NewsBreak Original

Georges Lemaitre and Albert Einstein, Credit: Ida Lee. It was 1927, in Leopold Park in Brussels, a Catholic priest called Georges Lemaitre (1894 - 1966) had a meeting with the father of cosmology, Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955): "Here, finally, was his chance to explain his idea about an expanding universe to the very person whose theory he'd used to derive it...if Einstein endorsed his radical idea then surely it would be accepted" (The Beginning and End of the Universe, BBC). Unfortunately, Einstein wasn't ready to accept an expanding universe, and to think of it was "abominable". In Einstein's mind, a static universe was the correct cosmology. Georges Lemaitre's theory "should have ignited science, but without the backing of such a huge and influential figure as Einstein, his groundbreaking idea was doomed to be quietly forgotten" (The Beginning and End of the Universe, BBC).

"Shortly after my 21st birthday, I went into hospital for tests. They took a muscle sample from my arm, stuck electrodes into me, and injected some radio-opaque fluid into my spine, and watched it going up and down with X-rays as they tilted the bed. I was diagnosed as having ALS...or motor neuron disease, as it is also known. The doctors could offer no cure and gave me two and a half years to live". (Stephen Hawking. "A Brief History of Time" 1991 film).

"Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state, then nearly 14 billion years ago expansion started. Wait..." (from The Big Bang Theory TV show intro song). This intro song of the sitcom The Big Bang Theory has done a fine job synthesizing the main ideas of the Big Bang for the public. The Universe is not static; it is expanding from a hot and dense point. However, the Big Bang theory in cosmology is a theory about the origin of the universe, not its later evolution. What happened right after the Bang? In the words of Alan Guth (born in 1947), a cosmologist at MIT who is one of the pioneers that theorized about an inflationary universe, "Inflation explains the Bang" (from Alan Guth Explains Inflation Theory)

After the Big Bang, when Earth was formed, it cooled over the years to develop the crust layer, which now holds all the different life forms as we see today. However, Earth’s inner core remains molten until this day - or that is what had been assumed for long.