Post by rmarks1 on Sept 4, 2018 13:13:54 GMT -5
This is a great example of how science works. The amount of testing that went into this is incredible.
Bob
The only way to arrive at the Cosmic Microwave Background with the uniformity, spectrum, and temperature it possesses is to posit a hot, thermal origin for it in the context of the expanding Universe. This was conjectured back in the 1940s by George Gamow and his collaborators, first observed in the 1960s by Arno Penzias and Bob Wilson, and had its spectrum definitively proven to be blackbody in the 1990s with the COBE satellite.
The large-scale structure of the Universe has been determined through all-sky surveys and deep field measurements with ground-and-space-based observatories, and has revealed a Universe consistent with the Big Bang and not with the alternatives. And the evolution of the elemental abundances, from metal-free early stages to metal-poor intermediate stages to the late-time, metal-rich stages that we observe today, all demonstrate the validity of the Big Bang.
If you can come up with an alternative explanation for these four observations, you will have the start of a viable alternative to the Big Bang. Explain the observed expansion of the Universe, the large-scale structure and the evolution of galaxies, the Cosmic Microwave Background along with its temperature and spectral properties, and the relative abundances and evolution of the elements in the Universe, and you'll challenge the theory of our cosmic beginnings.
For more than 50 years, no alternative has been able to deliver on all four counts. No alternative can even deliver the Cosmic Microwave Background as we see it today. It isn't for lack of trying or a lack of good ideas; it's because this is what the data indicates. Scientists don't believe in the Big Bang; they conclude it based on the full suite of observations. The last adherents to the ancient, discredited alternatives are at last dying away. The Big Bang is no longer a revolutionary endpoint of the scientific enterprise; it's the solid foundation we build upon. It's predictive successes have been overwhelming, and no alternative has yet stepped up to the challenge of matching its scientific accuracy in describing the Universe.
www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/09/04/this-is-why-there-are-no-alternatives-to-the-big-bang/#57c11acb1cc5
The large-scale structure of the Universe has been determined through all-sky surveys and deep field measurements with ground-and-space-based observatories, and has revealed a Universe consistent with the Big Bang and not with the alternatives. And the evolution of the elemental abundances, from metal-free early stages to metal-poor intermediate stages to the late-time, metal-rich stages that we observe today, all demonstrate the validity of the Big Bang.
If you can come up with an alternative explanation for these four observations, you will have the start of a viable alternative to the Big Bang. Explain the observed expansion of the Universe, the large-scale structure and the evolution of galaxies, the Cosmic Microwave Background along with its temperature and spectral properties, and the relative abundances and evolution of the elements in the Universe, and you'll challenge the theory of our cosmic beginnings.
For more than 50 years, no alternative has been able to deliver on all four counts. No alternative can even deliver the Cosmic Microwave Background as we see it today. It isn't for lack of trying or a lack of good ideas; it's because this is what the data indicates. Scientists don't believe in the Big Bang; they conclude it based on the full suite of observations. The last adherents to the ancient, discredited alternatives are at last dying away. The Big Bang is no longer a revolutionary endpoint of the scientific enterprise; it's the solid foundation we build upon. It's predictive successes have been overwhelming, and no alternative has yet stepped up to the challenge of matching its scientific accuracy in describing the Universe.
www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/09/04/this-is-why-there-are-no-alternatives-to-the-big-bang/#57c11acb1cc5
Bob