If we stick to the observations, the observable Universe would appear to

have a border some fifteen billion light years away where the red shift of the

receding matter presumably approaches totality, and where the energy of the

particles must therefore approach zero. Now if, as seen by us, the energy of the

particles approaches zero, so must their mass and, therefore, their momentum.

But if, as seen by us, their momentum approaches zero, so must our uncertainty

in that momentum. Then, by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, our uncertainty in

the position of those particles must approach totality. That is, they may be found

anywhere in the observable Universe. The question then arises: In what form will

they be found? And what is the evidence that they are thus recycling?

Now since the mass of these electrical particles is related to their size, it

follows that as their mass goes down, their size must go up. And, since that

allows the atoms and molecules to disintegrate, we may expect the matter to

recycle from the border as electrons and protons, that is, as hydrogen atoms. But

I'm not sure that some of it might not recycle as helium since the helium nucleus

is rather tightly bound.

Since these considerations argue for a steady state cosmological model

rather than for a big bang model, I should perhaps point out how this model

accounts for the cosmic background radiation discovered by Penzias and Wilson

in 1965, and I should also mention the driving mechanism for the expansion.

(The driving mechanism for the big bang expansion does not follow from that

model, but was "thrown in by hand.") Also, I should point out the observational

evidence that hydrogen is really recycling from the border. Then, too, I should

point out what this model predicts.

Penzias and Wilson's background radiation follows naturally from the fact

that star light going through a field of low mass particles near the border would

be so often picked up and reradiated that it would come in thermalized to 3K, and

the amount predicted by this model appears to be closer to the measured

amount than is the amount predicted by the big bang.

Also, as I see it, the energy of the radiation that is lost to red shifting

(because of the expansion itself) drives the expansion.

There are two observational evidences that hydrogen is recycling from the

border. First, two measurements by the Hubble Space Telescope indicate that

there are some nine or twelve clouds of hydrogen between the quasar 3C273

and ourselves. And the question is: Where did they come from? According to the

big bang model there is no way to put new hydrogen in there, and no way to

have clouds of hydrogen hanging around in there for some fifteen billion years

without condensing into something we could see. Also, the measurements by the

Hubble Space Telescope indicate that there is more than enough hydrogen in the

great intergalactic voids to make all the known galaxies. Where did that come

from?

This model predicts that the Universe must be set up in such a way that

frustration is inevitable. Otherwise it couldn't go on like this. In this model even 

the entropy of the Universe at large doesn't go up because the material from the

border recycles as hydrogen dispersed in space with all its negative entropy built

in. If any one could show that any of these cosmological processes, such as

gravitational collapse or cosmological expansion, could succeed, all steady state

models would be dead.

A great deal of effort has gone into reinterpreting our physics to support

the big bang model. And it may be that the model is right and the physics was

wrong, but it seems a bit more likely that the physics was right and the model is

wrong.

John Dobson July 9, 2002 4135 Judah Street, San Francisco CA 94122

(415) 665-4054