Big Bang: The most important scientific discovery of all time and why you need to know about it is a book written by Simon Singh and published in 2004 by Fourth Estate. Simon Singh Simon Lehna Singh (born 1964) is a British author with a doctorate in physics, who has specialized in writing about mathematical and scientific topics in an accessible manner. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Big Bang chronicles the history and development of the Big Bang model of the universe, from the ancient Greek scientists who first measured the distance to the sun, to the 20th century detection of the cosmic radiation still echoing the dawn of time. According to the Big Bang theory, the universe emerged from an extremely dense and hot state (bottom). ... Ancient Greece is the term used to describe the Greek-speaking world in ancient times. ... In cosmology, the cosmic microwave background radiation (most often abbreviated CMB but occasionally CMBR, CBR or MBR) is a form of electromagnetic radiation discovered in 1965. ...

In parallel to the evolution of the Big Bang theory, the book tells the personal stories of the people who played a part in advancing it, both by hypothesis and by experiment. These include Einstein, Lemaître, Friedmann, Hubble, Gamow, Alpher, Herman, Ryle, Penzias and Wilson, among many others. A hypothesis (from ancient Greek hypotithenai, to put under, to suppose) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. ... In the scientific method, an experiment is a set of actions and observations, performed to support or falsify a hypothesis or research concerning phenomena. ... For other topics related to Einstein see Einstein (disambiguation). ... Father Georges-Henri Lemaître (July 17, 1894 – June 20, 1966) was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest and astronomer. ... Alexander Alexandrovich Friedman or Friedmann (Александр Александрович Фридман) (June 16, 1888 – September 16, 1925) was a Russian cosmologist and mathematician. ... Edwin Hubble Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an American astronomer, noted for his discovery of galaxies beyond the Milky Way and the cosmological Redshift. ... George Gamow (pronounced GAM-off) (March 4, 1904 – August 19, 1968) , born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov (Георгий Антонович Гамов) was a Ukrainian born physicist and cosmologist. ... Ralph Asher Alpher (born 1921) is a U.S. cosmologist. ... Main article: Discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation The CMB was predicted by George Gamow, Ralph Alpher, and Robert Hermann in the 1940s and was accidentally discovered in 1964 by Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson, who received a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978 for this discovery. ... Sir Martin Ryle (September 27, 1918 – October 14, 1984) was a British radio astronomer who developed revolutionary radio telescope systems (see e. ... Arno Allan Penzias (born April 26, 1933) is an American physicist and winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize in physics. ... Robert Woodrow Wilson (born January 10, 1936) is an American physicist. ...

Another theme of the book is the scientific method itself: how serendipity, curiosity, theory and observation come together to expand our understanding of the world. Scientific method as envisaged by one of its early exponents, Sir Isaac Newton, is fundamental to the investigation and acquisition of new knowledge based upon physical evidence. ... Look up Serendipity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary For other uses, see Serendipity (disambiguation). ...

External links

• "Big Bang" web page at Simon Singh's site
• Reviews of "Big Bang"