What is the accepted theory for the creation of the Universe?
The currently accepted theory for the beginning of the Universe is the Big Bang Theory.
According to this theory, the whole Universe expanded from a single point, around 13.8 billion years ago. The moment when the expansion started is known as the Big Bang, and this theory was just one of the competing theories till it was proved experimentally.
How exactly do you prove that something happened at the beginning of the Universe? Let's start with a quick review of the events.
What we call the Big Bang is a gravitational singularity. A singularity is a point where the laws of Physics no longer apply - which means that we know practically nothing about it. The singularity was in a state of very high density, pressure and temperature. These were not on the scales of anything we can imagine within the scope of human experience. For some reason, this singularity started expanding and cooling rapidly.
This was followed by a phase (actually several phases, but explaining those would take this answer too much off the mark) where particles and antiparticles were produced and annihilated rapidly. This is called pair production - where energy turns to a particle and antiparticle pair. However, the early Universe was so dense that every particle could travel only a very short distance before running into its antiparticle, and turning into energy.
After a period of this, due to some reason (again unknown) there was a small increase in the number of particles over antiparticles. Because of this, there was a single, large burst of energy as the rest of the particle-antiparticle pairs were annihilated.
This burst of energy is a prediction of the Big Bang theory. According to the theory, the radiation from that primitive epoch should still be observable. Through calculations, it was shown that the wavelength of that radiation would have stretched out long enough to be on the order of microwaves. And in 2013, this was observed, exactly as predicted. This is called the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR)
And that is why the Big Bang Theory is the currently accepted theory for the beginning of the Universe.
According to this theory, the whole Universe expanded from a single point, around 13.8 billion years ago. The moment when the expansion started is known as the Big Bang, and this theory was just one of the competing theories till it was proved experimentally.
How exactly do you prove that something happened at the beginning of the Universe? Let's start with a quick review of the events.
What we call the Big Bang is a gravitational singularity. A singularity is a point where the laws of Physics no longer apply - which means that we know practically nothing about it. The singularity was in a state of very high density, pressure and temperature. These were not on the scales of anything we can imagine within the scope of human experience. For some reason, this singularity started expanding and cooling rapidly.
This was followed by a phase (actually several phases, but explaining those would take this answer too much off the mark) where particles and antiparticles were produced and annihilated rapidly. This is called pair production - where energy turns to a particle and antiparticle pair. However, the early Universe was so dense that every particle could travel only a very short distance before running into its antiparticle, and turning into energy.
After a period of this, due to some reason (again unknown) there was a small increase in the number of particles over antiparticles. Because of this, there was a single, large burst of energy as the rest of the particle-antiparticle pairs were annihilated.
This burst of energy is a prediction of the Big Bang theory. According to the theory, the radiation from that primitive epoch should still be observable. Through calculations, it was shown that the wavelength of that radiation would have stretched out long enough to be on the order of microwaves. And in 2013, this was observed, exactly as predicted. This is called the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR)
And that is why the Big Bang Theory is the currently accepted theory for the beginning of the Universe.
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