The Big Bang Never Happened Posted by Narada on April 19, 1998 at 22:40:44:
Definition: A 400 page review of the history of cosmology. Sub-titled "A Startling Refutation of the Dominant Theory of the Universe", it argues the case for various alternatives, and favours a "plazma universe" organised on the large scale by electromagnetic rather than gravitational forces.
Creator: Eric J Learner
Primary Category: Science
Secondary Categories: Reality
Relation To The Core Wave: What is our latest version of the concept that the world had a beginning, and how did we arrive at it? Are "scientific facts" what we think they are? Is the Big Bang really biblical creationism dressed up for modern tastes?
Quotes: "Cosmologists nearly all agree that the cosmos came into being some 10 or 20 billion years ago in an immense explosion, the Big Bang. Our mighty universe, they believe, began in a single instant as an infinitely dense and hot point-like ball of light, smaller than the tiniest atom. In one trillion trillionth of a second it expanded a trillion trillionfold, creating all the space, matter, and energy that now make up the galaxy and stars...
This striking cosmic vision, built up over the past twenty-five years by hundreds of theoreticians and explained in dozens of books, has sunk deeply into popular consciousness...
Without doubt, the current concept of the universe is fantastic and bizarre. Yet despite the efforts and firm beliefs of so many cosmologists, it is also almost certainly wrong.
The validity of a scientific concept is not determined by its popularity or by its support among the most prominent scientists of the day. Many a firmly held doctrine, from the geocentric cosmos of Ptolemy to the phlogistic theory of heat, has enjoyed the nearly unanimous support of the scientific community, only to be swept away later...
The only test of scientific truth is how well a theory corresponds to the world we observe. Does it predict things that we can then see? Or do our observations of nature show things that a theory says are impossible? "
from "the Big Bang never happened" by Eric J Learner
"To earlier scientists, and to most of today's scientists outside cosmology, mathematical laws are descriptions of nature, not the true reality that lies behind appearances. Yet today cosmologists assume, as did Plato and Ptolemy, that the universe is the embodiment of pre-existing mathematical laws, that a few simple equations, a Theory Of Everything, can explain the cosmos except for what "breathed fire" into these equations to make them come alive.
Big Bang cosmology does not begin with observations but with mathematical derivations from unquestionable assumptions. When further observations conflict with theory, as they have repeatedly during the past decades, new concepts are introduced to "save the phenomenon"-dark matter, W I M P s, cosmic strings-the "epicycles" of current astronomy. "
from "the Big Bang never happened" by Eric J Learner
Encapsulation: Our cultural world view of time and space is often taken as apriory fact and used to support whatever arguement one is biased towards. Since Einstien this view is not as limited as before, but this does not mean that it is proven truth. There is much evidence that the Big Bang did not "happen", and the universe quite possibly can not be rightly said to have had a beginning.
It seems to me that scientific materialism is the dominant religion of Western culture. It has its dogma, its saints, its irrationalities and paradoxes like any other religious belief system. Like them it is also marvellously internally coherent, each belief supporting and reinforcing the others. Whether it is a valid path to the ultimate truth is open to argument.
Main Submission:
Whilst being a fascinating mind expanding read in itself, its main value to me personally was to show me that I had been seduced into accepting as scientific fact the latest popularised quasi-religious fairy tale. I find it disconcerting that so many progressive thinkers appear to use this fairy tale called the Big Bang to give some kind of scientific authority to their insights into the nature of reality. They seem to think that the Big Bang is a new and progressive description of reality, when quite possibly it is no more than the last throes of a very limiting thought system.
In E J Learner's book "the Big Bang never happened" he gives a wonderful overview of the development of cosmology, and its social implications. It shows that our "scientific" views of the nature and origin of the world have always been inextricably entangled with our circumstances, politics, personality, and religious beliefs. An infinite unbounded universe, knowable by experiment and experience, has is compatible with more liberal social systems. A universe with beginning and end in time and or space, knowable by thought or revelation, has is more compatible with authoritarian hierachical social systems.
Some of the main advocates for and popularises of the dubious theory of the Big Bang have been well aware of the theological implications of their work. And their tenacity in arguing its virtues was inspired by their need to validate a cosmology that in its fundamental priciples allowed for the metaphorical parrallels of Christian creationism. In particular, one of the original forms of the theory was proposed by a young Belgian cosmologist and priest, one Georges-Henri Lemaitre. In 1931 he presented his theory of a 'primeval atom", based primarily upon such evidence as the newly discovered red shift of the galaxies, the second law of thermodynamics, and the mysterious origin of cosmic rays.
The theory took quite a beating over the next decade, and it did not gain respectability until 1947 when one of the Manhattan project scientists took up the cause.
To quote again from the book: "Unlike Lemaitre, Gamow had a tremendous flair for publicising and popularising his own theories, a flair that, within a few years, would establish his element theory-soon to be dubbed the Big Bang, ironically, by its detractors-as the dominant cosmology. His propagandist talents are demonstrated in the first sentence of the article proposing his views-"It is generally agreed at present that the relative abundances of the various chemical elements were determined by physical conditions existing in the universe during the earlier stages of its expansion"-which was not at all the case: only a handful of scientists had accepted Lemaitre's primeval atom and perhaps only two or three believed that this could explain the origin of the elements.
But if it hadn't been true before, Gamow changed that: in 1947 he published the immensely popular and well written book, 'One, Two, Three, Infinity', which gave a lively and sweeping overview of modern physical science and astronomy. The last chapter presents the big Bang as accepted fact.
Gowns persuasive writing and his use of the analogy to the a-bomb, so vivid to the entire post war population, made his theory plausible to the male world of science writers and readers."
The book also explores an alternative cosmology based upon plasma physics, and argues that electro-magnetic forces rather than gravity are more likely responsible for the large scale structure of the universe.
I would be interested to read any more recent information as this book was published in1991, and the jugganaut of modern cosmology seems to me to be veering ever further from plausability.
Connections: Alien Dreamtime- I contrast the Dreamtime psychedelia and surreal poetry, with the supposedly sober and rational techniques of the physicists, as 2 ways of knowing the world. And I note that Terrance still uses the terminology of the Big Bang, and that cosmology is not entirely the objective pursuit that cosmologists might like us to think it is. We have here a contrast between apparently subjective and objective ways of knowing.
The Meru Project: The first words of the Hebrew scriptures that the Meru foundation studies are normally translated into english as "in the beginning". Like E J Learner in "the Big Bang Never Happened" they are arguing for a radically different interpretaion of what this phrase might mean, and that perhaps our generally accepted understanding of it needs to be expanded. Also I note a contrast in that Meru studies the origins of meaning whilst cosmologists concern themselves with the origins of things.
Geographic Location: Lets put it in Stonehenge in honour of those early Europian cosmologists. No, better still, and with much sadness and respect, I put it at Nagasaki, in memory of those who died in mans first use of the power of the stars.
Images and Clips: Green Dragon
Access and Distribution: 'The Big Bang Never Happened' by Eric J Learner, copyright 91, published by Simon & Schuster. I think its available through Amazon.com.
Aditional Comments: I am presuming that a 'Connection' can be a contrast as much as a similarity.