Big bang critic dies (Fred Hoyle) - creation.com Big bang critic dies (Fred Hoyle) by Greg Demme and Jonathan Sarfati Sir Fred Hoyle, the man who coined the term ‘big bang,’ died on Monday, 20 August 2001, from complications following a severe stroke. 1 Born in Yorkshire, England, in 1915, Hoyle was one of Britain’s best-known mathematicians and astronomers in the last half of the 20th century. He spent decades searching for answers to questions of the origins of life and the origin and age of the universe. In the 1940s, he, along with Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold, proposed the ‘steady state’ theory, a belief that the universe had no beginning or end, but always existed and would continue to exist. All these men were strong humanists, so they rejected any theory that seemed to teach a beginning for the universe, because that would point to a Beginner—see the discussion in If God created the universe, then who created God?

Their bias was so strong that they were even prepared to violate the fundamental Law of Conservation of Mass/Energy, which states that mass/energy in the universe can neither be created nor destroyed. Of course, this fundamental law is consistent with Genesis—God’s creation of the space-time universe was finished after six days. But the Steady State Theory posits a continual spontaneous appearance of hydrogen atoms from nothing. But because the evidence of the rapid expansion of the universe exceeded the predictions of Hoyle’s theory, and because of the reluctance to believe that fundamental laws were violated, many astronomers began to postulate that an explosion of highly dense matter was the beginning of all space and time. In his 1950 BBC radio series, The Nature of the Universe, Hoyle mockingly called this idea the ‘big bang,’ considering it preposterous. 2 Yet the theory—and the derisive term—have become mainstream, not only in astronomy but in society as well. Hoyle readily saw through the fallacious assumptions behind the ‘big bang’ theory.

In 1994 he wrote, ‘Big-Bang cosmology refers to an epoch that cannot be reached by any form of astronomy, and, in more than two decades, it has not produced a single successful prediction.’ 3 Even though many people currently consider cosmic microwave background radiation a successful prediction of the ‘big bang,’ this is very shaky, and would fit better with Dr Russ Humphreys’ cosmological model that involves God having stretched out the cosmos ( Isaiah 42:5 ). This should be a lesson to ‘big-bang’ apologists, who are seduced by its apparent teaching of a beginning of the universe and simply ignore the contradictions with God’s Word. What happens to their apologetic framework if the secular astronomical community goes along with Hoyle after all, and rejects the ‘big bang’? Then the ‘big-bang’ apologists would need to reinterpret their reinterpretations of Genesis! See also What are some of the problems with the Big Bang theory? Also, commenting on the general state of mainstream cosmology, Hoyle and several colleagues wrote, ‘Cosmology is unique in science in that it is a very large intellectual edifice based on very few facts.

The strong tendency is to replace a need for more facts by conformity.’ 4 Though Hoyle was not a Biblical creationist or even a Christian, he eventually recognized the impossibility of Darwinian evolution. Hoyle regularly took to task the Darwinian establishment for ignoring the complex sources of information and information processing programs (like DNA) needed for the creation and continuation of life. He realised that life couldn’t have arisen by chance in a primordial soup on Earth. First, he tried to solve the problem by saying that if we had the whole universe to work with instead of Earth, then this might overcome the problem. Hoyle favored and popularized a view called panspermia, the notion that life originated somewhere else in the universe and was driven to earth by electromagnetic radiation pressure. But eventually he realised that even this would be woefully inadequate as a materialistic explanation of life’s origin. In his 1981 book Evolution from Space (co-authored with Chandra Wickramasinghe), he calculated that the chance of obtaining the required set of enzymes for even the simplest living cell was one in 1040,000 (one followed by 40,000 zeroes).

Since the number of atoms in the known universe is infinitesimally tiny by comparison (1080), even a whole universe full of primordial soup wouldn’t have a chance. Hoyle explained this in his typically lucid manner, and as with the ‘big bang,’ his turns of phrase have found their way into popular culture. For instance, he wrote, ‘The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.’ 5 Hoyle originated the famous illustration comparing the random emergence of even the simplest cell to the likelihood that ‘a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.’ 6 Hoyle also compared the chance of obtaining even a single functioning protein by chance combination of amino acids to a solar system full of blind men solving the Rubik’s Cube simultaneously—see Rubik’s Cube and Blind Men . Some more problems with evolutionary ‘origin-of-life’ scenarios can be found in our Q&A pages under Origin of Life and Probability .

Hoyle eventually came to believe that the fine-tuning of the universe as a whole was further evidence for a designer: ‘A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics … The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.’ 7 The fine-tuning of fundamental constants is indeed amazing, but creationists must be cautious—some of the alleged ‘fine-tuning’ presupposes a big bang or other evolutionary cosmology. Alas, Hoyle paid for his outright questioning of the materialist paradigm. In the 1950s, Hoyle had some ingenious ideas about stellar fusion, and predicted that the Carbon-12 nucleus would have a certain energy level (called a resonance) to enable helium to undergo fusion. 8 His co-worker William Fowler eventually won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983 (with Subramanyan Chandrasekhar), but for some reason Hoyle’s original contribution was overlooked, and many were surprised that such a notable astronomer missed out. Fowler himself in an autobiographical sketch affirmed Hoyle’s immense contribution: ‘Fred Hoyle was the second great influence in my life.

The grand concept of nucleosynthesis in stars was first definitely established by Hoyle in 1946.’ But for all his ability to see through popular anti-God science, Hoyle’s own views about God were equally un-Biblical. He still held onto panspermia, and in his last book, A Different Approach to Cosmology, Hoyle and his co-authors reaffirmed a quasi-steady-state theory for the universe, but this time one that requires ongoing episodic creation by some intelligent force within the universe (a complete denial of a six-day Creation ex nihilo by a transcendent, personal God). Hoyle was also known as a science fiction writer. That he took to this sort of writing is not surprising, given his fascination with space and extraterrestrial life forces. While Hoyle’s comments on the ‘big bang’ theory and Darwinian evolution are helpful, it is sad to see that Hoyle died apparently having rejected the truth about Creation. God has revealed the truth for all to see in the Bible, the History Book of the Universe. All the answers about the origins of life and the universe can be found right there in the first book, Genesis. What Fuels Progress in Science?

Sometimes, a Feud - The New York Times The New York Times Science |What Fuels Progress in Science? Sometimes, a Feud Search Continue reading the main story The crabbed handwriting emerges from the fax machine like a communication from another time, a dispatch from a great battle that has passed into history. Yet Sir Fred Hoyle, the British cosmologist who, five decades ago, derisively coined the term ''Big Bang'' for a cosmic theory with which he did not and does not agree, makes plain in his faxed letter that for him, the battle lives on. And it is not just a fight against a theory. With seemingly equal tenacity, that fight is directed at the late Sir Martin Ryle, a British radio astronomer and Nobel laureate who espoused the Big Bang theory. Observations that Sir Martin used in the 1950's to attack Sir Fred's alternative theory turned out to be flawed, notes the letter, which thunders that the Big Bang is ''a huge facade based on no real evidence at all.'' Is it a personal feud or just a rousing scientific debate?

The two themes may be inextricable: All aspects of the clash stirred up interest in the relevant science, spurring decades of fresh observations that seemed to settle the issue in favor of what is now officially called the Big Bang, a theory that assumes the universe began in a colossal explosion. Though you would never know it from the textbooks, beneath the flapping banners of feuding scientific ideas, as often as not there are feuding scientists. Continue reading the main story ''You'd think that scientists would have a degree of saintliness that would be almost unbearable,'' said Dr. Leon Lederman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. ''It doesn't work that way. The competition goes on at all levels -- the international, the national, the institutional, and finally the guy across the hall.'' Advertisement Continue reading the main story Like the unhappy families of Tolstoy's ''Anna Karenina,'' which were all unhappy in different ways, no two scientific rivalries have precisely the same causes and consequences.

Some skirmishes do little more than quicken the pace of research, as when Albert Einstein and David Hilbert, the German mathematician, raced each other for the first correct formulation of the equations of general relativity in 1915. Other spats have the effect of both drawing attention to an important research question while souring many scientists on ever working in the field. The classic case involved Dr. Allan Sandage of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, Calif., and the late Dr. Gerard de Vaucouleurs; the pair feuded with ceaseless rancor in the 1970's and 80's over the rate at which the universe is expanding, called the Hubble constant. The consequences of that battle are still ricocheting through the world of scientific research today. Some scientists say the feud sparked their interest in the question; Dr. Sandage himself found it so unpleasant he stopped attending scientific meetings. Still other feuds appear to be entirely destructive, with little redeeming value for scientific research -- like the bitter personal and professional split between Dr. Tsung Dao Lee and Dr. Chen Ning Yang, who won the Nobel Prize in 1957 for collaborative work on particle physics.

Each now claims the lion's share of credit for the work, and the two have not spoken for 35 years. Many scientific feuds have certain human elements in common, said Dr. Virginia Trimble, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Irvine, who used the Hoyle-Ryle case as an illustration. ''I knew them both,'' she said, choosing her words carefully. ''Neither person was overwhelmingly easy to get along with. ''And indeed, nobody who does something earthshaking is likely to be,'' she added. ''You only achieve things like that by being more single-minded than your friends and relations are likely to regard as totally reasonable.'' Fortunately, the scientific penchant for feuding is offset by mutually supportive alliances that are not quite as noisy, said Dr. Karen Johnson, a historian of science at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., who has studied the fruitful intellectual exchange between the physics Nobelist Maria Goeppert Mayer and her husband, Joseph E. Mayer, a chemist. But even that sort of interaction is seldom explored in official accounts, said Dr.

Johnson, perhaps because ''it doesn't fit the nice, neat, one-great-person idea of history.'' No one is sure whether the large teams characteristic of end-of-millennium research have fostered more alliances of all types, or created even more friction. But some scientists have a hunch. Advertisement Continue reading the main story ''There is more agony, perhaps, in modern times,'' said Dr. Gerard 't Hooft, a particle theorist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, who is considered a Nobel Prize candidate for discoveries he made with Dr. Martinus Veltman, another Dutch scientist. Following a dispute over credit for the work, the two scientists have ''floated apart,'' in Dr. 't Hooft's words. There was already plenty of agony to go around during the scientific revolutions of Elizabethan times. Early feuds involved everything from courtly status and sheer snobbery to overheated competition and charges of plagiarism. In 1588, for instance, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe proposed a radical theory of the heavens in which the Sun orbited an immovable Earth while all the other planets whirled about the Sun.

A few months later, a mathematician named Ursus, who had risen from extremely humble beginnings to prominence in the court of Rudolf II in Prague, published a similar theory. Tycho branded Ursus a thief and a vituperative exchange ensued, followed by a lawsuit. Even though the controversy got other astronomers interested in the problem, far more than just science was in play, said Dr. Owen Gingerich, a historian at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. ''Tycho was of noble birth,'' Dr. Gingerich said, ''and he felt that it was improper for a sometime swineherd to have his own cosmological system.'' A frequent brawler of the time was Galileo Galilei, who developed the telescope and first turned it to the heavens, said Dr. Noel Swerdlow of the University of Chicago. ''Galileo despised Tycho Brahe,'' Dr. Swerdlow said, probably because Tycho was the most effective opponent of the view that all the planets including Earth went around the Sun, as Galileo correctly believed. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to.

Sign Up Privacy Policy One of the angriest of all feuds pitted Sir Isaac Newton against Robert Hooke, a brilliant scientist seven years his senior. Decades of antipathy began when Newton and Hooke disagreed about the nature of color. Eventually an aging, infirm Hooke accused the hypersensitive genius of pilfering his most famous ideas on the theory of gravity. ''That fight was just nasty,'' said Dr. Alan E. Shapiro, director of the program in history of science and technology at the University of Minnesota. ''That had no happy resolution.'' The most prominent English scientific feud in modern times has been the Hoyle-Ryle split. The scientific debate revolved around observations of faint and presumably distant radio sources in the sky. More of the faint sources were to be expected in a Big Bang universe than in the one favored by Professor Hoyle -- a ''steady state'' cosmos with no definite beginning or end. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Professor Ryle eventually declared that he had demolished the steady-state theory by discovering vast numbers of the faint sources.

After one particularly high-profile announcement in early 1961, the story ran in the London papers, and ''for the next week, my children were ragged about it at school,'' Professor Hoyle wrote in ''Home is Where the Wind Blows: Chapters from a Cosmologist's Life'' (University Science Books, 1994). To make matters worse, Professor Ryle's early analysis turned out to have mistakes, and the claimed numbers fell sharply. The standoff captured the attention of a host of other astronomers, who turned up many apparent inconsistencies between their observations and the predictions of steady-state theory. But Professor Hoyle, who defends a modified version of the theory in ''A Different Approach to Cosmology: From a Static Universe Through the Big Bang Towards Reality,'' a book to be published by Cambridge University Press later this year, still believes the consensus on the Big Bang was rash. ''The really interesting question is why the world was so ready to believe in this story,'' Professor Hoyle wrote in his faxed letter. The fight between Dr. Sandage and Dr. de Vaucouleurs involved the rate at which the cosmos is flying apart as a consequence of the Big Bang explosion.

Their answers differed by a factor of two, with Dr. Sandage getting the lower value. Dr. Sandage eventually became so upset by the dispute that he skipped most scientific meetings. But Dr. John Huchra of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics remembers that one verbal exchange between them, at a conference in Paris in 1976, helped spark his own interest in the field. ''They got up, and they were duking it out in front of the audience,'' Dr. Huchra said. Dr. Huchra was later among the founders of a Hubble Space Telescope team, called the Key Project, that recently announced what some regard as the most reliable measurement yet of the expansion rate. But the number falls about midway between the original poles of the dispute and is still too high for Dr. Sandage. ''There's still a controversy, and this isn't going to settle it,'' he told Science magazine when the results appeared. That uncompromising approach puts off some researchers, but Dr. Wendy Freedman, a leader of the Key Project at the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, said that such conflicts are inevitable in cutting-edge science. ''I don't take it personally,'' she said.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story A somewhat less positive view was offered by another member of the Key Project, Dr. Barry Madore of the California Institute of Technology, who is married to Dr. Freedman. The original feud, Dr. Madore said, ''was a battle not so much of the titans as of the grumpy old men.'' Few scientific benefits have flowed from the blow-up between Dr. Lee, of Columbia University, and Dr. Yang, of the State University of New York, Stony Brook, who have scarcely spoken to each other for more than 35 years. They have published conflicting accounts of their collaboration, each claiming most of the credit for the idea, called parity violation, that won them a Nobel Prize in 1957. Parity is a kind of right-left symmetry that physicists had thought was a property of every subatomic interaction. The pair quarreled about the ordering of their names on joint papers and in a lengthy profile of the duo that appeared in The New Yorker in 1962. Prophetically, the article was titled ''A question of parity.'' Sometimes, scientists do get along. Even then, however, the story is seldom free of strife.

In one of the century's more embarrassing episodes of gender discrimination, the University of Chicago refused to pay a salary to Maria Goeppert Mayer, a German-born and educated professor at the university. It was a situation she had faced repeatedly, and ''there were periods in the 1930's when she would have given up,'' said Dr. Johnson of St. Lawrence University. But her husband, the American chemist Joseph E. Mayer, would not hear of it. ''Joe was the one who was really adamant,'' Dr. Johnson said. ''He wanted her to stay in science.'' In an essay titled ''Science at the Breakfast Table,'' published earlier this year in the journal Physics in Perspective, Dr. Johnson also traced how Dr. Mayer gradually absorbed some of his wife's mathematical wizardry, while she picked up some of his skill in interpreting experimental data. Both used those breakfast lessons in their most noted work -- including the discovery of the shell structure of atomic nuclei that won Maria Goeppert Mayer a Nobel Prize in 1963. Science has had more than its share of collaborations -- they are just quieter than the feuds, said Dr.

James Hartle of the University of California, Santa Barbara, who has worked on cosmological problems with Dr. Stephen W. Hawking, the Cambridge University physicist, since the 1970's. Generally, ''it's the science that drives it,'' while friendship naturally follows, Dr. Hartle said. In this collaborative, combative age, there are scientists who still prefer to work alone, said Dr. Vera Rubin, the astronomer at the Carnegie Institution of Washington who discovered that galaxies are filled with a mysterious sort of dark matter. Dr. Rubin, who has a particular aversion to being rushed by competition, said that she had carefully chosen to observe aspects of the sky that no one else was interested in. ''Personally,'' Dr. Rubin said, ''I have spent my life looking for problems that I could do and nobody would bother me while I was doing them.'' The Big Bang Theory | Creation vs. Evolution The Big Bang Theory Publish date: Jan 5, 2012 Summary: Creation Science Evangelism writer Paul Taylor discusses the Big Bang theory. The Big Bang Theory Help us reduce the maintenance cost of our online services.

Because your computer is running an older version of internet browser, it no longer meets the features of modern websites. You can help Amazing Discoveries reduce costs by upgrading or replacing your internet browser with one of the options below. We thank you in advance for partnering with us in this small but significant way. Tweet We would not normally consider it necessary to explain how a theory works that we don’t even believe in. However, there are a lot of misunderstandings about the Big Bang theory. This includes misunderstandings amongst fellow creationists, who therefore sometimes end up opposing ideas that the Big Bang theorists don’t even believe in. This article is therefore an attempt to understand a little of what the theory is about, and why, as creationists, we do not accept it. Please note that this is a beginner-level article. Many Big Bang theorists may therefore complain that I have simplified some concepts. However, I have only done so in the same way as a secular High School textbook writer might do. How did it start? The originators—George Lemaitre, a Belgium, struck on the basic idea in 1927; and George Gamow, R.A. Alpher, and R.

Herman devised the basic Big Bang model in 1948. At first, the theory was not widely accepted by astrophysicists. It was not the only cosmological theory. Sir Fred Hoyle had a rival theory, called the Steady State theory, in which he claimed that new material must constantly be made in the universe to fill in the gaps, as the existing material expands. It was Hoyle who originally coined the term Big Bang, in a radio broadcast in 1949. He intended the term to be an insult, but it is now widely used by supporters of the theory. The Big Bang Theory According to the Big Bang theory, all matter and all space was originally part of an infinitesimally small point called the Singularity. The theory says nothing about where that singularity came from. It is assumed to have come about by a random quantum event. This is what Brad Lemley said about quantum events. To the average person it might seem obvious that nothing can happen in nothing. But to a quantum physicist, nothing is, in fact, something.i If this seems a somewhat unusual statement, try this next statement. Quantum theory also holds that a vacuum, like atoms, is subject to quantum uncertainties.

This means that things can materialise out of the vacuum, although they tend to vanish back into it quickly...this phenomenon has never been observed directly...ii If I might be so bold as to translate this into English, he seems to be saying “things appear from nothing and then disappear back into nothing. And nobody has ever seen any of that happen!” The astronomer Heather Cowper put it this way, in a children’s book called The Big Bang. Our Universe probably came into existence not only from nothing, but from nowhere.iii This does not appear like a scientific argument, but more like a doctrine of religious faith. “In the beginning, there was nothing. And that nothing exploded.” The most common misconception about the Big Bang theory is the idea that it teaches that matter exploded and spread out into empty space. This is not what the theory teaches, and it is important as creationists that we do not misrepresent what secular scientists believe. The theory actually teaches that space itself was also small. This is difficult to get our heads around, but it is worth trying, for reasons that will become clear.

Thus, at the point of singularity, they believe that there was still matter everywhere in the Universe—it is simply that they believe the Universe itself to have been very small. It is therefore space itself that stretched to its present size. The matter in the universe did not move through space during the stretching. It is what we might euphemistically call the fabric of space that stretched. It is worth getting our heads around the problem, because the stretching of space is actually Biblical. Isaiah 42:5 and 45:12 both state that God stretched out the heavens like a curtain. Of course, this does not mean that we agree that the Universe started out as a singularity. However, it is completely possible that God created the Universe smaller than it is today, and this concept is the basis for creationist cosmologies based on Gravitational Time Dilation, and discussed in our technical article on “Starlight Issues”. Problems with the Big Bang There are a number of problems with the Big Bang theory. It ought to be pointed out, at this point, that it is not only creationists who have problems with the Big Bang theory. The theory is not universally accepted.

For example, the physicist Eric Lerner has described himself as a Big Bang heretic, and has written a book and a website on the subject.iv One very large problem with the theory is its inability to determine where the singularity came from. Theoretical astrophysicists (obviously working without any experimentation) have divided cosmological history, by their theory, into a number of epochs, when conditions were different. . The first four epochs are labelled as 10-43s, 10-32s, 10-6s and 3min. Even under their own theory, they cannot work out what happened prior to the first 10-43s. Of course, all their calculations on such issues are theoretical, not experimental, so they do not qualify as observational science. This is notwithstanding the CERN experiments, which I am certain will find some results before the end of 2011. There are two reasons why they will find results. The first is that billions of Euros of cash have been pumped into CERN, and the funding ends in December 2011, so the cynic in me thinks that is good enough reason to get results.

The second is that this experiment, unusually, has an actual end in sight. The experimenters already know what conclusion they wish to verify, so whatever results they achieve will be shown to verify the conclusion they require. For a supposedly random event, the calculations around the Big Bang theory give too good a result. Dr. Robert Matthews, who is actually an unbeliever, said this: Why, for instance is our Universe and its laws just right for the existence of life? Some argue that it is because it was specially made for us by a benevolent creator.v There is not enough antimatter in the universe. This is a big problem for the theorists. The original Big Bang would have produced equal amounts of positive matter (matter) and negative matter (antimatter). But only small amounts of antimatter exist. There should be as much antimatter as matter—if the Big Bang was true. Since matter and antimatter are equivalent in all respects but that of electromagnetic charge oppositeness, any force [the Big Bang] that would create one should have to create the other, and the universe should be made of equal quantities of each. This is a dilemma.

Theory tells us there should be antimatter out there, and observation refuses to back it up.vi In fact, there isn’t enough matter of any sort for their calculations. For this reason, the concept of dark matter has been postulated. Dark matter is matter that cannot be detected, but it must be there, otherwise their calculations do not work! They have a similar problem with not enough energy in the Universe, so they have developed the idea of dark energy. We used to have answers like this when I was in High School, and we called them “fiddle factors”! What these concepts show is that the Big Bang theory is not a really satisfactory theory, but, at the moment, it is the best they have got. It therefore resembles the car I had in my college days, which was held together by string and duct tape. Even secular astrophysicists have realized the problems associated with dark matter and energy. The Israeli astrophysicist, Moshe Carmeli, has developed a 5-dimensional cosmology, based on Einstein’s principles, and called Cosmological Special Relativity.

Carmeli’s theory is mentioned in our article on Starlight Issues, because it has been adapted by John Hartnett of CMI to make a creationist cosmology based on time dilation. The final problem worth mentioning with the Big Bang theory is the so-called Horizon Problem. Many Big Bangers talk about the concept of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. They often state that CMB verifies the Big Bang. In fact, it does not. The uniform nature of CMB is actually impossible to explain under current Big Bang estimates for the age of the Universe. There is more detail on this in our technical article on Starlight Issues . Conclusion It is hope that this brief look at the Big Bang theory will help creationists not to misrepresent the theory. For example, creationists should not be asking “how can something explode into nothingness”. The Big Bang theory is not really a theory about an explosion. That name was given to the theory by an early opponent of the theory. Nevertheless, we have seen that there are many justifiable accusations to level at the Big Bang theory, such as its reliance on “fiddle factors”, like dark matter. We have also seen that the Big Bang theory is not a monolithic theory.

There is a substantial minority of atheistic, secular scientists who do not accept it, either. Most of all, we do not accept the Big Bang theory because it is unBiblical. It suggests that the Earth has no special place, whereas the Bible tells us that it does ( Isaiah 45:12 ). Despite the heavens being vast and beautiful, they were nevertheless created for our benefit ( Genesis 1:14 ) and, most importantly, to give glory to God Psalm 19:1 ). What is the Big Bang Theory? What is the Big Bang Theory? What is the Big Bang Theory? John Lund/Photographer's Choice/Getty Images By Andrew Zimmerman Jones Updated April 28, 2016. The Big Bang is the dominant (and highly supported) theory of the origin of the universe. In essence, this theory states that the universe began from an initial point or singularity which has expanded over billions of years to form the universe as we now know it. Early Expanding Universe Findings In 1922, Russian cosmologist & mathematician Alexander Friedman found that solutions to Einstein's general relativity field equations resulted in an expanding universe.

As a believer in a static, eternal universe, Einstein added a cosmological constant to his equations, "correcting" for this "error" and thus eliminating the expansion. He would later call this the biggest blunder of his life. Actually, there was already observational evidence in support of an expanding universe. In 1912, American astronomer Vesto Slipher observed a spiral galaxy (considered a "spiral nebula" at the time, since astronomers didn't yet know that there were galaxies beyond the Milky Way) and recorded its redshift . continue reading below our video Test Your General Science Knowledge He observed that all such nebula were traveling away from the Earth, though these results were quite controversial at the time and the full implications of them were not considered at the time. In 1924, astronomer Edwin Hubble was able to measure the distance to these "nebula" and discovered that they were so far away that they were not actually part of the Milky Way ... he had discovered that the Milky Way was only one of many galaxies, and that these "nebulae" were actually galaxies in their own right.

Birth of the Big Bang In 1927, Roman Catholic priest and physicist Georges Lemaitre independently calculated the Friedman solution and again suggested that the universe must be expanding. This theory was supported by Hubble when, in 1929, he found that there was a correlation between the distance of the galaxies and the amount of redshift in that galaxy's light. The distant galaxies were moving away faster, which was exactly what was predicted by Lemaitre's solutions. In 1931, Lemaitre went further with his predictions, extrapolating backwards in time find that the matter of the universe would reach an infinite density and temperature at a finite time in the past. This means the universe must have begun in an incredibly small, dense point of matter - a "primeval atom." Philosophical Side note: The fact that Lemaitre was a Roman Catholic priest concerned some, as he was putting forth a theory which presented a definite moment of "creation" to the universe. In the 20's & 30's, most physicists - like Einstein - were inclined to believe that the universe had indeed always existed. In essence, the Big Bang theory was seen as "too religious" by many people.

Proving the Big Bang While several theories were presented for a time, it was really only Fred Hoyle 's steady state theory which provided any real competition for Lemaitre's theory. It was, ironically, Hoyle who coined the phrase "Big Bang" during a 1950's radio broadcast, intending it as a derisive term for Lemaitre's theory. Steady State Theory: Basically, the steady state theory predicted that new matter was created such that the density and temperature of the universe remained constant over time, even while the universe was expanding. Hoyle also predicted that denser elements were formed from hydrogen & helium through the process of stellar nucleosynthesis (which, unlike steady state, has proved to be accurate). George Gamow - one of Friedman's pupils - was the major advocate of the Big Bang theory. Together with colleagues Ralph Alpher & Robert Herman, he predicted the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation , which is a radiation that should exist throughout the universe as a remnant of the Big Bang. As atoms began to form during the recombination era , they allowed microwave radiation (a form of light) to travel through the universe ... and Gamow predicted that this microwave radiation would still be observable today.

The debate continued until 1965, when Arno Penzias & Robert Woodrow Wilson stumbled upon the CMB while working for Bell Telephone Laboratories. Their Dicke radiometer, used for radio astronomy & satellite communicate, picked up a 3.5 K temperature (a close match to Alpher & Herman's prediction of 5 K). Throughout the late 1960's & early 1970's, some proponents of steady state physics attempted to explain this finding while still denying the Big Bang theory, but by the end of the decade it was clear that the CMB radiation had no other plausible explanation. Penzias & Wilson received the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery. Cosmic Inflation Theory Certain concerns, however, remained regarding the Big Bang theory. One of these was the problem of homogeneity. Why does the universe look identical, in terms of energy, regardless of which direction one looks? The Big Bang theory does not give the early universe time to reach thermal equilibrium , so there should be differences in energy throughout the universe. In 1980, American physicist Alan Guth formally proposed inflation theory to resolve this and other problems.

Inflation basically says that in the early moments following the Big Bang, there was an extremely rapid expansion of the nascent universe, driven by "negative-pressure vacuum energy" (which may be in some way related to current theories of dark energy ). Alternatively inflation theories, similar in concept but with slightly different details, have been put forward by others in the years since. The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) program by NASA, which began in 2001, has provided evidence which strongly supports an inflation period in the early universe. This evidence is especially strong in the three-year data released in 2006, though there are still some minor inconsistencies with theory. The 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John C. Mather & George Smoot , two key workers on the WMAP project. Existing Controversies While the Big Bang theory is accepted by the vast majority of physicists, there are still some minor questions concerning it. Most importantly, however, are the questions which the theory cannot even attempt to answer: What existed before the Big Bang? What caused the Big Bang? Is our universe the only one?

The answers to these questions may well exist beyond the realm of physics, but they're fascinating nonetheless, and answers such as the multiverse hypothesis provide an intriguing area of speculation for scientists and non-scientists alike. Other Names for the Big Bang When Lemaitre originally proposed his observation about the early universe, he called this early state of the universe the primeval atom. Years later, George Gamow would apply the name ylem for it. It has also been called the primordial atom or even the cosmic egg. The Big Bang Theory | Creation Today The Big Bang Theory By Eric Hovind on July 13, 2011 in Articles , Beginner What is the Big Bang Theory? We would not normally consider it necessary to explain how a theory works that we don’t even believe in. However, there are a lot of misunderstandings about the Big Bang theory. This includes misunderstandings amongst fellow creationists, who therefore sometimes end up opposing ideas that the Big Bang theorists don’t even believe in. This article is therefore an attempt to understand a little of what the theory is about, and why, as creationists, we do not accept it. Please note that this is a beginner-level article.

Many Big Bang theorists may therefore complain that I have simplified some concepts. However, I have only done so in the same way as a secular High School textbook writer might do. How did it start? The originators—George Lemaitre, a Belgium, struck on the basic idea in 1927; and George Gamow, R.A. Alpher, and R. Herman devised the basic Big Bang model in 1948. At first, the theory was not widely accepted by astrophysicists. It was not the only cosmological theory. Sir Fred Hoyle had a rival theory, called the Steady State theory, in which he claimed that new material must constantly be made in the universe to fill in the gaps, as the existing material expands. It was Hoyle who originally coined the term Big Bang, in a radio broadcast in 1949. He intended the term to be an insult, but it is now widely used by supporters of the theory. The Big Bang Theory According to the Big Bang theory, all matter and all space was originally part of an infinitesimally small point called the Singularity. The theory says nothing about where that singularity came from.

It is assumed to have come about by a random quantum event. This is what Brad Lemley said about quantum events. To the average person it might seem obvious that nothing can happen in nothing. But to a quantum physicist, nothing is, in fact, something. 1 If this seems a somewhat unusual statement, try this next statement. Quantum theory also holds that a vacuum, like atoms, is subject to quantum uncertainties. This means that things can materialise out of the vacuum, although they tend to vanish back into it quickly. this phenomenon has never been observed directly 2 If I might be so bold as to translate this into English, he seems to be saying “things appear from nothing and then disappear back into nothing. And nobody has ever seen any of that happen!” The astronomer Heather Cowper put it this way, in a children’s book called The Big Bang. Our Universe probably came into existence not only from nothing, but from nowhere. 3 This does not appear like a scientific argument, but more like a doctrine of religious faith. “In the beginning, there was nothing. And that nothing exploded”. The most common misconception about the Big Bang theory is the idea that it teaches that matter exploded and spread out into empty space.

This is not what the theory teaches, and it is important as creationists that we do not misrepresent what secular scientists believe. The theory actually teaches that space itself was also small. This is difficult to get our heads around, but it is worth trying, for reasons that will become clear. Thus, at the point of singularity, they believe that there was still matter everywhere in the Universe–it is simply that they believe the Universe itself to have been very small. It is therefore space itself that stretched to its present size. The matter in the universe did not move through space during the stretching. It is what we might euphemistically call the fabric of space that stretched. It is worth getting our heads around the problem, because the stretching of space is actually biblical. In Isaiah 42:5 and 45:12 both state that God stretched out the heavens like a curtain. Of course, this does not mean that we agree that the Universe started out as a singularity. However, it is completely possible that God created the Universe smaller than it is today, and this concept is the basis for creationist cosmologies based on Gravitational Time Dilation, and discussed in our technical article on “Starlight Issues”.

Problems with the Big Bang There are a number of problems with the Big Bang theory. It ought to be pointed out, at this point, that it is not only creationists who have problems with the Big Bang theory. The theory is not universally accepted. For example, the physicist Eric Lerner has described himself as a Big Bang heretic, and has written a book and a website on the subject. 4 One very large problem with the theory is its inability to determine where the singularity came from. Theoretical astrophysicists (obviously working without any experimentation) have divided cosmological history, by their theory, into a number of epochs, when conditions were different. These epochs are shown in the diagram above. The first four epochs are labelled as 10-43s, 10-32s, 10-6s and 3min. Even under their own theory, they cannot work out what happened prior to the first 10-43s. Of course, all their calculations on such issues are theoretical, not experimental, so they do not qualify as observational science. This is notwithstanding the CERN experiments, which I am certain will find some results before the end of 2011.

There are two reasons why they will find results. The first is that billions of Euros of cash have been pumped into CERN, and the funding ends in December 2011, so the cynic in me thinks that is good enough reason to get results. The second is that this experiment, unusually, has an actual end in sight. The experimenters already know what conclusion they wish to verify, so whatever results they achieve will be shown to verify the conclusion they require. For a supposedly random event, the calculations around the Big Bang theory give too good a result. Dr. Robert Matthews, who is actually an unbeliever, said this: Why, for instance is our Universe and its laws just right for the existence of life?Ã‚Â Some argue that it is because it was specially made for us by a benevolent creator. 5 There is not enough antimatter in the universe. This is a big problem for the theorists. The original Big Bang would have produced equal amounts of positive matter (matter) and negative matter (antimatter). But only small amounts of antimatter exist. There should be as much antimatter as matter—if the Big Bang was true.

Since matter and antimatter are equivalent in all respects but that of electromagnetic charge oppositeness, any force [the Big Bang] that would create one should have to create the other, and the universe should be made of equal quantities of each. This is a dilemma. Theory tells us there should be antimatter out there, and observation refuses to back it up. 6 In fact, there isn’t enough matter of any sort for their calculations. For this reason, the concept of dark matter has been postulated. Dark matter is matter that cannot be detected, but it must be there, otherwise their calculations do not work! They have a similar problem with not enough energy in the Universe, so they have developed the idea of dark energy. We used to have answers like this when I was in High School, and we called them “fiddle factors”! What these concepts show is that the Big Bang theory is not a really satisfactory theory, but, at the moment, it is the best they have got. It therefore resembles the car I had in my college days, which was held together by string and duct tape. Even secular astrophysicists have realized the problems associated with dark matter and energy.

The Israeli astrophysicist, Moshe Carmeli, has developed a 5-dimensional cosmology, based on Einstein’s principles, and called Cosmological Special Relativity. Carmeli’s theory is mentioned in our article on Starlight Issues, because it has been adapted by John Hartnett of CMI to make a creationist cosmology based on time dilation. The final problem worth mentioning with the Big Bang theory is the so-called Horizon Problem. Many Big Bangers talk about the concept of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. They often state that CMB verifies the Big Bang. In fact, it does not. The uniform nature of CMB is actually impossible to explain under current Big Bang estimates for the age of the Universe. There is more detail on this in our technical article on Starlight Issues. Conclusion It is hope that this brief look at the Big Bang theory will help creationists not to misrepresent the theory. For example, creationists should not be asking “how can something explode into nothingness”. The Big Bang theory is not really a theory about an explosion. That name was given to the theory by an early opponent of the theory.

Nevertheless, we have seen that there are many justifiable accusations to level at the Big Bang theory, such as its reliance on “fiddle factors”, like dark matter. We have also seen that the Big Bang theory is not a monolithic theory. There is a substantial minority of atheistic, secular scientists who do not accept it, either. Most of all, we do not accept the Big Bang theory because it is unbiblical. It suggests that the Earth has no special place, whereas the Bible tells us that it does (Isaiah 45:12). Despite the heavens being vast and beautiful, they were nevertheless created for our benefit (Genesis 1:14) and, most importantly, to give glory to God (Psalm 19:1). Further Study BBC Universe - Steady State theory challenged the Big Bang Hoyle reflects on Steady State Fred Hoyle talks about the Steady State theory. In the late 1960s, Fred Hoyle discusses Steady State theory in light of what was then recent evidence for the Big Bang. Hoyle never accepted the Big Bang and, working with other scientists, continued to adapt the Steady State theory to explain new discoveries.

Steady State theory is largely discredited to today. About Steady State theory In cosmology, the Steady State theory is an alternative to the Big Bang model of the evolution of the universe. In the steady-state theory, the density of matter in the expanding universe remains unchanged due to a continuous creation of matter, thus adhering to the perfect cosmological principle, a principle that asserts that the observable universe is basically the same at any time as well as at any place. While the steady state model enjoyed some popularity in the mid-20th century, it is now rejected by the vast majority of cosmologists, astrophysicists and astronomers, as the observational evidence points to a hot Big Bang cosmology with a finite age of the universe, which the Steady State model does not predict. The Big Bang Theory The Big Bang Theory Author: Paul Taylor Summary: Creation Science Evangelism writer Paul Taylor discusses the Big Bang theory. We would not normally consider it necessary to explain how a theory works that we don’t even believe in. However, there are a lot of misunderstandings about the Big Bang theory. This includes misunderstandings amongst fellow creationists, who therefore sometimes end up opposing ideas that the Big Bang theorists don’t even believe in.

This article is therefore an attempt to understand a little of what the theory is about, and why, as creationists, we do not accept it. Please note that this is a beginner-level article. Many Big Bang theorists may therefore complain that I have simplified some concepts. However, I have only done so in the same way as a secular High School textbook writer might do. How did it start? The originators—George Lemaitre, a Belgium, struck on the basic idea in 1927; and George Gamow, R.A. Alpher, and R. Herman devised the basic Big Bang model in 1948. At first, the theory was not widely accepted by astrophysicists. It was not the only cosmological theory. Sir Fred Hoyle had a rival theory, called the Steady State theory, in which he claimed that new material must constantly be made in the universe to fill in the gaps, as the existing material expands. It was Hoyle who originally coined the term Big Bang, in a radio broadcast in 1949. He intended the term to be an insult, but it is now widely used by supporters of the theory.

The Big Bang Theory According to the Big Bang theory, all matter and all space was originally part of an infinitesimally small point called the Singularity. The theory says nothing about where that singularity came from. It is assumed to have come about by a random quantum event. This is what Brad Lemley said about quantum events. To the average person it might seem obvious that nothing can happen in nothing. But to a quantum physicist, nothing is, in fact, something. If this seems a somewhat unusual statement, try this next statement. Quantum theory also holds that a vacuum, like atoms, is subject to quantum uncertainties. This means that things can materialise out of the vacuum, although they tend to vanish back into it quickly...this phenomenon has never been observed directly... If I might be so bold as to translate this into English, he seems to be saying “things appear from nothing and then disappear back into nothing. And nobody has ever seen any of that happen!” The astronomer Heather Cowper put it this way, in a children’s book called The Big Bang. Our Universe probably came into existence not only from nothing, but from nowhere. This does not appear like a scientific argument, but more like a doctrine of religious faith.

“In the beginning, there was nothing. And that nothing exploded.” The most common misconception about the Big Bang theory is the idea that it teaches that matter exploded and spread out into empty space. This is not what the theory teaches, and it is important as creationists that we do not misrepresent what secular scientists believe. The theory actually teaches that space itself was also small. This is difficult to get our heads around, but it is worth trying, for reasons that will become clear. Thus, at the point of singularity, they believe that there was still matter everywhere in the Universe—it is simply that they believe the Universe itself to have been very small. It is therefore space itself that stretched to its present size. The matter in the universe did not move through space during the stretching. It is what we might euphemistically call the fabric of space that stretched. It is worth getting our heads around the problem, because the stretching of space is actually Biblical. Isaiah 42:5 and 45:12 both state that God stretched out the heavens like a curtain. Of course, this does not mean that we agree that the Universe started out as a singularity.

However, it is completely possible that God created the Universe smaller than it is today, and this concept is the basis for creationist cosmologies based on Gravitational Time Dilation, and discussed in our technical article on “Starlight Issues”. Problems with the Big Bang There are a number of problems with the Big Bang theory. It ought to be pointed out, at this point, that it is not only creationists who have problems with the Big Bang theory. The theory is not universally accepted. For example, the physicist Eric Lerner has described himself as a Big Bang heretic, and has written a book and a website on the subject. One very large problem with the theory is its inability to determine where the singularity came from. Theoretical astrophysicists (obviously working without any experimentation) have divided cosmological history, by their theory, into a number of epochs, when conditions were different. The first four epochs are labeled as 10-43s, 10-32s, 10-6s and 3min. Even under their own theory, they cannot work out what happened prior to the first 10-43s.

Of course, all their calculations on such issues are theoretical, not experimental, so they do not qualify as observational science. This is notwithstanding the CERN experiments, which I am certain will find some results before the end of 2011. There are two reasons why they will find results. The first is that billions of Euros of cash have been pumped into CERN, and the funding ends in December 2011, so the cynic in me thinks that is good enough reason to get results. The second is that this experiment, unusually, has an actual end in sight. The experimenters already know what conclusion they wish to verify, so whatever results they achieve will be shown to verify the conclusion they require. For a supposedly random event, the calculations around the Big Bang theory give too good a result. Dr. Robert Matthews, who is actually an unbeliever, said this: Why, for instance is our Universe and its laws just right for the existence of life? Some argue that it is because it was specially made for us by a benevolent creator. There is not enough antimatter in the universe. This is a big problem for the theorists.

The original Big Bang would have produced equal amounts of positive matter (matter) and negative matter (antimatter). But only small amounts of antimatter exist. There should be as much antimatter as matter—if the Big Bang was true. Since matter and antimatter are equivalent in all respects but that of electromagnetic charge oppositeness, any force [the Big Bang] that would create one should have to create the other, and the universe should be made of equal quantities of each. This is a dilemma. Theory tells us there should be antimatter out there, and observation refuses to back it up. vi In fact, there isn’t enough matter of any sort for their calculations. For this reason, the concept of dark matter has been postulated. Dark matter is matter that cannot be detected, but it must be there, otherwise their calculations do not work! They have a similar problem with not enough energy in the Universe, so they have developed the idea of dark energy. We used to have answers like this when I was in High School, and we called them “fiddle factors”! What these concepts show is that the Big Bang theory is not a really satisfactory theory, but, at the moment, it is the best they have got.

It therefore resembles the car I had in my college days, which was held together by string and duct tape. Even secular astrophysicists have realized the problems associated with dark matter and energy. The Israeli astrophysicist, Moshe Carmeli, has developed a 5-dimensional cosmology, based on Einstein’s principles, and called Cosmological Special Relativity. Carmeli’s theory is mentioned in our article on Starlight Issues, because it has been adapted by John Hartnett of CMI to make a creationist cosmology based on time dilation. The final problem worth mentioning with the Big Bang theory is the so-called Horizon Problem. Many Big Bangers talk about the concept of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. They often state that CMB verifies the Big Bang. In fact, it does not. The uniform nature of CMB is actually impossible to explain under current Big Bang estimates for the age of the Universe. Conclusion It is hope that this brief look at the Big Bang theory will help creationists not to misrepresent the theory. For example, creationists should not be asking “how can something explode into nothingness”. The Big Bang theory is not really a theory about an explosion.

That name was given to the theory by an early opponent of the theory. Nevertheless, we have seen that there are many justifiable accusations to level at the Big Bang theory, such as its reliance on “fiddle factors”, like dark matter. We have also seen that the Big Bang theory is not a monolithic theory. There is a substantial minority of atheistic, secular scientists who do not accept it, either. Most of all, we do not accept the Big Bang theory because it is unBiblical. It suggests that the Earth has no special place, whereas the Bible tells us that it does (Isaiah 45:12). Despite the heavens being vast and beautiful, they were nevertheless created for our benefit (Genesis 1:14) and, most importantly, to give glory to God (Psalm 19:1). Creation Science Evangelism 2005.

Question: Who coined the term 'Big Bang' for a cosmic theory with which he did not himself agree?
Answer: Sir Fred Hoyle