Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Feb 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007cqgra..24..755.&link_type=abstract
Classical and Quantum Gravity, Volume 24, Issue 3, pp. 755 (2007).
Mathematics
Logic
Scientific paper
These colloquium proceedings will be valuable, the blurb says, for graduate students and researchers in cosmology and theoretical astrophysics. Specifically, the book 'looks at both the strengths and weaknesses of the current big bang model in explaining certain puzzling data' and gives a 'comprehensive coverage of the expanding field of cosmology'.
The reality is rather different. Conference proceedings rarely compare in value with a solid monograph or good review articles, and Current Issues in Cosmology is no exception. The colloquium was convened by the two editors, who have both long harboured doubts about the big bang, and was held in Paris in June 2004. The proceedings contain 19 presented papers and relatively brief summary comments by four panel speakers. The questions and answers at the end of each talk and a general discussion at the end were recorded and transcribed but contain little of interest.
The nature of the colloquium is indicated by panellist Francesco Bertola's comment: 'While in the 1950s it was possible to speak of rival theories in cosmology, now the big-bang picture has no strong rivals. This is confirmed by the fact that out of 1500 members of the IAU Division VIII (Galaxies and the Universe) only a dozen, although bright people, devote their time to the heterodox views.' This was largely a platform for them to give their views. At least half of the dozen, all the 'usual suspects', were present: Geoffery and Margaret Burbidge, Jayant Narlikar, Halton Arp, Chandra Wickramasinghe and, in spirit only but playing a role somewhat like the ghost of Hamlet's father, the late Fred Hoyle. Doubters presented 12 of the 19 papers.
Orthodoxy should certainly be challenged and the sociology of science questioned, but I found two main problems with this book. The papers putting the orthodox view are too short, even perfunctory. The most that a serious graduate student would get out of them is a reference to a far better review article or book on modern cosmology. The doubters' case is threadbare at best, as Alain Blanchard put it rather more politely in his panel contribution. The Burbidges and Halton Arp reiterate the difficulties that these eminent scientists have long had in reconciling certain observations with the standard model. Most workers in the field are aware of their views and find they lack substance, especially Arp's worries about some close coincidences between the observed positions of low-redshift galaxies and high-redshift quasars. Virtually everyone believes that they have no statistical significance. Arp's belief that some quasars have non-cosmological redshifts and are being spewed out of nearby exploding galactic centres raises eyebrows.
For me the most worthwhile of the 'rebel' papers is Narlikar's. Its first half is a thought-provoking survey of the many modifications through which the big-bang model has passed. He calls them additions of epicycles and in some cases I think he has a point. But his rival theory seems very far fetched and makes my point about Hamlet's ghost. The steady-state theory just will not die: in 1994, Hoyle, G. Burbidge, and Narlikar published the quasi-steady-state theory (The Astrophysical Journal 410 437) in which the universe expands, not perfectly steadily but 'in mini-creation events at regular intervals and in response the universe oscillates on a short-term period of about 50 Gyr while it also has a steady (exponential) long-term expansion at a characteristic time scale of about 1000 Gyr.' I won't go into details, but this looks like a whopping epicycle on the steady-state model! Wickramasinghe's paper is on iron whiskers, which have now taken over from standard dust as the agents that must transform starlight into the microwave background.
In my view the two best papers in the volume are those of the panellists Alain Blanchard (in favour of the standard model though he has difficulties with X-ray clusters) and the observer Michael Disney, who expresses radical doubts about the concordance model and cites a paper of his (astro-ph/0009020) that is entertaining and hard hitting. But is it worth buying 278 pages for the sake of at most 20?
I welcomed the opportunity to review this book since I have stuck my neck out even further than Narlikar and Disney, and this journal has even published an article by me in which I question whether the universe is actually expanding (Classical and Quantum Gravity 20 1571). I wanted to see if there were any chinks in the armour of the standard model. I have to say that having read this book, three modern books on cosmology and attended the recent Cosmic Frontiers conference in Durham (UK), I have to agree with Blanchard when he says: 'When I try to find what the weaknesses of the standard big bang are, I get rather more convinced of its robustness!' However, I was glad to see that he does not regard inflation as part of the model, and I do think Disney is right to be sceptical about exaggerated claims for the specific concordance model (rather than the basic big-bang idea). However, what I find immensely impressive is how the one simple idea of the expanding universe has proved so fruitful and successful.
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