What Is the Big Bang Theory?

By Elizabeth Howell November 07, 2017 Science & Astronomy

The Big Bang Theory is the leading explanation about how the universe began. At its
simplest, it says the universe as we know it started with a small singularity, then inflated
over the next 13.8 billion years to the cosmos that we know today.

Because current instruments don't allow astronomers to peer back at the universe's birth,
much of what we understand about the Big Bang Theory comes from mathematical
formulas and models. Astronomers can, however, see the "echo" of the expansion through a
phenomenon known as the cosmic microwave background.
While the majority of the astronomical community accepts the theory, there are some
theorists who have alternative explanations besides the Big Bang — such as eternal
inflation or an oscillating universe.
The phrase "Big Bang Theory" has been popular among astrophysicists for decades, but it
hit the mainstream in 2007 when a comedy show with the same name premiered on CBS.
The show follows the home and academic life of several researchers (including an
astrophysicist). 

The universe is not only expanding, but getting faster as it inflates. This means that with
time, nobody will be able to spot other galaxies from Earth, or any other vantage point
within our galaxy."We will see distant galaxies moving away from us, but their speed is
increasing with time," Harvard University astronomer Avi Loeb said in a March 2014
Space.com article.

At this time, all matter was compacted into a very small ball with infinite densityd and
intense heat called a Singularity. Suddenly, the Singularity began expanding, and the
universe as we know it began. D E C E M B E R 1 7 , 2 0 1 5   B Y   M A T T W I L L I A M S

The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model for the observable universe from
the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution.The model
describes how the universe expanded from a very high-density and high-temperature
state,and offers a comprehensive explanation for a broad range of phenomena, including
the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background (CMB), large scale
structure and Hubble's law (the farther away galaxies are, the faster they are moving away
from Earth). If the observed conditions are extrapolated backwards in time using the
known laws of physics, the prediction is that just before a period of very high density there
was a singularity which is typically associated with the Big Bang. (Wikipedia )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdPzOWlLrbE –Origin of the universe 101 /

National Geographic
ORIGINS OF THE UNIVERSE 101
BY MICHAEL GRESHKO AND NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC STAFF
PUBLISHED JANUARY 18, 2017

The best-supported theory of our universe's origin centers on an event known as the big
bang. This theory was born of the observation that other galaxies are moving away from
our own at great speed in all directions, as if they had all been propelled by an ancient
explosive force.

A Belgian priest named Georges Lemaître first suggested the big bang theory in the 1920s,
when he theorized that the universe began from a single primordial atom. The idea
received major boosts from Edwin Hubble's observations that galaxies are speeding away
from us in all directions, as well as from the 1960s discovery of cosmic microwave
radiation—interpreted as echoes of the big bang—by Arno Penzias and Robert
WilsonFurther work has helped clarify the big bang's tempo. Here’s the theory: In the first
10^-43 seconds of its existence, the universe was very compact, less than a million billion
billionth the size of a single atom.

It's thought that at such an incomprehensibly dense, energetic state, the four fundamental
forces—gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces—were forged
into a single force, but our current theories haven't yet figured out how a single, unified
force would work. To pull this off, we'd need to know how gravity works on the subatomic
scale, but we currently don't.

It's also thought that the extremely close quarters allowed the universe's very first
particles to mix, mingle, and settle into roughly the same temperature. Then, in an
unimaginably small fraction of a second, all that matter and energy expanded outward
more or less evenly, with tiny variations provided by fluctuations on the quantum scale.
That model of breakneck expansion, called inflation, may explain why the universe has
such an even temperature and distribution of matter.

After inflation, the universe continued to expand but at a much slower rate. It's still unclear
what exactly powered inflation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdPzOWlLrbE – Origin of the universe/ National

Geographic

How To