Question about the Big Bang (the event not the show)

[Patx2]

I’m putting this here because I don’t know that there really is a factual answer. I’ve often wondered why it’s called the Big Bang. When I think of a bang, I imagine a loud noise and an explosion. When I visualize an explosion, I see things, blowing up and getting smaller, maybe even disintegrating. But, the universe is expanding. It seems like the name doesn’t fit the event. I’m not up on my physics and astronomy, but to my elementary knowledge it happened over time so it wasn’t just one Big Bang anyway, was it?

[Riemann]

The name was coined by Fred Hoyle, a proponent of a competing steady-state theory.

…Hoyle was a strong critic of the Big Bang. He coined the term “Big Bang” on BBC radio’s Third Programme broadcast on 28 March 1949. It was popularly reported by George Gamov and his opponents that Hoyle intended to be pejorative, and the script from which he read aloud was interpreted by his opponents to be “vain, one-sided, insulting, not worthy of the BBC”. Hoyle explicitly denied that he was being insulting and said it was just a striking image meant to emphasize the difference between the two theories for the radio audience…

Fred Hoyle

Unfortunately, it caught on. It is indeed a misleading name, giving rise to persistent misconceptions that seem to be corrected several times a month on SDMB alone.

[Patx2]

@Riemann

The name was coined by Fred Hoyle, a proponent of a competing steady-state theory.
Fred Hoyle - Wikipedia

Unfortunately, it caught on. It is indeed a misleading name, giving rise to persistent misconceptions that seem to be corrected several times a month on SDMB alone.

Crazy how things catch on, and good to know I’m not crazy, at least this once, my thoughts make some sense .