Science

    Until the early twentieth century cosmology was not even considered a science. Most of cosmology deals with events so far in distant time and space that it was generally accepted that everything had to be simple conjecture or hypothesis, that nothing could be proven by such a scrupulous test as the scientific method.
    But around 1929, when Edwin Hubble published his correlations of red-shift in starlight against distance of those stars from earth, cosmologists almost immediately began to celebrate that this not only proved the predicted expanding universe but elevated cosmology from conjecture into true science. As you might expect, since that time cosmologists will do and say almost anything to maintain that status in the scientific community.
    And since that time cosmologists have constructed a magnificent array of speculation, observations and hypotheses, called Big Bang theory, to describe the origin of the universe. But is that array true science? What can we say we “know”?
    The Scientific Method is defined as a process: (1) ask a question; (2) do some background research; (3) construct an hypothesis; (4) test with experiments; and (5) analyze results and draw conclusions. Regarding the question (step 1) of the origin of the universe, cosmologists studied (step 2) what they could see and properly interpret of the surrounding stars and galaxies; and formed the hypothesis (step 3) called the Big Bang. But it was and still is quite clear that nobody was ever “back there” 14 billion years ago to observe and take data and no one has ever created those conditions to experimentally prove the hypothesis (step 4). Red shift alone does not prove an expanding universe. As a result, the hypothesis known as the Big Bang has never been proven. If cosmology is a true science it seems clear cosmologists cannot say they actually know anything about the origin of the universe. They must admit that Big Bang theory is still little more than hypothesis, and that your guess might well be as good as theirs.
    Nevertheless, it seems worthwhile to look into and describe Big Bang theory and to point out the large number of unsupported assumptions that had to be made along the way to make the theory fit together at all. The assumptions are numbered as we go along. Some will be discussed more than others:

Assumption (1): An initial point source of all the energy of the universe (no mass) originated from “nothingness” (was not “created”). What is a “nothingness”, does it / can it have scientific meaning? Has “nothingness” ever been tested?     (2): That initial point source apparently was not contained within anything, it was space curved in upon itself, so there was never a boundary between that space and the surrounding “nothingness”. “Something” not really embedded in “nothing”? Impossible even to conjure a picture of that, and there certainly is no “proof”.     (3) For a very short period (one 10-34th of a second) that energy concentration expanded (faster than the speed of light) into a very large volume -- then settled down into slower (than the speed of light) expansion. This assumption was developed to “explain” a strong inconsistency in Big Bang theory -- the un-curved “flatness” problem.     (4) The relatively uniform concentration of energy in that newly expanded, massive universe “condensed” out into recognizable masses like hydrogen and helium atoms, and then into stars and galaxies. Recognizable -- why?     (5) In all of (4) there is no explanation for how those billions and quadrillions of identical atoms formed -- even at totally unconnected, opposite ends of that massively expanded universe.     (6) In addition, in (4), there seems to be no explanation for how the highly complex, distinctive order of these masses was created from the initial total disorder of the energy concentration. One simple form of the Second Law of Thermodynamics indicates that order always goes to less order, to greater disorder, never the other way around. More on this below.     (7) The galaxy-filled universe began the slow, steady (Einsteinian) expansion said to be described by the observed red-shift in starlight. This is really what is thought of as Big Bang theory, all the previous is necessary simply to set up the “proper” initial conditions -- an extremely large universe full of recognizable atoms, molecules, stars and galaxies, expanding at some rate slower than the speed of light.     (8) To use red-shift to describe universal expansion it had to be assumed that the light would radiate from the atoms and molecules at frequencies identical to those recognizable here on earth today.     (9) That initial universe was so large that the masses, stars and galaxies were represented (mathematically) as nothing more than point sources of gravitation, with no specific physical dimensions. But assumption (8) seems to mean that those masses actually had to be the same physical size at the beginning of time, when first formed, as they are at the end, here on earth today. If they had been formed at very small sizes and expanded along with the surrounding space one would expect at first to see much higher radiation frequencies (shorter wavelengths). What we see is the opposite. So in order for the degree of red-shift in starlight to give us a measure of the expansion of space at that time it was necessary to assume that in our universe it is space that is expanding and physical dimension are not. Well, of course, there is no supporting evidence or reasoning to suggest this. Aren’t masses mostly space? What is it within a galaxy that could make it maintain a fixed physical size while the space it occupies gradually expands out from under it.     (10) With assumption (9) it can now be assumed that the speed of light is exactly constant, compared to these (assumed) constant physical dimensions (like the earth) and is therefore independent of time, for all time. More on this below.

    In addition, as Big Bang research and development progressed several new observations suggested that the whole theory might not be valid. Rather than accept that conclusion, cosmologists seem to have struggled (almost frantically?) to explain away these anomalies. But in each case, to sustain Big Bang theory, they seem to have had to come up with even more totally unsupported, conjectural assumptions. Most scientists seem to agree that Einsteinian General Relativity best describes the physics of the expanding universe, but those equations suggest that within that ball space is curved. Well that should be relatively easy to experimentally “check out”, even here on earth today. However, after massive efforts by many scientists over the years, using various techniques and the most powerful telescopes available, space always turns out to be flat, not curved.
    There is still the possibility that space has been and will be curved but that our universe today is perched right on the razor edge between one that will stop expanding and fall back on itself and one that will continue to expand forever. A way outside possibility?
    So, what is that as yet unobserved phenomenon that is causing the universe to appear flat? In 1981 Alan Guth proposed that in an extremely short time (10-34 seconds) after the very beginning of the universe (just after time zero) that hot little ball of a universe exploded, at many times the speed of light (compared to what?), until it became so large that the curvature could not be detected here on earth today. Of course, all this was said to have occurred before any light could ever reach us here on earth so there is not and cannot be any way to verify or support such an hypothesis. There seems no way that Guth’s universal expansion could ever be considered a legitimate part of science. All of this is assumption (3)
Then as time went on and cosmologists continued to study the expanding universe another inconsistency popped up. It soon became apparent that, based on phenomena such as the speeds of rotation and evolution of galaxies and “gravitational lensing”, there was simply not enough distinguishable matter in the universe. It is said that only some 4 percent of the total energy density of the universe can actually be seen. So what is that as yet unobserved mass that is controlling the activity and evolution of the expanding universe? That question becomes [assumption (11)], “What / where is that additional, unobservable Dark Mass?
    But hardly had cosmology accepted the “dark” word than there arose a conflict between those continuing to study and refine Hubble’s linear relation between red-shift and distance and those studying the formation and age of stars. The more scientists refined the Hubble correlation the more they began to conclude that the universe can only be some eight billion years old. At the same time the star formation people were becoming more and more sure that the oldest stars in the universe were more than fourteen billion years old. After a few years, cosmologists began to conclude [assumption (12)] that the universe had been expanding much more slowly in the early years and was only now accelerating. That would increase the apparent age of the universe.
    But that now created the question of what has been causing that expansion to speed up? It wasn’t long before someone came up with the (again totally unsupported) idea [assumption (13)] that the cause had to be some unseen, unknown anti-gravity energy out there that becomes stronger as the universe gets larger. With a few mathematical manipulations the Dark Energy concept was adjusted until there was good agreement between the Hubble people and the “star-age” people. Today it is said that some 74 percent of the energy density of the universe is considered to be “dark”.
    Of course, all of these numbers were developed using the unsupported assumptions mentioned above. Is it possible that under a different set of assumptions all “dark” stuff would go away?
    Note that, from the standpoint of science, the very word “dark” means “unknown”. Such a term is not “falsifiable”, it should immediately trigger the additional scientific statement that whatever these “dark things” are they simply cannot be considered a true part of science -- they are little more than pure conjecture. Discussions of science and the scientific method should never include the word “dark”.
    All but two of these assumptions (6 and 10) seem simple enough to understand, to recognize how each is almost totally unsupported and are little more than hypotheses. Those two are discussed further below.

Order to Disorder (6)
    The Second Law has a number of thermodynamic applications but in one form it says, in effect, that within a closed system (like the universe) order always proceeds to disorder, never the reverse. There is a special term (“entropy”) that defines the level of disorder in a closed system -- zero entropy is perfect order, infinite entropy is complete disorder. A simple example is a two-story house of cards (low entropy)-- you could stare at it all day but it will never, by itself, create a third story (move to even lower entropy). On the other hand, the slightest disturbance will send it tumbling down into a totally disorganized pile of cards (very high entropy).
    The Second Law is perhaps the most thoroughly proven law of science -- it is demonstrated thousands of times a day in hundreds of applications, and is never wrong -- order always goes to disorder.
    But early Big Bang theory (origin) seems to indicate just the opposite. Shortly after the Guth “super expansion”, atoms, electrons, and molecules like hydrogen and helium began to form and clump together, then forming trillions of stars and billions of galaxies. That, of course, represents a dramatic increase in order throughout the universe (adding a massive number of stories to the house of cards), in direct violation of the Second Law. Furthermore, that increasing order includes the formation of a wide range of molecules all neatly arrayed in accord with what would later be called the Periodic Table.
    Where were the blueprints for those complex structures, what caused only hydrogen and helium to form? And how could these new elements know enough to line themselves up in accordance with the Periodic Table? And this spontaneous creation of complex order from total disorder in the expanding universe is even said to have occurred simultaneously throughout that nascent universe, identically so even in parts of that universe no longer in contact with each other.
    That’s the problem with violating the Second Law, before you form anything truly more ordered you have to have assembly instructions and/or blueprints. To accidentally form one kind of amazing new order one moment and then form several entirely different kinds of amazing order at later times -- is still creating disorder. On the other hand, if order is proceeding to disorder (the house of cards is falling down) you don’t need any kind of planning.
    Some scientists delight in extrapolating that Second Law into the very distant future to show, beyond doubt, that the universe will eventually end in total meaningless disorder. However, another very important aspect of the Second Law is that same extrapolation in the opposite direction, into the deep, dark past. With the same lack of doubt this extrapolation predicts a universe in the very distant past in perfect order (zero entropy).
    A universe in perfect order suggests one in which, such like the Big Bang concept, all energy is concentrated at one point. But, unlike the Big Bang, there is a “rest of the universe”, and that space is totally without energy. In addition, to be in perfect order, that energy-filled point must be in instantaneous contact with all the rest of the universe, totally available to do work, to create time, to “make things happen” -- everywhere. Does that sound like the Big Bang hypothesis?

Speed of Light (10)
    When Einstein first postulated that the speed of light is everywhere constant he did not specifically hypothesize that it has been exactly that same speed for all time. One could argue that it was the Russian Alexander Friedman, in 1922, who first came up with that “truth”. Alex probably found himself (mathematically) unable to solve Einstein’s tensor equations for the universe if he had to carry either the speed of light or the dimensions of the physical matter as a function of time. -- all had to be exactly as seen here on earth today, back to the very beginning of time. The mathematics was simply not otherwise solvable.
    Introducing those simple mathematical gimmicks he was able to solve Einstein’s equations for the universe. His solution, then, showed that space had to be curved and that the spatial (but not the physical) universe has been expanding with time.
    For seven years Friedman’s expanding universe was broadly discounted. Even Einstein ridiculed him, stating that everyone knew that the universe was not expanding, it is static and has been so forever. Einstein even threw another mathematical gimmick into his equations to cancel out any universal expansion.
    Friedman and his friends and supporters searched diligently for experimental support -- anything! Then, in 1929, they heard that Edwin Hubble had discovered that red-shift in starlight increases linearly with distance from earth. It was no problem for Friedman and company to make the further assumption that red-shift is the result of a Doppler-like effect due to movement of the light sources away from earth.
    With that, cosmologists were convinced that they now had their “irrefutable experimental proof” that the universe is indeed expanding. And that means, of course, that the speed of light is indeed independent of time. Even Einstein finally surrendered, indicating that he may have made the worst mistake of his life. This was considered a necessary, almost critical conclusion not just to confirm the expanding universe concept but to raise cosmology from the world of conjecture and hypothesis into the respectable, substantiated world of science (experimental proof!).
    And so it became critically important to solidly establish that Hubble’s red-shift / distance correlation did in fact prove that the universe is expanding. Ever since that date, and even today, almost every paper on the Big Bang begins with the stock sentence, “In 1929 the great Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding.” The word “great”, of course, provides stature and believability and the word “discover” suggests that this expansion was not a scientific hypothesis or theory but an actual fact simply “discovered” by the great Edwin.
    What Edwin actually discovered, and experimentally verified, was nothing more than the fact that the degree of red-shift measured in starlight is linearly related to the distance of those stars from earth. Hubble himself went to his grave loudly proclaiming that his experimental results did not prove an expanding universe.
    Ever since that time cosmologists seem to carefully avoid the fact that their connection between Hubble’s red-shift / distance correlation and an expanding universe interpretation hangs on those two critical unsupported assumptions, that the speed of light is independent of time and that the red-shift can only be caused by some sort of relative motion of the light source away from earth. And it is certainly not science to now twist that around to suggest that the expanding universe (a “fact” discovered by the great Edwin Hubble) proves the validity of those two assumptions.

A Variable Speed of Light
    Throughout this Big Bang discussion the point has been made that the crucial assumption that the speed of light has been constant for all time, that it is independent of any passage of time, is simply not supported by experimental evidence. So what if we simply do not make that assumption? Amazingly enough, another whole scientific scenario for the beginning of the universe seems to emerge.
    Hubble, of course, did not “discover” that the universe is expanding, he discovered only that linear red-shift / distance correlation. We can use that relation (mathematically) to tell us how the speed of light could have varied in the past. That simple solution (no other assumptions) shows that since the “beginning” the speed of light has been exponentially decreasing with time. That means that at some time in the distant past it was very fast, so fast that it could well have almost instantly reached the limits of space no matter how big the space.
    And, of course, in this “unspecified variation in the speed of light with time” approach, it is no longer necessary to make 12 of the above 13 assumptions. Time, space and all physical dimensions are left exactly as seen here on earth today. Both would have had to originate at some times and places [assumption (1)] but those answers are clearly unknown.
    Such a ‘variable speed of light’ scenario offers a simple explanation for Olber’s Paradox, “Why is the sky dark at night?”. The initial flash of light, at some finite time in the past, traveling essentially at infinite speeds, filled all the universe. But then, in accordance with the Second Law, the speed of light began to decrease (exponentially) and the most distant stars began to fade from view.
    In the 14th century Friar William of Ockham propounded what became famously known as Ockham’s Razor: “Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.” In today’s world that would more likely be verbalized as “Keep it simple, stupid!” Clearly the variable speed of light scenario for the origin of the universe (one unsupported assumption) follows Ockham’s Razor far better than does the Big Bang hypothesis (13 unsupported assumptions).
    Well, it does seem that the current scientific explanation of the beginning of all things, the Big Bang / expanding universe hypothesis, is based on so many totally unsupported and extremely doubtful assumptions and definitions that it is hard to imagine that science even considers that scenario to lie within science. There seems to be little question that the hypothesis does not survive examination by the scientific method.
    The whole Big Bang scenario for the very beginning of the universe seems a classic example of “Group Think”. The professors who teach the Big Bang in the universities are the same professors who “peer review” papers for publication, and are often those who are consulted regarding research grants. New, young researchers are fully aware that dissenting opinion will receive neither research grants nor publication And so there continues to be no dissenting opinion (except herein).
    So, in this case, it appears that the reigning scientific explanation simply cannot be considered part of what we can say we “know”. It would even seem likely here that the universe (gulp) may not be Einsteinian.
    On the other hand, there does seem to be a physical scenario which science has not considered. That is the universe that we can derive when we free the speed of light from the “constant for all time” assumption. This approach does not require a massive chain of unsupported assumptions to make it fit available physical observations; there is no need for such things as dark mass and energy; and it best satisfies both Olbers Paradox and Ockham’s Razor.
    In cosmology, the Big Bang hypothesis represents “the box” -- this is what we “know” today to be “fact”. If science is ever to significantly expand the horizons in cosmology, researchers must bring themselves to recognize the “softness” of the walls of that box, and begin to think beyond them -- outside of that box. One way seems to be simply to neglect the assumption that the speed of light has been constant for all of time.

Return to Science