Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[ben m]

The basic problem is simple. You *refuse* to consider the one force of nature that is known to be 39 OOM more powerful than gravity.

We consider it just fine. EM is a force that acts on charges. It does not act on neutral objects; does not obey the weak equivalence principle; does not lead to time dilation; does not cause light to bend or "lens" around massive objects; etc.

What happened to the dozens of pages of JREF posts containing actual applications of EM force laws to astronomical objects? Did you never read them? Did you ignore them? Did you forget them? Did you find algebra errors making every single mainstream EM calculation wrong by 20 orders of magnitude? Hello? Hellooooo?

Now you want us to go through it again? Why, so you can ignore it again in the next thread?

 

[tusenfem]

Oh dear, are we back at the 39 OOM difference between the coulomb force and the gravitational force between 2 electrons 1 meter apart? And what use it that? Sheesh, close the thread, let's go back 5 or more years and start over this whole rubbish.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Oh dear, are we back at the 39 OOM difference between the coulomb force and the gravitational force between 2 electrons 1 meter apart? And what use it that? Sheesh, close the thread, let's go back 5 or more years and start over this whole rubbish.

Invariance under time-like translations is one of the properties that distinguish willful ignorance from other forms.

 

[ben m]

Invariance under time-like translations is one of the properties that distinguishes willful ignorance from other forms.

Aha! That explains it. So Ignorance is the Noether charge of Mozina's time-translation symmetry.

Excitations of the Ignorance field are "Errors". Errors interact with one another, allowing a quasi-stable bound state of several Errors called a "Howler". They clearly obey asymptotic freedom, since any attempt to pry a Howler apart simply results in more Errors.

 

[Michael Mozina]

It's related to both, of course.

So this earlier quote by ben wasn't accurate!

You are confused, Michael, as usual. The "lambda" in Lambda-CDM is an extra, constant term in the curvature of spacetime. It is NOT " ... and the curvature comes from a Higgs-like scalar field" or "... and the curvature comes from an extra inflaton" or "... and the curvature is just how the Universe happens to be". The Lambda-CDM hypothesis is that there's a constant curvature there, period.

So in fact you are claiming a "cause/effect" relationship between lambda and both "inflation" and 'dark energy"! You guys really shouldn't blame folks for being "confused" when you send out so many mixed messages.

What none of you did, what all of you *epically failed to do* is provide any empirical link between "lamba" and "dark energy" and "inflation". You simply "assumed" such a cause/effect relationship. Care you demonstrate *BOTH* of these claims for us in a controlled empirical test of concept? I'll be happy to let you "scale" things, but I'd like to see you demonstrate those two cause/effect relationships for me.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Oh dear, are we back at the 39 OOM difference between the coulomb force and the gravitational force between 2 electrons 1 meter apart? And what use it that? Sheesh, close the thread, let's go back 5 or more years and start over this whole rubbish.

How did your reading go? Did Birkeland predict only negatively charged particles would come from the sun?

 

[ben m]

What none of you did, what all of you *epically failed to do* is provide any empirical link between "lamba" and "dark energy" and "inflation". You simply "assumed" such a cause/effect relationship. Care you demonstrate *BOTH* of these claims for us in a controlled empirical test of concept? I'll be happy to let you "scale" things, but I'd like to see you demonstrate those two cause/effect relationships for me.

Why don't you reread this page, where you asked for explanations and I gave them to you. Did you read them? Why not? Why don't you comment on them in detail rather than exactly repeating what you said just before.

Reread this whole page, Michael. You are still confused about a point both Sol and I explicitly clarified at your request.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Why don't you reread this page, where you asked for explanations and I gave them to you. Did you read them? Why not? Why don't you comment on them in detail rather than exactly repeating what you said just before.

Reread this whole page, Michael. You are still confused about a point both Sol and I explicitly clarified at your request.

What neither of you did is demonstrate any cause/effect relationships between what you've been calling lambda and what sol claims is related to both inflation and dark energy. That is an *epic* fail in terms of empirical physics! I'm sure you'd love to just gloss over that little problem, or blame me for your lack of "qualification", but like any religious belief based on faith "it's not my fault" you can't produce the lab work to support your faith in "unseen entities". The whole thing is "religion" ben, not "empirical science". Until you *physically* demonstrate a "cause/effect" relationship, you have no business mucking up a perfectly empirical GR theory with that metaphysical nonsense!

 

[sol invictus]

So this earlier quote by ben wasn't accurate!

In his place I might have given a different slant on the same thing, but Ben's quote is accurate.

So in fact you are claiming a "cause/effect" relationship between lambda and both "inflation" and 'dark energy"! You guys really shouldn't blame folks for being "confused" when you send out so many mixed messages.

I blame "folks" for spending years and years arguing with experts over something without ever learning the most simple, basic aspects of it.

 

[tusenfem]

How did your reading go? Did Birkeland predict only negatively charged particles would come from the sun?

I had no time to read, being at a very intense science meeting for a new Jupiter mission. I wrote in the other thread that I was going to look at it this weekend. But if you have already read it, why not give your view of his writings too?

Then again, this has nothing to do with the rubbish about 39 OOM difference.

 

[Michael Mozina]

I had no time to read, being at a very intense science meeting for a new Jupiter mission. I wrote in the other thread that I was going to look at it this weekend. But if you have already read it, why not give your view of his writings too?

Then again, this has nothing to do with the rubbish about 39 OOM difference.

It would probably be best to keep these topics in separate threads. I do however look forward to your opinions on his theories about solar wind particles.

 

[ben m]

What neither of you did is demonstrate any cause/effect relationships between what you've been calling lambda and what sol claims is related to both inflation and dark energy. That is an *epic* fail in terms of empirical physics! I'm sure you'd love to just gloss over that little problem, or blame me for your lack of "qualification", but like any religious belief based on faith "it's not my fault" you can't produce the lab work to support your faith in "unseen entities". The whole thing is "religion" ben, not "empirical science". Until you *physically* demonstrate a "cause/effect" relationship, you have no business mucking up a perfectly empirical GR theory with that metaphysical nonsense!

Thank you for the nice cut-and-paste job, I have read this block of text fifteen times. Did I say something, perhaps, about there being a distinction between evidence-for-curvature and the interpretation of that curvature? I think I did. In English, even. Read it again. Did you want to comment on that particular point?

ETA:
Let me make it easy for you. Ready? Fill in the blanks. I said astronomers have direct, observational evidence for [pick one: a constant curvature OR vacuum energy]. Therefore, I said, astronomers all believe in ____________. The simplest hypothesis for the source of the ________________ is that the vacuum has _____________, but nobody claims to have anything conclusive information about the [pick one: former OR latter].

FILL IN THE BLANKS.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Thank you for the nice cut-and-paste job, I have read this block of text fifteen times. Did I say something, perhaps, about there being a distinction between evidence-for-curvature and the interpretation of that curvature? I think I did. In English, even. Read it again. Did you want to comment on that particular point?

Ya, and I had to *DRAG* it out of you.

The problem is simple ben. You folks failed to demonstrate any cause/effect relationships between lambda and any of your invisible friends. To simply ignore this point is pure denial on your part. To call it anything other than an "act of faith" on the part of the "believer" is simply "spin". There is *no* physical qualification behind your math. It's a mathematical religion based on three unseen entities and a boat load of unqualified math.

 

[Tim Thompson]

What is "Empirical" Science? V

Emphasis mine:

Anything that doesn't show up on Earth on any scale is a horse of a different color (non empirical color).

There you have it, about as explicit as anything gets. As far as Mozina is concerned, if it does not show up in a controlled laboratory experiment here on Earth then it is not empirical. According to Mozina astronomy is neither empirical nor science. Mozina must be the only person in the entire world who thinks that is what the word empirical means. See my previous post Dark Energy and Empirical Science and other posts cited therein.

Remember these quotes from my earlier post What is "Empirical" Science III ...

Question 2
The standard definition of the word "empirical" does not require a controlled experiment, or for that matter, any kind of experiment at all. Why do you feel justified in changing the definition of a word (any word, but in particular this one), and then complaining when the rest of the world does not use it your way?
For standard usage of the word "empirical", see for instance the definition from the online Merriam-Webster dictionary.

As far as I know, Mozina never answered this question.

Case in point
I quote from the book An Introduction to Scientific Research by E. Bright Wilson, Jr.; McGraw-Hill, 1952 (Dover reprint, 1990); page 27-28, section 3.7 "The Testing of Hypotheses"; emphasis from the original.

"In many cases hypotheses are so simple and their consequences so obvious that it becomes possible to test them directly. New observations on selected aspects of nature may be made, or more often an experiment can be performed for the test. There is no clear cut distinction between an experiment and a simple observation, but ordinarily in an experiment the observer interferes to some extent with nature and creates conditions or events favorable to his purpose."
​

Wilson says "There is no clear cut distinction between an experiment and a simple observation," and that is the way the entire scientific community currently operates. Are you now telling us that the entire scientific community is using a flawed concept of empiricism?

As far as I know, Mozina never answered this question either.

It is clear by now that when Mozina uses the word "empirical" he means something that nobody else in the entire world would believe. Call it "mozpirical" or "mozpiricism". But one thing that stands out clearly is that, in order to retain his firm belief in thoroughly discredited ideas, Mozina has completely abandoned the logic of science and the logic of empiricism and struck out on his own in some strange world of religious fantasy where the sun can have "rigid" iron despite it being significantly hotter than the melting temperature, or where astronomical observations are no longer empirical (in direct contradiction to E. Bright Wilson quoted above). It is a magical world where the laws of physics as we know them do not apply, and where anything that Mozina can imagine must certainly be true.

Lurkers and other interested readers need to understand, if they don't already, that this serious departure from logical standards is the primary reason that Mozina stands alone with all of his ideas in astronomy, physics & cosmology. It is not some vague fear or bias on the part of mainstream scientists that brings out the opposition to his ideas, but rather his own decision to abandon reason for madness.

 

[Dancing David]

Invariance under time-like translations is one of the properties that distinguish willful ignorance from other forms.

Aha! That explains it. So Ignorance is the Noether charge of Mozina's time-translation symmetry.

Excitations of the Ignorance field are "Errors". Errors interact with one another, allowing a quasi-stable bound state of several Errors called a "Howler". They clearly obey asymptotic freedom, since any attempt to pry a Howler apart simply results in more Errors.

 

[ben m]

Ya, and I had to *DRAG* it out of you.

I recall this point being made repeatedly over the past few years. Did you finally stoop to reading my answer? If so, I'm honored; I'm sure Sol or Edd's answers over the past two years were as clear or clearer, too bad you ignored them. Did you really read it? Did you understand it? FILL IN THE BLANKS.

(BTW, if you're absolutely determined NEVER to answer this question, you're welcome to say so now and save me the trouble of requesting answers over and over again.)

 

[Michael Mozina]

I recall this point being made repeatedly over the past few years.

And the one point that you've consistently all refused to deal with is the fact that you (collectively) never "qualified" your ideas! All three of your invisible friends are purely ad hoc creations that are all devoid of empirical support. Guth's magic inflation was completely without precedent. It came right from his postdicted imagination.

Blame me all you like ben, but your failure to provide any physical cause/effect demonstrations of inflation, DE and DM is really not my fault. No amount of fictitious math is going make up for that epic fail in term of qualification of your beliefs. Your religion is based on a trilogy of unseen entities, all of which lack any sort of empirical qualification.

 

[ben m]

And the one point that you've consistently all refused to deal with is the fact that you (collectively) never "qualified" your ideas! All three of your invisible friends are purely ad hoc creations that are all devoid of empirical support. Guth's magic inflation was completely without precedent. It came right from his postdicted imagination.

Blame me all you like ben, but your failure to provide any physical cause/effect demonstrations of inflation, DE and DM is really not my fault. No amount of fictitious math is going make up for that epic fail in term of qualification of your beliefs. Your religion is based on a trilogy of unseen entities, all of which lack any sort of empirical qualification.

Same as before. Michael, if you just wanted to cut and paste that statement over and over, you didn't NEED to ask for explanations that you weren't planning on reading or processing. How does the above statement incorporate what you've learned from the curvature/energy distinction you "dragged out of me"? Did you read it? Why can't you fill in the blanks---are they too complicated for you?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

There's an important clue here, I think, to mozpiricism.

It works in the lab. You and I are both allowed to "scale' anything that is "empirically demonstrated" in the lab to whatever size might be necessary to explain what we see in space.

And here's one problem: how do you, or I, determine what ""scaling'" is OK?

For example, Birkeland had a hollow metal sphere, connected to the rest of his apparatus by a metal rod; how do you scale this?

Scaling, of course, involves numbers, quantities, and even math.

But there is a great deal of empirical evidence consistent with the hypothesis that MM has great difficulty with math.

So how can you - in an objective and independently verifiable way - scale something "that is "empirically demonstrated" in the lab", without using any math?

Enter Mozcaling.

A key feature of Mozcaling is that its success is determined largely (solely?) by the degree to which images of astronomical objects or phenomena resemble images (photographs, etc) taken in the lab ... irrespective of the details (such as intensities, wavelengths, wavebands, and so on).

A second feature is that the parameters you choose to scale are arbitrary - you can scale physical size, for example, and ignore temperature.

A third feature is that the laws of physics derived from things that have been ""empirically demonstrated" in the lab" do not need to be 'scaled' in accordance with those laws (or scaled at all); for example, the formation and stability of a thin-shelled sphere, in zero-g, can be scaled to a ~sol-mass and ~sol-sized object without considering gravity.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

The problem is simple ben. You folks failed to demonstrate any cause/effect relationships between lambda and any of your invisible friends. To simply ignore this point is pure denial on your part. To call it anything other than an "act of faith" on the part of the "believer" is simply "spin". There is *no* physical qualification behind your math. It's a mathematical religion based on three unseen entities and a boat load of unqualified math.

No, that's completely wrong. You continue to ignore the Einstein field equations^WP that lie at the heart of this thread, and continue to deny both the empirical evidence for those equations and their consequences for dark energy^WP and inflation.

As for lambda and friends being a "mathematical religion" or a "boat load of unqualified math", the story I told earlier about the mathematician and the waitress says something important about Hermann Weyl's exposition of those field equations in Space, Time, Matter, which is an English translation of the fourth edition of Raum, Zeit, Materie, published in 1921. Weyl doesn't even mention the Λ-term in §28 (Einstein's Fundamental Law of Gravitation), and omits that term from equations (29) and (30). He corrects himself in §34:

In deriving the gravitational equations in §28, however, we committed a sin of omission. R is not the only invariant dependent on the g_ik's and their first and second differential co-efficients, and which is linear in the latter; for the most general invariant of this description has the form αR+β, in which α and β are numerical constants. Consequently we may generalize the laws of gravitation by replacing R by R+λ (and G by G+½λ√g), in which λ denotes a universal constant.

Weyl concludes §34 as follows:

In the latter case we have a static world that cannot exist without a mass-horizon; this assumption...is favoured by Einstein.

If you really wish to entertain us by arguing that, in 1915 and in 1921, Albert Einstein and Hermann Weyl were motivated to add the Λ-term by some kind of "mathematical religion" or in anticipation of what would later be called dark energy^WP or inflation, then by all means carry on as you have been doing.

ben_m suggested a far more productive course of action:

Let me make it easy for you. Ready? Fill in the blanks. I said astronomers have direct, observational evidence for [pick one: a constant curvature OR vacuum energy]. Therefore, I said, astronomers all believe in ____________. The simplest hypothesis for the source of the ________________ is that the vacuum has _____________, but nobody claims to have anything conclusive information about the [pick one: former OR latter].

FILL IN THE BLANKS.