Indian, US scientists question Big Bang theory
IANS, Apr 5, 2010,
09.59am IST
Times of India
NEW DELHI: An Indian and an American
scientist have questioned the Big Bang theory, saying it does not serve as a
viable explanation for the origin of the universe.
The research papers
of Ashwini Kumar Lal of India's Ministry of Statistics and Programme
Implementation and Rhawn Joseph of Northern California's Brain Research
Laboratory have been accepted for publication in the April issue of the
peer-reviewed Harvard journal, Journal of Cosmology.
The research papers
come even as scientists at Geneva's European Organization for Nuclear Research
(CERN) are in the midst of experiments on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
recreating conditions of the beginning of the universe.
"The two
scientific papers cast shadows of suspicion over the efficacy of the Big Bang
model. The scientific community may have to ponder afresh over the issue
relating to the origin of the universe," Lal told IANS here.
He also
noted that CERN scientists "are trying to jigsaw a theory which fits the
conditions of the Big Bang model".
"The Big Bang is said to have
occurred 13.75 billion years. But there is evidence, as I have written in my
paper, that there were fully formed distant galaxies that must have already been
billions of years old at the time," he added.
In his paper "Big Bang? A
Critical Review", Lal says: "There is a growing body of evidence which
demonstrates the Universe could not have begun with a Big Bang 13.75 billion
years ago.
"Indeed, the day may come when it is determined there never
was a Big Bang and cosmologists of the future will only gaze back in wonder at
how anyone could have believed in a creation event which was refuted by so much
contradictory evidence," he adds.
According to the paper, one of the
"acid tests" relating to the validity of the Big Bang model is the "detection of
remnants of gravity waves from the earliest epoch of the universe.
"Existence of gravitational wave background, as predicted by Einstein in
1916 in his general theory of relativity, is expected from the violent early
moments of the Big Bang much like the cosmic microwave background that fills the
sky with radio waves from the early universe," Lal says.
While the
microwave background presumably originated 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the
gravitational wave background purportedly comes directly from events in the
first minute after the Big Bang, the scientist says.
"The cataclysmic
Big Bang is believed to have created a flood of gravitational waves; ripples in
the fabric of space-time. These gravitational waves should still fill the
universe.
"However, presumably they are at a very feeble strength and
cannot be detected by conventional astronomical tools. Nevertheless, they should
carry information about the universe as it was in the immediate aftermath of the
Big Bang.
"If these waves cannot be detected, this challenges the Big
Bang," Lal maintains.
He also points out that lots of metal has been
detected in distant quasars and galaxies, "and if distance is related to age,
this means that many of the oldest, most distant galaxies are metal rich; and
this defies the predictions of the Big Bang".
This means there are
"fully formed distant galaxies that must have already been billions of years old
over 13 billion years ago, which would make them older than the Big Bang", Lal
contends.
Lal closely studied 38 research works in the areas of
astrophysics, physics and cosmology before writing his paper. This is his third
paper on the subject to be published in a foreign journal. The others are Origin
of Life (Astrophysics and Space Science, October 2008) and Searching for Life on
Habitable Planets and Moons (Journal of Cosmology, February 2010). He also has
to his credit some 30 research papers published in Indian journals.