• Question: Are there any alternative theories to the Big Bang Theory?

    Asked by monika97 to Arttu on 14 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by 22nebula21.
    • Photo: Arttu Rajantie

      Arttu Rajantie answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Not really. By Big Bang we basically just mean that the universe was very dense and hot about 14 billion years ago, and this is now supported by such a wide range of observations that it is difficult to see how it could be wrong. The Big Bang theory does not tell exactly how the universe began, so there are still many open questions.

      There used to be an alternative to the Big Bang, the steady state theory, in which the universe would be expanding but matter would be constantly produced so that the overall density would remain unchanged. This theory could not explain the observed cosmic microwave background radiation, and therefore it was dropped in 1960s.

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