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Theory of General Relativity
In 1916, Albert Einstein came up with the theory of General Relativity. It is a theory about gravity, and is similar to Isaac Newton's original theory on gravity. Einstein's theory can be applied to moving objects and also to objects at rest. It also says that "gravity is the distortion of space and time itself". -
Georges Lemaitre
In 1927, Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian astronomer, wrote and published a paper on how, in the very distant past, all the matter in our universe was located in one spot. -
Universal Expansion
"It was not until Hubble had proved that galaxies were in fact receding in 1932 that Einstein was forced to drop his static universe model. The observational proof that the universe was expanding, combined with the models of Friedmann and Lemaître that predicted an expanding universe unified the cosmologist and the astronomer in agreement."
http://ssscott.tripod.com/BigBang.html -
Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)
Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) was predicted in 1948 by three men: Ralph Alpher, Robert Herman, and George Gamow. CMB is the heat that was leftover from the "explosion" that started the universe. -
Naming of the Big Bang
Sir Fred Hoyle, a British astronomer, was the person who came up with the name "Big Bang". At first he used it in a way to try and discredit the steady state theory that he opposed, but the name stuck. -
More evidence of the Big Bang
In the 1950's Steady State Theorists took a heavy blow when radio galaxies were discovered showing that, consistent with big bang Cosmology, galaxies evolved and were very active billions of years ago (Parker). -
CMB
Cosmic Microwave Background was first obeserved by Arno Perzias. -
Launch of COBE
The purpose of COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) was to help provide more insight about CMB and to provide measurements to help us understand what the universe looked like- its shape. -
Hubble Telescope
The launch of the Hubble Telescope gave the scientific community the oppurtunity to dive deeper into the mystery of space. It took pictures of galaxies far and near, planets, and even stars. -
Fossils
"George Smoot and his colleagues also from Cal Berkeley took three arduous years to sort through the billions of bits of data that the DMR provided. His announcement...said... "English dosen't have enough superlatives...to convey the story [of the results] , we have observed...15 billion year old fossils that we think were created at the birth of the universe."(Parker)."
http://ssscott.tripod.com/BigBang.html
