Big Bang Theory: Sudden Cosmic Inflation and Expansion

Many billions of years ago, the universe was the size of a softball, comprised of infinite denseness and heat, until it exploded outward at the speed of light.

Cosmic Inflation

This initial phase of cosmic inflation lasted less than a second, leaving in its wake an infinite minefield of matter and radiation that over time reheated and cooled into building block particles such as neutrons, electrons and protons that coalesced through gravity to form planets, stars and galaxies.

Now considered the singular prevailing model for the birth of the observable universe, the Big Bang Theory offers a compelling explanation for a number of observed phenomena, including the abundance of light elements and cosmic microwave background radiation that continue to expand outward from the Big Bang’s source.

The Expanding Universe

By way of evidence, the Hubble-Lemaitre law states that the farther away a galaxy is from a fixed point of observation, the faster that galaxy is moving away from Earth, which in turn has allowed cosmologists to calculate expansion rates leading 13.8 billion years backward to the origins of the Big Bang.

Even more compelling, by studying redshift echos known as cosmic microwave background—which is an increase in electromagnetic radiation’s wavelengths and subsequent decrease in frequency and photon energy—scientists have confirmed that the expansion of the universe continues to accelerate over time.

Alternative Theories to The Big Bang

While the bulk of cosmologists accept the Big Bang Theory as foundational gospel, other theorists have posed alternative explanations for the birth of the universe, including eternal inflation, which says that the universe as we know it is part of an infinite number of universes, each one capable of spawning an infinite number of daughter universes.

A second is the theory of an oscillating universe, which exists between its Big Bang origins and its Big Crunch demise, making the Big Bang Theory yet another mind-bender in man’s ongoing understanding of an infinite universe.