is steady state theory better than big bang?

Question

i am good looking and cute and sweet but i am interested in physics and i would love to work for physics later in my life.i am only 16 right now

Answer 1

Nikki

I can remember when I was 17 and about to go up to Cambridge and my school arranged a trip to the observatory at Cambridge. This was a time of great intellectual ferment about the steady state theory as Professor Fred Hoyle who proposed it had worked at Cambridge for years and Jayant Vishnu Narlikar who developed the theory with him was a Research Fellow at Kings College, Cambridge at that time.

Naturally I was impressed, feeling I was (that afternoon at the observatory at least) at the forefront of knowledge and discovery.

But it was a bit of a storm in a teacuop really. Steady State theory has subsequently largely been discounted by most astrophysicists as it fails to explain the cosmic microwave background radiation. The Big Bang theory does do that satisfactotily which is why it won out in the battle of ideas.

However. at 16 you owe it to yourself to hear both sides of the case and decide on the merits of Hoyle and Narlikar's ideas.

FRED HOYLE'S WORK ON THE STEADY STATE THEORY

While having no argument with the theory that the universe was expanding, Hoyle disagreed on its interpretation. An atheist, he found the idea that the universe had a beginning to be philosophically troubling, as many argue that a beginning implies a cause, and thus a creator.

Instead, Hoyle, along with Thomas Gold and Hermann Bondi (with whom he had worked on radar in World War II), argued for the universe being in a "steady state". The theory tried to explain how the universe could be eternal and essentially unchanging while still having the galaxies we observe moving away from each other.

The theory hinged on the creation of matter between galaxies over time, so that even though galaxies get further apart, new ones that develop between them fill the space they leave. The resulting universe is in a "steady state" in the same manner that a flowing river is - the individual water molecules are moving away but the overall river remains the same.

The theory was the only serious alternative to the Big Bang which agreed with key observations of the day, namely Hubble's red shift observations, and Hoyle was a strong critic of the Big Bang. Ironically, he is the one responsible for coining the term "Big Bang" in a BBC radio program, The Nature of Things while criticizing the theory; the text was published in 1950.

Hoyle, unlike Gold and Bondi, offered an explanation for the appearance of new matter by postulating the existence of what he dubbed the "creation field", or just the "C-field", which had negative pressure in order to be consistent with the conservation of energy and drive the expansion of the universe.

These features of the C-field anticipated the later development of cosmic inflation. They jointly argued that continuous creation was no more inexplicable than the appearance of the entire universe from nothing, although it had to be done on a regular basis.

NARLIKAR

Fred Hoyle died at age 86 in 2001, so the torch of Steady State theory now has to be carried aloft by Narlikar, now aged 69.

As you may not know much about Narlikar, here are some biographical notes and then a bibliography.

He is an eminent Indian astrophysicist and considered a leading expert and defender of the steady state cosmology. His work on conformal gravity theory with Sir Fred Hoyle, called Hoyle-Narlikar theory, demonstrated a synthesis can be achieved between Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity and Mach's principle.

India’s second highest civilian honour, Padma Vibhushan, was awarded to him for his work. Prof. Narlikar is the founder director of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) at Pune, India.

1966 - Fred Hoyle established Institute of Theoretical Astronomy in Cambridge. Narlikar became the founder staff member of the institute. That year, Narlikar married mathematics researcher Ms. Mangala Rajwade,PhD. The couple have three daughters - Geeta, Girija and Leelavati.

1969 - Jayant Narlikar was a Senior Research Fellow King’s College, Cambridge for the next three years

1972 - Narlikar returned to India and took up Professorship at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. At the TIFR, he was in charge of the Theoretical Astrophysics Group, which he developed into a strong center for astrophysics

1988 – University Grants Commission (India) sets up the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) at Pune. Narlikar became the Founder-Director of IUCAA.

BOOKS HE HAS WRITTEN

The first two sound like that they should interest you.

Current Issues in Cosmology, 2006
A Different Approach to Cosmology : From a Static Universe through the Big Bang towards Reality, 2005
Fred Hoyle's Universe, 2003
Scientific Edge: The Indian Scientist from Vedic to Modern Times, 2003
An Introduction to Cosmology, 2002
Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei : An Introduction, 1999
From Black Clouds to Black Holes, 1996
Seven Wonders of the Cosmos, 1995
Philosophy of Science: Perspectives from Natural and Social Sciences, 1992
Highlights in Gravitation and Cosmology, 1989
The Lighter Side of Gravity, 1982
Physics-Astronomy Frontier (w/Sir Fred Hoyle), 1981
The Structure of the Universe, 1977

NARLIKAR'S WEBSITE

http://meghnad.iucaa.ernet.in/~jvn/

Answer 2

Steady state theory was the standard until about 100 years ago, when some facts were discovered which couldn't be explained by it. The major one was the Hubble effect - Hubble discovered that the far away galaxies move AWAY from us (as measured by the red shift - Doppler effect) with a speed directly proportional to the distance to them. Plotting the trajectories of these galaxies back in time, it resulted that all the galaxies would have emerged from the same point about 10-15 billion years ago. Recent measurements pinpointed this moment at 13.6 billion years.

After that, there were other discoveries that fit well within the Big Bang theory, but not in the steady state theory - most notably, the microwave background (and much more recently, its fluctuations)

Answer 3

Steady state theory has far more gaps in it than the Big Bang theory, and very few scientists now ascribe to it. For example, since we know that the universe is expanding, how could it not have originated from a compressed region? So I would not say that it's better.

The fact that you are cute and sweet has nothing to do with your qualifications to become a physicist.

Answer 4

While philosphically I prefer the steady state theory, I'm afraid all the evidence now points to the big bang theory being correct.

You should meet my niece. She's good looking and cute and sweet, but has a bachelors degree in astrophysics and is working on her masters in geophysics! Go for it!

Answer 5

Fred Hoyle's CC or SS was once an alternative to George Gamow's BB, but the evidence by now supports BB. Correct is better than incorrect.

Answer 6

The two biggest problems with the Steady State universe is that it requires continuous creation of matter (which violates the conservation laws) and it has no explanation for the background radiation (which is why nobody today advocates it). It simply doesn't fit with actual observations.

Answer 7

It sounds like you need to spend some time at the rehab for the incurably cute and realize that won't get you anywhere in business or science. Get the books open.

Answer 8

940

Answer 9

Who cares if you're good looking, cute, and sweet???

Answer 10

No it isn't because space isn't infinite.