Big Bang with your own eyes—on TV.
Debate over whether the universe was be active or not came to an end when , in 1965 , lab physicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson reveal direct grounds of the Big Bang in the form of radio undulation refurbishing throughout the cosmea . These waves , call theCosmic Microwave Background , are the cooled - off clay of the light of the Big Bang itself .
Believe it or not , you ’ve seen the Cosmic Microwave Background with your own eyes . And you ’ve in all likelihood seen it more than once , because the CMB produces the static signal ( a.k.a . “ snow ” ) you see on analog TVs andhear onradioswhen you search between stations .
5. The Big Bang likely generated temperatures of 1000 trillion degrees Celsius.
Contemporary eruditeness doubt that the existence was once constrict to the single speck that LeMaître talk about . It has , however , been estimatedto have covered an sphere humble than the size of it of a pinhead . Although it ’s almost obvious that the Big Bang was the most sinewy explosion of all time , its approximate strength continue hard to fully enclose your head around . According toUniverse Magazine , the power released during the Big Bang equalize 1054 megatons of TNT . To put that into perspective , H dud , the most destructive artillery humans can create , release around 50 megaton .
The Big Bang also come about fast . So tight that energy was cast at the fastness of light—300 million meters per second , a million times outstanding than hydrogen bombs . All this abysmal speed and office bring on an equally unfathomable amount of heat . It has been estimated that , in a fraction of a 2nd past the detonation , temperatures could have come up to as mellow as1000 trillion degrees Celsius .
6. The James Webb Space Telescope almost refuted the Big Bang theory.
The biggest challenge to the Big Bang hypothesis in decades egress before long after the launching of theJames Webb Space Telescopein 2021 . The most powerful telescope in existence , it allow scientist to study role of the universe that werepreviously unobservable . search the edge of the known universe , it learn galaxies that were so large and so older , our current sympathy of galactic organisation and phylogenesis fail to excuse how they could have been created so shortly after the Big Bang .
The discovery presented two options : either the Big Bang hypothesis was ill-timed , or the mensuration taken from the James Webb Space Telescope were incorrect . The 2d one proved to be the case . Using more precise and honest method to define the distance of the galaxies , NASA conclude that they were much smaller in size than they originally appeared — small enough for unreal word tosimulate their constructionfollowing the Big Bang .
7. The Big Bang predicts the end of the universe.
If winding back the clock on cosmic expansion brings us to the beginning of the existence , roll the same clock frontward could take us to its end . Several theories have been purpose for the dying of the macrocosm , many of which are mirror images to the Big Bang .
One of these theories is theBig Freeze , which supposes the world will “ die ” when the aloofness between celestial object has become so with child that energy becomes evenly circulate and space approaches absolute zero temperature . Another possibility is theBig Crunch , which supposes the universe , elongate to its maximum , will one 24-hour interval cease to inflate and start contracting , eventually play the conditions for another Big Bang . A third scenario calledEternal Inflationposits that expansion is a never - ending process that only stops in certain points of the universe of discourse , leading to the creation of self - contained pocket universes like the one we live in .
8. We don’t know what happened before the Big Bang.
In his 2010 bookCycles of sentence : An Extraordinary New View of the Universe , the Nobel prize - succeed physicist Roger Penrose proposed that galactic formation was a cyclic ( as pit to running ) process , and that the Big Bang — far from marking the birth of everything in existence — is actually a transition between the end of an old universe and the offset of a young one .
However , most efforts to opine what happenedbeforethe Big Bang are poorly invite in pedantic circles . As astrophysicist Ethan Siegel wrote forBig Thinkin 2023 , there currently is no “ evidence of a universe before the Big Bang . ” If our universe arose from a former one , through Eternal Inflation or otherwise , trace of that late cosmos should show up in ours , in the structures of our galaxy and in the CMB . But they do n’t , meaning that the Big Bang , as far as we can tell , was indeed the starting time of the beginning .
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