Beginning Of Universe # Practice Reading

So how was this unimaginably (difficult or impossible to imagine or comprehend) giant (a person or thing of unusually great size, power, importance, etc.;major figure; legend) Universe created? For centuries (a period of 100 yearsscientists (an expert in science, especially one of the physical or natural sciences) thought the Universe always existed in a largely unchanged (not changed; unaltered) form, run like clockwork (the mechanism of a clock)thanks to the laws of physics. But a Belgian priest (a person whose office it is to perform religious rites, and especially to make sacrificial offerings) and scientist called George Lemaitre put forward another idea. In 1927, he proposed that the Universe began as a large, pregnant and primeval (of or relating to the first age or ages, especially of the world)atom, exploding (to burst, fly into pieces, or break up violently with a loud report, as boiler from excessive pressure of steam) and sending out the smaller atoms that we see today.

His idea went largely unnoticed. But in 1929 astronomer (an expert in astronomy; a scientific observer of the celestial bodies)Edwin Hubble discovered that the Universe isn’t static (showing little or no change)but is in fact expanding (to increase in extent, size, volume, scope, etc). If so, some scientists reasoned (based on reason) that if you rewound (to wind back to or toward the beginning; reverse)the Universe’s life then at some point it should have existed as a tiny, dense point. Critics (a person who judges, evaluates, or criticizes) dismissed (to discard or reject)this: the celebrated (renowned, well known)astronomer Fred Hoyle sarcastically (marked by or given to using irony in order to mock or convey contempt) called this concept the “Big Bang” theory, a phrase that would later be adopted by its proponents (a person who puts forward a proposition or proposal).

Undeterred (persevering with something despite setbacks)by sceptics (a person inclined to question or doubt accepted opinions), scientists Ralph Alpher, George Gamow and Robert Herman predicted that if there had been a Big Bang, then a faint afterglow (the pleasant remembrance of a past experience, glory, etc)should linger (to remain or stay on in a place longer than is usual or expected, as if from reluctance to leave)somewhere in the Universe, and we should in theory be able to detect it. To do so would require one of the greatest pieces of fortune (position in life as determined by wealth)in science.

Source : BBC

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