Big Bang

In physical cosmology, the Big Bang is the scientific theory that the universe emerged from an enormously dense and hot state nearly 14 billion years ago. The Big Bang is a consequence of the observed Hubble's law velocities of distant galaxies that when taken together with the cosmological principle implies that space is expanding according to the Friedmann model of general relativity. Extrapolated into the past, these observations show that the universe has expanded from a primeval 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.

External links and references

Big Bang overviews

• Open Directory Project: Cosmology
• PBS.org, "From the Big Bang to the End of the Universe. The Mysteries of Deep Space Timeline"
• "Welcome to the History of the Universe". Penny Press Ltd.
• Cambridge University Cosmology, "The Hot Big Bang Model". Includes a discussion of the problems with the big bang.
• Smithsonian Institution, "UNIVERSE! - The Big Bang and what came before".
• D'Agnese, Joseph, "The last Big Bang man left standing, physicist Ralph Alpher devised Big Bang Theory of universe". Discover, July 1999.
• Felder, Gary, "The Expanding Universe".
• LaRocco, Chris and Blair Rothstein, "THE BIG BANG: It sure was BIG!!".
• Mather, John C., and John Boslough 1996, The very first light: the true inside story of the scientific journey back to the dawn of the universe. ISBN 0-465-01575-1 p.300
• Shestople, Paul, ""Big Bang Primer".
• Singh, Simon, Big Bang: the origin of the universe, Fourth Estate (2005). A historical review of the big bang. Sample text and reviews can be found at http://www.321books.co.uk/reviews/big-bang-simon-singh.htm.
• Wright, Edward L., "Brief History of the Universe".

For an annotated list of textbooks and monographs, see physical cosmology.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Some primary sources

• G. Lemaître, "Un Univers homogène de masse constante et de rayon croissant rendant compte de la vitesse radiale des nébuleuses extragalactiques" (A homogeneous Universe of constant mass and growing radius accounting for the radial velocity of extragalactic nebulae), Annals of the Scientific Society of Brussels 47A (1927):41—General relativity implies the universe has to be expanding. Einstein brushed him off in the same year. Lemaître's note was translated in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 91 (1931): 483–490.
• G. Lemaître, Nature 128 (1931) suppl.: 704, with a reference to the primeval atom.
• R. A. Alpher, H. A. Bethe, G. Gamow, "The Origin of Chemical Elements,"Physical Review 73 (1948), 803. The so-called αβγ paper, in which Alpher and Gamow suggested that the light elements were created by protons capturing neutrons in the hot, dense early universe. Bethe's name was added for symmetry.
• G. Gamow, "The Origin of Elements and the Separation of Galaxies," Physical Review 74 (1948), 505. These two 1948 papers of Gamow laid the foundation for our present understanding of big-bang nucleosynthesis.
• G. Gamow, Nature 162 (1948), 680.
• R. A. Alpher, "A Neutron-Capture Theory of the Formation and Relative Abundance of the Elements," Physical Review 74 (1948), 1737.
• R. A. Alpher and R. Herman, "On the Relative Abundance of the Elements," Physical Review 74 (1948), 1577. This paper contains the first estimate of the present temperature of the universe.
• R. A. Alpher, R. Herman, and G. Gamow Nature 162 (1948), 774.
• A. A. Penzias and R. W. Wilson, "A Measurement of Excess Antenna Temperature at 4080 Mc/s," Astrophysical Journal 142 (1965), 419. The paper describing the discovery of the cosmic microwave background.
• R. H. Dicke, P. J. E. Peebles, P. G. Roll and D. T. Wilkinson, "Cosmic Black-Body Radiation," Astrophysical Journal 142 (1965), 414. The theoretical interpretation of Penzias and Wilson's discovery.
• A. D. Sakharov, "Violation of CP invariance, C asymmetry and baryon asymmetry of the universe," Pisma Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 5, 32 (1967), translated in JETP Lett. 5, 24 (1967).
• R. A. Alpher and R. Herman, "Reflections on early work on 'big bang' cosmology" Physics Today Aug 1988 24–34. A review article.

Religion and philosophy

• Leeming, David Adams, and Margaret Adams Leeming, A Dictionary of Creation Myths. Oxford University Press (1995), ISBN 0195102754.
• Pius XII (1952), "Modern Science and the Existence of God," The Catholic Mind 49:182–192.

Research articles

Most scientific papers about cosmology are initially released as preprints on arxiv.org. They are generally technical, but sometimes have introductions in plain English. The most relevant archives, which cover experiment and theory, are the astrophysics archive, where papers closely grounded in observations are released, and the general relativity and quantum cosmology archive, which covers more speculative ground. Papers of interest to cosmologists also frequently appear on the high energy phenomenology and high energy theory archives.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~