The Big Bang - Woo or not?

[Zeuzzz]

Alchemy, the classical elements, and homeopathy.

Not really rivals to the periodic table. Unless your a mystic

How would alchemy explain the data that lead to the properties of the element gold?

The classical elements? never heard of this one before.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_element seems interesting from an epistemic point of view, doesn't seem to be based on the same data that is used to deduce the periodic table though. More mystic philosophical arguments. I dont think there are any, what could be considered valid, rivals to the periodic table in this regard.

Cosmological theories are all based on the same data, just different interpretations of it. Thats the difference.

And homeopathy, is that regarded as a scientific theory?

 

[Tubbythin]

You doing your usual here Tubbythin. Always a series of short, subjective opinionated sentences with nothing substantial I can reply to without just replying in return in an argumentative type way. I of course completely disagree with most of what you just said about everything, but since you asked about twenty questions, and made about twenty separate false statements about my position on things, I would like to ask you to choose two of these things for me to respond to. Because I really cant be bothered to repsond to these short snips. Learn how to join numerous sentences together in a coherent way to make a scientific point (without all the needless personal opinion), something people call paragraphs I think.

I like to tackle one piece of nonsense at a time. I can't help it if your density of nonsense is so high that it breaks things up a lot.
OK. Start with an easy one. We have two theories two describe some aspect of the universe.
The first theory is complex, difficult to understand. But it does agree with observation. The second theory is straightforward, has no "epicycles" but is falsified by numerous experimental observations.

Which theory is better?

 

[Tubbythin]

And homeopathy, is that regarded as a scientific theory?

Is plasma cosmology?

 

[Zeuzzz]

As far as I remember, the other predictions you linked to, one was a prediction by Eddington which categorically does not explain the CMBR. The others were tired light theories. Which are unphysical.


Erm, Yes there is. Its the radiation "left over" from the time when recombination occurred and matter and radiation decoupled. It should be almost perfectly isotropic except for tiny fluctuation needed to explain the presence of galaxies and clustering. And guess what, it is.



Well you've missed out the fact the Perfect Cosmological Principle fails as required by the Big Bang. Which also, incidentally falsifies most steady state theories.


And others have been through one or two of them with you before. And they fail.


Go run off to the CT forum where you belong.


Nlah blah, Big Bang, creationism, religious dogma blah blah. Change the record.


Is that anything like the hundreds of scientists that signed up to say they believed in Intelligent Design?


What the hell are you talking about? What are "BBT based traditional fusion attempts"? You do realise the most popular form of fusion research involves your beloved plasmas don't you?


I mean its not like anything Zeuzzz might use ever came out of CERN is it?


And from what I remember it was trivially false too.


Or not.


Was that the CMBR data that was based on Cobe. And when we asked for the WMAP version it wasn't forthcoming? Or was that something else?
I wouldn't hang your hat too much on the light element abundances. Nuclear astrophysicists have found several abundances that don't quite match to expectation before. Things tend to come along that people hadn't thought of to explain them.


Zeuzzz, anyone could cause the Big Bang theory to crumble would be an instant Nobel prize winner/celebrity/scientific legend. Where do you get all your nonsense from?

And again. Brilliant!

 

[Tubbythin]

Can you name a couple of these rival theories of the periodic table then?

I couldn't. But then I couldn't name any alternative cosmologies other than SSC, before I stumbled on this forum. Its amazing what you can find on the internet.

 

[Tubbythin]

And again. Brilliant!

See post 62.

 

[Zeuzzz]

OK. Start with an easy one. We have two theories two describe some aspect of the universe.
The first theory is complex, difficult to understand. But it does agree with observation. The second theory is straightforward, has no "epicycles" but is falsified by numerous experimental observations.

Which theory is better?

I'm sure that the 'falsifying observations' could be disputed. Name them, instead of just stating they are simply so, and this could be a productive conversation.

Depends what your testing the theory with. Parsimony might infact choose the simpler theory even if it does have a couple of small issues. If a good theory without any epiclycles or free parameters its being compared with an amazingly overcomplicated and free parameter based theory, its hard to say which theory is 'better'. 'Better' is not a scientifically well defined term. Its more a matter of perspective, thus why people have various different opinions on things like this.

 

[Tubbythin]

I'm sure that the 'falsifying observations' could be disputed. Name them, instead of just stating they are simply so, and this could be a productive conversation.

I was talking in general. But anyway. Things that falsify PC:
The sky is dark at night.
We haven't burned up all the Universe's hydrogen.
The Universe isn't collapsing under its own gravity.
The rotation curves of galaxies are not consistent with gravity - dark matter.
Ditto the rotation of galaxy clusters.
The Lyman-alpha forest.

That'll do for now.

Depends what your testing the theory with. Parsimony might infact choose the simpler theory even if it does have a couple of small issues. If a good theory without any epiclycles or free parameters its being compared with an amazingly overcomplicated and free parameter based theory, its hard to say which theory is 'better'. 'Better' is not a scientifically well defined term. Its more a matter of perspective, thus why people have various different opinions on things like this.

My question was quite explicit.

 

[Tubbythin]

The second thing I'm most interested in is what on Earth are you talking about here?

Lerner and his colleagues have got some limited funding now for his DPF fusion device based partly on plasma cosmology principles and models (which has the potential of outperforming the energy output of all the failed BBT based traditional fusion attempts, at a fraction of the cost) but this pales in comparison to the funding given to multi billion dollar Big Bang based projects like the large hadron collider and loads of other ridiculously expensive experiments like this.

 

[Zeuzzz]

The second thing I'm most interested in is what on Earth are you talking about here?

Lerner and his colleagues have got some limited funding now for his DPF fusion device based partly on plasma cosmology principles and models (which has the potential of outperforming the energy output of all the failed BBT based traditional fusion attempts, at a fraction of the cost) but this pales in comparison to the funding given to multi billion dollar Big Bang based projects like the large hadron collider and loads of other ridiculously expensive experiments like this.

Its looking quite promising at the mo... they've got about half the money they need to perform the full experiment.

Heres a recent article on this from discover magazine:


3 Ideas That Are Pushing the Edge of Science

2) Fusion On Tap
Plasma physicist Eric Lerner has a dream: a form of nuclear energy so clean it generates no radioactive waste, so safe it can be located in the heart of a city, and so inexpensive it provides virtually unlimited power for the dirt-cheap price of $60 per kilowatt—far below the $1,000-per-kilowatt cost of electricity from natural gas.

It may sound too good to be true, but the technology, called focus fusion, is based on real physics experiments. Focus fusion is initiated when a pulse of electricity is discharged through a hydrogen-boron gas across two nesting cylindrical electrodes, transforming the gas into a thin sheath of hot, electrically conducting plasma. This sheath travels to the end of the inner electrode, where the magnetic fields produced by the currents pinch and twist the plasma into a tiny, dense ball. As the magnetic fields start to decay, they cause a beam of electrons to flow in one direction and a beam of positive ions (atoms that have lost electrons) to flow in the opposite direction. The electron beam heats the plasma ball, igniting fusion reactions between the hydrogen and boron; these reactions pump more heat and charged particles into the plasma. The energy in the ion beam can be directly converted to electricity—no need for conventional turbines and generators. Part of this electricity powers the next pulse, and the rest is net output.

The model is based on a mixture of the dense plasma focus device (DPF) and his magnetic confinement model of star formation used in plasma cosmology, which has been applied to explain various other objects in space, especially the filamentary structure of Herbig-Haro objects always observed near areas of early star formation. Which fits in very nicely with his, and PC, theories of stellar evolution. Basically, Lerner developed a plasma model of quasars based on the dense plasma focus fusion device. In this device, converging filaments of current form a tight, magnetically confined ball of plasma on the axis of cylindrical electrodes. As the magnetic field of the ball, or plasmoid, decays, it generates tremendous electric fields that accelerate a beam of ions in one direction and a beam of electrons in the other. In Lerner’s model, the electric currents generated by a galaxy spinning in an intergalactic magnetic field converge on the center, producing a giant plasmoid, or quasar. One of the by products of this process are various large force free filaments in space, such filaments act to pinch matter together, which in turn leads (for large enough filaments) to gravitational instabilities that cause clumps to form along the filaments like beads on a string (including stars). These gravitationally-bound clumps, spinning in the magnetic field of the filament, generate electric forces that create a new set of currents moving towards the center of the clump, as in a disk generator. This in turn creates a new set of spiral filaments that set the stage of the coalescence of smaller objects, and thus a hierarchy of structures is formed. He's got various publications about this model in PC journals.

You can see some annotations of the different stages of the process that occurs in the focus fusion device here:

Thats the central confined current filament, which after more energy is added could fuse nuclei (its slightly more complex than that though!)

Theres loads of info about this device and the work of people who have studied the potentials of this approach to fusion on these sites: http://www.lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/ and http://focusfusion.org/, including a talk at google tech talks by Lerner.

And some more technical stuff in these:

Prospects for P11B Fusion with the Dense Plasma Focus: New Results
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0710/0710.3149.pdf
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003APS..APR.P7011L

A very detailed patent can be seen here: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0201598.html




I think its probably even more likely than IEC fusion. I recently updated the plasma universe page with some of the fusion prospects of IEC fusion, which is very similar in certain regards to focus fusion, and uses the distinct highly irratic and non-linear properties of plasma in various modes of operation (in this case some of the modes associated with glow discharge structure) to focus energy to achieve fusion with comparably low energy input.

Fusion in Glow Discharges

This approach has more money behind it than focus fusion at the moment, but has not proven to be very efficient so far. But at least they've got pretty pictures of it occuring and stuff.

Fig. 1. Photo of GD IXL SIEC in “Star Mode” operation at University of Missouri-Columbia. Luminous spokes are visible indicating the heterogeneous discharge structure

 

[Zeuzzz]

I was talking in general. But anyway. Things that falsify PC:
The sky is dark at night.
We haven't burned up all the Universe's hydrogen.
The Universe isn't collapsing under its own gravity.
The rotation curves of galaxies are not consistent with gravity - dark matter.
Ditto the rotation of galaxy clusters.
The Lyman-alpha forest.

I'll get back to this tomorrow.

 

[Reality Check]

I'll get back to this tomorrow.

This should go into the Plasma Cosmology Woo or Not thread rather than derailing this one.

 

[Reality Check]

That is questionable. Infact I would say exactly the opposite. There is far more evidence against the big bang than there is for it. The fact is that belief in the Big Bang is based on so little evidence its quite shocking. No-one is questioning the data, but there are many alternative interpretations of the data (a few I brought up on the previous page) that dont lead to a Big Bang. For example, BBT can explain the CMB, but the CMB can not be used as a proof of the big bang, as it is observed in any cosmology. In any cosmology you can predict the CMB radiation (it was infact predicted by various steady state theories before BBT predicted it) so if any cosmology can predict it it cannot be used as a proof of one over the other at all. There isn't even really an explanation for the CMB from the Big Bang theory, all that you can say for the theory is that it permits you to put it in. You look, its there, so you put it in. Its not an explanation as such.
..snipped video...

The history of CMB prediction does not have much relevance for the current BBT theory. The changing prediction is just the normal process of science as you must know by now.
Other cosmologies do (actually have to since the CMB exists) predict a CMB. None gets close to the match to what observed that BBT does.
You are wrong: The CMB has to exist from BBT theory. A dense, hot, small universe (i.e. just after the Big Bang) will always produce a cosmic radiation background. It does not need to be "put in".

The observations which bear on cosmology are, for such a grandiose subject, extremely sparse. And they are observations not controlled experiments which therefore means that they cannot compare with the thousands of particle physics experiments upon which the Standard Model is based. You've got the dark sky background, galaxy counts, magnitude-Redshift diagram for galaxies, existence of CBR, blackbody spectrum of CBR, element abundances, and maybe a couple more. Out of all the possible thousands of data pools available to construct theories, modern cosmology is based on a very meiocre selection. The actual amount of data supporting any cosmological theory is small, its mainly consistency arguments that are made. Yes, the 3' K microwave background can certainly be explained very well in a big bang context, but hoyle and burbidge have suggested an alternative explantion, as have Narlikar, and Lerner, and many others. And I'm sure that people could find twenty more if the need were felt.
...snipped politics...

Sparse? I would not call the spectra of 300,000 galaxies whose redshift have observed "sparse". I think that you are confusing observations with what is being observed. There is only 1 CMB but it has been observed many times by many different instruments over decades.
Hoyle, Burbidge, Narlikar, and Lerner and many other have suggested alternative explanations and these have never explained everthing that the BBT explains - temperature, ideal black body spectrum and power spectrum. For an alternative explanation to impact on whether BBT is correct or not it has to better the match of BBT to reality.

There are numerous alternative ways to interpret the spectra of stars not based on their nuclear cycle or their age which would completely solve this issue. Thats why the first few tentative ideas behind this alternative interpretaion of the stellar age data was recently published in a plasma cosmology journal in 2007. Which we have discussed in another thread (albeit breifly).

The point about white dwarf stars is that they no longer have a nuclear cycle. Their luminosity comes from the emission of stored heat and their temperature decreases with time due to radiation only. Thus their temperature is a reliable measure of their age.

Anyway, I can answer yes to your question, there are many structures in the universe that are far older than the universe is thought to be from BBT predictions.

To quote from Lerners site: Large-scale voids observed in the distortion of galaxies cannot have been formed in the time since the Big Bang, without resulting in velocities of present-day galaxies far in excess of those observed. Given the observed velocities, these voids must have taken at least 70 billion years to form, five times as long as the theorized time since the Big Bang.

Errors in the "The Big Bang Never Happened"

Also Labini has shown using data from SDSS that there is a definate large scale structure of galaxies on scales up to 70 Mpc (some 210 million light years). With typical galaxy velocities being only about 1x10^-4 the speed of light, it is nearly impossible to see how such large structures have had time to evolve sinse the Big Bang, they appear to be much older.

(see: Basic properties of galaxy clustering in the light of recent results from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey or for a more up to date assessment of the large sclae structure (2008), this publication)

The first paper is all about galactic clustering calculations from the SDSS and other data. The "current theoretical models" in the abstract are the models for structure formation by gravity. There is a paragraph in the conclusion that mentions the LCDM model:

On larger scales, where fluctuations become small, the comparison between theory and data becomes in principle much cleaner, as the theoretical description of this regime becomes simpler. Measurement of the signal, which is of very low amplitude, becomes, however, much more difficult, and indeed it is only with data from SDSS now emerging that it is becoming feasible to make such comparisons. Indeed a very recent paper published by the SDSS collaboration (Eisenstein et al. 2005) give an analysis of galaxy correlations in this regime and claims a statistically significant detection of a “bump-like” feature in the real space correlation function E(r) at the location predicted by the same LCDM model considered in HEB3GS (for a discussion of these real space properties

of standard models, see GSLJP, Chap. 6). Evidently such findings, if confirmed by other galaxy data, provide dramatic evidence in favor of the standard model of structure formation.​

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The second paper is a May 2008 preprint with no sign of being published yet. I think I will wait until some experts have a look at it.
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Theres also quite a lot of info on these voids that are too old for the Big Bang in a recent ACG newsletter, which links to a couple of recent publications on this issue (right up to june 2008), which make for interesting reading if your interested: http://www.cosmology.info/newsletter/2008.04.htm

But I dont expect these major falsifying observations to effect the faith people put into the Big Bang theory. All the other data that contradicts the big bang theory (surface brightness data, non iostropy, Light Element Abundances data, Alignment of CBR data, SZ effect, etc ,etc) never seems to renew cosmologists interest in alternative approaches to cosmology. They just invent yet more separate theories to explain the observations to make them consistent with the Big Bang framework, without ever considering the validity of the Big Bang theory they are all predicated on.

The existence of large scale structures would put BBT in doubt if it did not match other evidence so well.
No "separate theories" are needed. There is just the BBT (including inflation), the observation of dark matter and the observation of dark energy.
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[KingMerv00]

Not really rivals to the periodic table. Unless your a mystic

How would alchemy explain the data that lead to the properties of the element gold?

The classical elements? never heard of this one before.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_element seems interesting from an epistemic point of view, doesn't seem to be based on the same data that is used to deduce the periodic table though. More mystic philosophical arguments. I dont think there are any, what could be considered valid, rivals to the periodic table in this regard.

Cosmological theories are all based on the same data, just different interpretations of it. Thats the difference.

And homeopathy, is that regarded as a scientific theory?

Alchemy, the elements, and homeopathy are crap. That's my point.

The periodic table is based on a set of observations. There are no real competitors to the theories of modern chemistry.

The Big Bang theory is also based on a set of observations. There are no real competitors to the modern Big Bang Theory.

Everything could change tomorrow or the day after though, who knows?

 

[Zeuzzz]

The periodic table is based on a set of observations. There are no real competitors to the theories of modern chemistry.

The Big Bang theory is also based on a set of observations. There are no real competitors to the modern Big Bang Theory.

This is the crux of the issue. BBT can not be compared at all to any other area of science; its based on observations, not controlled experiments. It can not compare with the thousands of particle physics experiments upon which the Standard Model is based.

This is why the big bang should be taken with a pinch of salt. Its just one interpretation of the observations. It should just be one interpretation out of many valid contendors. Its very hard to rule one interpretation out over another definitively in the area of cosmology. Cosmology is unlike any other scientific discipline is this respect.

Sparse? I would not call the spectra of 300,000 galaxies whose redshift have observed "sparse". I think that you are confusing observations with what is being observed. There is only 1 CMB but it has been observed many times by many different instruments over decades.

But the thing is that the spectra of these 300,000 thousand galaxies that you claim all act as independant proofs of the theory could infact all act as independant proofs for another cosmology that interprets all of these redshifts in a different way, and then they would act as strong evidence against the Big Bang in one simple step It all comes back down to how you interpret the data. There are many ways to do this. The BBT interpretation does not have to be the only one considered. But this seems to be the current trend. Which I just find annoying; alternatives are dismissed as if they have nothing over the BBT simply because they contradict BBT. Cosmology shouldn't work like that, due to the very specific limits it faces as a scientific discipline. Things should be left more open than other areas of science, and alternatives considered. But as Sol demonstrated on the previous page when I posted a few alternative interpretations of the data, people dont even consider them, he just said: "I don't keep track of every crackpot idea". Why crackpot? because it is contrary to his interpretation of the data? all interpretaions should be considered on their individual merits, not dismissed for simply being at odds with other interpretations. Thats a logical fallacy, and shows a most unscientific reasoning.

 

[Alric]

From XKCD

 

[anticonspiracy911]

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded. - Terry Pratchett.

So. Woo or not?

MODERN COSMOLOGY: SCIENCE OR FOLK TALE?




This thread should be about all the points raised in the above quoted article on the Big Bang and modern cosmology. If you cant be bothered to read it and contemplate what is being said, then please don’t post anything. It makes some very pertinent points.

Alex Grey is woo.

 

[Tubbythin]

Its looking quite promising at the mo... they've got about half the money they need to perform the full experiment.

I don't have time to look at all this know, maybe at the weekend. The question I was asking was how are main stream fusion power experiments Big Bang based?

 

[KingMerv00]

This is the crux of the issue. BBT can not be compared at all to any other area of science; its based on observations, not controlled experiments. It can not compare with the thousands of particle physics experiments upon which the Standard Model is based.

Observations can be enough to reconstruct the past. Evolution, forensic science, and geology all depend on this this type of reasoning.

 

[Tubbythin]

This is the crux of the issue. BBT can not be compared at all to any other area of science; its based on observations, not controlled experiments. It can not compare with the thousands of particle physics experiments upon which the Standard Model is based.

The observations ARE controlled experiments.
The point you don't seem to grasp is that the laws of physics don't depend on "who" is performing the experiment. A result from a 'natural' experiment is every bit as valuable as one from a man-made experiment providing the uncertainties in the measurement are well judged. How do we judge this? perform another experiment and see if we get the same answer.

This is why the big bang should be taken with a pinch of salt. Its just one interpretation of the observations. It should just be one interpretation out of many valid contendors. Its very hard to rule one interpretation out over another definitively in the area of cosmology. Cosmology is unlike any other scientific discipline is this respect.

Nope. Its very easy to rule easy to rule PC out. It fails multiple times.

But the thing is that the spectra of these 300,000 thousand galaxies that you claim all act as independant proofs of the theory could infact all act as independant proofs for another cosmology that interprets all of these redshifts in a different way,

Agreed. But this alternative would have to be physical and match as many other observations as the Big Bang for it to be considered on a level playing field. There is currently no such theory.

and then they would act as strong evidence against the Big Bang in one simple step

Rubbish. If I found a bit of evidence that agrees with the statement "the world is flat", would that act as strong evidence against the world being round?

It all comes back down to how you interpret the data. There are many ways to do this. The BBT interpretation does not have to be the only one considered. But this seems to be the current trend. Which I just find annoying; alternatives are dismissed as if they have nothing over the BBT simply because they contradict BBT.

Nope. The alternatives are dismissed because they are
a) Unphysical,
b) Do not fit with observation,
c)Both.

Cosmology shouldn't work like that, due to the very specific limits it faces as a scientific discipline. Things should be left more open than other areas of science, and alternatives considered. But as Sol demonstrated on the previous page when I posted a few alternative interpretations of the data, people dont even consider them, he just said: "I don't keep track of every crackpot idea". Why crackpot? because it is contrary to his interpretation of the data? all interpretaions should be considered on their individual merits, not dismissed for simply being at odds with other interpretations. Thats a logical fallacy, and shows a most unscientific reasoning.

I'm sorry Zeuzzz, not so long ago, to defend your argument you posted a link to a site which said in it that the authors reject the existence of anti-matter. And you expect all your sites to be taken seriously?