The Big Bang Never Happened

THE COSMOLOGICAL DEBATEFig. 6.2.comes from a vast region hundreds of millions of light-yearsacross and takes hundreds of millions of years to develop—no"origin of the universe" is required.Alfven and Klein had outlined a bold alternative to both theBig Bang and the Steady State—but it was only an outline, andthere was an enormous leap between the plasma physics of thelab and that of the cosmos. In 1962 even Alfven's aurora theorywas not yet accepted. And while his plasma theories were beingproven in fusion labs, the antimatter or "ambiplasma" theory, ashe calls it, was basically without laboratory support. Even todayantimatter is produced in such tiny quantities that lab tests ofAlfven's hypothesis are still impossible.The new alternative briefly received attention because boththe Big Bang and the Steady State were in eclipse. But with theresurgence of the Big Bang in the mid-sixties the Klein-Alfvencosmology was forgotten. For a decade and a half astronomersdid, in fact, have reason to pursue the Big Bang, since the microwavebackground and the light-element abundance did seem toconfirm it. And Alfven's theories, for once, seemed just as speculativeas those of the opposition, if not more so.218