Talk:Steady state theory

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Changed a bit of wording. Saying that no one takes the bb theory seriously as a theory of everything is a bit misleading.

Yes, There are some problems with the big bang. Possibly an all neutron universe was initially here and we had a beta decay big bang which then produced the first electrons, protons and the very first atoms and molecules. But the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation proves that something extraordinary did indeed happen.

Saul Perlmutter's Group has shown us an acceleration to this supposed expansion of the universe. Saul Perlmutter, himself, claims this proves the existance of Einstein's original cosmological constant (a repulsive force equal to gravity holding all the stars and galaxies apart). But this can only mean we are now back to a steady-state universe once again. While this sounds unreasonable, you must understand that the Newton-Einstein principle of equivalence states that one cannot discern gravity from an accelerating contraction. This also means that you cannot discern Einstein's original cosmological constant from an accelerating expansion. So is Perlmutter right? Is the redshift indicating Einstein's repulsive force between the stars and galaxies and not an expanding universe?

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This isn't true

However, Halton Arp claims to have observed the outpouring of matter from active galactic nuclei, and uses the steady-state theory as a basis for theoretical understanding of his observations.

Steady state assumes that general relativity is correct. Arp has a non standard theory of gravity.

Also

Proponents of the steady-state theory also predicted values of the CMB throughout the 1900s, however inertia was with the Big Bang at the time the CMB was finally observed.

Citations? I don't know of any steady state theorists who have published papers explaining the CMB. Not to say that there aren't.

Never mind. Found them. Also, I need to read more about Arp. I found some papers by Narlikar which mention Arp, but these were old. Maybe Arp has changed his mind. Narlikar writes some excellent and coherent papers, unlike Arp, who tends to be incoherent, at least to me.

Roadrunner 19:56, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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The last paragraph of this article seems to be NPOV. I mean, it looks like the writer is basically saying, "Anyone who subscribes to the steady-state theory is a moron." Maybe say something like, "The big bang theory is generally accepted as authoritative (or a more appropriate word)." D. F. Schmidt (talk) 17:30, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

It appears that it didn't need to be changed after all. I've reread that paragraph, and it looks fine. D. F. Schmidt (talk) 06:04, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Redshift rant removed

There was a rather confused anti-redshift rant, that seemed to be confused with the cosmic microwave background. So I deleted it. --Michael C. Price ^talk 12:51, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Respectfully it was not the so called "rant" which was confused, but you're misreading of it. Redshift and CMBR are two seperate issues, redshift being the premise, and CMBR being after-the-fact evidence for BBT. There was never a statement to the effect that steady state rejects doppler redshift, simply that it allows it. Furthermore there is more than one steady state theory, steady state is by no means a new idea, and at least one steady state theory interprets redshift as gravitational drag, since you're objective is to promote BBT and it's interpretation of redshift in order to persuade readers that Big Bang Theory is the "unquestionably correct" theory, this article has failed to be objective.

You have misunderstood: of course I agree that the redshift and CMBR are different issues -- that was why I deleted the irrelevant redshift material. Alternative and decidedly non-mainstream interpretations of the redshift belong over at redshift, not here. Also please do not assume my "objective is to promote BBT" -- I have also deleted some irrelevant material about the BBT. My only concern was to remove irrelevant material from the preview section. If you feel that a particular subset of steady state theory that rejects the mainstream interpretation of the redshift deserves mention, then create a new section (or preferably article) for "gravitational drag", but please do not start talking about it in the introduction here. Steady state normally refers to Hoyle/Gold/Bondi's conception which accepted the Hubble expansion. --Michael C. Price ^talk 09:46, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

My apologies for misunderstanding your intentions, I suppose that's what happens when one jumps to conclusions without discussion. You're correct in stating that steady state normally refers to the Hoyle/Gold/Bondi model, I had hoped to find at least some reference to variant SSTs, other than the Hoyle model, as well as a passing reference to Sir Arthur Eddington's prediction of the mean ambient temperature of stellar radiation being (3 K), which predates BBT, and undermines it's claim to CMBR as the afterglow of the Big Bang. Shapiro's discovery of gravitation delay effecting mars telemetry was extremely strong evidence against the Doppler interpretation of redshift, and by default - evidence against BBT. Lastly I would also hope to find some disclamer regarding both theories, stating to the effect that neither cosmological model has been proved or disproved. For those inexperienced in science it's far too easy to regard everything they read on paradigm theories as axiom, or worse yet.. even dogma. Once science stops being emperically objective and unbiased, it ceases to be science, and becomes mythology.

[edit] Rate of creation

The statement in the overview:

only very little matter needs to be formed, roughly a few hundred atoms of hydrogen in the Milky Way Galaxy each year,

is way way out by many orders of magnitude. --Michael C. Price ^talk 13:07, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The above statement has been corrected, but now the claim is being made this rate (of a hydrogen atom per m^3 per billion years) is detectable, contrary to all the sources I see. Are there any sources that state otherwise? Remember this claim is the equivalent of one solar mass per year per (Mpc)^3, not M(pc)^3; i.e. much, much less than one star per galactic volume per year. --Michael C. Price ^talk 22:57, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Consult Cosmological Physics by Peacock, pg. 81, 99, 442-443 for various observational discussions and references, but the basic idea is that making a solar mass per year of baryons in one cubic megaparsec (and the required ~10x of dark matter) would cause rather grievous observational effects:

• There are voids (regions of very low matter density) which have volumes of megaparsecs cubed. Over ~5 billion years, all such voids should fill with matter and collapse to form stars (this is compared to ~15 billion years for the Hubble flow to expand the volume). This is contrary to observations of large scale structure.
• There are large galaxies and clusters thereof accelerating towards each other under the gravitational influence of their dark matter halos. If mass were continually being added, the velocities of these systems wouldn't add up properly.
• Continuously adding matter would produce astronomical sources with the wrong distribution with distance (consider quasars and stellar metallicities)

Of course, the final nail in the steady-state coffin was the CMB, with a near-perfect blackbody at 2.78 K, at a distance of approximately 13.7 billion ltyr. Michaelbusch 23:18, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I completely agree: the CMB is the final nail. But as for voids not filling up -- well perhaps the steady state theory could be tweaked to avoid that particular problem - I don't know, but it is far from obvious that their existence alone disproves SS. Perhap the matter creation is spatially uneven? The counter arguments offered seem rather dependent on specific galactic formation models. --Michael C. Price ^talk 23:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The last point is indepedent of galactic scale structure: you can't be continously adding hydrogen to the universe and have the metallicity be lower in the past. It is hard to justify adding lots of hydrogen to the universe in a dispersed fashion because of the first two, and making the matter creation spatially clumpy doesn't help because then we shouldn't see a gradient in galaxy morphology as we look back in time. Michaelbusch 23:48, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

OK. The article already concedes that some higher elements require direct formation -- do you wish to explicitly add other metals to the list? --Michael C. Price ^talk 08:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

As written is fine for the moment. Michaelbusch 08:37, 11 November 2006 (UTC)