Answers in Genesis - (PDF) - Ken Ham - Origins 4 - Is The Big Bang A Good Scientific Theory

Is the big bang a good scientific
theory?
WHAT ABOUT THE BIG BANG?
COSMOLOGISTS CANT AGREE AND ARE STILL IN DOUBT
OUR GALAXY IS THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE
Can naturalistic evolution explain the appearance of life on Earth? Are there any transitional forms? If humans descended from
monkeys (apes), why are there still monkeys (apes) around? Is the big bang a good scientific theory?
Could life have originated in outer space?
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PROJECT 3:15 Origins
What about the big bang?

by Werner Gitt
First published in:
Creation 20(3):42-44
June-August 1998
In his book, A Brief History of Time, the well-known British physicist, Stephen W. Hawking, identifies the ultimate question behind everything. Today we still yearn to know why we are here and
where we came from.1
In the last chapter of his book he says:
We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around
us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it
and we come from? Why is it the way it is?2
Hawking concedes that the important question of why the universe exists cannot be answered by
means of equations and theories.
Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to
describe?3
Nevertheless, he concludes his book by limiting himself to the equations, instead of looking for
their Author.
However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable . . .
by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all . . . be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer
to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason for then we would know the
mind of God.4
Like so many other astronomers and physicists, Hawking tries to explain the universe without
acknowledging its Creator. But Isaac Newton (1642-1727), possibly the greatest physicist of all
time, and a predecessor of Hawking in the same chair at Cambridge University, firmly believed
that the solar system was created by God.
The idea that the solar system emerged from a swirl of matter began with Immanuel Kant (17241804). Many present-day cosmologists describe the cosmos in terms of evolutionary development
and most of them accept the so-called big bang theory.
According to this theory, the universe began about 10 to 20 thousand million years ago as an
inconceivably small volume of space (or a single point of vast energy) which has been expanding
ever since. The most important observation supporting the concept of an expanding universe is the
red shift of light from distant stars.
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This inferred expansion cannot be observed directly, but light coming from distant galaxies
seems to have longer wavelengths (i.e. gets redder) as the distance increases. This is attributed
to either the Doppler effect (that the wavelengths of light are stretched out when galaxies move
away from one another) or the relativistic stretching of the space between the stars as the universe
expands. The big bang theory suggests that the cosmos was originally compressed into a hot and
dense cosmic egg, and as the universe aged, it expanded.
Space does not permit a full discussion of the evidence for and against the big bang. However,
many discoveries made in recent years with improved instruments and improved observational
methods have repeatedly shaken this theory.5 Interpretations of the available facts in terms of
currently held cosmological models very quickly lead to unresolvable inconsistencies. There is an
increasing number of astronomers who raise substantial arguments against the theory.
If the universe came from a big bang, then matter should be evenly distributed. However,
the universe contains an extremely uneven distribution of mass. This means that matter is concentrated into zones and planes around relatively empty regions. Two astronomers, Geller and
Huchra, embarked on a measuring program expecting to find evidence to support the big bang
model. By compiling large star maps, they hoped to demonstrate that matter is uniformly distributed throughout the cosmos (when a large enough scale is considered).
The more progress they made with their cartographic overview of space, the clearer it became that
distant galaxies are clustered like cosmic continents beyond nearly empty reaches of space. The
big bang model was strongly shaken by this discovery
It should be added that the visible galaxies do not contain enough mass to explain the existence
and distribution of these structures. But the big bang model was not discarded. Instead, the existence of a mysterious, unknown and unseen form of matter (dark matter) was postulated. Without any direct evidence for its existence, this dark matter is supposed to be 10 times the amount
of visibly observed mass.
A critic of the big bang theory, Ernst Peter Fischer, a physicist and biologist of Constance, Germany, reflects on its popularity. He refers to the:
. . . warning given by [physicist and philosopher] Carl Friedrich von Weizscker . .
. namely that a society which accepts the idea that the origin of the cosmos could be
explained in terms of an explosion, reveals more about the society itself than about the
universe. Nevertheless, the many observations made during the past 25 years or so which
contradict the standard model, are simply ignored. When fact and theory contradict each
other, one of them has to yield.6
Another critic of the big bang theory, Halton C. Arp, was attached to the world-famous Mount
Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, USA, and to the Las Campanas Observatories in California.
He explains the reasons for rejecting the big bang model in a notable article, Der kontinuierlicher
Kosmos (The continuous cosmos).
Since antiquity, ideas of the universe have varied widely, depending on assumptions
about factual observations. The current idea of a big bang has been the standard model
for about 60 years. But, in the mean time, the number of observations that negate the
assumption that the red shift of the light of distant galaxies can be explained by recessive
motions, is increasing.7
In other words, even the idea that the universe is expanding is under attack by some astronomers.
Arp continues his criticism of the big bang theory and calls for it to be rejected by the scientific
community.
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In my opinion the observations speak a different language; they call for a different view
of the universe. I believe that the big bang theory should be replaced, because it is no
longer a valid theory.8
Professor Hans Jrg Fahr of the Institute for Astrophysics at Bonn University, Germany, writes of
the demise of the big bang theory in his book, Der Urknall kommt zu Fall (The Demise of the Big
Bang).
The universe originated about 20 thousand million years ago in a cosmic explosion (the
big bang), it has been expanding ever since, and it will continue to do so until the end of
time . . . This sounds convincing, and it is accepted by all present-day mainstream natural
philosophers. But it should be obvious that a doctrine which is acclaimed noisily, is not
necessarily close to the truth. In the field of cosmology the widely supported big bang
theory is not more convincing than other alternatives. In fact, there are surprisingly many
alternatives.9
Dr James Trefil, professor of physics at Mason University, Virginia, accepts the big bang model,
but he concedes that a state of emergency exists regarding fundamental aspects of explaining why
the universe exists.
There shouldnt be galaxies out there at all, and even if there are galaxies, they shouldnt
be grouped together the way they are. He later continues: The problem of explaining the
existence of galaxies has proved to be one of the thorniest in cosmology. By all rights,
they just shouldnt be there, yet there they sit. Its hard to convey the depth of the frustration that this simple fact induces among scientists.10
It is a great pity that many Christians are willing to re-interpret the infallible Word of God to fit
a fallible, man-made theory like the big bang. Such ideas are ultimately devised to counter the
Biblical record, which is firmly against cosmic evolution over billions of years. Those who urge
trying to harmonize the big bang with Scripture find it only natural to go on to other evolutionary
ideas, such as a primitive Earth gradually cooling down, death and struggle millions of years
before the Fall, and so on.
My considered opinion is that as long as we try to explain the universe apart from the Creator and
without regard to biblical affirmations given by him, we will continue to be dazzled by a succession of ingenious cosmological ideas, none of which will remotely resemble the truth.11
This article was adapted from Dr Gitts book Stars and their Purpose: Signposts in Space.
References
1. S.W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time -- From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Bantam Books,
New York, U.S.A., p. 13, 1998.
2. Ref. 1, p. 171.
3. Ref. 1, p. 174.
4. Ref. 1, p. 175.
5. H.J. Fahr, Der Urknall kommt zu Fall Kosmologie im Umbruch Franckh-Kosmos Verlag,
Stuttgart, Germany, 327 pages, 1992.
6. E.P. Fischer (Ed.), Neue Horizonte 92/93 -- Ein Forum der Naturwissenschaften -- PiperVerlag, Mnchen, Germany, pp. 112-173, 1993.
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7. Ref. 6, p. 113.
8. Ref. 6, p. 118.
9. Ref. 5, pp. 910.
10. J. Trefil, The Dark Side of the Universe. Charles Scribners Sons, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, USA, p. 3 and p. 55, 1988.
11. See also R. Grigg, The mind of God and the big bang, Creation 15(4):38-43, 1993. See
also A Snelling, Galaxy-Quasar Connection Defies Explanation, CEN Technical Journal
11(3):254-5, 1994 -- online at http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/487.asp.
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Cosmologists cant agree and are still in doubt!

by John Hartnett
First published in:
Creation 19(3):30
June-August 1997
On 23 July 2002, NYTimes.com hosted an article entitled In the Beginning... by Dennis Overbye. This was an attempt to put down any belief that science doesnt have the answers, i.e. it was
a defence of scientism. The article pushes the point that even though, in the past, cosmologists
may have been divided and lost on explanations of the origin, age and evolution of the universe,
now this is not so.
Agreement on fundamental cosmic numbers?

Overbye says cosmologists are now united and in agreement on the details of the big bang origin
of the universe:
Dr Allan Sandage, the Carnegie Observatories astronomer, once called cosmology the
search for two numbersone, the Hubble constant, telling how fast the universe is
expanding, and the other [the cosmic deceleration parameter] telling how fast the expansion is slowing, and thus whether the universe will expand forever or not.
This is hardly the case. I can only think of a few numbers on which most cosmologists agree and
the deceleration parameter is not one of them. However, one may be the Hubble parameter (H0)
which relates the speed that an object is receding to its distance from Earth. They currently claim
H0 = 80 10 km s-1 Mpc-1, which is about a 12% error margin, but they still argue over what
weighting factor one applies to the distance data that determines the parameter.
Another number is the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature of T0 = 2.73 K. A third
is the average density of visible normal matter in the current universe.
Many other parameters are unknown, such as the curvature of space, or the amount of normal
matter in the universe expressed as a fraction of the total amount necessary for the universe to
collapse back on itself, represented by the symbol (capital omega). This is actually one of the
major debates among cosmologists: If < 1, then the universe is open and space has a hyperbolic
geometry; if > 1, the universe is closed and space has an elliptical geometry. For any oscillating universe theory to work, the universe must be closed. But currently fashionable inflationary
models predict that the universes density is just below the threshold of collapse, i.e. = 1a
geometrically flat universe.1
Then there are the issues of dark matter, the interpretation of peculiar redshifts, even the interpretation of redshifts themselves that are not agreed upon by cosmologists.
I am reminded of a plenary talk that I heard delivered by Ron Ekers of the Australia Telescope
National Facility at the Conference on Precision Electromagnetic Measurement, held in the Hilton
hotel, Sydney in the middle of 2000. This was a conference bringing together mostly physicists
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involved with making very precise measurements of quantities like mass (kilograms), time (seconds), frequency (hertz), resistance (ohms), capacitance (farads) etc. Generally they would report
measurements with errors like 0.00000001% (or 1 part in 1010) or less. In his talk, titled Metrology and the Universe, he made the clear point of saying how he felt a little out of place at the
conference, because as an astrophysicist, he was happy with errors of 100% (or 1 part in 2). That
is to say, if he were trying to determine some cosmological parameter, A, then he would be happy
with a number somewhere between 0 and 2 times A (twice its expected value). Not exactly an
exact science. It is a far cry from the precision of repeatable lab experiments. The problem with
cosmology is the distance and time scales, which leave the data enormously open to interpretation.
Models are filled with many unknown parameters

Current cosmological big bang models are based on a solution of Einsteins field equation, which
comes from his General Theory of relativity. That particular solution was discovered by Friedmann and Lematre (FL). It suggested that the universe was expanding. Earlier, Einstein himself had arrived at a different solution that suggested that the universe was static. He believed the
universe to be stable and used a constant of integration in his equation to achieve this end. Hubble
in 1929 announced that he believed the universe was expanding based on the observation of galaxies all over the sky racing away from the Earth. As a result, Einstein was accused of inserting
a fudge factor (the cosmological constant) to keep the universe from collapsing. He is quoted as
saying it was the biggest blunder of my life. But the constant he inserted was a valid constant of
integration, and now it has been revived to explain the apparent acceleration away from us of the
distant galaxies. The point that needs to be clearly understood here is that there is a host of models
that are collectively described by the many key parameters they incorporate.
Overbye writes:
Cosmologists are often wrong, the Russian Nobel Prize-winning physicist Lev Landau
put it, but never in doubt.
This is contradicted by the existence of many contrary opinions on the details of the big bang, as
well as the continued survival of the opposing model, the Steady State theory of the late Sir Fred
Hoyle, Bondi and Gold. It seemed to die with the discovery of the CMB radiation2 but revived
again recently by Hoyle, Burbidge and Narlikar.3,4
The claim of the big-bangers that Gamow successfully predicted the CMB temperature in 1948
with a value of 5 K (later in the 1950s raised to 10 K), is undermined by the fact that McKellar
successfully predicted a 2.3 K temperature, in 1941, from observation of absorption lines caused
by quantum mechanical features of rotating diatomic interstellar molecules. Remember it wasnt
until 1965 when Penzias and Wilson discovered the radiation pouring in from the cosmos. Gold
had argued in 1955 that thermalization of starlight would occur but never did the calculation
which would have produced a temperature of 2.78 K.
This just demonstrates the logical fallacy of using successful prediction as proof of a theory,
because there may be more than one theory that predicts the same data. Rather, it is logically valid
to use a failed prediction as disproof of a theory.
Then in the past few decades, there has arisen a new breed of cosmologist who accepts neither of
these views above. Some are creationists, like Humphreys and Gentry, whose models of origins
are based on the book of Genesis, as a creation of God, the supernatural Creator of all things.
They dont pretend to know all the details of the early history, but have offered some new and
innovative ideas. Others see design in nature and dont claim to be able to extrapolate what we
observe today to the distant past.
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Ripples in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation

Cosmologists are hardly entering a golden age in which data are outrunning speculation as the
article suggests. If this is a reference to the volumes of data coming from measurements of the
cosmic microwave background radiation from the cosmos, it is misplaced. There are many possible interpretations of the blotches seen in the CMB two-dimensional temperature maps besides
the desired belief that they are some clumpiness due to the quantum nature of the radiation
shortly after the big bang. The believers see them as the seeds of galaxies but are they?
They have been interpreted in a different way by Gurzadyan5 as the effect of mixing of the trajectories of photons within a bundle as they propagate through space. That is, because a bundle of
photons is not a point object, the individual photons follow different paths from the source to the
receiver. The result at the receiving end is an enlarged and smeared image.
A Standard model?
The article speaks of a standard model of the universe. The so-called standard model is a construct in the minds of the big bang cosmologist where the big bang is assumed to be true and
then the value of the parameters needed to achieve this are explored. This approach has led to
many absurd conclusions. In the analysis of the cosmic microwave background data, many key
parameters are inserted and then it is claimed that they are seeing the hand of God in the period
milliseconds after the big bang. Also this approach has been applied to the supernova data of Perlmutter6,7,8 and Schmidt9,10 which they interpret to mean the universe is accelerating. The extrapolation is critically dependent on the choice of these parameters.
The FL big bang inflation (expanding universe) models correctly predict the CMB radiation
temperatures both now and at times in the past when the universe was smaller and hotter. But so
does Gentrys model that utilises the Einstein-de Sitter static spacetime solution, which sees the
galaxies expanding into the existing space (as opposed to classic big bang which has space itself
expanding). No spatial stretching occurs, yet many of the observational tests of a cosmological
model are verified. Both classes of models are based on the same General Theory of Relativity. FL big models assume an unbounded possibly infinite universe. Gentrys and Humphreys
models assume the universe to be finite and bounded, a view consistent with Genesis. The consequence of different boundary conditions radically alters the outcome of the model, yet the latter
models explain some observations that the big bangers ignore.
Dark matter and dark energy

The standard model now seems to demand that the universe is about 5% ordinary matter, which
is observed through telescopes; 22.5% is dark matter, which is not observed; and the remaining
is a mysterious dark energy, 72.5%. The need for the dark energy has been invoked by a need to
explain the acceleration of distant galaxies. Besides the supernova data, there is no hard evidence
for this additional long-range force. Usually the symbol M represents the fraction of both normal
and dark matter in the universe and represents the contribution from the cosmological constant
or dark energy. The data from 42 supernovae was interpreted to mean M + = 1 or the universe
is flat. Hence in the standard model above M = 0.28 and = 0.72. But these parameters can
vary between M = 00.75 and = 10.25 and still fit the data.11
Quintessence is being invoked. This is speculated to be the energy density of a slowly evolving scalar field,12 which may constitute a dynamical form of the homogeneous dark energy in the
universe. This is viewed as different from the cosmological constant, a long-range force accelerating the galaxies apart. Cosmological observations or a time variation of fundamental constants
are expected to distinguish quintessence from a cosmological constant. Even models including a
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variable speed of light, which would violate Einsteins General and Special Theories, are now in
the literature.13,5
The need for dark matter comes from observations of apparently anomalous speeds of stars in
outer arms of some spiral galaxies (rotation curves). Also, the motion of some galaxies in clusters
and the aesthetic desire of cosmologists to see the universe just avoid collapsing back on itself
(i.e. to have a flat universe) dictates much more matter is needed than is observed.
But there may be other explanations. For example the case of the rotation curves can be explained
by a modification to Newtons gravitational law, changing the inverse square of distance to just
inverse distance at distances greater than about 3 million light-years. The model is based on a
different view of gravitation to Einsteins General Theory that involves a degree of gravitational
shielding by massive objects. The model is not without experimental basis as a number of experiments have been repeated with the same peculiar results. The mass derived from the motion of the
separation of galaxies in clusters is based on a long-range assumption, which cannot be proven.
Also there is the inherent assumption about the billion years time scale of the age of the galaxies.
The article says of the model with flat space (because of critical density):
... to many theorists the simplest and most mathematically beautiful solution of all.
But there is no reason to assume the universe has critical density. According to McGaugh recent
BOOMERANG data, which measured variations in the CMB radiation, suggest that the universe is
filled with normal matter, no exotic particles, no cold dark matter (CDM). This would leave the
cosmologist very short of needed matter, or the FL models on which McGaugh did his calculations are wrong.
The lack of CDM has caused particular concern for some Princeton astrophysicists who propose
particles as big as galaxies to explain lack of dwarf galaxy formation. The particles have a density
10-24 times the density of an electron and wave-functions of the order of 3000 light-years. They
interact only with gravity and almost impossible to detect. The problem seems to be that these
particles are needed to explain why dwarf galaxies are far rarer than big bang theory predicts. As
theory goes, CDM was introduced to get matter to form galaxies early in the universes history,
but that created another problem in computer simulations, forming huge numbers of unobserved
dwarf galaxies. Hence the proposed particles, that would form giant globs of fuzzy cold dark
matter.
The missing dark matter in galaxies, clusters and the whole universe and the smoothness of the
CMB radiation create unassailable problems in the formation of stars and galaxies in the early
universe. The big bang inflation model needed the temperature variations in the CMB to be more
than 10 times larger. Still, it was hailed a success? Prof. Stephen Hawking in his book said:
This [big bang] picture of the universe ... is in agreement with all the observational evidence that we have today, but admitted, Nevertheless, it leaves a number of important
questions unanswered ... (the origin of the stars and galaxies).
The origin of stars and galaxies! Without an explanation of those there is no explanation of the
structure of the universe. That was published 14 years ago, and Overbyes article here admits the
problem is still there:
Its a huge mystery exactly how stars form, Dr. Richard Bond of the Canadian Institute
for Theoretical Astrophysics.
This confirms what AiG has said.14
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The meaning of redshifts

The very meaning of redshifts themselves is argued over by cosmologists. Only in FL expanding universe models is the interpretation that redshifts result from the stretching of space as the
photons of light are in flight through the cosmos. The unproven and unprovable Cosmological
Principle is then invoked to say that what we see is not special and any observer anywhere in the
universe would see the same. The implication of empirical evidence is that the redshifts measured
in the starlight of galaxies in all directions in the sky imply that the Earth is near the centre of the
universe. The simplest assumption would tell us that they are Doppler shifts, but because this was
philosophically unacceptable, an alternative was developed, that the centre is everywhere and that
the red-shifts are cosmological in an infinite universe that is essentially homogeneous. Hubbles
1937 book The Observational Approach to Cosmology reveals the bias:
Such a condition [these Doppler shifts] would imply that we occupy a unique position in
the universe, ... But the unwelcome supposition of a favored location must be avoided at
all costs ... is intolerable ... moreover, it represents a discrepancy with the theory because
the theory postulates homogeneity.
Hubble himself was driven by his own bias to avoid a conclusion he could not accept. The notion
of positively curved space also gets the cosmologist out of the hot water of the Earth being in a
special place in the universe. In that case the universe can be finite but have no centre. The problem with that model is according to its adherents the supernova data indicate flat space. Also the
CMB data is interpreted by de Bernardis15 to be consistent with flat space but by Gurzadyan16 with
negative curvature. Why not accept the obvious?
Then there are the observations of Tiftt. His data were from galaxies from in all directions in the
sky showing that redshifts are quantised, or come in discrete amounts. The big bang FL cosmologists discount these observations as they dont fit the standard model. One interpretation of
this fact would be that the universe has a shell structure and galaxies are found at distances with
regular intervals between. This also would put the Earth somewhere near the centre of the universe, because if it were a long way from the point on which the shells are centred the effect of
quantised redshifts would be washed out. This fact is recognised in both Humphreys and Gentrys
cosmological models.
Then there are the observations of Arp who showed peculiar physical associations between quasars and galaxies with greatly different redshifts. A survey of some 70 quasars showed that they
were quantised and that they follow a predictable pattern. How are these facts explained by big
bang cosmology? Instead, they are ignored or called bad science.
Exotic theories
New cosmological theories are rife, more so today than ever before. In fact they are more exotic
than ever. Maybe exotic is the word they deliberately use to disguise the truth of how way
out some of their models are, yet the very word actually hints at that. There are models that start
before the big bang, where the universe supposedly arose from a fluctuation that may continually
occur creating multiple universes, an infinite number that makes anything possible. But there is
not a shred of experimental evidence for these theories, only fairies in the bottom of the garden.
The article says
Many varieties of these particles [that would comprise dark matter left over from the big
bang] are predicted by theories of high-energy physics. But their existence has not been
confirmed or detected in particle accelerators. We theorists can invent all sorts of garbage to fill the universe, Dr. Sheldon Glashow, a Harvard physicist and Nobel laureate,
told a gathering on dark matter in 1981.
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10
There are the string theories, with M-branes, P-branes etc but these theories require energies
greater than the Sun can deliver to test them.
Finally I quote from a paper17 posted to the Los Alamos pre-print archive on 1 August 2002 with
the abstract stating that some assumptions of the inflation model lead to deep paradoxes ...
Present cosmological evidence points to an inflationary beginning and an accelerated de
Sitter end. Most cosmologists accept these assumptions, but there are still major unresolved debates concerning them. For example, there is no consensus about initial conditions. Neither string theory nor quantum gravity provide a consistent starting point for
a discussion of the initial singularity or why the entropy of the initial state is so low. ...
Some unknown agent initially started the inflation high up on its potential, and the rest is
history.6 (Emphasis added)
What hope have we to get a resolution then? The article asks:
Moreover there are some questions that scientists still do not know how to ask, let alone
answer, scientifically. Was there anything before the Big Bang? Is there a role for life in
the cosmos? Why is there something rather than nothing at all? Will we ever know?
These questions have been asked. They are answered in the Bible. The Creation by Gods hand
gives meaning to the universe. Creationists, who accept the Biblical account, and also accept the
validity of the laws of physics, are looking for the mechanisms of the origin of the universe, but
within the framework revealed by the One who was there at the Creation. God is the first cause of
all, only the details are not always clear. Some questions cannot be answered scientifically but the
answer has been given.
References
1. Kamionkowski, M., 1998. The case of the curved universe: open, closed or flat, Science 280:
1397-98.
2. CMB Astrophysics Research Program.
3. Hoyle, F., Burbidge, G. and Narlikar, J.V., A Different Approach to Cosmology, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 2000.
4. Hartnett, J.G., Different but still the same [review of Ref. 3], TJ 16(1):29-35, 2002.
5. Hartnett, J.G., Recent cosmic microwave background data supports creationist cosmologies,
TJ 15(1):8-12, 2001; citing three Gurzadyan papers including Ref. 16.
6. Perlmutter, S.,Aldering, G., Deustua, S. Fabbro, S., Goldhaber, G., Groom, D.E., Kim, A.G.,
Kim, M.Y., Knop, R.A., Nugent, P., Pennypacker, C.R., Della-Valle, M., Ellis, R.S., McMahon, R.G., Walton, N. (IoA), Fruchter, A., Panagia, N., (STScI), Goobar, A (UStockholm),
Hook, I.M., Lidman, C. (ESO), Pain, R. (CRNS-IN2P3), Ruiz-Lapuente, P. (UBarcelona), and
Schaefer, B., (Yale), Cosmology From Type Ia Supernovae: Measurements, Calibration Techniques, and Implications, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 29:1351, 1997.
7. High Redshift Supernova Search Home Page of the Supernova Cosmology Project, http:
//www-supernova.lbl.gov/.
8. Science magazine names Supernova Cosmology Project Breakthrough of the Year for 1998,
http://www.lbl.gov/supernova/.
9. Garnavich, P.M., Kirshner, R.P., Challis, P. (CfA), Tonry, J. (UHawaii), Gilliland, R.L. (STScI),
Smith, R.C. (UMich), Clocchiatti, A. (CTIO), Diercks, A. (UWash), Filippenko, A.V. (UCB),
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11
Hamuy, M. (UAriz), Hogan, C.J. (UWash), Leibundgut, B. (ESO), Phillips, M.M. (CTIO),
Reiss, D. (UWash), Riess, A.G. (UCB), Schmidt, B.P., (MSSSO), Spyromilio, J. (ESO),
Stubbs, C. (UWash), Suntzeff, N.B. (CTIO), and Wells, L. (UAriz), Constraints on Cosmological Models from Hubble Space Telescope Observations of High-z Supernovae, Bulletin
of the American Astronomical Society 29, 1997.
10. Cosmology with Supernovae: The High-Z Supernova Search, http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/
oir/Research/supernova/HighZ.html.
11. S. Perlmutter, Aldering, G.,, Goldhaber, G.,, Knop, R.A.,, Nugent, P., Castro, P.G., Deustua,
S., Fabbro, S., , Goobar, A., Groom, D.E., Hook, I.M., Kim, A.G., Kim, M.Y., Lee, J.C.,
Nunes, N.J., Pain, R., Pennypacker,C.R., Quimby, R., Lidman, C., Ellis, R.S., Irwin, M.,
McMahon, R.G., Ruiz-Lapuente, P., Walton, N., Schaefer, B., Boyle, B.J., Filippenko, A.V.,
Matheson,T., Fruchter, A.S., Panagia, N., Newberg, H.J.M., and Couch, W.J., Measurements
of from 42 high-redshift supernovae, Astrophys. Journ. 517:565-586, 1999.
12. A scalar field maps every point in space to a non-directional quantity called a scalar. A vector
field maps every point to a directional quantity.
13. Barrow, J., Is nothing sacred? New Scientist 163(2196):2832, 24 July 1999. Cf. C the difference, Creation 22(1):9, 1999.
14. Also, more detail in Bernitt, R, Stellar evolution and the problem of the first stars, TJ 16(1):
12-14, 2002.
15. deBernardis, P., A flat universe from high-resolution maps of the cosmic microwave background radiation, Nature 404:955959, 2000.
16. Gurzadyan V.G., and S. Torres, S., Testing the effect of geodesic mixing with COBE data to
reveal the curvature of the universe, Astron. Astrophys. 321:1923, 1997.
17. Dysona, L., Klebana, M., and Susskinda, L., Disturbing implications of a Cosmological Constant, http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0208/0208013.pdf, 1 August 2002.
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Our galaxy is the centre of the universe, quantized redshifts show

by Russell Humphreys
First published in:
TJ 16(2):95-104
2002
Over the last few decades, new evidence has surfaced that restores man to a central place in Gods
universe. Astronomers have confirmed that numerical values of galaxy redshifts are quantized,
tending to fall into distinct groups. According to Hubbles law, redshifts are proportional to the
distances of the galaxies from us. Then it would be the distances themselves that fall into groups.
That would mean the galaxies tend to be grouped into (conceptual) spherical shells concentric
around our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The shells turn out to be on the order of a million light
years apart. The groups of redshifts would be distinct from each other only if our viewing location is less than a million light years from the centre. The odds for the Earth having such a unique
position in the cosmos by accident are less than one in a trillion. Since big bang theorists presuppose the cosmos has naturalistic origins and cannot have a unique centre, they have sought other
explanations, without notable success so far. Thus, redshift quantization is evidence (1) against
the big bang theory, and (2) for a galactocentric cosmology, such as one by Robert Gentry or the
one in my book, Starlight and Time.
1. Introduction
Vesto Slipher didnt know he was starting a counter-Copernican revolution. At Lowell observatory nearly a century ago, he began examining the wavelengths of light from faint oval
patches in the night sky called white nebulae (Latin for clouds). Now we call them galaxies
(after the Greek word for milky). The largest and brightest nebula he could observe was one
called M31, located in the constellation Andromeda. Figure 1 [see online version at http://
www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/TJv16n2_CENTRE.pdf] shows a similar
galaxy. Like other astronomers before him,1 Slipher found that the wavelength spectrum of M31
is similar to the spectra of stars, containing a characteristic pattern of lines produced by hydrogen
(Figure 2 [see online version]), calcium, and other elements.
Slipher had found a way to take clearer photographs of the spectra than was previously possible.
The new method enabled him to measure the wavelengths of the spectral lines more precisely. He
found that the wavelengths for M31 were all decreased by 0.1% from their normal values.2 That
is, the pattern of lines was slightly shifted toward the blue end of the spectrum. Astronomers set
about measuring the wavelength shifts of other nebulae, and by 1925, they had measured 45 of
them.3 The results ranged from 0.1% to + 0.6%, with the average being + 0.2%. The positive
values represent wavelength increases, that is, shifts toward the red side of the spectrum, as Figure
2 shows. These are the redshifts I mentioned above, a major part of this papers topic.
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2. Hubbles law
By 1924, most astronomers had decided that the white nebulae were outside our own Milky Way
galaxy.
At Mount Wilson observatory, Edwin Hubble began using the 100-inch reflector telescope to calculate distances to such extra-galactic nebulae with a more accurate new technique. As he did so,
he began to confirm the general impression that the more distant nebulae have larger redshifts. In
1929, he published his results,4 which Figure 3 summarizes. The trend line in the figure relates the
wavelength of a spectral line, and its shift , to the distance r of each nebula from the Earth:
/ = H/c r (1)
Here c is the speed of light, approximately 300,000 km/s, and H is a number we now call the
Hubble constant. This is the famous Hubble law, which says that some cosmic phenomenon
causes redshifts to tend to increase in proportion to distance.
Hubbles distance calculations revolutionized our ideas of the universe. The white nebulae
turned out to be objects like our own Milky Way, clusters of hundreds of billions of stars, each
cluster roughly a hundred thousand light years in diameter. Astronomers began to call them galaxies. On the average, each galaxy is a dozen million light years from its nearest neighbors. The
appropriately named Hubble Space Telescope can now photograph galaxies as far as 15 billion
light years away. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies within that distance.
3. Expansion redshifts, not Doppler shifts

Hubble, following the lead of Slipher and others, interpreted the wavelength shifts as Doppler
shifts, produced entirely by the velocity v of the light source with respect to the Earth. In
that case, for v much less than c, the wavelength shift would be approximately
/ v / c (2)
Then, according to equation (1), the trend line in Figure 3 would correspond to galaxies moving
away from us with velocity v proportional to their distance r:
v H r (3)
But other things can cause redshifts. For example, Einsteins theory of general relativity says that
in an expanding space, the lengths of light waves should be stretched out right along with the
stretching-out of the medium they are moving through. Light coming from distant objects would
have experienced more such stretching than light from nearby objects, so such redshifts would
increase with distance.
Today, most cosmologists think that the trend line in Figures 3 and 4 [see online version] represents such an expansion redshift, not a Doppler shift.5,6 However, astronomers still find it convenient to describe redshifts with equivalent velocities, as if they were caused by a Doppler shift.
Unfortunately, that practice has confused the public, the media, and even undergraduate astronomy students into thinking of the redshifts as being caused mainly by velocities.
Figure 4 shows more recent data on the redshift-distance relation out to much greater distances.7
Deviations from the trend line would be caused not by expansion, but by other phenomena, such
as the Doppler effect. For example, galaxy M31 in Andromeda appears to be moving toward our
galaxy with a local velocity of about 100 km/s,8 producing a Doppler blue shift larger than the
small expansion redshift we would expect from such a nearby object, only about 2 million light
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years away.
Through the years, theorists have offered other explanations for the cosmological redshift trend.9
14
For several decades, I explored such theories, trying without success to find one that satisfied
me. But I lost interest in alternative redshift models after I noticed verses in the Bible that appear
to support the idea that space has been expanded. Isaiah 40:22 is one example:
It is he that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to
dwell in.
There are seventeen such verses in the Old Testament,15 and they use four different Hebrew verbs
to convey the idea of stretching out or spreading out. As I clarify in Starlight and Time,16 in
Scripture the heavens appear to refer to space itself, not necessarily to the bodies occupying that
space, namely the Sun, Moon and stars. So if we take these verses straightforwardly, then God is
saying that He has stretched out or spread out the fabric of space itself. That corresponds very
closely to the general relativistic idea of expanding space. With a few small steps of logic, textbooks show that such an expansion produces redshifts.17 That is why I think expansion is the main
cause.
Regardless of the cause, however, all that matters for this paper is that galaxy redshifts are
approximately proportional to distance, as the Hubble law asserts in equation (1).
4. Tifft observes quantized redshifts

Astronomers often express the amount of redshift, the fractional change of wavelength, as a
dimensionless number, z:
z / (4)
The raw data for the zs of galaxies do not have any obviously favored values. However, in the
early 1970s William Tifft at the Steward Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, began transforming
the data into power spectra that show how often various spacings in the data occur. This standard statistical technique shows otherwise difficult-to-see regularities as peaks rising above
the random noise in a plot. In this case, one source of such noise would be the local or
peculiar motions of the galaxies.18 Tifft noticed a surprisingly strong peak corresponding
to an interval between zs of about 0.00024, or 0.024%. That means the values of z tend to
cluster around preferred values with equal spacings between them, such as:
0.00000,
0.00024,
0.00048,
0.00072,
0.00096,
Expressed in terms of a Doppler shift, as it usually is, the interval z between groups corresponds
to an equivalent velocity interval v of about 72 km/s.19 Later, Tifft noticed another pattern of
clustering with a smaller interval of about 36 km/s. Further observations and publications continued to support this phenomenon. In 1984, Tifft and his co-worker W. J. Cocke examined the 1981
Fisher-Tully survey of redshifts in the radio wave (not visible light) part of the spectrum. The
survey listed redshifts in the prominent 21cm wavelength line from hydrogen in the galaxies. Tifft
and Cocke found sharp periodicities20 at exact submultiples (1/3 and 1/2) of 72.45 km/s, stating,
There is now very firm evidence that the redshifts of galaxies are quantized with a primary interval near 72 km s1. 21
However, some skepticism about their conclusion remained for a decade after that,22 despite
Tiffts steady stream of peer-reviewed publications closing up the loopholes in his case.23 Then in
1997, an independent study of 250 galaxy redshifts by William Napier and Bruce Guthrie conCan naturalistic evolution explain the appearance of life on Earth? Are there any transitional forms? If humans descended from
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firmed Tiffts basic observations, saying,

the redshift distribution has been found to be strongly quantized in the galactocentric frame of reference. The phenomenon is easily seen by eye and apparently cannot be
ascribed to statistical artefacts, selection procedures or flawed reduction techniques. Two
galactocentric periodicities have so far been detected, ~ 71.5 km s1 in the Virgo cluster,
and ~ 37.5 km s1 for all other spiral galaxies within ~ 2600 km s-1 [roughly 100 million
light years]. The formal confidence levels associated with these results are extremely
high. 24
By galactocentric frame of reference, they mean a frame at rest with respect to the centre of our
own galaxy, compensating for the Earths motion around the Sun and the Suns motion around our
galaxys centre. That shows the quantizations more clearly. In section 7, I will extend the meaning
of galactocentric beyond reference frames.
Napier and Guthries results show quantization occurs at least out to medium distances, of the
order of 100 million light years. Other evidence, from the Hubble Space Telescope, shows similar
clustering of redshifts out to distances of billions of light years.25
In 1996, Tifft showed that it is important to compensate the galactocentric redshifts yet further
by accounting for our galaxys motion with respect to the cosmic microwave background (CMB)
radiation.26,27 Doppler shifts of the microwaves show that our galaxy is moving about 560 km/s
in a direction south of the constellation Hydra.28 Accounting for that motion converts the galactocentric redshifts to a frame of reference which is at rest with respect to the CMB, and thus presumably at rest with respect to the universe as a whole. In that frame, it turns out that the redshift
groups are much more distinct from one another. Then some less intense periodicities, such as at
2.6, 9.15, and 18.3 km/s, become evident.
Perhaps because of this clarity, or because of the confirming studies by other astronomers, critics
seem to have stopped questioning the validity of the data. It appears that redshift quantization
the phenomenon itself, not the theories trying to explain ithas survived a quarter-century of peer
review.
5. A simple explanation for quantization

In this section and the next, I intend to show that (a) the redshift groupings correspond to groupings of distances, (b) the distance groupings mean that the galaxies are located in concentric shells
around us, and (c) such an arrangement could not occur by accident. If you want to skip some
mathematical details, just look at Figures 5 through 8 [see online version] and read my discussion of the results, after equation (14). According to Hubbles law, the cosmological part of the
redshift, z, of each galaxy corresponds to a particular distance, r. Solving equation (1) for that
distance gives
r = c / H z (5)
The simplest explanation for the grouping of redshifts appears to be that the corresponding distances are grouped, as Figure 5 illustrates. Taking the derivative of equation (5) then gives us the
distance interval r corresponding to the interval z between groups of redshifts:
r = c / H z (6)
In terms of the equivalent velocity interval v between redshift groups, the distance interval
would be:
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r = v / H (7)
Hubbles first estimate of H was about 500 km/s per Megaparsec (1 parsec = 3.2616 light years),
but that number rapidly diminished as astronomers recalibrated their distance scales. A few
decades ago, the value of H was bouncing between 50 and 100 km/s per Mpc. The past decade of
accurate space-based distance measurements seems to have tightened up the estimates to between
about 70 and 80 km/s per Mpc.29 Lets take the following value as a working estimate:
H = 75 5 km/s / Mpc (8)
Converting from Megaparsecs to a more familiar distance unit, H would be about 23 1.5 km/s
per million light years, so equation (7) becomes
r = ( 43,700 2,900 light years / km/s ) v (9)
Then the two redshift intervals reported by Napier and Guthrie, 37.5 and 71.5 km/s, would correspond to two distance intervals, 1.6 and 3.1 million light years.
6. Implications of distance grouping

Except for directions obscured by the Milky Way, astronomers observe about equal numbers of
galaxies in all directions from us. If a particular group of redshifts represents a group of galaxy
distances clustered around an average distance r1 from us, then we would expect those galaxies
to be roughly equally distributed all around us on a (conceptual) spherical shell of radius r1 . A
second group of distances might have an average of r2 = r1 + r, so those galaxies would tend to be
on a second spherical shell a distance r outside the first. Figure 6 shows such an arrangement of
galaxies.30
Now I want to show that we could see such a grouping of distances only if we are less than about
1 million light years away from the centre of such a pattern. Imagine that our galaxy is displaced
a distance a from the centre, as Figure 7 shows. According to the law of cosines, the distance r
from our galaxy to another galaxy would be:
r = r2 + a2 - 2 a r cos (10)
where r is the distance of the other galaxy from the centre, and is its colatitude, the angle from the
displacement axis as seen from the centre. The distance r is independent of the azimuth (measured around the displacement axis, between 0 and 2 radians) of the faraway galaxy. So despite
the absence of the third coordinate, this analysis is valid in three dimensions. When a is much less
than r, equation (10) reduces to a simple approximation:
r r - a cos (11)
Since the colatitude for a galaxy can vary randomly from 0 to radians, the value of r for
any given shell of radius r should vary between r a and r + a. If a were too large, this
would smear out the redshift groups, blurring the distinction between them. A simple
statistical analysis31 shows that the standard deviation of the angle-dependent part of
the distribution of r is:
= (1 / 2)a (12)
The value of the radius r of a galaxy in any given shell also has a statistical distribution having a
standard deviation r , indicating the thickness of each shell. Then, according to statistics,32 the
total standard deviation of the distribution of r is:
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= (r2 + 2) = (r2 + 12 a2) (13)

The redshift groups would overlap and become indistinguishable if were significantly larger
than the spacing between shells, r. Even if r were zero, the groups would be indistinguishable if
were greater than r.
Figure 8 illustrates this smearing. It shows a computer simulation of distance groups, first seen
from the exact centre, and then from a viewpoint 2 million light years away from the centre. I
chose r to be rather small so the peaks would be easily visible. Notice that the displacement from
centre fills in the valleys and levels the peaks, making it difficult to distinguish the groups from
statistical fluctuations.
This means that to observe distinct groups of redshifts, we must be near the centre of the spherical-shell pattern of galaxies. According to equation (13) and the reasoning after it, our displacement a from the centre would have to be significantly smaller than the smallest observed r:
a < r (14)
Thus our home galaxy must be closer to the centre than the interval r that section 5 cites, 1.6
million light years. Using the smallest observed interval33 would put us even closer to the centre
within about 100,000 light years, the diameter of our galaxy.
The probability P that we would be located in such a unique position in the cosmos by chance
would be the ratio of the volumes involved,
P=
4/3
a3 / 4/3 R3 < ( r / R )3 (15)
where R is the minimum radius of the cosmos estimated by observation, say about 20 billion light
years. Using r = 1.6 million light years gives a value for P less than 5.12 1013. That is, the
probability of our galaxy being so close to the centre of the cosmos by accident is less than one
out of a trillion.
In summary, the observed redshift quantizations strongly imply that the universe has a centre, and
that our galaxy is uncannily close to it!
7. The cosmos is galactocentric

To name this idea, lets elevate the word galactocentric above its humble use in section 4, which
was merely to describe a frame of reference. Lets use the word to describe the universe itself.
That is, we live in a galactocentric cosmosa universe that has a unique geometric centre very
near our own home galaxy, the Milky Way.
As I mentioned at the end of section 4, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data suggest
that our galaxy is moving with respect to the centre of the universe.34 Our galaxy is essentially at
the centre of the cosmos, but not at rest with respect to it. This differs from geocentrism, which
would have the Earth be at the exact centre and motionless with respect to it.35,36 Several creationists have proposed galactocentric cosmologies.37
The technical literature of astronomy almost completely ignores a galactocentric cosmos as a possible explanation for redshift quantization.38 Instead, secular astronomers appear to prefer some
as-yet-unexplained microscopic phenomenon affecting the light itself, either in its emission from
atoms or its transmission through space. Tifft himself actively promotes such an explanation.
Invoking a new concept, three-dimensional time, Tifft says,
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The redshift has imprinted on it a pattern that appears to have its origin in microscopic
quantum physics, yet it carries this imprint across cosmological boundaries. 39
Thus secular astronomers have avoided the simple explanation, most not even mentioning it as
a possibility. Instead, they have grasped at a straw they would normally disdain, by invoking
mysterious unknown physics. I suggest that they are avoiding the obvious because galactocentricity brings into question their deepest worldviews. This issue cuts right to the heart of the big bang
theoryits naturalistic evolutionist presuppositions.
8. The big bang cant tolerate a centre

Few people realize how different the big bang cosmology is from their conceptions of it. The
misleading popular name of the theory causes most people to picture a small three-dimensional
ballhaving a centre and an outer edgeexploding outward into an empty three-dimensional
space. After millions of years, the matter would coalesce into stars and galaxies. The whole group
of billions of galaxies would constitute an island (or archipelago) in a sea of otherwise empty
space. Like the publics three-dimensional initial ball, such an island would have a unique geometric centre. By centre I mean nothing esoteric, but simply the dictionary definition:
Center 1. A point equidistant or at the average distance from all points on the sides or
outer boundaries of something. 40
Most people, including most scientists and even many astronomers, picture the big bang that
way. But expert cosmologists picture the big bang theory entirely differently! They reject both a
three-dimensional initial ball and an island universe. In the closed big bang (the most favored
version), they imaginepurely by analogythe three-dimensional space we can see as being
merely the surface of a four-dimensional balloon expanding out into a hyperspace of four spatial dimensions (none is time).41 See Figure 9 [available online].
They picture the galaxies like grains of dust all over the surface of the balloon. (No galaxies
would be inside the balloon.) As the expansion proceeds, the rubber (representing the fabric of
space itself) stretches outward. This spreads the dust apart. From the viewpoint of each grain, the
others move away from it, but no grain can claim to be the unique centre of the expansion. On
the surface of the balloon, there is no centre. The true centre of the expansion would be in the air
inside the balloon, which represents hyperspace, beyond the perception of creatures confined to
the 3-D surface.
If you are having trouble understanding this analogy, try viewing the video version of Starlight
and Time.42 Its computer-generated animated graphics have helped many people understand the
analogy, walking them through it step by step.
Heres another way to look at the expert cosmologists concept. If you could travel infinitely fast
in any particular direction available to us, they claim you would never encounter any large volume
of space unpopulated with galaxies. You would not be able to define an edge or boundary around
the galaxies, and so you could not define a geometric centre. One cosmologist says this about the
popular island universe misconception:
This is wrong [The big bang cosmos] has no centre and edge. 43
So the big bang has no centre. No unique centre would exist anywhere within the three space
dimensions we can see. This explains why its supporters reject any interpretation of redshift
quantization requiring a centre. Below I show that their demand for acentricity44 stems from an
arbitrary presupposition not justified by observations.
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9. The big bang presupposition

In their influential but highly technical book, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Stephen
Hawking and George Ellis introduce their section on the big bang cosmology with the following
general remarks:
However we are not able to make cosmological models without some admixture of ideology. In the earliest cosmologies, man placed himself in a commanding position at the
centre of the universe. Since the time of Copernicus we have been steadily demoted to a
medium sized planet going round a medium sized star on the outer edge of a fairly average galaxy, which is itself simply one of a local group of galaxies. Indeed we are now so
democratic that we would not claim that our position in space is specially distinguished
in any way. We shall, following Bondi (1960), call this assumption the Copernican principle [emphasis added].45
This notion used to be called the Cosmological principle.46,47 Note carefully that Hawking and
Ellis call it an assumption and an admixture of ideologya presupposed idea not required by
observations. Their phrase we would not claim is actually a dogmatic claim: the Earth is not
in a special position in the cosmos. They go on to say:
A reasonable interpretation of this somewhat vague principle is to understand it as implying that, when viewed on a suitable scale, the universe is approximately spatially homogenous [emphasis added].48
Spatially homogeneous means uniformly spread throughout all available space. Hawking and
Ellis are claiming that at any time space is completely filled with matter-energy. There never were
any large empty volumes of space, and there never will be, they say.
They make this leap of faith because observations show that the universe is isotropic or spherically symmetric around us, meaning that from our vantage point it looks much the same in all
directions. Ordinarily, Hawking and Ellis point out, this would mean, we are located near a very
special point 49such as the centre. That conflicts with their desire that the Earth not be in a special location, so they seek a less troubling cosmology,
in which the universe is isotropic about every point in space time; so we shall interpret the Copernican principle as stating that the universe is approximately spherically
symmetric about every point (since it is approximately spherically symmetric around us).
49
As they then show, cranking this rather bizarre assumption into the mathematics of general relativity results in the various forms of the big bang theory.
10. The heart of the big bang is atheism

Lets delve into the motive for the presupposition. Why should big bang theorists go to all this
trouble to contrive a cosmology in which the Earth is not in a special place? Astrophysicist Richard Gott, in the introduction to an article specifically devoted to the Copernican principle, unveils
the reason:
The Copernican revolution taught us that it was a mistake to assume, without sufficient reason, that we occupy a privileged position in the Universe. Darwin showed that,
in terms of origin, we are not privileged above other species. Our position around an
ordinary star in an ordinary galaxy in an ordinary supercluster [the local group of galaxies] continues to look less and less special. The idea that we are not located in a special
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spatial location has been crucial in cosmology, leading directly to the [big bang theory].
In astronomy the Copernican principle works because, of all the places for intelligent
observers to be, there are by definition only a few special places and many nonspecial
places, so you are likely to be in a nonspecial place [emphasis mine].50
The word likely above reveals a lot. Richard Gott evidently believes we are where we are by
accident! It apparently doesnt enter his head that an intelligent Designer, God, might have placed
us in a special position in the cosmos on purpose. Thus the ultimate motive behind the Copernican
principle is atheistic naturalism. Since that is the driving philosophy behind naturalistic evolutionism, Gotts reference to Darwin is appropriate. The big bang and Darwinism are two halves,
physical and biological, of an atheistic origins myth.
Thus, Christians who support the big bang theory should realize that they are unwittingly denying
their God and compromising with a godless worldview.
11. Scientific implications of a centre

If God used processes as part of His making the stars and galaxies on the fourth day of Creation,
then redshift quantizations are evidence that some of the processes were spherically symmetric
around our galaxy. For example, we could imagine spherical shock waves bouncing back and
forth between the centre and edge of an expanding ball of gas or plasma, such as in the tentative
cosmogony I outline in Starlight and Time.51
The reverberating waves would interfere with each other at some radii and enhance each other at
other radii, setting up a pattern of standing waves, concentric shells of denser gas. God would
then gather the gas into stars and galaxies. The resulting concentric patterns of galaxies would
be complex, having many spacings corresponding to the many different modes of reverberation.
Perhaps significantly, the principal shell spacing we observe, r = 3.1 million light years, is of the
same order as the average distance between galaxies, 12 million light years.52
Standing waves imply the matter had an outer edge for the shock waves to rebound from. That
would make the geometric centre be a centre of mass also. If we put those boundary conditions
(an edge and centre) into Einsteins equations of general relativity, we get the cosmology I presented in Starlight and Time. The centre of mass is a centre for gravitational forces, low in intensity but cosmic in extent. Then gravity causes large time dilation effects at the centre during one
particular stage of the expansion.
Thus quantized redshifts are observational evidence for my cosmology, bearing out my preliminary claim in 1994:
In particular, the quantized distribution of galactic red shifts,[3],[22] observed by various
astronomers seems to contradict the Copernican principle and all cosmologies founded on
itincluding the big bang. But the effect seems to have a ready explanation in terms of
my new non-Copernican white hole cosmology. 53
12. Spiritual implications of a centre

To Christians, the thought of being located at the centre of the cosmos seems intuitively satisfying. But to secularists, it is deeply disturbing. For centuries they have tried to push the Copernican
revolution54 yet further to get away from centrality. Carl Sagan devoted an entire book in this style
to belittle our location and us:
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena Our posturings, our imagined
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self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are
challenged by this point of pale light [an image of Earth taken by Voyager I]. Our planet
is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness,
there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. 55
Lets consider more closely why the central position of mankind in the cosmos is so important an
idea that the enemies of God try to escape it.
First, the Bible declares the uniqueness and centrality of our home planet. It mentions the Earth
first in Genesis 1:1, on Day 1long before it mentions the Sun, Moon and stars over a dozen
verses later, on the fourth day. Genesis 1:610 locates the Earth in the midst of all the matter of
the cosmos, as I explained in Starlight and Time.56 In Genesis 1:1415, God says the host of the
heavens exists for the benefit of those on the Earth. So it is not man who imagines himself at a
commanding position at the centre of the universe,57 but God who says we are there. It is heartening to see the evidence once again supporting what Scripture says.
Okay, you might say, but then why didnt God put us right at the centre of our galaxy, where the
centrality would have been more evident? Well, it looks like He had something better in mind.
First, there are good design features about our Suns position in the Milky way, making it an ideal
environment.58,59 The inner galaxy is very active, with many supernov, and probably a massive
black hole, that produce intense radiation.60 Instead, the Sun has a fairly circular orbit keeping the
Earth at a fair distance from the dangerous central portion. In fact, the Sun is at an optimal distance from the galactic centre, called the co-rotation radius. Only here does a stars orbital speed
match that of the spiral armsotherwise, the Sun would cross the arms too often and be exposed
to other supernov. Another design feature is that the Sun orbits almost parallel to the galactic
planeotherwise, crossing this plane could be disruptive.
Second, there are aesthetic and spiritual reasons. If God had placed the Sun closer to the Milky
Way centre, the thick clouds of stars, dust, and gas (quite aside from the supernov!) near our
galaxys centre would have prevented us from seeing more than a few light years into the cosmos.
Instead, God put us in an optimal position, not at the outmost rim where the Milky Way would be
dim, but far enough out to see clearly into the heights of the heavens. That helps us to appreciate
the greatness of Gods ways and thoughts, as Isaiah 55:9 points out.
Most important, it is very encouraging to see evidence for the centrality of humans to the plan
of God. It was a sin on this planet that subjected the entire universe to groaning and travailing
(Romans 8:22). Ours is the planet where the Second Person of the Trinity took on the (human)
nature of one of His creatures to redeem not only us, but also the entire cosmos (Romans 8:21).
This knowledge that god gave minuscule mankind prime real estate in a vast cosmos astounds and
awes us, as Psalm 8:34 says:
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which
you have ordained; What is man, that you are mindful of him? and the son of man, that
you visit him?
Acknowledgements
Here I want to acknowledge the valuable comments of many creationists, including those of many
creationist friends in New Mexico with whom I meet regularly.
References
1. Scheiner, J., On the spectrum of the great nebula in Andromeda, Astrophysical J. 9:149150,
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1899.
2. Slipher, V., The radial velocity of the Andromeda nebula, Lowell Observatory Bulletin No.
58, 1914.
3. Stromberg, G., Analysis of radial velocities of globular clusters and non-galactic nebulae,
Astrophysical J. 61(5):353362, 1925.
4. Hubble, E., A relation between distance and radial velocity among extra-galactic nebulae,
Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 15:168173, 1929.
5. Rindler, W., Essential Relativity: Special, General, and Cosmological, Revised 2nd edition,
Springer-Verlag, New York, p. 213, 1977.
6. Harrison, E.R., Cosmology: the Science of the Universe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, p. 245, 1981.
7. Mould, J.R. et al., The velocity field of clusters of galaxies within 100 Megaparsecs. I.
Southern clusters, Astrophysical J. 383:467486, 1991. See their Fig. 8 on p. 480. For other
data supporting the Hubble law, see Ref. 8, pp. 8293.
8. Peebles, P.J.E., Principles of Physical Cosmology, Princeton University Press, Princeton, p.
25, 1993.
9. Zwicky, F., On the red shift of spectral lines through interstellar space, Proc. Nat. Acad.
Sci. USA 15:773779, 1929. This was the first tired light theory, suggesting a way photons
could lose energy (and therefore increase in wavelength) in their long journey through space.
Neither this theory nor its many successors ever became sufficiently persuasive to prevail.
10. Norman, T. and Setterfield, B., The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time, SRI International
Invited Research Report, Menlo Park, CA, 1986. This monograph proposed that a decreasing
speed of light could cause the redshifts.
11. Humphreys, D.R., C decay and galactic red-shifts, CEN Tech. J. 6(1):7479, 1992. I pointed
out that if we apply Setterfields theory (Ref. 10) consistently, the atoms would emit light with
a blue shift that would exactly cancel the redshift the light would suffer in transit. As far as I
know, Setterfield never disagreed.
12. Arp, H., Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology, and Academic Science, Apeiron Press, Montreal,
1998. Arp shows examples of high redshift objects, often quasars, which appear to be physically connected (therefore near) to medium redshift objects, often galaxies. He suggests that
additional causes of redshift besides expansion give the quasars more total redshift than their
galaxy neighbors. Thus, Arps observations are not evidence against the general redshift-distance trend due to expansion; see review in TJ 14(3):3945, 4650, 2000.
13. Gentry, R.V., Creations Tiny Mystery, 3rd edition, Earth Science Associates, Knoxville, pp.
287290, 1992. Gentry proposed that distant galaxies are in orbit around a centre near our
galaxy. The orbital velocities would produce a transverse Doppler shift, a redshift caused by
relativistic velocity time dilation. One problem was the gravitational blue shift the light would
suffer in falling toward us. He later introduced new physics to try to solve that problem in:
Gentry, R.V., A new redshift interpretation, Modern Physics Letters A 12(37):29192925,
1997. Neither version explains how light from the galaxies could reach us within 6,000 years.
However, it might be possible to modify the first version so that the gravitational time dilation that is already in it (causing the blue shifts) would become great enough to get the light to
Earth in a hurry, as measured by clocks here. That would make it more interesting to creationists. Secularist astronomers reject Gentrys theories because, like mine, they are galactocentric.
14. West, J.K., Polytropic model of the universe, CRSQ 31(2):7888, 1994. West offers several
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specific examples of the first version of Gentrys theory (Ref. 13) in which the orbital redshifts would overcome the gravitational blue shifts.
15. Humphreys, D.R., Starlight and Time, Master Books, Green Forest, p. 66, 1994. The Bible
verses are: 2 Sam. 22:10, Job 9:8, Job 26:7, 37:18, Psalm 18:9, 104:2, 144:5, Isaiah 40:22, 42:
5, 44:24, 45:12, 48:13, 51:13, Jer. 10:12, 51:15, Ezek. 1:22 and Zech. 12:1.
16. Humphreys, Ref. 15, p. 67.
17. Rindler, Ref. 5, pp. 212214.
18. Such motions do not appear to have obliterated the shell structure I describe in sections 5 and
6. A galaxy moving 300 km/s (a typical local velocity) would have to move in a straight line
for a billion years to move 1 million light-years from its original location. The shell structure
implies that the galaxies we see had not been moving more than a billion years, or that they
had not moved in straight lines.
19. Tifft, W.G., Discrete states of redshift and galaxy dynamics. I. Internal motions in single
galaxies, Astrophysical J. 206:3856, 1976. This paper does not discuss the redshift quantization of groups of galaxies very clearly, referring that to an earlier paper of his in: Shakeshaft,
J.R. (Ed.), IAU Symposium 58, The Formation and Dynamics of Galaxies, Reidel, Dordrecht,
p. 243, 1974. In the following decade, Tifft began describing the phenomenon itself more
clearly, though his theories about it remained difficult to understand.
20. Some of the peaks in the power spectra Tifft shows have widths smaller than just a few km/s.
21. Tifft, W.G. and Cocke, W.J., Global redshift quantization, Astrophysical J. 287:492502,
1984.
22. Newman, W.I., Haynes, M.P. and Terzian, Y., Redshift data and statistical inference, Astrophysical J. 431(1/pt.1):147155, 1994.
23. Cocke, W.J. and Tifft, W.G., Statistical procedure and the significance of periodicities in
double-galaxy redshifts, Astrophysical J. 368(2):383389, 1991.
24. Napier, W.M. and Guthrie, B.N.G., Quantized redshifts: a status report, J. Astrophysics and
Astronomy 18(4):455463, 1997.
25. Cohen et al., Redshift clustering in the Hubble deep field, Astrophysical J. 471:L5L9,
1996.
26. Tifft, W.G., Evidence for quantized and variable redshifts in the cosmic background rest
frame, Astrophysics and Space Science 244(12):2956, 1996.
27. Tifft, W.G., Redshift quantization in the cosmic background rest frame, J. Astrophysics and
Astronomy 18(4):415433, 1997.
28. Scott et al.; in: Cox, A.N. (Ed.), Allens Astrophysical Quantities, 4th edition, SpringerVerlag, New York, pp. 658, 661, 2000. The Sun is moving 370.6 0.4 km/s with respect to
the cosmic microwave background (CMB), toward galactic longitude and latitude (264.31
0.17, 48.05 0.10), or a right ascension and declination of about (11h, 9S). That direction
is a little below the constellation Leo, in the lesser-known constellation Sextans. From data
in the reference I calculate the following: (a) The Suns velocity with respect to our galaxys
centre is 240 km/s toward galactic coordinates (88, 2), and (b) the velocity of the centre of
our galaxy with respect to the CMB is 556 km/s toward galactic coordinates (266, 29). The
latter corresponds to right ascension and declination (10h 30m , 24S), below the constellation
Hydra. The above speeds are much larger than the Earths average orbital velocity around the
Sun, 29.79 km/s.
29. Bahcall, N.A., Ostriker, J.P., Permutter, S. and Steinhardt, P.J., The cosmic triangle: revealing
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the state of the universe, Science 284:14811488, 1999.

30. The shell structure would be on a much smaller scale than the large-scale foam arrangement
of galaxies observed in redshift surveys. That is, the shells (with million light-year spacings)
would occur in the thick (scores of million light-years) walls of galaxies between the large
empty bubbles containing no galaxies.
31. Taking to have a flat probability distribution, and regarding a cos in equation (11) as a random
variable x varying from a to + a, substitution in the integral giving the probability for a
given shows that the probability distribution of x is (a2 x2 ) 0.5. Integrating that distribution
in the usual expression for the variance [Ref. 32, p. 57, bottom of page], and then taking the
square root of the variance, gives the standard deviation given by my equation (13).
32. Bulmer, M.G., Principles of Statistics, Dover Publications, New York, p. 72, 1979.
33. The smallest v reported by Tifft (though the data for it are less pronounced than for the larger
spacings) is 2.6 km/s. Then r shrinks to 0.12 million light-years, and P in equation (15) drops
below 2.24 10-16 less than one out of a quadrillion.
34. See Ref. 28 for various velocities in various reference frames.
35. Bouw, G.D., Geocentricity, Association for Biblical Astronomy, Cleveland, 1992. Bouw,
advocating geocentrism, cites Psalm 93:1 as his foundational text. Notice in that verse that the
Hebrew word translated world, tevel, can mean continent(s), according to one lexicon:
Holladay, W.L., A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Eerdmans,
Grand Rapids, p. 386, 1971. Thus the verse could mean that, by the time the psalm was written (after the Flood), the continents would not move significantly with respect to the foundations of the Earth beneath them.
36. Faulkner, D.R., Geocentrism and Creation, TJ 15(2):110121, 2001. This is a detailed critique of modern geocentrism.
37. Gentry, Ref. 13, and Humphreys, Ref. 15.
38. Varshni, Y.P., The red shift hypothesis for quasars: is the Earth the centre of the universe?
Astrophysics and Space Science 43:38, 1976. Varshni shows that redshifts from 384 quasars
(not galaxies) appear to be quantized into 57 groups, and that if the distance interpretation
of redshifts is correct, then the quasars are arranged on 57 spherical shells with Earth as the
centre. He then uses this unaesthetic possibility to question the correctness of the redshiftdistance interpretation for quasars. A brief article trying to rebut him complained that the
Earth would have to be in a strongly privileged position in the Universe: Stephenson, C.B.,
Comment on Varshnis recent paper on quasar red shifts, Astrophysics and Space Science
51:117119, 1977. Varshni made a convincing rejoinder in: Varshni, Y.P., The red shift
hypothesis for quasars: is the Earth the centre of the universe? II, Astrophysics and Space Science 51:121124, 1977.
39. Even some creationists have favored non-galactocentric explanations. They do not seem to
have understood why secularists resist galactocentricity, why it would be of advantage to
Christians, or that it is strongly implied in Genesis 1:6. See Humphreys, Ref. 15, pp. 71 72.
40. Soukhanov, A.H. (Ed.), Websters II New Riverside University Dictionary, Riverside Publishing Company, Boston, p. 242, 1984.
41. Rindler, Ref. 5, pp. 212213.
42. DeSpain, M., Starlight and Time, Forever Productions, Albuquerque, 2001. Videotape (27
minutes) available through Answers in Genesis, the Creation Research Society, or the Institute
for Creation Research.
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43. Harrison, Ref. 6, p. 107.

44. Acentricity means without a centre. Big bang theorists claim that Every point is a centre,
but that obscures the issue. The public and most scientists think of the word centre as meaning the dictionary definition I gave in section 8, which implies an object can have only one
centre. For the sake of clarity, big bang supporters should rephrase their claim to, Every
point is a point of spherical symmetry.
45. Hawking, S.W. and Ellis, G.F.R., The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 134, 1973. Their reference is to: Bondi, H., Cosmology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1960.
46. Robertson, H.P. and Noonan, T.W., Relativity and Cosmology, W.B. Saunders Company,
Philadelphia, p. 336, 1969.
47. Rindler, Ref. 5, pp. 201203.
48. Rindler, Ref. 5, p. 134.
49. Rindler, Ref. 5, p. 135.
50. Gott, J.R. III, Implications of the Copernican principle for our future prospects, Nature 363:
315319, 1993. It is ironic that the name Gott is the German word for God.
51. Humphreys, Ref. 15, pp. 3138, 7479, 122126.
52. Scott et al., Ref. 28, p. 660, with h = 0.75.
53. Humphreys, Ref. 15, p. 128. My Ref. [3] was: Anonymous, Quantized redshifts: whats
going on here? Sky and Telescope 84(2):2829, August, 1992. My Ref. [22] was: Guthrie,
B.N.G. and Napier, W.M., Evidence for redshift periodicity in nearby galaxies, Monthly
Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 253:533544, 1991.
54. Copernicus, N., De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium, Johannes Petreius, Nuremberg, Book
I, Chapter 10, 1543. We therefore assert that the center of the Earth, carrying the Moons
path, passes in a great circuit among the other planets in an annual revolution around the
Sun; that near the Sun is the center of the Universe; and that whereas the Sun is at rest, any
apparent motion of the Sun can be better explained by motion of the Earth. Translation from:
Kuhn, T.S., The Copernican Revolution, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, p. 179, 1957. I agree with Copernicus that the universe has a centre, and that the Earth
is neither exactly at it nor motionless with respect to it. The CMB data (Ref. 28) disagree with
his implication that the Sun is motionless with respect to the centre. Big bang supporters are
hyper-Copernican, trying to eliminate a centre altogether.
55. Sagan, C., Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, Ballantine Books, New
York, p. 9, 1977. The alleged insignificance of Earth is a major theme of Sagans book. See
also the quotes by Hawking and Ellis in section 9, and by Richard Gott in section 10.
56. Humphreys, Ref. 15, pp. 6872.
57. Hawking and Ellis, Ref. 45, p. 134. See quote at the beginning of my section 9.
58. Sarfati, J., The Sun: our special star, Creation 22(1):2730, 1999.
59. Chown, M., What a star! New Scientist 162(2192):17, 1999.
60. Morris, M., Whats happening at the centre of our galaxy? Physics World (October 1994)
pp. 3743, 1994.
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Answers in Genesis - (PDF) - Ken Ham - Origins 4 - Is The Big Bang A Good Scientific Theory

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Is the big bang a good scientific

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

What about the big bang?

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

Cosmologists cant agree and are still in doubt!

Agreement on fundamental cosmic numbers?

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

Models are filled with many unknown parameters

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

Ripples in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation

Dark matter and dark energy

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

The meaning of redshifts

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

Our galaxy is the centre of the universe, quantized redshifts show

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

3. Expansion redshifts, not Doppler shifts

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

4. Tifft observes quantized redshifts

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

firmed Tiffts basic observations, saying,

5. A simple explanation for quantization

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

6. Implications of distance grouping

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

= (r2 + 2) = (r2 + 12 a2) (13)

a3 / 4/3 R3 < ( r / R )3 (15)

7. The cosmos is galactocentric

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

8. The big bang cant tolerate a centre

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

9. The big bang presupposition

10. The heart of the big bang is atheism

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

11. Scientific implications of a centre

12. Spiritual implications of a centre

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

the state of the universe, Science 284:14811488, 1999.

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

43. Harrison, Ref. 6, p. 107.

PROJECT 3:15 Origins

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