Did the Big Bang really happen?

[hypnagogue]

I've heard rumblings that go against the Big Bang theory but I never read a full blown scientific rebuttal until this:

http://www.Newtonphysics.on.ca/BIGBANG/Bigbang.html

The article basically shows how all the evidence commonly cited in support of the Big Bang can be explained without having to suppose that the Big Bang happened in the first place. The article is a bit dated (circa 1990) but is written by an accredited scientist, not some guy spouting pseudo science.

Anyone mind taking a read and offering their thoughts?

 

[thed]

Paul Marmet is often quoted by anti-Big Bangers. He's well known in the field.

Couple of things. He is using the fallacy of arguing from authority. That is, he is using his educational background, and that of others, to lend credence to his argument. It looks good as he is a scientist but as Sagan noted in "The Demon Haunted World", even Nobel Laureates make mistakes and must be questioned.

Secundus, a crucial point he is using is that,

These important inhomogeneities in the composition of the universe as we see it today must have first appeared in the early universe (if it exists). ::snips:: A. E. Lange recently reported that there is no observable inhomogeneity even with a resolution of 10 seconds of arc and a sensitivity in temperature as high as DT=± 0.00001 K (Lange 1989).

Which totally ignores more recent evidence from COBE and WMAP and BoOMERANG. For example, http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm.html
The inhomogeneities are there but more like at ±10^-6 K.

If redshifting was due to Rayleigh scattering you would get anisotropic redshifting. That is varying amounts at different frequencies in the spectra. Rayleigh scattering is frequency dependant and the ISM is not homogeneous. For example, you would only see high red shift objects behind other galaxies and the red shift would vary due to obscuring gas/dust/ISM in the foreground object. I believe this is not observed. Instead, the whole spectra is redshifted isotropically regardless of foreground objects.

I really must write up the rebuttal to Plasma Cosmology I started last year, specifically Wal Thornhill's version.

 

[hypnagogue]

OK, but Marmet also claims the following:

A large number of redshift observations cannot be explained by the Doppler theory. Astronomer Halton Arp's 1987 book Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies provides an extensive review of them, as does a lengthy 1989 review article by the Indian astrophysicist J. V. Narlikar. A catalogue of 780 references to redshift observations inexplicable by the Doppler effect was published in 1981 by K. J. Reboul under the title, "Untrivial Redshifts: A Bibliographical Catalogue." Many other papers indicate that non-velocity redshifts have been observed.

If a non-Doppler redshift mechanism cannot exist, all of these papers published by professional astronomers would have to be erroneous! This arouses suspicion, to say the least. The systematic rejection of more than 1,000 papers related to nonvelocity redshift observations show that many scientists are too comfortable with the established framework to be open to ideas that challenge that framework. A non-Doppler interpretation of the redshift actually leads to better agreement of theory with the actual observations, as shown below.

Any takes on that?

 

[thed]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
OK, but Marmet also claims the following:

A large number of redshift observations cannot be explained by the Doppler theory. Astronomer Halton Arp's 1987 book Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies provides an extensive review of them, as does a lengthy 1989 review article by the Indian astrophysicist J. V. Narlikar.

Any takes on that?

Yep. First off, that is an assertion without proof. How are these redshifts definitely not doppler related? Secondly, it is an argument to authority. That is, I am right because two Astronomers/Astrophysicists say I am right.

Arp and Narlikar are well known alternative thinkers. They may have drew their own conclusions about some data (typically 20 years old data) but it the argument above ignores the thousands of observations taken since then.

BTW, I have a copy of Arp's book and am not convinced, for one.

Compare the above statements to mine;

A large number of observations that the Pyramids in Egypt and S. America where built by Humans cannot be explained. Historian and noted scholar Zecharia Sitchen provides an extensive review of the evidence against in his book "The 12th planet", as does the eminent scholar Immanuel Velikovsky in his internationally acclaimed review "Worlds in Collision". Later work by Robert Bauval provides further compelling evidence that Aliens influenced human developement.

Can you see the similarity on style. If you don't believe what I wrote, why do you believe Marmet. We used the same argument.

 

[hypnagogue]

It's not that I don't believe you, I'm just trying to rationally sort things out here.

 

[marcus]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
It's not that I don't believe you, I'm just trying to rationally sort things out here.

there is a confusion in the language used in this thread which
may eventually come back to plague us

among conventional cosmologists the cosmological redshift is
not considered to be a doppler effect

the doppler formula is not used to calculate it or to deal with it
in any kind of calculation

any online cosmology tutorial should take care of this
(I don't mean the pop-sci accounts where the confusion is maintained but lecture notes and stuff) see
Ned Wright's tutorial, FAQ, or Eric Linder's, or Charles Lineweaver's CalTech thing. At the moment I don't have the precise
link to this, but probably everybody really knows not to call the cosmological redshift a dopplershift and are just speaking carelessly

dopplershift formula is

1+ z = sqrt((1 + v)/(1 - v))

and by v I really mean v/c

the dopplershift formula gives wrong answers and is not used for cosmo redshift

altho it is the correct relativistic dopplershift formula and
works fine in a local coordinates situation

 

[thed]

Marcus

Fair point that. I was speaking carelessly or not thinking properly.

The Cosmological redshift, or Hubble Flow, is not a doppler effect. It is due to the coordinate system expanding itself. More precisely, the comoving coordinate, R dR/dt.

Hypangogue

The point I am making is that Marmet is using very clever social engineering techniques to make people listen to them.

It is very easy to make a claim that looks good, harder to actually back the claim with real evidence. If memory serves, Arp's book only lists a few tens, out of thousands, quasars that are in any way controversial. Caveate being, they may have been controversial 20 years ago, not anymore I suspect.

It has to be said that 'standard' cosmology was suffering twenty years ago. At present the fixes seem to be holding, even proven. The alternatives are a lot worse in my opinion.