Natural Science Forum / Biology / Paleontology / June 2007

Big Bang?

One might also ask where the "cosmic egg" came from if there was a big
bang. Of course, the question is unanswerable. Pushing any origin
explanation back far enough raises similar questions-all
scientifically untestable. Thus, the question of ultimate origins is
not a purely scientific matter. What science can do is test possible
explanations once the starting assumptions are well defined. For
example, if a tiny "cosmic egg" existed, consisting of all the mass in
the universe, it should not explode, based on present understanding.
Claiming some strange, new phenomenon caused an explosion (or
inflation) is philosophical speculation. While such speculation may or
may not be correct, it is not science.

"Three years ago, observations of distant, exploding stars blew to
smithereens some of astronomers' most cherished ideas about the
universe [the big bang theory]. To piece together an updated theory
they're now thinking dark thoughts about what sort of mystery force
may be contorting the cosmos.
"According to the standard view of cosmology, the once infinitesimal
universe has ballooned in volume ever since its fiery birth in the Big
Bang, but the mutual gravitational tug of all the matter in the cosmos
has gradually slowed that expansion.
"In 1998, however, scientists reported that a group of distant
supernovas were dimmer, and therefore farther from Earth, than the
standard theory indicated. It was as if, in the billion or so years it
took for the light from these exploded stars to arrive at Earth, the
space between the stars and our planet had stretched out more than
expected. That would mean that cosmic expansion has somehow sped up,
not slowed down. Recent evidence has only firmed up that bizarre
result." Ron Cowen, "A Dark Force in the Universe," Science News, Vol.
159, 7 April 2001, p. 218.

"Not only don't we see the universe slowing down; we see it speeding
up." Adam Riess, as quoted by James Glanz, "Astronomers See a Cosmic
Antigravity Force at Work," Science, Vol. 279, 27 February 1998, p.
1298.

"In one of the great results of twentieth century science, NSF-funded
astronomers have shown both that the universe does not contain enough
matter in the universe to slow the expansion, and that the rate of
expansion actually increases with distance. Why? Nobody knows yet."
National Science Foundation Advertisement, "Astronomy: Fifty Years of
Astronomical Excellence," Discover, September 2000, p. 7.

"The expansion of the universe was long believed to be slowing down
because of the mutual gravitational attraction of all the matter in
the universe. We now know that the expansion is accelerating and that
whatever caused the acceleration (dubbed "dark energy") cannot be
Standard Model physics." Gordon Kane, "The Dawn of Physics Beyond the
Standard Model," Scientific American, Vol. 288, June 2003, p. 73.

"... dark matter has not been detected in the laboratory, and there is
no convincing theoretical explanation of dark energy."  Carlton Baugh,
"Universal Building Blocks," Nature, Vol. 421, 20 February 2003, p.
792.

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