The Big Bang Might Not Have Happened

[rahullak]

Found that there's a lot of discussion around here around the Big Bang. I myself used to think that the Big Bang was a done deal, that it indeed explains the origin of our Universe and that there's enough evidence to support it.

But, is that unequivocally true?

Jim Peebles, awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics for his "theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology",[127] noted in his award presentation that he does not support the Big Bang theory, due to the lack of concrete supporting evidence, and stated, "It's very unfortunate that one thinks of the beginning whereas in fact, we have no good theory of such a thing as the beginning."

A recent Futurism article points to the disagreement that exists amongst cosmologists.

ANOTHER ASTRONOMER SAYS THE BIG BANG MIGHT NOT HAVE HAPPENED

So what do you think or believe? Did it happen or not? Can we ever know or is it forever in the realm of metaphysics?

 

[Relayer1]

It's a theory...

 

[rahullak]

Yes.

So also are the Special and General Theories of Relativity. You don't find too many mainstream scientists disputing these. Sure, there may be ongoing tests of these theories, and most tests appear to confirm them.

But the Big Bang Theory isn't on such firm footing.

 

[Ronald Held]

SR and GR are well tested. There are no better theories then BB/inflation that fit the observations, IMO.

 

[Dryson]

The Big Bang, in my opinion, has to do with an aspect of thought that existed in a form that we don't understand that existed prior to the Big Bang that wanted to create. In my opinion a form wanted to see space and time from a visible aspect instead of just thinking about what could exist. That being came from Beyond the Void and created the Big Bang where after a few micro seconds of traveling faster than light and unable to be seen, matter slowed to light speed velocities and thus the Vision of Creation came to be.

Science can't explain everything because science can only prove one aspect, the speed of light. Everything else is considered breaking a "law" that should invoke the wrath of those from Beyond the Void.

 

[StarCruiser]

¿Que?

I think I'm repeating myself...again...

The "Big Bang Theory" is indeed a theory. It's generally held up well but, there have been issues with it over the years. This is why it's not called a "Physical Law" like the Law of Gravity.

Until we (somehow) find a way to confirm or reject it, it will remain a theory...

 

[rahullak]

Is it time to let go of it as a theory and consider it a hypothesis only?

Perhaps we have found a way to reject it as a theory, as mentioned in the article below.

Did the Big Bang really happen? Scientist disputes universe's origin story

The Big Bang is so widely accepted as the origin story of the universe that most people forget it is still a theory, and not proven fact. But new research led by astronomer Eric Lerner disputes the Big Bang, claiming that recent observations of light elements in the universe contradict the assumptions that support the theory.

 

[Ronald Held]

It still is a theory,IMO. No. Consensus on a replacement.

 

[Dryson]

If you are going to dispute the Big Bang then you are disputing the Universe expanding as well.

Saying the Big Bang didn't happen is Flat and Hollow Earth non sense,

 

[Mytran]

It's probably worth repeating the definition of "theory" when it is used in science:

A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world.

It's really quite different to when "theory" is used in a vernacular sense, which does indeed mean a hypothesis or best guess.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

And there have been a number of predictions made, that could be confirmed based on the inflation model.

The one thing the Big Bang theory does not do, though, is to describe the instant before expansion.
We don’t know what the actual beginning of the universe was or if there was such a thing.
There is nothing wrong with saying we don’t know how it got to what we can observe.
But the expansion model describing everything after is very accurate.

 

[Mytran]

Since space and time are linked, it may indeed be nonsensical to ask what happened "before" the expansion of space as that would pre-date time itself!

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Sir Fred Hoyle coined "big bang" as a pejorative term - possibly because he was an atheist and preferred his continuous creation model, where the universe expands eternally with the creation of one proton and one electron per cubic light year per year - the energy required coming from the energy driving the expansion. Of course, there are several problems with this model - not least explaining why other particles and antiparticles are not also created. The dominance of matter over antimatter is also a conundrum for big bang models, of course.

However, Hoyle's legacy lives on in some respects. The inflation field that is often invoked to explain the smoothness of space-time in current big bang models appears to probably be required to be eternal itself so our universe might only be a small part of a never-ending sequence of big bangs in a larger multiverse beyond our cosmic horizon. There is much we still don't know - it's kind of amazing what we do know being largely bound to a very tiny region of the whole.

 

[Santaman]

^^That is exactly what bothers me, I always have the idea that we simply can't get the whole picture because we're too small/simple/not able to sense/work out the maths of the whole thing, maybe the universe is trillions of times "bigger" than we can even imagine.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

The THEORY of Gravity (for example, General Relativity) explains why the LAWS of Gravity exist.

Easy ultra-simple way to differentiate:

Law: WHEN X, Y.
Theory BECAUSE X, Y.

Theories don't become laws when proven, theories explain laws that have already been proven.

 

[BillJ]

The "Big Bang Theory" is indeed a theory.

Almost like it says it in the name.

 

[Phoenix219]

Plasma Cosmology is a very intriguing possibility in alternate/fringe theories in place of TBBT.

 

[Herbert]

If you are going to dispute the Big Bang then you are disputing the Universe expanding as well.

Saying the Big Bang didn't happen is Flat and Hollow Earth non sense,

Given how much we don't know about a lot of stuff, not only the universe, doesn't your statement strike you as a little close minded? Our knowledge base is expanding all the time. Why can't information come our way that disputes the Big Bang?

 

[rahullak]

NASA plans to launch a mission in 2023 to trace the origins of the universe. The SPHEREx mission (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer). As Inverse reported in February 2019 when the mission was announced, the goal of SPHEREx is to examine the structures that this map of light will reveal, the idea being that we can tell something about how the universe was created by the shapes that emerge.

Hopefully this should throw some light (unintended pun) on how things were in the beginning.

 

[publiusr]

“I always regarded inflation as a very artificial theory,” says Roger Penrose, emeritus Rouse Ball professor of mathematics at Oxford University. “The main reason that it didn't die at birth is that it was the only thing people could think of to explain what they call the ‘scale invariance of the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature fluctuations’.”

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200117-what-if-the-universe-has-no-end