Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[Tubbythin]

I want to "empirically know" what, if anything created this universe just like you do. I don't want to "make up" stuff on a whim like pixies, slap on some math and "make a wild guess".

And yet you're the only one bringing up pixies and wild guesses. I can't even begin to imagine how much hard work went in to the "wild guess" of inflation to make it both compliant with existing observations and succesfully predict others. And this coming from a man who tried to explain the Casimir effect with neutrinos and the expanding Universe by reference to the solar wind!

Inflationdidit is no better than Goddidit at the level of empiricism as it relates to demonstrating "cause/effect" relationships.

Of course it is. We can make predictions from inflation and we see that they are matched by real empirical observations. That makes inflation infinitely better than Goddidit. If you cannot see that theories which make predictions which are supported by empirical observations are better than those which do not then you clearly have no idea what empiricism is.

No but I'm going to point out to you that there is no empirical basis for your creation mythos, inflation, dark energy or SUSY particles.

a) They're not mine. b) Yes there is. Sol Invictus gave you a hold long list of them a long long long time ago. c) "creation mythos" really isn't help you here in the "not being the antithesis of a scientist" stakes.

You didn't "find out" anything, you "made it all up" based on multiple things you cannot empirically support. Inflationdidit is not "empirical truth".

I did no such thing. And neither did anybody else.

Well, I admit I probably do have a bit of a chip on my shoulder at this point due to the way I've seen empirical physics treated by this industry.

You don't know what empiricism is. I'll repeat:
"If you cannot see that theories which make predictions which are supported by empirical observations are better than those which do not then you clearly have no idea what empiricism is".

I've seen Birkeland's empirical lab work be scoffed at for long enough now. I guess after seeing enough threads entitled "Is PC theory woo", one starts to wonder if you guys even understand the difference between empirical physics that works in a lab and "woo" that only works in myths and legends and is shy around a lab. How exactly does one decide what is "woo" other than what can be shown to work empirically and what cannot, and what can usefully predict the outcome of a physical experiment and what cannot?

This has nothing to do with cosmology.

Inflation is pure woo because it has no useful predictive value when it comes to determining the outcome of any physical experiment.

We can make predictions from it. And then test them against observation. And its done pretty well so far. So defo not woo by any definition I've ever heard of.

Dark energy is "woo" as well.

The fact that the Universe's expansion appears to be accelerating has been verified by independent empirical observations. What definition of woo makes this concept woo?

SUSY theory is "speculative" at best, but at least we might have some hope of physically "testing" that one.

Agreed. Rather elegant, however (to the extent that I understand it). Not that that makes it right. I think a lot of people would like it to be though.

None of these do anything to anything in an experiment.

They explain empirical observations and make predictions. Predictions which match up well with empirical observation.

MDH theory works in a lab.

So? Do you have an MHD theory that can explain the cosmological observations as well As LCDM. No! (Well, if you do you're keeping it very well hid).

After awhile of watching EU theory being disregarded in a callous and hostile fashion, I guess I am getting a bit "disgruntled" as it relates to your popular mythos and your industry's lack of respect for empirical physics.

Well, if EU theory could explain cosmological observations as well as LCDM it wouldn't be ignored. But it doesn't. So it is.

 

[Reality Check]

In terms of actual "physics", *what* is there is a high density of?

I can answer this: There was a high density of everything that there is in the universe at the start of the BBT (Guth's near singularity thingy).
To make it simple for you MM:
Now the universe is big and full of stuff.
Then the universe was small and still full of the same stuff.
Stuff that is in a big volume and was in a small volume was at at high density at that time in the past.

P.S. Did you read my previous posting? Do you have an answer to the question?

 

[GeeMack]

Well, if EU theory could explain cosmological observations as well as LCDM it wouldn't be ignored. But it doesn't. So it is.

True. In fact, if EU could explain cosmological observations to any significant extent, even if not as well as the LCDM model, it would be given some consideration. But it doesn't. So it isn't.

 

[temporalillusion]

The relevance of the Casimir effect is solely in the fact that it is an example of negative pressure. It may have a deeper connection to a vacuum energy responsible for cosmic evolution but it isn't clear at this point.

Some large prime number of pages ago the Casimir effect was raised as an example of negative pressure because MM couldn't/wouldn't/won't grok gravity being negative.

What seems like an eternity later, here we are.

MM, if you're going to ignore all my other questions, could you at least define vacuum?

 

[Michael Mozina]

Well, first of all, they're not my claims (at least, not the ones about inflation). Secondly, people have empirically demonstrated inflation has merit.

No, people have *alleged* that inflation has merit *in spite of the fact* that there is *no* empirical support of the idea and there never *can be* empirical support of that claim.

They've made predictions from the theory and those predictions have turned out, through empirical measurements, to be accurate.

Inflation has made "postdictions" that have been falsified since the very first paper Guth wrote.

Dark energy is basically just the words used to describe the fact that empirical observations seem to show the expansion of the Universe is accelerating.

Why not call it "acceleration"?

No it doesn't. That's the whole point. It is empirically testable. Which means it certainly isn't an act of faith.

You guys/gals do not understand the meaning of "empirically testable". Gravity is empirically testable. EM fields are empirically testable. Inflation is not empirically testable and neither is "dark energy".

 

[Michael Mozina]

I can answer this: There was a high density of everything that there is in the universe at the start of the BBT (Guth's near singularity thingy).
To make it simple for you MM:
Now the universe is big and full of stuff.

You mean it is big and full of positive energy.

Then the universe was small and still full of the same stuff.

You mean it was once "physically smaller" but it still had a positive energy density.

In other words that notion that this is a "zero net energy" scenario is totally bogus, it's *always* been a *positive energy* scenario? Is that it?

 

[Michael Mozina]

No, he didn't.

Yes he did and he wrote all about it.

http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/birkeland.pdf

And it doesn't matter how often you repeat this lie, it will not become true.

It doesn't matter how steadfastly you cling to pure denial, you can't change history dude. He actually "predicted" high speed solar wind from real "experiments" in a real lab. He actually "predicted' coronal loop activity and took images of his loops from his simulations.

That is what a physical "prediction" from empirical experimentation looks like by the way. I know you guys have no clue what empirical "prediction" is supposed to look like, but there you go.

 

[Michael Mozina]

What do you mean by "kinetic energy in motion". That makes no sense to me.

That is a macroscopic example of kinetic energy in motion. At the level of subatomic particles, it's simply a smaller particle and it isn't necessarily stopped by any walls. At the level of the Casimir effect, it's simply the carrier particles of the EM field in motion.

Just so we're clear, how would you calculate the kinetic energy of a photon?

The kinetic energy of a photon is calculated based upon it's wavelength. Gamma rays have more kinetic energy that photons in the visual spectrum.

 

[Tubbythin]

No, people have *alleged* that inflation has merit *in spite of the fact* that there is *no* empirical support of the idea and there never *can be* empirical support of that claim.

Yes there is. SOl gave you a whole long list of the stuff.

Inflation has made "postdictions" that have been falsified since the very first paper Guth wrote.

Specifically?

Why not call it "acceleration"?

Why not refer to the force of gravity simply as force?

You guys/gals do not understand the meaning of "empirically testable". Gravity is empirically testable.

Sure, eg good old wiki:
"The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment[1], as opposed to theoretical"
We can make empirical observations and compare them to eg the predictions of an inflationary Universe. Thus inflation is empirically testable.

EM fields are empirically testable. Inflation is not empirically testable and neither is "dark energy".

Yes it is. See above.

 

[Tubbythin]

[qimg]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Translational_motion.gif[/qimg]

That is a macroscopic example of kinetic energy in motion. At the level of subatomic particles, it's simply a smaller particle and it isn't necessarily stopped by any walls. At the level of the Casimir effect, it's simply the carrier particles of the EM field in motion.

Right, so thats opposed to the kinetic energy of standing still?

The kinetic energy of a photon is calculated based upon it's wavelength. Gamma rays have more kinetic energy that photons in the visual spectrum.

Well, since this is independent of both mass and velocity (at least in a vacuum) I wouldn't call it kinetic. I'd just call it energy. But whatever turns you on.
Now, since you've just shown us all that the photons energy is not related to its mass and is independent of its speed (ie is completely non-classical), perhaps you could tell us all why you insist on using the ideal gas law that is an approximation for a classical gas?

 

[Dancing David]

From the standpoint of empirical physics, how is "inflation did it" any more credible than "God did it"? It's not "rhetoric" to point out that something lacks empirical support.

I know you will ignore this post but I am hopefull:

God did it, what are the observable traits that match the model of god?

Infaltion did it, what are the observable traits that match the model of inflation?

Remember that inflation, just like elctrons is not a thing it is a set of ideas that try to explain something. IE an approximate model. There are no electrons, neutrons or protons. These are semantic idiomatic self refencing labels that refer to coherent theories and hypotheses.

They are not the behaviors they describe, they are attempts to describe the behavior.

Gravity does not exist, it is a thought label that is applied to observation, just as the 'law of gravity' does not exist, it ia model that tries to describe observations.

You keep getting hung up on the words, it is not the words that matter, it is the ability to model observations.

The cosmological expansion of space is one model to approximate the red shift phenomena. Edd says that you can use doppler shift if you want but it runs into some sort of difficulty.

So here you are saying
"EM forces didit."

Which is great except for one thing this requires that there be something driving the expansion and causing the recession of objects. So you don't like the cosmological expansion of space.

Great, fine, wonderful.

How does 'EM firlds/forces didit" work?

Wouldn't that require the the universe show a majority of say one polarity of charge? Say negative and that all the galaxies and galaxies cluster show a negative charge? Or something like that? Other wise if the universe is neutral, why does it expand?

They are all made up ideas MM, if you don't like the current model of expanding space time, then how does you EM model work?

Again the same request made early on in this thread:

1. State your model.
2. What predictions does your model make?
3. What observation match the predictions of your model?

So what charge would a star have?
What charge would a galaxy have?
What charge would a galaxy cluster have?
Why if the EM force decreases with distance do things recede faster the farther away they are?
Does this mean that farther objects have greater charges?

How does your model work?

 

[edd]

No, people have *alleged* that inflation has merit *in spite of the fact* that there is *no* empirical support of the idea and there never *can be* empirical support of that claim.

I'm sorry to have to be so blunt, but you clearly do not understand cosmology without inflation. You cannot possibly understand it with inflation and thereby understand what constitutes empirical support for it.

You are out of your depth.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Right, so thats opposed to the kinetic energy of standing still?

I suppose you could look at it as the kinetic energy of what *is not standing still* in the vacuum as compared to the lack of energy it would posses if nothing flowed inside vacuum.

Well, since this is independent of both mass and velocity (at least in a vacuum) I wouldn't call it kinetic. I'd just call it energy. But whatever turns you on.

Well, even photons have kinetic energy and are able to generate motion in electrons in a solar panel.

Now, since you've just shown us all that the photons energy is not related to its mass and is independent of its speed (ie is completely non-classical), perhaps you could tell us all why you insist on using the ideal gas law that is an approximation for a classical gas?

I used it to approximate the "pressure" in a vacuum to demonstrate to you that the lowest level energy state of a "pure vacuum" in terms of atomic kinetic energy is "zero", not "negative a whole physical universe". The kinetic energy of the carrier particles of the EM field and neutrinos are also important forms of kinetic energy, but they are still just forms of kinetic energy albeit on a smaller scale than the atomic.

The whole universe is a moving sea of positive energy flow at the atomic and subatomic spectrum. In no way could we reach even a "zero" pressure state in a vacuum, and it is physically impossible to create a "negative pressure" in a vacuum. There is positive, moving kinetic energy flowing *though* and *inside* the vacuum at all times. A pure vacuum would be a zero pressure environment. A "vacuum" as we experience it is *full of kinetic energy and "positive pressures" (some higher on one side than the other) caused by the movement of particles.

 

[Tubbythin]

I suppose you could look at it as the kinetic energy of what *is not standing still* in the vacuum as compared to the lack of energy it would posses if nothing flowed inside vacuum.

The point was that you said "kinetic energy of motion" when kinetic energy is, by definition, the energy of motion.

Well, even photons have kinetic energy and are able to generate motion in electrons in a solar panel.

Photons have energy. I wouldn't usually refer to it as kinetic but, like I said, whatever turns you on.

I used it to approximate the "pressure" in a vacuum to demonstrate to you that the lowest level energy state of a "pure vacuum" in terms of atomic kinetic energy is "zero", not "negative a whole physical universe".

All it does is tell us that the gas pressure is zero. That is all. The Coulomb force between uncharged objects is zero. This doesn't mean there is neccesarily no force between said objects. There could be, for example, gravitational attraction. Similarly, telling us that the gas pressure in a vacuum is zero doesn't mean the actual pressure is zero.

The kinetic energy of the carrier particles of the EM field and neutrinos are also important forms of kinetic energy, but they are still just forms of kinetic energy albeit on a smaller scale than the atomic.

Smaller scale of what quantity?

The whole universe is a moving sea of positive energy flow at the atomic and subatomic spectrum.

Yes and if I can stand on my head and sing the Swedish national anthem then I can allign my Chakras.

In no way could we reach even a "zero" pressure state in a vacuum, and it is physically impossible to create a "negative pressure" in a vacuum.

No, the Casimir effect for two conducting plates is an example of negative pressure in a vacuum.

There is positive, moving kinetic energy flowing *though* and *inside* the vacuum at all times. A pure vacuum would be a zero pressure environment.

A pure vacuum would be a zero gas pressure environment. But the Casimir effect has nothing to do with gas pressure.

A "vacuum" as we experience it is *full of kinetic energy and "positive pressures" (some higher on one side than the other) caused by the movement of particles.

The Casimir effect is not an artefact of an imperfect vacuum!

 

[Michael Mozina]

I'm sorry to have to be so blunt, but you clearly do not understand cosmology without inflation.

You might argue I can't understand it without expansion, but inflation is entirely optional and wasn't even in the cosmology curriculum until maybe the late 80's.

You cannot possibly understand it with inflation

I could if you could demonstrate inflation wasn't a figment of your collective imagination. One quick demonstration of concept in a real experiment with real control mechanisms would make it easy to "understand" at the level of empirical physics.

and thereby understand what constitutes empirical support for it.

In no other branch of science do I have any trouble understanding the meaning of "empirical support". That is because only in astronomy do you find any confusion between "empirical support" and "mathematical support".

You are out of your depth.

Ya, and I'm evidently out of my depth in numerology and astrology and every other useless bit of "woo" on the planet that has proven itself to be utterly useless at predicting the outcome of a real science "experiment" with real "control mechanisms".

This conversation is coming full circle in a way. First I was told this was a "net zero" energy process, and now it's compact energy with "pressure" manifesting itself (without kinetic energy mind you) in GR, even before mass exists. You folks make this up as you go, particularly as we get closer to T=0. What "form" of energy are we talking about in real physics? Nobody knows. What "holds" the heat? Nobody knows. What "causes" inflation to take over? Nobody knows. What was the size of the universe prior to expansion? It depends on whom you ask. If I'm out of my depth it's only because you are out of your depth too, you just don't like to admit it.

 

[edd]

You might argue I can't understand it without expansion, but inflation is entirely optional and wasn't even in the cosmology curriculum until maybe the late 80's.

My point is you do not understand 1980s cosmology, let alone that of 20 years further observation and development. In fact you do not even understand 1920s cosmology.

If you do not understand the most basic and fundamental principles of it you cannot understand the details and you cannot criticise them based on your misunderstandings.

 

[Tubbythin]

You might argue I can't understand it without expansion, but inflation is entirely optional and wasn't even in the cosmology curriculum until maybe the late 80's.

Well. We don't really have an explanation for the horizon or flatness problems without it (at least not that I know of).

I could if you could demonstrate inflation wasn't a figment of your collective imagination. One quick demonstration of concept in a real experiment with real control mechanisms would make it easy to "understand" at the level of empirical physics.

The fact that you can't understand it is not a problem of the theory.

In no other branch of science do I have any trouble understanding the meaning of "empirical support". That is because only in astronomy do you find any confusion between "empirical support" and "mathematical support".

No, only with Michale Mozina do we find someone who can't tell the difference between empirically testable by observation and not empirically testable by observation.

Ya, and I'm evidently out of my depth in numerology and astrology and every other useless bit of "woo" on the planet that has proven itself to be utterly useless at predicting the outcome of a real science "experiment" with real "control mechanisms".

It predicts the outcome of real observations. That makes it real science.

This conversation is coming full circle in a way. First I was told this was a "net zero" energy process, and now it's compact energy with "pressure" manifesting itself (without kinetic energy mind you) in GR, even before mass exists. You folks make this up as you go, particularly as we get closer to T=0. What "form" of energy are we talking about in real physics? Nobody knows. What "holds" the heat? Nobody knows. What "causes" inflation to take over? Nobody knows. What was the size of the universe prior to expansion? It depends on whom you ask. If I'm out of my depth it's only because you are out of your depth too, you just don't like to admit it.

Are you actually a human parody Michael? You were the one who was claiming the Casimir effect was down to neutrinos. Then it was an imperfect vacuum. Then it was because of virtual photons (hey, you seemed to be getting a vague hint of the idea till you bought in the ideal gas equation), now you've gone back to the imperfect vacuum theory again. Talk about going round in circles.

 

[Tubbythin]

My point is you do not understand 1980s cosmology, let alone that of 20 years further observation and development. In fact you do not even understand 1920s cosmology.

If you do not understand the most basic and fundamental principles of it you cannot understand the details and you cannot criticise them based on your misunderstandings.

Given his rejection of empirical observations I'd be surprised if he understood 17th century astronomy!

 

[GeeMack]

Yes he did and he wrote all about it.

Oddly enough, whenever you've been asked to point out specifically where Birkeland wrote all about those solar winds, high temperature discharges in the solar atmosphere, jets, etc., you've never been able to do it. Yes, you wave around a document and a few looks-like-a-bunny pictures, but you obviously don't know enough about your hero Birkeland to actually quote him or point out his specific claims about those things. Okay, it's not oddly enough. It's just how you are.

It doesn't matter how steadfastly you cling to pure denial, you can't change history dude. He actually "predicted" high speed solar wind from real "experiments" in a real lab. He actually "predicted' coronal loop activity and took images of his loops from his simulations.

That is what a physical "prediction" from empirical experimentation looks like by the way. I know you guys have no clue what empirical "prediction" is supposed to look like, but there you go.

No. That's what a photo of one of Birkeland's aurora borealis experiments looks like next to a filtered image of the Sun. The aurora borealis is a phenomenon that occurs on Earth. Coronal loops occur on the Sun. Apples and oranges. You see how miserably you fail when you try to apply that silly looks-like-a-bunny science?

But I'm still curious about why you fail. Why do you think that you haven't been able to sway any real physicists to accept your version of cosmology, Michael? Do you think it's because they're all too stupid to get it? Do you think maybe you're just doing a lousy job of communicating? Do you ever stop to consider that you might just be wrong? Is it a worldwide conspiracy to deny you your rightful place as a legitimate scientist? Really, why is it that you're not making any headway at all?

 

[Ziggurat]

The point was that you said "kinetic energy of motion" when kinetic energy is, by definition, the energy of motion.

Actually, no. He said "kinetic energy in motion", which is even more nonsensical.

Photons have energy. I wouldn't usually refer to it as kinetic but, like I said, whatever turns you on.

At one point he called the energy stored in a static magnetic field "kinetic energy" as well. He is deeply confused.

Similarly, telling us that the gas pressure in a vacuum is zero doesn't mean the actual pressure is zero.

You know that, and I know that. But MM has some very strange notions about what pressure means. Anything which he can't fit into that little animated picture somehow becomes something other than pressure for him. That's why he can't even define pressure.