The document describes several historical theories on the origin and structure of the universe from ancient times through the 20th century. These include: the Hindu cyclical universe theory; the Greek theories of a primordial mixture and atomic universes; the geocentric Aristotelian and Ptolemaic universes; the heliocentric theories of Aristarchus and Copernicus; Newton's static universe; the nebular hypothesis; Einstein's static universe; and the modern Big Bang theory formulated by Lemaitre that the universe began in a hot, dense state around 13.7 billion years ago.

1. EARTH
SCIENCE 11
STEM

2. THEORIES ON THE ORIGIN OF THE
UNIVERSE

3. Cyclical or
Oscillating
Universe
• The Hindu ancient 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 planets and all of space
expands out of a single
concentrated point called a Bindu
before subsequently collapsing
again

4. Primordial
Universe
• The Greek Philosopher
Anaxagoras believed that the
original state of the cosmos
was a primordial mixture of all
of its ingredients, which
existed in infinitesimally small
fragments of themselves.

5. Atomic
Universe
• Formulated by Greek philosophers
Leucippus and Democritus
• Founded the school of Atonism where
they held that universe was 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.

6. Aristotelian
universe
• Aristotelian Universe -The Greek
philosopher Aristotle, in the 4th
Century B.C., established a
geocentric universe in which the
fixed, spherical Earth is at the
centre, surrounded by concentric
celestial spheres of planets and
stars.

7. Stoic
Universe
• The Stoic philosopher of ancient
Greece believed that the universe
is like a giant living body, with its
leading part is being the stars and
the Sun in which all parts ar
interconnected.
• What happens in one place affects
what happen elsewhere.

8. Heliocentric
Universe
• The Greek astronomer and
mathematician Aristarchus of
Samos was the first person to
present an explicit argument for a
heliocentric model of the solar
system, placing the Sun , not the
Earth at the center of the known
universe.

9. Ptolemaic
Universe
• The Roman-Egyptian
mathematician and astronomer
Cladius Ptolemaus described a
geocentric model of the universe
based on the theory of Aristotle
in which the planets and the rest
of the universe orbit a stationary
Earth in circular epicycles.

10. Abrahamic
Universe
• Christian philosopher John
Philoponus of Alexandria was
the first to argue that the
universe is finite in time and
therefore had a beginning.

11. Partially
Heliocentric
Universe
• Somayaji Nilakantha of the Kerala
School of astronomy and
mathematics in southern India
developed a computational system
for a partially heliocentric planetary
model in which the planets Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn
orbited the Sun, which in turn orbited
the Earth.

12. Copernican
Universe
• The polish Astronomer Nicolaus
Copernicus adapted the geocentric
Maragha of ibn al-Shatir to meet the
requirements of the heliocentric
universe of Aristarchus.

13. Cartesian
Vortex universe
• The French Philosopher René
Descartes outlined a model of
the universe with many of the
characteristics of Newton’s
static, infinite universe. His
model involved a system of huge
swirling whirlpools of fine matter
producing what would later be
called gravitational effects.

14. Static or
Newtonian
Universe
• Sir Isaac Newton 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
gravitationally balanced but
essentially unstable.

15. Hierarchal
universe
and the
nebular
hypothesis
• This was 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 a similar model was
proposed by Frenchman Pierre-
Simon Laplace in 1796.

16. 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 or contracting. But
later abandoned this theory when
Hubble in 1929 showed that the
universe was not static.

17. Big Bang
Model of the Universe
• Formulated by Abbe Georges Edouard
Lemaître (1894-1966)
• Belgian cosmologist and priest
• Born in 1894 in Charleroi, Belgium
• This theory explains that the universe
developed 13.7 billion years ago and
started as a very dense and hot
“singularity” which eventually cooled
and began to form different particles.

19. ½
Crosswise
1. In your opinion, which of the
theories do you believe the most?
2.What is the fate of the universe?
Will the universe continue to expand
or will it eventually contract because
of gravity?