Anyone have an alternative to the Big Bang Theory - no, not religious ones.
I have, obviously or I wouldn't be asking.
Not sure how to add the argument to this post without it becoming part of the title.
Yes, I think the Universe has always existed, I think as humans are minds can't fathom something not having a beginning. But our telescopes and radio telescopes only reach so far...so what our scientists believe to be 'The Big Bang" was an explosions set off from the existing Universe and we were eventually made from that
I was looking again at the Steady State Theory. It died when the cosmic background radiation (CMB) was detected in the 60's. And the perfect black-body radiation spectrum of the CMB was another nail in its coffin. The Hubble effect shows that the universe is expanding so the 'big bangers' came up with the idea of running the film backwards so that the universe would collapse to a point.
But galaxies move away from each other faster the further they are away from each other and they are accelerating. The big bang theory does not explain the baryon problem - why is there more matter than antimatter? Hoyle et al came up with the steady state theory long before some of the fundamental discoveries about quantum theory and the concept of string theory were known.
Might we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater?
(I was going to chuck in a paragraph about the US first amendment here and the inevitable problems you will have with virtual photons in the near-field due to the restrictions on the design of local radio transmitters - but nay bugger would have thanked me for it.)
Consider this: Superstrings vibrate. Two superstrings vibrating 'off resonance' produce a pair of 'virtual particles' (I hate that term). Such virtual particles annihilate virtually instantaneously. But once in every [insert long period of time] two strings interact vibrating 'on-resonance'. A real particle-antiparticle pair is formed and these last a lot longer. Suppose they are a neutrino/antineutrino pair. Neutrinos 'feel' the 'weak force' but that acts over a VERY short distance. They also feel gravity but their masses are so small that their mutual escape velocities are infinitesimal. If they have any, equal but opposite so as not to break the first law of thermodynamics, momentum then they will separate and continue to exist. And this would continue for eternity.
Steve's Steady State Theory (SSST) also requires that matter curves spacetime positively. The Edgington experiment and others seem to confirm Einstein's General Relativity predictions on this. Matter, antimatter and photons all behave as if gravity were attracting them where matter predominates.
But SSST also requires that antimatter curves spacetime negatively. There is a general repulsion of everything. This explains the repulsion felt by galaxies separated by antimatter voids.
Moreover, tiny statistical variations in the relative density of matter and antimatter would cause matter to accumulate (and condense) in certain regions and antimatter to become ever less dense in the regions between. It would take a hell of a long time - but, hey, eternity!
There are feedback mechanisms I won't go in to here but the rate of matter/antimatter generation would stabilise leading to pretty static conditions where no new matter/antimatter is generated.
Ofc there are not only neutrinos. Very occasionally quarks would be generated and, even more occasionally, combine. Electrons/positrons also but they and the protons/antiprotons are electrically charged and would attract to their demise. But two down quarks and an up quark form a neutron (and antiquarks presumably do similar) and, while they would feel gravity rather more, neutrons might survive. Free neutrons have a half-life of 12 minutes so they could be far away from each other before they undergo beta -ve decomposition. That's where the protons and electrons come from.
So across the infinity of the universe there are protons and electrons wandering around and their anti-partners separated from them. They are attracted to each other by the electrostatic force. They meet. They combine to form a hydrogen atom. They emit photons in the process. They emit the CMB (much red-shifted).
So, practical experiment, how would the CMB so generated differ from what we observe?
No theory is worth anything if it doesn't make predictions which can be tested by observation.
It's plausible that the universe has always existed in one form or another, expanding and shrinking over and over throughout all of eternity.
Hint: Use the 'ask question' instead of 'post article' thing, it lets you choose a title and a body.
My interpretation of the big bang theory is this:
Imagine infinity. Ok you can't. Imagine that in some sort of 'before' state, nothing at all is seen, solid, defined, nothing exists specifically but all things exist potentially.
Now randomly make any one decision.
Because of the notion that there are no absolutes and things are defined ONLY in relation to other things, the one single decision you have made must now relate to an infinity of other things in order to define itself, resulting in the most massive explosion of information that ever could happen.
Bang.
That's my theory.
Thanks for the hint. Lots to learn.
Not an alternative, but an expansion of the big bang. Nested universed. When a black hole is created, it pulls in light and matter and presumably blasts it all out the of other side. Kinda sounds like a big bang, doesn't it? This could be the birth of other universes and could be happening within our own universe.
Here is a theory that I've touched on as a "What If".
The universe is the energy contained within the nucleolus of a cell and the big bang happens when the cell divides. This would account for the theory of multiple universes as well. So as long as we don't destroy ours or corrupt it (like cancer) we may be headed for another big bang in let's say a hundred million trillion years from now.
Just think of it...there may be billions of civilization in the cells of our bodies. Wouldn't that be mind-blowing?
No beginning and no end. How's that for a theory?