Who is this Sheldon Guy? Is He Hotter than Brian Cox?

I wanted to start with an infographic about the Big Bang theory. So I went to Google and I got:

Something uncomfortable like this.

Something asian like this.

Or a sparkly combination of both.

The popularity of niche market entertainment forces one to use keywords like "big bag theory origin of the universe", which sounds like the title of an astronomy major's upcoming docu-movie. Or a really bad Sci-Fy feature.

What it really is is a scientific theory on how the universe began. From what little my mind and my patience are able to grasp, the Big Bang Theory is a widely-accepted possible explanation on how everything came to be. It posits that before the beginning of time, all the forces of nature condensed at one point. This point was all there is, and it was dense and hot beyond imagination. I have reason to believe (read: people tell me) that this ball-of-everything then exploded, thus the name of the theory.

BUT!  I did a little digging and I wound up in talkorigins.org and found to little surprise that everything I know is a cruel and insiduous lie.

" The simplest description of the theory would be something like: "In the distant past, the universe was very dense and hot; since then it has expanded, becoming less dense and cooler." The word "expanded" should not be taken to mean that matter flies apart -- rather, it refers to the idea that space itself is becoming larger. "

Here, talkorigins also says:

"In most popularized science sources, BBT is often described with something like "The universe came into being due to the explosion of a point in which all matter was concentrated." Not surprisingly, this is probably the standard impression which most people have of the theory. Occasionally, one even hears "In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded."There are several misconceptions hidden in these statements:

• The BBT is not about the origin of the universe. Rather, its primary focus is the development of the universe over time.

• BBT does not imply that the universe was ever point-like.

• The origin of the universe was not an explosion of matter into already existing space.

The famous cosmologist P. J. E. Peebles stated this succinctly in the January 2001 edition of Scientific American (the whole issue was about cosmology and is worth reading!): "That the universe is expanding and cooling is the essence of the big bang theory. You will notice I have said nothing about an 'explosion' - the big bang theory describes how our universe is evolving, not how it began." (p. 44). The March 2005 issue also contained an excellent article pointing out and correcting many of the usual misconceptions about BBT."

Pictured: Lies?

To recap, what little I thought I knew about the universe was wrong. The Big Bang Theory isn't about how the universe began. There was no explosion involved, let alone an explosion of nothing that became something. Now that I'm more confused than when I started, let's turn to CERN scientist Brian Cox for a short explanation of... things.

Above: Coxlap.


Sources:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/bigbang.html#theory
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/bigbang.html#misconceptions

CHECKED BY PROF. CRISENCIO PANER