The Big Bang theory has provided the most widely accepted basis of our understanding of the universe since it was first proposed by Georges Lemaitre in 1927. In short, it posits that all the matter in the entire universe was once crammed together in a mass about the size of a baseball, until it began expanding outward with rapidity about 13.8 billion years ago.

It’s a little tough to get your mind around the concept (where did the baseball come from?), but multiple lines of evidence, including observable phenomena, support the theory—plus almost every scientist says it’s so. That’s is good enough for me, but most Americans apparently don’t believe in it.


Here’s what they believe in instead.

Steady-state universe theory

The steady-state theory of the universe was put forth in 1948 by British scientists Sir Hermann Bondi, Thomas Gold, and Sir Fred Hoyle as an alternative to the then-new Big Bang model. Where Big-Bangers view our universe as expanding outward from a single point, steady-staters contend that the universe, as a whole, doesn’t change over time: It has always existed and always will exist in its present form. Changes take place on a smaller scale over time—stars burn out, for instance—but the steady-state hypothesis contends that new stars are created at exactly the rate that old ones decay (specifically, 1 atom of hydrogen is created per 6 cubic kilometers of space per year) so everything remains the same if you take a broad enough view. While this theory was widely accepted in the 1950s, it wasn’t able to account for new discoveries (especially that of microwave background radiation, the existence of which was predicted by the Big Bang theory before its discovery) and by the 1970s it was largely abandoned by the scientific community. But not by everyone not in the scientific community.

Oscillating universe theory

According to Big Bang theory, events “before” the universe burst from a single, super-dense point are unknowable, but the oscillating universe hypothesis suggests that the Big Bang will be (and probably has been) followed by a “Big Crunch.” According to oscillators, the universe will eventually stop expanding and start contracting until it ends in a single point (again), which will then explode outward (again). There’s no way to know which universal cycle we’re in (could be the first, could be the eleventy billionth) but the cycle will continue forever. While this theory sounds good (especially if you’re high) the second law of thermodynamics suggests the universe will expand outward until all energy is spent, and everything, everywhere grows unfathomably cold and quiet. This will happen next Wednesday, I assume.

“God did it.”

This one isn’t really unified a theory, per se. There are way too many supernatural cosmological creation stories to list, so I’m going to put them under the umbrella of “God did it” or “Gods did it.” Whether the universe hatched from an egg, an all-powerful creator willed everything into existence in six days, or everything sprung from a watery abyss, these mythological interpretations of the beginning of the universe are short on specifics, and aren’t generally accepted as literal truth. That is, except are variations of creationism, but the most widespread variant is Young Earth Creationism, believed in by many Christians. The idea is that the account of the creation of the universe detailed in The Book of Genesis is literally true. That is, between approximately 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, God created the earth in six days. Instead of pointing out the thousands of ways YEC can be disproven (here’s a big one, if you’re curious) I’ll just point to the systemic problem with “creation science”: It begins with the premise that the Bible is 100% true, and builds a worldview based on that idea. This is the opposite of determining truth or falsity through observable evidence and repeatable experimentation. So it’s not fair to call it creation “science.” To be fair, many Christians don’t believe in creationism, and some believe in some variation of the Catholic Church’s position that the Big Bang theory doesn’t really conflict with the Bible in the first place.

Simulated universe theory

Adherents to the simulation hypothesis contend that all existence is a computer simulation, which goes like this: If humans continue to develop computing power as we have been, future generations will develop computers powerful enough to simulate consciousness. Assuming that they’d run a lot of simulations that would be indistinguishable from reality, there’s a better chance that we exist in one of countless fake worlds than the single real one.

In this case, the origin of our universe would be the moment someone started the simulation, and not a Big Bang. This idea is generally regarded as pseudoscience for a variety of reasons, including the inherent inability to test the hypothesis scientifically, with critics pointing out that saying “everything is like it is because that’s how the programmers wanted it” is essentially the same argument as “God did it.” Also: Elon Musk believes in it, which is enough reason for me to reject it entirely.

Plasma universe theory

Astrophysicist and Nobel prize winner Hannes Alfvén was very into plasma. He was one of the pioneers of Magnetohydrodynamics (the study of plasmas in magnetic fields) and his 1966 book Worlds-Antiworlds forms the basis of “plasma cosmology.” This challenge to the Big Bang theory posits that the Universe has no beginning and no end, and that plasma and electromagnetism have more to do with the structure of the universe than gravity. The mainstream scientific consensus on plasma cosmology is, basically, “good try, but nah.” While plasma plays some role in the formation of large scale cosmic structures, it’s a minor one. Gravity is still the main driver.

Electric universe theory

“The electric universe” model of the cosmos is a catchall name for a branch of pseudo-scientific cosmology that rejects the Big Bang theory in favor of (loosely explained) the idea that the universe’s formation can be chalked up to the forces of electricity and magnetism, as opposed to gravity. It’s hard to pin down the details because the community of electric universe believers encompasses a wide variety of views, from Young Earth Creationists, to climate change deniers, to backyard “scientists” convinced their theories will upend the establishment view if only enough people watch their YouTube videos.

Common beliefs among Electric universe proponents include: The Big Bang never happened. Einstein was wrong. Black holes don’t exist. Electricity travels faster than the speed of light. The universe is not expanding, and any number of other non-traditional ideas.

Source: Lifehacker.com

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