In recent times, our work in the fusion lab has kept us exceptionally busy, leaving little time to keep our videos up to date with the many ways the Big Bang expanding universe hypothesis has been invalidated over the course of 2024. In the next few videos, we’ll make an effort to catch up on these developments, clearing the way for the new insights we’ll uncover in 2025.
One of the most significant challenges to the Big Bang hypothesis that emerged recently concerns the abundance of the element lithium. Lithium abundance is a cornerstone prediction of the Big Bang theory. If the universe had once been extremely dense and hot, fusion reactions within such conditions would have produced a specific, albeit small, amount of lithium. This limited amount is due to the fact that most lithium would have been consumed in subsequent fusion reactions. According to the theory, we should find roughly five lithium atoms for every 10 billion hydrogen atoms — a tiny fraction, but still detectable.
However, for decades, astronomers have known that this prediction presents a substantial problem. Through spectroscopic analysis, we can measure the lithium content in the outer atmospheres of stars. By examining a star’s iron content — since iron can only be produced in supernova explosions — we can approximate its age. The fewer supernovae that have occurred, the older the star likely is. Consequently, stars with low iron content formed earlier in the Milky Way’s history.
Here’s the issue: stars with lower iron content consistently show far less lithium than the Big Bang hypothesis predicts. As iron levels decrease, lithium levels also plummet, from about a quarter of the predicted amount at medium iron levels to less than one-twentieth at extremely low iron levels. This disparity has long been known as the “lithium problem,” one of many challenges to the Big Bang theory.
To reconcile this issue, some cosmologists proposed that lithium might be destroyed within stars in just the right quantities to mimic the observed trend. Yet, every such hypothesis has faced significant contradictions from other observations. Despite ongoing efforts to publish papers on potential solutions, the problem has only worsened.
The turning point came in late 2024, when a collaborative study involving researchers from Italy, France, and the United States delivered a decisive blow to the Big Bang hypothesis. Using the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, the team recorded the spectra of SK 143, a bright star in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). Analyzing the absorption lines of interstellar material, they discovered that lithium abundance in the interstellar medium of the SMC was four times lower than the Big Bang theory predicts.
This result is critical because the interstellar medium (the gas and plasma between stars) should not reduce lithium content. Stars can only add lithium through fusion processes; they cannot subtract it. Furthermore, the sparse gas in the interstellar medium is not dense enough for fusion reactions to significantly alter lithium levels. Therefore, this finding directly contradicts the Big Bang’s predictions.
Statistically, the chances that this observation aligns with Big Bang predictions are about 1 in 300 — hardly a reassuring confirmation. It instead suggests that the theory is overwhelmingly likely to be incorrect.
Interestingly, these findings are consistent with the non-expanding universe hypothesis. This model predicts lithium production through cosmic rays interacting with carbon and oxygen nuclei, a process more prevalent in the galaxy’s early, rapidly forming stages. Calculations based on these principles align well with the observed lithium levels, especially when considering that only around 40% of the gas in the SMC has formed stars — a factor that the Big Bang hypothesis fails to account for.
This precise agreement between predictions and observations offers strong support for the non-expanding universe model and underscores the necessity of reassessing long-held cosmological assumptions.
