The Blog

R in SURGE is Radiance from the Big Bang.

The third line of evidence that the universe had a beginning was discovered by accident in 1965.

Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected strange radiation on their antenna at Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey. No matter where they turned their antenna, this mysterious radiation remained. They initially thought it might be the result of bird droppings deposited on the antenna by nesting Jersey Shore pigeons, so they had the birds and droppings removed. But when they got inside, they found that the radiation was still there, and it was coming from all directions.

What Penzias and Wilson discovered turned out to be one of the most incredible discoveries of the last century—one that would win them Nobel Prizes.

These two scientists had discovered the afterglow from the Big Bang fireball explosion.

Known as cosmic background radiation, this afterglow is actually light and heat from the initial explosion.

The light is no longer visible because its wavelength has been stretched by the expanding universe to wavelengths slightly shorter to that of a microwave oven. But the heat can still be detected.

As early as 1948, three scientists predicted that the radiation would be out there if the Big Bang did really occur. But for some reason no one attempted to detect it before Penzias and Wilson stumbled upon it by accident nearly twenty years later. When this discovery was confirmed, it laid to rest any lingering suggestion that the universe is in an eternal steady state.

Agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow stated, “No explanation other than the Big Bang has been found for the fireball explosion. The clincher, which has convinced almost the last Doubting Thomas, is that the radiation discovered by Penzias and Wilson has exactly the pattern of wavelengths expected for the light and heat produced in the great explosion. Supporters of the steady state theory have tried desperately to find an alternative explanation, but they have failed. At the present time, the Big Bang Theory has no competitors.”

In conclusion, the discovery of the fireball radiation burned up any hope in the Steady State theory. But that was not the end of the discoveries.

What other evidence has led scientists to support and believe the big bang?