The Big Bang did not occur

>>"A Belgian priest by the name of Georges Lemaitre was one of the first to receive attention for a big bang model. And his claim, which still stands today, was that all of matter was once squashed down into a "primeval atom." From this dense particle is where the big bang theorists claim our whole universe sprang." Lemaitre died in 1966 - there is plenty of time to revise his idea of the primeval atom. Clearly this is incorrect, even assuming true infinite density. Density is simply a measure of the space between particles. even assuming this space to be zero (infinite density), the totality of the matter in the universe would still occupy a space larger than that of an atom simply because of the size of the actual physical quarks, gluons, etc... The fundamental pieces of matter have a definite size. >>"The one problem I have with this is when a star implodes to a high density, it does not then explode." I will address this as said best by Wikipedia: "Within a massive, evolved star the onion-layered shells of elements undergo fusion, forming an iron core that reaches Chandrasekhar-mass and starts to collapse. The inner part of the core is compressed into neutrons, causing infalling material to bounce and form an outward-propagating shock front. The shock starts to stall, but it is re-invigorated by neutrino interaction. The surrounding material is blasted away, leaving only a degenerate remnant." As you can see - the stars DO indeed implode and then explode. I see no contradiction in positing that the tightly packed matter of the universe could have undergone a similar transformation. >>"With the cosmic background radiation, you explain it by stating that the would-be Virgo area may have cooled at a different rate. This is inconsistent with thermodynamics since all of the matter from the big bang was supposedly the same temperature. " I didn't attempt to introduce my answer as conclusive - only as a possibility. Another possibility could simply be that there is more matter in the direction of Virgo to emit CBR. >>"The claim I have always heard is that they cannot duplicate the conditions that would be present during the big bang." This is not entirely correct. Nobody knows EXACTLY the conditions that would have been present. Therefore, claiming to duplicate them is illogical. However, we can describe these conditions to the best of our knowledge using physics. Particle accelerators have verified that these physics are correct under conditions of temperature and density that we posit would have been present up to about 10^-28 seconds after the big bang. >>"On my point with the inflationary period of the big bang, you mention galaxies expanding from each other faster than the speed of light. This is not at all what the inflationary period refers to... This phenomenon supposedly took place between 10^-36 seconds and 10^-34 seconds after the big bang. It has the universe expand by a factor of 10^30. And although it is never blatantly mentioned, if you work out the math you can see that it does have matter travelling faster than the speed of light." At even 10^-30 seconds after the big bang, neutrons and protons are not even formed yet. So all we have are the fundamental pieces of matter (quarks, gluons, leptons, etc...) that we have observed to be capable of quantum tunneling in laboratory conditions. In essence, you're surprised that particles we've observed to move from place to place faster than photons did so before. I'm not surprised at all. >>"Valtonen, Mauri and Gene Byrd, "Redshift Asymmetries in System of Galaxies and the Missing Mass," The Astrophysical Journal, vol. 322 (1987)" How kind of you to provide a link... I can't find a text of that online. Dark matter is simply an explanation for what MAY cause the differences between predicted gravitational phenomenon and observed phenomenon. Clearly there is SOMETHING causing the changes. Whether it is dark matter or a misunderstanding of the complete nature of gravity is irrelevant - there's still some force other than "normal" matter that has a gravitational effect on "normal" matter. >>"So the big bang theorists added yet another fudge factor. This one they called "the period of primordial nucleosynthesis." It is supposedly in this period that most of the hydrogen and helium in the universe was created." Is it any surprise that when matter is cooling enough that it CAN form atoms that it would form the most simple ones first? This doesn't surprise me at all. Furthermore, nucleosynthesis in supernovae was confirmed in 1987 during the explosion of supernovae 1987A (how inventive)... The spectrograph readings showed gamma-ray lines of Co proved that the observed Fe was created by radioactive parent elements. >>"There have now been superclusters found that have been dated to be approximately 18 billion years old." I can't find any evidence to support this claim - a Google search on "18 billion year old supercluster" (no quotes) doesn't provide any verifying results, nor does the Wikipedia article on superclusters. >>"An age of 13.6 billion years would only allow 100 million years for cooling, clumping into a galaxy, having those galaxies attract each other to form clusters, and having those clusters attract to form superclusters." Considering the universe cooled at an exponential rate immediately following the big bang, this figure of 100 million years isn't surprising at all. The universe cooled from 3 QUADRILLION degrees Celsius to a mere Billion in about 3 minutes.... ************************************* It's certainly possible that the big bang model we have now is incomplete. However this does not by any means indicate that it is incorrect. Perhaps the universe is much older than we believe and cooled at a slower rate. That alone would explain many of your objections. I believe you and be warranted in asserting that the theory of the big bang is not complete, but not that it is incorrect. Every time we crash more stuff together in a particle accelerator, we get closer to understanding this phenomenon, and I believe we're getting closer with our advances in quantum mechanics. All in all, you've provided evidence that our theory is incomplete, not that the event it attempts to describe could not have happened.