The Big Bang...(2)

Before observations of an expanding universe were made Albert Einstein, while working on his theory of relativity noted that his equations included a surprising constant (the cosmological constant) which if he made zero would imply that his model universe would collapse under its own gravity or expand forever. Therefore, he thought that his equation was wrong and he made the constant a nonzero to create a force that balances gravity's attraction. This he did in order to have a system that agrees with the then known theory of a steady universe. He latter called his action "the biggest blunder of my life". Otherwise we can say that Einstein had discovered that the universe is expanding but was too to believe it himself.

Using the fact that the universe is expanding, a Russian meteorologist and mathematician Alexander Fleming attempted to calculate the time of formation of the universe. This could easily be done using the following formulation:
Time =Distance/Speed but according to Hubble's formula Speed=HD.
Thus T=D/HD=1/H. H= 65km/s/mps
Thus T=1/65divide3times 10power 19=
15 Billion Years.
His work never gained much appreciation until 1927 when Abbe' Georges Lemaitre a Belgian priest and cosmologist made similar calculations. The priest later proposed the Primeval Atom theory: that since the universe was expanding then at some point in the past it was at one place the size of the solar system. Density at this time was so tremendous that even protons and neutrons were touching. He is however thought to have overestimated the effects of gravity. In which case, the universe expands slowly relative to our gravity less universe. Thus in current models we find T to be 3/2 of what he found.

From Georges idea of an extremely dense universe, George Gamow a Russian born American scientist proposed that the universe was also very hot, up to 10^13 K, and consisted of neutrons that decayed into other subatomic particles, protons and electrons. Then some of the protons fused to form helium. In 1948, Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman two of Gamow's colleagues went on to propose that the radiation emitted by the early universe can still be seen, but in a different form. They based their arguments on Wien's law. According to Wien's law the wavelength at which a body emits radiation is inversely promotional to its temperature. Thus the early universe radiated most strongly at shorter wavelengths, less than 10-15 m. But as the universe expanded, the radiation wavelength stretched such that they increased to millimeters. Using Wien's equation λ = 3×106
T
And taking wavelength to be 1mm (the wavelength at which the radiation is strongest) the temperature of this emission is found to be 2.726K. Alpher and Herman showed that this radiation should be spread all over the universe.

In 1965, two Bell Telephone Laboratories workers chanced upon the signal while using an antenna that they were using to collect signals from the Echo satellite. They noticed a hiss that seemed to be coming from everywhere no matter which direction the antenna was pointed. They considered all options like pigeon droppings in the antenna and single point emissions like galaxies and stars. Soon they realized that what they had found was the left over heat from the Big Bang. This discovery earned them the 1978 physics Nobel Prize