Expert: James Gort - 4/30/2007

Question
Hello, I read your explanation that there is no direction to specifically look to find the big bang.  I thought it to be a very good explanation. I would like to repeat here for convenience:
"...So we can't point to a "place" and say that's where it occurred, because there was no space defined.  In fact, it didn't occur "somewhere", it occurred "everywhere" - because all energy which eventually became the matter of our universe was confined within the "bang" itself.  This is a very difficult concept to understand, because it violates our everyday experience.  But there's no such thing as pointing our telescopes in the "direction" of the Big Bang because it was everywhere in the universe."
However, there still seems to be a problem within that explanation that is ignored. I can philosophically accept the abstract concept of the big bang happening everywhere at one time - BUT - it takes time (or at least a certain chronological sequence of events) for all the various astronomical phenomena which is observed to come into existence.  When astronomers look into deep space and further back in time, COMPLEX SYSTEMS are being observed. Fully evolved galaxies, "old" stars etc.  It's one thing to say the universe and everything we know it to be was created all at once, but if the Big Bang is true, shouldn't we at least still see evidence of stellar evolution - somewhere, particularly where we observe the "oldest" parts of the universe which we ourselves identify as coming from 15 billion light years away? Sure there may not be a certain place to point our telescopes to ever see the big bang, but at least shouldn't we see evidence of a much simpler Cosmic order before the evolution into more complex forms?

Answer
Hi John,

You've hit the nail on the head.  Yes, we should see evidence of young galaxies when we see the distant edges of the observable universe (say, 10 to 12 billion light years away, when Big Bang theory says the universe was "young".  But curiously, we don't see any large changes in cosmic structure.  That's one argument against the Big Bang.  Believe me, the B-B is not a certainty!  

The age of the Milky Way is very close to the assumed age of the universe, so all galaxies must have started out around the same time. Recently, there seems to be some evidence that young galaxies (very far ones, in ANY direction!) contain a higher portion of young stars.  The Milky Way had the same proportion initially, but these stars die out fairly soon.  

I mentioned this in other responses, so maybe you saw it.  But just in case -  I suggest the following book.  Written by three eminent cosmologists, it's also very readable.  That book (available from amzon.com or elsewhere) is:      

A Different Approach to Cosmology: From a Static Universe through the Big Bang towards Reality by F. Hoyle, G. Burbidge, and J. V. Narlikar.

That one book will answer most of your questions, and these authors are NOT convinced that the Big Bang is the correct cosmology.