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Scientific Program The conference will be opened
Sunday evening, 2008 September 7 with introductions and goals.
Our keynote speaker, Halton Arp, is unable to travel, but will
present Tuesday morning via live video conference. Monday through Thursday, CCC2
will continue the theme successfully established at CCC1 in
2005. (A limited number of Proceedings are still available for purchase
at
http://www.cosmology.info/2005conference/proceedings.htm).
The conference will consider the present state of understanding
of the universe in light of the increasing number of
observations that challenge the conventional cosmological model,
the Big Bang. The conference seeks to
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Assess key observational challenges
and problems confronting the existing “consensus cosmology”
to ensure the scientific community is aware of them and can
contribute to their solution.
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Assess the state of alternative
cosmologies in general and innovative theories for
various particular phenomena, including the Hubble relation,
cause of redshift, light
element abundances, microwave radiation, large-scale structure, “missing
matter”, and “dark energy”.
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Promote more dialogue between Big Bang
advocates and alternative cosmology advocates so that the
best cosmology for representing nature emerges.
As papers are contributed, conference sessions will be
organized into panels, one per session. Each
member of the first set of panels will focus on specific
observational challenges to or problems with the consensus
cosmology. Examples are the lack of Gaussianity or isotropy in
the microwave radiation, the excessive
apparent ages of high-z galaxies, the early formation of
large-scale structure, discordant results for light element
abundances, the surface-brightness / redshift relation, etc. Each member of the second
set of panels will focus on
a particular alternative cosmology, or on alternative explanations for the key phenomena of the universe,
such as the origin of redshift, the microwave radiation, large-scale structure,
gravitational forces, light element abundances, quasars, dark
matter, and dark energy. Each session’s panel will present its
papers; an informed responder will review them; and
general discussion among the conference participants will ensue. This
structure will encourage the preparation of multi-author review
papers for publication, based on each of the panels.
Prospective participants are
encouraged to plan their contribution early to assist in
organizing the program optimally. A conference banquet will be held on Wednesday evening, 2008
September 10. This will feature an invited speaker (TBA).
See "Papers" link in CCC2 Conference Navigation bar for invited and contributed paper titles and short abstracts
as they are added to the program.
Click here for the draft schedule of
individual speakers and panels.
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