In their article “The Big Bang” Chris LaRocco and Blair Rothstein discuss the age of the universe and how it came to be. They begin with a short introduction over what is going to be covered in the article. After the introduction they go into talking about the Big Bang theory. Through this theory the universe takes on the properties of having a history and a beginning rather than the previous assumption that the universe was infinite. Next they talk about how it all started. Right before the Big Bang all of the matter and energy of space was held at one point. The explosion pushed all the particles of our newborn universe away from each other. The move on to discuss the man behind the creation of the Big Bang theory, Edwin Hubble. It was he who discovered that the velocity of a galaxy is proportional to its distance and that the universe is always expanding in every direction. More support for the theory came in 1964 when a noise of extraterrestrial origin was heard in an attempt to detect microwaves from outer space. What they heard was a sound that did not come from a specific point but from every direction at once. From this it was easily determined that the sound was radiation that was left over from the Big Bang traveling from the farthest reaches of the universe. The astronomers who accidentally stumbled upon this noise were Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. LaRocco and Rothstein then talk about NASA’s COBE satellite which has provided the most detailed description of the beginning moments of the Big Bang.
The next section of the article describes the minutes that followed the Big Bang. They talk about how at first the universe was extremely hot but as it expanded it also began cooling down and the particles of matter took over. Then came the formation of common particles known as baryons. Without these particles life would not be possible. After further cooling protons and neutrons became the common state of matter. One to three minutes...