Big Bang Theory: What's wrong with it?

[sol88]

After reading some other threads bashing the BB model I thought I'd start my own with the purpose of highlighting the differences?

Feel free to add any pet hates, discrepancies and generally Bad astronomy involving the big bang theory!

Let the games begin.

Sol

[RussT]

This should be very intersting, because IMHO, most people do not really understand what "IS" wrong with the Big Bang, and more importantly, why!

Here is my "KEY" thing.

The fight against the Big Bang should not be against the singularity, but against what the Big Bang says the T=0 singularity does!

[tusenfem]

wouldn't it be reasonable then that you start the discussion, just opening a thread is not really putting in much effort in your own idea.

[Eta C]

After reading some other threads bashing the BB model I thought I'd start my own with the purpose of highlighting the differences?

Feel free to add any pet hates, discrepancies and generally Bad astronomy involving the big bang theory!

Let the games begin.

Sol

Just make sure that the objections are on a scientific basis. A few of the objections that I regard as invalid are:

Complaints that the theory has been "tweaked."

Arguments that its too "religious" or implies creation ex nihilo.

Complaints about the nature of the singularity at T=0 since the BB theory does not in fact make any statements about the nature of that singularity.

Any objection based on a philosophical dislike of the implications of the theory.

Anything else that comes to mind as people post.

Of course, we could also start a thread on what's wrong with the electric sun conjecture. Oh wait, there's already plenty on that one.

[TravisM]

Simply put, lack of knowledge of the theory is what is wrong with it. Plain and simple.
The T=0 thing is an ironic example right out of the gate.

[Sp1ke]

My superficial understanding of the big bang is as follows:
1) Red shift indicates movement away from us.
2) So all objects in the observable universe are receding from us.
3) If we work backwards, everything was closer in the past than it is now.
4) If we go far enough backwards, everything gets closer and closer until it meets.
5) The point in time that everything meets up is the big bang.

So that's our start point. Is there something wrong with these steps or is it, as RussT says, the extrapolation to T=0 where GR and quantum theory break down?

[Tim Thompson]

I would simply like to point out that it is, at least in my opinion, a misconception to see big bang cosmology as "a theory". Rather, it is "a family of theories", or perhaps even more appropriately, "a meta-theory". just as meta-physics is a study of the logical foundations of physics, and meta-mathematics is a study of the logical foundations of mathematics (i.e., Whitehead & Russell's "Principia Mathematica" is not a work of mathematics, but meta-mathematics), so in general any "meta-theory" is really a study of the logical foundations of the theory. As I see it, "big bang" is really a meta-theory of cosmology, a set of logical principles that all cosmological theories are expected to adhere to. The mainstream of cosmology is currently dominated by this meta-theory, primarily because of its close ties with observation.

So, again as I see it, the major failing of most alternative cosmologies comes in two parts. First, they act as if "big bang cosmology" were a single theory, and then complain mightily about it being "tweaked" (despite the fact that tweaking of theories is usually very good science), completely missing the point about it being a meta-theory. And second, they try too hard to claim that big bang cosmology is contradicted by observation, which is almost never true, and immediately identifies the ATMer as a hack.

The successful, or at least potentially successful ATM cosmology has to be more imaginative, and more willing to be positive about itself, rather than negative about the big bang. So, if you look at Nereid's thread "How good are the best alternatives to the Big Bang theories?", you will find my my response indicating that the quasi steady state cosmology (QSSC) of Narlikar & Hoyle was my pick for the best scientific alternative to big bang cosmology. I would hold it up here as a prime example of the kind of thing that ATMers should do, but almost never actually do. Narlikar does not work hard to show that big bang cosmology is wrong, but does work had to show that his alternative cosmology can explain anything that big bang cosmology can explain, without at the same time making hash out of the rest of physics.

That last point kills the vast majority of ATM ideas on the spot. Most ATMers just don't get the point that physics is a cohesive whole. You can't play games with one part, and expect to see no reaction elsewhere.

Now, to the topic at hand. What is wrong with big bang cosmology? Well, not so much "wrong" as "weak" I think, and it's a problem with cosmology in general. Just imagine that somebody drops a single frame from a movie on you, a movie you have never seen, and know nothing about. Your mission, should you decide to accept, is to reconstruct the entire, One True Movie, from that single frame. That is a fair, though limited analogy to what cosmologists are trying to do. The universe of today, the one we see from here, is the single frame. The One True Movie that we want to reconstruct from it is the history of the universe.

So, how do you do it? You can interpret the single frame by careful study of the background scenery, the actors (who are they? What are they doing?), and get a pretty reasonable idea about the few frames that should come before & after. But the farther away from that one frame you get, the harder it is to create unique frames. It's easier to create a family of plausible frames, and then argue about them. And that's pretty much what cosmologists do. They don't create one unique history of the universe. Rather, they create a family of plausible histories, and then argue about them.

But the cosmologists do have one advantage: They have physics on their side. So by combining physical theory with observation, they can constrain the set of plausible histories, within the framework of the meta-theory. Now it just so happens that this process works like gangbusters, and allows cosmologists to use extremely precise observations to strongly constrain the family of plausible big bang cosmologies.

The weakness of big bang cosmology, it's one true Achilles Heel should now be obvious: It is big bang cosmology itself. It is the fact that mainstream cosmology is dominated by the meta-theory of the big bang, which constrains tthe family of plausible models, but constrains imagination along with it. So, the QSSC is a true "thinking out of the box" cosmology, which in this case thinks outside the dominate meta-theory, but makes a real effort at consistency with both observation & physics, the latter of which is far more permissive than one might think (i.e., Narlikar, 2003; Wheeler & Feynman, 1949, where the idea of Action at a Distance, as an alternative to general relativity, is examined).

The weakness of ATM ideas expressed around here is probably that they are far too ordinary & mundane to be interesting, or far too ignorant of what we actually know about both physics, and the observed universe. A thread like this is guaranteed to be filled with hack jobs that are dead before they start, because they make all of the same old mistakes that, by comparison, make big bang cosmology look so good.

So, in the standard context by which things are usually done on this board, I would say that nothing is wrong with big bang cosmology. It's perfect. Have a nice day.

[antoniseb]

My position is pretty similar to Eta C, sp1ke, and Tim. Nothing is wrong with the Big Bang "Theory" as far as it is actually accepted. There is no unified position on the first moment, or the precise mechanism for inflation, or the nature of Dark Energy.

When somone *does* write something about those aspects of cosmology, and attributes it to "The Big Bang Theory (tm)" it opens a hole where lots of clever people looking for an alternative think something along the lines of "I could come up with an idea as likely as that bologna"... and they are right, except that their idea has to avoid contradicting the observable universe. That is when a lot of would-be-Einsteins have to start attacking the observations. The fact is that our observations do not have infinite precision, and that wrong conclusions can be drawn from looking at the limits of observability, but everything that is well-observed supports the "red-shift relates to distance" model, and to the evidence that objects observed far away are from a less mature time in the universe (i.e. redshift relates to age).

To that end, nothing is wrong.

New, more detailed observations will be made. In the next twenty years we will have new instruments online that will dwarf the capabilities of the great tools we are using today. The 30 meter telescopes, SKA, IceCube, JWST, Planck, and many more. If the Big Bang is wrong, tell me what these things will see that will prove the Big Bang wrong.

[bigsplit]

I have a problem with the idea of space expansion of all four dimensions as opposed to the expansion of the forth dimension only.

[Gillianren]

Why?

[Nereid]

[moderator note] Three posts, containing a discussion of the BAUT rules, have been moved to the Rules discussion thread, in About BAUT. [/moderator note]

[RussT]

Complaints about the nature of the singularity at T=0 since the BB theory does not in fact make any statements about the nature of that singularity.

Eta C, this is not just directed at you, because you are all saying the same basic thing!

Regardless of whether you start at T=0, 10 ^-43, 10 ^-35, shrinking the universe down to whatever size you choose, and then saying that is how the Matter gets here, is an ILL-EAGLE lookback! It is not how the Matter gets here!

Now, why is that? Because it all started with LeMaitre/Friedmann, didn't it...no wiggling here! And if you are going to say the Gamma Radiation was the result, then you MUST follow proper GR procedure, and do the proper GR lookback to the Naked Singularity.

Now, just because you can't get past 10 ^-43 seconds to get to the singularity, does NOT mean you can just say oh well.......we'll just start at
10 ^-43, and say......well since we know the radiation must be there (after all the CMBR PROVED that, right), we'll just start from there and say that is how the Matter gets here..............bad science ladies and gentlemen!

Oh, and BTW, we'll just leave the solving of the unification of GR and QFT at
T=0 to 10 ^-43 to another deeper more comprehensive theory below the Planck size!

The unification will come at the singularity, but the one in the SMBH, because it actually exists! It can't be done at T=0 to 10 ^-43 because that naked singularity has never existed!

[Fortis]

Complaints about the nature of the singularity at T=0 since the BB theory does not in fact make any statements about the nature of that singularity.

Eta C, this is not just directed at you, because you are all saying the same basic thing!

Regardless of whether you start at T=0, 10 ^-43, 10 ^-35, shrinking the universe down to whatever size you choose, and then saying that is how the Matter gets here, is an ILL-EAGLE lookback! It is not how the Matter gets here!
.
.
.
The unification will come at the singularity, but the one in the SMBH, because it actually exists! It can't be done at T=0 to 10 ^-43 because that naked singularity has never existed!

It is perfectly reasonable to say that there is some time, whatever that time happens to be (let's call it X), prior to which we cannot presently say anything about. Scientists are frequently described as being arrogant know-it-alls, but here is an example where we can fling our hands up in the air and proclaim "We don't know!"

The standard model that we know and love, hasn't been tested under the conditions that may have pertained at times prior to T=X. We have good reasons to expect that our model of gravity, GR, is probably not up to the job prior to this time, though we have more confidence in its predictions after this time.

Perhaps you have a theoretical framework that enables us to probe the regime prior to T=X? One that has passed a few experimental tests?

[Tim Thompson]

... bad science ladies and gentlemen!

Balderdash. Poppycock. Horsefeathers. It's perfectly good science, in fact it is exactly how science is supposed to be done. Always start with what you know, not with what you guess, a lesson that ATMers would do well to learn. We know that the universe exists. We know that there is a correlation between measured redshifts, and the measured indicators of distance. From that we infer a redshift - distance relationship. We use what we know as a basis for the inference from which we build scientific theories. And in that way we eventually come up with the meta-theory of the big bang, which is in essence an hypothesis that the universe is expanding. The many theories of big bang cosmology are some of the many ways in which a universe can do that.

Now, you say that it is "bad science" if we simply assume that the energy got here "somehow", and start our universal clock at 10^-43 seconds (or whatever). I disagree, I say that it is good science. The reason that it is good science is that there are no theories which can explain the physics at earlier times. So what real scientists do, when they do good science, is that they assume boundary conditions for their theories (such as the mundane observation that the universe began), and then let their theories operate over the domain they were designed for. While they do that, they search for theories which can expand their vision. And that is exactly what scientists are doing, exactly what they are supposed to do, and exactly the opposite from what you think they are supposed to do.

[sol88]

Well my biggest beef with the BB model, predicting/assuming Blackholes are the power stations of the universe. I saw a show on the tube the other day in whence Stephen Hawing got up in front (well, wheeled in) of his peers a said...Whooops I've made a bit of a blue on that theory, this is the new one! Gotta have big family jewls for that in my book.

One of the best-known theoretical physicists of his generation, Hawking has done groundbreaking research on black holes and the origins of the universe, proposing that space and time have no beginning and no end.

LINK

A so now there is no T=0 instead there is T=infinity ... the universe has always (on any meaningful time scale for our minds) been here. Well that’s a different kettle of fish now isn’t it no singularity no big bang !!! or am I missing the whole shebang here?

And I know it's just word salad to the more senior members here but, that little annoying thing, electricity , or more likely, charge separation mechanisms, are the driving force for the Formation, Destruction and Reformation of all matter in this observable universe.

If we must have a beginning, then I’d hazard a guess and say that there were just + & - !!! the rest has been a dynamic interplay for...well....ever!

The evidence seems to be everywhere

So in my mind I can discount the BBT (but not the physics) and apply it (the physics) somewhere else with a much more holistic overview

But hey, that time thingy, it's only a little inconvenience to the BBngr's

Sol

[PhantomWolf]

The fight against the Big Bang should not be against the singularity

Well admittedly my understanding of the Big Bang from a Singularity isn't volumous, but from what I do understand, it doesn't make an awful lot of sense to me, so I'm more of a "Big Whoomph" supporter.

I have problems with a finite globular-shaped universe centred on a point of expansion, because it doesn't fit our observations:

We believe the Universe is ~14 billion years old.
We can see a little over 13 billion years away in all directions.

Thus for a finite Universe we MUST be within 1 billion years of the centre, there is no other way to fit a 13 billion ly universe into a 14 billion ly universe.

However if we were not the exact center, then any Structures 13 billion ly from us towards the actual centre will appear younger that structures 13 billion ly in the other direction. They aren't. That indicates that either we ARE at the center (something that is really pretty perposterous I would think) or that there is no centre.

Add to this that the expansion of space that these structures reside in must have been moving faster than the speed light to have gotten them to a postion so far away in just 1 billion years. We know that the expansion of space is accelerating, so the area of space they reside must now be much greater than speed of light, so how did the light overcome that expansion and get too us?

Now the idea of a ripple that expanded out from a singularity creating matter as it goes might also work, though again it'd need to be moving at a near infinite speed, but as such it could indeed explain what we see. Still there isn't that much different to that and a hypothesis of the Universe appearing everywhere at once.

To me an infinite universe that come into existance at the same time, or even as a series of events and now is stretching, seems to fit the obversations better.

[01101001]

A so now there is no T=0 instead there is T=infinity ... the universe has always (on any meaningful time scale for our minds) here. Well that’s a different kettle of fish now isn’t it no singularity no big bang !!! or am I missing the whole shebang here?

All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago.

--Stephen Hawking, The Beginning of Time

The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down.

Nevertheless, the way the universe began would have been determined by the laws of physics, if the universe satisfied the no boundary condition. This says that in the imaginary time direction, space-time is finite in extent, but doesn't have any boundary or edge. The predictions of the no boundary proposal seem to agree with observation.

Oh, you mean imaginary time. That's not time.

[pzkpfw]

The fight against the Big Bang should not be against the singularity
...
I have problems with a finite globular-shaped universe centred on a point of expansion, because it doesn't fit our observations:
...
Thus for a finite Universe we MUST be within 1 billion years of the centre, there is no other way to fit a 13 billion ly universe into a 14 billion ly universe.
...

Er, I thought one point was that there is no "centre of the Universe/BB".

That is, space/time is itself expanding - it's not like the BB happened "in space" and everything is spreading out into space from that central location.

I'm not sure if this is related to that Einsteininian thing (dunno what it's called) of going one direction long enough and getting back to where you began - from the other side; but doesn't this also imply there is no centre?

Cheers,

[Grey]

I have problems with a finite globular-shaped universe centred on a point of expansion, because it doesn't fit our observations:

That's okay, because big bang theories don't suggest that the universe is globular-shaped or centered on a point of expansion.

To me an infinite universe that come into existance at the same time, or even as a series of events and now is stretching, seems to fit the obversations better.

The big bang allows a cosmology where an infinite universe came into being somehow, and began expanding. There's nothing in the big bang model that requires a finite universe (although there is also nothing that rules it out; the question remains open).

[sol88]

105 wrote

Oh, you mean imaginary time. That's not time.

this would also imply imaginary space as well, then by extension, an imaginary theory!!

LOL

Sol

[RussT]

"IF" the Friedmann Naked Singularity is not there, the is NO gamma radiation, Inflation, Expansion, or Hot primordial anything!!!

Haven't we learned anything from history??? The Earth was the center of the universe, then the Sun, and now in the very first attempt at applying GR to the universe, we "THINK" we can see the beginning of the UNIVERSE/MutliVerse from our tiny little planet in what most likely is a bazillion light years worth of galaxies spread out through a Darkness we can't even define.

I believe we can define how it all works, but we will probably never be able to determine where it started, when it started, and almost certainly not why it started!

But, we Can certainly figure out "How The Matter Gets Here", and that is precisely where we need to start, because anyone who thinks that they can define the universe as a whole with our current knowledge, is almost certainly fooling themselves!

On that note, the Big Bang has 2 things right. 1. nucleosynthesis as the result of a huge influx of Gamma radiation. 2. SMBH's do "EXIST".

[Svemir]

Well, yesterday I was about to write a replay, but had to go home (from work :-)), then came Tim T. post that closely resambles what I'v had to say.
BBT is a hole family of theories and if one want to argue against it , one's work is difficult , bacause you have to argue with a proponent of a particular theory at a time.
It could be fun to present a BBT as an alternative theory and see how well it fits observations and known physics.
An example:
Bing Bang Theory
Gamow model
The universe is expanding, inferred from the observed redshift and Hubble law.
The Universe was much smaller in the past.
Actually, if we model the universe as a big ball of neutrons with the size of Asteroid Belt, after explosion of that ball we will end up with observed matter/energy density after 2 bio. years.
So, the Universe is 2 bio. years old, which is in excellent agreement with furthest objects observed
Neutrons decay into protons and electrons and after recombination (the universe is cooling down due to expansion) we end up with the universe made up of Hydrogen atoms.
Hydrogen atoms clumps together, due to gravitational instabilities, making the stars.
After nuclear burning in the stars (we can calculate the rate) some time later we end up with the observed H/He ratio.
Just after the explosion, the Universe in the state of hot plasma with temperatures comparable to the temperatures of the surface of the avarage star (The Sun) i.e. 4000 K. (or was it the temperature generated by coliding neutrons ?)
Prediction: There is a thermal radiation remnant pervading the hole universe.
With our parameters (age of universe, temperature of plasma, temperature of neutrons (from A-bomb experiments) the current temperature equivalent is about 15 - 50 K.

So, what is really wrong with Bing Bang Theory?

[Tim Thompson]

"IF" the Friedmann Naked Singularity is not there, the is NO gamma radiation, Inflation, Expansion, or Hot primordial anything!!!

I suppose it might be possible to be more dead wrong than this, but not by much. Indeed, the absence of the Freidmann Naked Singularity is crucial to the existence of inflation, expansion, and a hot primordial universe, exactly the opposite of what you have said. This should be obvious, simply because the singularity is a pure state of non-existence, and things that don't exist, don't usually expand (though perhaps you have a new form of logic that permits this?).

[Gillianren]

I saw a show on the tube the other day in whence Stephen Hawing got up in front (well, wheeled in) of his peers a said...Whooops I've made a bit of a blue on that theory, this is the new one! Gotta have big family jewls for that in my book.

That's because (drumroll, please) you don't understand how science works. Part of science--arguably the most important part--is saying, "Oh, wait. We were wrong. It really works like this."

[Peter Wilson]

The problem with the BBT is that it is a search for explanation in the past, instead of the present.

If someone asks, Why is the moon's orbit expanding?, I can answer that question without a word about the past: "Because the earth is spinning faster than the moon orbits, and in the same direction, and due to the tidal interactions that this creates, the moon's orbit expands." That is, the explanation for the observed phenomenon is to be found entirely in the present, not the past.

In other words, the BBT is barking up the wrong tree, looking for an explanation in the remote past , instead of in the present , where the answer lies. If someone asks, Why is the universe expanding?, tell them: "Because the universe is contracting." The explanation is in the Here and Now, not the ancient past.

[turbo-1]

New, more detailed observations will be made. In the next twenty years we will have new instruments online that will dwarf the capabilities of the great tools we are using today. The 30 meter telescopes, SKA, IceCube, JWST, Planck, and many more. If the Big Bang is wrong, tell me what these things will see that will prove the Big Bang wrong.

We already have observations of quasars at z~6.5 exhibiting super-solar metallicities. If they are at the distances implied by their redshifts (in the mainstream view), they are being driven by SMBHs of several billion solar masses, and are being fueled by host galaxies that are around a trillion solar masses or more. All these observations are at a look-back age only a few hundred million years after the BB if indeed redshift is indicative of cosmological expansion. This stands the heirarchical model of structure formation on its head. Indeed, Michael Strauss (SDSS science spokesperson) has challenged cosmologists to explain this, since there is no observable evolution in either the absolute or relative concentrations of Fe or Mg in quasar spectra even out to z~6.5.

As a proponent of a spacially and temporally infinite Universe, I believe that the new instruments scheduled to come on line will show us more of the same, and if BB cosmologists aren't already looking for an exit when confronted by the SDSS observations (a modest instrument BTW, compared to some that you have listed) they certainly should be looking for alternatives when we observe quasars at z~8 and they are still exhibiting super-solar metallicities. As I pointed out on the "More from Arp et al" thread (that you started and still moderate, thank you), mainstream cosmologists expected to see evolutions in quasar metallicities by z~2 (none has been found) and by z~5 we are reaching the most optimistic lower limit of the time required for type a1 Supernovae to have supplied iron enrichment in order for quasars to have ~solar metallicities in that metal. By contrast, we have observations of quasars at z~6.5 with supersolar levels of iron - who ordered this? I do not believe that these observations can be explained in the context of BB cosmology. Fred Hoyle may have been closer to the truth than Gamow, just not as popular with the press.

[antoniseb]

By contrast, we have observations of quasars at z~6.5 with supersolar levels of iron - who ordered this? I do not believe that these observations can be explained in the context of BB cosmology. Fred Hoyle may have been closer to the truth than Gamow, just not as popular with the press.

Hoyle and Gamow are ancient history. The ideas behind galaxy formation are related to the big bang, but they do not prove or invalidate it. There is a school of galaxy formation in the mainstream models which says that large galaxies formed early. Essentially, the central bulge did not form by mergers. The central bulge is an indicator of the initial formation period. Some giant ellipticals with a trillion solar masses formed and were getting to be mature by the z=7 epoch. You do not need lots of Iron for a quasar to have greater than solar metalicity. If you see an entire galaxy with solar iron abundances from that era, I'll be stumped, but the zone around a central SMBH is pretty small, and very fast to mature.

Anytime I see the arguments that some old-school astronomer's thoughts on galaxy formation are brought into question by observation, I am happy to see that deadwood is being removed from the tree of possibilities, but I do not feel that cosmic expansion's evidence is threatened.

[Peter Wilson]

...I do not feel that cosmic expansion's evidence is threatened.

It is not the expansion that is in question, but the history of it.

BTW, is a SMBH a stellar-mass-black-hole or super-massive-black-hole?

[Fortis]

The problem with the BBT is that it is a search for explanation in the past, instead of the present.

If someone asks, Why is the moon's orbit expanding?, I can answer that question without a word about the past: "Because the earth is spinning faster than the moon orbits, and in the same direction, and due to the tidal interactions that this creates, the moon's orbit expands." That is, the explanation for the observed phenomenon is to be found entirely in the present, not the past.

And if you ask how the Moon came to have the orbit that it has?

[TomT]

[QUOTE=Tim Thompson]
So, again as I see it, the major failing of most alternative cosmologies comes in two parts. First, they act as if "big bang cosmology" were a single theory, and then complain mightily about it being "tweaked" (despite the fact that tweaking of theories is usually very good science), completely missing the point about it being a meta-theory. And second, they try too hard to claim that big bang cosmology is contradicted by observation, which is almost never true, and immediately identifies the ATMer as a hack.
QUOTE]

I would like to explore this statement a bit, because first I am in agreement with the proposition that tweaking of a theory is a good thing (actually a necessary thing), and secondly, I have a question about a particular tweak to the BB.
As discussed at length in the "More from Arp et al" thread there are observations of objects that seem to show physical connections between objects of highly different redshift. This has led to the conclusion that the redshift of an object may contain an "intrinsic" component that is due to some unknown cause other than velocity of recession. If this were concluded to be true at some future time, can the BB theory accomodate this?
Without knowing all the ramifications myself, could the intrinsic component (assumed to be a variable, not a constant) be subtracted from the total redshift, with the remainder actually indicating the velocity. This would lead to smaller velocities, smaller sizes of distant objects, a slower expansion, etc. What I am leading to, could it lead to a BB theory without my pet peeve, Dark Matter to provide the missing gravity needed to "hold things together"? Could the BB Theory absorb this "tweak"?
TomT