What is the date when the big bang took place?

Answer 1

It occurred during the early cambrian, some 600 million years ago. Sometimes it is referred to as the "precambrian explosion." All of earth's major phyla evolved during this brief period of time, over a relatively scant 20 million years. All of these were, of course, marine organisms. There were no terrestrial plants or animals for several hundred million years to come.

Answer 2

The Big Bang occurred an estimated 13.7 billion years ago.

It was not a giant explosion into existing space, as many people are lead to believe. Rather, it was the very rapid expansion of the fabric of the Universe known as "spacetime." The irony is that the "Big Bang" was neither big nor loud by conventional standards.

Prior to the Big Bang, our Universe existed in an extremely small, hot and dense state known as a singularity. We don't know how or why the Universe came into existence, but that is not what the Big Bang is about. Instead the Big Bang was the event that happened immediately after this singularity somehow came into being.

Anyway, the Universe was so hot that the four fundamental forces we know of today (gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces) behaved the same way and functioned as one "Superforce." Suddenly, for reasons yet unknown, gravity split off from this force, triggering the Universe's extremely rapid expansion. In less than a second, the Universe grew from smaller than an atom to the size of the Solar System, and expanding ever larger.

As the Universe grew it became cooler and less dense as energy spread out. Energy was converted into quarks, electrons, and other subatomic particles, which further came together to form atomic nuclei. Eventually the Universe cooled down enough for electrons to become bound to the nuclei forming the first true atoms. The Universe was now filled with vast clouds of hydrogen and helium, the lightest and most abundant elements. These clouds would eventually coalesce through gravity to form stars and galaxies.

The question was, how could the Universe be so tiny, smaller than an atom? Einstein's theory of general relativity discovered that spacetime is collapsible, and can actually be warped and folded around itself. To visualize inflation, picture a paper map crumpled into a tiny ball. Then imagine the map is suddenly pulled out in all directions so that it unfolds and becomes a flat sheet. That's what the Big Bang was: the expansion and flattening of spacetime.

There is abundant evidence that the Big Bang occurred and it fits the full range of observations made by astronomers. Most commonly mentioned are the expansion of the Universe and the cosmic microwave background. For the full range of evidence, see the related link below. Today the Big Bang theory is the most widely accepted model in the scientific community for the early development of the Universe.

For more info see the related questions and links

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An Alternative Theory -- Steady State Theory

There is also another Theory, which Maxwell, Einstein, Hoyle, and hundreds of other Astrophysicists and Astronomers believed in wholeheartedly, known as the Steady State Theory. A theory which you probably have never heard of in your many years of public education.

In the Big Bang Theory all known laws of physics have to be thrown out, and a new Superforce, Exotic Matter, Dark Matter, and dozens of Alternate Dimensions had to be invented to make the theory work properly. And even with throwing out all of the known laws of physics - it still does not work, because the Universe is not old enough to explain the universal standardized temperature throughout the universe. In short: the temperature should not be this uninformed, or this cold.

In the Steady State Theory the Universal Primordial Atom (the singularity) was not a single super-hot atom-sized point of existence, in an non-existent universe. Instead, it is a Universe sized atom of Bose/Einstein Condensate: Known as the Ether.

Bose/Einstein Condensate is liquid Hydrogen frozen at absolute zero Kelvin. When Hydrogen is frozen at absolute zero Kelvin, all molecules begin to vibrate in unison, and acts, reacts, and behaves as one single atom - regardless of the size of the condensate (a singularity).

The Big Bang, under the Steady State Theory, happens when an impurity in the condensate (such as an unstable element's decay) causes the Condensate to warm, melt, and outgas. This outgassing causes expansion.

If the heating and outgassing is sufficiently large enough, a Nebula, Solar Nursery, and solar system protoplanetary disk is created, forming Gas Giants, which become suns - once they reach critical mass. This causes more heating, outgassing, and expansion: resulting in more solar systems.

In the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis all other elements and matter are created in the massive gravity and superheated conditions found within the heart of these new suns. As suns die and explode, these elements are scattered across the universe.

Eventually, some suns grow so massive, that they develop a gravity so great, that light itself cannot escape. These are known as Black holes.

According to the Steady State Theory, all matter in the Universe will eventually fall into a Black Hole, and these Black Holes will collide and merge into a single, or a small number of, Black Holes in the universe. These Black Holes strip atoms down to their base elements... Tearing them down into Hydrogen again, and eventually down into a soup of electrons, neutrons, and protons: which are the only thing small enough, and moving fast enough, to escape the polar regions of the Black Holes - filling the Universe with the raw elements needed to form the Hydrogen which then cools to absolute zero again to form a Bose/Einstein Condensate Primordial Atom again.

According to the Steady State Theory, the accidental discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965, by Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson, is not hearing the Big Bang - but rather hearing the continued outgassing of the Bose/Einstein Condensate along the outer rim of the universe, as the outgassing causes the universe to continue to expand.

It explains the extra energy causing the continuation of expansion, which the big bang theory cannot without inventing exotic matter.

It explains why the universe's temperature has reached uniformity, and such a cold temperature. By starting out at absolute zero Kelvin, the universe did not have to lower its temperature by 100's of thousands of degrees, it simply had to rise three degrees Kelvin.

It also allows for wormholes, without the need of multiple dimensions and the folding of space in upon itself (Research: "fountains in Bose/Einstein Condensates"). And opening a wormhole would only require the power from a transistor battery: Not hundreds of suns. Making interstellar space travel not only possible, but simple.

It also throws great disparaging results on red shift methods of measurements. A Bose/Einstein Condensate has the ability to slow light down to one mile an hour, without changing any elements of the light itself. So if you are measuring how far away a star is, based on the red shift of the light from the star, and that light is passing through Bose/Einstein Condensate during its journey, the light is no longer traveling at the speed of light: It may be traveling a hundred years at one mile an hour. So, the light's red shifts one hundred years, but it never traveled 100 light years to get here...

Which explains why, when our satellites look back at our own Sun from out near Neptune, our sun is barely able to be seen. If the light fades so quickly within a fraction of a single light year - why can we see any light at all from stars hundreds of light years away? Could it be they are millions of times closer than we think? Because Bose/Einstein Condensate slowed the light to one mile an hour, for hundreds of years...

And finally, under the Big Bang Theory, the Universe will end in a BIG RIP: where the suns will eventually run out of fuel, the galaxies will all go dark, the galaxies will all drift apart, and the Universe will grow cold and die.

Under the Steady State theory, the Universe will never die. The local galaxies will eventually fall into the Black Holes in the center of each Galaxy. The Black Holes will strip the Electrons, Neutrons, and Protons from all matter, and spew them out into the Universe, to be recycled back into a new Condensate.

In the meanwhile, the Universe continues to expand, creating new solar nurseries: so while one hemisphere dies off and is recycled, another hemisphere of the Universe is thriving and continually expanding. This means the Universe is in a steady state of existence.

From a religious standpoint: If light is introduced to a Bose/Einstein Condensate - it causes warming, outgassing, and the creation of the Universe... So, the Universe could have easily been created by the simple introduction of "Let there be light."

Answer 3

The event began 13.73 billion years ago. It is still occurring today as the universe is expanding at breakneck speed.

Answer 4

The best current estimates are that the expansion began between 13.3 and 13.9 billion years ago.

Answer 5

The Big Bang itself took place about 13.75 billion years ago.

The idea, as an explanation of our Universe, was first proposed by Jesuit priest George LeMaitre in 1930.

Answer 6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

Answer 7

I think it was a Tuesday.

Answer 8

Approximately 13,700,000,000 years ago.