Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[DeiRenDopa]

(bold added)

I don't know who, or what, this "mainstream" is, but I personally would like you to do what I suggested in an earlier post ... put said mainstream out of its misery by writing a paper, based on Birkeland's work, that explains the things about coronal loops, solar wind acceleration, etc that you think said who/what finds so mystifying, and put it up on your website.

I already provide a link to Birkeland's whole volume of work on my website. If they won't believe his extensive work with terellas and his presentation, what makes you think one paper from me is going to make any difference?

[...]

Well, I must say I wasn't expecting that!

OK, I'll go refresh my memory of what you said about Birkeland and the power of his explanations concerning certain solar system phenomena and how they should be the foundation of a modern theory of cosmology.

When I've done that, I'll come back and ask you to explicitly state just what the Birkeland explanations are and how they can account - quantitatively - for all the relevant, modern, observations of those phenomena mentioned in your posts.

Fair enough?

 

[Michael Mozina]

To: MM
From: DRD
Re: This thread.

MM,

I have already said, at least twice, that the question posed in the title of this thread was answered, in the negative,

Answered by whom? You? A few "faithful"? Did they empirically "predict" anything useful with inflation or show that it actually exists in nature?

Consequently - logically - the only question of interest that remains is why you, MM, think it is.

It would have been logical for you to attempt to demonstrate your point empirically. You never did that. Going after me isn't going to solve the inflation problem.

I have tried three different, but somewhat related, approaches to obtain an answer to that question.

I've explained myself over something like 15 pages now too. Haven't you been reading my posts?

My current working hypothesis is that your use of language is so incoherent, and so inconsistent, that it is not possible to have a meaningful discussion with you.

There you go again getting all personal. Yawn.

Or, saying this in another way, your approach is fundamentally ascientific.

My approach is fundamentally based in empirical physics. It most certainly is "scientific" and EM fields and gravity aren't shy around a lab.

Am I making myself clear?

Perfectly clear.

As far as I can tell, you yourself have not said much of such "observational contradictions"; may I ask why?

This thread has been of more interest to me and my time has been somewhat restricted. I have struggled just to keep up with on thread. If you have a "real" issue that you feel I need to look it, post it in that thread. I'll check it out. If you intend to simply list a bunch of postdictions related to inflation/DE I likely won't bother duplicating the same discussion twice. If however there is a key issue you'd like me to look at, I will but you will need to be specific.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Well, I must say I wasn't expecting that!

OK, I'll go refresh my memory of what you said about Birkeland and the power of his explanations concerning certain solar system phenomena and how they should be the foundation of a modern theory of cosmology.

Pay attention to the *empirical experiments*.

When I've done that, I'll come back and ask you to explicitly state just what the Birkeland explanations are and how they can account - quantitatively - for all the relevant, modern, observations of those phenomena mentioned in your posts.

Fair enough?

Fair enough. I would however like you to explain *qualitatively* how he created continuous solar wind, created coronal loops and high speed plasma jets. What was the configuration of the sphere, the magnetic field inside the sphere and current flow configuration that achieved those specific "experimentally predicted" observations?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Do you realise just how dramatically different 'gravity' is, in GR, from Newtonian 'gravity'? I mean, how different can geometry be from a force?.

Of course.

Surely the point is that whatever replaces GR, or however it is extended, it must do at least as good a job of accounting for all the experimental and observations results that GR accounts for.

Surely!

Oh, and "DE" has at least two consistent meanings ... one is purely empirical (pace MM), a shorthand for 'the net of relevant SNe Ia, BAO, and CMB observations'; the other is 'lambda, the cosmological constant, in the EFE'. In either meaning, your statement is at best confusing.

How does that make my comment that current theories about DE could be overturned? Please explain.

Here is what I was responding to:

The current prevailing theory of gravity could possible be modified or amplified some day to some small degree; but it is not going to be overturned. However, it is still possible that DE will be overturned by a new approach coming from new observations.

(bold added)

If something as radically different as geometry (than a force) can overturn a current, prevailing theory of gravity once, why can't it happen again? What leads you to say that the only thing possible - wrt theories of gravity - is modification or amplification to some small degree?

If "DE" means the empirical shorthand, it cannot - by definition - "be overturned" ... by anything!

IF "DE" means lambda, then it is gravity (as in GR, the EFE, etc), and there is no (independent) "theory of DE" ... what would be overturned "by a new approach coming from new observations" would be the "current prevailing theory of gravity", which in the immediately preceding sentence you said "is not going to be overturned"!

As I said, confusing at best ...

 

[Perpetual Student]

I've given several answers to PS' question, after first prefacing my replies with something along the lines of "I'm not sure if I am to be counted among the ranks of MM's adversaries".

Here's yet another reply.

If we look at the 34 original signatories, what do we find*?

First, there are the Steady State stalwarts, such as Bondi and Narlikar. It's rather odd for any of them to say this class of theories has not 'had its day in court', given the intense scrutiny of such theories in the not too distant past.

Then there's Arp. With the explicit exclusion of Gold and Bondi, I suspect that he has more papers published in relevant, peer-reviewed astronomy and astrophysics journals than all the others in the list combined. Too, he's had many grad students to work with him on his pet projects, over the years. By all accounts he is the perfect gentleman of manners ... and yet he still cannot see just how flawed so much of his research is. How to judge a fervent believer in his own ideas, when those ideas have so comprehensively been shown to be inconsistent with all the relevant data?

There are also (in addition to the above) several people who have at least one paper on astronomy (etc) published in a relevant peer-reviewed journal: Baryshev, Marziani, Paturel, and Rudnicki (though only one, that I could find).

There are the two stalwarts of Plasma Cosmology, Lerner and Peratt, who have not - as far as I know - published anything in relevant peer-reviewed journals ('relevant' in this context means 'astronomy, cosmology, and astrophysics').

Two - Ibison and Roscoe - have papers published on topics of direct relevance to cosmology (GR and MOND, respectively).

There are four plasma/space physicists (Eastmann, Heikkila, Jarboe, Orth), one 'other physics' guy (Moret-Bailly), an engineer (not EE, Ghosh), an Earth scientist (Kafatos), a chemist (Pace), a historian (Woodward), four I can't quite classify (Assis, Marmet, Neves, Soares), .... and eight who seem to have no published papers in science at all!

Now what conclusion may we draw from such a list, especially the fact that so few of the people on it have mastered contemporary astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology sufficiently well to have had papers published (in relevant, peer-reviewed journals)? Is the bar to writing and publishing such a paper so high?

We can also ask whether this claim is credible: "Supporters of the big bang theory may retort that these theories do not explain every cosmological observation. But that is scarcely surprising, as their development has been severely hampered by a complete lack of funding." Well, it's certainly not a lack of funding that holding back the Steady State proponents! After all, many of the remaining proponents have tenured positions in well-funded universities (and how much more prestigious can you get than the Max-Planck-Institute Für Astrophysik?).

But perhaps the best illustration of how shallow this statement is comes from the reception that an alternative not explicitly listed got, MOND. I don't see any MOND proponents in the list of initial signatories (other than Roscoe). Yet MOND, as an alternative, is both newer than Steady State or Plasma Cosmology ones, and more widely accepted. Are we to believe then, per this statement, that MOND is mainstream? Or that it is not an alternative?

Or is it something as mundane as the ability of MOND proponents to write papers that meet the basic criteria for acceptance (by the relevant peer-reviewed journals), and so catch the attention of quite a few astronomers, who then go research the idea, and write yet more papers?

In short, the statement is curiously silent on what is perhaps the most important reason that the two explicitly named alternatives have failed to get any traction ... none of the proponents has been able to write a paper showing why those ideas are better - in any scientific way - than any LCDM cosmological models.

* critical caveat: these are the results of my own analyses, which are quite preliminary and may well contain errors. If you find any, please point them out.

Thanks. I cannot easily confirm your comments about the signatories. I was able to find out a little about some of them on the Internet and they appeared to have credentials in physics, astronomy and cosmology. Accepting your analysis (provisionally), I would agree that my conclusion that the list was "impressive" was at best premature and at worst in error.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Alright. After reading through it again I think I see where you're coming from on this point. Perhaps I was bit overzealous there in my response. I'm still puzzled about why you personally decided to respond to that particular question. What's the motive behind that?

Did you miss PS' post(s) where he called me on my earlier response?

 

[Michael Mozina]

So, Birkeland falsified "Alfvens's big bang theory" before Alfvén even wrote it?

???? What's the point of answering your if all you intend to do is be twist my words like a pretzel?

So, Alfvén's cosmological theory is rightly contained in file 13 then?

Er no, just that part.

Inflation:
1) demonstrate that the observable universe is not, in fact, isotropic and homogeneous on the largest scales (modulo a good quantitative version of this)

Define the exact features (size) of a "hole" or a "dark flow" that would be massive enough to falsify it? Guth already knew it was a relatively uniform layout of matter.

2) show conclusively that the CMB is not, in fact, cosmological (e.g. that it arises within ~100 Mpc of our galaxy)

Based on the "holes" that have been found in the galaxy and WMAP data, it seems that this effect is likely to be caused by an "average" density being relatively constant. It should be up to you to demonstrate it must come from a surface of last scattering.

DE: first you have to state what "the dark energy hypothesis" is; you can't falsify something that is not sufficiently precise ...

LOL! That's rich. I have to be 'precise' but you don't even have to define what it is to slap some more math formulas into inflation theory and add the label "dark energy". Sheesh. Talk about double standards.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Did you miss PS' post(s) where he called me on my earlier response?

Evidently so. Sorry. It's been a busy week and this thread moves a lot faster than I am used to.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Thanks. I cannot easily confirm your comments about the signatories. I was able to find out a little about some of them on the Internet and they appeared to have credentials in physics, astronomy and cosmology. Accepting your analysis (provisionally), I would agree that my conclusion that the list was "impressive" was at best premature and at worst in error.

To be quite clear ... some of the signatories, two or three, are really quite impressive, in terms of the calibre of at least some of their work: Narlikar, Bondi, and (perhaps) Gold (I am not very familiar with it).

Others show considerable potential, e.g. Baryshev, Marziani.

And no one can fault Arp's earlier work as an observational astronomer, nor Paturel's contributions to LEDA.

I would not be at all surprised to learn that at least some of those who have published in their areas of expertise - plasma physics, chemistry, etc - are highly regarded in those fields.

However, the quoted statement is about cosmology, and about two alternatives in particular (SS and PC), as well as "observational contradictions of the big bang". The track record - in terms of published papers on these topics - of the 34 signatories is pretty dismal (with a few notable exceptions), even depressing ... to me it reads like whining of the most contemptible kind.

ETA: Of course, I may be quite wrong ... if so, then let's have some falsifying data ...

 

[Perpetual Student]

Here is what I was responding tobold added)

If something as radically different as geometry (than a force) can overturn a current, prevailing theory of gravity once, why can't it happen again? What leads you to say that the only thing possible - wrt theories of gravity - is modification or amplification to some small degree?

If "DE" means the empirical shorthand, it cannot - by definition - "be overturned" ... by anything!

IF "DE" means lambda, then it is gravity (as in GR, the EFE, etc), and there is no (independent) "theory of DE" ... what would be overturned "by a new approach coming from new observations" would be the "current prevailing theory of gravity", which in the immediately preceding sentence you said "is not going to be overturned"!

As I said, confusing at best ...

Your comments are rather pedantic. GR is a foundational theory with enormous experimental and observational support and it is highly unlikely that it will ever be totally overturned. Of course, it could possibly be tweaked at some point. DE (the current theories that have come about due to red shift observations within the last several years) could be totally revised, abandoned or overturned by further observations and subsequent analysis. What could be simpler than that statement?

 

[Michael Mozina]

However, the quoted statement is about cosmology, and about two alternatives in particular (SS and PC), as well as "observational contradictions of the big bang". The track record - in terms of published papers on these topics - of the 34 signatories is pretty dismal (with a few notable exceptions), even depressing ... to me it reads like whining of the most contemptible kind.

Here, try some of these papers.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?return_req=no_params&&author=Alfven,+H&db_key=AST
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/n...eq=no_params&&author=Falthammar,+C&db_key=AST

 

[Michael Mozina]

Your comments are rather pedantic. GR is a foundational theory with enormous experimental and observational support and it is highly unlikely that it will ever be totally overturned. Of course, it could possibly be tweaked at some point. DE (the current theories that have come about due to red shift observations within the last several years) could be totally revised, abandoned or overturned by further observations and subsequent analysis. What could be simpler than that statement?

The funny part is that DE could actually already be "replaced" with EM fields.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.1970

 

[DeiRenDopa]

[...]

Inflation:
1) demonstrate that the observable universe is not, in fact, isotropic and homogeneous on the largest scales (modulo a good quantitative version of this)

Define the exact features (size) of a "hole" or a "dark flow" that would be massive enough to falsify it? Guth already knew it was a relatively uniform layout of matter.

2) show conclusively that the CMB is not, in fact, cosmological (e.g. that it arises within ~100 Mpc of our galaxy)

Based on the "holes" that have been found in the galaxy and WMAP data, it seems that this effect is likely to be caused by an "average" density being relatively constant. It should be up to you to demonstrate it must come from a surface of last scattering.

DE: first you have to state what "the dark energy hypothesis" is; you can't falsify something that is not sufficiently precise ...

LOL! That's rich. I have to be 'precise' but you don't even have to define what it is to slap some more math formulas into inflation theory and add the label "dark energy". Sheesh. Talk about double standards.

Here's what you asked (bold added): "How can I falsify any part of the inflation hypothesis or the dark energy hypothesis?"

May I ask in what way does your post, that I am quoting, addresses the question that you asked?

"???? What's the point of answering your if all you intend to do is be twist my words like a pretzel?" - do you know who wrote that?

 

[Michael Mozina]

Here's what you asked (bold added): "How can I falsify any part of the inflation hypothesis or the dark energy hypothesis?"

May I ask in what way does your post, that I am quoting, addresses the question that you asked?

"???? What's the point of answering your if all you intend to do is be twist my words like a pretzel?" - do you know who wrote that?

It must be time for me to head for bed. Your statements aren't even making sense, specifically the part I emphasized. Why would one of my post address my own question? I'm tired and that highlighted question simply makes no sense to me whatsoever.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Your comments are rather pedantic. GR is a foundational theory with enormous experimental and observational support and it is highly unlikely that it will ever be totally overturned.

I imagine that words with a similar meaning were written ~100 years after Newton published his theory of gravity too ... and that theory wasn't overturned until the early 20th century.

Yet Homo sapiens has been around for merely a million years or so, and science only 500 (or a couple of thousand, YMMV).

And yet how more radical could a theory be overturned, than by replacing a force with geometry?

From where does you evident confidence in the permanence of GR come?

For example, it has been known for many decades now that QM and GR are mutually incompatible at a very fundamental level ... so at least one must be overturned sometime, and possibly both.

Of course, it could possibly be tweaked at some point. DE (the current theories that have come about due to red shift observations within the last several years) could be totally revised, abandoned or overturned by further observations and subsequent analysis. What could be simpler than that statement?

First, as I said, "DE" has at least two different meanings.

In one it is merely a shorthand for the sum total of all relevant observations (CMB, SNe Ia, BAO, ...). As such, it cannot be "overturned", by definition ... any more than any other collection of observational data can.

In another it is merely a part of GR, and observations establishing that lambda has a value of precisely zero are rarely elevated to the exalted heights of overturnment (or whatever).

Of course, there are specific hypotheses which may well be overturned, quintessence, for example (MM seems to be ignorant of this nuance, but then he seems to deny that lambda is 'merely' a part of GR to begin with).

Oh, and although some DE hypotheses are derived from, or part of, theories, AFAIK there is no such thing as "DE (the current theories that have come about due to red shift observations within the last several years)". It's tricky I know, but 'theory' has a rather different meaning in science than in everyday English (and it's quite different from any of the wide range of meanings that MM uses when penning that word).

 

[sol invictus]

The funny part is that DE could actually already be "replaced" with EM fields.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.1970

Whoa... you believe that paper? It says that the energy in EM fields does not redshift with the expansion of the universe!! You'd better go back and argue with the other MM that was here, because he ranted on and on about how every form of energy must decrease with expansion!

That's going to be entertaining to watch!



The ironic thing is, both of you are wrong...

 

[Tubbythin]

Why should I? I certainly believe that we grossly underestimate the mass in many galaxies, and I'm sure MACHO forms of "dark matter" exist in nature. As long as you aren't stuffing hypothetical SUSY particles in there, I'll let you use "dark matter" in the form of MACHO forms of dark matter, neutrinos, etc.

The only problem being, we know (or at least we think we know) that MACHOS cannot be the only explanation from microlensing experiments. Unless you want to object to GR again...

 

[Tubbythin]

If I can't explain it without it, that is not an automatic "inflationofthegaps" option that allows you to stuff inflation in there.

Of course, that why we have other reasons for having it. Like the horizon problem.

It's flat because it's always been that way for all I know.

Well, without it GR gives no particular reason for space being flat. Though it is rather conveinient. If space was highly curved we probably wouldn't exist. Without a scientific theory like inflation we're left with a very big problem.

A better answer is "I don't know why it's flat".

Good answer. But what you don't know about the Universe doesn't mean other people don't have a good idea.

Again however, my inability to explain it's flatness is not an excuse for instantly stuffing inflation into the gaps.

That's why its a good job it explains multiple observations. The question you asked was did it have any effect on the Universe today (or words to that effect). To which the resounding answer is "YES", if the theory is a good one since its probably responsible for the whole structure of the Universe. And since inflation can account for multiple observations most of us seem to think its a good theory. You could always offer up an alternative if you so desired.

In other words, no, someone will just tweak the alleged properties of inflation until they "postdict" another fit, and away we go again. What *possible way* is there to falsify a constantly postdicted theory based on no less than 3 different fudge factors and only 4% real physics?

Now you're just spouting rubbish again. You said you were OK with GR and then you say that our current cosmological paradigm which is entirely consistent with and governed by GR is only 4% physics. You really are a bit confused, aren't you?

 

[Tubbythin]

QM was fine 20 years ago before DE. You then change the mixture of the galaxy and add 75% of something you can't identify and it has no affect on QM?

As I understand it (not very well admittedly), if anything, the problem from QM is why the lambda term is so small.

 

[Tubbythin]

We find you again attacking the credibility of the individual rather than defending your own theory with empirical evidence. It is because you can't do the later that you are forced to do the former. It's getting old.

The person who couldn't defend his opinions with science and resorts to an argument from a long list of people accusing somebody who tears his pathetic list to shreds of not being able to provide empirical evidence. I can't find the words to describe the level of hypocrisy here.