The Origin of the Universe

Before anything, we see today existed, a particular object is known as a singularity(a point at which a function takes an infinite value, especially in space-time when the matter is infinitely dense, such as at the centre of a black hole) existed. And, how did it get there? Remains a mystery. There was nothing around the singularity, and the laws of physics were completely powerless. Time did not exist and this singularity existed in the middle of infinitely vast nothingness.

The reason for this singularity being so peculiar was that it was minimal; extremely dense; was a billion of times hotter than even our sun. Surprisingly, everything we see around ourselves used to fit in the singularity, which was no more than the size of a marble that could easily fit inside our hand. Then suddenly, something incredible came about. The singularity started to rapidly expand and created this astounding universe. This is known as the Big Bang. Though, we call this the Big Bang(named by Fred Hoyle who used it to mock this theory, and supported the competing Steady State theory) this wasn’t anything like a big bang at all.

Let’s break the word ‘Big Bang’ into ‘big’ and ‘bang’ and let’s discuss them. It was nothing close to a bang because in a vacuum there is no sound, as sound needs a medium to travel through.

However, the word big suits it, or it can be said that using ‘big’ is an understatement because it was everything there is today.

Then about 13.8 billion years ago the singularity started to expand rapidly. About a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang, the universe entered a monumental state known as the cosmic inflation. During cosmic inflation, the universe unimaginably increased its size. From the initial size of less than a billionth of a proton, it inflated to a comparatively huge sphere. The cosmic inflation started at about 10–37 and ended at 10–35and in a mere blink of an eye, the cosmic inflation ended. At around 10–32the space-time started to expand rapidly.