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Cosmic Quest

Cosmic Quest: Episode 20: How the Universe Began

Factual: History

Factual: Science & Nature

Episode 20

Episode 20: How the Universe Began

How the Universe Began

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Cosmic Quest, How the Universe Began

The Big Bang theory of how the universe began and what its opponents think.

Astronomer Heather Couper considers the Big Bang theory of how the universe began and what its opponents think. From June 2008.

Heather Couper presents a narrative history of astronomy.

The discovery that the universe is expanding led cosmologists to suggest that its origin lay in a compact, dense, hot fireball. Cambridge astronomer Fred Hoyle thought this so ridiculous that he disparagingly called it the big bang. The name stuck and there followed intense arguments between supporters of the big bang theory and Fred Hoyle and his colleagues, who favoured a steady state universe.

A decisive blow to the latter theory came from a radio telescope in New Jersey in the early 1960s that detected a gentle background glow at microwave radio frequencies that theorists had predicted as the dying embers of the big bang itself.

Readers are Timothy West, Robin Sebastian, Julian Rhind-Tutt and John Palmer.

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

Heather Couper presents a narrative history of astronomy

Astronomer Heather Couper charts the history of our growing understanding of the universe and progress of astronomy.

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