A Look into the Big Bang Theory and the Origins of the Universe – Big History

Cosmic Background Radiation: One of the key pieces of evidence for the Big Bang theory is cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). This is a faint glow of light that fills the universe, and it has a temperature of about 2.7 Kelvin. The CMB is thought to be the afterglow of the Big Bang, as it has a nearly perfect blackbody spectrum and is almost, but not quite, the same temperature in all directions.

Abundance of Light Elements: The Big Bang theory also predicts the relative abundance of light elements in the universe, such as hydrogen, helium, and lithium. These predictions agree very well with observations of the abundance of these elements in the universe.

Expanding Universe: The Big Bang theory also predicts an expanding universe, and Edwin Hubble observed in 1929 that galaxies are moving away from us, the more distant they are the faster they are receding. This is known as Hubble’s Law, and it is considered one of the strongest pieces of evidence of an expanding universe.

Many argue that the Big Bang does not account for the existence of dark matter and dark energy, and that this is a major weakness of the theory. They argue that there is no mechanism for the formation of these mysterious components of the universe in the Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang Theory does not attempt to explain the origins of dark matter and dark energy, as they were only discovered after the theory was developed. The theory does not require the existence of dark matter and dark energy, but it is compatible with their existence and predictions of their behavior have been observed.

Finally, some critics argue that the Big Bang Theory cannot account for the fine-tuning of the universe. One of the widespread misconceptions regarding the Big Bang theory is that it completely explains how the universe first came into being. The Big Bang hypothesis, however, describes the development of the current universe from an extremely dense and high-temperature starting state rather than explaining how energy, time, and space were created.