Has Cosmology taken a Wrong Turn in its Historical Development?
Bernard R. Bligh
A review of the historical development of cosmology suggests that there are two approaches. One starts with the special and general theories of relativity and proceeds along the lines of theoretical physics; the other takes account of the fact that the universe consists of matter and that the chemical, physical and thermodynamic properties of matter need to be considered. The second approach is of paramount importance for two reasons; first because facts based on experiments in chemistry and physics have accumulated over two centuries and have a sound provenance, and second because thermodynamic data provide a means of doing thermodynamic calculations to test the validity of theories on the nature and origin of the universe. The thermodynamic data in question are numerical values of properties of matter such as internal energy, ionization energy and entropy.
