All of this, is based on the absolute unequivocal speed of light having remained unchanged since the Big Bang.
But there has been a gnawing supposition in all of this that asks what if the speed of light traveled at different speeds over time?
Cosmological Constant
Einstein's Greatest Blunder
Einstein's Greatest Blunder
However, there is a basic flaw in this Einstein static model: it is unstable - like a pencil balanced on its point. For imagine that the Universe grew slightly: say by 1 part per million in size. Then the vacuum energy density stays the same, but the matter energy density goes down by 3 parts per million. This gives a net negative gravitational acceleration, which makes the Universe grow even more! If instead the Universe shrank slightly, one gets a net positive gravitational acceleration, which makes it shrink more! Any small deviation gets magnified, and the model is fundamentally flawed.
In addition to this flaw of instability, the static model's premise of a static Universe was shown by Hubble to be incorrect. This led Einstein to refer to the cosmological constant as his greatest blunder, and to drop it from his equations. But it still exists as a possibility -- a coefficient that should be determined from observations or fundamental theory.
Robert Jastrow (September 7, 1925 – February 8, 2008) was an American astronomer, physicist and cosmologist. He was a leading NASA scientist, populist author and futurist.
Quotes:
“Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”
“There is a strange ring of feeling and emotion in these reactions [of scientists to evidence that the universe had a sudden beginning]. They come from the heart whereas you would expect the judgments to come from the brain. Why? I think part of the answer is that scientists cannot bear the thought of a natural phenomenon which cannot be explained, even with unlimited time and money. There is a kind of religion in science; it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the Universe. Every event can be explained in a rational way as the product of some previous event; every effect must have its cause, there is no First Cause. … This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized.”
“Consider the enormity of the problem. Science has proved that the universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks: What cause produced this effect? Who or what put the matter or energy into the universe? And science cannot answer these questions, because, according to the astronomers, in the first moments of its existence the Universe was compressed to an extraordinary degree, and consumed by the heat of a fire beyond human imagination. The shock of that instant must have destroyed every particle of evidence that could have yielded a clue to the cause of the great explosion.”
“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of creation, but they are driven by the nature of their profession to seek explanations for the origin of life that lie within the boundaries of natural law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jastrow