Big Bang Theory(English Language)

In physical cosmology, the Big Bang is the scientific theory of how the universe emerged from a tremendously dense and hot state about 13.7 billion years ago. The Big Bang theory is based on the observed Hubble's law redshift of distant galaxies that when taken together with the cosmological principle indicate that space is expanding according to the Friedmann-Lemaitre model of general relativity. Extrapolated into the past, these observations show that the universe has expanded from a state in which all the matter and energy in the universe was at an immense temperature and density. Physicists do not widely agree on what happened before this, although general relativity predicts a gravitational singularity.
From this model, George Gamow in 1948 was able to predict, at least qualitatively, the existence of cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). The CMB was discovered in the 1960s and further validated the Big Bang theory over its chief rival, the steady state theory.

History The Big Bang theory developed from observations and theoretical considerations. Observationally, it was determined that most spiral nebulae were receding from Earth, but those who made the observation weren't aware of the cosmological implications, nor that the supposed nebulae were actually galaxies outside our own Milky Way.
In 1927, Georges Lemaitre independently derived the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker equations from Albert Einstein's equations of general relativity and proposed, on the basis of the recession of spiral nebulae, that the universe began with the "explosion" of a "primeval atom" - what was later called the Big Bang.
In 1929, Edwin Hubble provided an observational basis for Lemaitre's theory. He discovered that, seen from Earth, light from other galaxies is red-shifted in direct proportion to their distance from the Earth. This fact is now known as Hubble's law. Given the cosmological principle whereby the universe, when viewed on sufficiently large distance scales, has no preferred directions or preferred places, Hubble's law suggested that the universe was expanding, contradicting the infinite and unchanging static universe scenario developed by Einstein.
This idea allowed for two opposing possibilities. One was Lemaître's Big Bang theory, advocated and developed by George Gamow. The other possibility was Fred Hoyle's steady state model in which new matter would be created as the galaxies moved away from each other. In this model, the universe is roughly the same at any point in time[6]. It was actually Hoyle who coined the name of Lemaître's theory, referring to it sarcastically as "this big bang idea" during a program broadcast on March 28, 1949 by the BBC Third Programme. Hoyle repeated the term in further broadcasts in early 1950, as part of a series of five lectures entitled The Nature of Things. The text of each lecture was published in The Listener a week after the broadcast, the first time that the term "big bang" appeared in print.
For a number of years the support for these theories was evenly divided. However, the observational evidence began to support the idea that the universe evolved from a hot dense state. Since the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965 it has been regarded as the best theory of the origin and evolution of the cosmos. Virtually all theoretical work in cosmology now involves extensions and refinements to the basic Big Bang theory. Much of the current work in cosmology includes understanding how galaxies form in the context of the Big Bang, understanding what happened at the Big Bang, and reconciling observations with the basic theory.
Huge advances in Big Bang cosmology were made in the late 1990s and the early 21st century as a result of major advances in telescope technology in combination with large amounts of satellite data such as that from COBE, the Hubble Space Telescope and WMAP. Such data have allowed cosmologists to calculate many of the parameters of the Big Bang to a new level of precision and led to the unexpected discovery that the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating.

Overview Based on measurements of the expansion of the universe using Type 1a supernovae, measurements of the lumpiness of the cosmic microwave background, and measurements of the correlation function of galaxies, the universe has a calculated age of 13.7 ± 0.2 billion years. The agreement of these three independent measurements is considered strong evidence for the so-called ACDM model that describes the detailed nature of the contents of the universe.
The early universe was filled homogeneously and isotropically with an incredibly high energy density and concomitantly huge temperatures and pressures. It expanded and cooled, going through phase transitions analogous to the condensation of steam or freezing of water as it cools, but related to elementary particles. Approximately 10-35 seconds after the Planck epoch a phase transition caused the universe to experience exponential growth during a period called cosmic inflation. After inflation stopped, the material components of the universe were in the form of a quark-gluon plasma (also including all other particles and perhaps experimentally produced recently as a quark-gluon liquid) in which the constituent particles were all moving relativistically. As the universe continued growing in size, the temperature dropped.
At a certain temperature, by an as-yet-unknown transition called baryogenesis, the quarks and gluons combined into baryons such as protons and neutrons, somehow producing the observed asymmetry between matter and antimatter. Still lower temperatures led to further symmetry breaking phase transitions that put the forces of physics and elementary particles into their present form. Later, some protons and neutrons combined to form the universe's deuterium and helium nuclei in a process called Big Bang nucleosynthesis. As the universe cooled, matter gradually stopped moving relativistically and its rest mass energy density came to gravitationally dominate that of radiation. After about 300,000 years the electrons and nuclei combined into atoms (mostly hydrogen); hence the radiation decoupled from matter and continued through space largely unimpeded. This relic radiation is the cosmic microwave background.
Over time, the slightly denser regions of the nearly uniformly distributed matter gravitationally attracted nearby matter and thus grew even denser, forming gas clouds, stars, galaxies, and the other astronomical structures observable today. The details of this process depend on the amount and type of matter in the universe. The three possible types are known as cold dark matter, hot dark matter, and baryonic matter. The best measurements available (from WMAP) show that the dominant form of matter in the universe is cold dark matter. The other two types of matter make up less than 20% of the matter in the universe.
The universe today appears to be dominated by a mysterious form of energy known as dark energy. Approximately 70% of the total energy density of today's universe is in this form. This dark energy causes the expansion of the universe to deviate from a linear velocity-distance relationship, observed as a faster than expected expansion at very large distances. Dark energy in its simplest formulation takes the form of a cosmological constant term in Einstein's field equations of general relativity, but its composition is unknown and, more generally, the details of its equation of state and relationship with the standard model of particle physics continue to be investigated both observationally and theoretically.
All these observations are encapsulated in the õCDM model of cosmology, which is a mathematical model of the Big Bang with six free parameters. Mysteries appear as one looks closer to the beginning, when particle energies were higher than can yet be studied by experiment. There is no compelling physical model for the first 10-33 seconds of the universe, before the phase transition that grand unification theory predicts. At the "first instant", Einstein's theory of gravitation predicts a gravitational singularity where densities become infinite. To resolve this paradox, a theory of quantum gravitation is needed. Understanding this period of the history of the universe is one of the greatest unsolved problems in physics.
Big Bang Wikipedia
Theoretical Underpinnings
Timeline of the Big Bang

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In the News ...

Cosmos may show echoes of events before Big Bang   BBC - November 27, 2010

Evidence of events that happened before the Big Bang can be seen in the glow of microwave radiation that fills the Universe, scientists have asserted. Renowned cosmologist Roger Penrose said that analysis of this cosmic microwave background showed echoes of previous Big Bang-like events. The events appear as "rings" around galaxy clusters in which the variation in the background is unusually low.
Planck telescope beams back first images of the fall out after the Big Bang   Telegraph.co.uk - September 17, 2009


Cosmic 'treasure trove' revealed BBC - March 11, 2008
Nasa space probe measuring the oldest light in the Universe has found that cosmic neutrinos made up 10% of matter shortly after the Big Bang.
What happened before the Big Bang? BBC - August 3, 2006
Big bang sound waves explain galaxy clustering New Scientist - January 2005
Big Bang 'soup recipe' confirmed June 2003 - New Scientist
A microsecond after the Big Bang, when the exploding fireball of the newborn Universe was only a few kilometres across, all matter existed in a special state.
Cosmic polarization detected from South Pole September 2002 - New Scientist
Confirms cosmologists' view of the early Universe. Astronomers hope the discovery will lead to more detailed measurements that will explain exactly how the Universe expanded in a fraction of a second after the Big Bang and how the first stars were formed.