What is the most solid evidence that scientists use to prove the big bang?

Answer 1

The continuous expansion of the Universe, with all Galaxies receding from each other, is the foundation observation. The Big Bang is the computed start point when all lay together. And where physics as we know it is quite insufficient to probe.

Answer 2

The constant spreading of the stars and planets

Answer 3

The presence of cosmic microwave background radiation. The CMBR is easily explained -- and was predicted -- with the Big Bang, but is impossible to explain with any other hypothesis.

Inhomogeneities in the CMBR match prediction.

Red shift of stars far from observers on Earth, with the size of the red shift being proportional to the distance away from us. Calculation of the Hubble Constant leads to a time of 13 billion years ago as when all matter we can now see was clumped together.

All young galaxies are about ten billion years away.

No white dwarfs exist that are older than twelve billion years.

Our Universe consists of 90% hydrogen and about 10% helium -- pretty much exactly as predicted by the Big Bang. No other hypothesis can explain this ratio.

The ratio of decay products to isotopes with long half-lives show an age of our Universe at about ten billion years.

The scientific evidence for the Big Bang is overwhelming. The scientific evidence for other hypotheses is non-existent.

That the space in our Universe, about 13.7 billion years ago, began to expand (ie, it was NOT an explosion of matter into empty space) and has been expanding ever since; is supported by all observational evidence and contradicted by none. Alternatives to this idea are completely ruled out by that same evidence. This includes:

1) red shift of distant galaxies.

2) cosmic microwave background radiation.

3) distance to young galaxies (none are close).

4) ratio of hydrogen to helium.

5) age of oldest white dwarf stars.

6) ratio of long-lived radioactive isotopes and their decay products.

The evidence supporting Big Bang Cosmology is as strong as the evidence for interplanetary gravity.

ApexVS: Red shift of stars far from observers on Earth

Answer 4

Scientists use several key lines of evidence to support the Big Bang theory, including the cosmic microwave background radiation, the abundance of light elements in the universe, the redshift of galaxies indicating an expanding universe, and the distribution of galaxies throughout the universe. These pieces of evidence all point to an initial event where the universe began as a hot, dense state and has been expanding ever since.

Answer 5

By analyzing the photon received from stellar objects and measuring their spectrum scientists can tell that stars that are further away are moving faster than those at the middle. This is how we can confer that the universe used to be a singularity.

Answer 6

Mainly (1) the redshift of distant galaxies, which is considered to be a result of the Doppler effect (i.e., the Universe is expanding), (2) the cosmic background radiation, which is in strong agreement with what would be expected from the initially hot and dense Universe.

Answer 7

ABSOLUTELY CONVINCING evidence? There isn't any. There are a number of individual points of data, which taken together SUGGEST that the big bang probably happened the way that we think it did, but there's no PROOF. It was 14+ billion years ago. Nobody caught it on video, or has come forward with eyewitness testimony. It's likely that in at least some of the details, we've interpreted things wrongly.

But that's how science works.

1. We gather evidence.

2. We come up with possible explanations as to what this evidence means.

3. We perform experiments, or search for other evidence that will either corroborate or refute our explanations.

4. GOTO 1.

it's an iterative, continually recursive process; we never say "OK, _THIS_ is the "truth", and stop looking for more evidence. There's never any point at which we stop collecting new data.

Anybody who says "THIS is the truth, and we won't look for any new evidence or explanations" is not a scientist.

The evidence that our Universe was, about 14 billion years ago, much more dense and hot than it is now, and has been expanding at a (relatively) steady rate ever since, is as convincing that our Earth goes around our Sun. In both cases, all observational predicted by the idea that can be found, has been found; and no evidence that would falsify those ideas have been found. To say that present evidence only "suggests" a Big Bang is like saying that present evidence "suggests" a heliocentric solar system.

Answer 8

Scientists do not get together in the coffeeshop and dream up a theory and

then go looking for evidence to support it. Scientists make observations and

measurements of what IS ... they gather the "evidence" ... first, and then they

try to put together a theory that can explain what they see.

The "Big Bang" theory is the best explanation so far for the facts that . . .

-- the spectra of galaxies in every direction from us are shifted toward longer

wavelengths according to a pattern that can be explained by an assumption

that they are receding from us at speeds that are proportional to their distance

from us, and

-- all of space is filled with an almost uniform level of electromagnetic radiation

with a distribution of wavelengths that is characteristic of a blackbody at the

temperature of 2.7 K, and

-- on the largest scale, the universe consists of roughly 75% hydrogen and 24% helium.

Answer 9

Scientists do not sit in the coffeeshop and dream up a theory and then

go looking for evidence to support it. Scientists make observations and

measurements of what IS ... the "evidence" you might say ... and then try

to put together a theory to explain what they see.

The "Big Bang" theory is the best explanation so far for the observation that all

galaxies in every direction are receding from us at speeds that are proportional

to their distance from us, and for the observation that all of space is filled with

an almost uniform level of electromagnetic radiation with a distribution of wavelengths

that is characteristic of a blackbody at the temperature of 2.7 K, and for the

observation that on the largest scale, the universe consists of roughly 75%

hydrogen and 24% helium.

Answer 10

• Universal expansion as shown by galactic red shifts as discovered by the astronomer Edwin Hubble.
• The 3K microwave cosmic background radiation as discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson of Bell Labs (while working on locating sources of interference with the long distance telephone microwave radio relay system).
• Relative abundances of elements in the universe (helium-4, helium-3, deuterium, and lithium-7).
• Galactic evolution and distribution.
• Primordial gas clouds.
• etc.