Quasi-Steady-State and Related Cosmological Models: A Historical Review

TL;DR

This paper reviews the historical development of quasi-steady-state and related cosmological models, highlighting their origins, evolution, and place within the broader context of cosmological theories opposing the big-bang paradigm.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive historical overview of quasi-steady-state models, especially the QSSC, and discusses their development and significance in the context of alternative cosmological theories.

Findings

QSSC evolved from the steady-state cosmology of 1948.

Historical roots of quasi-steady-state models trace back to ancient Greece.

The paper contextualizes the models within the broader history of cosmological thought.

Abstract

Since the emergence in the late 1960s of the standard hot big-bang theory, cosmology has been dominated by finite-age models. However, the rival view that the universe has existed for an indefinite time has continued to be defended by a minority of researchers. This view has roots far back in history and in the 1950s and 1960s several models were proposed in opposition to the big-bang paradigm. The most important of the alternative models, the steady-state cosmology proposed in 1948, was uniformly expanding rather than exhibiting a cyclical behaviour. In a much revised version it was developed into the quasi-steady-state cosmological model (QSSC) of the 1990s. From a historical point of view, this model, and a few other related models, can be seen as the latest examples of a tradition in cosmological thought that goes back to ancient Greece. The paper describes the background and development of the QSSC model.