Dear NN,
Yes, I am optimistic that we can solve the mysteries of the universe, or better to say, find out the rules, how the interplay between its constituents works. It is not just ignoring a Big Bang, what I propose, but what I want to show is that all the observational facts, which have been adopted in favour of the Concordance model, like red shift, microwave background and the chemical element composition can be understood without introducing new and unprovable physics and without any singular states of matter.
In my essay I have demonstrated that red shift is a natural consequence of curvature of space (curvature replaces the gravitational potential in a purely geometrical description of gravity like General Relativity), if motion of photons or matter particles is described in the commoving reference frame, where the time variable is the local proper time. In a locally fixed reference frame potential energy has to be introduced as an extra term with negative pressure in the energy balance. (It is not some energy of the gravitational field, but the potential energy of matter in a gravitational field just as in Newtonian theory)
Due to the negative pressure the contribution of potential energy to the gravitational action is repulsive. In most cases this contribution is negligible compared to the energy equivalence of matter itself. Only in extreme matter concentrations, as we find them in the collapse of stars or complete galaxies the repulsive action of potential energy prevents the final contraction into a singularity. Thus the final state of collapse, which we denote as a black hole, is an equilibrium configuration close to the Schwarzschild radius. The only configuration, in which the gravitation of matter is balanced by its own potential energy at moderate density, is the universe as a whole.
Once the basic elements of such an equilibrium model have been accepted, it is easy to understand observations like the microwave background or the chemical element composition. As I have mentioned in my essay, all emitted photons are redshifted on their journey through space until they are finally thermalised by quantum interference in a background radiation pool, when the mean distance of photons is in the order of the wave length. The chemical element composition can be understood as well, if we regard the collapsed systems, the black holes, as a source of fresh, extremely hot matter, which is released into space, cools of by gravitational energy loss and later by electromagnetic radiation to form new galaxies and stars. The equilibrium configuration at the Schwarzschild limit is very fragile, so that perturbations lead to the emission of hot matter jets from the poles of spinning black holes. The fact that this new matter is emitted at extremely high temperature and needs much time to cool sufficiently to form new galaxies, explains, why the matter content of these galaxies is only a small fraction of the total matter. Most of it is too hot to condense into new structures. It acts like dark energy or dark matter in the balance of the universe, but it is not entirely black. It emits bremsstrahlung as x-rays. The observed diffuse x-ray background is just in the order of magnitude to be explained by emission from a fully ionised plasma close to the critical density.
A more detailed discussion of these topics you can find in a paper, which I have written two years ago. You will find it in the arXiv (An Equilibrium Balance of the Universe, arXiv:0708.3577)
Ernst Fischer
