HISTORY OF THE BIG BANG THEORY

GEORGES LEMAITRE (1927)

(Georges Henri Joseph Edouard Lemaitre)

- Belgian astronomer, cosmologist and Catholic

priest
- Proposed the Hypothesis of the Primeval
Atom or “cosmic egg hypothesis”
- Published in Belgium a virtually unnoticed
paper that provided a compelling solution to
the equations of General Relativity for the
case of expanding universe

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 EDWIN HUBBLE (1929)
- using the telescope at Mt. Wilson in California,
had shown that the distant galaxies all appeared
to be receding from us at speeds proportional
to their distances

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 EDWIN HUBBLE (1929)
- using the world’s largest telescope at Mt.
Wilson in California, had shown that the distant
galaxies all appeared to be receding from us at
speeds proportional to their distances

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 Spectrograph- breaks the light from a single material
into its component colors the way a prism splits white
light into a rainbow
- It records this spectrum, which allows scientists to
analyze the light and discover properties of the
6 material interacting with it
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 EDWIN HUBBLE (1929)

- using the telescope at Mt. Wilson in California,

had shown that the distant galaxies all appeared
to be receding from us at speeds proportional
to their distances
- observed that the galaxies are redshifting

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 PIECES OF EVIDENCE OF THE
BIG BANG

1. Redshifting of the Galaxies – galaxies are moving away from each

other
2. Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

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 PIECES OF EVIDENCE OF THE
BIG BANG

2. Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

-remnant radiation from the Big Bang
-accidentally discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert
Wilson in Bell Laboratories in New Jersey (1964)

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 PIECES OF EVIDENCE OF THE
BIG BANG

1. Redshifting of the Galaxies – galaxies are moving away from each

other
2. Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
3. Abundance of Hydrogen and Helium

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