Did the Big Bang actually not happen? New Webb telescope images.

Ultimately there does need to be some sort of design, but my main quibble is that I think science has bumbled along creating towers of theories that get cemented in place far too early.

The foundations of modern cosmology (and other areas of modern science) are getting very creaky. Just as an example of what else might be shakey, there is a vigorous discussion over at Skeptiko about whether viruses exist or not! I started out thinking this was an absurdly wild theory, but it turns out there is a lot of evidence suggesting it really might be true.

Getting back to astronomy, there is Hubble's Law, which isn't really a law, more like a correlation that seems to work in the vicinity of our galaxy. It is extrapolated back to about 13 billion lightyears, but the radius of our galaxy is about 50,000 lightyears (I think). That is quite some extrapolation, but that is how astronomical distances are measured these days - the red shift of an object tells you how fast it is moving radially away from earth, and Hubble's Law translates that into a distance.

Light can also get red shifted  in other ways, for example if light travels through clouds of molecular hydrogen it undergoes Raman scattering that causes the photons to lose energy. I think I have read that it is thought that molecular hydrogen (H2) is rare in space so this type of red shift would not be important, well maybe but think what is standing on that assumption!

This was the whole area that Halton Arp was poking into - it is absolutely foundational to astronomy, and yet the astronomical community were not interested, and since he died in 2012, I expect that problem will be brushed under the carpet for a few more years yet. Halton Arp found quasars with huge red shifts that seemed to be associated with foreground galaxies, and to have been ejected from their centres. Quasars are normally supposed to lie very far away and back in time (to correspond with their huge red shift).

My feeling is that science needs to slow down, and accept that it is hopelessly dangerous to lay down theories that are only really relevant in far distant places where measurements are going to be very indirect.

I agree that there are a lot of anomalies associated with the consensus "common wisdom" Big Bang theory. But, apparently there is a withering amount of evidence for the Big Bang, that would all have to be overturned to throw it out as the explanation of the observed red shift. 

Just to briefly look at the evidence that is usually cited by mainstream sources bearing on this controversy, and what the "heretics" have to deal with in this collision of paradigms (in addition to mainstream consensus closed-minded astrophysical fundamentalism). In order to discard the Big Bang, we have to otherwise explain at least the following, in addition to probably another bunch of subsidiary evidences.

This evidence can be organized into 6 main categories (from Wiki):

1.- Hubble's law and the expansion of space

That space itself is undergoing metric expansion (note: and that the observed red shift is caused by it rather than by straight Doppler shift), is shown by direct observational evidence of the cosmological principle and the Copernican principle, which together with Hubble's law have no other explanation. Hubble's Law relates apparent distance with recession velocity using an empirically derived constant. I assume this must have been many times verified by calculation of distance from brightness and apparent image size data and correlating that with the Hubble's Law-calculated distance. This type of observational confirmation doesn't seem to be directly mentioned, just assumed as obvious.

2.- Observed cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) in accordance with Big Bang predictions.

3.- Observed relative abundance of primordial elements hydrogen isotope deuterium, helium and lithium in accordance with Big Bang predictions.

4.- Galactic evolution and distribution: direct observation of galaxy types, evolution, and formation processes are apparently in agreement with the current state of the Big Bang theory.

5.- Observation of primordial gas clouds with the predicted absence of heavy elements.

6.- The age of the universe as estimated from the Hubble expansion and the CMBR is in good agreement with other estimates using the estimated ages of the oldest stars (these age estimates being derived from other lines of evidence and data).

I agree that there are a lot of anomalies associated with the consensus "common wisdom" Big Bang theory. But, apparently there is a withering amount of evidence for the Big Bang, that would all have to be overturned to throw it out as the explanation of the observed red shift. 

Just to briefly look at the evidence that is usually cited by mainstream sources bearing on this controversy, and what the "heretics" have to deal with in this collision of paradigms (in addition to mainstream consensus closed-minded astrophysical fundamentalism). In order to discard the Big Bang, we have to otherwise explain at least the following, in addition to probably another bunch of subsidiary evidences.

This evidence can be organized into 6 main categories (from Wiki):

1.- Hubble's law and the expansion of space

That space itself is undergoing metric expansion (note: and that the observed red shift is caused by it rather than by straight Doppler shift), is shown by direct observational evidence of the cosmological principle and the Copernican principle, which together with Hubble's law have no other explanation. Hubble's Law relates apparent distance with recession velocity using an empirically derived constant. I assume this must have been many times verified by calculation of distance from brightness and apparent image size data and correlating that with the Hubble's Law-calculated distance. This type of observational confirmation doesn't seem to be directly mentioned, just assumed as obvious.

2.- Observed cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) in accordance with Big Bang predictions.

3.- Observed relative abundance of primordial elements hydrogen isotope deuterium, helium and lithium in accordance with Big Bang predictions.

4.- Galactic evolution and distribution: direct observation of galaxy types, evolution, and formation processes are apparently in agreement with the current state of the Big Bang theory.

5.- Observation of primordial gas clouds with the predicted absence of heavy elements.

6.- The age of the universe as estimated from the Hubble expansion and the CMBR is in good agreement with other estimates using the estimated ages of the oldest stars (these age estimates being derived from other lines of evidence and data).

Hmm - I suppose my answer would be that science shouldn't really be asking these questions because they are too remote from the realms that we can subject to direct measurements.

I imagine that various theories associated with 2, 3, 4 were tweaked until those came out right.

As regards item 6, surely the JWST data specifically contradicts that because it can see starts whose age extends back before the BB.

In a way, I am just playing about here, because astronomy wasn't my field. I just think it is a great example because almost every measurement depends on other theories, and the extrapolations are astronomical.

Incidentally, I noticed that the space telescope is right out at a solar Lagrange point. Since the telescope is quite substantial, that must have required some heavy lifting!

I wonder what you think of Halton Arp. He did a lot of seminars that are available as videos.

Hmm - I suppose my answer would be that science shouldn't really be asking these questions because they are too remote from the realms that we can subject to direct measurements.

I imagine that various theories associated with 2, 3, 4 were tweaked until those came out right.

As regards item 6, surely the JWST data specifically contradicts that because it can see starts whose age extends back before the BB.

In a way, I am just playing about here, because astronomy wasn't my field. I just think it is a great example because almost every measurement depends on other theories, and the extrapolations are astronomical.

Incidentally, I noticed that the space telescope is right out at a solar Lagrange point. Since the telescope is quite substantial, that must have required some heavy lifting!

I wonder what you think of Halton Arp. He did a lot of seminars that are available as videos.

Item 6: that slipped my mind when I was typing it. You're right. That is apparently at least one of the supporting scaffoldings of the BB as currently theorized that has been found faulty due to the new JWST images. Of course this JWST derived finding will need to be explicitly affirmed and confirmed, before it is accepted. We may have a long wait for that due to the resistance of the mainsteam to any heretical apparent findings. However, the other apparent confirmations of the Big Bang's existence are fairly convincing (at least to me), so the JWST data would just seem to push the BB date back a billion years or so. Undoubtedly the "experts" will accommodate this by tweaking the theory a little. I know - epicycles on contrived epicycles.

Item 6: that slipped my mind when I was typing it. You're right. That is apparently at least one of the supporting scaffoldings of the BB as currently theorized that has been found faulty due to the new JWST images. Of course this JWST derived finding will need to be explicitly affirmed and confirmed, before it is accepted. We may have a long wait for that due to the resistance of the mainsteam to any heretical apparent findings. However, the other apparent confirmations of the Big Bang's existence are fairly convincing (at least to me), so the JWST data would just seem to push the BB date back a billion years or so. Undoubtedly the "experts" will accommodate this by tweaking the theory a little. I know - epicycles on contrived epicycles.

Thanks nbtruthman

Any comments on Halton Arp? You can easily find him with GOOGLE. Remember that he was a former student of Hubble.

David

Thanks nbtruthman

Any comments on Halton Arp? You can easily find him with GOOGLE. Remember that he was a former student of Hubble.

David

David

Concerning Halton Arp, I have been undecided. I think the data and arguments for the existence of the Big Bang and recession/space expansion caused redshift are fairly compelling. But however, there are still some seemingly few but real evidences that Arp may have been right after all.

Looking at the evidence as admittedly often presented in a biased manner, there seems to be enough evidence for Arp's hypothesis of "intrinsic redshift" to make it at least a  condidate explanation, though certainly an outlier.

I don't know enough about Arp's "intrinsic redhift" hypothesis to conclude that it actually predicts the observed optical correlation of distance and observed arc second angular size diminution, and brightness diminishing. Did he actually hypothesize that the cosmological distances calculated from angular size and brightness data are valid, just that the redshift recession velocities are only apparent not real?

There certainly are the examples of apparently extremely distant objects apparently physically connected to relatively close galaxies, to give one pause. At least some of these can probably be explained as just optical anomalies, but not all. Other data to weigh in:

Con-Arp data example, (Wiki):

"Many imaging surveys, most notably the Hubble Deep Field, have found many high-redshift objects that are not QSOs but that appear to be normal galaxies like those found nearby.[10] The spectra of the high-redshift galaxies, as seen from X-ray to radio wavelengths, match the spectra of nearby galaxies (particularly galaxies with high levels of star formation activity but also galaxies with normal or extinguished star formation activity) when corrected for redshift effects."

Pro Arp data example, (Wiki):

"....(An) examining of 46400 quasars from Sloan Digital Sky Survey showed that the locations of the peaks in the redshift distribution are in agreement with the preferred redshifts predicted by the Halton Arp preferred intrinsic redshift equation explaining the red shift phenomenon"

It is some years since I followed the Halton Arp saga, but as I remember it, a central issue was whether you simply scan a large area of sky, or whether you select regions that are sparsely populated with galaxies. Supporters of Arp chose the latter regions because that reduces the chance of random connections between QSO's and foreground galaxies, which can otherwise lower the signal to noise level a lot. Done that way, they report a statistically significant number of galaxies with QSO's in the process of being ejected.

Here is one lecture he gave - presumably towards the end of his life, as he appears frail - but he has correspondingly more evidence!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyREfCOr-Y0

You will notice that there is more to the topic that just sheer coincidence of QSOs and galaxies in 2D space. He shows examples in which galaxies seem to have emitted a series of QSOs from their core, with red shifts which decrease as the QSO's get further from the galactic centre!

David

Just as likely that there are many "little big bangs" in each galaxy, and likely relative to the giant light-sucking anomalies...
If we are all just the exhaust of any of these light-sucking wells, back blast, or hot air bisquits... space poop.
Our trajectory and spiral formation, speed and changes in speed, all point to being ejected from something. That doesn't mean the whole universe has to conform to our solar system, or our galaxy, or just one big bang.
Once again, human beings making assumptions and then acting silly when these wrong ideas are challenged with a bigger or more accurate picture of things.
Not long ago, everything rotated around this planet, and you could be put to death for saying anything else.
So, not bad for a bunch of cave dwellers that just crawled out of the swamp. Still plenty of work to do, and not enough time.