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“It’s almost as if science said, “Give me one free miracle, and from there the entire thing will proceed with a seamless, causal explanation.” The one free miracle was the sudden appearance of all the matter and energy in the universe, with all the laws that govern it.” Rupert Sheldrake    
     
Science and Ideology  
   
The Big Bang  
   
Although the Big Bang hypothesis (BB) can claim to be the dominant cosmology just now, at least in academic circles, increasing numbers regard it as little more than ideology. Below is a summary of some of its more controverisal claims, and some of the dubious tactics all too often adopted by its adherents.  "In the beginning there was nothing ... which exploded." Terry Pratchett
   
Censorship    
     

One unscientific method for preserving the intellectual status quo is censorship! In the summer of 2022, twenty-four astronomers and physicists from ten different countries signed a petition protesting the censorship of papers that are critical of the Big Bang hypothesis by the open pre-print website arXiv, which is run by Cornell University. It is supposed to provide an open public forum for researchers to exchange pre-publication papers, without peer-review. From the article:

"In the petition, the scientists write: “Without judging the scientific validity of the papers, it is clear to us that these papers are both original and substantive and are of interest to all those concerned with the current crisis in cosmology. It plainly appears that arXiv has refused publication to these papers only because of their conclusions, which both provide specific predictions relevant to forthcoming observations and challenge LCDM cosmology. Such censorship is anathema to scientific discourse and to the possibility of scientific advance.” (LCDM cosmology is the current, dark-energy-dark-matter, version of the Big Bang Hypothesis.)"

Further: Censored Papers Demolish the Big Bang Hypothesis

 
"The peer review system is satisfactory during quiescent times, but not during a revolution in a discipline such as astrophysics, when the establishment seeks to preserve the status quo.” Hannes Alfvén
     
The CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background)  
   

Big Bang supporters are fond of claiming CMB radiation (which they interpret as the heat signature left over by the sudden expansion) as conclusive evidence for their theory, but these claims begin to look somewhat revisionist in the light of the following facts.

The background temperature of space was predicted by Guillaume, Eddington, Regener, Nernst, Herzberg, Finlay-Freundlich and Max Born, based on a universe without expansion, and prior to the discovery of the CMB. Their predictions were far more accurate than models based on the Big Bang.

In 1965, two young radio astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, accidentally discovered the CMB using a small horn antenna. This discovery was quickly commandeered by Big Bang supporters who later awarded them a Nobel Prize.

1. Here is an excellent peer reviewed paper that outlines the real History of the CMB
2. Backup link CMB History .pdf

"The CMB is a radio fog of dense plasma filaments."
Eric Lerner, LPP Fusion

If Lerner is right, the CMB tells us nothing about the age of the universe.

 "It is important to understand that while a theory may permit observations, those observations do not necessarily verify the theory." Anon
     
Smooth Galaxies    
     

Not to be confused with the popular British chocolate bar, smooth galaxies are a big problem for the Big Bang (BB). There are too many of them, and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has just exacerbated the problem. BB theorists have long speculated that smaller galaxies grow up into present day galaxies by colliding with each other, and merging to become more spread out. Plasma physicist Eric Lerner uses a toy car analogy to criticise this hypothetical merger process: imagine magical toy cars which nonetheless weigh as much as SUVs growing into real SUVs by colliding with each other.

If you can believe the toy car story, you would also expect to see some collision damage. In fact, BB theorists had expected to see badly mangled galaxies scrambled by many collisions and mergers. What the JWST actually shows, however, are overwhelmingly smooth disks and neat spiral forms, just as we see with younger local galaxies. One recent paper — understandably entitled “Panic!” — shows that smooth spiral galaxies are “10 times” more numerous than predicted by BB theory. In plain language, this latest data refutes the merger theory.

There is another big problem, literally and metaphorically. The existence of large-scale structures too big to have formed in the time since the BB have also been more clearly pictured by the JWST. Further.

  Doh!
     
The Dwarf Galaxy problem    
     
Also known as the missing satellites problem, the dwarf galaxy problem arises from a mismatch between the number of observed dwarf galaxy numbers and those predicted by Big Bang models. Although there seem to be enough normal-sized galaxies, the number of dwarf galaxies is orders of magnitude lower than expected from cosmological simulations that predict the evolution of the distribution of matter in the universe.    
     
Light element abundances  
   
Light element abundances were not correctly predicted by the Big Bang hypothesis, contrary to popular myth. They are yet another example of retrodictions or retro-fitting. Update 2022: The JWST shows that the abundance of helium is off by a factor of two, and the prediction for the abundance of lithium is off by a factor of 20.   
   
The Red shift controversy  
   

No discussion of the BB seems complete without mentioning Halton Arp, who was an outstanding pupil of Edwin Hubble. His book, The Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, details many Redshift anomalies.

Redshift refers to the fact that light is shifted into the red (longer wavelength) end of the spectrum when it is emitted from a source which is moving away from the observer. This is known as the Doppler effect. Arp has discovered a number of astronomical objects that seem to be interacting or related in some way, and yet have very different red shifts. This calls into doubt the Doppler interpretation, and therefore the very idea that the universe is expanding. Big Bangers simply choose to close their eyes to this blasphemy.

Arp is often described as the modern day Galileo because he was denied observational time at a number of US observatories, and moved to work at The Max Planck institute in Germany.

www.haltonarp.com  Halton Arp: A Modern Day Galileo

  Halton Arp
   
Ooops!    
     
NGC7314   “If astronomy were a science, astronomers would have wondered if the cluster (inset, left) might have been ejected from the nearby active galaxy NGC 7314. They would have wondered if its high redshift might be due to that ejection instead of to an expansion of the universe. They would have wondered if the cluster might be an early stage of galaxy cluster formation in the near present instead of in the far past." Field worker who preferred to remain anonymous
     

Pictured above is the active galaxy NGC 7314, and the small inset shows a recently discovered cluster of galaxies. The trouble is, this small inset is no small problem for the Big Bang hypothesis.

According to standard theory, which determines the distance of a galaxy by its redshift, the cluster is 9 billion light years away. That means the light we see today was emitted 9 billion years ago, which is only 5 billion years after the Big Bang, in which all matter and energy was created, supposedly. However, gravitational forces could not have generated such a cluster of galaxies in such an astronomically short span of time. An ESO news release commented:

"The discovery of such a complex and mature structure so early in the history of the Universe is highly surprising. Indeed, until recently it would even have been deemed impossible."

In other words, this observation also falsifies the BB, although the news release falls short of admitting as much. Only just short, but most of us can read between the lines. Furthermore, the observation also confirms Halton Arp’s prediction that high-redshift galaxy clusters will be found in association with low-redshift active galaxies. A prediction he made many times. In a paper on galaxy clusters, written in collaboration with amateur astronomer David G Russell and published in the Astrophysical Journal, March 10, 2001, Arp and Russell added many more active/cluster galaxy associations to the long list of red shift anomalies. See also Quasars and quasi-science.

   
     
The 'Fingers of God'  
   

If redshift is a measure of distance, as astronomers claim, this gives rise to a peculiar problem. When the galaxies outside our own are plotted, they all appear to point directly at the earth. Copernicus, of course, knew that the Earth was not the centre of everything, but the redshift-as-distance interpretation effectively takes us back to the dogma of the early church. The 'Fingers of God' problem, therefore, provides further proof that the doppler interpretation favoured by Big Bangers is wrong. The universe is not expanding. Unfortunately, Big Bangers also tend to display a religious devotion to their theory, and prefer to ignore this problem.

 "Since religion intrinsically rejects empirical methods, there should never be any attempt to reconcile scientific theories with religion." Hannes Alfven
   
The Hubble Constant  
   

Edwin Hubble, 1889-1953, is famous for confirming the existence of galaxies outside the Milky Way, and the constant of proportionality between the 'apparent' recessional velocity of galaxies and their distance is called Hubble's constant, although some have described it as the least constant of all constants, and refer to it as the Hubble 'Mostly Constant'.

Hubble himself didn't agree that Red shifts were Doppler (see his book 'The Observational Approach to Cosmology'), but his warnings went unheeded. He pointed out several difficulties with this interpretation, not the least of which involved complex problems in relation to photons. Hubble knew his observations were not in agreement with the necessary brightness correction, and also believed that a more simple — and therefore preferable — non-curved-space cosmology resulted from a non-Doppler interpretation.

  Edwin Hubble
   
Dark Matter and Dark Energy  
   

The BBT relies on the existence of non-baryonic or Dark Matter to resolve glaring contradictions with observation. Yet data has accumulated that dark matter is not so much invisible as non-existent. Despite more than 40 years of extensive searching, it is yet to be found, and the same goes for its partner in crime, Dark Energy.

Anthony Perratt contends that electrromagnetic forces can be shown to be several orders of magnitude greater than gravitational forces in certain types of plasma, and also that electromagnetic forces can have a longer range. On the largest scales, evidence that plasmas exhibit external forces on physical objects such as galaxies is the same as that which has lead standard model researchers to postulate dark matter and dark energy.

 "We have to learn again that science without contact with experiments is an enterprise which is likely to go completely astray into imaginary conjecture." Hannes Alfven
   
Religious Motivations  
   

To Alfvén, the Big Bang was a myth devised to explain creation:

"I was there when Abbe Georges Lemaitre first proposed this theory. Lemaitre was, at the time, both a member of the Catholic hierarchy and an accomplished scientist. He said in private that this theory was a way to reconcile science with St. Thomas Aquinas' theological dictum of creatio ex nihilo or creation out of nothing.

"There is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for an infinite time. It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago.

"Since religion intrinsically rejects empirical methods, there should never be any attempt to reconcile scientific theories with religion. An infinitely old universe, always evolving, may not be compatible with the Book of Genesis. However, religions such as Buddhism get along without having any explicit creation mythology and are in no way contradicted by a universe without a beginning or end. Creatio ex nihilo, even as religious doctrine, only dates to around AD 200. The key is not to confuse myth and empirical results, or religion and science."

 

"And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence." Bertrand Russell

Lemaitre is famous for his description of the beginning of the universe as 'A Day without Yesterday' in reference to the creation account in Genesis.  
   
George Gamow, another famous Big Bang proponent, had no compunction in describing the graphs of conditions in the Big Bang as 'Divine Creation Curves', and sent a copy of his book 'The Creation of the Universe' to the then Pope. Mind you, even the then pope favoured an oscillating model of the Universe in which the Big Bang was not a literal beginning.  
   
General Relativity   
   

Albert Einstein favoured some form of Steady State model of the universe, but there was a problem. His famous theory, General Relativity, didn't seem to work out for a SS universe. A catholic priest and mathematician came to his rescue with the Big Bang expanding universe model (see above), but Einstein had reservations (see quote, right).

To be fair to Einstein, it should be noted that he was never satisfied with his own theories and that he was modest enough to admit as much. He was aware that GR needed tieing back down to reality, but to this day GR and Quantum Mechanics remain incompatible. Unfortunately, others ran with his ideas and today we see cosmology in crisis...

"You can imagine that I look back on my life's work with calm satisfaction. But from nearby it looks quite different. There is a not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm, and I feel uncertain whether I am in general on the right track."
Albert Einstein

 "Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself any more." Einstein
Einstein was never happy about the Black Hole hypothesis, and yet it is often described as one of the most successful predictions of GR by those who played fast and lose with his ideas. See BH article.    
     
The Conservation of Energy  
   

According to the Big Bang there was nothing in the beginning, which exploded! The trouble with this is that Nothing does Not Exist!

In other words, The BBT violates one of the best-tested laws of physics — the conservation of energy and matter, since it produces energy at a titanic rate out of nothingness, and to ignore this basic law would never be acceptable in any other field of physics.

BB supporters dance around this issue by claiming that the initial rapid expansion (or explosion, or whatever they like to call it from one moment to the next) created the laws of physics which we now observe. A classic case of circular reasoning, no less.

 

"Plasma is for everyone." Anthony Peratt

   
Black Holes tear logic apart  
   

Astronomers require invisible, super-compressed matter at the centre of galaxies because without Black Holes gravitational equations fail to account for the observed movement and compact energetic activity. But charged plasma achieves such effects routinely and without recourse to abstract math. See the Plasma Focus explanation on the Techncal II page of this site. Additionally, plasma scientists can now replicate the evolution of galactic structures both experimentally and in computer simulations without resorting to this popular and problematic fiction.

The requirement for Black Holes arises from Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which explains gravity as the warping of space-time caused by massive objects. Because gravity is a near infinitely weak force, almost infinite amounts of mass are required. Mainstream theories hope that a sufficiently massive star, when it dies, will collapse under its own gravity to a single point. Not even light can escape, which conveniently accounts for the fact that BHs cannot be observed. However, these infinite forces require a finite limit in order that they don't swallow everything (that would be greedy)! These relativistic boundaries (contradictions?) are referred to as Event Horizons.

Black Holes are often described as one of the most successful predictions of Relativity, although it is less often mentioned that Einstein was very skeptical about the hypothesis. In a 1939 paper in the Annals of Mathematics Einstein concluded that the idea was 'not convincing' and the phenomena did not exist 'in the real world!' How often do you hear this from consensus sources?

It is always amusing to see the mainstream playing catchup with the Electric Universe.

Surprisingly Strong Magnetic Fields Challenge Black Holes’ Pull

Analysis of radio waves from black holes shows long-neglected magnetic fields have an unexpected presence. News Release Kate Greene 510-486-4404, June 4, 2014

"A new study of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies has found magnetic fields play an impressive role in the systems’ dynamics. In fact, in dozens of black holes surveyed, the magnetic field strength matched the force produced by the black holes’ powerful gravitational pull, says a team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn, Germany. The findings are published in this week’s issue of Nature."

 "Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little." Bertrand Russell
Rapid Luminosity changes! Black Holes or Plasmoids?    
     

Further evidence for electromagnetic plasma phenomenon is now in! How can the corona of a 'black hole' lighten and darken in such a short space of time?

Link: https://phys.org/news/2020-07-astronomers-black-hole-corona-reappear.html

"We expect that luminosity changes this big should vary on timescales of many thousands to millions of years," says Erin Kara, assistant professor of physics at MIT. "But in this object, we saw it change by 10,000 over a year, and it even changed by a factor of 100 in eight hours, which is just totally unheard of and really mind-boggling."

  Light bulb
Event Horizons    
     

As a general rule it is claimed that nothing can travel faster than light, save perhaps for spooky action at a distance. Likewise, it is stated that nothing can escape the extreme gravitational pull of a Black Hole — not even light — and for this reason Black Holes have never been pictured ... at least up until now. However, these 2019 claims remain controversial. See Latest News. Also, see the Mathematics page for more of Stephen Crothers work criticising the 'mathmagics' behind so many popular (cosnsensus) science ideas.

"There is nothing below the 'event horizon' because there is no event horizon. What passes for an 'event horizon' is a violation of geometry. In the complex mathematical manipulations that produce the black hole line-element, a sphere, centred at the origin of coordinates, is unwittingly moved away from the origin to some other point, at a distance Rc = 2GM/c^2 from the origin, but leaving its centre behind at the origin. In precisely this way the two 'singularities' of the black hole are conjured. Puzzled, the astronomers and cosmologists call Rc the radius of the 'event horizon' (their 'removable singularity'), and the centre that they unwittingly left behind, their 'physical singularity'. They manage to construct a mathematical means, they say, which 'extends' their manifold down to R = 0, the centre they unwittingly left behind, when, in fact, the centre of the relevant sphere is now located at the tip of a vector of length Rc from the origin of coordinates. First, moving a sphere and leaving its centre behind is a violation of geometry, so it is not allowed. Secondly, all the means they mathematically construct to 'extend' their manifold to R = 0, is an analytic version of the violation of geometry, which requires them, again unwittingly, to make the absolute value of a real number less than zero, which, again, is not allowed. The first to commit this major error was David Hilbert. The astronomers and cosmologists, on his authority, have followed him down the same garden path."
Stephen J. Crothers

Here is a video further explaining these geometric violations:

 

Black Hole?

 

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." Bertrand Russell

     
Nebular Hypothesis  
   
According to this hypothesis, the planets and stars eventually accreted from the giant dust cloud produced by the Big Bang. It is also assumed that the planets have occupied more-or-less steady and unchanging orbits ever since, and that gravity and inertia are the sole agents responsible. There is no direct evidence or observation to support these conclusions, however. They remain no more than guesswork, albeit guesswork that has solidified into doctrine. "The extraordinary thing is that scientists accept the Big Bang and in the same breath deride the Creationists." Wallace Thornhill
   
Additional Resources    
     

Eric Lerner is a Plasma Cosmologist noted for his criticism of the Big Bang. He wrote The Big Bang Never Happened which can be ordered online from the link below. He is currently Executive Director of the Focus Fusion Society, and President of Lawrenceville Plasma Physics in New Jersey.

www.bigbangneverhappened.org

"The observers come in now with the belief that we live in a Big Bang Universe, and therefore their ways of understanding are tailored to that... They don't come in with the possibility that there are alternatives... There is a complete lack of balance in the way observational programs and funding are conducted..."
Geoffrey Burbridge, Theoretical Astrophysicist

  Eric Lerner
In the eye of the beholder  
   

Fred Hoyle coined the term 'Big Bang'. He did so disparagingly, but by way of irony it stuck. The term turned out to have a simple and memorable elegance, unlike the actual hypothesis which is a dog's dinner of tenuous claims and interpretations.

When Einstein met the catholic priest and mathematician Georges Lemaitre in 1933, he said: "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened."

So, it seems the big bang does have some merit after all. Artistic merit.

“It is ironical that, in the very field in which Science has claimed superiority to Theology, for example – in the abandoning of dogma and the granting of absolute freedom to criticism – the positions are now reversed. Science will not tolerate criticism of Relativity, while Theology talks freely about the death of God, religionless Christianity, and so on.”
Herbert Dingle

 

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind ... a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist." Einstein