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

[Perpetual Student]

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.

No one here has claimed infinite density. You are debating with yourself -- and very poorly, I might add.

 

[Tim Thompson]

Empirical Evidence for Dark Energy IV

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*.

Dead wrong without question. Obviously you have not bothered to read any of the papers. The cause & effect relationship is, as a matter of fact, explicit in the papers. You don't read them because they challenge your religious doctrine of faith, which you masquerade as science (and doing a very poor job of it I might say). You're hopeless.

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".

Everyone already agrees with this. The mainstream physics of black holes is quite explicitly in agreement with this. So why do you keep acting like it is the point of some kind of argument?

 

[Tubbythin]

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

OK. What single experience in your lawn explicitly yields simultaneous information about quantum mechanics and general relativity.

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.

This is entirely false. There are thousands of astronomy papers that discuss electromagnetism. Please stop with this falsehood, you're only making very clear to everyone that you haven't the slightest cluse about "mainstream" astronomy.

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.

I'm sorry. I didn't realise Alfven was the one true God of plasma who's words are impeachable. My mistake.
By the way, has it ever occurred to you that Alfven could possibly have been wrong?

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".

Erm, you're basically asking why do we try and find theories that explain experimental observations. I think you're on the wrong forum Michael.

Alfven's "bang" didn't condense that far. What makes you think it happened all at once anyway?

It's possible that there were other big bang type events prior to ours... but as I've already explained, prior to this one there isn't any knowledge of what happened.

How do you know that it wasn't more akin to a high speed "collision" between preexisting matter and antimatter?

Well for a start collisions between large amounts of matter and anti-matter would be about the most easily observable phenomenon in the cosmos. There have be no such observations.

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?

That depends who you ask. LCDM does a very good job of explaining the abundance of the light elements. That happens a few seconds after the Big Bang. So that's ok. We know things break down when both GR and QM become important, that's some tiny fraction of a second after the event. So some people have suggested there. Personally (from position of ignorance) I think this is a little optimistic. For example we don't know huge amounts about the quark-gluon plasma. That's what ALICE is trying to look at at CERN. But I'm no expert.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

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 literally do not know what you're talking about. You don't understand the concept of a singularity in calculus, let alone spacetime.

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.

You literally do not know what you're talking about. You don't understand the concept of a singularity in spacetime.

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.

You literally do not know what you're talking about. You don't understand the concept of a singularity in spacetime.

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.

You literally do not know what you're talking about. You don't understand the concept of a singularity in spacetime.

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 literally do not know what you're talking about. You don't understand the concept of a singularity in spacetime.

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.

That's pretty much what we've been trying to tell you. As Perpetual Student said, you've been arguing with yourself...and losing.

A spacetime singularity is a particular kind of hole in the spacetime manifold, but not every hole in spacetime is a singularity. The precise definition of a singularity is highly technical, involving graduate-level mathematics. No one expects you to understand it.

If you were genuinely interested in physics, however, you'd pay attention when told that spacetime singularities do not imply infinite densities. If you were genuinely interested, you'd pay attention when told that spacetime singularities indicate a breakdown of the current theory, of the humanly constructed laws of physics as known today, not a breakdown of whatever as-yet-undiscovered laws of physics may rule the universe. The singularities are a mathematical way of saying we don't yet know what goes on there.

The bottom line Mr. Spock is that GR is not now and never has been dependent upon "dark energy", "inflation" or "exotic matter".

Your argument is incoherent.

I have never said GR depends upon "dark energy", "inflation" or "exotic matter". Indeed, I and quite a number of other people here have explicitly denied that dependence. You continue to pretend we are asserting that dependence because you need a straw man.

Speaking of incoherent arguments, why do you rail against the big bang while praising Einstein's reluctant decision to set his cosmological constant back to zero? When he did that, Einstein knew he was accepting what we now call the big bang.

 

[Perpetual Student]

!

Quote: Perpetual Student:
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?

Mozina: 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

So, you admit that do not have a model that is a better fit to observations, but you say "the old model is hopelessly broken." It is strange that you do not specify in what way the "old model" deviates from observations and you do not find it perplexing that the thousands of specialists in this area do not see the "old model" as "hopelessly broken." It it true that the universe is vast and complex and that not all processes are understood (perhaps they never will be), but that does not make the Lambda-CDM in any way "broken." Stop thinking like a child!

In my view it is not unreasonable for one to maintain a healthy scepticism about the current model. Concepts like the singularities we have been talking about, dark energy, inflation, the universe having a beginning are troublesome for a layman (at least this one). If you had followed the development of modern cosmology over the last fifty years (as I have), you would realize that Lambda-CDM is the best we have. Your silly PC/EU twaddle has been ruled out by the very nature and strength of the forces involved. This is and has been mathematically demonstrated quite convincingly (if your mathematical knowledge were better, perhaps you could grasp this truth).
Your lack of training and knowledge combined with the patently false theories you embrace make you a genuine physics/cosmology crackpot!

 

[Michael Mozina]

OK. What single experience in your lawn explicitly yields simultaneous information about quantum mechanics and general relativity.

I can "feel" the quantum flow of energy from the sun on my skin and I can "feel' gravity holds me to my chair and it makes sure that my beer stays where I left it. I might not understand all the formulas of QM, nor every nuance of GR (particularly the metaphysical brands), but the reality of the flow of energy into my skin, and the force/curvature of gravity that holds me to my chair is undeniable. It's physically tangible and physically measurable, right here, right now, right from the lawn chair. I can watch the effect of light in the lab in something like a dual slit experiment. Nothing about QM or GR is beyond standard empirical physics.

If however you simply "make up" a mythical (and frankly "supernatural") force of nature, that cannot be seen on Earth, you've created a 'religion" that requires faith in the "unseen" (on Earth). Guth became the first PHd Priest of a new religion when he invented inflation in his head. Even though *HIS* brand of inflation was evidently falsified, the mythical deity survived, this time with "new and improved" imagined properties.

This is entirely false. There are thousands of astronomy papers that discuss electromagnetism. Please stop with this falsehood, you're only making very clear to everyone that you haven't the slightest cluse about "mainstream" astronomy.

Virtually every paper in astronomy ignores Alfven's "circuit' orientation to events in space. The mainstream is instead fixated on magnetism and insistent upon sticking the magnetic cart in front of the electric horse! Instead of adopting an *ELECTRO*magnetic orientation to physical events in space, the mainstream fixates on the magnetic fields they can easily measure an imagine it's the magnetic field that does all the work. It's exactly like seeing EM disturbances in a planetary atmosphere from a distance and *ASSUMING* that "magnetic reconnection did it". The mainstream has an irrational fixation on something Alfven utterly rejected as pseudo-science his entirely professional career and he read many papers on the topic.

I'm sorry. I didn't realise Alfven was the one true God of plasma who's words are impeachable.

If I wanted to 'understand" GR, wouldn't you agree that Einstein's work would be a "reputable' place to begin? Holy cow! You guys and gals gave the guy the Nobel Prize in MHD theory. Don't you think you should give him the benefit of the doubt? Nobody claimed his work was not impeachable, but you folks don't even make a serious attempt to apply his "particle/circuit" orientation of MHD theory to events in space. Instead it's always "magnetic yada yada yada".

My mistake.
By the way, has it ever occurred to you that Alfven could possibly have been wrong?

Sure, but I've never seen a paper or experiment that I found particularly convincing in terms of pure plasma physics. You guys can't even physically explain the difference between "'magnetic reconnection" and "particle collision" and/or "induction". The few actual "experiments" done on the topic *NEEDED* 'circuits" in order to function. The "sawtooth" effect seen in such experiments was simply a "constriction" of the "Bennett Pinch flux tube'. For God only knows what reason they *ASSUMED* that the electric current stayed exactly the same, even while the tube and electron ring *SHRUNK* in physical size, significantly decreasing the overall surface area of the current flow patterns. The whole experiment would be a complete "DUD" if they didn't start with a "flowing filament" and/or a "circuit" of electrical energy! They could have just as easily called it "circuit reconnection' in such experiments too. The whole thing certainly reeks of poor wording on the part of the mainstream, but whats is new about that?

Erm, you're basically asking why do we try and find theories that explain experimental observations. I think you're on the wrong forum Michael.

I'm asking you why you feel compelled to attempt to "explain" something with a mythical and impotent (on Earth) concept? What's the point? How is that not a "religion"?

It's possible that there were other big bang type events prior to ours... but as I've already explained, prior to this one there isn't any knowledge of what happened.

But if matter (as we understand it) and energy (as we understand it) predated the "bang", then all your concepts about elemental abundance figures become suspect, all your *assumptions' related to inflation become meaningless (Alfven's homogeneous layout of matter was simply "assumed" from the start).

Well for a start collisions between large amounts of matter and anti-matter would be about the most easily observable phenomenon in the cosmos. There have be no such observations.

Sure we do. We see signatures of matter/antimatter annihilation signatures all over the universe, even in the atmosphere of our own sun and Earth. FYI, there may not be much "antimatter' around as we understand it, at least not much left to see inside our little tiny sliver of a much larger physical universe. There's no guarantee that we should expect to see vast quantities of antimatter around our neck of the woods.

That depends who you ask. LCDM does a very good job of explaining the abundance of the light elements.

But then aren't you "assuming" that all elements were "created' in some 'creation" event?

You seem to be straddling a very narrow fence here as it relates to the concept of 'creation". I don't see how your abundance figures are all that helpful unless you "assume" all elements were "created" in a singular event. How is that not a creation event again? Maybe there's something subtle (or not so subtle) that I'm missing?

 

[Michael Mozina]

No one here has claimed infinite density. You are debating with yourself -- and very poorly, I might add.

All I was pointing out to Mr. Spock is that a "singularity' is a mathematical abstraction, but it is also a physical impossibility. In order for all mass and energy to become concentrated to a "point", it would require that mass and energy related to that object concentrated itself to a "point". The Pauli exclusion principle would prohibit the density from increasing to infinity, so that cannot ever actually happen. While the mathematical abstraction of a singularity is intriguing, it has nothing whatsoever to do with "physical reality", nor do they exist in physical reality or have any effect on physical reality. It's exactly like string theory. As long as you "have faith" in a ton of extra dimensions and never expect to see it demonstrated in your lifetime, it's a nice little niche "religion' to wrap yourself up in.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Dead wrong without question. Obviously you have not bothered to read any of the papers. The cause & effect relationship is, as a matter of fact, explicit in the papers.

Cite the exact paper, page and paragraph where they established cause/effect relationships between "inflation", "dark energy" and "expansion" or "acceleration"? An observation of acceleration is not an observation of "dark energy" without establishing that your invisible friend exists and is capable of "accelerating" at least a couple grams of plasma. Which exact paragraph establishes a cause/effect relationship between your invisible friends and events in space?

 

[Michael Mozina]

I have never said GR depends upon "dark energy", "inflation" or "exotic matter". Indeed, I and quite a number of other people here have explicitly denied that dependence. You continue to pretend we are asserting that dependence because you need a straw man.

Most of your last post wasn't even worth responding to, but this statement warrants a response. I cannot even remember how many times that I've been told that the evidence for mainstream theory is somehow found inside a GR formula. That's a crock. You can't stick magic inside a GR formula and give magic credibility that way. GR theory is in no way related to, nor dependent upon anything like "inflation", "dark energy' or mythical forms of matter or energy. In no way does GR theory provide "evidence" to support "inflation", "dark energy", or exotic matter.

Stuffing 'dark energy" into a GR formula is exactly like stuffing "dark evil energy" into a the same formula. What's the point? You've got zero empirical support that 'dark evil energy" has any effect on matter! How does dark evil energy gain credibility simply by pointing at the sky and claiming 'dark evil energy did it'?

Speaking of incoherent arguments, why do you rail against the big bang while praising Einstein's reluctant decision to set his cosmological constant back to zero? When he did that, Einstein knew he was accepting what we now call the big bang.

FYI, I don't have a problem with all "Bang" concepts, and I'm sure Einstein didn't either. BB theories existed long before inflation and long before "dark energy" and long before the mainstream's belief in exotic forms of matter. BB theories will probably stick around long after your dark buddies die a natural empirical death too.

 

[GeeMack]

Most of your last post wasn't even worth responding to, but this statement warrants a response. I cannot even remember how many times that I've been told that the evidence for mainstream theory is somehow found inside a GR formula. That's a crock. You can't stick magic inside a GR formula and give magic credibility that way. GR theory is in no way related to, nor dependent upon anything like "inflation", "dark energy' or mythical forms of matter or energy. In no way does GR theory provide "evidence" to support "inflation", "dark energy", or exotic matter.

Stuffing 'dark energy" into a GR formula is exactly like stuffing "dark evil energy" into a the same formula. What's the point? You've got zero empirical support that 'dark evil energy" has any effect on matter! How does dark evil energy gain credibility simply by pointing at the sky and claiming 'dark evil energy did it'?



FYI, I don't have a problem with all "Bang" concepts, and I'm sure Einstein didn't either. BB theories existed long before inflation and long before "dark energy" and long before the mainstream's belief in exotic forms of matter. BB theories will probably stick around long after your dark buddies die a natural empirical death too.

Of course continuing to claim that anyone else takes the position that dark evil energy did anything makes you a liar, doesn't it, Michael? Do you really think you're ever going to gain any ground preaching your crank notions by constructing your arguments from lies, incredulity, and ignorance?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

[...]

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.

That's pretty much what we've been trying to tell you. As Perpetual Student said, you've been arguing with yourself...and losing.

A spacetime singularity is a particular kind of hole in the spacetime manifold, but not every hole in spacetime is a singularity. The precise definition of a singularity is highly technical, involving graduate-level mathematics. No one expects you to understand it.

If you were genuinely interested in physics, however, you'd pay attention when told that spacetime singularities do not imply infinite densities. If you were genuinely interested, you'd pay attention when told that spacetime singularities indicate a breakdown of the current theory, of the humanly constructed laws of physics as known today, not a breakdown of whatever as-yet-undiscovered laws of physics may rule the universe. The singularities are a mathematical way of saying we don't yet know what goes on there.

[...]

I'm not sure if you, W.D. Clinger, ever read the thread(s) which contain exchanges of posts, with MM, on the Casimir effect; if not, and if you have the time, it may be very, um, informative to read at least some of them.

As you, and many others, have noted, MM just doesn't 'get' quantitative; AFAICS, his (religious) view of physics is totally devoid of equations, formulae, and, to a not insignificant extent, even numbers.

This makes some exchanges of posts with him truly bizarre - some of the Casimir effect ones are real doozies!

But what really knocked my sox off was the apparently genuine way MM blithely talked about neutrinos, EM fields, residual gas, and so on - these all seem to have an unquestionable place in MM's pantheon, but they have no measurable aspects! They clearly have magical properties, such as the ability to exert any pressure MM wants, and their reality is described (entirely?) in terms of diagrams and pictures.

In short, MM's worldview, devoid as it is of anything quantitative, cannot be challenged or questioned except with diagrams, pictures, and qualitative descriptions of the magical behaviour of the pantheon of gods of which it is comprised. Dialogue is severely hampered by the fact that, in MM's worldview, the gods have names that are the same as those which appear in standard physics texts, such as neutrino, or EM fields; however, the meanings given to them - in MM's worldview - are so radically different than that found in standard texts that almost all dialogues with MM become essentially meaningless.

 

[Tim Thompson]

Objective Reason vs Subjective Religion in Science

Dead wrong without question. Obviously you have not bothered to read any of the papers. The cause & effect relationship is, as a matter of fact, explicit in the papers.

Cite the exact paper, page and paragraph where they established cause/effect relationships between "inflation", "dark energy" and "expansion" or "acceleration"?

No. I have already given you the list of papers ...

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.

Either you care enough to be sure you know what you are talking about, or you don't care enough to be sure that you know what you are talking about. If you do care you will read the papers and see for yourself. If you did care, you would already have been aware of at least some of those papers, and you would already have read some of those papers, so my bet is on the "don't care" option. Do your own homework or admit that you don't care enough to bother.

An observation of acceleration is not an observation of "dark energy" without establishing that your invisible friend exists and is capable of "accelerating" at least a couple grams of plasma.

Well, actually, yes it is. It most certainly and emphatically and undoubtedly is exactly what you say it is not, which shows us all how well you really do (or in this case, don't) know what you are talking about. We have been all over this too many times to respect your silly idea that this is not the case (e.g., Dark Energy and Empirical Science, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Inflation and Real Science). Dark energy is, by definition, the cause of the accelerated expansion. It might have turned out to be classical electromagnetism (though we now know quite well that this is not the case; e.g., Dark energy is not classical electromagentism VI, Dark energy is not classical electromagnetism V, Dark energy is not classical electromagnetism, What is "dark energy", really? & etc.), in which case "dark energy" would have vanished from the lexicon of cosmology, to be replaced by more appropriate words.

You asked for empirical evidence and I gave you empirical evidence. But we have already established in these fora that you don't know and/or don't care what the word "empirical" means (e.g., What is Empirical Science? V, What is Empirical Science? III, Delusional Science & etc.). You constantly demand controlled laboratory experiments, but we have already established that in truth you do not respect controlled laboratory experiments, even though you want us to believe that you do, because you will always reject controlled laboratory experiments, if they conflict with your infallible doctrine of religious faith (e.g., Magnetic Reconnection Redux XI, Magnetic Reconnection Redux X, Comments on Magnetic Reconnection III & etc.). Since I already know in advance that you will invariably reject truth, in favor of your own infallible doctrine of faith, I don't see why I should do a lot of work to show you page & paragraph. If you aren't willing to find them yourself, it's not worth the effort to show you.

The thread title reads "Science is not a religion, but some scientists ARE religious about their science". Indeed, there are examples of scientists from the history of science, some quite famous, who have more confidence in their own ideas that the ideas turn out to be worthy of. However, since we call them "scientists", we assume that somewhere along the line, they have done legitimate, real live science. Now it is certainly true that Mozina has far more confidence in his own ideas than objectivity would allow. However, I can find no evidence of Mozina ever having done what I would call legitimate science, though he may have managed a better than average imitation on a few occasions. Still I agree with this sentiment ...

In short, MM's worldview, devoid as it is of anything quantitative, cannot be challenged or questioned except with diagrams, pictures, and qualitative descriptions of the magical behaviour of the pantheon of gods of which it is comprised. Dialogue is severely hampered by the fact that, in MM's worldview, the gods have names that are the same as those which appear in standard physics texts, such as neutrino, or EM fields; however, the meanings given to them - in MM's worldview - are so radically different than that found in standard texts that almost all dialogues with MM become essentially meaningless.

Mozina has nothing of intellectual or scientific value to offer. Nothing. What he does have is an overriding faith in his own personal doctrine of faith, a purely religious construction, which cannot ever be allowed to suffer the pain of criticism in any form, and which must be considered infallible in all cases. Whether that is true religion or not, one thing for certain is that it is not science in any way.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Mozina has nothing of intellectual or scientific value to offer. Nothing. What he does have is an overriding faith in his own personal doctrine of faith, a purely religious construction, which cannot ever be allowed to suffer the pain of criticism in any form, and which must be considered infallible in all cases. Whether that is true religion or not, one thing for certain is that it is not science in any way.

Praise the gods and amen!

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Most of your last post wasn't even worth responding to, but this statement warrants a response. I cannot even remember how many times that I've been told that the evidence for mainstream theory is somehow found inside a GR formula. That's a crock. You can't stick magic inside a GR formula and give magic credibility that way. GR theory is in no way related to, nor dependent upon anything like "inflation", "dark energy' or mythical forms of matter or energy. In no way does GR theory provide "evidence" to support "inflation", "dark energy", or exotic matter.

As I said, the theory of relativity does not depend upon inflation, dark matter, or dark energy. On the other hand, the theories of inflation, dark matter, and dark energy most certainly depend upon the theory of relativity. Hence your claim that "GR theory is in no way related to" those things is false.

For example, much of the argument for dark matter consists of empirical observations combined with the laws of gravity, i.e. general relativity. In that sense, GR most certainly is an important component of the evidence for dark matter. For you to deny that is just as silly as the rest of your argument:

...dark evil energy...dark evil energy...dark evil energy...pointing at the sky...dark evil energy did it...

 

[DeiRenDopa]

For completeness, the thread I had in mind, wrt my earlier post directed at W.D.Clinger, is Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?. It's a very long thread, and many pages are devoted to the Casimir effect.

Perhaps a good place to start, to see just how completely different MM's views of physics are, is page 56 (you'll need to read several pages, possibly some before 56, to get the full impact).

 

[Tubbythin]

I can "feel" the quantum flow of energy from the sun on my skin and I can "feel' gravity holds me to my chair and it makes sure that my beer stays where I left it. I might not understand all the formulas of QM, nor every nuance of GR (particularly the metaphysical brands), but the reality of the flow of energy into my skin, and the force/curvature of gravity that holds me to my chair is undeniable. It's physically tangible and physically measurable, right here, right now, right from the lawn chair. I can watch the effect of light in the lab in something like a dual slit experiment. Nothing about QM or GR is beyond standard empirical physics.

Rather than continuing with your pathetic attempts at derision could actually give me an example of when General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are needed together?

If however you simply "make up" a mythical (and frankly "supernatural") force of nature, that cannot be seen on Earth, you've created a 'religion" that requires faith in the "unseen" (on Earth). Guth became the first PHd Priest of a new religion when he invented inflation in his head. Even though *HIS* brand of inflation was evidently falsified, the mythical deity survived, this time with "new and improved" imagined properties.

In one paragraph, that's an impressive load of horsecrap you've thrown together without a single shred of scientific justification. Pretty soon you'll be going on ignore. To call your arguments pathetic would be doing a disservice to all the other things I've ever called pathetic.

Virtually every paper in astronomy ignores Alfven's "circuit' orientation to events in space. The mainstream is instead fixated on magnetism and insistent upon sticking the magnetic cart in front of the electric horse! Instead of adopting an *ELECTRO*magnetic orientation to physical events in space, the mainstream fixates on the magnetic fields they can easily measure an imagine it's the magnetic field that does all the work. It's exactly like seeing EM disturbances in a planetary atmosphere from a distance and *ASSUMING* that "magnetic reconnection did it". The mainstream has an irrational fixation on something Alfven utterly rejected as pseudo-science his entirely professional career and he read many papers on the topic.

Except this is totally false. There are thousands upon thousand of papers on electromagnetic phenomena in astronomy.

If I wanted to 'understand" GR, wouldn't you agree that Einstein's work would be a "reputable' place to begin? Holy cow!

Not particularly. He's not published any work since 1955. I prefer to keep my science references up to date wherever possible.

You guys and gals gave the guy the Nobel Prize in MHD theory. Don't you think you should give him the benefit of the doubt?

Benefit of the doubt? Science isn't about benefit of the doubt. It's about which theories (notice "which not who's) best agree with the data. I couldn't really give a monkeys if the best theory came from Anna Kournikova.

Nobody claimed his work was not impeachable, but you folks don't even make a serious attempt to apply his "particle/circuit" orientation of MHD theory to events in space. Instead it's always "magnetic yada yada yada".

As I supposed to you who just yada yada yada about how "it's always "magnetic yada yada yada"".

Sure, but I've never seen a paper or experiment that I found particularly convincing in terms of pure plasma physics. You guys can't even physically explain the difference between "'magnetic reconnection" and "particle collision" and/or "induction". The few actual "experiments" done on the topic *NEEDED* 'circuits" in order to function. The "sawtooth" effect seen in such experiments was simply a "constriction" of the "Bennett Pinch flux tube'. For God only knows what reason they *ASSUMED* that the electric current stayed exactly the same, even while the tube and electron ring *SHRUNK* in physical size, significantly decreasing the overall surface area of the current flow patterns. The whole experiment would be a complete "DUD" if they didn't start with a "flowing filament" and/or a "circuit" of electrical energy! They could have just as easily called it "circuit reconnection' in such experiments too. The whole thing certainly reeks of poor wording on the part of the mainstream, but whats is new about that?

IOW, your objection is a semantic one.

I'm asking you why you feel compelled to attempt to "explain" something with a mythical and impotent (on Earth) concept? What's the point? How is that not a "religion"?

I don't. Those are words you chose to assign to these theories due to your complete inability to debate science. I have never once used those words. Now, you gonna debate science or just defend your viewpoint with antiscience crap about mythical beings?

But if matter (as we understand it) and energy (as we understand it) predated the "bang", then all your concepts about elemental abundance figures become suspect, all your *assumptions' related to inflation become meaningless (Alfven's homogeneous layout of matter was simply "assumed" from the start).

No. Prior to the first second or so the Universe was in such a hot state that photon energies exceeded nuclear binding energies by orders of magnitude (actually orders of orders of magnitude). There is no way nuclei could have existed at this time.

Sure we do. We see signatures of matter/antimatter annihilation signatures all over the universe, even in the atmosphere of our own sun and Earth.

Note "large amounts".

FYI, there may not be much "antimatter' around as we understand it, at least not much left to see inside our little tiny sliver of a much larger physical universe. There's no guarantee that we should expect to see vast quantities of antimatter around our neck of the woods.

Hmm. How do you know how big the physical universe i?

But then aren't you "assuming" that all elements were "created' in some 'creation" event?

"all elements"!??!?!?! Do you understand anything about the thery you are disputing?
By the way, it's commonly termed big bang nucleosynthesis. Your feeble attempt to get "creation" in is noted. Now, rather than arguing via "insert stupid words with religious overtones" are you going to argue science?

You seem to be straddling a very narrow fence here as it relates to the concept of 'creation".

You seem to be desperately attempting to get the word creation into it. Its pathetic. Laughable and ridiculous. Now. Are you going to argue science?

I don't see how your abundance figures are all that helpful unless you "assume" all elements were "created" in a singular event.

You really do know absolutely nothing about the big bang. All the elements? I suggest you come back and make a scientific argument when you've:
a) learned how to
b) learned what the hell you're talking about.

How is that not a creation event again? Maybe there's something subtle (or not so subtle) that I'm missing?

How is it any more a creation event than pair production?

 

[Reality Check]

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.

You have at last got something almost right!
That is the reason why most scientists think that GR is not complete.

I do not know what you think "it" is. If "it" is the creation of the universe then I guess that you are continuing with your religious delusion that the Big Bang theory has something to do the creation or not of the universe.

FYI: I happen to favor brane cosmology where the universe is basically eternal.

 

[Reality Check]

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

No it does not because you have not understood what the news article states and the paper means:
A Neutron Star with a Massive Progenitor in Westerlund 1
It is the original star that is massive, not the neutron star.
The mass of the neutron star was not determined.

Also the "concept of neutron repulsion" is just that - a concept of Dr. Oliver Manuel with no evidence, e.g. IMO his form of n-n repulsion would show up clearly in n-n scattering experiments. There is actual n-n repulsion mediated by the strong force that stops neutron stars from collapsing.

 

[Reality Check]

There is a "physical reality" (particle physical reality) that must also be considered.

The "physical reality" that you are ignoring is that we only know of 4 forces in the universe.
The properties of these forces means that gravity can squeeze matter into various degenerate forms. Start with a plasma as present in stars.

• Electron degeneracy from the Pauli exclusion principle stops white dwarfs from collapsing.
• Add more mass to pass the Chandrasekhar limit and the electron degeneracy pressure is overcome. Protons capture electrons and the star becomes mostly a lump of neutrons - a neutron star.
• Add more matter to pass the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit and the weight of the star is no longer "supported by short-range repulsive neutron-neutron interactions mediated by the strong force and also by the quantum degeneracy pressure of neutrons".
  This may form a quark star.

Add any more matter and eventually the force of gravity overcomes all known and theoretical degeneracy pressures. There is nothing to stop the mass from being squeezed into a singularity. Few people (including you and me) like this. The hope is that something physically prevents this, e.g. that spacetime is not really continuous but is discrete so that the collapse stops are a really, really small scale.

This of course:

• Has nothing to do with the existence or not of black holes (which we agree on).
• Has nothing to do with the Big Bang because it starts from a universe in a hot dense state, not a singularity.

 

[Dancing David]

Just to clarify something, a singularity is not a mathematical point. I thought it had a dimension of or less than the Planck length. So while that is very small it is not a mathematical point, even in our space time.

Correct?