Big Bang

There have been a number of stories like
Theory
suggests universe without Big Bang in the media.

The new cosmology developed by Wun-Yi Shu of the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan also paints a picture of a universe with no beginning and no end.

This
sounds like what in my youth was known as the Steady
State Theory. As reported, the story is an example of
ways in which scientific findings
are reported and distorted by the media.

There are two basic problems

1. The problem Shu is concerned about does not exist.

   His model preserves conservation of energy, which does not hold in conventional
   cosmology. The ABC story makes it look like this is a big deal. In fact conventional
   cosmology is based on Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, in which energy
   is not conserved (I linked to that article here).
   Conservation of Energy is true in our ordinary experience, and indeed in most of physics.
   It need not hold when the effects of General Relativity are dominant. This has been
   known since the 1920’s.

2. Shu’s model does not account for the
   Cosmic
   Microwave Background Radiation.

   This is not a trivial point. The CMBR has been known for 41 years. In all that time
   only the Big Bang theory has been able to account for the observations of it. The most
   fundamental principle of science is that theories are tested by observations, and the ABC
   article did not mention that Shu’s model does not explain anything about the CMBR. To its
   credit Technology
   Review did, although one of their commenters scolded them about the
   Energy
   Conservation issue.

So, we have a media fuss about a “theory” that (1) Deals with a non-existent problem,
and (2) Has nothing to say about extensive observations that the conventional theory accounts
for very well. One of the commenters in Skepchick
found a tweet about it from
Sean Carroll, author of the
article
I referenced above: “it’s not very interesting.” He is being more polite than
Wolfgang Pauli, who once said
about an unclear theory: Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal
falsch! “Not only is it not right, it’s not even wrong!”.