Steady-State Universe

The Steady-State Universe model, championed by astronomer Fred Hoyle in the 1940s, posits that the universe has no beginning and continuously creates matter to maintain a constant density as it expands—directly challenging the Big Bang's singular origin. For two decades, it was a serious rival, outperforming #7 Gaia Hypothesis in terms of mainstream scientific debate. However, the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965, which confirmed the Big Bang's predicted 2.7K thermal signature, dealt a fatal blow: today, 99.7% of cosmologists accept the Big Bang, while Steady-State is cited in fewer than 1% of annual cosmology papers. A concrete data point that sealed its fate: the CMB's blackbody spectrum matches Big Bang predictions within 0.005% accuracy, while Steady-State required ad-hoc explanations for its existence that never gained traction.