Big Bang theory

[Panther33]

So I've been out of school for about 10 years and have always wondered about the Big Bang theory and want someone to really clarify it for me if they can and if it is strongly supported by most people or not. I have the basic idea of how it is explained from school but never attended a class that really went in depth about it. If someone can do this I will explain my thoughts on why it doesn't make sense to me.

[Daecon]

The Big Bang theory is an explanation to account for observed facts such as the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, the abundance of lighter elements in the Universe, the large-scale structure of the Universe, and Hubble's Law.

 

Wikipedia has a good article at https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

 

It's strongly supported by most people only because it's strongly supported by observational evidence.

Edited April 21, 2017 by Daecon

[Strange]

It may be worth clarifying a couple of points.

 

Firstly, the big bang theory (perhaps because of the name) is often presented in popular science articles as being about the creation of the universe "from nothing". In fact, it says nothing about that. It is a description of how the universe has expanded and cooled over the last 13.8 billion years (and continues to do so). So it is a model fr explaining what we see around us.

 

In terms of the history of the theory, it has only been generally accepted for a few decades (when I was young, I remember hearing radio discussions about competing models of the universe). The idea was originally proposed on theoretical grounds (as a prediction of general relativity) in the 1920. Georges Lemaitre proposed the idea, and used the known evidence of increasing red shift with distance as the initial evidence. However, it wasn't until the CMB was discovered in 1963 that the old model (of an unchanging universe) was finally overthrown.

[Panther33]

Thanks guys that has given me a new perspective since in school they basically make it seem as the universe started as nothing and then a large event happened and it has been expanding ever since. Just never made since to me to me since matter can't be created.

[Pugdaddy]

Matter and space are separate things, You have clumps of matter and you have space between them. It is the space between the matter that is expanding. If you extrapolate this expansion backward in time, you come to point where there is very little if any space between the clumps.

[Velocity_Boy]

It may be worth clarifying a couple of points.

 

Firstly, the big bang theory (perhaps because of the name) is often presented in popular science articles as being about the creation of the universe "from nothing". In fact, it says nothing about that. It is a description of how the universe has expanded and cooled over the last 13.8 billion years (and continues to do so). So it is a model fr explaining what we see around us.

 

In terms of the history of the theory, it has only been generally accepted for a few decades (when I was young, I remember hearing radio discussions about competing models of the universe). The idea was originally proposed on theoretical grounds (as a prediction of general relativity) in the 1920. Georges Lemaitre proposed the idea, and used the known evidence of increasing red shift with distance as the initial evidence. However, it wasn't until the CMB was discovered in 1963 that the old model (of an unchanging universe) was finally overthrown.

Just so, warhead.

 

And to add, and another interesting stipulation and clarification for the OP, a lot of people don't know the very term Big Bang Theory was originally used as a term of mocking and contempt. That is when it was first postulated. Up till that time, the pervailing theory, and the one even Einstein believed, was the Steady State model. As you said, proposed by Lemaitre.

I think it was Fred Hoyle who came up with the phrase.

Edited April 21, 2017 by Velocity_Boy

[Argent]

Just so, warhead.

 

And to add, and another interesting stipulation and clarification for the OP, a lot of people don't know the very term Big Bang Theory was originally used as a term of mocking and contempt. That is when it was first postulated. Up till that time, the pervailing theory, and the one even Einstein believed, was the Steady State model. As you said, proposed by Lemaitre.

I think it was Fred Hoyle who came up with the phrase.

Hoyle introduced the phrase, but it is incorrect that he intended it to mock the idea. That is a common misconception. He used it on a BBC radio program as a colourful metaphor to help explain the concept to the audience.

[Velocity_Boy]

Hoyle introduced the phrase, but it is incorrect that he intended it to mock the idea. That is a common misconception. He used it on a BBC radio program as a colourful metaphor to help explain the concept to the audience.

 

You're wrong. Hoyle originally derided the Big Bang theory and the term was used in derision. He came around later, but not at first.

 

You are the one who seems confused and has a misconception, sir.

 

Hope this helps...................

 

https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article/54/2/2.28/302975/Big-Bang-the-etymology-of-a-nameBig-Bang

[StringJunky]

 

You're wrong. Hoyle originally derided the Big Bang theory and the term was used in derision. He came around later, but not at first.

 

You are the one who seems confused and has a misconception, sir.

 

Hope this helps...................

 

https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article/54/2/2.28/302975/Big-Bang-the-etymology-of-a-nameBig-Bang

There's no need to get personal. A simple presentation of the alternative fact should suffice.

[Argent]

 

You're wrong. Hoyle originally derided the Big Bang theory and the term was used in derision. He came around later, but not at first.

 

You are the one who seems confused and has a misconception, sir.

 

Hope this helps...................

 

https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article/54/2/2.28/302975/Big-Bang-the-etymology-of-a-nameBig-Bang

Thank you for saving me the trouble of finding a link to refute your claim. Here are two relevant extracts from the one you provided:

 

1. "It is “well known” that Hoyle coined the term “big bang” in a pejorative sense, to make fun of the idea of an exploding universe, but what is well known is not necessarily correct. "

 

2. "Was Hoyle's use of “big bang” intended to be pejorative, as stated by Alpher and Herman and numerous other authors? This is possible, of course, but the evidence for the claim is unconvincing. In the British edition of The Nature of the Universe Hoyle twice referred to “big bang”, and in neither of the cases in ways that were clearly derisive. Neither Gamow, Lemaître nor other protagonists of explosion cosmologies felt at the time offended by the term or paid any attention to it. Moreover, in the many reviews of the book and critical comments on the BBC broadcasts, the name for the exploding universe that Hoyle had so casually invented played no role. As a broadcaster Hoyle needed word pictures to get over technical and conceptual points, and “big bang” was just one of them.

As to Hoyle himself, he considered the name an apt but innocent phrase for a theory he was opposed to. In an interview of 1989, he insisted that he had not thought of it in a derogatory sense. “I was constantly striving over the radio – where I had no visual aids, nothing except the spoken word – for visual images,” he said. “And that seemed to be one way of distinguishing between the steady-state and the explosive big bang. And so that was the language I used,” (Lightman and Brawer 1990). The non-pejorative interpretation is further strengthened by the uses of “big bang” in the cosmological debate. If Hoyle had coined the name to ridicule or disparage theories with a definite origin of the universe, he would presumably have used it frequently during the heated controversy, which he did not."

[swansont]

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Moderator Note

Let's stick to the subject of the OP, please