Jonathan Tennenbaum: You were just sketching a radically different view of the Universe without a Big Bang – a Universe shaped by a hierarchy of filamentary structures, formed by electric currents and magnetic fields, in which the galaxies function as thermonuclear electric generators and stars are constantly being formed through a combination of magnetic fields and gravitation.
That suggests a Universe which is not cooling off or running down but actually winding itself up, so to speak. Not only that, but – if I understand correctly – the energy flows have been getting more and more concentrated in the process of formation of astronomical objects like galaxies and stars, and in the plasma filaments you have been talking about.
When stars are formed, you start to generate nuclear reactions, fusion reactions, which are a particularly intense form of energy.
Eric Lerner: In fact, if you simply release cosmology from the Big Bang theory, then one of the things that you learn from the story of cosmic evolution is that it is a process of continually increasing energy flux. In other words, the density of energy flow is continuously increasing. The cosmos is moving further and further away from a state of equilibrium – the state where there are no net energy flows.
This different narrative makes a big difference in terms of how we look at what’s happening on Earth in the year 2020.