 In the 60s, there was still a big debate about the origins of the universe. There was this theory known as the Big Bang theory, that the universe began with this as a sort of very, very small, hot, dense state that expanded rapidly to give birth to the universe as we know it. But there was another view, which was the steady state theory, which is that the universe had always been here, and it's been expanding forever, and basically new stuff kind of appears and fills in the gaps, so the universe is eternal and doesn't change.