The Big Bang - Woo or not?

[sol invictus]

this just about sums up what wrong with the Big Bang. No matter what new evidence is found, the theory is never falsified, it merely 'changes and grows' and gets tweaked to explain away any falsifying observations.

...failed BBT based traditional fusion attempts...

Zeuzzz, what do you think the "BBT" is?

 

[Dancing David]

This is the crux of the issue. BBT can not be compared at all to any other area of science; its based on observations, not controlled experiments. It can not compare with the thousands of particle physics experiments upon which the Standard Model is based.

This is why the big bang should be taken with a pinch of salt. Its just one interpretation of the observations. It should just be one interpretation out of many valid contendors. Its very hard to rule one interpretation out over another definitively in the area of cosmology. Cosmology is unlike any other scientific discipline is this respect.

Wrong.

Your theories do NOT match the observations.

But the thing is that the spectra of these 300,000 thousand galaxies that you claim all act as independant proofs of the theory could infact all act as independant proofs for another cosmology that interprets all of these redshifts in a different way, and then they would act as strong evidence against the Big Bang in one simple step It all comes back down to how you interpret the data.

No it doesn't, you have yet to suggest a model that fits the data, so while possible, it is improbable at this point. yes, there are alternatives but they do not fit the observations. Still waiting for your to present something.

There are many ways to do this. The BBT interpretation does not have to be the only one considered. But this seems to be the current trend. Which I just find annoying; alternatives are dismissed as if they have nothing over the BBT simply because they contradict BBT.

Unsubstantiated political philosophy Zeuzzz, which of these models matches which data?

Cosmology shouldn't work like that, due to the very specific limits it faces as a scientific discipline. Things should be left more open than other areas of science, and alternatives considered. But as Sol demonstrated on the previous page when I posted a few alternative interpretations of the data, people dont even consider them, he just said: "I don't keep track of every crackpot idea". Why crackpot? because it is contrary to his interpretation of the data? all interpretaions should be considered on their individual merits, not dismissed for simply being at odds with other interpretations.

Nice blah and blah, with no data, no evidence.

Thats a logical fallacy, and shows a most unscientific reasoning.

And YOU Zeuzzz just happen to IGNORE the facts that each one of your ideas does not fit the observations. In seperate place, and on different threads, each possibility has been discussed. And most just don't fit the data.

I have asked you many, many , mnay times for theory, data and fit. And each time the data has not met the observations. Or you have just NOT provided it!

So yes, there may be possibilities that explain the red shift other thna the current ones in vogue. However the way that the redshift is determined is very robust and the way that the distance ladder is determined is also very robust.

So while these alternatives are possible, you have yet to present, theory and data that actualy fit observations.

I am still waiting, you make these huge philosophical arguments but when it comes to substance, you still haven't provided anything that comes close to substantial. Please put the cards on the table, otherwise it still is possible and not probable.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Zeuzzz, what do you think the "BBT" is?

A cosmological theory based primarily on an interpretation of the meaning of redshift data and based in GR. In addition, to solve the horizon and flatness problem, you have inflation added in there, then also a bit of dark matter to patch up the problems with the exclusively attractive field of gravity in explaining the shape of galaxies. Then to help everything else fit in with this creation event various 'seed' theories are required for all the objects to form from after the initial explosion, to help explain the current structure, then to account for the acceleration of the expansion problem a bit of dark matter is thrown in. Something like that in a nutsell. Also tied in with this finite timescale are various nuclear cycle models, and lifespans of particles, and other areas (thus my comment about the main attempts at fusion being BBT based, [whereas focus fusion PC based])

The observations ARE controlled experiments.
The point you don't seem to grasp is that the laws of physics don't depend on "who" is performing the experiment. A result from a 'natural' experiment is every bit as valuable as one from a man-made experiment providing the uncertainties in the measurement are well judged. How do we judge this? perform another experiment and see if we get the same answer.

Not at all. The universe offers no control experiment and so can not be compared to any other area of science. Observations alone are completely different to what you can achieve with controlled in situ scientific experiments. As I keep saying, and people keep ignoring, comparing the big bang or cosmology to other scientific theories is a misnomer, with no independent checks on the universe it is bound to be highly ambiguous and degenerate. Cosmology is not really a science like others are, and never can be. Thats why other interpretations of the data should not be dismissed so readily.

A few of these major differences that separates cosmology from other areas of science:

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0009/0009020v1.pdf

PARTICULAR DIFFICULTIES FOR COSMOLOGY AS A SCIENCE

1. Only one Universe.
2. Universe opaque for 56/60 decades since Planck era.
3. Need to extrapolate physics over huge distances.
4. Need to work with what we can currently detect. [But . . . ]
5. Local background very bright.
6. Distances very hard to determine (standard candles).
7. Observational Selection insidious.
8. Distant galaxies hard to measure and interpret unambiguously.
9. Luminosity Functions unreliable.
10. Geometry, astrophysics and evolution often entangled.
11. Physics of early Universe unknown (and unknowable?)
12. Human time-frame so short compared to cosmic.
13. Origin of inertia.
14. The singularity.

(A) There is only one Universe! At a stroke this removes from our armoury all the statistical tools that have proved indispensable for understanding most of astronomy.

(B) The Universe has been opaque to electromagnetic radiation for all but 4 of the 60 decades of time which stretch between the Plank era (10⁻⁴³ sec) and today (10¹⁷ sec). Since as much interesting physics could have occurred in each logarithmic decade, it seems foolhardy to claim that we will ever know much about the origin of the cosmos, which is lost too far back in the logarithmic mists of Time. Even the Large Hadron Collider will probe the microphysics back only as far as 10−10 secs). [2].

(C) Cosmology requires us to extrapolate what physics we know over huge ranges in space and time, where such extrapolations have rarely, if ever, worked in physics before. Take gravitation for instance.. When we extrapolate the Inverse Square Law. ( - dress it up how you will as G.R.) from the solar system where it was established, out to galaxies and clusters of galaxies, it simply never works. We cover up this scandal by professing to believe in “Dark Matter” - for which as much independent evidence exists as for the Emperor’s New Clothes.

(D) Objects at cosmologically interesting distance are exceedingly faint, small and heavily affected by factors such as redshift-dimming and k-corrections, so it will obviously be very difficult, if not impossible, to extract clear information about geometry, or evolution, or astrophysics - all of which are tangled up together.

(E) Observational astronomy is all about the contrast between an object and its background [3] - both the background of the local Universe and the background noise in our instruments, which are never perfect. Almost all the galaxies we know of are just marginally brighter than the terrestrial sky - either extraordinary good fortune, or more likely a signal that far more are hidden beneath it [4,5,6]. In other words we are in this, as in all other facets of observational astronomy, hapless victims of “Observational Selection” - an area in which George Ellis has done some brilliant work [7]. The sky isn’t dark. Even at the darkest site of Earth the unaided eye can pick up 50,000 photons a second coming from an area of “dark sky” no larger than the full moon. Bigger telescopes are all very well - but they pick up more unwanted foreground light, as well as background signal. When you think that the galaxies at a redshift z of 2 should be dimmer by (1 + z)⁴ ~ 100, and by another large but uncertain factor for the k-correction [i.e. band-pass shifting], it is more than a wonder to me that we can see anything of them at all. Ordinary galaxies at that redshift should be hundreds of times dimmer per unit area than our sky! It is also sobering to realise that only one per cent of the light in the night sky comes from beyond our Galaxy.

(F) The tragedy of astronomy is that most information lies in spectra, and yet you need to collect between 100 and 1000 times more radiation to get a spectrum than to see an image. [........]

Disney also points out even in his own field of galactic astronomy that "Although we now have good spectra and images of thousands of galaxies the list of fundamental things we don’t know about them (Table 3) is far more striking that the list of things we do."


http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0009/0009020v1.pdf

Table 3
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW ABOUT GALAXIES
1. How our knowledge is warped by Selection Effects.
2. What they are mostly made of. (Dark Matter?)
3. How they formed - and when.
4. How much internal extinction they suffer from.
5. What controls their global star-formation rates.
6. What parts their nuclei and halos play.
7. If there are genuine correlations among their global properties.
8. How they keep their gas/star balances.

And the next section is worth a read aswell. I've probably exceeded the amount of text i can quote without getting a mod edit so i'll just say its about the assumptions cosmologists have to subscribe to that are different to other areas of science, the non theological assumption, the good luck assumption, the simplicity assumption, the non circularity assumption, etc.

For all these above reasons I think its perfectly reasonable to remain skeptical of the big bang and this interpretation of the data. Since its so hard to prove one theory over the other in the area of cosmology we should not get fixated on one particular interpretation of the data, but consider alternatives on an even par. Either finding more direct evidence for the universal expansion must be of paramount importance, or alternatives must be considered on an equal basis. Expansion has run into various problems recently with surface brightness data (see for example: Evidence for a Non-Expanding Universe: Surface Brightness Data From HUDF) so the much awaited (since Tolman proposed it in the 1930's) surface brightness test for verifying expansion is not looking good so far.


Generally its a good idea for theories to fit the data. Is the Big Bang falsified by all this data? Some would say yes. Some would rather just add a few extra theories in to explain the data. Is the big bang falsified by the numrous datas showing non iostropy? or Light Element Abundances data? Alignment of CBR data? They all certainly disagree with the BBT. As dancing david would say about PC i'll say in return about the Big Bang: No-one has shown that the Big Bang can fit with all this data, infact this data pretty much rules out the Big Bang, blah, blah.


http://www.bigbangneverhappened.org/

Surface brightness is constant

One of the striking predictions of the Big Bang theory is that ordinary geometry does not work at great distances. In the space around us, on earth, in the solar system and the galaxy (non-expanding space), as objects get farther away, they get smaller. Since distance correlates with redshift, the product of angular size and red shift, qz, is constant. Similarly the surface brightness of objects, brightness per unit area on the sky, measured as photons per second, is a constant with increasing distance for similar objects.

In contrast, the Big Bang expanding universe predicts that surface brightness, defined as above, decreases as (z+1)^-3. More distant objects actually should appear bigger. But observations show that in fact the surface brightness of galaxies up to a redshift of 6 are exactly constant, as predicted by a non-expanding universe and in sharp contradiction to the Big Bang. Efforts to explain this difference by evolution--early galaxies are different than those today-- lead to predictions of galaxies that are impossibly bright and dense.

 

[Zeuzzz]

then to account for the acceleration of the expansion problem a bit of dark matter is thrown in.

whoops, not DM, dark energy.

 

[sol invictus]

A cosmological theory based primarily on an interpretation of the meaning of redshift data and based in GR.

That's a reasonable summary. Question - do you consider all theories in which space is currently expanding to be BBTs, even if there was no initial singularity (no BB)?

In addition, to solve the horizon and flatness problem, you have inflation added in there, then also a bit of dark matter to patch up the problems with the exclusively attractive field of gravity in explaining the shape of galaxies. Then to help everything else fit in with this creation event various 'seed' theories are required for all the objects to form from after the initial explosion, to help explain the current structure, then to account for the acceleration of the expansion problem a bit of dark matter is thrown in. Something like that in a nutsell.

That last dark matter should have been dark energy, but yeah, still not bad. Of course, when you say that BBT isn't falsifiable, you presumably mean only the first sentence quoted above? Inflation is easily falsifiable, as is dark energy (after all, there was no evidence for it until 10 years ago or so), as is dark matter. Heck, even the first sentence is potentially falsifiable (like if GR turns out to be wrong) - it's just harder to imagine.

Also tied in with this finite timescale are various nuclear cycle models, and lifespans of particles, and other areas (thus my comment about the main attempts at fusion being BBT based, [whereas focus fusion PC based])

I don't understand the comment in [] - it doesn't seem to be English. But anyway this is were you really get weird. Now you're identifying the BB with nuclear, particle, and plasma physics. Of course that's nonsense - the all of those fields existed before the BB, and if the BB somehow turned out to be wrong, they could still be perfectly valid.

As I keep saying, and people keep ignoring, comparing the big bang or cosmology to other scientific theories is a misnomer, with no independent checks on the universe it is bound to be highly ambiguous and degenerate. Cosmology is not really a science like others are, and never can be. Thats why other interpretations of the data should not be dismissed so readily.

They keep ignoring you because you're wrong. We can't create the sun in a lab either, but its study is certainly science. The essence of science is the belief that there are a set of rules by which nature operates. It derives all its power, and all of its utility, from that fact that we can figure out those rules and then use them to predict the results of experiments we either cannot do or have not yet done.

http://www.bigbangneverhappened.org/

Everything in that quote is wrong. In an non-expanding universe there is no redshift, so the first relation is wrong. In an expanding universe the surface brightness does indeed go down as a power of (1+z), but contrary to the false claim made there, that is what the observations show. For example:

Allan Sandage and Lori M. Lubin, 2271-88; Lori M. Lubin and Allan Sandage, "The Tolman Surface Brightness Test for the Reality of the Expansion. II. The Effect of the Point-Spread Function and Galaxy Ellipticity on the Derived Photometric Parameters," Astronomical Journal 121 (2001): 2289-300; Lori M. Lubin and Allan Sandage, "The Tolman Surface Brightness Test for the Reality of the Expansion. III. Hubble Space Telescope Profile and Surface Brightness Data for Early-Type Galaxies in Three High-Redshift Clusters," Astronomical Journal 122 (2001): 1071-83; Lori M. Lubin and Allan Sandage, "The Tolman Surface Brightness Test for the Reality of the Expansion. IV. A Measurement of the Tolman Signal and the Luminosity Evolution of Early-Type Galaxies," Astronomical Journal, 122 (2001): 1084-1103.

 

[Cuddles]

I don't understand the comment in [] - it doesn't seem to be English. But anyway this is were you really get weird. Now you're identifying the BB with nuclear, particle, and plasma physics. Of course that's nonsense - the all of those fields existed before the BB, and if the BB somehow turned out to be wrong, they could still be perfectly valid.

The really sad part is that Zeuzzz's own pet "theories" depend very much on nuclear, particle and plasma physics. By equating the big bang with most of the rest of modern physics and thereby dismissing it, he also dismisses any foundation he may have had to support his own stuff.

 

[bigred]

I don't have a dog in this fight, but the idea that the big bang is "woo" is quite obviously ridiculous. From what I can tell it's mostly sneered at by paranoid/insecure atheists who think believing in or agreeing with the big bang will (or even can) somehow be used to "prove" God, which is also absurd.

The evidence in the big bang's favor outweighs the evidence against it, so any objective person I'd think would therefore lean towards believing it, even if with a grain of salt.

So while certainly debatable, it is hardly "woo."

 

[Cainkane1]

I was listening to a debate between some creationist and an atheist scientist and when the creationist said he thought that the big bang theory meant something came from nothing. That statement was absurd as the big bang theory says that matter and energy and the universe were once the size of a pea. Scientists never said something came from nothing. That is a stupid uneducated assumption on the part of the creationist. The atheist said that they didn't know everything and that they had no idea where the pea sized universe came from.

I personally think that the big bang theory makes more sense than the six day theory of creation which eventually includes the talking snake and other absurd unscientific ideas. When creationists are asked where did God come from they answer "Oh he's always been here". He's supernatural. That doesn't make sense to me.

 

[anticonspiracy911]

Guys, why bother debating this Zeuzz guy? His avatar says it all. He's an Alex Grey lover and Alex Grey is out there. Alex Grey is into woo. His drawings will confirm this. Zeuzz doesn't like science. He's just as bad as religious people. He wants there to be some transcendent thing connected to humans because he wants to keep his conceit and continue to feel he's special. He doesn't care about evidence and treats everything as a matter of opinion. You simply can't argue with such an ignoramus.

 

[sol invictus]

Guys, why bother debating this Zeuzz guy? His avatar says it all. He's an Alex Grey lover and Alex Grey is out there. Alex Grey is into woo. His drawings will confirm this. Zeuzz doesn't like science. He's just as bad as religious people. He wants there to be some transcendent thing connected to humans because he wants to keep his conceit and continue to feel he's special. He doesn't care about evidence and treats everything as a matter of opinion. You simply can't argue with such an ignoramus.

I don't know anything about Alex Grey, but what you say about Zeuzzz coincides precisely with what I've observed in these threads.

But I don't see this as a debate with Zeuzzz (which I agree is pointless). It's a thread that might be read by many other people, some of whom may have doubts about the big bang (due to ignorance, or religious beliefs, or simply general skepticism). They might learn something from reading it, and we the participants might learn something from re-examining the basics of the field. So it's not totally useless.

 

[Reality Check]

Zeuzzz: There is a Wikipedia article on the Tolman Surface Brightness Test if you don't want to read through the papers. In a static universe the exponent for (1+z) is zero and in a simple expanding universe the exponent is 4. Experimentally the exponent is 2.6 or 3.4, depending on the frequency band. This is evidence for a complex expanding universe.
Thus Lerner is lying or ignorant. There is no date on his web page other than that his book was published in 1991.

 

[Tubbythin]

Something like that in a nutsell. Also tied in with this finite timescale are various nuclear cycle models, and lifespans of particles, and other areas (thus my comment about the main attempts at fusion being BBT based, [whereas focus fusion PC based])

Zeuzzz, do you realise that the most significant mainstream attempts at using fusion as an energy source is through plasma physics? And has absolutely nothing to do with "nuclear cycle models"?

Not at all. The universe offers no control experiment and so can not be compared to any other area of science. Observations alone are completely different to what you can achieve with controlled in situ scientific experiments.

How controlled do you think the LHC is? I mean sure you can control the beams and their energy. But some of the real science is picking the interesting data out from the millions and millions of bits of uninteresting data.
And I'll ask again... do you think the laws of physics differ between "controlled" experiments and experiments done by selective observation?

As I keep saying, and people keep ignoring, comparing the big bang or cosmology to other scientific theories is a misnomer, with no independent checks on the universe it is bound to be highly ambiguous and degenerate. Cosmology is not really a science like others are, and never can be. Thats why other interpretations of the data should not be dismissed so readily.

A misnomer is something that is poorly named. What are you suggestiong is poorly named?
There are multiple checks on the age of the Universe.
Unphysical interpretations and those which disagree with multiple observations should be dismissed without a seconds thought as far as I'm concerned.

http://www.bigbangneverhappened.org/

You do realise every time you quote that website I'm gonna quote Ned Wright right back at you?
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/lerner_errors.html

 

[DanishDynamite]

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded. - Terry Pratchett.

So. Woo or not?

MODERN COSMOLOGY: SCIENCE OR FOLK TALE?




This thread should be about all the points raised in the above quoted article on the Big Bang and modern cosmology. If you cant be bothered to read it and contemplate what is being said, then please don’t post anything. It makes some very pertinent points.

Utterly non-woo.

The Steady State Theory had a lot going for it, and for quite some years. But with the advent of accidental recording of the micro-wave background, the theory was discarded. And has been, ever since.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Guys, why bother debating this Zeuzz guy? His avatar says it all. He's an Alex Grey lover and Alex Grey is out there. Alex Grey is into woo. His drawings will confirm this. Zeuzz doesn't like science. He's just as bad as religious people. He wants there to be some transcendent thing connected to humans because he wants to keep his conceit and continue to feel he's special. He doesn't care about evidence and treats everything as a matter of opinion. You simply can't argue with such an ignoramus.

What a post! How many logical fallaices here I wonder? I wish I was a psychologist, theres probably a good reason for this type of reaction, but i'm completely baffled.

Alex grey is a bloody amazing artist. He may be a total hippy and as you say be 'way out there', but his art is beyond reproach. Most artists are mad. Especially the good ones.

Come back and critisise him when you can draw art by hand like this:

If I had one of van goughs pictures as my avatar I suppose we could dismiss everything I say as this obviously means that I'm a van gough lover, and van gough was a complete nutter, who was severely mentally ill and cut his own ear lobe off. What sort of warped reasoning is this? Jeez.

 

[Zeuzzz]

The really sad part is that Zeuzzz's own pet "theories" depend very much on nuclear, particle and plasma physics.

Correct. What else would they be based on?

By equating the big bang with most of the rest of modern physics and thereby dismissing it, he also dismisses any foundation he may have had to support his own stuff.

I'm not equating the big bang with the rest of modern physics. Other people often do that for me. People frquently say "the nuclear cycle and age of stars proves the Big Bang, blah, blah", and I merely point out that there are alternatives for our interpretation of stellar age, and also that stars fuel source doesn't have to be finite when other considerations I have discussed at great length here are taken into account. There are a few aspects that of course dont make sense if the Big Bang turns out wrong and would have to be changed or replaced, like primordial nucleosynthesis, baryogenesis, etc. The only aspect of the standard model that would really need to be changed are BBN and the orgins of the elements and the respective abundances we see of each. And alternative models for element production without a big bang do exist, just not many people pay any attention to them.

I dont think that particle physics puts any limit on the age of the universe by particle decay or otherwise in its current state, I think in terms of this (due to energy conservation, matter energy equivalence, etc) its now considered in equilibrium. An Ideal situation for an infinite universe. But I could be wrong with this, particle physics is not really my forte.

Of course though, there is one certain cosmological theory that neglects the conservation of energy in many respects, but lets not go there.

 

[DanishDynamite]

What a post! How many logical fallaices here I wonder? I wish I was a psychologist, theres probably a good reason for this type of reaction, but i'm completely baffled.

Alex grey is a bloody amazing artist. He may be a total hippy and as you say be 'way out there', but his art is beyond reproach. Most artists are mad. Especially the good ones.

Come back and critisise him when you can draw art by hand like this:

[qimg]http://murdamw.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/alex-grey.jpg[/qimg]


If I had one of van goughs pictures as my avatar I suppose we could dismiss everything I say as this obviously means that I'm a van gough lover, and van gough was a complete nutter, who was severely mentally ill and cut his own ear lobe off. What sort of warped reasoning is this? Jeez.

Your view on physics is good, but please don't start involving Art and its appreciation in this thread. Thanks.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Utterly non-woo.

The Steady State Theory had a lot going for it, and for quite some years. But with the advent of accidental recording of the micro-wave background, the theory was discarded. And has been, ever since.

I dont think the big bang is woo. I just asked the question in the vain hope that other people that continually call viable alternatives like plasma cosmology woo would try to get the message that simply labelling a scientific theory as woo is not the way to do things. Its more a response to the similarily title thread about PC. Just wanted to start a debate with the same heading.

If a theory has many problems and issues, like the big bang theory does, and so does plasma cosmology, or any other cosmology for that matter, it doesn't make it woo. Its still a scientific theory, but with problems.

Things like homeopathy, or Alchemy however, woooo-wooo, big time. They are nothing to do with science.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Of course though, there is one certain cosmological theory that neglects the conservation of energy in many respects, but lets not go there.

Actually, lets go there.

What about this then. The dark energy field violates one of the best-tested laws of physics (conservation of energy). This is surely something that would never be acceptable in any other field of physics.

Is this another area where the Big Bang is different to every other scientific theory?

 

[DanishDynamite]

I dont think the big bang is woo. I just asked the question in the vain hope that other people that continually call viable alternatives like plasma cosmology woo would try to get the message that simply labelling a scientific theory as woo is not the way to do things. Its more a response to the similarily title thread about PC. Just wanted to start a debate with the same heading.

If a theory has many problems and issues, like the big bang theory does, and so does plasma cosmology, or any other cosmology for that matter, it doesn't make it woo. Its still a scientific theory, but with problems.

Things like homeopathy, or Alchemy however, woooo-wooo, big time. They are nothing to do with science.

The Big Bang theory has no
problems or issues, aside from the big one. Which every theory has problems with.

 

[DanishDynamite]

Actually, lets go there.

What about this then. The dark energy field violates one of the best-tested laws of physics (conservation of energy). This is surely something that would never be acceptable in any other field of physics.

Is this another area where the Big Bang is different to every other scientific theory?

To my knowledge, dark energy is not a theory, but just a phrase.