# Question about the Big Bang (the event not the show)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-big-bang-the-event-not-the-show/789479
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [June 20, 2017, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-big-bang-the-event-not-the-show/789479 "2017-06-20T22:05:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2017, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-big-bang-the-event-not-the-show/789479/1 "2017-06-20T22:05:58Z")
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?
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2017, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-big-bang-the-event-not-the-show/789479/2 "2017-06-20T22:25:44Z")
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle)**
>
> Sir Fred Hoyle FRS (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and was one of the authors of the influential B2FH paper. He also held controversial stances on other scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory (a term coined by him on BBC Radio) in favor of the "steady-state model", and his promotion of panspermia as the origin of life on Earth. He spent most of his working life at St John's Hoyle als...
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.
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### Author:  [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2017, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-big-bang-the-event-not-the-show/789479/3 "2017-06-20T23:24:52Z")
> [@Riemann](#):
>
> The name was coined by Fred Hoyle, a proponent of a competing steady-state theory.
> [Fred Hoyle - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.
Crazy how things catch on, and good to know I’m not crazy, at least this once, my thoughts make some sense 🕶.