Some of my favourite science history facts:
The term "big bang theory" was coined by a scientist who didn't believe in it but in a static universe. He thought by giving it a ridiculous name, the theory would go away. The name stuck.
"Schrödinger's Cat" is a thought experiment often used to explain an interpretation of quantum physics where things can exist in multiple states at the same time as long as there's no other boundary condition (the cat is both dead and alive as long as you don't look into the box). Schrödinger did indeed come up with it, but since he didn't believe in this interpretation, the thought experiment was intended to make fun of the theory.
The term "big bang theory" was coined by a scientist who didn't believe in it but in a static universe. He thought by giving it a ridiculous name, the theory would go away. The name stuck.
"Schrödinger's Cat" is a thought experiment often used to explain an interpretation of quantum physics where things can exist in multiple states at the same time as long as there's no other boundary condition (the cat is both dead and alive as long as you don't look into the box). Schrödinger did indeed come up with it, but since he didn't believe in this interpretation, the thought experiment was intended to make fun of the theory.
Gidi Kroon
in reply to Gidi Kroon • •The cosmic microwave background radiation that is the result from the start of our universe, was first by the researchers thought to be the result of pigeon poo that had built up in their antenna. So this research project involved them standing in the big horn of the antenna with brooms scraping out pigeon poo.
When researchers tried to find out how much gravity was slowing down the expansion of the universe and whether it would be enough to pull the universe back together in some kind of big crunch, they redid their calculations many times because the result was so unexpected. But eventually they had to publish it. The answer to whether the universe's expansion was slowing down enough was that it was speeding up. No-one knows why.