Q 01/05

How old do expansion-rate measurements say the universe is?

A) About 4.5 billion years

B) About 13.8 billion years

C) About 40 billion years

D) About 120 billion years

Answer · why

B) About 13.8 billion years

About 13.8 billion years. At times in the 20th century the sums made the universe look younger than its own oldest stars, a clash settled only by bett...

Q 02/05

Which astronomer is credited with coining the term 'Big Bang' in 1949?

A) Georges Lemaître

B) Edwin Hubble

C) Fred Hoyle

D) George Gamow

Answer · why

C) Fred Hoyle

Fred Hoyle. He never accepted the theory he had named, and later insisted the phrase was no insult, just a vivid image to help radio listeners tell tw...

Q 03/05

The name 'Big Bang' was first spoken in a 1949 radio talk on which broadcaster?

A) NBC

B) CBC

C) ABC

D) BBC

Answer · why

D) BBC

BBC. The talk went out on its Third Programme and was printed days later in its magazine The Listener, yet scientists largely ignored the catchy name ...

Q 04/05

Which rival theory to the Big Bang had new matter continually created as the universe expands?

A) Oscillating universe

B) Tired light

C) Milne model

D) Steady-state model

Answer · why

D) Steady-state model

Steady-state model. It gave the universe no beginning and no end, looking much the same forever; counts of faint radio galaxies and then the 1964 micr...

Q 05/05

Which priest-physicist proposed in 1931 that the universe began as a 'primeval atom'?

A) Alexander Friedmann

B) Georges Lemaître

C) Arthur Eddington

D) Willem de Sitter

Answer · why

B) Georges Lemaître

Georges Lemaître. He lived just long enough to see it confirmed: news that the theory's predicted afterglow had been detected reached him when he was ...