Discovery of the Day reminds us of the importance of April 1 — no, not April Fools:
Let’s Start With a Bang
April 1, 1948: A paper published in the Physical Review proposes that the universe was created through a massive event that caused it to expand rapidly. This idea, developed by physicist George Gamow and his graduate student, Ralph Alpher, was later ridiculed as the “Big Bang” theory, although it never mentioned an explosion. Follow the debate between “Big Bang” and the competing “Steady State” theory of the universe. And check out the inside joke included in the Physical Review paper.
And when you click on that last link to see the joke, be sure to scroll down to Dr. Victor Alpher’s response, in which he suggests the joke may not have been exactly as I described it earlier.
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 