WHY 0 NLY ONE BIG BANG?
by Geoffrey Burbidge
B
ig bang cosmology is probably as
widely believed as has been any
theory of the universe in the his­
tory of Western civilization. It rests,
however, on many untested, and in
some cases untestable, assumptions. In­
deed, big bang cosmology has become a
bandwagon of thought that reflects faith
as much as objective truth.
Yet the momentum this bandwagon
enjoys is overwhelming. International
conferences on cosmology (which, in
the current state of affairs, means only
the standard "hot" big bang model) are
scheduled at the rate of about one a
month. Extensive coverage has appeared
in the New York Times, the London
Economist and the Wall Street Journal,
all based on interviews only with be­
lievers in the big bang. Popular mono­
graphs such as Steven Weinberg's The
First Three Minutes have not dealt at all
with cosmological theories other than
the big bang.
Normally, new ideas in a field of sci­
ence are advanced by young scientists,
who often take a contrary approach. But
younger cosmologists are even more
intolerant of departures from the big
bang faith than their more senior col­
leagues are. Worst of all, astronomical
textbooks no longer treat cosmology as
an open subject. Instead the authors
take the attitude that the correct theo­
ry has been found.
Powerful mechanisms encourage this
conformity. Scientific advances depend
on the availability of funding, equip­
ment and journals in which to publish.
Access to these resources is granted
through a peer-review process.
Those of us who have been around
long enough know that peer review and
the refereeing of papers have become
a form of censorship. It is extraordinar­
ily difficult to get financial support or
viewing time on a telescope unless one
writes a proposal that follows the party
line. A few years back Halton C. Arp
was denied telescope time at Mount
Wilson and Palomar observatories be­
cause his observing program had
found and continued to find evidence
contrary to standard cosmology. Un­
orthodox papers often are denied pub­
lication for years or are blocked by ref­
erees. The same attitude applies to aca­
demic positions. I would wager that no
young researcher would be willing to
jeopardize his or her scientific career
by writing an essay such as this.
This situation is particularly worri-
120 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN February 1992
some because there are good reasons
to think the big bang model is seriously
flawed. One sign that something is
amiss is the time-scale problem. The
most favored version of the big bang
model yields a universe that is between
seven and 13 billion years old. The large
range of possible ages derives from un­
certainty regarding the rate at which the
universe is expanding, a value known
as the Hubble constant.
Comparisons between observation
and calculations of stellar evolution im­
ply that the oldest known stars are 13
to 15 billion years old, with an uncer­
tainty of plus or minus 20 percent. The
estimated age of the elements in the
solar system, based on measurements
of heavy radioactive elements, is about
15 billion years, again including some
uncertainty. If one accepts a high value
of the Hubble constant, and hence a
low age for the universe, the simplest
big bang model clearly fails, because
the universe cannot be younger than
the objects it contains. If one chooses a
low value for the Hubble constant, it is
touch and go.
R
ather than consider alternatives
to the big bang, cosmologists
contort themselves and propose
that the rate of expansion is just small
enough to accommodate the oldest well­
documented stellar ages. Or they vary
the big bang model by invoking an
arbitrary parameter, called the cosmo­
logical constant. In this version of the
story, the initial big bang was followed
by a waiting period and then a further
expansion.
The pervasive cosmic microwave
background was predicted by the big
bang theory and is still considered to
be one of its strongest pieces of sup­
porting evidence. Measurements now,
however, show that the background ra­
diation is extremely smoothly distribut­
ed. Maps of galaxies, on the other hand,
show structure on all scales.
According to the standard version of
big bang theory, matter and radiation
were strongly coupled together in the
early universe, and only later did the
two go their separate ways. If this were
so, the cosmic microwave background
would show some imprint from the
lumpy matter distribution that led to
the formation of galaxies. In actuality,
however, the cosmic microwave back­
ground appears smooth to at least one
part in 100,000, close to the level at
© 1992 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
which the big bang must be abandoned
or significantly modified.
Within the framework of the hot big
bang, there is no satisfactory theory
of how galaxies and larger structures
formed. Galaxies cannot form by gravi­
tational collapse in an expanding uni­
verse unless one assumes without ex­
planation that large density fluctuations
were present in the early universe. Un­
der the influence of particle physicists,
cosmologists are now proposing that
these fluctuations occurred at an ear­
ly stage of the big bang or else were
caused by exotic entities such as cos­
mic strings. None of these ideas can be
directly tested.
The inflationary model, a pet idea of
the past decade, holds that a period of
extremely rapid expansion in the early
universe accounts both for the smooth­
ness of the cosmic microwave back­
ground and for the amount of matter
present in the universe. But again, in­
flation is an untestable addition to the
lore of the big bang.
This form of inflation is arbitrary,
and our successors will wonder when
it goes out of favor, as the history of
science suggests it will , why it was so
popular. The inflationary idea occurs
quite naturally in the steady state cos­
mology. I believe there is considerable
merit in a variant of this that was re­
cently described by Arp, Fred Hoyle,
]ayant V. Narlikar, N. C. Wickramasinghe
and me. In it, continuous creation takes
place in a series of little big bangs, and
in such a model the cosmic microwaves
are generated by the galaxies and nev­
er coupled to them. This model is at
least one viable alternative that can ex­
plain all that we can see. There may be
others.
Why then has the big bang be­
come so deeply entrenched in modern
thought? Everything evolves as a func­
tion of time except for the laws of
physics. Hence, there are two immuta­
bles: the act of creation and the laws of
phYSiCS, which spring forth fully fash­
ioned from that act. The big bang ul­
timately reflects some cosmologists'
search for creation and for a beginning.
That search properly lies in the realm
of metaphysics, not science.
GEOFFREY BURBIDGE is professor of
physics at the University of California,
San Diego, and former director of the
Kitt Peak National Observatory.