Thursday, February 4, 2021

Why do scientists want to know how the universe originated?

My answer on Quora.

This is largely as a result of a realization that such a question is potentially answerable within the scope of the fundamentals of physics and is not strictly metaphysical. 

Once it was determined by Alexander Friedmann in 1922 that there was a theoretical basis for expansion within General relativity (that was later given experimental credence by Edwin Hubble) it was only natural to ask the question - What is it expanding from?

Potential solutions to this new question including a very successful model posited by a Belgian priest and Astrophysicist Georges Lemaitre (what we now call the Big Bang) speak to a point of origin. As it stands the likelihood of such a conclusion appears well supported by the Empirical evidence.

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