Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-c654p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-29T23:09:07.980Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Should we Believe in the Big Bang?: A Critique of the Integrity of Modern Cosmology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Graeme Rhook  and
Mark Zangari
Graeme Rhook
Affiliation:
La Trobe University
Mark Zangari
Affiliation:
La Trobe University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Although the relativistic, hot big bang (RHBB) model is generally regarded as “spectacularly successful: In short, it provides a reliable accounting of the history of the Universe from about 0.01 sec after the [big] bang until today, some 15 billion years later” (Turner 1992, 1), it has recently faced serious attacks from a number of physicists who cite long lists of (they claim) critical anomalies (e.g. Arp, et.al. 1990, Burbidge, 1992, Arp and van Flandern, 1992, Lerner, 1993a, Narlikar 1993). In this paper, we shall not attempt to adjudicate on such disputes, nor do we wish to take a position on the normative criteria that should govern science. Rather, our primary concern is to highlight the tensions between the normative criteria accepted by proponents of the RHBB (or demanded of rival theories) and the actual progress of the big bang program.

Type
Part VI. Quantum Mechanics and Cosmology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1994 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1994 , 1994 , pp. 228 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alfvén, H. (Feb. 1971), “Plasma Physics Applied to Cosmology”, Physics Today 24: 28–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alpher, R.A. and Herman, R. (1948), “Evolution of the Universe”, Nature 162: 774.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arp, H.C. and van Flandern, T. (1992), “The case against the big bang”, Physics Utters A 164: 263–273.Google Scholar
Arp, H.C., Burbidge, G., Hoyle, R, Narlikar, J.V. and Wickramasinghe, N.C. (1990), “The extragalactic Universe: an alternative view”, Nature 346: 807–812.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balbinot, R., Bergia, S., Bertotti, B., and Messina, A. (eds) (1990), Modern Cosmology in Retrospect, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Boesgaard, A.M. and Steigman, G. (1985), “Big Bang Nucleosynthesis: Theories and Observations”, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 23: 319-78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burbidge, G. (1992), “Why Only One Big Bang?”, Scientific American 266: 96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grünbaum, A. (1990), “Pseudo-Creation of the Big Bang”, Nature, 344: 821–822.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guth, A. (1981), “Inflationary Universe: A Possible Solution to the Horizon and Flatness Problems”, Physical Review D23: 347–356.Google Scholar
Hoyle, R(1946), “The Synthesis of the Elements from Hydrogen”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 106: 343–383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubble, E.P. (1929), “A relation between distance and radial velocity among extragalactic nebulae”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science U.S. 15: 517–554.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerner, E.J. (1993a), “The Case Against the Big Bang”, Progress in New Cosmologies, Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Lerner, E.J. (1993b), “Confirmation of Radio Absorption by the Intergalactic Medium”, Astrophysics and Space Science 207: 17–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linde, A. (1990), Particle Physics and Inflationary Cosmology, Switzerland: Harwood Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maddox, J. (1989), “Down with the Big Bang”, Nature 340: 425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Narlikar, J. (1992), “The Concepts of ‘Beginning’ and ‘Creation’ in Cosmology”, Philosophy of Science 59: 361–371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Narlikar, J. (1993), “Challenge for the Big Bang”, New Scientist 138: 27–31.Google Scholar
Peebles, P.J.E., Schramm, D.N., Turner, E.L. and Kron, R.G. (1991), “The case for the relativistic hot Big Bang cosmology”, Nature 35 2: 769–776.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penzias, A.A. and Wilson, R.W. (1965),“A Measurement of Excess Antenna Temperature at 4080 MHz”, Astrophysical Journal 142: 419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riordan, M. and Schramm, D. (1991), The Shadows of Creation: Dark Matter and the Structure of the Universe, New York: Freeman.Google Scholar
Rothman, T. (1989), Science A la Mode, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sandage, A.R. (1956), “The Red Shift”, Scientific American 195, No.3: 170–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schramm, D. (1993), “The big.bang strikes back”, New Scientist 138: 31.Google Scholar
Turner, M.S. (1992) Inflation after COBE: Lectures oh Inflationary Cosmology, Preprint FERMILAB-Conf-92/313-A.Google Scholar
Weinberg, S. (1972), Gravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity, New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc.Google Scholar
Zel'dovich, Y.B. and Novikov, I.D. (1983), Relativistic Astrophysics Vol. 2: The Structure and Evolution of the Universe, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar