"There
are an increasing number of observational facts which are difficult to reconcile
in the Big-Bang hypothesis. The Big Bang establishment very seldom mentions
these, and when non-believers try to draw attention to them, the powerful
establishment refuses to discuss them in a fair way..."Hannes Olof Gösta Alfven(Nobel Prize for Physics in 1970).
"Cosmology: Myth or Science?" in Journal of Astrophysics
and Astronomy 5 (1970), p. 1203. To top
Origin of theory - red
shift.The classical
illustration of the Doppler effect is a person standing on a railway platform as
a train speeds towards him and past him with the whistle blowing. As it
approaches, the pitch of the whistle is high, but as it passes the observer, the
pitch drops. This is caused by the relative motion of the sound source and the
observer, the sound wave frequency being increased as the two draw closer and
decreased as the two move apart (Back, 2003). Doppler considered that this same
shift of frequency should also apply to light waves and this was later found to
be true. It was found that when a light source moves away from an observer, the
lines in the visible spectrum shift towards the red end of the spectrum and this
phenomena came to be known as red shift (Back, 2003).
In the 1890's the Lick Observatory in California began to
track and chart the velocity of many stars and by 1914 the radical velocities of
400 stars and fourteen spiral nebulae had been determined. The results
showed that the majority of spiral nebula whose spectra had been plotted
appeared to be moving away from us (Back, 2003). These observations coupled with
similar observations by other including Edwin Hubble were considered
proof that the universe is expanding and if it is expanding it must have been
smaller in the past. It was reasoned that there must have been a time when all
the material in the universe was gathered together in one point and so the Big
Bang theory was born. Based on speeds that had been inferred by red shift
observations of galaxies, it was estimated that this Big Bang occurred about 15
to 20 thousand million years ago (Back, 2003). To top
Typical summary.
A typical summary of the Big Bang theory up to the point of evolution of the
galaxies is given in the following quotation, taken from the Greenwich Guide
to Stars, Galaxies and Nebulae (from Malin, S, 1989, quoted in Burgess S,
2001).
"This is how the Universe
started about 15 billion years ago....Everything in the Universe was jam packed
together in one place as a super dense blob....The Universe suddenly came into
existence all at one place with an almighty bang, incomparably more powerful
than anything that has happened since, which flung material far out into space
and was directly responsible for the expansion of the universe that is still
going on.....By the time the Universe was 1/10,000th of a second old, quarks and
mesons forged in the inferno, the temperature had dropped to a million million K
and the density was down to 10 million million times that of lead....As the Big
bang continued, the Universe spread out and its temperature and density dropped
allowing for sub-atomic particles to form. By the time 10 seconds had elapsed,
many sub-atomic particles were welded together to form the nuclei of
atoms....Radiation - energy in the form of heat and light - continued to
dominate for the next million years, by which time the temperature had dropped
to below 10,000K....After the first million years elapsed, the Universe was a
huge cloud of uniform, thin gas rather hotter than the surface of the
sun....Over many millions of years, the Universe became divided up into
innumerable blobs of gas which would eventually become clusters of galaxies. At
the same time, the Universe continued to expand, increasing the distance between
the blobs....Within the blobs, the same process was going on, on a smaller
scale, with each one breaking up into millions of much smaller blobs which would
make stars. When a galaxy was still composed of gas, collisions between
particles would be quite frequent, and this would help the process of knocking
the galaxy into its final shape." To top
Objections to the Big Bang
theory. In New
Scientist magazine of 22-May-04, page 20 there is an article entitled Bucking
the Big Bang. In this article thirty-four scientists from ten countries
expressed their concerns about the big bang theory being deeply flawed. But
what causes so many leading scientists to have such concerns?
“The big bang today relies on a
growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed -
inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples. Without
them, there
would be a fatal contradiction between the observations made by
astronomers and the predictions of the big bang theory…
But the big bang theory can't
survive without these fudge factors. Without the hypothetical inflation field,
the big bang does not predict the smooth, isotropic cosmic background radiation
that is observed, because there would be no way for parts of the universe that
are now more than a few degrees away in the sky to come to the same temperature
and thus emit the same amount of microwave radiation.
Without some kind of dark matter,
unlike any that we have observed on Earth despite 20 years of experiments,
big-bang theory makes contradictory predictions for the density of matter in the
universe. Inflation requires a density 20 times larger than that implied by big
bang nucleo-synthesis, the theory's explanation of the origin of the light
elements. And without dark energy, the theory predicts that the universe is only
about 8 billion years old, which is billions of years younger than the age of
many stars in our galaxy.”
The following is an extract from an
article criticising the Big Bang theory written by a secular Scientist
and published in New Scientist (Oldershaw, R., 1990, quoted inHe
Made The Stars Also, by Burgess S, 2001).
"The Big Bang cosmological model
has several serious problems...When the original inflation model ran into
contradictions, it was replaced by a modification called the "new
inflation". When further problems arose, theorists postulated another
version called "extended inflation". Some have even advocated adding a
second inflationary period - "double inflation"...Let us consider some
of the problems.
First, the Big Bang is treated as an
unexplainable event without a cause.
Second, the Big Bang could not
explain convincingly how matter got organised into lumps (galaxies and clusters
of galaxies).
And thirdly, it did not predict that
for the Universe to be held together in the way it is, more than 90% of the
Universe would have to be in the form of some strange, unknown form of dark
matter.
Even the strongest piece of evidence
for the Big Bang has turned in on it. Matter is not found to be spread out
uniformly. Correspondingly, the left-over radiation should also be
inhomogeneous. Unfortunately, the results from the Cosmic Background explorer (COSBE)
satellite, recently launched to investigate the microwave background, has
revealed that this wash of radiation is relentlessly uniform. So it conflicts
with the theoretical Big Bang predictions. Nevertheless the theorist are
determined to hang on in there...Theorists also invented the concepts of
inflation and cold dark matter to augment the Big Bang paradigm and keep it
viable, but they too have come into increasing conflict with observations. In
the light of all these problems, it is astounding that the Big Bang hypothesis
is the only cosmological model that physicists have taken seriously". To top
Other problems:-
(a) There are inconsistencies in
the red shift data. The
following is a quote from Halton Arp, who published a catalogue of discordant
red shifts, although his work has largely been ignored, because it does not fit
in with current theories (Arp, 1982).
"It can not be stressed too
strongly, however, that these discordant red shifts are not discovered in just
one or two isolated cases that have no relation to each other. But in every case
we can test - large clusters, groups, companions to nearby galaxies, companions
to middle distance galaxies, companions linked by luminous filaments, galaxies
interacting gravitationally, chains of galaxies - in every conceivable
case, we come out with the same answer: the same discordant red shifts for the
same general class of younger, fainter galaxies" (Arp,
Evidence for discordant redshifts). To top
The most recent evidence for an out of place red shift
presented by Halton Arp et al has been published recently in the Astrophysical
Journal (10 February 2005). Arp and his fellow researchers have found a
quasar with an extreme red shift of z = 2.114 embedded within galaxy NGC 7319 with a red shift of only z
= 0.022. The reason they believe
the galaxy and quasar are connected is because of observed gaseous interaction
between the two. Evidence such as this strongly suggests that red shift has
nothing to do with distance, nor expansion.
(b) The red shift appears quantised.
Not only are red shifts appearing out of place, but there is also strong
evidenced that the red shift is quantised. This evidence was first published by
Tifft (1976), in Astrophysical Journal (206:38), and he gave a
quantised gap of 2.67 km/s. Others have subsequently confirmed these results,
and it would suggest that the red shift is caused by quantum mechanical affects
and does not have anything to do universe expansion. How can it be claimed for
instance that the universe expands by leaps and jumps?
(c) Confusing supernova.
Type Ia supernova explode with a known intensity, and therefore their distance
should correlate well with the observed red shift. However, some supernovas at
great distance have been found to be brighter than expected, and some nearer
have been found to be dimmer. The preferred solution is that the cosmological
constant, (the repulsive force sometimes called dark energy) was at first weaker
than thought when z <1.5, but then kicked in with a vengeance and today the
universe is thought to be expanding faster than expected with values of z
>1.5. However, this leads to many more anomalies. Other observations suggest
that the cosmological constant is either zero or very small, but nowhere near
enough to account for the expansion of the universe that the big bang theory
requires. Alain Blanchard of the European Space Agency stated that data
collected from the European XMM Space satellite ‘leaves little room for dark
energy.’ (ESA News release 12 December 2003).
(d) The first law of Thermodynamics
states that the total quantity of energy in the Universe is constant. Thus, the
cosmic egg could not come into being from nothing. Imagine the tremendous energy
of the universe. According to the Big Bang theory, we are asked to believe that
all this energy came into being from nothing!
"The conservation of energy -
one of the most cherished principle of physics - is violated by the Big Bang (Narlikar
and Padmanabhan, 1985)".
(e) Smooth space.
Another problem of the Big bang theory is that a violent explosion has led to a
finely ordered system of galaxies, solar systems, planets and moons, and near
perfect back ground radiation. However, we should not
expect an expanding universe with constant light speed to be smooth at all as
different parts would not be able to see beyond the event horizon. To overcome
the smoothness problem cosmologists invented inflation. However, this inflation
has never been observed, and even some of those who helped develop it, such as Andy
Albrecht, no longer find it a convincing explanation. Albrecht has subsequently
worked on variable light speed papers instead.
Explosions are anything but accurate!
"Explosions merely throw
matter out, but the Big Bang has mysteriously produced the opposite effect, with
matter clumping together in the form of galaxies".
Hoyle, 1983. To top
A Steady State universe and plasma cosmology as an
alternative to the big bang
While the Big Bang Theory faces serious problems there are
a number of alternatives that may appear attractive to those who look for
naturalistic origins. This is a further quote from the article Bucking the
Big Bang (New Scientist magazine of 22-May-04).
"Yet
the big bang is not the only framework available for understanding the history
of the universe. Plasma cosmology and the steady-state model both hypothesize an
evolving universe without beginning or end. These and other alternative
approaches can also explain the basic phenomena of the cosmos, including the
abundances of light elements, the generation of large-scale structure, the
cosmic background radiation, and how the red-shift of far-away galaxies
increases with distance."
However, there are serious problems with Steady State
theories, for a universe of infinite age and size. Sir Fred Hoyle originally
favoured the Steady State theory, but later abandoned it in favour of the big
bang. Hoyle’s Steady State Theory would require mass to be created and
increase with time for it to be stable against an apparent decrease in density.
There is also the problem of Olber’s paradox for a steady state universe of
infinite size and age. A universe infinitely old and infinitely large would have
a night sky that was white and not black, as photons of light would be arriving
from every possible direction. The thermodynamic law of entropy would also cause
the universe to become uninhabitable as energy runs down until it is unusable.
This suggests that if the universe exists today in a steady state, then it
cannot be infinitely old, but must have had a beginning.
The evidence therefore suggests that the
universe had a beginning and was stretched out in the past. Problems with the
big bang and red shift data suggest the universe may today be in a steady state
and no longer expanding.
How can creationists account for this evidence?It turns out that both of these statements agree with the Biblical
account of creation. Genesis shows God stretching out the heavens in the
beginning, and then proclaiming it perfect and resting from his labour.
Creationist response to cosmology.
Creationist scientists have proposed a number of possibilities to overcome the
distant starlight and age problem for a young universe. These are two of the
most popular:-
1. Barry
Setterfield has suggested that light is slowing down through time
after carefully examining measured speed of light decay from several hundred
years of readings (Norman
and Setterfield 1987). However, this data set is possibly too small to
draw wider conclusions. But there may be theoretical evidence that supports
speed of light decay from secular researchers. Albrecht and Magueijo (1999,
Phys. Rev. D. 59) have shown that a reducing speed of light can account for
the smoothness of space by overcoming the horizon problem. They proposed a
speed of light 1060 times greater than present speeds during the
early universe. Barrow (1999, Phys. Rev. D. 59) proposed also that light has
slowed through time.
More recently Setterfield has developed a creationist
cosmology that relies on the zero point energy that is known to exist from
quantum mechanics. Such evidence as this may lead to a theory of quantum
gravity or plasma cosmology and rejection of general relativity. A more
detailed write up of this can be found on Setterfield’s
website, but it basically demonstrates a slowing light speed through
time after the universe was stretched out by God in the beginning, and a
stable universe today.
2.
The most popular creationist cosmology has been given by physicist Dr D.
Russell Humphreys, in his book Starlight
And Time. This has become known as white hole cosmology,
which suggests the universe is like a black hole in reverse. He has made a
detailed study of Big Bang cosmology and has identified a number of
misconceptions. The more serious reader may consider buying this book or the
book by Dr
Paul Back which has quite a lengthy section on the origin of the
Universe and the measuring of time. To top
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