BANG! The Big Bang Festival in Leuven
The city of Leuven is hosting a series of exhibitions and events based around the famous discovery made within its walls, that of the theory on the origins of the cosmos. This large-scale urban cultural festival of art and science is open until 30 January!
Few people know it, but the Big Bang theory was formulated in Leuven. This innovative hypothesis on the beginnings of the universe was the work of the Belgian Georges Lemaître. This concept, described at the time as the "day without yesterday", and which postulated that the universe is in perpetual expansion, was far from unanimously accepted in 1931. Albert Einstein is said to have told the Belgian, "Your calculations are correct, but your physics is abominable."
Georges Lemaître has since been acknowledged by his peers and is now associated with a festival of exhibitions and conferences in various venues, such as the M Leuven Museum (Imagining the Universe), the University Library (Beyond Time) and the Parcum Dialogue Museum (An Eternal Gaze). Rarely seen archives from the scientist's life will be accessible to the public. This is an opportunity to better understand the scientific process that led to the discovery of the Big Bang theory, from Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity to its current extension, Stephen Hawking's multiverse theory.
Modern and contemporary works of art sit harmoniously side-by-side with these scientific demonstrations, allowing themes such as time, space, dimensions, geometry and the size of the universe to be approached in a way that is more playful and accessible to all.
If you want to escape "beyond time", don't miss out on a cosmological visit to the Bang! Big Bang Festival. And before your visit, discover Georges Lemaître and his Big Bang theory on our website.