Steady State theory
Encyclopedia
In cosmology
, the Steady State theory (also known as the Infinite Universe theory or continuous creation) is a model developed in 1948 by Fred Hoyle
, Thomas Gold
, Hermann Bondi
and others as an alternative
to the Big Bang
theory (known, usually, as the standard cosmological model). In steady state views, new matter is continuously created as the universe expands, so that the perfect cosmological principle
is adhered to.
The steady state theory of Bondi and Gold was inspired by the circular plot of the film Dead of Night
, which they had watched together. Theoretical calculations showed that a static universe
was impossible under general relativity
, and observations by Edwin Hubble
had shown that the universe was expanding. The steady state theory asserts that although the universe is expanding, it nevertheless does not change its appearance over time (the perfect cosmological principle
); it has no beginning and no end.
The theory requires that new matter must be continuously created (mostly as hydrogen) to keep the average density of matter equal over time. The amount required is low and not directly detectable: roughly one solar mass of baryons per cubic megaparsec per year or roughly one hydrogen atom per cubic meter per billion years, with roughly five times as much dark matter
. Such a creation rate, however, would cause observable effects on cosmological scales. However, an aesthetically unattractive feature of the theory is that the postulated spontaneous new matter formation would presumably need to include deuterium
, helium
, and a small amount of lithium
, as well as regular hydrogen, since no mechanism of nucleosynthesis
in stars or by other processes accounts for the observed abundance of deuterium
and helium-3
. (In the Big Bang
model, primordial deuterium
is made directly after the "bang," before the existence of the first stars).
The steady state model is now largely discredited, as the observational evidence points to a Big Bang-type cosmology and a finite age of the universe
.
s and radio galaxies
were found only at large distances (therefore existing only in the distant past), not in closer galaxies. Whereas the Big Bang theory predicted as much, the Steady State theory predicted that such objects would be found everywhere, including close to our own galaxy.
For most cosmologists, the refutation of the steady-state theory came with the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation
in 1965, which was predicted by the Big Bang theory. Stephen Hawking
said that the fact that microwave radiation had been found, and that it was thought to be left over from the Big Bang, was "the final nail in the coffin of the steady-state theory." Within the steady state theory this background radiation is the result of light from ancient stars which has been scattered by galactic dust. However, this explanation has been unconvincing to most cosmologists as the cosmic microwave background is very smooth, making it difficult to explain how it arose from point sources, and the microwave background shows no evidence of features such as polarization which are normally associated with scattering. Furthermore, its spectrum is so close to that of an ideal black body
that it could hardly be formed by the superposition of contributions from dust clumps at different temperatures as well as at different redshift
s. Steven Weinberg
wrote in 1972,
Since that time, the Big Bang theory has been considered to be the best description of the origin of the universe. In most astrophysical publications, the Big Bang is implicitly accepted and is used as the basis of more complete theories.
, whilst also creating new matter, keeping the large-scale matter density
approximately constant; in this respect the C-field is similar to the inflaton
field used in cosmic inflation
. For this reason Hoyle's conception of the steady state in 1948 incorporates many features that later emerged in both inflationary cosmology and the recently observed accelerating universe
, which may be modeled in terms of a cosmological constant
in Einstein's model of the universe.
, Geoffrey Burbidge
, and Jayant V. Narlikar as a new incarnation of steady state ideas meant to explain additional features unaccounted for in the initial proposal. The theory suggests pockets of creation occurring over time within the universe, sometimes referred to as minibangs, mini-creation events, or little bangs. After the observation of an accelerating universe
, further modifications of the model were made.
has many similarities with steady state theory, however on a much larger scale than originally envisaged. It is the C-field and the notion of quasi-steady state universe that has some resemblance to chaotic inflation theory
or eternal inflation, which sometimes posits an infinite universe with neither beginning nor end, in which inflation operates continuously, on a scale beyond the observable universe
, to create the matter of the cosmos. However, both steady state and quasi-steady state assert that the creation events of the universe (new hydrogen atoms in the steady state case) can be observed within the observable universe
, whereas inflationary theories do not posit inflation as an ongoing process within the observable universe
.
has pointed out flaws in the theory. These first comments were soon rebutted by the proponents. Wright and other mainstream cosmologists reviewing QSS have pointed out new flaws and discrepancies with observations left unexplained by proponents.
Physical cosmology
Physical cosmology, as a branch of astronomy, is the study of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation and evolution. For most of human history, it was a branch of metaphysics and religion...
, the Steady State theory (also known as the Infinite Universe theory or continuous creation) is a model developed in 1948 by Fred Hoyle
Fred Hoyle
Sir Fred Hoyle FRS was an English astronomer and mathematician noted primarily for his contribution to the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and his often controversial stance on other cosmological and scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory, a term originally...
, Thomas Gold
Thomas Gold
Thomas Gold was an Austrian-born astrophysicist, a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the Royal Society . Gold was one of three young Cambridge scientists who in the 1950s proposed the now mostly abandoned 'steady...
, Hermann Bondi
Hermann Bondi
Sir Hermann Bondi, KCB, FRS was an Anglo-Austrian mathematician and cosmologist. He is best known for developing the steady-state theory of the universe with Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold as an alternative to the Big Bang theory, but his most lasting legacy will probably be his important...
and others as an alternative
Non-standard cosmology
A non-standard cosmology is any physical cosmological model of the universe that has been, or still is, proposed as an alternative to the big bang model of standard physical cosmology...
to the Big Bang
Big Bang
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...
theory (known, usually, as the standard cosmological model). In steady state views, new matter is continuously created as the universe expands, so that the perfect cosmological principle
Perfect Cosmological Principle
The Perfect Cosmological Principle states that the Universe is homogenous and isotropic in space and time. In this view the universe looks the same everywhere , the same as it always has and always will...
is adhered to.
The steady state theory of Bondi and Gold was inspired by the circular plot of the film Dead of Night
Dead of Night
Dead of Night is a British portmanteau horror film made by Ealing Studios, its various episodes directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. The film stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers and Michael Redgrave...
, which they had watched together. Theoretical calculations showed that a static universe
Static universe
A static universe, also referred to as a "stationary" or "Einstein" universe, is a model in which space is neither expanding nor contracting. Albert Einstein proposed such a model as his preferred cosmology in 1917...
was impossible under general relativity
General relativity
General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...
, and observations by Edwin Hubble
Edwin Hubble
Edwin Powell Hubble was an American astronomer who profoundly changed the understanding of the universe by confirming the existence of galaxies other than the Milky Way - our own galaxy...
had shown that the universe was expanding. The steady state theory asserts that although the universe is expanding, it nevertheless does not change its appearance over time (the perfect cosmological principle
Perfect Cosmological Principle
The Perfect Cosmological Principle states that the Universe is homogenous and isotropic in space and time. In this view the universe looks the same everywhere , the same as it always has and always will...
); it has no beginning and no end.
The theory requires that new matter must be continuously created (mostly as hydrogen) to keep the average density of matter equal over time. The amount required is low and not directly detectable: roughly one solar mass of baryons per cubic megaparsec per year or roughly one hydrogen atom per cubic meter per billion years, with roughly five times as much dark matter
Dark matter
In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is matter that neither emits nor scatters light or other electromagnetic radiation, and so cannot be directly detected via optical or radio astronomy...
. Such a creation rate, however, would cause observable effects on cosmological scales. However, an aesthetically unattractive feature of the theory is that the postulated spontaneous new matter formation would presumably need to include deuterium
Deuterium
Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen. It has a natural abundance in Earth's oceans of about one atom in of hydrogen . Deuterium accounts for approximately 0.0156% of all naturally occurring hydrogen in Earth's oceans, while the most common isotope ...
, helium
Helium
Helium is the chemical element with atomic number 2 and an atomic weight of 4.002602, which is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...
, and a small amount of lithium
Lithium
Lithium is a soft, silver-white metal that belongs to the alkali metal group of chemical elements. It is represented by the symbol Li, and it has the atomic number 3. Under standard conditions it is the lightest metal and the least dense solid element. Like all alkali metals, lithium is highly...
, as well as regular hydrogen, since no mechanism of nucleosynthesis
Nucleosynthesis
Nucleosynthesis is the process of creating new atomic nuclei from pre-existing nucleons . It is thought that the primordial nucleons themselves were formed from the quark–gluon plasma from the Big Bang as it cooled below two trillion degrees...
in stars or by other processes accounts for the observed abundance of deuterium
Deuterium
Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen. It has a natural abundance in Earth's oceans of about one atom in of hydrogen . Deuterium accounts for approximately 0.0156% of all naturally occurring hydrogen in Earth's oceans, while the most common isotope ...
and helium-3
Helium-3
Helium-3 is a light, non-radioactive isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron. It is rare on Earth, and is sought for use in nuclear fusion research...
. (In the Big Bang
Big Bang
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...
model, primordial deuterium
Deuterium
Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen. It has a natural abundance in Earth's oceans of about one atom in of hydrogen . Deuterium accounts for approximately 0.0156% of all naturally occurring hydrogen in Earth's oceans, while the most common isotope ...
is made directly after the "bang," before the existence of the first stars).
The steady state model is now largely discredited, as the observational evidence points to a Big Bang-type cosmology and a finite age of the universe
Age of the universe
The age of the universe is the time elapsed since the Big Bang posited by the most widely accepted scientific model of cosmology. The best current estimate of the age of the universe is 13.75 ± 0.13 billion years within the Lambda-CDM concordance model...
.
History
Problems with the steady-state theory began to emerge in the late 1960s, when observations apparently supported the idea that the universe was in fact changing: quasarQuasar
A quasi-stellar radio source is a very energetic and distant active galactic nucleus. Quasars are extremely luminous and were first identified as being high redshift sources of electromagnetic energy, including radio waves and visible light, that were point-like, similar to stars, rather than...
s and radio galaxies
Radio galaxy
Radio galaxies and their relatives, radio-loud quasars and blazars, are types of active galaxy that are very luminous at radio wavelengths, with luminosities up to 1039 W between 10 MHz and 100 GHz. The radio emission is due to the synchrotron process...
were found only at large distances (therefore existing only in the distant past), not in closer galaxies. Whereas the Big Bang theory predicted as much, the Steady State theory predicted that such objects would be found everywhere, including close to our own galaxy.
For most cosmologists, the refutation of the steady-state theory came with the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation
Cosmic microwave background radiation
In cosmology, cosmic microwave background radiation is thermal radiation filling the observable universe almost uniformly....
in 1965, which was predicted by the Big Bang theory. Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking
Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity...
said that the fact that microwave radiation had been found, and that it was thought to be left over from the Big Bang, was "the final nail in the coffin of the steady-state theory." Within the steady state theory this background radiation is the result of light from ancient stars which has been scattered by galactic dust. However, this explanation has been unconvincing to most cosmologists as the cosmic microwave background is very smooth, making it difficult to explain how it arose from point sources, and the microwave background shows no evidence of features such as polarization which are normally associated with scattering. Furthermore, its spectrum is so close to that of an ideal black body
Black body
A black body is an idealized physical body that absorbs all incident electromagnetic radiation. Because of this perfect absorptivity at all wavelengths, a black body is also the best possible emitter of thermal radiation, which it radiates incandescently in a characteristic, continuous spectrum...
that it could hardly be formed by the superposition of contributions from dust clumps at different temperatures as well as at different redshift
Redshift
In physics , redshift happens when light seen coming from an object is proportionally increased in wavelength, or shifted to the red end of the spectrum...
s. Steven Weinberg
Steven Weinberg
Steven Weinberg is an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles....
wrote in 1972,
- The steady state model does not appear to agree with the observed dL versus zRedshiftIn physics , redshift happens when light seen coming from an object is proportionally increased in wavelength, or shifted to the red end of the spectrum...
relation or with source countsSource countsThe source counts distribution of radio-sources from a radio-astronomical survey is the cumulative distribution of the number of sources brighter than a given flux density...
... In a sense, the disagreement is a credit to the model; alone among all cosmologies, the steady state model makes such definite predictions that it can be disprovedFalsifiabilityFalsifiability or refutability of an assertion, hypothesis or theory is the logical possibility that it can be contradicted by an observation or the outcome of a physical experiment...
even with the limited observational evidence at our disposal. The steady-state model is so attractive that many of its adherents still retain hope that the evidence against it will disappear as observations improve. However, if the cosmic microwave background radiation ... is really black-body radiation, it will be difficult to doubt that the universe has evolved from a hotter, denser early stage.
Since that time, the Big Bang theory has been considered to be the best description of the origin of the universe. In most astrophysical publications, the Big Bang is implicitly accepted and is used as the basis of more complete theories.
C-field
Bondi and Gold proposed no mechanism for the creation of matter required by the steady state theory, but Hoyle proposed the existence of what he called the "C-field", where "C" stands for "Creation". The C-field has negative pressure, which enables it to drive the steady expansion of the cosmosMetric expansion of space
The metric expansion of space is the increase of distance between distant parts of the universe with time. It is an intrinsic expansion—that is, it is defined by the relative separation of parts of the universe and not by motion "outward" into preexisting space...
, whilst also creating new matter, keeping the large-scale matter density
Density
The mass density or density of a material is defined as its mass per unit volume. The symbol most often used for density is ρ . In some cases , density is also defined as its weight per unit volume; although, this quantity is more properly called specific weight...
approximately constant; in this respect the C-field is similar to the inflaton
Inflaton
The inflaton is the generic name of the hypothetical and hitherto unidentified scalar field that may be responsible for the hypothetical inflation in the very early universe...
field used in cosmic inflation
Cosmic inflation
In physical cosmology, cosmic inflation, cosmological inflation or just inflation is the theorized extremely rapid exponential expansion of the early universe by a factor of at least 1078 in volume, driven by a negative-pressure vacuum energy density. The inflationary epoch comprises the first part...
. For this reason Hoyle's conception of the steady state in 1948 incorporates many features that later emerged in both inflationary cosmology and the recently observed accelerating universe
Accelerating universe
The accelerating universe is the observation that the universe appears to be expanding at an increasing rate, which in formal terms means that the cosmic scale factor a has a positive second derivative, implying that the velocity at which a given galaxy is receding from us should be continually...
, which may be modeled in terms of a cosmological constant
Cosmological constant
In physical cosmology, the cosmological constant was proposed by Albert Einstein as a modification of his original theory of general relativity to achieve a stationary universe...
in Einstein's model of the universe.
Quasi-steady state
Quasi-steady state cosmology (QSS) was proposed in 1993 by Fred HoyleFred Hoyle
Sir Fred Hoyle FRS was an English astronomer and mathematician noted primarily for his contribution to the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and his often controversial stance on other cosmological and scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory, a term originally...
, Geoffrey Burbidge
Geoffrey Burbidge
Geoffrey Ronald Burbidge FRS was an English astronomy professor, most recently at the University of California, San Diego. He was married to astrophysicist Dr. Margaret Burbidge.-Education:...
, and Jayant V. Narlikar as a new incarnation of steady state ideas meant to explain additional features unaccounted for in the initial proposal. The theory suggests pockets of creation occurring over time within the universe, sometimes referred to as minibangs, mini-creation events, or little bangs. After the observation of an accelerating universe
Accelerating universe
The accelerating universe is the observation that the universe appears to be expanding at an increasing rate, which in formal terms means that the cosmic scale factor a has a positive second derivative, implying that the velocity at which a given galaxy is receding from us should be continually...
, further modifications of the model were made.
Other proponents
Chaotic Inflation theoryChaotic inflation theory
The Chaotic Inflation theory is a variety of the inflationary universe model, which is itself an outgrowth of the Big Bang theory. Chaotic Inflation, proposed by physicist Andrei Linde, models our universe as one of many that grew as part of a multiverse owing to a vacuum that had not decayed to...
has many similarities with steady state theory, however on a much larger scale than originally envisaged. It is the C-field and the notion of quasi-steady state universe that has some resemblance to chaotic inflation theory
Chaotic inflation theory
The Chaotic Inflation theory is a variety of the inflationary universe model, which is itself an outgrowth of the Big Bang theory. Chaotic Inflation, proposed by physicist Andrei Linde, models our universe as one of many that grew as part of a multiverse owing to a vacuum that had not decayed to...
or eternal inflation, which sometimes posits an infinite universe with neither beginning nor end, in which inflation operates continuously, on a scale beyond the observable universe
Observable universe
In Big Bang cosmology, the observable universe consists of the galaxies and other matter that we can in principle observe from Earth in the present day, because light from those objects has had time to reach us since the beginning of the cosmological expansion...
, to create the matter of the cosmos. However, both steady state and quasi-steady state assert that the creation events of the universe (new hydrogen atoms in the steady state case) can be observed within the observable universe
Observable universe
In Big Bang cosmology, the observable universe consists of the galaxies and other matter that we can in principle observe from Earth in the present day, because light from those objects has had time to reach us since the beginning of the cosmological expansion...
, whereas inflationary theories do not posit inflation as an ongoing process within the observable universe
Observable universe
In Big Bang cosmology, the observable universe consists of the galaxies and other matter that we can in principle observe from Earth in the present day, because light from those objects has had time to reach us since the beginning of the cosmological expansion...
.
Criticism
Astrophysicist and cosmologist Ned WrightEdward L. Wright
Edward L. Wright is an American astrophysicist and cosmologist, well known for his achievements in the COBE project and as a strong Big Bang proponent in web tutorials on cosmology and theory of relativity....
has pointed out flaws in the theory. These first comments were soon rebutted by the proponents. Wright and other mainstream cosmologists reviewing QSS have pointed out new flaws and discrepancies with observations left unexplained by proponents.