Expert: Tom Whiting - 5/16/2005

Question
Can you give me some observation evidence in favor of the Big Bang Theory? Thanks, Mike

Answer
Hi Mike,
Yes, I can give you a lot of observational evidence and data
concerning the Big Bang versus Fred Hoyle's Steady State
theory, and perhaps some other alternative theories.....
although, really, it's gotten to the point that 99.9% of all "real" scientists and astronomers accept the Big Bang scenerio over any other one, even though we don't know all the little details as yet.

1924 -Edwin Hubble announces that most of those fuzzy spots in the sky are in fact, external "island Universes".....in today's language, read that "external galaxies"....external to the Milky Way, and they are all (except for the Local Group which is gravitationally tied together) moving away from us...receding.

1929- Edwin Hubble announces that same external
galaxies are moving away proportionately to their distance...
linearally....
ie...10 times farther away, 10 times faster away;
50 times farther away, 50 times faster away.
(And thus establishing the Hubble Contant of expansion....
today's value is right around 70 Km/Sec/Megaparsec)

circa 1934....Georgi Gamow, Russian Astronomer, proposes...
what if we run the "movie projector" film of the Universe
backwards....wouldn't all matter at one time in the past
be very close together?

circa 1940....Fred Hoyle, proponent and designer of the favored Steady State theory at that time....makes a derogatory comment against those who propose the optional theory to his Steady State...."those who believe in some.....Big Bang idea.....ask them where their residual radiation is, from the mammoth explosion....."
....the name stuck!

1965- Arno Pensias and Robert Wilson, two Bell Lab
technicians, while experimenting with the possibility of
microwave communication across the ocean, accidently
discover and hit upon a steady static at 1.1 mm wavelength,
in the microwave portion of the radio spectrum,
no matter which direction their radio telescope is pointed......
Accidently discovering the CBR (Cosmic Background
Radiation)  or MBR- microwave Background radiation....
the remnant of the Big Bang....they later receive the Nobel
Prize for their discovery....as this is HARD evidence that
can be taken into a court of law now.  Converted to absolute
temperature, the temp of the Universe is 2.73 degrees Kelvin.
(or 2.73 degrees above absolute zero).

Fred Hoyle says....well, wait a minute...the CBR can be caused by other things....if this is truly the remnant radiation of
the Big Bang, it has to meet certain qualifications....for instance, down at the 0.0001 degree of temp, there will have
to be very slight temperature variations to account for galaxy clustering, and each deviation at that temperature should be about one degree apart on the size of sky we see now.
(But in 1965, we didn't have the technology to measure
the background temperature to one-tenthousandth of a degree.)

1990- 1991 enter COBE- Cosmic Background Explorer satellite,
which takes over a year to confirm that the CBR does in
fact exhibit slight temperature variations at the level of
0.0001 degree, and spread over about one degree of the sky, as Fred Hoyle required for proof....see
http://astronomy.nju.edu.cn/astron/AT3/AT32705.HTM

{Shortly thereafter, Fred Hoyle states that the Big Bang
is correct, and his Steady State theory cannot be the correct one.}

circa- 1998- prior to this date, we all pretty much assumed
that the expansion of the Universe would be decelerating
due to gravity....turns out this was a bad assumption....
(but was forseen by Einstein many years earlier....in what
he said was his biggest mistake)...as 3 independent studies shocked the astronomical community, by finding that not only is the Universe expanding, but the current expansion is  
ACCELERATING.....so this is still another plus in favor
of the Big Bang scenerio as no other hypothesis can
account for an accelerating expansion of the Universe.
(So ironically, even when Einstein thought he was in error, he was actually correct)!

Anyone is free to develop an alternative hypothesis
(except one, described below)...but realize that any other
alternative idea HAS to adequately explain....even better
than the Big Bang hypothesis.....all the observed data
listed above.

The one hypothesis not allowed in the scientific community....
which really isn't a hypothesis at all, but rather a "belief"....
is the one where the religious zealot will say...." Well, God
just did it that way".....this is not testable, therefore not in
the scientific realm, and could be
said for ANY hypothesis at ANY time;  even could be said
if the Universe were currently contracting, which it isn't.
Thus, the statement is a "non-sequitor"....and is not germane
to the discussion above, and can be discounted and
disregarded, if only because it does not adequately and specifically explain a cause or reason for the observed data given above.  Thus it, by it's own admission, even if it is
true,it  is self-eliminating, because it does not supply
a viable alternative explanation for the observed data!
(Science is in the business to answer the questions how, when, and 'by what process'....we don't answer "why and who"....those are strictly philosophical/religious questions.
Why are we (humans) here? Who put us here?
Those are strictly philosophical/religious questions....we
in science don't answer them.
How, and by what process....are science, not religious,
questions.
We don't stray into the who and why, they should not stray
into our realm of how, when, and by what process....anyone
who strays out of their realm, is asking for ....Big trouble!
Just ask Pope Urban and Galileo!)

{Many people don't understand the difference in the concept
of a "belief" and a scientific hypothesis where lots of data
exists in favor of....
with a  "belief" there is no need to supply an alternative
explanation if one rejects the belief....simply because...
there is no data available....as yet.
But with a scientific hypothesis, you either accept or reject...
if you accept, fine....but if you reject, then in this case the
"monkey is on your back"....pardon the pun.....to give
an acceptable, reasonable, and logic alternative explanation
to satisfy the observed data.....the Big Bang  (along with
Evolution with it's DNA) are now in that catagory!
Anyone who rejects either, HAS to provide a reasonable,
acceptable, logical, alternative explanation.....which does not
have to be done with a "belief" as there is no data
to account for,  in the first place.   (If there is some data and
observations, then it is not a belief any longer)!
So science has taken the Big Bang (and evolution of life)
out of the belief catagory, and placed them into the
"accept/reject" catagory......so if you reject, please state an
alternative explanation, which has to satisfy the conditions
EVEN BETTER than the previous hypothesis!
{Good example of a 'belief' is the virgin birth of Christ....we have no test, no data, no observations available of that event...you either belief it on faith, or you don't...and if you don't there is no need to provide an alternative explanation.)

{When Einstein figured out that Newton's concept of
gravity being a force....was not correct...he knew it was not
enough to just state....Well, Newton was crazy and nuts!
He knew he had to come up with a better and simpler
explanation for gravity, or else no one would believe him....
So he came up with the concept of General Relativity where
he explained that gravity was just a curvature of space due
to the presence of a mass...this was a simpler explanation
for gravity rather than just saying that gravity was a force....
he also provided a "test" for his theory, which any new
idea must be able to do....to be tested....he suggested that
since gravity is just a curvature of space around a mass,
then during a total eclipse of the sun, nearby stars would
appear to be displaced outward, away from the limb of the
sun....a certain amount....which was tested and proved
during a total solar eclipse in 1919.
(Any alternative theory to the Big Bang, or evolution,
has to be.....just as good and accurate as Einstein did
above with his new explanation of gravity--- otherwise, your rejection of same, will just be disregarded as frivilous and meaningless,  in science.)

Hope all this helps,
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA