Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[CaveDave]

And this thread goes on and on. Mr. Mozina, learned and highly credentialed physicist, cosmologist and guru of electrodynamic phenomena, keeps a plethora of mediocre thinkers at bay with his sharp wit and insightful commentary. Keep up the good work, Mickey.

Tee Hee. In his dreams.

Dave

 

[Michael Mozina]

What are you talking about? I haven't stuffed any constant in there. Lambda was already there. What on Earth made you think I put it there?

I didn't accuse you of stuffing the constant into the formula. I accused your industry of stuffing magic dark energy into that constant. If you put an EM field into that constant.

EM fields are included in those equations.

Not nearly well enough IMO. You folks have a see no electricity, hear no electricity, speak no electricity policy. Until that changes, you'll continue to grope around in what is quite literally the "dark ages" of astronomy.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Yes, if you start with 1000 tons of plasma behind you, you accelerate backwards. Later, if the 1000 tons of plasma is in front of you, you accelerate forwards.

Bingo. All we need to do now is start with a homogenous layout of plasma and then we just need to move more plasma mass (accelerate it) "outside" of the physical (solid) universe.

If the 1000 tons of plasma simply moved past you, from back to front, in a straight line, your (brief) forwards acceleration and you (brief) backwards acceleration cancel

What backwards acceleration? I start with a homogenous layout of plasma and I move most of it to one side. At the start the net effect of the plasma is zero. When it's gathered to one side of the object, the net effect is acceleration in that direction ben.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Electromagnetic fields are already included in the Einstein field equations. They have been considered.

Please show me where the effect of cathode suns shows up in those equations. Please show me where charged 'black holes' show up in those equations.

And they don't (and can't) produce the observed acceleration. Epic fail indeed.

The epic fail IMO is your unwillingness to reconsider your whole set of "assumptions", particularly as it relates to pure empirical physics and the effects of pure empirical physics. You're so intent on "snuffing out' the evil EU/PC concepts that you refuse to even rightfully consider them in any meaningful way. .

 

[GeeMack]

I didn't accuse you of stuffing the constant into the formula. I accused your industry of stuffing magic dark energy into that constant. If you put an EM field into that constant.

There is no such thing as "magic dark energy", and only those with little to no understanding of physics would suggest there is. No real scientist in this or any other discussion has mentioned it.

Not nearly well enough IMO. You folks have a see no electricity, hear no electricity, speak no electricity policy. Until that changes, you'll continue to grope around in what is quite literally the "dark ages" of astronomy.

No real scientists are ignoring the electrical aspects of astrophysics. It is a gross misunderstanding, a demonstration of abject willful ignorance, or maybe more accurately stated, a lie to infer they might be.

So with over 4000 posts and every opportunity for the critics to make a case, and not a shred of quantitative objective criticism has been brought in, answering to the original post I think we can all agree that Lambda-CDM theory isn't woo.

 

[Michael Mozina]

There is no such thing as "magic dark energy", and only those with little to no understanding of physics would suggest there is. No real scientist in this or any other discussion has mentioned it.

There's also no such thing as "dark energy" except in your "religion". The "magic" is how you "make it fit" with made up, ad hoc forces of nature.

No real scientists are ignoring the electrical aspects of astrophysics. It is a gross misunderstanding, a demonstration of abject willful ignorance, or maybe more accurately stated, a lie to infer they might be.

That's quite the irony overload from the guy that denies the legitimacy of Birkeland's cathode sun theories, his use of "electricity" to make solar wind work, and your denial that "discharges" occur in plasmas.

So with over 4000 posts and every opportunity for the critics to make a case, and not a shred of quantitative objective criticism has been brought in, answering to the original post I think we can all agree that Lambda-CDM theory isn't woo.

You're evidently in pure denial of the fact that your theory doesn't have a "mathematical" problem, just a physical one. Your sky entities are as impotent on Earth as any religious sky entity, in fact more so. The average sky deity communicates with humans. Your sky entities simply hide in the gaps.

 

[Michael Mozina]

No, you just want to believe we do. Ask around.

I've asked plenty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

The Big Bang model or theory is the prevailing[1] cosmological theory of the early development of the universe. According to the Big Bang model, the universe was originally in an extremely hot and dense state that expanded rapidly.

You all seem to believe that all mass and energy was concentrated to one singular clump and expanded out from there.

The effect is there, indistinguishable from all the other forces and buried in the noise far too small to be measurable on small objects, but still there.

So it's a pure (dark) god of the gaps argument?

Do you have a better name than "dark energy"? Give it a try.

Ok...."Acceleration". But oh wait, you can't claim 74% of the universe is made of "acceleration" so that doesn't work for you, does it?

Call it what you want, dark energy, MIMME, or Fred, it does the same thing.

Really? Acceleration works as well as "dark energy" in determining how much of the universe is made of baronyic materials?

The properties are OBSERVED, the equations derived, and someone gets to pick out a name (then comes the search for WHY it happens) - are you upset because they didn't let you name it?

No, I'm upset by the "slight of hand" where you *OBSERVE* something called "acceleration" and then call it "dark energy" so you can claim 74% of the universe is made of "dark energy". BS.

As much as you claim to be educated, and you don't know that's son??? You lead a sheltered life?

It was an attempt at humor, but alas you missed it.

So you choose that name? OK, without "d.e.Jesus" you would not be here: the universe would have behaved differently, and you would never be born. Tangible enough, Sparky?

I can't think of a single religion that doesn't make the same claim about their God. Like I said, it's a nice religion and all, but acceleration is not "dark energy".

That sounds like typical proselytizer talk: "If yiu would only read this bible, you will believe and be SAVED!". Give us a break! Many more than you know have read your "scripture", and found nothing in it (except a few laughs at the ignorance).

Most of you are still completely and utterly ignorant of what is in those books. At least a good religious "skeptic" typically reads and responds to the materials in the "holy book". You folks are 'couch potato critics' without a clue IMO.

I don't see much in the rest of your post even worth responding to so I'll simply stop here.

 

[GeeMack]

Please show me where the effect of cathode suns shows up in those equations.

That's a bit like asking where luminiferous aether shows up in those equations. This is 2011. Science didn't stop 30 years ago, or 50, or 100, no matter how desperately some would want that.

Please show me where charged 'black holes' show up in those equations.

See the Schwarzschild metric at this link. Of course it might be beyond the understanding of EU/PC proponents. There's math there.

The epic fail IMO is your unwillingness to reconsider your whole set of "assumptions", particularly as it relates to pure empirical physics and the effects of pure empirical physics. You're so intent on "snuffing out' the evil EU/PC concepts that you refuse to even rightfully consider them in any meaningful way.

Funny how the EU/PC proponents whine and complain, but when it gets down to actually doing real science, objectively and quantitatively criticizing Lambda-CDM theory, there isn't any to be found. And to go beyond that, criticizing any particular theory doesn't in itself validate any other theory. So even if Lambda-CDM theory had any demonstrable weaknesses, no quantitative objective alternatives have been offered.

The failure seems to be based on two primary components. (1) No comprehensive astrophysical theory has been provided by the EU/PC contingent that is actually supportable and actually explains reality in an objective scientific way. And (2), no EU/PC proponent has demonstrated the qualifications to understand enough about astrophysics to launch a valid criticism of our current understanding of it anyway.

 

[GeeMack]

That's quite the irony overload from the guy that denies the legitimacy of Birkeland's cathode sun theories, his use of "electricity" to make solar wind work, and your denial that "discharges" occur in plasmas.

No matter how often that lie is presented, it is still a lie.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Thanks for admitting that this...

​

... is a lie.

Here then, let me fix it for you:

What would be the point in me doing them personally for you when I can't get any of you to even READ or RESPOND TO ALFVEN'S CALCULATIONS *INTELLIGENTLY*? Have you even read his book yet Zig?

Happier now?

It is true. And it matters because the Lambda-CDM critics are criticizing exactly the math.

BS. You don't even "get it" yet. Nobody I know criticizes you math. Everyone I know criticizes your use of ad hoc "gap filler". Didn't you ever even read that BB petition? Did you see any mention of math in their criticisms?

http://www.cosmologystatement.org/

Nobody criticizes the math. Everyone criticizes the impotency of your ever growing number of ad hoc sky entities.

Since none of them has demonstrated the remotest understanding of the math, the criticisms are just a bunch of useless words on the screen.

Note that your fixation on math is ultimately nothing more than a red herring. It's like insisting I "look at your math' related to "invisible faeries" as you point at the sky!

No real scientist is talking about "invisible friends" or "religion" or "sky gods" or "dark gods". The near obsessive mentioning of these sorts of things is a fabrication of the crackpots. It is dishonest. It is a lie.

No, the "dishonesty" and "lies" come from your side when you claim your theory makes "accurate predictions". That's the big lie. That's the big BS trip. Your theory makes POSTDICTED fits to a single "redshift interpretation", nothing more. The dishonesty comes from your side when you fail to mention to your students that your sky entities are at least as impotent as your average religious sky entity.

The continued extreme misrepresentation of my position is evidence of a severe inability to understand the simple English I write, or it is intentionally dishonest. I'd suggest if someone doesn't understand what I'm saying, ask me to clarify. And if it's just lying, it only adds to the mountain of evidence that lying makes up a significant amount of the Lambda-CDM critics' argument.

I bash the criticisms because they're just plain stupid.

You don't bash the ideas GM, you bash individuals with loaded language like "stupid". You "stupidly" believe the electrical discharges are impossible in plasmas too. Stupid is as stupid believes.

The criticism amounts to nothing more than a combination of gibberish, lies, and contempt for real science.

No, your constant bashing of EU theory shows a contempt for "real science". Dark energy isn't "real". You "made it up". Inflation isn't "real". Guth made it up. It's a "meme" that simply "caught on" like all good religions.

We're moving on towards 5000 posts in this thread and not once has a Lambda-CDM theory critic offered an objective quantitative criticism or an objective quantitative alternative explanation. Not once.

Not once have you admitted that you have a PHYSICAL QUALIFICATION problem not a math problem, not once.

 

[Michael Mozina]

No matter how often that lie is presented, it is still a lie.

Do electrical discharges occur in flares GM, yes or no?

 

[Michael Mozina]

That's a bit like asking where luminiferous aether shows up in those equations. This is 2011. Science didn't stop 30 years ago, or 50, or 100, no matter how desperately some would want that.

Another irony overload since your "dark energy" amounts to nothing more than a "dark aether".

See the Schwarzschild metric at this link. Of course it might be beyond the understanding of EU/PC proponents. There's math there.

Liar. Alfven was a PC/EU proponent as is Peratt and Lerner and they can all run circles around you "mathematically".

Edited by Locknar: 

Edited, breach of rule 0, rule 12

Funny how the EU/PC proponents whine and complain, but when it gets down to actually doing real science, objectively and quantitatively criticizing Lambda-CDM theory, there isn't any to be found.

When did you intend to wake up and smell the coffee and recognize that those that reject Lambda-religion, do so on EMPIRICAL grounds?

The failure seems to be based on two primary components.

It's actually based on one. Pure denial. You are simply unwilling and unable to recognize and accept the fact that you have a QUALIFICATION problem, not a QUANTIFICATION problem. Nowhere on that BB petition does it mention anything about a QUANTIFICATION issue.

Wake up!

 

[Ziggurat]

Please show me where the effect of cathode suns shows up in those equations. Please show me where charged 'black holes' show up in those equations.

In the stress-energy tensor, obviously. Duh. Seriously, how clueless are you?

 

[GeeMack]

I've asked plenty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

[qimg]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/37/Universe_expansion2.png/220px-Universe_expansion2.png[/qimg]

You all seem to believe that all mass and energy was concentrated to one singular clump and expanded out from there.

So it's a pure (dark) god of the gaps argument?

Ok...."Acceleration". But oh wait, you can't claim 74% of the universe is made of "acceleration" so that doesn't work for you, does it?

Really? Acceleration works as well as "dark energy" in determining how much of the universe is made of baronyic materials?

No, I'm upset by the "slight of hand" where you *OBSERVE* something called "acceleration" and then call it "dark energy" so you can claim 74% of the universe is made of "dark energy". BS.

It was an attempt at humor, but alas you missed it.

I can't think of a single religion that doesn't make the same claim about their God. Like I said, it's a nice religion and all, but acceleration is not "dark energy".

Most of you are still completely and utterly ignorant of what is in those books. At least a good religious "skeptic" typically reads and responds to the materials in the "holy book". You folks are 'couch potato critics' without a clue IMO.

I don't see much in the rest of your post even worth responding to so I'll simply stop here.

Here then, let me fix it for you:

What would be the point in me doing them personally for you when I can't get any of you to even READ or RESPOND TO ALFVEN'S CALCULATIONS *INTELLIGENTLY*? Have you even read his book yet Zig?

Happier now?

BS. You don't even "get it" yet. Nobody I know criticizes you math. Everyone I know criticizes your use of ad hoc "gap filler". Didn't you ever even read that BB petition? Did you see any mention of math in their criticisms?

http://www.cosmologystatement.org/

Nobody criticizes the math. Everyone criticizes the impotency of your ever growing number of ad hoc sky entities.

Note that your fixation on math is ultimately nothing more than a red herring. It's like insisting I "look at your math' related to "invisible faeries" as you point at the sky!

No, the "dishonesty" and "lies" come from your side when you claim your theory makes "accurate predictions". That's the big lie. That's the big BS trip. Your theory makes POSTDICTED fits to a single "redshift interpretation", nothing more. The dishonesty comes from your side when you fail to mention to your students that your sky entities are at least as impotent as your average religious sky entity.

The continued extreme misrepresentation of my position is evidence of a severe inability to understand the simple English I write, or it is intentionally dishonest. I'd suggest if someone doesn't understand what I'm saying, ask me to clarify. And if it's just lying, it only adds to the mountain of evidence that lying makes up a significant amount of the Lambda-CDM critics' argument.

You don't bash the ideas GM, you bash individuals with loaded language like "stupid". You "stupidly" believe the electrical discharges are impossible in plasmas too. Stupid is as stupid believes.

No, your constant bashing of EU theory shows a contempt for "real science". Dark energy isn't "real". You "made it up". Inflation isn't "real". Guth made it up. It's a "meme" that simply "caught on" like all good religions.

Not once have you admitted that you have a PHYSICAL QUALIFICATION problem not a math problem, not once.

Another irony overload since your "dark energy" amounts to nothing more than a "dark aether".

Liar. Alfven was a PC/EU proponent as is Peratt and Lerner and they can all run circles around you "mathematically". Repeating the same lies simply makes one a pathological liar.

When did you intend to wake up and smell the coffee and recognize that those that reject Lambda-religion, do so on EMPIRICAL grounds?

It's actually based on one. Pure denial. You are simply unwilling and unable to recognize and accept the fact that you have a QUALIFICATION problem, not a QUANTIFICATION problem. Nowhere on that BB petition does it mention anything about a QUANTIFICATION issue.

Wake up!

All these arguments look like mostly complaints about how EU/PC "theory" is criticized for being unscientific, strawmen and distortions of contemporary astrophysics constructed in a failed attempt to diminish the real science of it, the untrue suggestion that real scientists have a belief in magic and religion, rejection of math, and a variety of unsupported assertions. In almost 700 words I don't see any attempt to objectively and quantitatively criticize Lambda-CDM theory, which as I recall is the topic of this thread. If there is any quantitative objective criticism in any of that, maybe someone can weed it out and post a quote.

So given every opportunity for the critics to make a case and still no quantitative objective criticism of Lambda-CDM theory offered so far, I think we can all agree it isn't woo.

 

[edd]

Please show me where charged 'black holes' show up in those equations.

Look up the Reissner-Nordström metric perhaps (or more generally Kerr-Newman)?

 

[edd]

Ok...."Acceleration". But oh wait, you can't claim 74% of the universe is made of "acceleration" so that doesn't work for you, does it?

It's way more specific than that, especially when you talk about LCDM where you've really constrained what the dark energy can be.

I think we've gone over this general point before, but just calling it 'acceleration' is tantamount to giving up on science and walking away - it means you're not even trying to come up with a theory. You need to come up with some ideas for what's causing it and test them. It's not religious to come up with some idea and say 'hey, actually this is working out pretty well - it's probably right even though it's not what we initially expected'. It's simply a good falsifiable theory (as distinct from bad unfalsifiable, bad falsifiable, or in the case of a certain other idea that keeps coming up here bad falsified).

 

[Tubbythin]

I didn't accuse you of stuffing the constant into the formula. I accused your industry of stuffing magic dark energy into that constant. If you put an EM field into that constant.

But in the LCDM, which is after all the topic of this thread, dark energy and lambda are one and the same.

Not nearly well enough IMO.

The only way it could be not well enough is if Einstein's equations are wrong? Do you believe Einstein's equations are wrong Michael?

You folks have a see no electricity, hear no electricity, speak no electricity policy. Until that changes, you'll continue to grope around in what is quite literally the "dark ages" of astronomy.

What a load of nonsense. No other word for it.

 

[ben m]

Bingo. All we need to do now is start with a homogenous layout of plasma and then we just need to move more plasma mass (accelerate it) "outside" of the physical (solid) universe.

Nope! That would not do what you seem to think it would do.

What backwards acceleration? I start with a homogenous layout of plasma and I move most of it to one side. At the start the net effect of the plasma is zero. When it's gathered to one side of the object, the net effect is acceleration in that direction ben.

So just once in the history of the Universe, you can start in the middle of a mass and have that mass jerked away. Just once. Thereafter, any mass that's going to move away from you has to get to you first. Good luck arranging that to match the data. You'll find that this is, precisely, the "invisible gravitational tugboat" scenario that I described, which basically requires a special conspiracy by Galacticus, He-Who-Moves-Plasma, to shuttle billions of little tugboats around so that their gravity fakes the observed weak equivalence principle.

Do the math. The tugboats don't exist (I did the math for you already). If they did exist they could not produce dark-matter-like galaxy dynamics.

End of story, theory falsified (again), move on.

 

[Reality Check]

You all seem to believe that all mass and energy was concentrated to one singular clump and expanded out from there.

We do not 'believe' it: There is strong physical evidence that the universe was once in a hot dense state, e.g the CMB.

Ok...."Acceleration". But oh wait, you can't claim 74% of the universe is made of "acceleration" so that doesn't work for you, does it?

That is nonsense. The evidence is that 74% of the universe is made up of stuff that

• does not emit light
• causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate.

Whatever this 'stuff' is, it exerts a negative pressure. That leads to the most probable candidate for it to be a non-zero cosmological constant since this leads to a negative pressure in GR. The cosmological constant is also described as a vacuum energy.

So MM, scientists have decided to call this stuff, dark energy.
Your continued inability to understand that this is the term used for the cause of the observations is astounding.

No, I'm upset by the "slight of hand" where you *OBSERVE* something called "acceleration" and then call it "dark energy" so you can claim 74% of the universe is made of "dark energy". BS.

That is BS MM.
For a start the observed acceleration is not called dark energy - it is called acceleration!

These are different independent measurements

• An actual acceleration (not your insane "acceleration") that was measured using supernovae data.
• The analysis of the WMAP data that shows that universe is made up of 4.6% baryonic matter, 23.3% non-baryonic matter and 72.1% some form of energy that we have not detected.

So according to you, scientists should have called these 'dark energy (type 1) and 'dark energy (type 2)'. You of course would then be ranting about two forms of god/dark entity stuff.

However it just so happens that the properties of the two energies required are similar enough to consider them one energy. It is dark. So MM, scientists have decided to call this stuff, dark energy.

 

[Reality Check]

MM: Can lightning happen in plasma

Do electrical discharges occur in flares GM, yes or no?

Any undergraduate physics student will tell you that electrical discharges (as in lightning) cannot happen in solar flares beause plasma conducts and electrical discharges require the breakdown of a dielectric medium.

You have been told this again and again and you still cannot understand this simple point: The definition of the term electrical discharge rules it out in plasma. But there are other usages of the term electrical discharge, e.g. Dungey used it it describe high current densities in magnetic reconnection.

Some of this ignorance is illustrated in MM: Can lightning happen in plasma?
Maybe you can answer the question in that thread