jfizzix said:It's not just a good question, but an exceedingly important one in cosmology.
One popular notion is that very shortly after the birth of the universe, it entered an inflationary period of unimaginably rapid expansion so that by the time gravity could have a significant effect, things were already spread out pretty uniformly.
As far as where the big bang happened, it kind of happened everywhere. Space itself just got really big really quickly.
jfizzix said:It's not just a good question, but an exceedingly important one in cosmology.
One popular notion is that very shortly after the birth of the universe, it entered an inflationary period of unimaginably rapid expansion so that by the time gravity could have a significant effect, things were already spread out pretty uniformly.
As far as where the big bang happened, it kind of happened everywhere. Space itself just got really big really quickly.
This is by far the most common misconception is the early study of cosmology and is promulgated by pop-science making exactly that false statement. The "big bang singularity" was NOT a point. It happened everywhere at once. The "big bang theory" doesn't even include the singularity but instead is a discussion of what happened from about one Plank Time after the singularity to today. Contrary to the totally incorrect statements you see everywhere in pop-science, "singularity" does not mean "point" it means "the place where our math model breaks down and gives nonphysical results and we don't know WHAT is/was going on"hewiiitt- said:Surely if the Big Bang was a point ...
The CMB, or Cosmic Microwave Background, is a faint glow of radiation that fills the entire universe. It is often referred to as the "afterglow" of the Big Bang, as it is the oldest light in the universe. The CMB appears to be relatively uniform because it is the leftover thermal radiation from the hot and dense early universe.
The CMB was first discovered by two physicists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, in 1965. They were working with a large radio telescope and noticed a persistent low-level noise that seemed to be coming from all directions. After ruling out other sources of interference, they realized that they had discovered the CMB.
The uniformity of the CMB is one of the key pieces of evidence for the Big Bang theory. It tells us that the early universe was extremely hot and dense, but also very homogeneous on a large scale. This is known as the "homogeneity problem" and is one of the major mysteries of modern cosmology.
While the CMB appears to be relatively uniform, there are small variations in its temperature across the sky. These variations are referred to as "anisotropies" and they are important clues about the structure and evolution of the universe. These anisotropies are thought to be caused by tiny fluctuations in the density of matter in the early universe.
Scientists use the CMB to study the history of the universe by measuring its temperature and analyzing its anisotropies. This information can be used to create maps of the early universe and to make predictions about the formation of galaxies and other large-scale structures. The CMB is also used to test and refine theories about the origin and evolution of the universe.