PORT ANGELES — Fifty astronomers from around the world are gathering in Port Angeles today to change the commonly-held view of the universe.

The public is invited, for a fee, to the Red Lion Hotel to Crisis in Cosmology 2 to hear astronomers discuss the “Big Bang” theory of the creation of the universe, and its flaws.

A movement against the Big Bang theory has been building for 15 years, said Astronomer Tom Van Flandern of Sequim, one of the organizers of the conference.

“We are headed for a sudden change to something new,” he said.

The Big Bang theory says that the universe expanded from an extremely hot and condensed state, and that it continues to expand.

Van Flandern disputes that idea, saying that, in his view, the universe is not expanding and that the Big Bang theory has about 60 other errors.

This week’s conference — which will continue through Thursday — will question the reasoning behind the Big Bang theory, as well as theories about black holes, dark matter, and dark energy that are used to explain inconsistencies with the Bang Bang theory.

The first conference to assess flaws in the Big Bang theory was in Portugal three years ago, Van Flandern.