The

Universe
 Theories
on the Origin of
the Universe
 Cyclical or Oscillating Universe(15
century BCE)
The Hindu anciet text
“Rigveda” described the
universe as a cyclical or
oscillating universe in which a
“cosmic egg” or Brahmanda,
which contains the whole
universe, including the Sun,
Moon, and the planets and
all of Space expands out of a
single concentrated point
called Bindu before
subsequently collapsing
again.
 Primordial universe (5th century BCE)
 Anaxagoras
 Primordial mixture of all its ingredients which is existed in
infinitesimally small fragments of themselves.This mixture
was not entirely uniform, and some ingredients were
present in higher concentrations than others,as well as
varying from place to place.
 At some point in time, this mixture was set in motion by
the action of “nous”, and the whirling motion shifted and
separated out the ingredients , ultimately producing the
cosmos of separate material objects, all with different
properties, that we see today.
 Atomic universe (5th century BCE)
 Leucippus and Democritus
 School of Atomism
 Composed of very small,
indivisible and indestructible
building blocks known as
atoms
 All of reality and all the
objects in the Universe are
composed of different
arrangements of these eternal
atoms and an infinite void in
which they form different
combinations and shapes.
 Aristotelian universe ( 4th century BCE)
 Aristotle
 Geocentric Universe
 Spherical Earth is at the
center surrounded by
concentric celestial spheres
of planets, stars and the
four classical elements,
which where acted on by
the two forces-gravity,
which is the tendency of
earth a water to sink, and
levity, which is the tendency
of air and fire to rise.
 Stoic universe ( 3rd century BCE)
Stoic philosophers
Like a giant living body
The Sun and the stars are its leading parts
All parts are interconnected
What happens in one place affetcs what
happen elsewhere.
 Heliocentric universe (3rd century BCE)
 Aristarchus of Samos
 The Sun is the center of the
known universe.
 What did he describe about the
Earth?
 Earth is rotating daily and
revolving annually about the
Sun
 Circular orbit along with a
sphere of fixed stars.
 Aryabhata and the Muslim
Astronomers : Elliptical orbits
around the Sun (5th and 9th
century CE respectively)
 Ptolemiac universe ( 2nd century CE)
Claudius Ptolemaeus
Supports geocentric model of the universe
The planets and the rest of the universe orbit
a stationary Earth.
 Abrahamic universe ( 6th century CE)
A Finite universe- it has a beginning
John Philoponus-Christian philosopher
Al- Kindi –Muslim theologians 9th century A.D
and Al- Ghaali 11th century A.D
Saadia Gaon – Jewish philosopher 10th century
A.D
 Partially heliocentric universe( 15th -
16th century C.E)
Somayaji Nilakantha (Southern India)
Partially heliocentric planetary model in which
the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and
Saturn orbited the Sun, which in turn orbited
the Earth.
 Copernican universe (1543)
• The Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus adapted the geocentric
Maragha of Ibn al-Shatir to meet the requirements of the heliocentric
universe of Aristarchus. His publication of a scientific theory of
heliocentrism demonstrating that the motions of celestial objects can be
explained without the putting the Earth at rest in the center of the
universe stimulated further scientific investigations and became a landmark
in the history of modern science, sometimes known as the Copernican
revolution. In 1576 An English astromer Thomas Digges popularized
Copernicus’ ideas and also extended them by positing the existence of
multitudes of stars extending to infinity, rather than just Copernicus’ narrow
band of fixed stars. In 1584, the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno
suggested that even the solar system is NOT the center of the universe, but
rather a relatively insignificanct star system among an infinite multitude of
others. In 1605, Johannes Kepler abandoned the classical assumptiom of
circular orbits in favour of elliptical orbits, which could explain the strange
apparent movements of the planets. Galileo’s controversial support to
coppernicus’ heliocentric model in the early 17th century was denounce by
the Inquisition but nevertheless helped to popularize the idea.
 Cartesian vortex universe ( mid-
seventeenth century)
 Rene Descartes –French
Philosopher
 He outlined a model of the
universe with many of the
characteristics of Newton’s
static, infinite universe.
According to Descartes, the
vacuum space was not empty
at all but was filled with
matter that swirled around in
large and small vortices. His
model involved a system of
huge swirling whirlpools of
the matter producing what
would later be called
gravitational effects.
 Static or Newtonian universe ( 1687)
 Sir Isaac Newton
 He published his “
Principia” which
described a static steady
state, infinite universe. In
Newton’s universe,
matter on the large scale
in uniformly distributed
and the universe is
gravitational balanced but
essentially unstable.
 Hierarchical universe and Nebular
Hypothesis(1734)
 This was first proposed
by the Swedish scientist
and philosopher
Emmanuel Swedenborg
and developed further by
Thomas Wright in
1750,Immanuel Kant in
1755, Johann Heinrich
Lambert in 1761, and
similar model was
proposed by Frenchman
Pierre-Simon Laplace in
1796
 Einsteinian universe
 The model of the universe
assumed by Albert Einstein in his
theory of gravity was NOT
dissimilar to Newton’s in that it
was static, dynamically stable
universe, which was neither
expanding nor contracting. He
added cosmological constant to
his general theory of relativity
equations to counteract the
dynamical effects of gravity,
which would have caused the
universe to collapse. He later
abandoned this part of the theory
when Edwin Hubble in 1929
showed that the universe was
NOT static.
Hubble Space Telescope
 Big Bang model of the universe(1929)
 After Hubble’s demonstration of the contuously
expanding universe and after the discovery of
cosmic microwave background radiation by Arno
Penzias and Robert Wilson in 1965, Big Bang has
been the mainstream scientific view. The Big
Bang theory describes the universe as originating
in an infinitely tiny, infinitely dense point or
singularity between 13 to 14 billion years ago.
The essential statement of the theory is usually
attributed to the Belgian Roman catholic priest
Georges Henri Joseph Edouard Lemaitre in 1927
even before Hubble’s corroborating evidence.
 Oscillating universe (1930)
This was Einstein’s favoured model after he
rejected his own original model.
The oscillating universe followed the general
theory of relativity equations of the universe
with positive curvature, which results in the
universe expanding for a time and then
contracting due to the pull of its gravity in a
perpetual cycle of Big Bang, followed, in time,
by Big Crunch.
Steady State universe (1948)
 Fred Hoyle – English
astronomer
 Austrians Thomas Gold
and Herman Bondi
 This theory predicted a
universe that expanded
but did NOT change its
density with matter being
inserted into the universe
as it expanded in order to
maintain a constant
density.
 Inflationary universe (1980)
 Alan Guth – American
physicist
 This model is based on the
Big Bang
 He incorporated a short,
early period of exponential
cosmic inflation in order to
solve the horizon and
flatness problems of the
standard Bib Bang model.
Another variation of the
inflationary universe is the
cyclic model developed by
Paul Steinhardt and Neil
Turok in 2002 using
superstring theory.
 Multiverse ( 1983)
 Andrei Linde- Russian-  The American physicist
American physicist Hugh Everette III and
 This theory sees our Bryce Dewitt had
universe as just one of initially developed and
many “Bubbles” that popularized the “ many
grew as a part of a worlds” formation of
multiverse. the multiverse in the
1960s and 1970s.
Multiverse ( 1983)
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