From: metares@well.sf.ca.us (Tom Van Flandern)
Subject: Re: The Big Bang Never Happened
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 15:46:23 GMT


wwadge@csr.UVic.CA (Bill  Wadge) writes:

> [Lerner's] book is very persuasive, but I'm not a physicist - any opinions?


and rhine@bigbird.csd.scarolina.edu (Andrew P. Rhine) writes:

> it would seem that opposition to the big bang would have been dealt a major
> blow by this year's results from COBE and recent observations (by the
> balloon-based instruments) supporting it.

     Not at all, Andrew.  Finding marginal but significant fluctuations in
the microwave background radiation saved the big bang for the moment, but did
no damage to alternatives.  Especially, it does not bear on Lerner's "proof"
that the microwave radiation must be coming from relatively local sources,
and can have nothing to do with a big bang fireball.  The essence of his
argument is that galaxy luminosity differences between infrared and radio
wavelengths show intergalactic absorption at such a level that the microwave
radiation could not penetrate through more than about z = 1 or so, let alone
the z = 10,000 or so required by the big bang.  [E.J. Lerner, Astrophys. J.
361, 63-68 (1990).]


and metzler@pablo.physics.lsa.umich.edu (Chris Metzler) writes:

> The book, to put it bluntly, is a crock.  Having failed to convince the
> scientific establishment of the validity of his version of Alfven's
> model, Lerner has gone to the public to plead his case -- as if scientific
> fact was something that you vote on, rather than, well, fact.

     Lerner used carefully reasoned arguments against the big bang, in
contrast to this ad hominem criticism.  Lerner's arguments in favor of Plasma
Cosmology are, by his own admission, somewhat more speculative.  He could be
persuaded of another alternative.

> Whether or not the hot Big Bang model is right or wrong, it has
> successfully explained a very wide variety of observations and experiments;
> no other competing cosmological model has been able to do this.

     All theories "explain" a wide variety of things.  The same is equally
true of all alternative cosmologies.  This tells us nothing to distinguish
them.

> Whether or not the hot Big Bang model is right or wrong, it has
> successfully PREDICTED (God, I'm capitalizing!  Help me!) a wide variety
> of observations and experiments (yes, even experiments); no other competing
> cosmological model has been able to do this.

     The use of capitals was chosen as a crank indicator because it indicates
emotional involvement.  You are not crankish in any sense, and neither is
Lerner.  But your use of capitals does suggest to us, your audience, a bit of
emotional involvement in this issue.  Please recall that all scientists are
supposed to continually strive to criticize and find fault with all
scientific theories.  That is how we make progress.  I think Lerner did this
well in his book.

     In fact, critics such as Lerner have argued that the big bang has yet to
make a single successful prediction.  For example, Lerner discusses the
history of the supposed prediction of a microwave background radiation.  The
various predictions were well off the mark in temperature.  By contrast,
Eddington in 1926 (in Internal Constitution of the Stars) predicted that all
interstellar material with time to cool to equilibrium would reach a
temperature of 3 degrees Kelvin, since that is the radiation temperature of
starlight.

     At present, every one of the big bang's element abundance predictions is
off the mark by several sigma, and has had to be "restored" with ad hoc
helper hypotheses.  For example, the beryllium abundance was found to be 1000
times too high, so cosmic ray spallation was invoked.  None of the original
predictions stand without such help.

> There is not one single observation -- not one -- that falsifies the hot
> Big Bang model.

     "Proof" is in the eye of the beholder.  But Tifft's observations of the
quantization of redshift (recently confirmed by Guthrie and Napier), and the
time variability of redshifts, are potentially just such a falsification.  I
would add the following list:
  -  Lerner's observations indicating intergalactic absorption at a level far
     too high for the big bang;
  -  The "pencil-beam" surveys that show "great Wall"-like structures at
     regular intervals out to seven billion lightyears on either side of us
     [e.g., Science News 137, 287 (1990)];
  -  Bulk streaming of local galaxies in one direction out to at least 500
     million lightyears, and on the opposite side of the sky too [D. Lindley,
     Nature 356, 657 (1992)].  This would disappear if the microwave
     radiation were not used as a standard of rest.

> If you are seriously interested in studying this in more depth, I would
> suggest reading P.J.E. Peebles, D.N. Schramm, E.L. Turner, and R.G. Kron,
> "The case for the relativistic hot Big Bang cosmology," Nature v352,
> pp 769-776.

     See also the point-by-point rebuttal to that paper in:  H.C. Arp and T.
Van Flandern, "The case against the big bang," Phys.Lett. A 164, 263-273
(1992).  This was also discussed extensively here on the net last fall -- a
discussion in which Turner participated.  -|Tom|-

-- 
Tom Van Flandern / Washington, DC / metares@well.sf.ca.us
Meta Research was founded to foster research into ideas not otherwise
supported because they conflict with mainstream theories in Astronomy.
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