Science is not a religion, but some scientists ARE religous about their science

[GeeMack]

What you fail to realize is that without an understanding of the mathematics, you have no basis with which to comprehend, analyze and critique modern cosmological theory.

Criticizing a theory, evolution for example, or defending some crackpot conjecture, creationism for example, without the ability to even remotely understand the relevant math and science, or without the ability to comprehend what constitutes objective empirical evidence, is exactly how religious fundamentalists operate. If they do know better, it's outright dishonesty, a lie. If they don't, it's blind faith supported by ignorance.

Michael has repeatedly failed to demonstrate that he possesses the qualifications to understand math at a level necessary to balance his own checkbook or to be capable of applying the scientific method beyond the level of a fourth grade child. Consequently any claim he makes about understanding the math and science relevant to any astrophysical or cosmological theory is a religious position built on a foundation of faith and constructed from incredulity and ignorance. Now if he actually knows better, and there's no evidence to suggest that he does, the evangelizing is a lie. Either way it is certainly more akin to religion than to science.

It would be bizarre for me to retain and attempt to defend some alternative theory which more comfortably fits my limited knowledge. How could I challenge a prevailing theory if I do not thoroughly understand it? It would be just plain silly -- but that is precisely what you are doing!

And it is indeed bizarre.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

It's not that I don't understand the math, it's that I believe the math is contrived, much like the math's related to planetary epicycles when people believed the Earth was the center of the universe. Math alone tells us nothing. Without physics, empirical physics, those maths really mean nothing. They are essentially slapping math to the side of a metaphysical pig, much like numerology. Our human ignorance should not be "covered up" by "making up" stories about magical forms of energy and matter that have never been seen on Earth. That's pure rubbish with nice looking math.

It's true, however, that you don't understand the math. If you understood the math, you wouldn't have to pack so much nonsense into your posts:

...mythical...mythical...magic...magical...Priest of the religion...mythical...religious deity...sinners...clergy...rationalization...belief...mythical...pseudoscience...mythical...religion...absolute faith...faith...faith...mythical...making up stuff on a whim and slapping on some math?

IMO that's not true. We can observe the effect of gravity up close and personal.

You're talking about Newtonian gravity. Tubbythin was talking about general relativity. It's a fact that differences between general relativity and Newtonian gravity don't matter very much at the distances, speeds, and densities we encounter on earth. General relativity has been demonstrated on earth by a few extremely precise experiments, but the difference between GR and Newtonian gravity seldom if ever matters for the consumer products that rule your cockamamie notion of science. (The original motivation for taking account of general relativity in GPS was military, and I suspect GR wouldn't have been necessary for civilian applications of GPS.)

What makes you think acceleration of objects is even remotely related to gravity theory in the first place?

Not everyone believes that so called 'black holes' possess infinite density for instance.

As has been explained to you in several recent posts, most of us do not believe black holes possess infinite density. You, Michael Mozina, are the person who's been promoting the idea of infinite density.

Your promotion of that straw man looks dishonest, but I'm willing to believe you are truly incapable of understanding the mathematical fact that the singularities of general relativity lie outside the spacetime manifold.

Why just 13.7? Why not 49.88? What's that emotional attachment to 13.7 all about?

It's an attachment to empiricism, not an emotional attachment. The best estimates for the age of the universe have changed during the 40 years I've been paying attention. We don't throw a fit every time the estimate is improved by new empirical evidence.

They are predicated upon a belief in an "infinite" density type of object.

You're wrong about that. Neither general relativity nor cosmology involves objects with infinite density.

How do you even know for instance that all matter and energy was even located within say a billion light years of one another or that it went "bang" at all?

What part of R_μν-½Rg_μν+Λg_μν=8πT_μν (in geometrized units) don't you understand?

That's a rhetorical question, of course. The point is that you claim to accept that equation, but you have been unable to describe solutions for that equation that are compatible with empirical observations and do not involve a big bang.

Just because there is a constant in GR (which Einstein set to zero), it does not give you the privilege of stuffing magic into that constant.

Actually, Einstein set that constant to zero before he set it to nonzero. Einstein eventually set that constant back to zero, although he knew that a zero value for that constant, when combined with empirical evidence he accepted, implies a big bang.

At least I admit my own ignorance Mr. Spock....invisible friends...believe...numerology...lack faith...belief...having faith...mythical...You made that up!...mythical...

 

[Tubbythin]

IMO that's not true. We can observe the effect of gravity up close and personal.

Ok. Give me a single "up close and personaal" incidence of the combined use of quantum mechanics and general relativity.

What you're essentially doing from my perspective is "imagining" that gravity is the only relevant known force in the universe and 'assuming' all events in space relate directly and only to "gravity".

Not in the slightest. We know of four forces. The strong, the weak, EM and gravity. Now the strong and weak are very very short range acting over scales of ~10^-15 m and less. So we can ignore them for the most part. And it is precisely because our understanding of EM is so unbelievably precise that we can also rule out the effects of EM on the largest scale. In fact it is difficult to see how it could be any less of an assumption short of ruling out a fifth unknown force too.

I don't see any evidence from experiments on Earth that gravity is repulsive. I can't jump off the planet, can you? What makes you think acceleration of objects is even remotely related to gravity theory in the first place?

Yes, but that tends to be where particle physics theory meets cosmology theory and there are "subjective" interpretations involved. Not everyone believes that so called 'black holes' possess infinite density for instance. This leads to a variety of theories about the nature of very heavy massive objects and new "discoveries" are happening all the time.

I would be inclined to think most relevant people don't actually think black holes have infinite density, but I qouldn't swear by it.

Why just 13.7? Why not 49.88? What's that emotional attachment to 13.7 all about?

Because that's where several independent calculation put the big bang. Since our calculations of what is going on break down just before we get there, it's incredibly difficult to make any reliable judgements about what happened before or whether there was a "before".

I'm still not personally convinced that our understanding is actually correct in the first place. These ideas are predicated upon assumptions about the nature of neutron degenerate matter for example. They are predicated upon a belief in an "infinite" density type of object. That's a mathematical limit, not necessarily a physical reality.

Huh? This just doesn't make the least bit of sense. Nothing is predicated upon a belief in an infinite density type of object. That's pretty much the whole point! When things get very very dense we don't know what happens that's where things break down. Nobody here is asserting anything about infinite density objects accept you. You're asserting that "we" demand they exist (or you seem to be) which we aren't.

Does biological evolutionary theory require faith in dark energy, dark matter or inflation? I think that's a very poor analogy actually, but...

You seem to have had a basic breakdown in reading comprehension. The analogy with biological evolution had nothing to do with the veracity of either theory and everything to do with your/creationist attempts to demand from the theories which don't fall in to their remit.

In this case however you're A) leaving out the hardest part from the standpoint of physics. How did all that mass get moving from condensed gravity well formed from all that radically condensed mass and energy?

How did we get from non-life to life?

HOw Condensed was it?

We can't tell you because we don't know. Because the laws (our understanding of them really) break down when we head back into the first second or so. Someone somewhere has probably set a lower limit on it. But I couldn't tell you off hand.

When did the Higg's particle form?

It would have been gone within the first second. You can get this from the Boltzmann distribution plus the mass of the Higgs.

How large was the universe?

I don't think we will ever be able to answer that question, not unless we live in a close universe which it doesn't look like we do.

If you're going to ask questions, do you think you should be looking for actual physical explanations about your presumed "bang"?

I don't see you rejecting the theory of evolution because it doesn't describe where life came from.

How do you even know for instance that all matter and energy was even located within say a billion light years of one another or that it went "bang" at all?

These are pretty meaningless questions. The first one because it demands knowledge of the whole universe, not just the visible part of it. The latter because... you seem to be taking things a bit to literally.

 

[Reality Check]

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/How_Much_Mass_Makes_A_Black_Hole_999.html

Well, i suppose that statement is supported by recent discoveries.

Yes it is - if you read and understand the news article.
It is a possible change in the upper mass limit of stars that form black holes. It is not a change in the upper limit of the mass of black holes.

Not everyone believes that so called 'black holes' possess infinite density for instance.

You ignorance is showing again, Michael Mozina.

• Black holes are actually called black holes.
• Black holes do not have infinite density. If the singularity at their center exists then it has infinite density. Not everyone believes that singularities exist.
• Black holes do not need a singularity to exist!
  All they need is enough mass in a small enough volume, e.g. ~4 million solar masses in a volume that fits inside the orbit of Mercury (Sag A*).

This leads to a variety of theories about the nature of very heavy massive objects and new "discoveries" are happening all the time.

This is a bad thing how?

They are predicated upon a belief in an "infinite" density type of object. That's a mathematical limit, not necessarily a physical reality.

QM and GR do not depend on an infinite density type of object. The existsence of singulatities states that GR is undefined at that point.

 

[Tim Thompson]

Empirical Evidence for Dark Energy III

Where's the empirical link between your impotent gods and expansion or acceleration?

1. Observational Evidence from Supernovae for an Accelerating Universe and a Cosmological Constant; Riess, et al., The Astronomical Journal 116(3): 1009-1038, September 1998.
2. Measurements of Omega and Lambda from 42 High-Redshift Supernovae; Perlmutter, et al., The Astrophysical Journal 571(2): 565-586, June 1999.
3. First-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Determination of Cosmological Parameters; Spergel, et al., The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 148(1): 175-194, September 2003.
4. Type Ia Supernovae at z > 1 from the Hubble Space Telescope: Evidence for Past Deceleration and Constraints on the Dark Energy Equation of State; Riess, et al., The Astrophysical Journal 607(2): 665-687, June 2004.
5. The Supernova Legacy Survey: measurement of Ω_M, Ω_Λ and w from the first year data set; Astier, et al., Astronomy and Astrophysics 447(1): February III 2006.
6. Three-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Implications for Cosmology; Spergel, et al., The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 170(2): 377-408, June 2007.
7. Observational Constraints on the Nature of Dark Energy: First Results from the ESSENCE Supernova Survey; Wood-Vasey, et al., The Astrophysical Journal 666(2): 694-715, September 2007.
8. Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation; Komatsu, et al., preprint submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, version 2 dated 12 February 2010.

These listed and the many thousand citations thereto.

Every single one of those papers *assumes* a cause/effect link. Show me in the lab. I can easily show you a cause/effect connection between EM fields and expansion and acceleration in the lab. You can't even produce any dark energy, let alone get it to "accelerate' anything in a controlled demonstration of concept.

Your response is not relevant to the issue. You specifically asked for empirical evidence and that is exactly what I provided. If you wanted something else you should have asked for something else. As far as I am concerned, I provided you with empirical evidence. If you think I have not, then say so explicitly, and explain why the evidence I provided is not empirical.

Of course it is. You've failed to demonstrate a single empirical cause/effect link between an observation of constant expansion and/or acceleration and your mythical forms of energies.

Factually false statement. Empirical cause/effect relationship is in fact demonstrated in the papers linked above.

You *ASSUMED* it.

Factually false statement. Empirical cause/effect relationship is in fact demonstrated in the papers linked above.

Demonstrate it here and now. Can you do that, yes or no

Already done. See above.

 

[sol invictus]

You've not shown any cause/effect link between that 'constant" and inflation or dark energy. Even if the universe expands and accelerates, what does that have to do with your invisible forms of energy? Where's the empirical demonstration of concept?

Maybe you should ask another poster in this thread - someone named Michael Mozina - who recently agreed that "the CC...has an effect on the universe at large scales".

 

[Reality Check]

QM and GR do not depend on an infinite density type of object. The existsence of singulatities states that GR is undefined at that point.

That should read: The existence of a singularity in a solution in GR means that solution of GR is undefined at that point. That is generally taken to be a missing part of the theory, e.g. GR ignores quantum mechanical effects that dominate at small scales.

In addition:
QM itself does not have any singularities. Quantum field theories like QED do have infinities in them. But renormalization "fixes" these and has become a criteria for valid (or at least usable) quantum field theories.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Maybe you should ask another poster in this thread - someone named Michael Mozina - who recently agreed that "the CC...has an effect on the universe at large scales".

What is the cause of the CC sol? I'm looking for an empirical *cause* that can be demonstrated to have a direct effect on material objects.

An EM field can certainly cause a field of plasma to "expand" and even "accelerate". So can external matter ( to that field of matter in question). These are "possible" empirical candidates to explain that CC. What are you claiming is the empirical *CAUSE* of the constant and why?

 

[Michael Mozina]

This discussion has nothing to do with "faith."

Of course it does. If I don't "have faith" that "dark energy" can cause material objects to expand/accelerate, you've got no way to demonstrate your claim in a controlled experiment. You can't even show a "test of concept", let alone make an entire field of matter accelerate in due to "dark energy". The whole claim is based on "faith" not empirical physics. If you claimed EM fields caused plasma to "expand" or "accelerate" that would not be an "extraordinary" claim, its an empirical cause/effect relationship that can be demonstrate right now, on earth, in the standard empirical manner. You invisible forms of matter and energy are a complete no show in the lab and inflation will *forever* be a no show in the lab. Dark energy such a wussy type of energy, it's "impotent" on Earth. The whole thing is a house of cards that is predicated on pure faith in the unseen (in the lab).

As for the rest of your commentary, it's a bit like claiming that if I only understood the maths epicycles better, I'd wouldn't be such a crackpot to believe that the Earth isn't the center of the universe. That's exactly your logic PS.

 

[Michael Mozina]

It's true, however, that you don't understand the math. If you understood the math, you wouldn't have to pack so much nonsense into your posts:

In the case of "pseudoscience" those were Alfven's words on the subject his entire career. As for the rest of it, well, it's all true, it's just that you don't like it when I point out the flaws in your faith based religion. When have you seen 'dark energy" cause acceleration of material objects on Earth? When do you expect to see it demonstrated? One year? Ten years? Your lifetime?

You're talking about Newtonian gravity. Tubbythin was talking about general relativity.

I'm talking about the "real" and "tangible" and "empical' gravity that I experience personally every single day. You're talking about math formulas. When was the last time gravity allowed you to accelerate off the planet?

It's a fact that differences between general relativity and Newtonian gravity don't matter very much at the distances, speeds, and densities we encounter on earth. General relativity has been demonstrated on earth by a few extremely precise experiments, but the difference between GR and Newtonian gravity seldom if ever matters for the consumer products that rule your cockamamie notion of science.

Which ever math formula you use is fine by me because I can experience gravity here and now and compare you math to real physical experiments and real control mechanisms. Compare and contrast that to the dead inflation concept. It's not only gone, it's long gone.

As has been explained to you in several recent posts, most of us do not believe black holes possess infinite density.

Then you do not believe in a "singularity" or a "point" because you can't achieve such a thing without achieving infinite density as well. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

You, Michael Mozina, are the person who's been promoting the idea of infinite density.

Oh no, not me.

Your promotion of that straw man looks dishonest, but I'm willing to believe you are truly incapable of understanding the mathematical fact that the singularities of general relativity lie outside the spacetime manifold.

Nothing inside our physical universe lies "outside" of the spacetime manifold, it continues to have a direct and measurable effect on the spacetime manifold. There is no such thing as a "singularity" because to achieve that you would need to achieve infinite density of matter. It's never going to happen.

It's an attachment to empiricism, not an emotional attachment.

No, it's a "scientific" attachment. I'm emotionally attached to things like love and less tangible stuff.

The best estimates for the age of the universe have changed during the 40 years I've been paying attention. We don't throw a fit every time the estimate is improved by new empirical evidence.

No, you throw a metaphysical birthday party and give birth to another metaphysical creation, in this case "dark energy". Essentially anything you guys don't really understand and can't explain is "dark". The term seems to relate more to our human ignorance and less to any actual "property" of the energy or matter in question.

You're wrong about that. Neither general relativity nor cosmology involves objects with infinite density.

I agree, which is why I don't believe in "singularities". Enough compacted mass might create something like an event horizon, but I don't believe anything achieves infinite density, the "point" of a singularity, or resides *outside* of the manifold.

Actually, Einstein set that constant to zero before he set it to nonzero. Einstein eventually set that constant back to zero, although he knew that a zero value for that constant, when combined with empirical evidence he accepted, implies a big bang.

Actually it simply implies expansion (for the moment). The concept of a "bang" presumes an unchanging process over time.

The bottom line Mr. Spock is that GR is not now and never has been dependent upon "dark energy", "inflation" or "exotic matter". If and when you can demonstrate an empirical link, here an now, between the movements of matter and your mythical forms of matter and energy, *THEN* I'll be happy to let you stuff them into a GR formula. Until you can show an empirical cause/effect relationship between GR and those mythical entities, I can only assume you "made them up" and they have about as much material "realness" as magic. You might make magic "fit" inside a GR formula, but waving at the sky with such a formula is utterly pointless. IMO that is also the case with your hypothetical forms of matter and energy.

 

[Michael Mozina]

That should read: The existence of a singularity in a solution in GR means that solution of GR is undefined at that point.

Which should be your first clue that it's never going to happen. The only way to achieve a singular "point" is to achieve infinite mass density. Forgetaboutit.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Ok. Give me a single "up close and personaal" incidence of the combined use of quantum mechanics and general relativity.

I can lay in my lawn chair in the sun and have an up close and personal experience GR and QM.

[QUOTE[Not in the slightest. We know of four forces. The strong, the weak, EM and gravity. Now the strong and weak are very very short range acting over scales of ~10^-15 m and less. So we can ignore them for the most part. And it is precisely because our understanding of EM is so unbelievably precise that we can also rule out the effects of EM on the largest scale.[/QUOTE]

IMO you have that exactly backwards. It's the mainstream's irrational aversion to all things electrical in space that precludes them from ruling out anything at this early juncture. The mainstream can't even explain solar wind. It points to magnetic fields in plasma and calls it "magnetic yada yada yada" instead of "electromagnetic" yada yada, as though those magnetic fields exist by themselves in the absence of current flow. It's absurd how backwards the mainstream approaches the application of MHD theory to objects in space. They are still peddling what Alfven called "pseudoscience" his entire career and they ignore his circuit orientation to describe events in space. It's precisely this sort of complete ignorance that prevents the mainstream from even honestly *TRYING* to explain the process via empirical physics. Magnetic fields do not create themselves.

In fact it is difficult to see how it could be any less of an assumption short of ruling out a fifth unknown force too.

Why not make it a dozen? What's the point of 'making up" stuff in the first place? An honest "I don't know" used to be enough. Now we dress up metaphysical pigs in mathematical blankets and hoc it as "science".

Because that's where several independent calculation put the big bang.

Alfven's "bang" didn't condense that far. What makes you think it happened all at once anyway? How do you know that it wasn't more akin to a high speed "collision" between preexisting matter and antimatter?

Since our calculations of what is going on break down just before we get there, it's incredibly difficult to make any reliable judgements about what happened before or whether there was a "before".

How close do you think you're going to get to that critical point? What's the trigger or condition that makes your calculations unreliable?

I'll come back to the rest of your post but first I need to start a pot of coffee.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Factually false statement. Empirical cause/effect relationship is in fact demonstrated in the papers linked above.

No Tim, it's not. It's *ASSUMED*. It *PRESUMES*.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Which should be your first clue that it's never going to happen. The only way to achieve a singular "point" is to achieve infinite mass density. Forgetaboutit.

Here is an excellent example of what I have been trying to tell you. Your ignorance of mathematics is showing again. A singularity is a point where some mathematical entity is not defined. It does not mean anything is necessarily infinite.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Yes it is - if you read and understand the news article.
It is a possible change in the upper mass limit of stars that form black holes. It is not a change in the upper limit of the mass of black holes.

From my perspective the interesting part is that the mass of the neutron star seems to confirm that concept of neutron repulsion very nicely.

• Black holes are actually called black holes.
• Black holes do not have infinite density. If the singularity at their center exists then it has infinite density. Not everyone believes that singularities exist.
• Black holes do not need a singularity to exist!
  All they need is enough mass in a small enough volume, e.g. ~4 million solar masses in a volume that fits inside the orbit of Mercury (Sag A*).

OMG. For once I actually find myself in agreement with you. What day is this? Let me mark that on my calendar.

This is a bad thing how?

It's not.

QM and GR do not depend on an infinite density type of object. The existsence of singulatities states that GR is undefined at that point.

Yes, which is why I believe it's not a physical possibility just a(nother) mathematical enigma.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Here is an excellent example of what I have been trying to tell you. Your ignorance of mathematics is showing again. A singularity is a point where some mathematical entity is not defined. It does not mean anything is necessarily infinite.

The smaller the object we try to create out of that mass, the more densely packed the mass must become. We can pack it tightly into degenerate neutron material, and perhaps something like a quark star, but the only way to shrink the function to a 'point" is to achieve infinite density of the mass inside that object. It's never going to happen.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Of course it does. If I don't "have faith" that "dark energy" can cause material objects to expand/accelerate, you've got no way to demonstrate your claim in a controlled experiment. You can't even show a "test of concept", let alone make an entire field of matter accelerate in due to "dark energy". The whole claim is based on "faith" not empirical physics. If you claimed EM fields caused plasma to "expand" or "accelerate" that would not be an "extraordinary" claim, its an empirical cause/effect relationship that can be demonstrate right now, on earth, in the standard empirical manner. You invisible forms of matter and energy are a complete no show in the lab and inflation will *forever* be a no show in the lab. Dark energy such a wussy type of energy, it's "impotent" on Earth. The whole thing is a house of cards that is predicated on pure faith in the unseen (in the lab).

The existence of dark energy is no more based on faith than was the existence of the planet Neptune, when it was hypothesized using mathematics and astronomical observations.

As for the rest of your commentary, it's a bit like claiming that if I only understood the maths epicycles better, I'd wouldn't be such a crackpot to believe that the Earth isn't the center of the universe. That's exactly your logic PS.

Epicycles were abandoned because the Copernican model produced results that were a better fit to observations. Later Kepler produced an even better model. Both of those scientists understand epicycles and their flaws quite well, which is why they were motivated to produce better models. Do you see observational flaws in the dark energy model that you can eliminate with your superior model?

 

[Perpetual Student]

The smaller the object we try to create out of that mass, the more densely packed the mass must become. We can pack it tightly into degenerate neutron material, and perhaps something like a quark star, but the only way to shrink the function to a 'point" is to achieve infinite density of the mass inside that object. It's never going to happen.

You just don't get it!!! The mathematics produces the singularity which renders the physical reality undefined (indeterminate, unknown). How else can one say this to break through to you?

 

[Michael Mozina]

The existence of dark energy is no more based on faith than was the existence of the planet Neptune, when it was hypothesized using mathematics and astronomical observations.

That's a terrible analogy IMO. We live on a planet in orbit around a sun. We know that there are other planets in the same solar system. Proposing the existence of one more planet is not an "extraordinary" claim. No new type of matter is required. No new type of energy is necessary. Nothing particularly "exotic" is being proposed that can't be "seen" or 'found" eventually. Claiming my invisible friend did it *IS* an extraordinary claim. I would necessarily need to show a cause/effect relationship between my invisible friend and the observation in question. These are *VERY* different propositions.

Epicycles were abandoned because the Copernican model produced results that were a better fit to observations. Later Kepler produced an even better model. Both of those scientists understand epicycles and their flaws quite well, which is why they were motivated to produce better models. Do you see observational flaws in the dark energy model that you can eliminate with your superior model?

No, I see significant benefits of an a PC/EU model in describing events inside this solar solar atmosphere, the solar system and inside this galaxy. It's therefore only logical to apply those concepts to the cosmos as a whole. I may not (yet) have a better mathematical model of the whole universe (although some PC theorists have put forth mathematical models), but just realizing the old model is hopelessly broken is half the battle IMO.

 

[Michael Mozina]

You just don't get it!!! The mathematics produces the singularity which renders the physical reality undefined (indeterminate, unknown). How else can one say this to break through to you?

I get the mathematical concept PS, but I don't think you get the physics part yet. The mathematics is just an abstraction. There is a "physical reality" (particle physical reality) that must also be considered. The point of a singularity is undefined, and/but also utterly inapplicable to physical reality. Nothing will ever achieve infinite density, therefore no object made of mass can ever become a "singularity". It might achieve a "high density' and become a very small object, but the radius can never become zero without the density reaching infinity.