1993 Big Science : Big Bang Vs Steady State

Big Science was a Saturday morning show although whether it was aimed at kids or adults I couldn't fathom. I remember being taught the big bang when I was at school - all matter and energy (or stuff) was squished into a tiny dot, then it exploded and eventually tuened into stars, planets etc. etc. Now this made perfect sense - if the universe was expanding (observable) then reversing that meant it would have come from a single point - of course as a child I never thought beyond that. Of course now as an adult, the cause of the big bang is more of interest rather than if there was even one in the first place. Some of todays theories are - Holographic Cosmology where the universe began as a dense liquid of black holes due to an entropy density limit, or M-theory and Ekpyrotic theory with its many coliding membrane universes held in a higher dimensional bulk. Steady State which (excuse the pun) has been around for ever, a fragmenting universe where our own universe broke off from a 'mother universe' and inflated into what we see today. Throw in a healthy dose of dark energy, negative or anti-gravity, inflation, 11 dimensions of string, the many worlds of the quantum multiverse, Einstein-Bose superfluid condensates, retro-causality due to quantum entanglement, dark matter, supersymmetry.....then multiply it all by a really hot cup of tea and you end up with the uinverse we know and love today. (As the universe is so weird, one can't help but fall into a bit of Douglas Adams occaisionally.) Crucially, each of the mentioned scenarios makes unique and testable predictions - they are quantatative. Other scenarios such as the six days of creation, talking snakes, angels, burning bushes, unicorns, virgin births ending in the rapture - or being sneezed out of the left nostril of a great beast - or being shat out the arse of another being as one creation myth has it - by comparison are a little hard to take seriously. I have no idea what kids are taught in school today, I imagine the big bang is still there as it features so heavily in our theories - though whether it is taught as the ultimate start of the universe or simply a phase in its evolution that resulted in our own eventual existence, may be a bit deep. Playlist link http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B5DE2034D1D9C774