What If The Universe DID NOT Start With The Big Bang?

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Here’s the story we like to tell about the beginning of the universe. Space is expanding evenly everywhere, but if you rewind that expansion you find that all of space was once compacted in an infinitesimal point of infinite density—the singularity at the beginning of time. The expansion of the universe from this point is called the Big Bang. We like to tell this story because it's the correct conclusion from the description of an expanding universe that followed Einstein's general theory of relativity back in the 19-teens. But since then we've learned so much more since then. Does our modern understanding of the universe still insist on a point-like Big Bang? Recent work actually gives us a way to avoid the beginning of time.

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Hosted by Matt O'Dowd

Written by Richard Dyer & Matt O'Dowd

Post Production by Leonardo Scholzer, Yago Ballarini & Stephanie Faria

Directed by Andrew Kornhaber

Associate Producer: Bahar Gholipour

Executive Producers: Eric Brown & Andrew Kornhaber

Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez

Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing

Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: John Campbell

Spacetime is a production of Kornhaber Brown for PBS Digital Studios.

This program is produced by Kornhaber Brown, which is solely responsible for its content.

© 2024 PBS. All rights reserved.

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