• Question: What are your feelings on the recent show 'Richard Hammond builds a Planet'? And the fact that the big bang in-fact did not make as much sound as the name suggests?

    Asked by patrick2675 to Joel, Kristian, Tim, Venus, Zachary on 13 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Zachary Williamson

      Zachary Williamson answered on 13 Nov 2013:

      I’m afraid I’ve never watched that show. The Big Bang is a bit of a poor name though, it was coined by somebody trying to ridicule the theory by giving it a silly name!

    • Photo: Kristian Harder

      Kristian Harder answered on 13 Nov 2013:

      Actually, I haven’t seen this show either, but I read a few reviews now, and it sounds like not everyone liked it… Generally I think it’s a good idea for TV shows to try and explain science in simple terms. And it’s good that these shows are at different levels, from quite detailed down to veeeery simplified, so that everyone has a chance to learn about what science does, at a level that is suitable for them. Whether or not this particular show was suitable for its audience is of course something I can’t tell without having seen it.

      And yeah, the Big Bang was not particularly noisy, especially given that there wasn’t anything to carry sound waves away from it, and especially not faster than the universe expanded following the Big Bang. But it doesn’t really matter to me. It’s quite a catchy name, most people have at least a rough idea what it is about when they hear it, and that’s good enough. 🙂 And once people get to a level where they understand the Big Bang well enough to realize that the name may not be fully appropriate, well, at least it gives them something to talk and complain about. 😉

    • Photo: Joel Goldstein

      Joel Goldstein answered on 14 Nov 2013:

      I caught the last few minutes and quite enjoyed it – there was some interesting science and most of it was correct (which is not always the case….)
      I agree that the name “big bang” is somewhat unfortunate, as is the normal depiction of it as an explosion of matter out into an existing space. The truth is that space itself that is expanding, although I admit that’s much harder to picture.

    • Photo: Tim Hollowood

      Tim Hollowood answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      Richard Hammond’s show was pretty poor…my kids thought it was rubbish and I thought that there was not enough science.

      The name big bang is a bit silly because it gives the impression that space was already there and at some point in it there was an explosion. (And sound can’t travel through space.) In fact it’s would be better to call it the big birth or maybe the big ballon. Actually let’s go with the balloon analogy. Imagine you are a 2 dimensional being. Consider a balloon that gets inflated. From your point of view on the surface the whole of space is expanding and any point on the balloon looks like any other point. That’s how it was with our universe. Space was born and expanded and every point is the same. Also our universe went through a time of rapid inflation…

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