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 25 billion years

D) About 100 billion years

Answer · why

B) About 13.8 billion years

The figure is 13.787 billion years give or take 20 million, and it agrees with the ages of the oldest stars.

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

He backed the rival steady-state model and later denied he meant the phrase as a put-down.

Q 03/05

Hoyle coined the phrase during a 1949 radio broadcast on which broadcaster?

A) NBC

B) CBC

C) ABC

D) BBC

Answer · why

D) BBC

It was the Third Programme; the name did not really catch on until the 1970s.

Q 04/05

What was Hoyle's rival theory, with matter created as space expands, called?

A) Oscillating universe

B) Tired light

C) Milne model

D) Steady-state model

Answer · why

D) Steady-state model

In that picture the universe looks roughly the same at any point in time, with no beginning.

Q 05/05

Which Belgian priest-physicist proposed the 'primeval atom' in 1931?

A) Alexander Friedmann

B) Georges Lemaître

C) Arthur Eddington

D) Willem de Sitter

Answer · why

B) Georges Lemaître

Critics complained that a beginning in time smuggled religion into physics, not helped by his being a priest.