Perhaps, he reasoned in a provocative paper, our utterly massive cosmic expanse might've begun as a singular, teeny tiny point some 14 billion years ago.

And on December 31, the national public-service broadcaster for the Flemish Community of Belgium -- the Vlaamese Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie, or VRT -- recovered something quite remarkable.

Better yet, this treasured roll of footage, which aired in 1964, is of an interview with the esteemed physicist where he discusses what he calls the "primitive atom hypothesis," aka the basis of his iconic Big Bang theory.

The interview itself was conducted in French -- and is available with Flemish subtitles if you want to watch it online -- but in an effort to make the film more broadly available, experts published a paper this month that provides an English translation of the nearly 20-minute clip.

On this front, Lemaître points out the beliefs of astronomer Fred Hoyle, who at the time had firmly promoted the fact that our universe is "immutable," or static.

In conjunction with Hubble's observations, a 1927 paper written by Lemaître eventually helped convince the majority of astronomers our universe is absolutely ballooning outward.