[Ads-l] Antedating of "Big Bang Theory"

[Shapiro, Fred]

Dave is correct that Fred Hoyle used "big bang" in 1949.  This is one of the major scientific word-coinages of the 20th century.  In 2014 I contributed this exact citation to the OED.

In my posting yesterday I was not purporting to present the earliest citation for "big bang."  I was only presenting the earliest citation for the specific term "big bang theory."

Fred Shapiro

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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of dave at wilton.net <dave at WILTON.NET>
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2024 6:28 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Big Bang Theory"


Correction: I copied the wrong citation into the email (Hoyle used the term again a year later). The correct one is:

Hoyle, Fred. “Continuous Creation.” The Listener, 7 April 1949, 568. Gale Primary Sources: The Listener.


-----Original Message-----
From: "dave at wilton.net" <dave at WILTON.NET>
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2024 6:24am
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Antedating of "Big Bang Theory"



I have it from March 1949. A BBC radio broadcast, astronomer Fred Hoyle speaking, with a transcript published a few days later:

Hoyle, Fred. “Man’s Place in the Expanding Universe.” The Listener, 9 March 1950, 420–21. Gale Primary Sources: The Listener.

"We now come to the question of applying the observational tests to earlier theories. These theories were based on the hypothesis that all the matter in the universe was created in one big bang at a particular time in the remote past."

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-----Original Message-----
From: "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
Sent: Monday, May 27, 2024 7:17pm
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: [ADS-L] Antedating of "Big Bang Theory"



Big Bang theory (OED 1959)

1951 _Sunday Mail_ (Brisbane) 30 Sept. 7/2 (Newspapers.com) The big bang theory about creation being a matter of 15 minutes – 3000,000,000 years ago.

Fred Shapiro

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