The Big Bang and the misconceptions surrounding it

By Don Lincoln, Ph.D., Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Humanity has been fascinated by the history of the origin of the universe for millennia. The religions of the world have suggested many ideas about how we got here. But modern science disagrees with any of these suggestions. Using the best of modern data, astronomers now understand that the universe was much smaller and hotter once, but is now expanding. This idea is what we call the big bang. What are the misconceptions about this idea?

The theory wasn’t originally called the big bang. The Belgian priest and astronomer Georges Lemaître first suggested this theory in 1931. He called it the hypothesis of the primordial atom or the cosmic egg. He proposed that it was only in a small volume that all matter in the universe was concentrated. This volume was the one that exploded.

Lemaître was not alone in thinking along these lines. Many astronomers of the time had the idea that the universe was infinite and that it had matter and energy that changed from gas to stars and back to gas and that matter was created in the spaces between stars.

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The meaning of the term Big Bang

British astronomer Fred Hoyle was one of the proponents of what is now known as the steady state creation theory. He did not agree with Lemaître’s idea of ​​creation. In fact, it was during a radio broadcast in 1949 that he invented the term big bang as a way to describe the primordial atom. However, it is controversial whether he used the term to dismiss the idea or to describe it. But in the end it turned out that, at least in broad terms, Lemaître was right and Hoyle was wrong. The universe has certainly “blown up”.

So, let’s start with the first very common misconception, which is exactly what the term big bang means. The universe has exploded and is now expanding is the basic theory. Many people have the common thought that the big bang only provides the description of the first literal instant of creation and is not applicable to the present. But the fact is, every explosion begins with a warm initial state and then expands. The explosion isn’t just that initial flash of light. In fact, the explosion continues until the expansion is complete. And the universe is still expanding. So, in that case, the explosion still continues.

For those who do not accept the big bang theory, it might perhaps be helpful to realize that it is not part of the distant past. The big bang is still happening and is in tune with the data that can be observed and recorded in the present time.

On the other hand, while this point is valid, it may not be what we have to faithfully stick with. Language doesn’t work like math. The language is vague and different people use the same term to mean different things. Although the term big bang is used for the complete process which also includes expansion, people very commonly use this term to mean “the thing that pulled the trigger”. This term is sometimes used in this way as well, but it is necessary to take into account the context.

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Ideas that support the Big Bang theory

Before Lemaître proposed his primordial egg, astronomers believed that the universe was eternal and immutable. They believed that hydrogen gas somehow managed to be born among the stars and created more stars. To a large extent, this basic idea was similar to the terrestrial ecosystem, in which plants take nutrients from the soil and grow, animals eat plants, and humans eat animals. Eventually, humans also die and return to the soil and feed more plants. Life is an ever-changing cycle on Earth. As a quote from the Christian literary tradition says, “for dust you are, and to dust you will return”.

The universe started out as incredibly hot, but due to its expansion and cooling over billions of years, it cooled from incandescent to hot yellow, then to hot red, and finally to infrared, a light we can’t see but can just feel like heat.

Another interesting feature is that the temperature of the universe is uniform everywhere up to one part within a hundred thousand. One part in a hundred thousand is similar to a millimeter compared to a football field.

There are many other observations that support the big bang theory, but the expansion of the universe and uniform temperature are convincing enough. It is highly unlikely that the foundations of the big bang theory will be reversed. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t many misconceptions in the world.

An extremely profound misunderstanding about the big bang is revealed by a very common question, and that question is, “Where did this happen?” At the heart of this question is the belief that the big bang is a firecracker or a grenade. And in both cases, the firecrackers existed in space and exploded there. It goes without saying that there was no fuse or anything with the big bang, but if we follow this analogy it would mean that all matter and energy were somewhere in space and just exploded like that.

But that’s not what happened. So what exactly happened is a little hard to figure out. And it all comes down to the link that matter and energy on the one hand have with time and space on the other.

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Common questions about the Big Bang and the misconceptions surrounding it

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