Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[Tubbythin]

Apparently all one needs to create elves and fairies and make them "real" is to stuff them into a GR constant and make up a math myth about how they saved the universe from the evil monopole clan.
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/images/smilies/mazeguyemotions/jaw-dropping.gif[/qimg]

Er, no. These are strawmen that YOU made up in YOUR head and then continually repeated. Please try to learn the difference between things you make up in your head and the real world.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

No. Our disagreement was whether or not there was "negative pressure in a vacuum". You folks have a way of digressing with every post, but if you go back and actually reread the conversation, I assure you it was related to "negative pressure in a vacuum".



Apparently you can't tell a strawman when you read one because Den *intentionally* misrepresented the nature of our disagreement which was related to the existence of 'negative pressure in a vacuum", not "negative potential energy".



Oh for crying out loud! No. Our debate was whether or not there was "negative pressure in a vacuum" as Guth claimed You guys can't keep your own strawmen straight anymore.

No.

You want a moment to reconsider, and to re-read your own posts?

As si said (of Z), one of the great things about internet discussion fora such as this is that you can't hide, when it comes to what you yourself wrote (and the context within which it was written); your words are preserved, for all to read, at any time they wish to read them ...

In a bit I'll find the relevant posts, provide links, and quote from them (unless, of course, you choose to re-consider in the next hour or three ...).

 

[Ziggurat]

No. Our disagreement was whether or not there was "negative pressure in a vacuum".

That was only one of many disagreements. Do you recall saying this earlier in the thread?

There is no form of energy that is "negative".

I do, and so does Den. That is the point his comment was directed at: Birkeland disagrees with this claim of yours.

You guys can't keep your own strawmen straight anymore.

And you can't remember your own words.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Do you have an elvish fantasy or something? The frequency with which you talk about them borders on the obsessive.

You don't see the similarity and the mainstream's obsession with inflation and "dark" stuff? The thing that all of these things share in common is that they never show up in any real "experiments" with real "control mechanisms". Inflation is no more "real" than invisible elves. It's just a label someone made up and attached math, just like "dark energy". You can't explain what "dark energy" is, nor can anyone predict anything useful with inflation. They are "ad hoc" creations of the human mind that have no physical influence on nature and never did have any physical influence on nature.

So come up with an alternative theory that is internally consistent and explains this observation and all the other major cosmological observations consistently without dark energy.

I don't need to do that to reject "dark" evil stuff. I can reject your theory based on it's lack of empirical merit with or without a "better" explanation. Acceleration is simply "acceleration". It is not due to "dark energy" because dark energy does not exist in nature. Period.

 

[Tubbythin]

Here's another one, in response to:

Gravity is often referred to as a "negative" energy,

You said:

That's the "baloney" part right there. Mass and energy are interchangeble. Gravity isn't "negative" anything, it's just "gravity".

How stupid does somebody have to be to deliberately lie in a forum like this when literally anyone can go back and see that you are telling such a blatant lie? Just in case you're gonna lie that I made this up to, here's the post:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4433931&postcount=146

 

[Michael Mozina]

And you can't remember your own words.

Quote me.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Here's another one, in response to:

You said:


How stupid does somebody have to be to deliberately lie in a forum like this when literally anyone can go back and see that you are telling such a blatant lie? Just in case you're gonna lie that I made this up to, here's the post:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4433931&postcount=146

You seem to have completely ignored the whole conversation about a pendulum and the fact we could set a "zero" at any point in the experiment for purposes of computing the trajectory of objects. You seem to be ignoring the whole conversation about kinetic energy in the vacuum and the fact that there is no negative pressure in a vacuum.

To discuss particle trajectories, we can do all sorts of arbitrary things with arbitrary zero reference points, but gravity is not "negative energy", it is just gravity. Holy cow. You folks focus on one sentence and ignore 8 or 9 pages of conversations?

 

[Michael Mozina]

Quote Birkeland now. Where did he say: "Gravity is negative energy"?

 

[Tubbythin]

You don't see the similarity and the mainstream's obsession with inflation and "dark" stuff?

Not in the slightest.

The thing that all of these things share in common is that they never show up in any real "experiments" with real "control mechanisms".

The effects show up in empirical observations.

Inflation is no more "real" than invisible elves.

Many of the world's leading cosmologists beg to differ. Moreover they understand what they're talking about and can provide theoretical AND empirical evidence to support there views.. You, on the other hand, are a proven liar who doesn't even understand basic physics. Now, which source is more reliable?

It's just a label someone made up and attached math, just like "dark energy". You can't explain what "dark energy" is, nor can anyone predict anything useful with inflation. They are "ad hoc" creations of the human mind that have no physical influence on nature and never did have any physical influence on nature.

Well. Bearing in mind inflation is thought by many cosmologists to be responsible for the flatness of the Universe I'd say it has a bigger impact on the Universe than pretty much anything else.

I don't need to do that to reject "dark" evil stuff. I can reject your theory based on it's lack of empirical merit with or without a "better" explanation.

Except you've been pointed in the direction of lots of empirical evidence for it.

Acceleration is simply "acceleration". It is not due to "dark energy" because dark energy does not exist in nature. Period.

So what is it due to?

 

[Tubbythin]

You seem to have completely ignored the whole conversation about a pendulum and the fact we could set a "zero" at any point in the experiment for purposes of computing the trajectory of objects.

You seem to completely forgotten the fact that you categorically denied that gravity could be "negative anything".

You seem to be ignoring the whole conversation about kinetic energy in the vacuum and the fact that there is no negative pressure in a vacuum.

You seem to be ignoring the fact that you were wrong.

To discuss particle trajectories, we can do all sorts of arbitrary things with arbitrary zero reference points, but gravity is not "negative energy", it is just gravity. Holy cow. You folks focus on one sentence and ignore 8 or 9 pages of conversations?

No we don't.

 

[Reality Check]

From the Wiki link on solar wind.

First of all, the WIKI article is wrong in the very first sentence. Solar wind of all types originates from the *whole sphere*, not just the equator. Didn't any of these guys look at a LASCO image? Not a great start IMO......

Are you seriously claiming this is a scientific "explanation" of solar wind?

No. I am claiming that this is a Wikipedia article on the solar wind. It contains a description of the scientific explanation of the solar wind.
The citations in the article are the scientific explanation of the solar wind.

The actual observed velocities of the solar wind lead to my statement:

MM: Please continue to point out Birkeland's predictions that have been found to be wrong. The speed of the fast solar wind is 750 km/s (0.025%) which is not "near the speed of light" and not even considered to be a "significant portion of the speed of light". Even CMEs have speeds of 20 km/s to 2,700 km/s, i.e. a maximum of ~0.1% of the speed of light.

But maybe the article and its citations are wrong. You can easily show this - give us a reference to a paper that measures the velocity of the solar wind to be "near the speed of light" or even a "significant portion of the speed of light".

 

[Ziggurat]

Quote me.

I just did. Jeeze. It's one thing to forget what you posted several pages ago, but if you can't even recognize me quoting you claiming no form of energy was ever negative in the very same post that you're responding to, well, you've really got a short-term memory problem.

 

[Tubbythin]

I just did. Jeeze. It's one thing to forget what you posted several pages ago, but if you can't even recognize me quoting you claiming no form of energy was ever negative in the very same post that you're responding to, well, you've really got a short-term memory problem.

Apparently his memory is less than 36 words. No wonder this thread keeps going round in circles.

 

[temporalillusion]

If I recall MM's reaction to gravity as negative potential energy was what started the whole negative pressure / Casimir effect derail in the first place.

My best derail ever (if it was in fact me that brought up the Casimir effect first, I actually have no idea).

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Quote Birkeland now. Where did he say: "Gravity is negative energy"?

*sigh*

MM, in post #1669, which I shall copy in full shortly, I did better ... I gave the full background.

Here are the key points:

1. in what we today call classical physics, negative potential energy is always used, in conjunction with gravity

2. AFAIK, this approach goes right back to Newton; but in any case, it certainly pre-dates Birkeland's birth

3. Birkeland clearly had a good education in (what we call today) classical physics, including the relevant parts on gravity ... we could, of course, research this further (by finding out where he got his degree, who his teachers were, what textbooks were used, etc), but all that's necessary, for now, is to simply read the relevant parts of his 994-page tome

4. In at least one section of that book, Birkeland presents page after page of mathematical calculations; even a cursory read of those shows the hallmarks of his physics training .... including use of negative potential energy.

Now comes the killer part: unless and until you can at least attempt an answer to Zig's repeated question, it will be impossible for you to grasp how what you read in the 994-page document reflects Birkeland's physics training (and so negative potential energy).

That leads to an almost inevitable conclusion: if we take you at your word (that you have read, in great detail, that tome ... and understood it), and if you did not notice that your statements on negative energy, in this thread, are inconsistent with what Birkeland wrote, then you do not understand the underlying math (just as several folk concluded, many pages ago).

Without further ado, post #1669 (sans links):

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Some interesting things I found reading the 994 page Birkeland document, in relation to the content of several of MM's posts (in this thread):

-> you recall, dear reader, how highly MM praised Birkeland? And how vehement his comments on 'negative energy', and 'negative pressure', and ... are? One wonders whether MM did, in fact, read this massive tome by Birkeland; or if he read it, did he understand the math?

Where did Birkeland say anything about "negative pressure" in a vacuum, or shall I just assume that was a strawman of your own creation followed by an ad hominem?

What triggered this was reading, in several places in the long document, math - by Birkeland - that seemed to incorporate some of the concepts that MM so strongly and absolutely objected to!

Er, no. If he did things your way, he would have simply pointed at the aurora and claimed "dark energy did it, and here's the math to demonstrate it".

[...]

Hmm ... I kinda suspected what I wrote may have been rather too terse ...

First, here's the relevant part of my recent post:

you recall, dear reader, how highly MM praised Birkeland? And how vehement his comments on 'negative energy', and 'negative pressure', and ... are? One wonders whether MM did, in fact, read this massive tome by Birkeland; or if he read it, did he understand the math? What triggered this was reading, in several places in the long document, math - by Birkeland - that seemed to incorporate some of the concepts that MM so strongly and absolutely objected to!

To refresh our memories ...

Around the start of this month, several pages ago now, there was a series of exchanges about energy, whether the universe could have a net energy of zero, whether negative energy was physical or not, etc*.

In the course of those exchanges, it became clear to several active participants that MM apparently misunderstood some pretty basic parts of classical physics, to do with gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy (among other things).

This lead (at least) one - Zig - to conclude that MM also apparently misunderstood the basic math behind these parts of classical physics; to test this, he issued MM a challenge:

Tell me: suppose I have a potential between two bodies of the form U(r)=1/r. What's the force F(r) between them? What about if I have a potential of the form U(r)=-1/r, what then is F(r)? Can you figure it out? The math is quite simple, and if you manage to do it correctly, you'll see that the sign has rather obvious physical consequences. But I don't think you can do even simple differentiation. Can you prove me wrong?

AFAIK, MM has not attempted to prove Zig wrong, despite this challenge being repeated several times.

Some background on Birkeland: from reading the 994-page document, I think it's clear that he had a pretty good grasp of the then contemporary physics. That physics includes (gravitational) potential energy, kinetic energy, pressure (per RC's definition), and much more.

In general, then, this would seem to show - albeit rather indirectly - that MM has some very strong objections to the 'math' parts of Birkeland's work (this takes on added significance when one looks at MM's statements on 'scaling' - more later).

In particular Birkeland shows a good understanding of (gravitational) potential energy and kinetic energy - per what we today call 'classical physics' - in the section which presents his ideas on planet formation (starting on p678/782; section 132)**. The 'math' here (there are quite a few pages of it) makes no sense if one accepts MM's ideas (e.g. rejecting 'negative energy' as unphysical).

So, on the face of it, we have some independent evidence to support Zig's (and others') conclusions about MM's grasp of physics (and math).

Of course, it's always possible that MM did not read this section of Birkeland's published work, or if he did, did not understand it ... but then other objective evidence also points to the validity of Zig's conclusion (more later).

I hope that clarifies what I meant, MM, and makes it clear that I had done my homework, was not presenting a strawman, and that my post was in no way an ad hom attack. To be clear: what I am doing is applying the scientific method ... I have formulated a hypothesis and I am testing it, by using objective, empirical data; my tests are independently verifiable too.

* here is a set of links to specific posts that highlight this; be sure to read the posts quoted in these too: Zig (#1025, 2 Mar), MM (#1024, 2 Mar), si (#982, 1 Mar), si (#960, 1 Mar), MM (#952, 1 Mar)
** for avoidance of doubt, I make no comment on this idea of Birkeland; my only point is that this section shows that he had a good grasp of the relevant physics (and math)

 

[Michael Mozina]

I just did. Jeeze. It's one thing to forget what you posted several pages ago, but if you can't even recognize me quoting you claiming no form of energy was ever negative in the very same post that you're responding to, well, you've really got a short-term memory problem.

You're pulling in two different conversations and expecting me to understand *which* idea DRD's strawman relates to, sheesh...

With respect to "negative energy", what I said was that this was a "net positive" universe and that "gravity" does not "balance out" our cancel out the whole energy of this universe. You seem to completely ignore my conversation with perpetual student about an arbitrary zero reference point and that pendulum example. Hello? This is certainly a "strawman" since it directly relates back to that pendulum conversation. My original objection was to your side trying to claim that we are living in a "net zero" energy state.

 

[Michael Mozina]

*sigh*

MM, in post #1669, which I shall copy in full shortly, I did better ... I gave the full background.

Here are the key points:

1. in what we today call classical physics, negative potential energy is always used, in conjunction with gravity

So what? It's an arbitrary choice. We went through that with the pendulum example. That does *not* justify anyone's claim that we live in a "net zero energy" universe (which is where that conversation actually began)!

The fact it *can* be treated this way in a math equation with an arbitrary reference point is no justification for claiming that we live in a "net zero energy" universe. The physical universe is not clumped together in one big sphere, rather it is "spread out". That distance between the various objects represents "potential energy" that can be converted into positive kinetic energy. Mass itself is simply "condensed energy" that can be released via fission, fusion, and matter-antimatter annihilation. There is no such thing as a "net zero" energy state in this universe.

I won't even go through that post item by item because it's pure twisted nonsense. Birkeland did what I agreed that we could do for purposes of mathematical descriptions of particle movement relative to the object in question. It's no different from the pendulum example that I discussed with perpetual student. In no way does that justify the claim that we live in a net zero energy universe.

 

[temporalillusion]

Is it considered a derail if we go over all of that again? A rerail?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

You're pulling in two different conversations and expecting me to understand *which* idea DRD's strawman relates to, sheesh...

With respect to "negative energy", what I said was that this was a "net positive" universe and that "gravity" does not "balance out" our cancel out the whole energy of this universe. You seem to completely ignore my conversation with perpetual student about an arbitrary zero reference point and that pendulum example. Hello? This is certainly a "strawman" since it directly relates back to that pendulum conversation. My original objection was to your side trying to claim that we are living in a "net zero" energy state.

Well, by now I hope you've had a chance to read what you - and others - actually wrote ...

Let's take post #952, as an example, shall we? It's by you (I added some bold)

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But that's exactly what it is doing. An orbit is falling is it not? Just falling around, not directly into. There's no energy constantly being expended to hold the earth up.

There was kinetic energy put into the Earth to get it into this position to begin with. It has all the momentum it needs, but that momentum is *kinetic energy*.

You say that you can see and feel energy so the energy of the universe can't be zero, you understand that they're saying the net energy is zero right?

In this case it doesn't matter if you're talking net or gross energy. There is a net surplus of kinetic energy in this universe.

Same kind of thing, energy can be positive in some places, as long as its offset by negative energy elsewhere, so the sum total of all the energy in the observable universe is zero.

The energy in the universe is kinetic in nature. What is "negative energy"? Don't say "gravity" because gravity is not "negative energy". You can have *potential energy* thanks to gravity and distance, but that is simply another form of energy that can easily be converted back into kinetic energy.

That bomb analogy is the best example I can think of to demonstrate that a mass object does not have "zero" energy, even if it wasn't moving in relationship to anything else. The atoms in the device have energy and they can release that energy at at time. It is not that we have "zero" energy even with no kinetic energy due to movement of mass objects. Even the mass is itself composed *of energy*.
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So, not only do you clearly not understand gravitational potential energy, you even confuse momentum with kinetic energy!

Of course, this isn't the only post of yours that shows such gross ignorance of classical physics (and, perhaps, high school math too) .... shall I copy some more?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Is it considered a derail if we go over all of that again? A rerail?

Well, I think it's actually rather important ...

... sure MM will dodge and obfuscate, but they are objective evidence, they can be read by anyone who has an understanding of the relevant parts of classical physics (and the associated math).

Not such a big deal by itself perhaps, but in the context of trying to figure out just why MM apparently makes so many mistakes, it goes a long way.

You see, it's like peeling an onion ... each layer of ignorance and misunderstanding you peel away, you find another lying underneath.

For example, I bet you read MM's repeated use of "predictions" just as I did - in a scientific sense, quantitatively, theory matching observation, and so on.

Did it ever occur to you that, to MM, "prediction"* means "qualitative prediction"? That to MM the word carries no connotation of "quantitative" whatsoever?

Well, I certainly didn't ... and it has taken me a great many posts to realise this.

And this leads to another discovery (or prediction, perhaps): what MM means by "electrical discharge" is - most likely - quite different than what you understand by the term.

And so on.

* in the context of Birkeland "predicting: the acceleration of the solar wind, or the nature of coronal loops, for example