Thread: cosmology history

Lately I've been doing some research about the first years of modern cosmology, around the second decade of 20th century, and trying whenever I can to go to the sources or the original papers of Einstein and de Sitterand also Hubble and to my surprise I find a rather different story from that told in modern cosmology books, mostly in what relates to the expanding universe issue, looks like someone around the 30's decided that the "expanding universe" was the only valid hypothesis and discarded any other interpretations of redshift. I found that de Sitter in 1917 predicted redshifts in relation with distance in his model B "de sitter universe" and even called it "spurious radial velocity", and Hubble himself in his 1929 often cited paper atributed the redshifts to this "de sitter effect", and this paper is the one I've seen cited dozens times in cosmology books like the one "in wich Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe". I Know Eddington had a lot to do with this a bit twisted retelling of how things happened but also Einstein and de Sitter came in later years to conform with this official cosmology. The fact is that I wondered If someone else finds this odd too.

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The big bang has swept every other theory under the carpet. Believers ignore the number of serious problems with it and that it relies on unproven ideas (not theories), and ignores the fact that it has been proved wrong a number of times, like when it failed the afterglow test.

If all theories were considered it would not matter but if at some time in the future we get proof that the BB is wrong, and it cannot be hidden away, then untold billions of hours of work will go down the drain and many will have to start from scratch again. Even now, things like this are ignored:


http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog...-cosmic-h.html


And facts like Eddington in 1926 giving a temperature of space 3.18K based on starlight.

The idea of the expanding universe came about because they decided it would collapse if it were not expanding, just like our solar system. Wait, our 4.6 billion year old solar system is not expanding but is stable. Duh!

Originally Posted by ajaybali

I Know Eddington had a lot to do with this a bit twisted retelling of how things happened but also Einstein and de Sitter came in later years to conform with this official cosmology. The fact is that I wondered If someone else finds this odd too.

Why is this odd? Isn't this scientific progress? First you have a number of possible explanations for a phenomenon. But the more you learn the more it turns out that most of the possibilities can be ruled out. Now, the scenario of a universe with a beginning aka Big Bang prevails, because it is the best explanation we have so far. Yes, it has its problems, and nobody claims to have found the final answer. It is a topic of ongoing research, and the current model is being refined the more we learn.

Originally Posted by Dishmaster

Why is this odd? Isn't this scientific progress?

Indeed. I see many parallels with the emergence of plate tectonic theory. Many researchers were stumbling around the edges, perceiving parts of the reality, but not the whole picture. Misreading of their work today could lead one to believe they discounted plate tectonic theory, when the reverse is true.

Those researchers who tried to pull everything together were not intially and instantly recgonised. Their papers became landmark papers in retrospect. Although my knowledge of the emergence of Big Bang theory is less detailed it appears to have followed the same pattern.

Originally Posted by Dishmaster

But the more you learn the more it turns out that most of the possibilities can be ruled out. Now, the scenario of a universe with a beginning aka Big Bang prevails, because it is the best explanation we have so far. Yes, it has its problems, and nobody claims to have found the final answer. It is a topic of ongoing research, and the current model is being refined the more we learn.

Severe problems like how it came about, inflation turning into expansion in four physical dimensions from a density a zillion times that necessary for a black hole, etc. Ideas like dark energy are made up to try and plug holes in the big bang.

A 'black hole' is the result of the local curvature of space/time. The primordial singularity which began it all, had NO space/time associated with it which could be warped to form a 'black hole'. Space/time had not been 'initialised' yet.

Wasn't it Lemaitre who first postulated the expansion of the universe in 1926? His idea of a big bang as a way to explain the expansion and its associated galactic spectral redshifts also briefly received a great deal of enthusiasm in the late 20's, but was then rejected in the early 30s and subsequently staged a comeback in the late 40's with the ABC paper. There was also some obscure mathmatician who in 1924 predicted expansion of the universe, 2 years before Lemaitre.