Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,
by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
Click here to order the hardbound 8th edition (2008) and other materials.
The Evidence
Accelerating Expansion. The redshift of distant starlight suggests an expansion. However, a big bang should produce only a decelerating expansion, not the accelerating expansion observed. [See "Dark Thoughts" on page 33.] Stretching, completed during the creation week, could have produced the accelerated expansion which is shown by the light that has finally reached earth from the edge of the visible universe.
Star Formation. Astronomers recognize that the densest gas cloud seen in the universe today could not form stars by any known means, including gravitational collapse, unless that gas was once thousands of times more compact. According to the big bang theory, stars began to form by the gravitational collapse of gas clouds 500 million years after the big bang’s sudden inflation. Martin Harwit points out that if this were true, the vast energy, angular momentum, and magnetic fields generated by each collapse would be clearly visible—but they are not. [See “Interstellar Gas” on page 94.]
The stretching explanation states that the universe was extremely compact when stars were either (a) made, or (b) formed by gravitational collapse. Then the heavens were stretched out. If stars formed by (b), the stretching removed (diluted) the extreme energy, angular momentum, and magnetic fields that Harwit states should be seen according to the big bang and stellar evolution theories.
Intergalactic Medium (IGM). Outer space is nearly a perfect vacuum. The IGM (the vast space between galaxies) contains about 10–100 hydrogen atoms per cubic meter. However, almost every hydrogen atom in the IGM, out to the farthest galaxies the best telescopes can see (13 billion light-years away), has been ionized—has lost its electron.
According to the big bang theory, for the first 400,000 years after the big bang, the expanding universe was so hot that all matter was ionized. Only after the universe had expanded (and cooled) enough could protons acquire an electron and become neutral hydrogen. Then, after matter in the universe was no longer ionized, stars and galaxies, according to the theory, began evolving. Had the hydrogen remained ionized, the mutual repulsion of the positive hydrogen ions would have prevented hydrogen from coming together to form stars. (Other reasons why stars and galaxies could not have evolved are given on pages 32–35.)
This presents a major problem. What reionized the hydrogen that today pervades the IGM? No explanation has been found. Most big-bang theorists had guessed that the radiation from the earliest stars and galaxies—after the universe had already expanded for hundreds of millions of years—was powerful enough to reionize the IGM. This now appears to not be the case.5
According to the stretching explanation, when the universe was created, it was extremely compact, so the intense light of DAY 1 and/or the light of stars and galaxies (created on DAY 4) ionized the surrounding gases. Then, the heavens were stretched out. Therefore, hydrogen in the IGM has always been ionized, just as we see it today.
Black Holes. Black holes come in two varieties: massive black holes (MBHs) and stellar black holes (SBHs). MBHs are millions to a few billion times more massive that the sun. They lie at the center of every large nearby galaxy—and perhaps every galaxy. SBHs have masses only a few tens times greater than the sun; probably millions of SBHs are scattered throughout our Milky Way Galaxy.6 In both types of black holes, mass is so concentrated that nothing within a specific distance from a black hole (called the event horizon) should escape their gravity—not even light.
Astronomers admit that galaxies and black holes must have existed very soon after the universe began,7 but the big bang theory says that 300,000 years after the big bang (before stars formed) all matter was spread out uniformly. That uniformity would prevent gravity from forming galaxies and black holes, even over the supposed age of the universe.8 However, they could easily have formed or existed soon after the creation of matter and the universe, if the universe was much more compact9 and the heavens were stretched out before all mass collapsed into one huge black hole.
Although nothing should escape black holes, some are expelling powerful jets at “up to 99.98 percent of the speed of light. These amazing outflows traverse distances larger than galaxies.”10 Stars sometimes expel jets, so this paradox could be resolved if space was stretched out after stellar jets and black holes began forming.
Quasars. Quasars are the most luminous stable objects in the universe. Most black holes have already pulled in almost all the dust within their vicinity. However, some black holes are at such extreme distances from us (and therefore seen as they were far back in time) that they are seen still pulling in large amounts of nearby matter. The gravitational potential energy of all that falling matter is converted to bright radiation. The combination—a MBH with bright radiation from infalling matter—is called a quasar (quasi-stellar radio source, QUASi-stellAR). Light we are now seeing from quasars was emitted soon after time began, before most of the matter surrounding those distant MBHs was pulled into them.
One quasar has been found that has two billion times the mass of the Sun, and yet is so far from earth that big-bang theorists say it must have formed (by some unknown mechanism) very soon after the universe began. (This contradicts their view that the universe began with a superhot expansion, then 100,000,000 years later, stars began forming.) “It is safe to say that the existence of this quasar will be giving some theorists sleepless nights.”11 However, these massive objects could have formed in a very compact universe if the stretching occurred several days after the universe began, but after some gravitational clumping began.
Likewise, much of the expansion of supernova remnants over great distances may be due to the stretching, not the passage of millions of years.
Galaxies and Their Black Holes. The masses of massive black holes are positively correlated with the size of each of their galaxies. (The larger the galaxy, the larger its black hole.12) According to the standard explanations for galaxy formation, this should not be,13 because black holes are so small in volume compared to galaxies. If a massive black hole formed first, it would not be able to form a large galaxy, because black holes cannot affect something as large as a galaxy. Nor would a large galaxy necessarily produce a large black hole. Instead, “the correlation means that the black hole and galaxy had to form together,”14 something standard astronomy has not explained.
But this is precisely what should happen based on the stretching explanation. Before the universe was stretched out, some regions contained more mass than other regions. The densest concentrations collapsed rapidly, forming massive black holes, but the remainder was stretched out, so it did not collapse into the black hole. Instead, a large galaxy was formed around the massive black hole. Less-dense concentrations formed less-massive black holes, and the stretching that quickly followed produced a smaller galaxy.
Central Stars. About forty stars orbit within a few dozen light-hours of the black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Those stars could never have evolved that close to a black hole, which has the mass of 4,300,000 suns, because the black hole’s gravity would have prevented gas from collapsing to become a star.15 However, those stars could have formed in a much denser environment,16 before space was stretched out during the creation week.
Some astronomers say that these stars evolved far from the black hole and then migrated great distances toward the black hole. Such a migration, which seemingly violates the laws of physics,17 must have been fast because the stars are so massive that their lifetimes are very short in astronomical terms. Also, matter (or stars) migrating toward black holes must radiate vast amounts of energy as happens with quasars, but that energy is not observed in any wavelength for these central stars.
Spiral Galaxies. If spiral galaxies formed billions of years ago, their arms should be wrapped more tightly around their centers than they are. Also, nearer galaxies should show much more “wrap” than more distant spiral galaxies. [See Figure 206 on page 404.] However, if space was recently stretched out, spiral galaxies could appear as they do.
Dwarf Galaxies. Dwarf galaxies are sometimes embedded in a smoothly rotating disk of hydrogen gas that is much larger than the galaxy itself. The mass (hidden or otherwise) of each dwarf galaxy is insufficient to pull the gas into its disk shape,18 but if this matter was once highly concentrated and then the space it occupied was recently stretched out, all observed characteristics would be explained.
Figure 207: Dwarf Galaxy. An enormous hydrogen disk (blue) surrounds the dwarf galaxy UGC 5288 (bright white). This isolated galaxy, 16 million light-years from Earth, contains about 100,000 stars and is 1/25 the diameter of our Milky Way Galaxy, which has at least 100,000,000,000 stars. The dwarf’s mass is about 30 times too small to gravitationally hold onto the most distant hydrogen gas, so gravity could not have pulled the distant hydrogen gas into its disk. Because the gas is too evenly distributed and rotates so smoothly, it was not expelled from the galaxy or pulled out by a close encounter with another galaxy.
Before space was stretched out, gravitational forces and rotational velocities would have been much greater, so after the stretching, the hydrogen gas would have assumed this smooth, rapidly rotating pattern, even though the galaxy did not have the gravitational strength to hold the gas.This must have occurred recently, because the gaseous disk has not dispersed into the vacuum of space. (The galaxy is seen in visible light; the hydrogen disk is seen by a fleet of 27 radio telescopes.)
Heavy Elements in Stars. According to the big bang theory, there are three generations of stars, each with increasing amounts of heavy elements. The first generation should contain only hydrogen and helium. After hundreds of millions of years, second-generation stars would begin forming with heavier elements made inside first-generation stars that later exploded. Although some first-generation stars should still be visible, not one has ever been found. [See Endnote 56n on page 91.]
According to the stretching explanation, stars have always had some heavier chemical elements. The most distant stars, galaxies, and quasars that can be analyzed contain some of these heavier chemical elements.
Stellar Velocities. Stars in the outer parts of spiral galaxies travel much faster than they should based on physical laws. However, if those stars were nearer the centers of their galaxies only thousands of years ago—before the heavens were stretched out—they would have had those higher speeds then, and would retain them after the heavens were stretched out. Appeals to so-called dark matter, which has not been directly measured or detected, would not be needed (or imagined) to explain those velocities.
Speeding Galaxies. A similar observation can be made about tight clusters of galaxies. Galaxies in clusters are traveling much faster than they should, based on their distances from their clusters’ centers of mass.
Distant Galaxies. Massive galaxies and galaxy clusters are now found at such great distances that they must have formed soon after the universe began. The big bang theory cannot explain how such distant galaxy concentrations could have formed so quickly that their light had almost 13-billion years to travel to planet Earth.19 [See "How Old Do Evolutionists Say the Universe Is?" on pages 417-418.]
The stretching explanation says that galaxies and galaxy clusters began before the heavens were stretched out, when all matter was relatively confined. Stretching produced most of the great distances separating those galaxies from Earth.
Strings of Galaxies. Obviously, gravity would not pull matter into long strings of hundreds or thousands of galaxies—even if the universe were unbelievably old. Instead, gravity, if acting over enormous time and distances, would pull matter into more spherical globs. Yet, long, massive filaments of galaxies have been discovered.20
These strings of galaxies can be understood if galaxies were formed when all matter in the universe was initially confined to a much smaller volume. (In that small space, stars and galaxies formed either by the direct acts of a Creator or by the powerful gravitational forces resulting from so much extremely confined mass.) Then, the heavens were rapidly stretched out. Just as one might pull taffy into long strings, the stretched out heavens might contain long, massive strings of thousands of galaxies. Surprisingly, too many appear connected or aligned with other galaxies or quasars, as prominent astronomers have noted. [See "Connected Galaxies" on page 41.]
Colliding Galaxies. Some galaxies contain two distinct rotating systems, as if a galaxy rotating one way collided with another rotating the opposite way. Today, based on the vast distances between galaxies, such mergers should rarely happen—but many have happened.21
Does this mean that the universe must be billions of years old? No. Before the heavens were stretched out, galaxies would have been closer to each other, resulting in much greater speeds and frequent collisions.
If some galaxies merged over billions of years, why haven’t the different rotations within a merged galaxy homogenized by now? Clearly, those mergings did not happen billions of years ago.22
Helium-2 Nebulas. Clouds of glowing, blue gas, called helium-2 nebulas, have been set aglow by something hot enough to strip two electrons from each helium atom. No known star—young or old—is hot enough to do so,23 but compressed conditions before the heavens were stretched out would do this.
Dark “Science.” The big bang theory must invoke unscientific concepts, such as “dark matter” and “dark energy,” to try to explain the “stretched out heavens.” What is dark matter? What is dark energy? Even believers in those ideas don’t know, and some admit that those phrases are “expressions of ignorance [by those who accept the big bang theory].”24 Dark matter, dark energy, and many other scientific problems with the big bang theory are discussed, beginning on page 32.
Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The CMB is often given as evidence for the big bang theory. Actually, that radiation, when studied closely, is a strong argument against the big bang and evidence for the sudden creation of matter within an immense universe. [For details, see pages 414–416.]