Why is the Big Bang theory the most widely accepted theory of the creation of the universe?
The Big Bang theory nicely explains the expansion of the universe (discovered by Hubble in the 1920's). Obviously, that the universe is expanding suggests that it was a good deal smaller in the past. Likewise, the Big Bang theory nicely explains the cosmic microwave background radiation (detected by Penzias and Wilson in the 1960's, and predicted by Wilkinson and Dicke before that). This pervasive, pretty uniform, low-temperature radiation suggests that the universe was considerably hotter in the distant past. The rival "steady state" model of the universe has difficulty explaining these observations. However, the "Big Bang theory" is no longer a single theory. Various alternative Big Bang models have been developed (such as the "inflationary" Big Bang theory) to account for additional facts that have been discovered (such as the value of omega, the ratio of the universe's total kinetic energy of expansion to its gravitational potential self-energy, which tends to slow down the expansion). At the...
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