Big Bang Critics

This thread is intended to explore the extent and the content of fundamental criticisms of Big Bang cosmology from within the scientific establishment.It is prompted by Message 74 of another thread, by buzsaw. Another reference for Big Bang critics is An Open Letter to the Scientific Community, which appeared in New Scientist, May 22-28 issue, 2004, p. 20, under the title Bucking the Big Bang, by Eric Lerner. It has 34 signatures, all of whom are scientists in one way or another. Since then, the letter has been available for more people to sign. At present there are 215 more names that claim to be scientists or engineers, and 50 names who do not so claim.I welcome the continued criticism of mainstream ideas, and the raising of unconventional alternatives. The alternatives also must be subject to robust criticism; it is far more common for unconventional ideas to be wrong than for them to become confirmed.The great advantage of the Internet that mavericks can bypass conventional peer review and make their views available. The disadvantage is that absolute screaming cranks can do the same thing, and it can be hard to tell the difference.It is crucial for any evaluation to actually learn about and understand as far as possible the models involved; both the standard and the various alleged alternatives. I list here briefly of some of the major names showing up in buzsaw’s post and in the letter I have cited, but without much detail. I would be very glad for the thread to look into any of these in more detail, by supporters or critics.1. Eric Lerner. I read his book years ago, and was initially impressed. Later I was rather dismayed at its distortions. Lerner advocates a plasma cosmology, allegedly developing ideas of the great plasma physicist Hannes Alfvn. Lerner is strongly opposed to an origin in time for the universe, an idea which he considers to be religious. I don’t actually take Lerner very seriously, but he is better than some. I confess that although knowing about Lerner and his ideas, I was not considering him a scientist at all. Others will disagree, and I won’t pursue such a matter of definitions. I would welcome a concrete discussion of any of his ideas.2. Hannes Alfvn (1908-1995). Alfvn was an outstanding scientist of enormous ability, a willingness to take on established convention, and an ability to win in the conflict. He won the Nobel prize in 1970 for fundamental work and discoveries in magneto-hydrodynamics with fruitful applications in different parts of plasma physics. Yet all his life he had trouble with recognition and with peer review. The biography I have cited is excellent and inspiring reading. As a particular caution to myself in trying to identify real scientists, note this extract: Alfvn was also a critic of the Big Bang, but this was one area in which he did not manage to prevail against the odds. Like Lerner, Alfvn seemed to consider the Big Bang a basically religious idea proposed to prop up the notion of creation. Quoting the cited biography: Despite Alfvn’s ability, this is flatly wrong. Big Bang cosmology, right or wrong, is not merely myth, but a plain empirical model, guided and constrained by observations, and however surprising this may be to secular scientists it has managed to restore the notion of an origin in time to the universe in spite of the philosophical difficulties this presented to many unbelievers. Furthermore, although Lerner and others cite Alfvn as their inspiration, Alfvn’s own model has failed and later and less competent supporters have actually made substantial modifications. Stayed tuned on Alfvn; his insights on plasma in the cosmos may continue to be confirmed in various ways as physics continues to develop, even given the basics of Big Bang expansion.3. Halton Arp. Arp is who I had in mind when I said, in another thread, that I could think of one living scientist who might speculate on an infinite universe. Arp does not actually have a clear alternative to the Big Bang. He rather has a particular line of argument or evidence that a major proof of expansion is incorrect, and therefore that the Big Bang is on weak ground. He speculates somewhat on alternative models, but primarily he is concerned with refuting the empirical basis of the existing model. He believes that there are physical connections between objects with very different redshifts, and that this contradicts the link between redshift and expansion. Nearly all astronomers consider that his claim of a physical connection is incorrect, and refuted by careful observation. It is a long running dispute. but most astronomers consider it finished business. My amateur reading of Arp’s papers and those of his critics suggest to me that the critics are right in this.4. Tom van Flandern. Tom fits in the category of relativity crank. I don’t take him at all seriously. His argument is primarily based on his involvement with Global Positioning Satellites. He claims that measurements and specifics of information from GPS refute Einsteinian relativity. Actually, it shows that van Flandern does not understand relativity. Nothing on earth will ever persuade him to admit such a thing, so debating him is pointless. But the facts of the matter are unambiguous. He qualifies as a nut. His comments on the Big Bang are not original, or wrong, and usually both. With respect to cosmology we should go to more primary sources for alternatives and criticism.5. Vincent Sauv aka SpaceTimer. I had never heard of this guy before buzsaw cited his pages. He is an exclusively secondary source, and does not claim to be either a scientist or an engineer. Hence we can ignore him; his arguments are merely repeated from others.6. Edwin Hubble (1884-1953). This is a fun entry, because Hubble’s name is now clearly associated with the rate of expansion of the universe, and he is widely credited as discovering the expansion. Yet Hubble himself had very little to say about expansion, and indeed preferred alternative explanations for the redshift/distance relation he discovered. Many biographies credit him with discovering expansion; which is true in a way. Yet he himself was a sceptic. This is a mere historical curiosity; and cannot be developed into a coherent criticism of modern Big Bang cosmology. Hubble is rightly lauded for his many discoveries and contributions to modern cosmology. But the actual numbers he obtained in the original work were off by a factor of about 8, and interpreted as expansion would have meant a universe only 2 billion years old or so. He had good reason to be sceptical of such a conclusion; but the source of the numeric errors is now understood and resolved.7. Andre Koch Torres Assis. This is not a name I had seen previously; but I know the model. Assis is an advocate of a tired light model for redshift, and a universe infinite in space and time. I’ve learned something here; I acknowledge that Assis clearly fits the category of another scientist advocating an infinite non-expanding universe. Tired light is another unconventional idea, which is widely considered to be thoroughly refuted by the evidence, most especially by recent studies of supernova light curves. It was a good idea, and no doubt Assis will continue to try and defend it; but supernova data has put the nail in the coffin of this model. I suspect Assis’ attempt to resurrect the corpse is futile, but good luck to him anyway.This list is incomplete. I would be glad for others to propose other names or models. I’ve focussed on the people or models I knew of and who appeared somewhere in Buzsaw’s post.Cheers -- Sylas

Indeed, the "ekpyrosis universe" is fascinating stuff.However, it is not an alternative to the Big Bang, so much as an explanation of the Big Bang.Think not "alterative to", but "alternative of".Quoting your page, with my emphasis: One key point about this model is that it does away with the need for an inflationary epoch to expansion to explain the homogeneity of the universe. (Or does it? This is disputed!)The concluding paragraph of the article is also a useful bit of common sense: In short, this is a very exciting idea, which has the potential to resolve various difficulties in the conventional formulation. But it is a new kid on the block, and the streets are littered with corpses. Don't bet the farm, but keep an eye on developments. The theory has taken some solid hits in debate, and it remains to be seen how well it engages them.Bear in mind that this model makes no fundamental difference to the standard model, unless you are very close to the singularity. It proposes an explanation for how expansion got started. It puts that in the context of an enternal universe; so in common with many critics of the Big Bang, this model avoids the philosophically troubling origin in/of time.Cheers -- Sylas

Based on a question by Percy in the other thread, I will add to my initial list...8. Paul Marmet. Paul Marmet is not someone I had heard of before today. A web search confirms him as a good addition to my list. Paul Marmet is a Canadian physicist with excellent credentials as a scientist, but may also rank high on a crank indicator. He left the University of Ottowa under difficult circumstances in 1999. His side of the story is given in the link.Paul Marmet is part of the plasma cosmology challenge, similar to Eric Lerner and based on ideas shared with Hannes Alfvn, in the original post. His main area of expertise is atomic physics, and he has proposed an alternative explanation for the redshift/distance relation, based on interactions of photons with the inter-galactic medium. The usual criticism of this is that such interactions should result in some angular dispersion, with a consequent blurring of distant objects. No such blurring is seen, and most scientists consider that a falsification of the model. Marmet addresses this in the paper I linked above; but the response seems weak; he seems to assert only that there are so few interactions that dispersal is not measurable. This seems inconsistent with high redshift observations; but I am open to persuasion on this.More disturbing are his comments on relativity. His criticisms of the Big Bang include some classic and trivial errors made by those who can’t handle relativity. He claims that the extreme density of the Big Bang should have resulted in collapse into a Black Hole. This is the kind of basic error that an undergraduate should be expected to correct in a first course on general relativity. A quick hunt around suggests that Martin is another person who does not understand relativity and thinks his own errors on the matter correspond to meaningful criticism.Marmet shares with Lerner and Alfvn a strong atheistic aversion to the Big Bang; considering it an essentially creationist notion and unacceptable philosophically.This is a quick summary, with no real depth. Anyone who wishes to pursue this or defend Marmet’s ideas further, feel free; but it does not look very promising to me.Cheers -- Sylas

Ah! I think I get it. Gravity waves are a prediction of relativity for all kinds of cases: supernova, binary stars, etc. But if inflation would be expected to produce gravity waves, then this should form a kind of "background radiation" like the microwave background; but a background of gravity waves from far far earlier in the universe. Is that the idea?Have you a good reference?Gravity wave detectors are just now starting to be built, and they are not sensitive enough to detect anything but pretty dramatic waves; probably detecting inflation background is way out of the question for the time being. But I'm guessing.Cheers -- Sylas

9. Geoffrey R. Burbidge. This should be interesting... Burbidge is not a signatory to the open letter, but he is in the news, with his colleagues, right now; for the alleged discovery of a high red shift quasar in the heart of the comparatively nearby galaxy NGC 7319. Halton Arp is one of the participants in this research, and it is a classic case of evidence for Arp's long time claim for close association of high redshift objects with comparatively nearby galaxies.The basis for association in this case is proximity only; but what a proximity. Here is a news release from UCSD, dated Jan 10 2005: Discovery By UCSD Astronomers Poses A Cosmic Puzzle: Can A 'Distant' Quasar Lie Within A Nearby Galaxy? Here is a deep linked image from that release with the quasar indicated: The discovery is scheduled to be formally reported in the February 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.Burbidge advocates what he calls Quasi-Steady State Cosmology. Fred Hoyle, who died in 2001, is the major name with the original Steady State model; and he has been actively involved with Burbidge in this variant up until his death.Anyone know more?Cheers -- Sylas

Come on, Eta, give a bit here. You're an expert on this; the rest of us are not. The point of these discussions is in large part education. You don't consider this a problem; my hope is that you might help explain why not, gently, bearing in mind that the rest of us are not quite as up on the details.One alternative for scientists to insist that they don't need to explain what is obvious to them. This backfires; it gives a reputation of being aloof and arrogant. The rest of us can probably figure it out; but unreliably. Some help and some references would be great. Why else are you even here?I know a little bit more about the history of this than I gave in the first post. The galaxy in question is part of "Stephan’s Quintet"; which is well known in this particular debate. This is a group of five galaxies, very close to one another in the sky. One galaxy in particular has a small redshift, and is also the biggest. This is conventionally considered much closer, and just happens to be in the line of sight. Three others show signs of gravitational interaction: collisions. This is no problem, because they are at the same redshift. Burbidge and Arp have argued way back from 1961 that all five galaxies are interacting and hence are at the same distance, but they have failed to make an adequate case. (I had previously simply associated Arp with this. The name Burbidge is new to me today.)That a quasar is now seen in this group as well is serendipitous for Arp and Burbidge; but nearly all astronomers will consider it another case of objects at different distances just happening to be in the same line of sight.Arp has a statistical argument that such proximities occur more frequently than could be expected by chance. Arp made a fairly basic error in this analysis, which has been pointed out and which he has (reluctantly) acknowledged; but now represents in a revised form that is not convining anyone much either. At least, that is how I read the matter; and I don't now recall the papers in which this was debated.This new report contains other arguments based on shockwaves or whatever that there is a physical interaction with the new quasar; and I cannot evaluate those arguments.Looking into this a bit more, I see that in Oct 2000 a new high resolution image of the quintent from Hubble was able to give much better detail, even resolving individual stars in the closest of the five galaxies, NGC 7320. This put the original Burbidge/Arp argument to bed. See Photo - heic0007: Stephan's Quintet - A Mammoth Cosmic Collision. This images shows that the quintent is a trio, with two other galaxies in the same line of sight. The quasar is surely the same; but it's going to get thrashed out in the professional literature, it seems.As for the quasi-stead state model Burbidge is advocating; I know nothing much about that at all.Cheers -- Sylas

The density of the IGM is order of magnitude 1 particle for a cubic meter. We were throwing that number around in some other threads; it is a bit high but I'm feeling generous.A light year is about 10^16 meters. A billion light years is a long way to look; and ten billion is getting to the limits of vision. So say the longest distance we see is about 10^26 meters. To do this, we have to get past about 10^26 particles per unit area.Now the atmosphere has about 2.7*10^25 particles per cubic meter at sea level.Looking through ten billion light years of IGM is about the same as looking through four meters of atmosphere. In fact, I suspect four meters of atmosphere is worse, as the particles involved are bigger.Sorry, peaceharris. You are not even close to the ball park on this one.Cheers -- SylasThis message has been edited by Sylas, 04-25-2005 04:19 AM

Because of your presentation of this as some kind of refutation of Eta’s perfectly conventional description of consequences from basic physics in the tired light thread.In this thread, Eta explained that the typical photon gets across the IGM without ever hitting a particle. He's right. This is demonstrated by lack of blurring in distant images. This also rules out particle interactions as a way of giving rise to the cosmological redshift, because the cosmological redshift works smoothly over the whole spectrum. This means that the particle interaction model of various tired light advocates is a total non-starter.And yet, in response to general comments about lack of scattering in this thread, you brought in a quote from the tired light thread you had found some kind of inconsistency with the conventional physics of Lyman-alpha absorption lines!For reference, you quoted Message 287. Others may like to look it up. It's a good post, as are the other explanations provided in that thread. And yet somehow, you seem to think comments about scattering in this thread have some applicability as a refutation of Eta's physics in that thread! Indeed, your post concluded with the bizarre non-sequitur: "So you can rest assured that the excuse given for not being able to see the Lyman-beta line is nonsense."Eta got a bit testy at such a response, which is understandable; particularly when it dragged in an unlinked quoted from an old thread, repeated here with no apparent understanding of the argument. I know it is aggravating. Eta really is an expert, and we're lucky to have him.Some of the admins, including myself, like to lean on Eta now and again to see if we can get him to calm down a bit, and spend more time explaining carefully and in patient detail for general readership precisely why an argument like yours is wrong; without worrying about any failure to convince you in particular. The game is not to give up when the obtuse fail to be convinced. The game is to explain with a wry grin and gentle good humour enough basic physics for the rest of us capable of learning, so that we can all share in a belly laugh. That is a valuable contribution.Basically, absorption is highly preferential. The typical photon has no problem. But if a photon has a wavelength of 1216 Angstroms, neutral hydrogen absorbs the photon very effectively indeed. Send light through a good sized cloud of neutral hydrogen, and that wavelength is removed, giving a dark line in the spectrum.Furthermore, photon wavelength increases as they travel through expanding space. There is a window of opportunity during its long journey when a photon is at those special frequencies where hydrogen is opaque. If there just happens to be a cloud of hydrogen over that small fraction of the journey where the photon is at 1216 Angstroms, (or one of the other particular wavelengths in the Lyman alpha or beta absorption lines) then that photon has lost the lottery, and is likely to be absorbed.That's why you get an alpha Lyman forest, and also forests for the other absorption lines. A photon that survives at the Lyman-beta wavelength can still get absorbed later at the longer Lyman-alpha wavelengths, and that is why the beta lines can get lost in the noise.Your final comment: Surreal! Summing a "forest". What a concept. It is as if you don't even recognize that it is a forest; a recognizable set of discrete absorption lines.Cheers -- SylasThis message has been edited by Sylas, 04-27-2005 03:09 AM{Adminnemooseus note: After a fair effort, I managed to track down (in message 12) what "IGM" means. It is "intergalactic medium". It would be nice if such abreviations would be defined at least once in every message they are used in.}This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 04-27-2005 03:41 AM