In my forays on the LBMB, someone whom I respect over there made the following claim:
A search of the internet gave me conflicting data on this, and I’m unsure of whom to trust. I realize that there are things which not all real scientists agree with, but I always was taught that the Bing Bang was a valid scientific theory and not just a hypothesis.
Can someone provide The Straight Dope on the acceptance of The Big Bang Theory by scientists as of now? Has new evidence or understanding put this in doubt? If so, what’s up with the other theories?
As those who ever look at LBMB can probably attest to, I’d rerally HATE to have to answer a question over there by replying “Only God knows…”
Hm… I’m having trouble finding proof of such a bold claim on the Science website.
Scientists as a whole rarely “discard” a whole theory all together simultaneously.
Now there is a book called [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/067974049X/o/qid=952212206/sr=8-1/103-0382818-4386214]The Big Bang Never Happened
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by Eric J. Lerner. He belives in “plasma cosmology”. I never got very far into it, so I can’t give a decent analysis.
Regardless, there have always been scientists who have doubted the big bang theory. Many of whom base their doubts on scientific inconsistencies they claim to find in the theory. They don’t doubt it merely because it doesn’t jibe with a literal interpretation of some old religious text.
Does this multiverse theory say that the universe was created 6000 years ago? If not, many pounders should be just as scared by this new theory. It will just be the next “evil scientific theory” if it catches on.
Gypsy: Tom, I don’t get you. Tom Servo: Nobody does. I’m the wind, baby.
Yeah, well, clicking on this author, either there or here, you find he has a lot to say about everything from soup to nuts, and appears to be a into Buddhism. I don’t think Buddghism really thumps too much on what happened “6000 years ago”, but I’m not sure it’s the thing to use to establish science.
Ray (and here I thought God learned all He knew from Satan.)
Knowbody really knows. Our universe came from a point, expanded at an enourmous rate, which is relatively unchanged today (the inertia from the inital pop remains). One of the current questions is, is there enough matter to stop the expansion, or halt it (Omega=1). If there is enough matter to reverse the expansion and cause it tumbling in-ward then the big bang theory is correct. The big bang theory is an attempt at a logical explanation–the universe is a big 40 billion year(give or take some) cycle,
of expansion and contraction where everything is recycled infinately. Then again, the universe may expand infinately where everything gets further and further away. These questions have no current answer. I think a deeper question is, was the universe designed?
I’ve been looking everywhere for a site I used to have bookmarked…it contained pretty much anything about the BB that you’d care to share with the Pounders–especially a few alternate ideas such as Bubble Theory and folded dimensions.
From there, it took off into Superstring and Gauge Theories.
Not much help, I know, since I don’t have it in hand–but rest assured that I’m searching for it. And you’ll be the first to know once I’ve found it.
According to my understanding, the basic “Big Bang” theory has wide agreement among cosmologists: about 10-15 billion years ago, all the matter in the universe was dense and hot, and it has expanded and cooled since then.
The basic “Big Bang” theory constrasts with “Steady State” theories, which hypothesize that the observable universe for at least the last dozen billion years has been much the same as we observe it now.
The Big Bang theory accounts elegantly for several features of the observable universe:
[ul][li]The cosmic microwave background radiation.[/li][li]The correlation between redshift and increased distance.[/li][li]The universal hydrogen/helium ratio.[/li][li]The prediction by General Relativity that the Universe must either expand or contract.[/ul][/li]
There appears to be considerable disagreement about what happened in the very earliest moments of the Universe, and even before, but I think that almost all serious cosmologists accept the basic “Big Bang” premise.
He’s the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor, shouting ‘All Gods are Bastards!’
SingleDad stated it very well. The Big Bang theory was a result of extrapolating the observed expanding universe backwards in time and speculating what it was like when it all came to a point. Details on just what happened may vary over time but the fundamental idea that the universe was once very small is pretty well entrenched.
Incidentally the name “Big Bang” was invented by Fred Hoyle, who was one of the chief proponents of the opposing steady state theory. He thought it was a humorous way to describe the expansion-from-a-single-point theory but apparently the only humor was the irony of his opponents adopting his derisive term.
“Cheddar?”
“We don’t get much call for that around here, Sir.”
Scientific American has had several interesting articles in recent months about the rather unsettling observations that seem to indicate that the universe is not only expanding, it’s accelerating.
But what the hell? We’ve known for over a decade that the mathematics of cosmology and quantum physics do not reconcile with each other. One or the other was bound to be proven “wrong” in some fashion or another sooner or later.
The Big Bang has proven to be a fine theory that advanced our knowledge of the universe by leaps and bounds. Expect to see this useful idea sitting on the shelves right next to Newton’s Principia for a very long time, perhaps equally well thumbed.
