Infinity Lover

To be honest this stuff is beyond my scope of comprehension.

Most anti-Big Bang sites tend to have anti-evolution/pro-creation motives. This one (and the links it offers) however doesn't (at least I didn't encounter anything of that nature), but focuses on, and seriously approaches, scientific objections and alternatives.

Could anyone out there tell me how this material scores on the viability scale.

Marcel

p.s.
(I did some digging around the range of sc/sk threads, but couldn't find anything on this subject)

<a href="http://geocities.com/kingvegeta80/cosmology.html" target="_blank">The Cosmological Debate</a>

[ September 06, 2002: Message edited by: Infinity Lover ]</p>

Tim Thompson

Plasma cosmology was the brainchild of Nobel Laureate Hannes Alfven, one of the founding fathers of the discipline now known as space physics (the physics of the solar wind & interplanetary medium, solar corona, planetary magnetospheres & etc.).

Back in the 50's and 60's, when the debate between "steady state" and "big bang" cosmologies was a real contest, Alfven came in on the steady state side with his plasma cosmology. He thought that structures like the arms of a spiral galaxy were best explained as some kind of plasma phenomenon. But the passage of time & increase in knowledge finally made plasma cosmology untenable, and it fell out of sight. Sadly, Alfven could not see this, and a brilliant career faded into obscurity.

Today, the large majority of plasma cosmologists are amateurs & crackpots; without the late Alfven to carry the torch, it has become a cosmology without a cosmologist. Second rate hack jobs like Lerener's "The Big Bang Never Happened" are characteristic of plasma cosmology today.

The page you referenced appears to borrow heavily from to object of my scorn, Australian physicist Wal Thornhill (he says I am an "intellectual bully"). Most of what you find on the webpage you linked is also covered on my webpages: <a href="http://www.tim-thompson.com/electric-sun.html" target="_blank">On the "Electric Sun" Hypothesis</a>, <a href="http://www.tim-thompson.com/grey-areas.html" target="_blank">On Electric Stars</a>, <a href="http://www.tim-thompson.com/geodynamo.html" target="_blank">Geodynamo Theory</a> (a response to the "electric universe" interpretation of Earth's magnetic field), and <a href="http://www.tim-thompson.com/hr.html" target="_blank">Hertzsprung Russell Diagram And Stellar Evolution</a> (marginally applicable, originally written in response to the "electric universe" notion that fusion can't explain stars, in which case perhaps also marginally applicable is <a href="http://www.tim-thompson.com/fusion.html" target="_blank">Solar Fusion & Neutrinos</a>).

Also see Ned Wright's <a href="http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/lerner_errors.html" target="_blank">Errors in the "The Big Bang Never Happened"</a>. Lerner's book is the only "recent" popular exposition on plasma cosmology, so far as I know.

Infinity Lover

I'm an 'always keep your options open' kinda guy, and appearantly this option is braindead and on life support rather than viable.
Thx for the reply.

(That's one hell of a beard)

[ September 06, 2002: Message edited by: Infinity Lover ]</p>