Quasi-Steady State Cosmology

Modern cosmology began with the realization that there were solutions to Einstein’s theory of gravity discovered by Friedmann and Lemaitre which when combined with the redshift distance relation of Hubble and others could be interpreted as showing that we live in an expanding universe. It was then only elementary logic to argue that if time reversal was applied, the universe must originally have been so compact that we could talk of a beginning. Lemaitre tried to describe this state as the “Primeval Atom”. For a decade or so after the war, Fermi, Teller, Maria Mayer, Peierls, Gamow, Alpher, Herman and others explored this dense configuration trying to make the chemical elements from protons, neutrons and electrons. They soon learned that this was not possible because of the absence of stable masses of five and eight, but it was also realized that if such an early stage had occured, the universe would contain an expanding cloud of radiation which would preserve its black body form as it expanded. Gamow and his colleagues were particularly intrigued by the physics of this hot fireball. Dicke and his colleagues in Princeton rediscovered this idea in the 1960’s and decided to try and detect the radiation. Penzias and Wilson found such a radiation field, and COBE has demonstrated that it has a perfect black body form out to radio wavelengths. This history together with the fact that the light isotopes D, He3 and He4 in about the right amounts can be made