Has this steady state universe concept ever been considered?

Question

It dawned on me that the big bang has a bit of magic thrown in for good measure, whereby space itself inexplicably expanded faster than the spead of light for a while and then stopped expanding.

But what if it didn't? What if the reason for red shift is not because galaxies are moving away from eachother within space, but is due instead to the ever present expansion of space? What if space expands at a greater and greater rate relative to distance from an observer? From our perspective, distant galaxies would appear to be accelerating away from us (which we observe), there would be an event horizon of sort where the rate of expansion exceeds the speed of light so that the amount of background light would be limited (which we observe).

For this to really make sense, there would have to be a mechanism by which energy/matter is created by such an expansion at some probabilistic rate.

Putting it all together, is this a plausible steady state alternative to the big bang?

I have to say, I don't see how confirmation of MBR that aligns with what is predicted by big bang somehow undermines all steady state theories. Nor do I see why distant objects should not appear more youthful in a steady state of perpetual expansion. Might MBR be the source of perpetual new matter in a a perpetually expanding universe (i.e.. MBR being black body radiation from space itself, and acting as the source of perpetual new energy from which matter forms)? I'll trust smarter people than I have thought these things through.

Answer 1

Steady State was the prevailing scientific viewpoint for a long time. The Big Bang theory was the crazy idea of a few scientists, Steady State was the accepted thing.

What changed that was this. Some Big Bang guy figured out that, if the Big Bang had happened, there would be a leftover glow, like an afterglow from the huge "explosion". Calculating from the known size and age of the universe, he figured out that the afterglow would be microwave radiation corresponding to a temperature of about 3 Kelvin, 3 degrees above absolute zero. It would permeate the universe, looking pretty much the same in all directions.

In the 1950s some guys were tracking down static with a radio telescope. They found this funny microwave "static" everywhere they looked. 3 Kelvin. They happened to talk to a physicist, who knew what it meant and told them. They subsequently won the Noble Prize, because their discovery completely changed our ideas about the universe.

That killed the steady state theory dead. 99+% of scientists now accept the Big Bang as fact. Further refinement of the Big Bang theory said the microwave radiation should actually have some little lumpiness in it (or the universe wouldn't have created stars and galaxies). Satellites then found the little lumpiness, too. Exactly the right amount.

The repeated success of the Big Bang theory in predicting the exact nature of the radiation that has been found caused pretty much every scientist to reject Steady State. Very few find it plausible any more.

More info can be had by Googling "Cosmic Microwave Background". Here's one good summary:

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101bbtest3.html

Answer 2

Wow, I missed the news on that "event horizon".

You are right it is a plausible alternative theory to the Big Bang. Fred Hoyle gave us the nuclear fusion steps to explain the production of heavier elements in stars, explaining how stars burn their fuel and sometimes explode--he was fond of this steady state theory. He named the Big Bang as a derisive term because a Christian was the major proponent of that theory at the time. It was fascinating that Hoyle saw the Creation story in the other theory, Hoyle being an atheist, because Hoyle also had a pet theory on the origin of life--panspermia. In this notion, some ancient and alien civilization seeded the universe with the progenitors of DNA from which life would spring if the events and environment were right. Hoyle wouldn't accept a deity doing that, but that some people elsewhere did it was okay (sort of like Lucas' "Long ago, in a galaxy far away..."). Arthur C. Clarke, of 2001: A Space Odessy fame, was a fan of that idea (in case you didn't catch it in the story).

The problem is that when folks begin noticing the speeds and plugging in their guesses for the numbers and masses of those galaxies and clusters of galaxies, they get the notion that there is more external momentum than the collective mass' gravity will contain. That to say, it isn't going to stay together, the state of the universe therefore is not steady. There is another problem. When estimating the age of the universe from what we see, using Hoyle's helpful description of how stars and fusion works, then noticing the rates of decay for those heavy elements that supernovae produce, we get this idea that while the universe is almost unimaginably old from a human perspective, it does have an age cap as far as the math is concerned. I've heard numbers for the age of the universe going as high as the low-30's in billions of years, but usually in the low 20's of billions of years, though some only in the upper teens in billions of years. With a steady state universe, we would theoretically have evidences of ages beyond that.

Go ahead. You are safe, though some will snicker. They won't hang you for heresy, but if you try to get work in the cosmology-related fields you might find it easier to drive a truck for a living.

Answer 3

"it ought to look that the first reason had to be self-existent, undying, spaceless, valuable, sensible, and smart." No it would not look that way. even as the universe ought to have first take position it ought to were a chaotic mass of be counted. It took many many years for any type of order to take position from that, or perhaps longer for suns and planets to ultimately variety. Get a large bowl of milk and toss a small handful of Rice Krispies into it. at first they are going to swirl round and performance no order, yet ultimately they are going to all bunch mutually right into slightly island-like lump. the concept is that the universe followed a similar trend. If it changed into created by using something sensible and smart, why would not it were created all prepare fairly than having to variety over lengthy classes of time? What must be the point of that? so as that billions of years down the line human beings ought to worship you? that's in basic terms stupid.

Answer 4

I like your idea of the event horizon. That would explain perfectly why the sky is black and not cluttered with ALL the stars in the universe seen an infinity away.

I feel one step closer to reality.

Thanks
Jon

Answer 5

Almost anything is a better theory than the big bang. But I would say steady state is not plausible.

Answer 6

There is an interesting published paper on arXiv:

astro-ph/9811018

and also, you can start digging from the refferences therein.

Answer 7

Yes, in 1948.

Answer 8

Roaming black holes say different

Answer 9

It had been