Home > Encyclopedia of Science > Big Bang Theory

• The evolution of the universe
• The search for the beginning
• Inflationary theory and the cosmic microwave background
• COBE and MAP

The big bang is the foremost model that scientists use to describe the creation of the universe. This theory proposes that the universe was created in a violent event approximately 12 to 15 billion years ago. In that event, the lightest elements were formed, which provided the building blocks for all of the matter that exists in the universe today. A consequence of the big bang is that we live in an expanding universe, the ultimate fate of which cannot be predicted from the information we have at this time.

The evolution of the universe

Cosmologists (scientists who study...