Both the Steady State and Big Bang interpretations had relied not just on math and observation but on speculation. They were modern counterparts to Copernicus’s attempt to save the appearances; they were theories in need of evidence. And just as Galileo, with the aid of the telescope, had detected the celestial phenomena that decided between an Earth-centered and a Sun-centered cosmos, forcing us to reconceive the universe, so radio astronomers, with the aid of a new kind of telescope, were now detecting the evidence that decided between the Steady State and Big Bang cosmologies, necessitating
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