There is a huge following in the counter debate of Big Bang philosophy. However, many of these people appear to be more involved with tackling minor, yet complex, inconsistencies in Big Bang support rather than make concerted efforts to break down the more foundational issues.

The main issues are:-

1. Singularity, its presence and origin.
2. Bang, explosion, expansion, or whatever suddenly happened to the singularity and what ignited it.
3. If time did not exist before it was ignited, then it would seem that there was no before and therefore nothing to lead up to the point of ignition.
4. The assertion that it didn't blast out into space but rather took its space capacity with it, in an attempt to justify the denial that it actually had a center, even though it was originally smaller than an atom and now has a radius of some 13.7 billion light-years.
5. The observation of galaxies at the 13 billion light-year location, whose light has obviously taken 13 billion light-years to travel across space to reach our telescopes and yet they are claimed to be still there. How can that be so in an expanding universe? Logically they should have expanded on another 13 billion light-years since the light we are seeing left that source.
6. The complete silence on the issue of what is happening to the light shining away ahead of the expanding boundary that logically should be shining 13 billion-light years away through that boundary.

· So what is the mainstay for BB that makes it credible? Why is it 'the' be all and end all of the history of the universe to the point that no other view is even worth pursuing?

· Can a believer in Big Bang actually answer all my questions logically, rationally and so convincingly that even I will be swayed? Or should I say, I, and all the others who signed the Cosmological Statement

http://www.cosmology.info/newsletter/2006.12.html

Alternative Cosmology Group Newsletter - December 2006

Posted January 2, 2006

 

Reports on results that contradict the Michelson-Morley experiment and a related article on a flat-space theory of general relativity

A New Light-Speed Anisotropy Experiment: Absolute Motion and Gravitational Waves Detected
Authors: Reginald T Cahill (Flinders University)
http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/physics/0610076

Deriving the General Relativity Formalism: Understanding its Successes and Failures
Authors: Reginald T Cahill (Flinders University)
http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/physics/0611002

An apparently non-Doppler redshift of a few hundred m/s reported on just one spectral line form the Sun.

Sun-as-a-Star Spectrum Variations 1974-2006
Authors: W. Livingston, L. Wallace, O. R. White, M. S. Giampapa
http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0612554

This report shows evidence for compact clouds only a billion kilometers across.
(Editors note: I found this particularly interesting as plasma theory indicates that there should be a fractal hierarchy of magnetically confined filaments in intergalactic space. The clouds claimed would have the right density and size to fit into this hierarchy. However there are a number of assumptions involved and there are other explanations for the rapidly variable absorption lines.)

Strongly Variable z=1.48 MgII and FeII Absorption in the Spectra of z=4.05 GRB 060206
Authors: H. Hao, K. Z. Stanek, A. Dobrzycki, T. Matheson, M. C. Bentz, J. Kuraszkiewicz, P. M. Garnavich, J. C. Howk, M. L. Calkins, G. Worthey, M. Modjaz, J. Serven
http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0612409

Yet more problems with too-old galaxies. Some galaxies at z~1 seem older than the Big Bang and there is no Metallicity evolution for AGN as far back as z=4.5.

The Ages of Early-Type Galaxies at z~1
Authors: Sperello di Serego Alighieri, Alessandro Bressan, Lucia Pozzetti
http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0612047

Metallicity Evolution of Active Galactic Nuclei
Authors: Tohru Nagao (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), Roberto Maiolino (INAF Roma), Alessandro Marconi (Florence Univ.)
http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/a

All the above reports are great stuff, but they are open to debate and will not bring the walls of BB Jerico down, even if proven and publically acknowledged. DCH

1) Singularity, its presence and origin.

This object, said to contain the whole of the universe was smaller than an atom. When it was first thought of almost 80 years ago, it was believed that when it went bang, it spread out equally and radially in all directions. This was termed, Expansion, which infered that a centre from which it originated was locatable and that the universe was still expanding radially from that point. When the most distant observable galaxies where found, where nothing appeared to exist beyond, it was then assumed that here was the outer edge of the universe and that its encapsulation within space suggested that some sort of 'bladder' surrounded and contained it. What lay beyond the bladder is a sort of nothingness. Who knows - perhaps it's a super vacuum that is dragging the space that holds the universe out and away.

Oh no!, have I started something here? Was the singularity just sitting there minding its own business when this great vacuum force ripped it apart, and it didn't explode at all? No, couldn't be, or someone else would have thought of that idea years ago, - wouldn't they?????

If the laughter has all died down I'll continue.

2) Bang, explosion, expansion, or whatever suddenly happened to the singularity and what ignited it.

You see, this is the really tough one, because there was no pre-singularity. There was singularity and bang and that is when time started. At least that seems to be the main thought on the matter. However, there are those who believe that the singularity was the crunched embodiment of a previous universe. This means that our universe is expected to stop expanding in X billion years from now and all willl hurtle back into another singularity, thereby allowing the whole creation thing to repeat the process, time after time.

The great advantage of that idea is that it satisfies the theory of conservation and explains what the singularity was and where it came from. The great pity is that there won't be anyone observing the process and making a video of it.

3) If time did not exist before it was ignited, then it would seem that there was no before and therefore nothing to lead up to the point of ignition.

It looks as though I've answered that one as best I can, because there are at least two schools of thought on this crucial point.

4) The assertion that it didn't blast out into space but rather took its space capacity with it, in an attempt to justify the denial that it actually had a center, even though it was originally smaller than an atom and now has a radius of some 13.7 billion light-years.

I like this bit. Science has recently discovered that there appears to be no centre of the universe and that it is expanding every which way, depending upon from where you are observing it. From that idea, it doen't have to have a centre.

Now call me stupid or whatever you like, but, if something was once the size of a proton, yes a proton, expanded and became 27.4 billion lightyears across, to my stupified way of thinking it was once smaller than any full stop on this page, and some time later it's the size it is now. Forgive me for thinking that there is a huge comparison between what it was and what it became. Originally it was something I could have stepped over and not known it was there and now I would need trillions of lifetimes to even get part way across it in the fastest jet plane on earth. Then if it is still expanding, where is it expanding from?

Because I am deaf I've had experts peer into my ears with lights and scopes and things and nobody yet has said that they could look through from one side and out the other so I do have something in my head, otherwise i wouldn't remember them doing it. Here's the catch, Science has actually given a timeline of the event from bang, expansion etc., including temperature changes, transparency, creation of hydrogen, galaxies of stars and planets etc., all within the first billion years. What other way can one picture this? The centre was the minute spot from which all this occured so where was it? If it cannot be located then the whole event has no meaning.

5) The observation of galaxies at the 13 billion light-year location, whose light has obviously taken 13 billion light-years to travel across space to reach our telescopes and yet they are claimed to be still there. How can that be so in an expanding universe? Logically they should have expanded on another 13 billion light-years since the light we are seeing left that source.

When you switch on a light, the bulb stays where it is and the light streaks off in all directions. So starting from the first radiant bodies, 13 billion years old, up until now, those objects shining away out at the believed edge of the universe are doing exactly the same thing as a light bulb. Conservation demands that nothing escapes from the universe and is lost, so is it all being reflected back? There has to be an answer, so what is it?

We can only have cosmology as theoretical possibility. Therefore it is grossly unfair and, can I say, unscientific, to restrict other lines of investigation outside the bounds of Big Bang.