Ashwini Kumar Lal, Ph.D.,
Deputy Adviser, Ministry of Statistics & Progrmme Implementation
New Delhi, India
Research paper article titled “Big Bang? A Critical Review” published in the Americal journal, ‘Journal of Cosmology’ Findings of research question validity of the widely accepted Big Bang theory as viable explanation for origin of universe.There has been extensive media coverage of research findings. Reference to research has since also been made at the Astrophysics Data System (ADS) maintained by NASA(USA).
*************************************
Inflationary Big Bang model is the generally accepted theory for the origin of universe. Nonetheless, findings of the observational astronomy as also the revelations in the field of fundamental physics over the past two decades question validity of the ‘Big Bang’ model as a viable theory for origin of the universe. This paper examines a few of the various factors which undermine the theory of the big Bang, including the organization of galactic superstructures, the Cosmic Microwave Background, distant galaxies, gravitational waves, redshifts, and the age of local galaxies.
1. Introduction
Majority of the astronomers favour inflationary Big Bang model as a viable model for origin and nature of the universe. The origin of Big Bang, as explained through extrapolation of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, is a mathematically obscure state – a ‘singularity’ of zero volume that contained infinite density and infinitely large energy. It refers to the grand event at which not only matter but space-time itself was born. Why this singularity existed, how it originated, and why it exploded, remain unexplained so far; and this state of affair has led many scientists to question and challenge validity of the Big Bang theory (Arp et al. 2004; Eastman 2010; Lerner 1991: Ratcliffe 2010; Van Flandern 2002).
2. Large – scale Structures in the Universe
In recent years, there have been a number of very serious challenges to the current theory of cosmic evolution and the belief that the universe began just 13.75 billion years ago. These include the observation of large chains of galaxies spread throughout the universe forming gargantuan stellar structures separated by vast voids. The system of galactic superclusters forms a network permeating throughout the space, on which about 90% of the galaxies are located…
3. Age of Universe
Based on the findings of the WMAP, astronomers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center proclaimed the age of Universe as 13.7 billion years (Benett et al. 2003). They claim that the WMAP data along with the complementary observations from other CMB experiments like CBI (Cosmic Background Imager) 7
and DASI (Degree Angular Scale Interferometer) confirm the inflationary Big Bang model of the Universe (Figs. 1 and 2)…
4. Early Galaxies
Combining Advanced camera for Survey (ACS) and the Infrared Camera for Multi-object Spectrometer (NICMOS), the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) has revealed the presence of estimated 10,000 fully formed galaxies in a patch of sky in the constellation, Formax – a region just below the constellation, Orion (NASA News Release 2005). According to the NASA interpretation, these fully formed galaxies emerged just 700 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was barely 5% of its current age (z ~ 7)…
5. Gravitational – wave Background
One of the acid tests relating to the validity of the Big Bang model is detection of remnant of gravity waves from the earliest epoch of the universe. Existence of gravitational – wave background, predicted by Einstein in 1916 in his general theory of relativity, is expected from the violent early moments of the Big Bang much like the cosmic microwave background that fills the sky with radio waves 12 from the early universe. While the microwave background originated 380,000 years after the Big Bang, gravitational – wave background purportedly come directly from events in the first minute after the Big Bang. As per Einstein’s prediction, the cataclysmic Big Bang is believed to have created a flood of gravitational waves – ripples in the fabric of space-time that still fill the universe, albeit at a very feeble strength to be discernible by the conventional astronomical tools, and carry information about the universe as it was in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang…
6. Rivers of Galaxies Flowing in the Wrong Direction
The Big Bang predicts general uniformity in the trajectory of galaxies, and yet, contrary to this theory (Joseph 2010a), there are galaxies crashing into each other from every conceivable direction. There are in fact rivers of galaxies flowing in the wrong direction, including local galaxies who streaming motions are too high for a finite universe that is supposed to be everywhere uniform (Van Flandern 2002)…
7. Constancy of Speed of Light
One of the basic assumptions of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, is the constancy of the speed of light. A varying speed of light contradicts Einstein’s theory of relativity, and conflicts with the Big Bang model for the universe. In recent years, the speed of light has been observed to have exceeded the speed of 300,000 km/sec, albeit over short range, in quantum tunneling experiments (Landauer 1993, Brown 1995). This has led some to claim that light moved faster during the early stages of the universe. For example, the evidence for variations in the fine-structure constant, α (= e2/ ħc) – a measurement of the strength of electromagnetic interaction between photons and electrons based on measurement of light travelling billions of years from quasars (Davies, et al 2002) has been used to claim that the speed of light was faster than its current speed
some 6 to 10 billion years ago. The fine-structure is believed to be slowly increasing over cosmic timescales…
8. Oldest Planet
In July 2003, the oldest planet yet was discovered, a huge gaseous object equivalent to 2.5 times the size of Jupiter whose origin dates back to about 13 billion years (at z ~7). This ancient planet was located by the Hubble Space the Telescope near the core of the ancient globular cluster M – 4 located some 7,200 light years away in the northern – summer constellation of Scorpius (Hansen et al. 2003). This discovery challenged a widely held view among astrophysicists that planets could not have originated so early because the Universe had yet to generate heavy elements needed to make them…
9. Future Probes
We are presently in a “golden age” of cosmological discoveries. Astronomers working on the WMAP mission stunned the scientific community with their announcement that the first generation stars in the universe were surprisingly born just after 200 million years of the Big Bang birth of the cosmos. Of course, the fact is, the true age of the universe is unknown, and since its inception, the age of the universe has been steadily pushed backwards in time, from 2 billion year to 8 billion after it was determined the Earth was 4.6 billion years in age, and now the estimates are 13.75 billion years. With ten times the light-gathering power of Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), successor to the HST due to be launched in 2014, may well detect ever more distant galaxies. Likewise, the ultra-high resolution radio telescopes such as Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile which is to become operational in 2012, will be peering still deeper into the universe, and probably pushing the hypothetical Big Bang further backward in time as ever more distant galaxies are detected…
10. Conclusion
There is a growing body of evidence which demonstrates the Universe could not have begun with a Big Bang 13.75 billion years ago. Indeed, the day may come when it is determined there never was a “Big Bang” and cosmologists of the future will only gaze back in wonder at how anyone could have believed in a creation event which was refuted by so much contradictory evidence.
Download full article
Dwarka Parichay congratulates Ashwini Kumar Lal, a resident of Sector-6, Dwarka.
Brief Profile of Ashwini Kumar Lal at Dwarka Parichay
