Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[Skwinty]

(bold added)

The "Hubble Law" cannot be "proved to be incorrect".


The "cosmological redshift" also cannot be "proved to be incorrect".

..

My bad, not stated very well.
If the interpreted cause of redshift was incorrect or Hubble made some mistakes in his empirical measurements.

The reason I ask is:

The expansion of space, which is the predominant interpretation of cosmological redshift, is the foundation of the BBT, specifically when running time in reverse.

Or, am I misunderstanding the issue?

 

[sol invictus]

Hi TT,
Question wrt to above quote.
If the cosmological redshift and Hubble Law were proved to be incorrect, as many are trying to prove, where would this leave the BBT?

I think you're asking what would happen if, say, the redshift of distant objects turned out to be due to something other than recession velocity? Tired light, for example?

If that were firmly established, it would have many effects. It would probably overturn GR, because GR does not contain any stable, static cosmological solutions. One would then be left in the very awkward position of explaining all the phenomena GR explains so well with something else.

It would overturn BBT - if distant objects aren't receding, there's no reason to think there was a bang in our past. One would be left struggling to understand how all the various paradoxes associated with static universes would be resolved (Olber's, 2nd law of thermo, etc.) and how to explain the CMB, the many observed changes as a function of redshift in galaxy clustering, metallicity, stellar populations, etc. (these are easy to understand in BBT, because higher redshift means greater distance means longer ago means the conditions in the universe were very different - but they are incomprehensible in a static model).

It would overturn some large chunk of non-gravitational physics, because there is no known mechanism that can explain cosmological redshifts other than an expanding universe.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

My bad, not stated very well.
If the interpreted cause of redshift was incorrect or Hubble made some mistakes in his empirical measurements.

[nitpick]

Hubble made a great many mistakes in his empirical measurements!

However, astronomers subsequently tested the Hubble relationship a bazillion ways to Sunday, and the relationship holds (albeit in a somewhat different form than Hubble's first publication of it).

For example, one big surprise was "Dark Energy" - the line turned out to be not linear, but somewhat bent, and a shorthand way to describe the apparent bending (of the curve) is "accelerated expansion", or "Dark Energy". Of course, dozens (hundreds?) of astronomers - and others - tried to find fault with the work of the two teams who (independently and essentially simultaneously) announced finding this DE. And if you think MM and Z have been given a hard time here, you should know that the scrutiny the DE observations - initial and subsequent - got makes their grilling seem very mild indeed.

[/nitpick]

The reason I ask is:

The expansion of space, which is the predominant interpretation of cosmological redshift, is the foundation of the BBT, specifically when running time in reverse.

Or, am I misunderstanding the issue?

You are, in one respect.

The CMB, the primordial abundance of light nuclides, and large-scale structure are just as much "foundation of the BBT" as the Hubble relationship. And, as si has noted, the one thing which ties this all together is GR.

The true theoretical underpinning of the BBT is GR.

And that is the reason why, when all is said and done, that what "many are trying to prove" is nothing other than a falsification of GR (or a dramatic revision of it).

Once you grasp this you can easily see why PC (as defined by Lerner, for example) is the very definition of scientific woo.

 

[Skwinty]

thanks DRD and SI,
I can now understand why the mainstream is skeptical of these alternatives as much is at stake.

After all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I am not a big fan of PC/EU although I do concede that these alternatives may have a basis in some minor features in current cosmology.

 

[sol invictus]

Since I went to the bother of typing out a more detailed reply to essentially the same question in the other thread, let me quote it here:

Do you think it is remotely possible that we have it all wrong regarding cosmological expansion and the big bang?

It is remotely possible, yes. But the odds are so low I can't even estimate them.

Here's what would have to be wrong:

• GR (since there are no stable static cosmo solutions), Newtonian gravity (same reason), and in fact any theory in which gravity is attractive and there are no repulsive forces of comparable size acting over cosmological distances (same reason).
  
  
• that the redshift of distant objects is due to recession velocities (because if they are, the universe is expanding).
  
  
• that all of the myriad effects we see correlated with redshift - amounts of metals and other elements (you see those via absorption and emission lines in spectra), composition of stellar populations, shapes and configuration of large scale structures, etc. etc. - have some explanation other than that the universe was different when it was younger. Hard to imagine why, in a static universe, distance from earth would be correlated with so many changes in those things, isn't it?
  
  
• the simple explanation of the CMB that arises in BBT (in a static universe, it would have to be something like that there's a very hot, perfectly thermalized, perfectly spherical wall centered on the earth and about 13 billion lightyears in radius).
  
  
• the 2nd law of thermodynamics - if the universe is eternal, it should now be in equilibrium. Yet stars are still forming and igniting.
  
  
• as much of non-gravitational physics as is need to account for the redshift by some other means.

Point being, there's a vast array of many different kinds of evidence that all indicates that the universe is expanding and was very different in the past. For it all to have another interpretation is.... very difficult to imagine.

 

[Dancing David]

Read through my explanation to Derek one time. I think you'll have a better idea what I'm trying to explain. It's all about kinetic energy and the kinetic energy of the carrier particle of the EM field. Remember that photons carry "kinetic energy", and it is better to view the whole process as a transfer of kinetic energy rather than mass.

Your argument that photons carry kinetic energy is a semantic one, lets see the math Michael.

The mass of a photon is very low, it does not increase with frequecy.
The speed of a photon (dependant on media) is invariant.

So if 'kinetic energy' is roughly equivalent to momentum being related to the product of mass and velocity, you would have invaiant 'kinetic energy' for photons.

So you will say that 'but the frequency is higher' and so I ask,

How then do you relate that to 'kinetic energy' ? The common use of 'kenetic energy' is the related to teh work required to get an object up to a certain speed, the speed of a photon is invaiant and does not change with frequence, nor does it's mass.


From what you are saying in other posts, how do you represent the 'kinetic energy' of EM fields, can you show how it relates to any of the common equations that describe EM fields?

You seem to be using words as you wish again.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

It is the same theory that Eric Lerner has written extensively about?

It's the same one "mainstream" cosmologists write about when they combine MHD theory and GR theory. Can't say I've personally read Lerner's work so I couldn't comment on it.

[...]

I have no idea who else might label themselves as someone who believes in EU/PC theory, whether they see some distinction between the two as you seem to do, etc. I simply define EU/PC theory as the combination of MHD theory and GR, and I have no idea how others define that label.

[...]

"It" - a one and only one it - being <"EU/PC" theory> a.k.a. <EU/PC theory> (without the quotation marks) a.k.a. <PC theory> a.k.a. <PC/EU theory>.

IOW, whatever "it" is, it is known to only one person; namely, MM ... or, perhaps, MM knows of only one person who knows this it (MM himself).

And here we start another LWRRc (Lather, Wash, Rinse, Repeat cycle) ... but at least this time round I, personally, have a better understanding of why MM's presentation of this (the "it") comes across as incoherent and inconsistent.

I'll come back to the rest of your post later MM, and will also look more closely at "believes in" later too.

 

[edd]

Your argument that photons carry kinetic energy is a semantic one, lets see the math Michael.

The mass of a photon is very low, it does not increase with frequecy.
The speed of a photon (dependant on media) is invariant.

So if 'kinetic energy' is roughly equivalent to momentum being related to the product of mass and velocity, you would have invaiant 'kinetic energy' for photons.

So you will say that 'but the frequency is higher' and so I ask,

How then do you relate that to 'kinetic energy' ? The common use of 'kenetic energy' is the related to teh work required to get an object up to a certain speed, the speed of a photon is invaiant and does not change with frequence, nor does it's mass.


From what you are saying in other posts, how do you represent the 'kinetic energy' of EM fields, can you show how it relates to any of the common equations that describe EM fields?

You seem to be using words as you wish again.

I think this is unfair. By the same argument you would surely have photons having invariant (well, zero) momentum, but they do not. Your argument is flawed in defining momentum as the product of mass and velocity.

I agree that it's pointless to draw some kind of distinction between the overall energy of a photon and kinetic energy and that kinetic energy is poorly defined, if at all, for a photon, from what I can see, but I think your approach to this is wrong.

 

[Tubbythin]

My bad, not stated very well.
If the interpreted cause of redshift was incorrect or Hubble made some mistakes in his empirical measurements.

The reason I ask is:

The expansion of space, which is the predominant interpretation of cosmological redshift, is the foundation of the BBT, specifically when running time in reverse.

Or, am I misunderstanding the issue?

As DRD said, Hubble's did get stuff wrong IIRC he assumed all Cepheid variables were the same (that is, they obeyed the same period luminosity relation) when, it turns out, there are 2 different sorts. Its a while since I learned all this. Can DRD or somebody confirm I'm in the right ballpark here?
As for answering the above, Sol Invictus gave a (well 2, in fact) better answer(s) than I could. But... yes, if the interpretation of the redshift were completely wrong then BBT would be in trouble. This, however, would not lead to everyone becoming plasma cosmologists because
a) They don't seem to have an alternative explanation that is in anyway close to matching observations (despite what they might claim).
b) They cannot even hope to explain other cosmological observations coherently.

 

[Skwinty]

This, however, would not lead to everyone becoming plasma cosmologists because
a) They don't seem to have an alternative explanation that is in anyway close to matching observations (despite what they might claim).
b) They cannot even hope to explain other cosmological observations coherently.

Agreed, that is why I stated "I am not a big fan of PC/EU although I do concede that these alternatives may have a basis in some minor features in current cosmology."

 

[sol invictus]

I think this is unfair. By the same argument you would surely have photons having invariant (well, zero) momentum, but they do not. Your argument is flawed in defining momentum as the product of mass and velocity.

I agree that it's pointless to draw some kind of distinction between the overall energy of a photon and kinetic energy and that kinetic energy is poorly defined, if at all, for a photon, from what I can see, but I think your approach to this is wrong.

While he may have some details wrong, I think what DD is pointing out is that standard (i.e. Newtonian) notions of momentum and kinetic energy obviously do not apply to photons, or EM fields - and it's a good and correct point.

The energy in EM fields obviously does not come from little particles flying around. First, photons have exactly zero mass, and they all move at the same speed (c). What distinguishes them and determines their momentum and energy is their frequency - a concept that makes no sense at all for a little ball flying around. Moreover, one can have completely static configurations of fields - like a constant electric field - which carry energy. If you want, you can think of that energy as arising from the spatial variation of the scalar potential. The field is constant and static, and in that gauge not even the potential is changing with time or moving, so to call that energy "kinetic" (which comes from the Greek for "motion") is very strange indeed.

Anyway, like most arguments with MM it just boils down to the usual sillyness. Physics cranks take technical terms and define them in their own head, and then argue with others about true statements which don't make sense using their personal definitions. It's pointless to argue unless you can manage to explain to the crank that his definition is non-standard - otherwise it just goes around and around in circles.

 

[edd]

While he may have some details wrong, I think what DD is pointing out is that standard (i.e. Newtonian) notions of momentum and kinetic energy obviously do not apply to photons, or EM fields - and it's a good and correct point.

Indeed, I wouldn't dispute that, and heaven forbid I be misinterpreted as giving MM any support

 

[Michael Mozina]

IOW, whatever "it" is, it is known to only one person; namely, MM ... or, perhaps, MM knows of only one person who knows this it (MM himself).

Are you trying to suggest that mainstream beliefs are all consistent and invariable and consistent from individual to individual? Look and you and topic of inflation! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.....

Look at "dark energy". It got stuffed into the theory only relatively recently.

 

[Ziggurat]

I have never heard someone try to describe molecular and atomic bond "stress" in terms of "negative pressure".

Well, the idea is quite common. Which is why that article keeps using the term "negative pressure".

It's an odd "lingo" to be sure.

Not at all. It comes directly from [latex]$P=-\frac{\partial E}{\partial V}$[/latex], a completely standard way to define pressure. You may not be familiar with it, but this is actually pretty standard stuff in physics.

I see where you're heading with this concept, but you seem only to be applying "stress" to "bonds", you are not actually creating any "negative pressure" areas within the vacuum chamber or within the material.

First off, it's not a vacuum chamber in the case of liquids at negative pressure. Secondly, that negative pressure is very much present throughout the liquid. And thirdly, the attraction between different liquid molecules is generally not called a "bond", because they aren't actually bound to each other.

You are stressing bonds in this way, much like you might do with any ordinary solid. Sooner or later those bonds will 'break' from 'stress'.

So what? Yes, there's a maximum negative pressure that any given liquid can sustain. Doesn't mean it's not negative.

It's not actually "negative pressure" but it is an interesting *analogy*, I'll give you that much.

In what way is it not negative pressure? You claimed before that it wasn't negative because it was only a relative negative, but that's quite clearly wrong, it is an absolute negative. You seem to be trying to alter what you mean by pressure so that it can never be negative. But that's not the way it works. You come up with a definition first, then you figure out whether or not it's negative under that definition. And under every standard definition (whether it's the one I gave above, or simply outward force per unit area), the pressure in liquids can be negative.

But this does shed some light on the problem that you seem to be having with negative vacuum pressure. Whatever definition of pressure you are working with, it most definitely isn't a standard one, or you would have understood exactly how liquids can support negative pressures, and understood it as such and not merely an analogy. So perhaps you had better explain what you think pressure is, because it's not what everyone else thinks it is.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Well, the idea is quite common. Which is why that article keeps using the term "negative pressure".

The idea of inflation is quite common too. That does not mean it is a correct statement. There is no region in that piston that achieves "negative pressure". You have *stress* being applied to bonds in the liquid but no area of the region has "negative pressure", just "positive pressure" and stress. The fact there are molecules inside that container prohibit it from even being a 'pure vacuum' (devoid of all atoms), let alone a "negative pressure" environment. The term "negative pressure" is a misleading idea, since all you are doing is "stressing' the bonds of the atoms in the liquid, much like you could also do with a solid. The bonds eventually break and that is that. It's not negative pressure, it's "stress" of atomic/molecular bonds.

First off, it's not a vacuum chamber in the case of liquids at negative pressure. Secondly, that negative pressure is very much present throughout the liquid.

No. The atoms have "pressure" and volume all on their own. You're simply *pulling at them* until these bonds reach a critical stage and the show is over. It would be the same if you put "stress" on a solid until something broke. It would not be a demonstration of "negative pressure". The liquid idea makes it somewhat different than stressing the bonds of a solid, but it's the same basic principle. There are "bonds" that must be broken by "stress".

And thirdly, the attraction between different liquid molecules is generally not called a "bond", because they aren't actually bound to each other.

There is in fact a "surface tension" and bonding present in most liquids. The terms your using are not consistent with chemistry. Look up hydrogen bonds in water. There are plenty of "bonds" between atoms, even in liquids.

So what? Yes, there's a maximum negative pressure that any given liquid can sustain. Doesn't mean it's not negative.

It's pure stress! It's would be like putting solid gelatin in the container and doing the same thing. There is no "negative pressure" inside that chamber, just stress on atomic bonds. You could do that with virtually any solid too if you attached the piston to the solid. It's just a chemical bond you're breaking with "stress". There is no point in the vacuum where "negative pressure" exists.

In what way is it not negative pressure?

There is no region in the cylinder that has "negative pressure". There are bonds that have "stress", but the presence of atoms in this structure show that there is a "greater than zero" amount of atoms present, and all you are doing is stressing the bonds of the atoms. You could do that with a solid.

You claimed before that it wasn't negative because it was only a relative negative, but that's quite clearly wrong, it is an absolute negative.

Well, you are correct that there is more than one tor being applied and I didn't catch that at first. My point still stands however.

You seem to be trying to alter what you mean by pressure so that it can never be negative. But that's not the way it works. You come up with a definition first, then you figure out whether or not it's negative under that definition. And under every standard definition (whether it's the one I gave above, or simply outward force per unit area), the pressure in liquids can be negative.

Come on. You're changing terms as go. First we were talking about negative pressure in a vacuum. Now you're trying to compare that to stress on bonds in a liquid. These are not the same concepts because a vacuum *has no bonds* to prevent anything moving. You're comparing apples to oranges. Guth needs a "negative pressure" not in a "liquid", but rather he claimed one existed in a vacuum *devoid* of molecular bonds to hold any "negative pressure" as you are calling it. These are two *entirely* different circumstances in the first place.

 

[Michael Mozina]

The point is that there is negative pressure involved in the Casimir effect.

No, there is no area in the experiment that experiences ''negative pressure"! The whole thing can be done in virtually *any* positive pressure environment and we can't even make a "pure vacuum" with *no pressure", let alone "negative pressure".

There is a net negative force on an area. Force divided by area is pressure. Thus the pressure is negative.

Now your just confusing force with pressure. The "force" is actually coming from the *outside* of the plates. Anything inside the plates is due to molecular attraction. There is no "negative pressure" involved.

Of course now your atom idea is withdrawn, we are left with the physical measurement of a negative pressure.

Hoy. No. We are left with *subatomic pressure* in the form of EM carrier fields. I botched my explanation to Derek by using the term "magnetic plates" when I meant "metallic plates", but the rest is valid. The whole reason that the type of material is relevant is because EM fields have unique effects on many metallic objects like steel. This tells us the carrier particles involved, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with "negative pressure".

Why do the papers report an negative force and so pressure when such a pressure cannot exist?

Why do they report "magnetic reconnection"? Beats me. Pressure and force are not the same. I have have positive pressure in the chamber and "directional force" that pushes the plates together. That's all that is happening here.

I have no idea what you mean by this. Your "in retrospect it was probably a dumb idea" was just that - dumb. This was because it assumed that all experimental physicists (vacuum, nuclear, etc.) were not intelligent enough to take in account background effects, e.g.

I was only trying to use the idea as an *analogy* and all that did is create pure confusion. As I noted earlier on several occasions, the WIKI explanation is quite valid. Where does it say "negative pressure" exactly in that article by the way?

Those arrows are in fact "pressure". There is "more pressure" on the outside of the plates, and 'less pressure" between them, but even the subatomic process is based on "more kinetic energy on the outside and less of it on the inside". It's all positive kinetic pressure, even at the subatomic level. There is simply "more force" outside the places than inside the plates due to "positive kinetic pressure".

 

[sol invictus]

Well, the idea is quite common. Which is why that article keeps using the term "negative pressure".

Tell him about negative temperature. Maybe he'll explode from rage and leave the forum in peace.

 

[Michael Mozina]

I'm sorry but it is clear to everyone else here that your attempt to "debunk" Guth's paper has been a failure of epic monumental proportions.

You've all failed to demonstrate any sort of "negative pressure" in a vacuum. The failure has been yours, and indeed it's been a failure of epic proportions because Guth's theory is dead in the water unless you can demonstrate such a thing is possible.

Physics is a mathematical science.

Mathematics can indeed correctly describe the physical processes of nature, but physics is a physical process that can often be very difficult if not impossible to correctly mathematically model.

We haven't even got past the abstract and you've already shown to us you are completely incapable of what you claimed you would do.

Er, you must have missed the key quote I pulled from the body of the paper about negative pressure in a vacuum? I haven't even really focused on the rest of the problems in this paper (which was actually "falsified" (if you can call it that) by the way). I'm simply noting that he has a *key* problem in his understanding of a vacuum and physics of a vacuum. There can be no such thing as "negative pressure" in a vacuum.

If you can't do the maths where appropriate then you can't do the physics.

BS. I can turn on my plasma ball and watch it function and know absolutely nothing about the 'math' that might be useful in describing the motion of those filaments in the plasma. You can do "physics" in a physical way too without having any preconceived understanding of the math.

Its as simple as that. If you don't want to do the maths then don't try to pick apart a mathematical theory (especially one you have no comprehension of).

The primary problem with Guth's claims are not related to his "math". You folks keep insisting that only mathematics matters, but the physics also matters. Vacuums do not contain "negative pressure". They can't. That's the problem in Guth's theory. He stuck a minus sign in from on pressure. Mathematically it works. Physically it does not.

All you have is words. Words you spout that you don't even seem to vaguely comprehend.

No, all you have are math formulas applied to words that make no physical sense. There is no such thing as a 'negative pressure' in a vacuum. The best we can ever achieve is a "low pressure". Not every flaw in every theory is related to math. When are you going to accept that reality?

You made a claim regarding pressure and you were shown to be completely and utterly wrong. And this wasn't shown just through observations (which to any real physicist would be more than enough) but through actual laboratory physics which you claim to love so much.

That is not true. First of all this was *not* a vacuum. It was a "liquid" with "bonding" processes in the liquid. You could have done the same thing with a solid and stressed it's bonds until it broke in a similar manner, but that is not 'negative pressure', that is "stress", put on "bonds" in the liquid.

It's irrational to even be comparing a vacuum to a solid or a liquid. It would be rational to compare it to a gas or a plasma, but Guth expressly applied this idea to a "vacuum", not a "liquid".

 

[Michael Mozina]

Tell him about negative temperature. Maybe he'll explode from rage and leave the forum in peace.

Were you intending to use a Kelvin scale or some other scale?

 

[Michael Mozina]

Holy cow this forum moves fast. I have a number of honey-do projects to finish up today, so it will take me awhile to catch up to all the comments since last night.