CLICK ON ANY LABEL BELOW TO JUMP TO THAT TOPIC FROM HERE.
1. Scientific Theories and Laws
2. The First Decade (1936-1946)
4. The Second Decade (1946-1956)
6. The Third Decade (1956-1966)
8. The Fourth Decade (1966-1976)
10. The Fifth Decade (1976-1986)
12. The Sixth Decade (1986-1996)
14. The Seventh Decade (1996-2006)
15. The Theory of More than Everything
16. The Eighth Decade (2006-2016)
18. The Ninth Decade (2016-2026)
Appendix A Paintings
Appendix B Caps and Bunnies
Appendix C Musical Compositions
Appendix E A Googolplex Universe
Appendix F Acknowledgements
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In order to give you the current description of the Big Bang, we're going to lean on a book by Dr. John Gribbin. He started out in particle physics studying the very small bits of matter and later worked in an astronomy group with the great Fred Hoyle studying the big bits. From those extremes, he put all the bits together and wrote a book called In Search of the Big Bang. We can't do the book justice in this chapter, so if this summary isn't enough, go to his book for more depth. Don't worry; it's safe. He stays away from formulas in his book too.
In Search of the Big Bang includes the story of the giants who added to what we know about the cosmos today. Besides Newton and Einstein, we had Kant, Hubble, Halley, and many others, each building on top of the shoulders of those who came earlier. As an example of this accumulation of knowledge, the author mentions Hipparchus from the third century B.C. who made a star map of hundreds of stars. About two thousand years later, Halley noticed three stars on the map that weren't in their proper places in the sky he saw; the fixed stars were not as fixed as everyone thought. If for no other reason, this fascinating history-section is worth a read.
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