Big Bang

From PhiloWiki

Did the universe begin with the Big Bang?

There was no Big Bang

Space does not permit a full discussion of the evidence for and against the big bang. However, many discoveries made in recent years with improved instruments and improved observational methods have repeatedly shaken this theory.5 Interpretations of the available facts in terms of currently held cosmological models very quickly lead to unresolvable inconsistencies. There is an increasing number of astronomers who raise substantial arguments against the theory...

In the field of cosmology the widely supported big bang theory is not more convincing than other alternatives. In fact, there are surprisingly many alternatives...

If the universe came from a big bang, then matter should be evenly distributed. However, the universe contains an extremely uneven distribution of mass. This means that matter is concentrated into zones and planes around relatively empty regions. Two astronomers, Geller and Huchra, embarked on a measuring program expecting to find evidence to support the big bang model. By compiling large star maps, they hoped to demonstrate that matter is uniformly distributed throughout the cosmos (when a large enough scale is considered).

The more progress they made with their cartographic overview of space, the clearer it became that distant galaxies are clustered like cosmic continents beyond nearly empty reaches of space. The big bang model was strongly shaken by this discovery.

It should be added that the visible galaxies do not contain enough mass to explain the existence and distribution of these structures. But the big bang model was not discarded. Instead, the existence of a mysterious, unknown, and unseen form of matter (‘dark matter’) was postulated. Without any direct evidence for its existence, this ‘dark matter’ is supposed to be 10 times the amount of visibly observed mass.

...[E]ven the idea that the universe is expanding is under attack by some astronomers.

What about the Big Bang? from Answers in Genesis  Werner Gitt

There was a Big Bang

The expanding Universe implied that the cosmos began at a specific instant in time in a hot and dense state, and has been expanding outward ever since. This matched an idea proposed in 1927 by a Belgian priest and cosmologist named Georges Lemaitre (1894:1966), who suggested that the Universe might have begun in a superdense 'primeval atom'. Hubble's theory seemed to be strong evidence that the Universe had once begun in such a primeval atom, and was now expanding outward from its creation.

An Introduction to Cosmology from Vector Site  Greg Goebel