redwolf writes:
There are two kinds of basic problems with the "big bang" idea. One is that it is based on a totally wrong interpretation of redshift data. Halton Arp (
Halton Arp's official website),
DragonScience.com is for sale | HugeDomains etc. and others have shown multiple instances of high and low redshift objects which are clearly part and parcel of the same things, clearly refuting the entire basis of big-bang.
Redshift is not the entire basis of big-bang, and the associations proposed by Arp and others are not at all "clear". The data is of considerable interest and has been taken seriously and examined, but for the most part the claim of physical associations is weak and circumstantial. Some of Arp's work has included some surprising statistical howlers for such a prominent scientist. In my view, the associations seem to be due to occasional coincidences in alignment, which are bound to occur to some extent. The way to test whether this is a coincidence or not is by statistical analysis and more thorough surveys of galaxies and quasars. Arp's methodology in this respect is not good, with a strong bias towards false positives.
An interesting and dispassionate consideration of the data and the controversy is available at
Alternate Approaches and the Redshift Controversy, by William Keel at the University of Alabama.
This article does not, however, discuss the considerable body of evidence that confirms the conventional understanding of cosmological redshifts; such things as surveys of supernova light curves, and various independent distance estimates. This would also bear upon the wider claims made by redwolf.
As a matter of peripheral interest for this forum, Professor Keel is also an evangelical Christian. He has written an interesting article on science and religion. However, this is not really relevant to Keel's professional input on big bang cosmology and Arp's notions of red shift.
The associations proposed by Arp are interesting, but they don't fit a useful systematic pattern. His own explanations don't match the data; but that is a distinct matter from the question of whether or not there is a significant phenomenon here that requires a physical explanation at all.
I'm personally pretty certain that the cause is occasional coincidental alignment; but I continue to read with interest anything which explores the matter further. Keel also mentions ideas of Tifft and others on quantized red-shift, which have now been pretty solidly refuted with more detailed surveys enabled by space based observatories.
But the really big problems with the idea are philosophical. Show me a scientist who can expound the big bang idea and keep his face straight, and I'll show you a man who couldn't pass the most basic sort of a philosophy or logic course. In fact I'll show you a man who needs to be horsewhipped, the idea is so flagrantly ludicrous.
Having all the mass of the universe collapsed to a point would be the mother of all black holes; how's anything supposed to bang its way out of that?
Oops. You've just given the game away with this comment.
Both big bang space expansion and black holes are consequences of the physics of gravitation and general relativity. They both correspond to solutions of the equations of relativity; and they are not the same. The big bang is nothing remotely like a black hole. This misconception might arise from the usual error about thinking of the big bang as a dense particle in space, rather than as it really is, a space that is filled without limit or bound with matter and energy at very high density. They are different things entirely. To have a black hole, you need some empty space around the condensed matter. That is not the case with the big bang.
However, most usually this confusion between black holes and big bang is just because someone has absolutely no conception at all of the relevant modern relativistic physics. That is okay for someone wanting to learn, but when someone stands up and pontificates about how the whole body of modern physics needs to be horse whipped for being ignorant of philosophy and logic, then what we have is a crank.
Experience suggests there is no point trying to persuade redwolf on this matter; but that corrections are useful and interesting to readers who really want to understand a bit about the background and why his remarks are so silly.
Aside from that, time appears to stretch out to infinity both before us and behind us and to my knowledge, there is no evidence for believing anything else. Suppose a big bang DID occur 17 billion years ago.: is time supposed to have STARTED 17 billion years ago? If so, how and why? If not, then an infinite amount of time existed prior to the big bang; the mass of the universe would have sat there at its starting point literally forever prior to that event; why would a situation with an infinite past change?
Actually, there is evidence against time and space being infinite. The sky is mostly dark. This is called Obler's paradox, and the resolution is quite simply that time is finite. Space may or may not be finite; we don't know as yet.
Yes, time is supposed to have started 13.7 billion years ago. (This age is now nailed down fairly tightly; but stay tuned for more information and data anyway.) There is more we could say on this, but basically, the first stab at an answer to this question is simply "Yes".
"Why" is not really a question for science. "How" is not completely known as yet.
Are we supposed to believe that the universe goes through cycles of big bangs and then big contractions to the original everything-at-a-point condition? The big contraction would be an absolute violation of the second law of thermodynamics. In fact they don't even have enough real mass in a single galaxy to explain why it doesn't fly apart and are reduced to talking about "dark matter" supposedly making up 95% of the universe (you'd be vacuming the stuff up off your carpet every day if that were the case).
Big bang is a philosophical and scientific morass which competent scientists have given up on; like evolution it is only being defended by dead wood and second-raters at the present time.
You are not supposed to believe in cycles. That was once a serious speculative proposal, but never a matter for belief, and it is no longer particularly credible. As for dark matter, there are now several independent lines of evidence for its existence; even sufficient to make maps of the dark matter around some galaxies, by using techniques of gravitational lensing. I posted an image of such a map here some time ago; I forget which thread. The original basis for its detection was measuring orbital speeds of stars around a galaxy; not the need to have galaxies held together.
Big bang cosmology, and biological evolution, and now both scientific models that are supported by considerable bodies of independent empirical evidence, and are foundational in astronomy and biology; a bit like the periodic table is foundational in chemistry. The "second-raters" here would include the entire body of the major scientific organisations like the NAS or the Royal Society, and everyone who ever obtained a Nobel Prize in science in recent decades. That is not an argument for either model, of course; just a demonstration of how far redwolf has his own head buried in the sand.
Cheers -- Sylas
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