Dear Richard,
Your post has me somewhat confused. Could we ever get back to the idea of a singularity without at some point unifying gravity, electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear forces. In fact, it is a logical consequence of bb theory that these four forces separated. Take the GUT out of bb and the whole theory is, in fact, gutted, so to speak.
The prediction of bb comes from reversing the observed expansion, you say. This is like seeing a car speeding north on the motorway to Manchester and determining it came from Watford. And while it is true that a physical phenonema doesn't make predictions, the theory of that phenonema certainly does. As for the observed expansion, the effect could in fact be a Compton effect and it is interesting to note that Hubble didn't attribute the observed red-shift to an expansion. If the red-shift could be successfully attributed to a Compton effect, it would in fact explain the observed red-shift from the limb of our own sun.
You then go on to say that the observation of the cosmic microwave background indicates that the universe was once a thousand times smaller, and this is a giant leap of religious faith in itself. Why a thousand? How does an isotropic microwave background indicate anything, other than the fact that it's there. One serious suggestion that has been put forward is that the CMBR is generated by cosmic dust in the intergalactic medium, something I am sure you are aware of. Hoyle and Wickramasinge proposed that the CMBR is being generated by bacteria and as we begin to comprehend that biological activity is present on Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Europa, Saturn etc, we arrive at the inevitable conclusion that CMBR indicates absolutely nothing about the size of the universe.
There isn't enough mass in the universe for bb theory to be correct; the superclusters haven't had time to coalese; the presence of iron at a distance of 13.5 billion light years is impossible to reconcile with bb. And the universe could not run up hill. BB theory is essentially a religious doctrine and this is why the Pope endorses it. There wasn't a beginning and the universe is infinite in time and space. As a consequence, there is no God. I've got a gut feeling about it.
regards, paul |