Big Bang/Big Crunch: Scientific terms

[JustGrimace]

I was wondering if the Big Bang or the "Big Crunch", the reverse Big Bang, were known by any other, perhaps more scientific terms. When they were first theorized, were they given different names?

[D H]

Georges Lemaître was the first to propose that the universe started with a "big bang". He called his hypothesis the primeval atom. The term "big bang" was invented by Fred Hoyle as a term of derision. Hoyle was a proponent of the steady state model of the universe.

As far as I know, the term "big crunch" was created by the very cosmologists who proposed the universe might eventually collapse in on itself.

[JustGrimace]

The Primeval Atom is good, thank you. But for "Big Crunch", there's no actually scientific term for the theory? Is there a term for either one as a general process(atom expansion/collapse), at least?


This is a band name thing, so sorry if the questions sound a little uninformed.

[James R]

"Big Bang" and "Big Crunch" are the scientific terms for the theory.

"Big Bang" was originally meant as derogatory, but like "gay" it was quickly adopted by the community it meant to ridicule.

"Big crunch" is an obvious counterpart to "big bang", which was already a well-established term.

There are lots of strange terms in science. In physics, the word "quark" is another good example of a "frivolous" word used for a scientific concept. ("Quark" is a reference to a line in James Joyce's Finnigan's Wake, that has nothing to do with physics.)

[D H]

"Big Bang" and "Big Crunch" are the scientific terms for the theory.
Thanks, James. I should have said this right off the bat before I delved into history of the terminology.

JustGrimace: Do not refer to big bang theory by its old name, "hypothesis of the primeval atom". That name is only used now when giving a historical context. A search amongst the abstracts at arXiv for the term big bang (http://www.google.com/search?&q=big+bang+site%3Aarxiv.org%2Fabs) yields 2300 hits. Searching for primeval atom in the abstracts only (http://www.google.com/search?&q=primeval+atom+site%3Aarxiv.org%2Fabs): zero hits.