The Big Bang Theory is defined as the early development of the universe and that the universe is expanding. “The Big Bang Theory is considered as the beginning of the universe.” (Hawking, 1998) As soon as the universe was born, the universe expanded and inflated.

According to Charles Choi, “space itself expanded faster than the speed of light and doubled in size at least 90 times.” (Choi, 2013). According to Choi, “Our universe was born about 13.7 billion years ago in a massive expansion that blew space up like a gigantic balloon.” (Choi, 2013). There is evidence that supports the big bang theory and the inflation of the universe. Researchers are hoping to find signs of the distortion of time and space. Burt Ovrut has stated that “within the next 10 years, these are the things that will be discussed and decided.” (Temming, 2011).

The big bang marked the beginning of the universe’s expansion. So far there are seven eras that deal with the big bang theory. These era’s include: the planck era, the GUE era, the electroweak era, the particle era, the era of nucleosynthesis, era of atoms, and finally the era of galaxies.

There is not much that is known about the planck era. The GUE (Grand Unification Era), deals with gravity’s separation form the other forces. The electroweak era released a number of energy and a rapid inflation. The particle era released quarks, antiquarks, electrons, positrons, and antiparticles. The era of nucleosynthesis is when protons and neutrons combined into the first atomic nuclei. The era of atoms finally was able to form neutral atoms. The era of galaxies have been created since these seven eras occurred.

The biggest idea of the big bang theory is that all the matter of the universe, concentrated into one specific point, expanded then exploded. It has been stated that the universe is still expanding but at a much slower rate than when the universe began. The re-shifting of stars is also an indication that the universe is still expanding. The cosmic microwave radiation deals mainly with static and supposedly is from the original explosion of the universe.

“The Big Bang theory describes how the universe, with constant energy content and expanding space, behaves under certain conditions.” (Steinhardt and Turok, 2007). When applied to our universe, it is used to explain what happens to the energy while space is expanding, the theory simply takes the initial energy and expansion of space for granted.

Currently, there is no testable theory as to how the universe began, such as how we ended up with the supply of energy in expanding space. There are lots of ideas but they cannot be tested because a real theory has to be testable.

M-theory is a collection of ideas that come from “string theory.” This deals with all the ideas where the universe has a large number of dimensions that are more than three and only three of these are expanding. M-theory is actually a “unification” of the five main versions of the “string theory.”

There have been a number of other theories in a sense that these theories are testable but were shown to be wrong. For example, Steady State theory by Fred Hoyle is where the universe has always existed and has always been expanding and new energy is slowly being created as well as new space that is being added. In an eternal universe, there is no beginning.

Another theory that has no beginning was described by Stephen Hawking, “space-time is, itself an object, and time is the vehicle that allows us to travel from one pole to another of this object.” At each pole, there are instanton, a particle of space-time. The name comes from the word instant. From the instanton at the beginning pole, all of the time-directions are towards the future just like from the North pole, on Earth from the North Pole, all directions are to the South.

The first other idea is called The Bulk. The Bulk supposedly is an idea which states that time did not even exist then and researchers attempted to understand and grasp this, but to no avail and this theory so far has been a dead end. The second idea is called Time’s Arrow. According to this idea, time’s arrow and time’s beginning cannot be treated differently and that there is no way to know what came before the big bang until it is known what preceded after the big bang. The third idea is called The Nows Have It. The Nows Have it states that what was before the big bang theory was a fundamental mistake and that there was no reason to find a solution to the beginning of time. (Singh, 2005).

In short, “there are many theories that circle around the big bang theory some of which needs to be tested to prove either correct or incorrect.” (Lerner, 1998). This is debatable between some individuals these days as to whether or not science was or is involved in the creation of the universe. According to Krauss and Dawkins, “there is something rather than nothing in the universe.” (Krauss and Dawkins, 2013).