The Big Bang Had a Beginning

For most of history, scientists assumed the universe had always existed. No beginning, no end — just eternal matter in motion. That was the default position.

Then the 20th century arrived and changed everything.

In 1927, a Belgian priest and physicist named Georges Lemaitre (yes, a priest) proposed that the universe was expanding from an initial point. Most scientists thought he was wrong. Einstein himself told Lemaitre: "Your calculations are correct, but your physics is atrocious."

Then in 1929, Edwin Hubble confirmed it — galaxies are moving away from each other. The universe is expanding. And if you rewind that expansion like a film, everything converges to a single point. A beginning.