The Big Bang theory, also known as “Concordance Cosmology” or the Standard Model of Cosmology (SMoC) came under sharp criticism from a group of researchers at the International Conference on Cosmology at Small Scales, held in Prague Sept. 26-28. With some 60 scientists participating, the conference was one of the largest gatherings of those skeptical of parts, or all, of the dominant theory of cosmology. LPPF’s Lerner was among those smacking the SMoC, presenting an overall survey of the failings of the theory, and the successes of alternative explanations of the major observed features of the Universe. A video of Lerner’s presentation is available.
Figure 3. Lerner points out the contradictions between the Big Bang theory (SMoC) and observations during his talk at the Prague Conference.
Many of the presentations detailed observational evidence against the existence of dark matter—a key hypothesis of the SMoC. The most impressive new evidence, presented by Pavel Kroupa of the University of Bonn, among others, was based on the concept of dynamic gravitational viscosity. This viscosity would occur as a body such as a star moves through an evenly distributed gas of dark matter (DM) particles, which are supposed to interact with ordinary matter only through gravitation. The DM particles will be attracted by the star and their trajectories will be bent towards it. That will result in a concentration of DM particles forming behind the star. Since the concentration of DM particles will attract the star more from behind than the evenly-spread-out DM will attract from ahead, the net result will be a backward pull on the star, slowing it down as if it was moving through a viscous fluid.
The crushing evidence against this dynamic viscosity (which MUST occur if there is DM) is the existence of many small concentrated groups of galaxies. Presentations showed that dynamic viscosity would have caused these groups of galaxies to slow down and merge with each other long ago. But the groups are far too common for them to exist for only a short time. And such short lives would require that five or more galaxies accidently arrived at the same point simultaneously, which is extremely unlikely. So no dynamic viscosity exists and with no dynamic viscosity, no DM. Dr. Kroupa drew the further conclusion, that no DM meant no SMoC.
Instead of DM, magnetic fields can contain the rapidly-moving plasma in galaxies, Lukasz Bratek explained in another presentation. A key piece of evidence that magnetic fields, not mythical DM, was controlling the plasma was the observation that stars in galaxies move considerably slower than plasma. Stars are far too dense to be affected by the magnetic fields in a galaxy, but are of course affected by gravity. Plasma is accelerated by both the magnetic fields and gravitation, so the combined fields can contain faster motion. This line of research, which Lerner has been involved with for over 20 years, may also lead to possibilities for collaboration and modeling with the plasma focus.
