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Asked by to Amelia, Izzy, Sarah on 19 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
Question: What is the evidence for the big bang, and how did scientists find it out?
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Amelia Frizell-Armitage answered on 19 Mar 2014:
I think all of us would find this question pretty tough to answer as we are plant scientists not physicists. However will try my best:
A (very) simple explanation of the big bang is that before the big bang the whole universe was just a tiny dot. When the bang happened there was a big eruption and everything expanded outwards. This expansion is still happening today. As a result of the eruption and expansion the universe was very hot, and we should be able to detect this heat as microwaves. People have actually managed to record these microwaves using orbiting detectors, which proves that the big bang happened.
The alternative theory to the big bang is the steady state theory, which says that nothing ever changes. However, this theory has been proved to be wrong. Light takes a long time to travel, so when we look at space through a telescope we are looking back in time. When we look at other galaxies we can see that they were very different a long time ago with how they were today, and this supports further the big bang theory.
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Isabel Webb answered on 19 Mar 2014:
Fun story:
The first background microwaves detected were found using a microscope. The scientists couldn’t work out what was the background noise in their samples – and thought it was pigeon poo! They cleared out the pigeons and their poo but still had the problem.
Eventually a student, not a scientist, suggested the Big Bang as the reason!
Comments
freezonechikwa commented on :
Its Theory That always changes, all the people come up with the ideas to justify their theories.
Izzy commented on :
Science is all about evidence. Real scientists should be happy to change and edit theories depending on what evidence they find.
Amelia commented on :
The way science works is you have an idea, and then from the idea you get a theory. You test the theory doing an experiment and if you get evidence for the theory then you can say it is most likely true. If the evidence isn’t there then you will say the theory is not true.