OPEN PROBLEMS IN COSMOLOGY (I)

For 3/4 of a century science has believed that the universe was created instantly out of nothing and that this matter is still exploding away from itself in all directions. An enormous edifice of theory has been built upon this assumption but, like an inverted pyramid resting on its apex, it all rests on the assumption that the shifting to the red of the light of faint galaxies means that they are receding from us with speeds that can approach the speed of light.

     For the last 33 years, however, observational evidence has shown that objects of enormously different redshift can be at the same place in space. It is impossible therefore that the redshift can be due to the recession velocity of that region of space. It is necessary therefore to discover what is causing this redshift.

     It turns out that, if matter is intermittently created in the form of low mass particles and continues to grow in mass as it ages, then all the empirical evidence of extra galactic astronomy can be simply satisfied and Einstein's theory of relativity can be generalized so that it predicts the astronomical observations as well as all the well grounded terrestrial physics.

     I want to show a sample of the observational evidence which makes it so certain that objects of different redshift can be at the same place in space. At the same time this evidence should make it visually clear that quasars with high redshifts are recently born, evolve into young galaxies as their intrinsic redshifts decrease, and finally end up as large galaxies like our own with low redshifts appropriate to our older age.

     This empirical evolutionary sequence for matter has profound implications for our understanding of the nature of physics. It means that Ernst Mach was correct in his conclusion that inertial mass was a consequence of the communication of our matter with the rest of the matter in that part of the universe that we have seen during the lifetime of our galaxy. Although it obeys many of the same equations, our universe is actually the exact opposite of the conventional Big Bang. It is in fact a universe which is indefinitely old and large, and continually unfolding itself from many points within its static space.

     As an illustration of the fundamental changes which transpire if scientists heed, instead of rejecting, the observations, we can mention the quantization of redshifts. The redshifts of quasars and galaxies tend to occur at certain preferred values of redshift. The factor by which the quasar redshifts are quantized appears to be the same factor by which the planetary masses and orbits are quantized. This perhaps points to some fundamental quantization of physics which manifests itself from the largest to the smallest scale. Perhaps at the time of the creation or recycling process. What this process is will require much more attention to the observations and their empirical correlations on all scales.