Red shift: The principle of red shift is not a complex one. A wave emitted by a source, which is moving with respect to an observer, will have a changed frequency when observed. This is called the Doppler effect. For relative motion, where the distance between the source and the receiver is increased, the waves will have longer wavelengths, and the opposite is true if the distance is decreased. The classic example is the sound of the siren emitted by an ambu- lance traveling toward or away from an observer. When traveling toward the observer the waves are compressed and are shorter (high pitch) than when the ambulance is traveling away from the observer (low pitch). Astronomers examining the patterns of lines in the spectra emitted by distant stars and galaxies noted that they were slightly shifted toward the blue or more often toward the red part of the spectrum and distant galaxies were usually red shifted This implies that the stars with a blue shift are moving toward the earth and those with a red shift are moving away from the earth. Hubble was careful not to call these shifts Doppler shifts. He called them ‘apparent velocity-displacements’, but nevertheless concluded that the universe was expanding.
The series of assumptions that have to be incorporated in the theory of an expanding universe gives apparent distances of up to 10 billion light-years for the most distant objects. There is however room for other interpretations of the red shift such as the shift being derived from a solidly rotating cosmos. Tangential, not just radial, velocities can produce red shifts, but there is no way of measuring tangential velocities for distant galaxies.9 According to Keith Wanser, who is professor of physics, California State Univer- sity, Fullerton, other models for the formation of the universe offer acceptable alternatives to the Big Bang theory. Alternative theories have been proposed which involve ‘white hole’ cosmology, a recent creation of the earth, a bounded universe, an initial water mass, and Einstein’s theory of relativity. The earth is placed somewhere in
the center of the universe while long periods of time could have elapsed in other portions of the universe thus allowing sufficient time for starlight to have reached the earth. The theory also allows for expansion and red shifts. Other creationist theories have also been proposed which account for the background radiation. 10
Background Radiation: The Big Bang theory proposes that the universe started with extremely high temperatures and cooled as it expanded. When the temperature had decreased after some 300,000 years to 3000K, matter and radiation became decoupled. In the early hot stages, matter and energy could freely change places with each other because they were ‘coupled’. The high radiation (photons) would then be free to hurtle into space. However, since it is theorized that space itself is expanding, the temperature of the photons of energy falls until they have the frequency of microwaves. The background temperature of the Universe dropped to a mere 3K and this radiation is called the echo of the Big Bang or the 3K microwave background radiation (MBR). Actual measurements, however show numerous incon- sistencies in these assumptions, and the temperature speculations are also problematic.
The high temperatures at the beginning would prevent gas clouds and thus stars from forming. A cloud of gas at a high temperature tends to fly apart, but the theory requires the gas to condense into stars. The gravitational forces between the gas mol- ecules thus need to be great enough to allow for such contraction. Calculations show that unless the temperature is less than five K, the thermal energy of the cloud will tend to make the cloud expand and gravitational forces will be too low for contraction. In present day clouds where it is conjectured that stars are forming, the temperatures are far too high for this to take place, but the during the Big Bang they would have been even higher. It thus seems even more unlikely for them to have contracted in the past than is the case today.
Initial elements: The Big Bang theory does not allow for any other atomic elements to have originated from the explosion than hydro- gen, helium, lithium and beryllium of which elements there is an abundance in the universe. How did this matter originate? This is one of the major problems with the Big Bang theory. It is speculated that the Big Bang originated from a quantum fluctuation of the vac- uum, but experimental data shows that when particles are brought into existence from energy, something called the Baryon number is conserved. This means that when these particles are produced, they are produced in equal numbers of matter and anti-matter. For every electron there is thus a positron and for every proton, there is an antiproton. This would also have been the case in the Big Bang. Such symmetry would have resulted in the complete annihilation of both and the universe would have consisted of radiation only. The universe, however, has a complete dominance of matter over anti-matter, or else we would not be here.
Because of this problem, the GUT theories (Grand Unified Theories) have been proposed by physicists, which attempt to solve the problem mathematically, but violate Baryon number conserva- tion. These theories in turn predict proton decay, which has not been observed experimentally. Once again, we see how ad hoc theories have to be proposed to prop up the standard model when the data does not fit the predictions. No wonder John Maddox, editor of the journal Nature, said in an article titled “Down with the Big Bang”:
In all respects save that of convenience, this view of origin of the universe is thoroughly unsatisfactory.11
Writing in New Scientist, Margaret Wertheim quotes Andrej Pacholczyk:
… Much of contemporary cosmology deals with things like inflation and the big bang that have not been directly observed, and probably never will be. Andrej Pacholczyk of the University of Arizona Tucson views cosmology as ‘non correspondence science’ – one based on almost pure speculation. 12