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I have read about problems with 'Big Bang theory' and Einstein’s relativity theories. A physicist, who is backed by Prof. Peter Wadhams (physicist) of Cambridge University in the UK, has proposed a new theory to replace the relativity theories. Obviously the proposed theory is too large to post here but I have given a segment. I will email a complete document to anyone who can help.
I need a qualified physicist (who supports the status quo) to explain to a layman like me why 'Big Bang theory' and relativity theories are correct and also show any genuine flaws with the new theory.
"Associated Cosmological Problems in Need of Solution
Other difficulties the new approach appears to resolve arose from a revision of the "big bang" which, cosmologists freely admit, still contains unacceptable false predictions. It assumes all the energy, ultimately to become the universe, was created in a massive explosion--all over in a split second. After that, energy, though interchangeable through many different forms, remained fixed forever, so providing matter with a source from which it could condense. Matter appeared flying out radially at immense speeds in all directions but slowing ever-afterwards by mutual gravitational attraction. Depending on the total mass, the universe could go on expanding forever, ending in "heat death", or collapse to a "big crunch".
Theorists can, however, find no way of switching off this explosion, called "inflation". So the theory then predicts that galaxies should still be accelerating away from one another at rates 10120 (a one with 120 noughts after it) higher than astronomical observations can allow. (Some error!) This was the figure given by Greene (2) in 1999 when writing about this problem, known as the "cosmological constant". On page 225 he says:
"quantum mechanical fluctuations in the vacuum of empty space tend to generate a nonzero cosmological constant whose value is some 120 orders of magnitude (a 1 followed by 120 zeros) larger than experiment allows! This represents a wonderful challenge and opportunity for string theorists: Can calculations in string theory improve on this mismatch and explain why the cosmological constant is zero, or if experiments do ultimately establish its value is small but nonzero, can string theory provide an explanation? Should string theorists be able to rise to this challenge - as yet they have not - it would provide a compelling piece of evidence in support of the theory".
This was written by a physicist: an enthusiast and expert in string theory! String theory is the present spearhead of mainline physics. Written in eleven dimensions including time, it is aimed at providing a "Theory of Everything". The seven extra spatial dimensions are described as "curled back on themselves" in minute balls called, "Calabi-Yau spaces".
Greene also states on page 211,
"physicists have not as yet been able to make predictions with the precision necessary to confront experimental data"
followed by:
"Is string theory right? We just don't know."
Obviously when such exotic assumptions are involved it is advisable to keep alive an alternative approach, based on the three spatial dimensions of common experience. Indeed this is necessary as an insurance, just in case theoreticians could be misleading themselves by an excess of sophistication. This is one raison d'Йtre of the argument summarised here. It is strongly backed by my finding that the problems which most bedevil the pure theorists are ones which overlap the expertise of the mechanical engineer. Mechanics, fluid mechanics and thermodynamics are our main specialisations and so some cross collaboration seems desirable.
A second difficulty met with in big-bang theory is that some stars seem older than the universe, whose age cosmologists set at about 12 billion years. Thirdly, in 1998 observations of remote supernovae were claimed by Schwarzschild (3) which show that the expansion of the universe is speeding up instead of slowing down as they had supposed. Puzzled cosmologists are saying that some new mysterious repulsive force must be acting and two invoke "quintessence" having strange anti-gravity effects.
The major problem, however, interrelated with all these, is that Einstein's relativity theories, which describe large scale mechanics of the cosmos, do not match up with quantum theory. The latter covers the dynamics of small things like atoms and their "sub-atomic particles". It is indeed this problem which Greene (2) shows string theory is set up to solve."
Thanks for any help
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