Because the mid-Nineteen Sixties, the CMB has been recognized with the Massive Bang’s leftover glow. May any various explanations nonetheless work?
Irrespective of how sturdy the proof is in favor a scientific idea, there’ll all the time be contrarians that come alongside and encourage the exploration of alternate options. This isn’t essentially out of stubbornness, however is usually performed in an try and topic even our most well-supported theories to rigorous scrutiny and ever-stronger testing. Nonetheless, oftentimes these contrarian positions should ignore a considerable quantity of proof to ensure that their most popular alternate options to outlive. As cosmologist Mike Turner as soon as famously put it, “you may solely invoke the tooth fairy as soon as,” that means that you simply may be capable to justify a situation with one main modification, however as soon as it’s important to begin doing a number of cartwheels to get round a mountain of proof, your various concept is a misplaced trigger.
Undeterred by that notion, many — principally crackpots however together with just a few severe scientists — have challenged the “cosmic” interpretation of the noticed cosmic microwave background (CMB), going all the best way again to Fred Hoyle some 60 years in the past. Are we 100% assured that the CMB actually qualifies as “smoking gun” proof for the new Massive Bang…