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From: gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Bang! or not?
Message-ID: <50@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 21-Jul-85 00:59:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.50
Posted: Sun Jul 21 00:59:20 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Jul-85 04:19:12 EDT
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> Does anybody know the current status of the Big Bang vs Steady State
> controversy? I know that as of a few years ago, most research took the
> big bang as an operational theory, but a lot of researchers didn't.

Big bang is the current consensus.

> I left off at the point that people were discussing the possibility
> that the red-shift observed in the spectra from distant objects may not
> be due to doppler effects, but from the cumulative gravitational effect
> on photons from the billions and billions of atoms they come close to
> during the trip. (Also that the massive red-shift observed from quasars
> may be caused when the photons climb out of a massive gravity well.)

There are several alternative mechanisms for both the cosmological
and quasar red-shift.  From the previous round of discussions on the
topic, it transpired that very few working astronomers put much stock
in the alternative theories.  That doesn't prove much one way or the
other..