Interesting Facts about the Big Bang Theory: Accidentally Verified by Experiments and More

KOMPAS.com – The Big Bang is known as one of the theories that put forward the formation of the universe.

As quoted from Kompas.com, the theory states that the universe was once a very dense heat energy. At one point the dense heat energy expanded and exploded.

The results of the explosion then condensed and became the celestial bodies as they are today. All the stars and planets are moving away from each other, as if they had come from a single point.

Interesting facts about the Big Bang theory

Georges Lemaitre, astronomer, Belgian physicist and also a Catholic priest was the first to spark this theory in 1927.

But apart from that, there are other interesting facts about the Big Bang theory, such as what are some of them as quoted from Live Science, Wednesday (12/7/2023).

Accidentally verified theory

Most physicists viewed Lemaitre’s ideas with skepticism. However, after several decades, the Big Bang theory was considered an interesting idea even though it was also considered not very plausible.

Also read: Little Known Facts about the Milky Way Galaxy (Part 1)

The first interesting fact of the Big Bang theory, it turned out, was that its origin was accidentally verified by experiments conducted by radio engineers.

In 1964, two radio engineers at Bell Labs, named Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson who were testing radio receivers made an unexpected discovery.

While they were doing their testing, they heard a loud hissing on the instrument, though they tried to shake it off.

In search of an explanation, they then turned to a team of theoretical physicists. It turns out that the background hiss is caused by radiation left over when the universe transitioned from a hot, dense plasma to a slightly less hot, neutral gas.

This is called the cosmic microwave background, and is fundamental to understanding the Big Bang theory.

The big bang is a theory of the history of the universe, especially its earliest moments. But what the theory doesn’t tell us is where the universe came from.

In other words, an interesting fact, the Big Bang theory is not a creation theory, because we don’t know how the universe began and we only know what happened after.

Also read: Interesting Facts about Mercury, the Planet Closest to the Sun

Another interesting fact, regarding the cosmic microwave background, not only cemented the Big Bang as the only theory capable of explaining all observational data, but also served as a window into the distant past.

When the universe was about a million times smaller than its current size, it had a temperature of over 17,000 degrees Fahrenheit and was in a plasma state.

As it expands and cools, the plasma is converted to a neutral gas when the first atoms are formed.

The event released large amounts of radiation that has hitherto been the cosmic microwave background, or CMB.

Also read: Interesting Facts about Jupiter, the Largest Planet in the Solar System

The CMB alone is responsible for over 99.999 percent of all radiation in the universe.

One of the wildest things about discussing the universe is that the normal concepts of objects don’t hold.

For example, the universe has no edges and no exterior. Likewise the Big Bang, was not an explosion in space but an explosion in outer space.

The Big Bang happened to everything in the universe. It doesn’t take place at one specific location in space, but at a specific location in time.

It’s hard to think about, but that’s why math exists, to help humans grapple with concepts they normally wouldn’t.

Also read: Interesting Facts about the Milky Way Galaxy, Where Earth Is (Part 2)

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2023-07-13 02:30:00
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