The Big Bang did not occur

>>"This does indeed show that the universe is expanding. But to draw the inference that our beginning must've begun with a singularity the size of an atom is a bit of a stretch." I plainly addressed this - nobody contends that the starting size of the universe was the size of an atom. >>"From the start there are two problems with this: the first is that there is no explanation as to why an infinitely dense singularity would suddenly explode, and the second deals with the expansion rate. When any type of explosion provides energy to move an object (or pieces of a bomb) it sets that object in motion with an initial velocity. That velocity should not increase or slow down unless it is acted upon by another force. In the case of the expanding universe, galaxies are actually accelerating away from one another. This energy could NOT have been provided by a big bang." First, the universe was not an infinitely dense singularity to begin with. Cosmologists contend that it had an extremely high density, yes, but not infinitely dense. As for the reason it would explode - it's pretty simple. The beginning of the universe was the same as a star, basically. The gravity of the mass present presses the atoms too closely together for the nuclear fusion to push back against and balance the size of the star. Essentially, the universe imploded and then exploded, just like an immense star. There is not enough information to postulate why galaxies are accelerating away from each other. However, we DO know that normal matter is only something like 6% of the matter in the universe. And only 10% of that is matter as we know it - the other 90$ is dark matter. And nobody knows what the other 94% of the universe is made of, only that it has properties that affect gravity. Seems to me that it's possible that this unknown stuff could be responsible for the movement of galaxies. There's also the possibility that spacetime is fundamentally curved, even in deep space (instead of the Euclidian spacetime we generally suppose to be out there) and that is causing part of it... >>"One of the main problems with this is that the cosmic background radiation should be random if it did, in fact, arise from this big bang. However, it fluctuates more often towards the Virgo cluster than anywhere else. This is not at all consistent with the big bang" Actually, there's a fairly simple explanation for this. We know that stars have some spots on them that are cooler than others. CBR is the result of the universe cooling enough that radiation could escape the superheated mass of the universe. If the area that was to be Virgo cooled at a slightly different rate (exactly like a star) we would see more radiation escaping the cluster than normal. It's exactly the same concept as encasing a light bulb in a bowl and then drilling a hole in the bowl - we will see a sort of reverse umbra and a penumbra of radiation. This is Virgo - we're getting both where other places only deliver the umbra. >>"I don't know where this information comes from, but particle accelerators do not in any way give evidence that our cosmos were created by the big bang." The short answer is that it provides science with the necessary physics to postulate what actually happened under the conditions of the big bang. The universe is made of the same matter that we're slamming together in accelerators - the physics will be the same, and they hold to something like 10^-43 seconds after the big bang - to the point where basically everything was quarks and gluons. >>"Starting out, the big bang claims that at the beginning of the universe this singularity exploded. From there there was this inflationary period in which matter traveled faster than the speed of light" This is incorrect. Matter cannot travel faster than the speed of light. However, galaxies ARE expanding from each other faster than the speed of light. It's pretty simple physics. If we move "left" at .6C (60% of the speed of light) and the other galaxy moves "right" at .6C, then the galaxies are expanding at 1.2C. >>"Someone moving towards light at a fast speed and measuring it will still get the speed of light. For some reason the speeds are not added together. Also, if that same person in a moving car shines a flashlight instead, the road observer measuring the speed of that light would only get the speed of light. Not the speed and the cars velocity added. So this inflationary period is inconsistent with one of the greatest theories the scientific community has ever seen." This simply seems pretty clear evidence that nothing can move faster than the speed of light. Why doesn't light move faster when shone from a moving car? It can't. Here's another possibility - this may just be a case of quantum tunneling, in which case we don't really have the proper science to describe why this would happen... However, as I demonstrated above with the moving galaxies, the light is still moving at light speed. It's easy to measure speed when you have an idea of your own velocity, especially when that speed is only about 400 kps, and the speed of light is 300,000 kps. >>"This lead to this fictional crock they deemed dark matter. Dark matter has never been seen, can never be seen, and has zero evidence to support its existence." Sigh... this is also blatantly false. Dark matter's existence is postulated on the basis of gravitational effects that are simply not accounted for by the presence of normal matter. Clearly there is SOMETHING there that's not normal matter. We call that dark matter. I suggest you read this (http://en.wikipedia.org...) - especially the section about "Observational Evidence" >>"The big bang claims that during this explosion, every single atom in the universe was spewed forth and all of these things were at temperatures of millions or even billions of degrees kelvin. Yet somehow things cooled. Of course in their chronology, they allow for cooling over a course of millions of years. But even then, if every single piece of matter in the universe was heated up so much, where could the heat have been transferred to?" You seem to be under the impression that the big bang created even the medium the universe exists in. Instead of a model like a box with a definite edge, the universe is more like an infinite sheet of graph paper where the closeness of matter is represented by the size of the squares. The big bang was basically the start of those squares getting larger. The heat of the big bang could certainly have been absorbed by black bodies or any one of a number of undiscovered cosmological phenomena. >>"You asked "This does beg the question however, if the big bang did not occur, what did?" I don't really know the answer to this question. But whatever did happen, it was not the big bang." Science has given an explanation for every issue you raise. Why, then, do you hold the big bang could not have happened? I'm puzzled here - all the evidence we have points to the big bang. If it did not, it would point to something else. Therefore, there MUST be an explanation other than the big bang if the big bang is incorrect. To suggest otherwise is to simply attribute the start of the universe to "no cause," and that is unacceptable. You can't call the big bang theory incorrect without providing an alternate hypothesis. That's exactly like saying that gravity is incorrect. No other hypothesis - gravity's just wrong. Don't know what makes stuff drop, but it's not gravity. Science shows the big bang's likelihood as being extremely high. It's certainly possible we don't know everything about it and other associated cosmological phenomenon. It seems to me that it's fairly clear that we simply don't know enough about cosmology do completely describe this phenomenon. But that doesn't make it wrong.