“This has been like looking for a needle in a haystack, but instead we found a crowbar…”
From the Stanford Report, March 17, 2014 (h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard) video follows
New evidence from space supports Stanford physicist’s theory of how universe began
The detection of gravitational waves by the BICEP2 experiment at the South Pole supports the cosmic inflation theory of how the universe came to be. The discovery, made in part by Assistant Professor Chao-Lin Kuo, supports the theoretical work of Stanford’s Andrei Linde.
Almost 14 billion years ago, the universe we inhabit burst into existence in an extraordinary event that initiated the Big Bang. In the first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, stretching far beyond the view of today’s best telescopes. All this, of course, has just been theory.
Researchers from the BICEP2 collaboration today announced the first direct evidence supporting this theory, known as “cosmic inflation.” Their data also represent the first images of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time. These waves have been described as the “first tremors of the Big Bang.” Finally, the data confirm a deep connection between quantum mechanics and general relativity.
“This is really exciting. We have made the first direct image of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time across the primordial sky, and verified a theory about the creation of the whole universe,” said Chao-Lin Kuo, an assistant professor of physics at Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and a co-leader of the BICEP2 collaboration.
These groundbreaking results came from observations by the BICEP2 telescope of the cosmic microwave background – a faint glow left over from the Big Bang. Tiny fluctuations in this afterglow provide clues to conditions in the early universe. For example, small differences in temperature across the sky show where parts of the universe were denser, eventually condensing into galaxies and galactic clusters.
Because the cosmic microwave background is a form of light, it exhibits all the properties of light, including polarization. On Earth, sunlight is scattered by the atmosphere and becomes polarized, which is why polarized sunglasses help reduce glare. In space, the cosmic microwave background was scattered by atoms and electrons and became polarized too.
“Our team hunted for a special type of polarization called ‘B-modes,’ which represents a twisting or ‘curl’ pattern in the polarized orientations of the ancient light,” said BICEP2 co-leader Jamie Bock, a professor of physics at Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Gravitational waves squeeze space as they travel, and this squeezing produces a distinct pattern in the cosmic microwave background. Gravitational waves have a “handedness,” much like light waves, and can have left- and right-handed polarizations.
“The swirly B-mode pattern is a unique signature of gravitational waves because of their handedness,” Kuo said.
The team examined spatial scales on the sky spanning about 1 to 5 degrees (two to 10 times the width of the full moon). To do this, they set up an experiment at the South Pole to take advantage of its cold, dry, stable air, which allows for crisp detection of faint cosmic light.
“The South Pole is the closest you can get to space and still be on the ground,” said BICEP2 co-principal investigator John Kovac, an associate professor of astronomy and physics at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who led the deployment and science operation of the project. “It’s one of the driest and clearest locations on Earth, perfect for observing the faint microwaves from the Big Bang.”
The researchers were surprised to detect a B-mode polarization signal considerably stronger than many cosmologists expected. The team analyzed their data for more than three years in an effort to rule out any errors. They also considered whether dust in our galaxy could produce the observed pattern, but the data suggest this is highly unlikely.
“This has been like looking for a needle in a haystack, but instead we found a crowbar,” said co-leader Clem Pryke, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Minnesota.
Physicist Alan Guth formally proposed inflationary theory in 1980, when he was a postdoctoral scholar at SLAC, as a modification of conventional Big Bang theory. Instead of the universe beginning as a rapidly expanding fireball, Guth theorized that the universe inflated extremely rapidly from a tiny piece of space and became exponentially larger in a fraction of a second. This idea immediately attracted lots of attention because it could provide a unique solution to many difficult problems of the standard Big Bang theory.
However, as Guth, who is now a professor of physics at MIT, immediately realized, certain predictions in his scenario contradicted observational data. In the early 1980s, Russian physicist Andrei Linde modified the model into a concept called “new inflation” and again to “eternal chaotic inflation,” both of which generated predictions that closely matched actual observations of the sky.
Linde, now a professor of physics at Stanford, could not hide his excitement about the news. “These results are a smoking gun for inflation, because alternative theories do not predict such a signal,” he said. “This is something I have been hoping to see for 30 years.”
BICEP2’s measurements of inflationary gravitational waves are an impressive combination of theoretical reasoning and cutting-edge technology. Stanford’s contribution to the discovery extends beyond Kuo, who designed the polarization detectors. Kent Irwin, a professor of physics at Stanford and SLAC, also conducted pioneering work on superconducting sensors and readout systems used in the experiment. The research also involved several researchers, including Kuo, affiliated with the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), which is supported by Stanford, SLAC and the Kavli Foundation.
BICEP2 is the second stage of a coordinated program, the BICEP and Keck Array experiments, which has a co-principal investigator structure. The four PIs are Jamie Bock (Caltech/JPL,) John Kovac (Harvard), Chao-Lin Kuo (Stanford/SLAC) and Clem Pryke (UMN). All have worked together on the present result, along with talented teams of students and scientists. Other major collaborating institutions for BICEP2 include the University of California, San Diego; University of British Columbia; National Institute of Standards and Technology; University of Toronto; Cardiff University; and Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique.
BICEP2 is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). NSF also runs the South Pole Station where BICEP2 and the other telescopes used in this work are located. The Keck Foundation also contributed major funding for the construction of the team’s telescopes. NASA, JPL and the Moore Foundation generously supported the development of the ultra-sensitive detector arrays that made these measurements possible.
Technical details and journal papers can be found on the BICEP2 release website: http://bicepkeck.org
Video by Kurt HickmanAssistant Professor Chao-Lin Kuo, right, delivers news of the discovery to Professor Andrei Linde.
This article has a good graphic of how the gravity waves affect the polarization of the CMB….
http://www.nbcnews.com/#/science/space/smoking-gun-reveals-how-inflationary-big-bang-happened-n54686
I read the article and found it fascinating. But while physicists are trying to prove the Big Bang Theory (or supply more evidence for it), I wonder where the big bang came from. Each time our knowledge is pushed forward (or backwards in this case), we go on to the next phase – where did the previous phase come from?
How was this theory confirmed. Not with a model or an algorithm. With a telescope. Through observation of nature. Using a scientific instrument in a new way or building a new instrument. Every important discovery or confirmation of theory that I can think of was done this way.
“In the first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, stretching far beyond the view of today’s best telescopes”.
I’m confused. Doesn’t this imply that there is a mechanism in the known physical universe for FTL travel?
@grumpyoldmanuk – Great question! I have not read all responses to see if anyone can answer that, but that would tend to break at least part of Einsteins theory.
@philjourdan
That’s always been my proof for the existence of God. Where did that “tiny piece of space” that “inflated” to become the known universe come from???
Congratulations to these scientists. Form a theory, predict what physical conditions result from this theory, conduct real world experiments to confirm the predictions and even when your results agree with your theory conduct extensive review of your data to ensure no other source for your results exists.
Good thing they got this exciting result when they did. What with Antarctica slated to become a moist tropical climate due to AGW, the conditions their telescoped needed won’t exist for much longer. [/sarc]
Grumpy: Like most laws, there are plenty of loopholes in FTL travel….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_than_light#Universal_expansion
@les Johnson – thank you. However that does not really answer Grumpy’s (or my) question. Today we have “co-moving” objects (heading in the opposite direction) that when their speeds are combined, exceed the limit. However at the moment of the Big Bang, they are indicating that the objects were moving at FTL from the origin (which for the sake of argument, we assume to be stationary since there was nothing to reference motion to it beforehand).
I love this part: “The team analyzed their data for more than three years in an effort to rule out any errors.” Can you imagine members of another too-familiar “discipline” doing that?
It’s funny how astronomers can be surprised at their findings, but still claim those findings support their theories. I thought theories were supposed to be predictive. I also like how their theories don’t bother to be internally consistent.
Here’s an alternative theory, internally consistent, with a track record of successful prediction.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2014/02/19/redshifts-and-microwaves-3/
To philjoudan – you ask what came before the Big Bang, the answer is: (by definition) the Big Unbanged Banger. I just wonder if things go in cycles, Big Bang, Big Crunch, Big Bang, Big Crunch…
grumpyoldmanuk says:
March 17, 2014 at 10:40 am
I’m confused. Doesn’t this imply that there is a mechanism in the known physical universe for FTL travel?
It probably means light travelled a lot faster then.
“…detected gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background,”
So, not cosmic dust then?
If you ever denied the Big Bang theory, you were wrong. Plus, you were anti-science, bigoted, hateful, in-bred, and a knuckle-dragger. You were probably stingey, to boot. To suggest it be noted in the kiddies’ textbooks as a theory rather than fact made you equal to the Taliban.
That was, of course, until we figured out the Big Bang theory was wrong.
“This is something I have been hoping to see for 30 years.”
Dr. Andrei Linde
Well, Dr. Linde managed to hold back his tears, but I could not. SO HAPPY FOR YOU, DR. LINDE! Wonderful news. Truth sets us free — from error and doubt… .
*****************************************************
“In the beginning, … God said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light. … And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse … And it was so.'” Genesis 1:1-8.
**************************************************************
Oh, this is, indeed, GREAT cause for celebration!
So, (of course!) a song:
The Creation — Franz Josef Haydn
Rejoice!
Oh, REJOICE!
“In the first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, stretching far beyond the view of today’s best telescopes”.
I think the larger question is “how/why did this happen?”
Beginning one trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the universe’s birth, the idea goes, space-time expanded incredibly rapidly, ballooning outward faster than the speed of light.
Quick question:
Do scientists and Government types (any of y’all out there) begin with a nifty acronym and then force the jargon into it or does all of your work/project/equipment/Bill/treaty title jargon always naturally fall out to become an appropriate/cool/hip sounding acronyms?
Examples: START 1 and 2 Treaties, BICEP, BICEP2, WISE, SLAC, MACHO, GAAP, BATTeRS, FIRST, and MARVEL – just to name a few.
I have always just … wondered about this. ‘:-)~
Thank you, Dr. Svalgaard (and An-th-ony), for bringing this to our delighted attention.
(somebody get that wonderful Dr. Kuo a new backpack… in tan or gray … (smile) — he has more important things to occupy his mind)
Re: “I have always just … wondered … .” (Greg Roane at 11:14am)
Evidence of design is evidence for a Designer.
#(;))
I used to be in love with the big bang theory. However, the cosmology researchers I’ve spoken with are not open to other ideas, nor to the idea that they don’t know enough to propound on the subject. The key line in this chain of logic is the belief that this effect is unique to gravitational waves and not distribution of matter or some other issue. How does one prove uniqueness in the absence of omniscience? Everybody tries to pull this trick of “uniqueness” when they are less than certain.
It’s nice to know there is still some real science out there and working.
Grumpy:
My suspicion would be that since space/time was itself expanding, light traveling within that expanding universe would still be limited to 186,000 mi/sec. The speed of light would be relative to the contents of the universe, while the boundaries of the universe itself would be free to expand “faster”, though there would be no external frame of reference to measure that speed of expansion. It’s a mind-boggling concept.
Phrases and acronyms
Blend in a mixture
Each changes the other
For happier fit
Some BICEPs go SLAC though
There’s GAAPs in the fixture
Some names are such bother
They don’t give a SPIT
The cosmic beginnings
Have big implications
But none of us know
Just how all this occurred
Before the first innings
The game had equations
Is all this “uncaused”
Or has God sat and stirred?
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
grumpyoldmanuk says:
March 17, 2014 at 10:40 am
I’m confused. Doesn’t this imply that there is a mechanism in the known physical universe for FTL travel?
No, it was space that expanded faster than light, and there’s no such restriction for that.
@Wyn Palmer – Ok, but then what is “space”?
If the universe is still expanding are we and everything else expanding with it?
@Kelvin vaughan
I do not know about you, but I have been expanding horizontally since middle age. 😉
@ Assistant Professor Chao-Lin Kuo – this is probably a good time to submit your application for tenure.
I think every-time I hear the words “it is settled” it goes to prove how ignorant we really are.
The remarkable thing with this finding that in this day and age i s the the fact they probed for three years and then said (although celebrating and deservingly so) adding!! “Let’s wait for the info coming from another project to either verify this or refute this” ( the story above is different than the one I followed on Fox news and BBC news that included that statement.
Real Science, and stupendously important. Guthrie had an insight about early inflation. Linde made it workably consistent with known astronomical observation. Now this team performs a delicate experiment with a triple whammy result to 5 sigma.. Not only confirms inflation, confirms Einstein’s 1916 prediction of gravity waves. And, since early inflation is a quantum phenomenon about space time itself, shows that gravity is also a quantum phenomenon even though we have no clue yet how to make the mathematical connection. And, an Independent European Space Experiment (Planck) coming by yearend to either confirm or disprove.
What an instructive compare/contrast to consensus climate science.
Thanks for posting. A great day for science.
The big bang theory, denied by Fred Hoyle until his death, was invented by Father Georges Henri LeMaitre, PhD, a Belgian priest and physicist. in 1923. Yeah. He was pretty much mocked and dismissed for 40 years as a “creationist” until 1963 when Penzias and Wilson detected it at the Bell Labs radio telescope. They got the Nobel Prize for that.
http://space.about.com/cs/astronomerbios/a/lemaitrebio.htm
LeMaitre’s mind was not confined to the assumptions of contemporary science of 1920s. He was very open minded so when he read the General Theory by Einstein, and noted that everything must be moving, he concluded a singularity, or primeval egg was responsible. Furthermore he proposed, what is known as Hubble’s Law a few years before Hubble.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble%27s_law
Bigotry in science held back the theory for 40 years.
at the end of the universe is a brick wall, but what is beyond the brick wall.
@ Keith DeHavelle — Fun poem
Since you did not see this on another thread (from March 12 at 2:49pm)
Here ya go:
(edited to fit better here)
Was there ever a poster like Keith DeHavelle
Who posted in rhyme (and who did it quite well)?
Your wry phrases shine and I hope you can see
that your poems add zest at Watts Up — with esprit.
@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*Janice Moore
“… what is beyond the brick wall”?
Better yet, Who?
A thought experiment, if you will:
If our observable universe is akin to the view from the center of a basketball (the basketball inside lining of the outer skin being the limits of the observable universe from our POV), what does the observable universe look like to a life form living on a planet around a star that is a part of the farthest galaxy that we can observe (on the inside skin of the basketball)?
Is it only just a view looking back to the center of the basketball with nothing – NOTHING – in the opposite direction (looking outside the skin of the basketball)? Or does (s)he(it) see another basketball-equivalent of observable universe with our little planet in a non-descript solar system in an average spiral galaxy located within a small galaxy cluster located on the edge of the observable universe?
I went back to see if I could verify the fact they would wait for another report supposedly to come from (NOT sure here) the Planck Satellite scientists about three months from now? To either confirm or deny this. That segment of the earlier report has dissipated and gone into cyberspace, I have looked through all the history on my computer cannot find it at all.
If you assume that the universe is rationally intelligible, then you will be inspired to find the reasons, and the underlying rules for the mechanism of celestial mechanics. So far, it is rationally intelligible. The deeper you study cosmology, the more wonderful and clever the mathematics.
Orginal source of all global warming.
http://bicepkeck.org/
“The researchers were surprised to detect a B-mode polarization signal considerably stronger than many cosmologists expected. The team analyzed their data for more than three years in an effort to rule out any errors. They also considered whether dust in our galaxy could produce the observed pattern, but the data suggest this is highly unlikely.”
Can someone please explain to me how B-mode polarization means “gravity waves”, and how THAT means inflation? I’m looking for a simple explanation — which the article doesn’t provide.
And… nothing else can explain this B-mode polarization??
What’s the difference between Gravity Waves and Gravity?
This falls into the category of scientists trying so hard to prove their pet theory that an unquantified social element becomes part of the process & outcome. What can’t we “prove” with enough time, funding, and motivation? The Big Bang theory is a giant edifice built on feet of clay. An example of the feet of clay: spatial expansion means that the background temperature (currently 2.73K) was higher in earlier epochs when the universe was smaller so the energy density higher. So measurements have been made of this earlier temperature and, taa-daa, those measurements show the expected higher temperature, e.g., http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5456. But in fact the scientists participating in those measurements are at loggerheads with eachother about the validity of what they’ve done, and if in fact any higher temperature is measured at all, e.g., http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.5625 (same target). Competing papers are submitted, but usually only the “confirming” papers pass peer review and get published. This is called “publication bias” by astronomers — sound familiar? So tempting as it is to sing Hosanna, I pass.
This is an excellent example of a report on an important confirmation of the Big Bang Theory (and its extensions, as noted in the article). What a rush to read a clear and factual report about genuine science. In 75 years or so, we will have something like this in climate science.
found it:
http://www.livescience.com/44136-universe-inflation-gravitational-waves-discovery.html
I hope it works.
God or chance? My bet is on God.
Of course, looking for the whisper presupposes a Big Bang. But, what it it never happened, as supported but the a biogenic source of our oil and gas which indicates that the Earth’s core is from the core of an asymmetric supernova explosion. The Big Bang theory is fatally flawed such that quasars are not objects at great distance and the universe is a steady state. The whisper is not an indicator of anything but background noise in a large universe.
Kelvin vaughan says:
March 17, 2014 at 11:31 am
If the universe is still expanding are we and everything else expanding with it?
Looking at my waistline one would think so, but, no, we are not expanding. Gravity is strong enough to keep assemblies of particles up to sizes of galaxies from expanding. And, it is not that the matter in the universe is flying away from each other through space. The galaxies are essentially motionless in space. It is space itself that is expanding.
GeneB says:
March 17, 2014 at 12:02 pm
Can someone please explain to me how B-mode polarization means “gravity waves”, and how THAT means inflation? I’m looking for a simple explanation — which the article doesn’t provide.
And… nothing else can explain this B-mode polarization??
What’s the difference between Gravity Waves and Gravity?
Try reading up on it at Lubos’ web site. Although inherently very technical he does his usual brilliant job of explaining things.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2014/03/bicep2-primordial-gravitational-waves.html#more
Greg Roane says:
March 17, 2014 at 11:56 am
A thought experiment, if you will:
______________________________
I, indeed, have contemplated this. I have 3 thoughts on this:
1) The earth is at the center of the observable universe. Since that is where the IMAP satellite is located. Who is to say that what is observable is all that there was since distance = time. So kinda… Galileo was wrong sort of. The observer is at the center of the “Cosmos”.
2) In blast mechanics, like a grenade, there is a front of debris that propagates from the blast site outward in an ever-increasing shell. So too is our universe expanding with a wave front of cosmic condensate. Like an inflating balloon. If that is the case, then we exist within the membrane of the balloon at some point in an inconceivably huge blast shell. What we observe then is a small local section of the skin of the blast shell’s history. We can’t even see across the emptiness of the balloon to the other side of the balloon. The center of the universe is the outside our observable universe at some very remote point. This implies that the universe is much bigger but does not necessarily suggest that it is older. This is my opinion.
3) So in answer to your question, an observer at the boundary of our observable universe would see a cosmos very much like ours. He would be seeing a patch of balloon membrane expanding in his locality and it would be limited by microwave data ie 14.5 billion years, just as we are limited.
Greg, I would love for somebody to consider this or tell why I am wrong. If you think that my rendition of your thought experiment is wrong, do me a favor, and correct me?
Expect Michael Mann to claim a share to any of the forthcoming Nobel Prizes.
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 12:11 pm
Kelvin vaughan says:
March 17, 2014 at 11:31 am
If the universe is still expanding are we and everything else expanding with it?
Looking at my waistline one would think so, but, no, we are not expanding. Gravity is strong enough to keep assemblies of particles up to sizes of galaxies from expanding. And, it is not that the matter in the universe is flying away from each other through space. The galaxies are essentially motionless in space. It is space itself that is expanding.
If the rate of expansion is increasing, as measurements suggest, then possible explanations include quintessence or phantom energy and eventually the big rip will occur so that everything, down to and including sub atomic particles will be ripped apart into nothingness…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintessence_%28physics%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_energy
@Kelvin vaughan says:
March 17, 2014 at 11:31 am
“If the universe is still expanding are we and everything else expanding with it?”
===================================================
Yes, and the trend line in my daily weigh-in, despite regular exercise, is beginning to resemble one infamous hockey stick. The rate at which I’m expanding is exponential and it’s alarming!
P.S. Haven’t you noticed that the walk down to the corner store seems to take a little longer? Need any more proof of an expanding universe?
“This has been like looking for a needle in a haystack, but instead we found a crowbar,” said co-leader Clem Pryke…
So their hypothesis was falsified by reality, but nonetheless…? Or does finding a crowbar rather than a needle make it by metaphorical logic a double plus good result?
If you were moving away from Al Gores bs at the speed of light, would that help at all?
The problem I have always had with the Theory of Cosmic Inflation is it is made up to fulfil a need without any supporting physics. Cosmologists require a way to freeze in Quantum irregularities to the macro universe to give the density / energy variation that gives the universe its structure we observe today.
The issue I have with this theroy in my view is their is no reason for the early universe to so inflate except we wish it was so. That seems more religion than science.
Paul Westhaver says:
March 17, 2014 at 12:16 pm
2) In blast mechanics, like a grenade, there is a front of debris that propagates from the blast site outward in an ever-increasing shell. So too is our universe expanding with a wave front of cosmic condensate.
Except that there is no debris front. ALL of space is expanding, but the matter in the Universe is just sitting essentially motionless in the expanding space. There is no debris front moving through space.
Interesting find. I like that they tried to first find other explanations for what they were seeing. You know that falsification thing. Too bad our climate scientists don’t practice that.
A very short moment before the “Big” bang, the known universe consisted of an Infinitesimally
small ball of string theory, with which Schrödinger’s cat may or may not have been playing.
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 12:51 pm
I apparently am not getting a concept. “ALL of space is expanding, but the matter in the Universe is just sitting essentially motionless in the expanding space.” Is what you are saying that the matter itself isn’t moving but the space it sits in is pulling it along with it. Overly simplistic I realize. Otherwise Hubble’s Law doesn’t seem to make sense.
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 12:11 pm
Kelvin vaughan says:
March 17, 2014 at 11:31 am
If the universe is still expanding are we and everything else expanding with it?
Looking at my waistline one would think so, but, no, we are not expanding. Gravity is strong enough to keep assemblies of particles up to sizes of galaxies from expanding. And, it is not that the matter in the universe is flying away from each other through space. The galaxies are essentially motionless in space. It is space itself that is expanding.
Doesn’t that mean the electromagnetic waves in space are not expanding too?
hswiseman says:
March 17, 2014 at 10:36 am
How was this theory confirmed. Not with a model or an algorithm. With a telescope. Through observation of nature. Using a scientific instrument in a new way or building a new instrument. Every important discovery or confirmation of theory that I can think of was done this way.
Indeed. And note that at the end of the short film posted in the article, Linde still, despite his excitement, retains some scepticism. That’s a real scientist.
Paul:
I am admittedly pig-ignorant (if not moreso) of large-scale cosmology, so I am not one to argue your explanations (although, your sum of conclusions on my thought experiment was “2”, not “3” – as “3” seemed more of an extrapolation of “2” than a separate conclusion of its own 🙂 ).
Your explanation of 14.5BYO as it relates to overall age seems a bit stretched though, given the example you posited: your example would “prove”, if true, that 14.5BYA the matter that is separated by the observable universe today (from our POV) would have been more “condensed” (galaxies and clusters and such) but not necessarily be the limiting age of the universe. Since all observable matter seems … clunky … today, it could have been in even larger chunks with less space between it long ago, thus the universe could be stupendously older (or younger) than we currently comprehend. (Remember, Faster than Light = time travel and Inflation occured at rates exceeding c early on – so they say.)
If we can only see about 14.5BY into the “past”, who is to say that inside and behind the blast front in the center of the basketball/baloon (at, say, 16 or 50BLY away) there isn’t a grenade of unimaginable size exploding, thus providing the inflating power of the universe today (Dark Energy) – and we cannot, nor ever will be able to, directly see it.
In the Navy, we used to call this type of theory “FM” aka “Frickin’ Magic.”
At Church on Sunday’s, I call that grenade “God.”
Greg
At the BICEP2 FAQ is the answer, “What does “BICEP2” stand for? Officially, “BICEP2″ is not an acronym. It’s simply a name. ”
The apt dimensionally reduced analogy for me is the expansion of the skin of an inflating balloon.
Lsvalgaard, Consider this, rather consider hubbles law.
Hubbles law measures the relative rates of separation of stars and galaxies wrt each other by virtue of their red shift/blue shift. We also know that space is increasing at an increasing rate.
But that does not exclude space which may have been created as matter passed though it as if by a front. ?
I guess what I am saying is that space creation does not exclude a blast front model. The blast front being at least as thick, and possibly (probably) thicker than the observable universe. So I am saying that space creation as a mechanism expansion is valid within our observable universe since it is my contention that the whole universe is within the blast front itself. Do you follow?
Imagine if our galaxy was a grain of steel in the shell of the grenade. Once detonated we would observe local grains o steel moving, Doppler-esque away from us, while space is being created. Image then that the steel, was actually explosive material that detonated itself.
I don’t see how this notion is excluded by the space creation theory.
This is the hurdle in front of me but I don’ t really see it as mutually exclusive.
Greg, Exactly!!.. I have not trapped my assumptions in the rules of the speed-of-light since that is a measure of space-time here and now, and that is what the big bang was making so, maybe there were other rules for space making before the Higgs Field appeared? 10^-43 seconds into the bang.
I don’t see why that which is observable is all that there is. It is just what happens to be the limits of what is observable…. today.
P…. Cheers.
grumpyoldmanuk says:
March 17, 2014 at 10:40 am
“I’m confused. Doesn’t this imply that there is a mechanism in the known physical universe for FTL travel”
==========================================================================
Clearly the physics of our current universe came into existence at a particular point so I suppose one should not apply this understanding to something that came before. I have always wondered how many times this may have happened but the physics turned out to be not right for intelligent beings to appear who would then contemplate these questions.
I thought it was settled science??!!
It was settled science when the Vatican proclaimed heliocentrism heretical in 1616.
It was settled science until Newton published his law of universal gravitation, in 1687.
It was settled science until Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity was initially confirmed in 1919 by Eddington.
It was settled science until Hubble demonstrated the universe is expanding faster the further one looked and published his Red-shift distance law in 1929.
It was settled science until two teams in 1998 independently found the expansion is accelerating and evidence that a vacuum energy, dark energy, exists.
It was settled science that the CMB was merely the Big Bang afterglow, until now we have hard data the Big Bang was vastly more extensive than a simple light speed space-time-energy expansion.
And so as skeptics, we have seen anthropogenic CO2-caused catastrophic global warming foisted as settled science. That is until the physical climate system decided to show us it wasn’t. Unless of course our climate rests on turtles, and each turtle has a human name, i.e. Hansen, Trenberth, Mann, Gore…ad nauseum ad infinitum..
chemman says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:03 pm
Is what you are saying that the matter itself isn’t moving but the space it sits in is pulling it along with it. Overly simplistic I realize. Otherwise Hubble’s Law doesn’t seem to make sense.
Yes, that is how it works. Hubble’s law makes eminent sense as the light waves are stretched out by the expansion of space and thus look redder in proportion with the distance traveled. Note, that this is not a Doppler shift [as is often said].
Kelvin vaughan says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:04 pm
Doesn’t that mean the electromagnetic waves in space are not expanding too?
We are not expanding because gravity and electromagnetic forces keep us together. Waves in space become longer, because they are stretched by the expansion of space.
Not believable, to wit, “Almost 14 billion years ago, the universe we inhabit burst into existence…”
It was just a few years ago that the universe was 13 billion years old! HOG-WASH.
@Chemman (1:03pm)
Re: “… you are saying that the matter itself isn’t moving but the space it sits in is pulling it along with it… .”
I don’t thing Dr. Svalgaard said anything about matter being “pulled along.”
It is so easy to understand that I think you may have (due to having a great amount of knowledge at your fingertips) overcomplicated this basic concept.
If you and a friend were sitting at a table in a small café in the middle of a convention hall and while you were talking and eating the portable dividing walls surrounding you were moved away and back so that you were soon sitting in a large banquet hall instead, would you have to then shout to be heard by your friend?
#(:))
***********************************
@Jay H. D. — So did Blaise Pascal. He was a pretty bright fellow.
Further, we should soon expect the question; what is the universe expanding into? I particularly enjoy Lee Smolin’s attempts to illustrate this.
Chem Man: “… you are saying that the matter itself isn’t moving but the space it sits in is pulling it along with it… .”
Dr. Svalgaard: “Yes, that is how it works.”
Janice Moore: Oh. (blush) I was wrong. I beg your pardon, Chem Man.
Joel O’Bryan says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:21 pm
It was settled science until Newton published his law of universal gravitation, in 1687.
It was settled science until Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity was initially confirmed in 1919 by Eddington.
It was settled science until Hubble demonstrated the universe is expanding faster the further one looked and published his Red-shift distance law in 1929.
It was settled science until two teams in 1998 independently found the expansion is accelerating and evidence that a vacuum energy, dark energy, exists.
It was settled science that the CMB was merely the Big Bang afterglow, until now we have hard data the Big Bang was vastly more extensive than a simple light speed space-time-energy expansion.
Note that these examples of settled science include each other and are just the result of better measurements of the universe, so to the accuracy with which we could know things all of these examples are consistent with everything that came along later, so the science has indeed been ‘settled’ to the accuracy of our observations all along.
Janice Moore says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:31 pm
Chem Man: “… you are saying that the matter itself isn’t moving but the space it sits in is pulling it along with it… .”
Perhaps the word ‘pulling’ is not the ‘right’ one as there are no forces involved. Maybe ‘going along with the ride’ would be better, but for the understanding of the issue being pedantic about it does not bring more enlightenment.
So.
Where is the center of the Cosmos?
Thank you for the clarification, Dr. Svalgaard.
Lol, I wish I knew enough about this subject to even TRY to be pedantic. I just simplemindedly (not stupid, just ignorant) completely misunderstood the concept Chemman was asking you about. I thought Chemman mistakenly thought that you were saying that matter was not travelling along WITH the “bubble,” but instead was being pulled outward, toward the sides of the simultaneously expanding bubble.
Glad you and he can understand each other!
Paul Westhaver says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:39 pm
Where is the center of the Cosmos?
already Newton was confronted with that question. His answer is still the best: “the cosmos in infinite and it does not make sense to speak about a center”. An analogy, perhaps, is to drop down a couple of dimensions and define ‘infinite’ as ‘having no limit’. The surface of a sphere has no limits measured along any path on/in the surface. Where is the center of the surface?
@ Janice Moore, et.al.
Man invented gods to explain the unexplainable, fire, sun, stars, death, lightening, etc. Science has now answered almost all those questions and gods were not needed. Religion is down to two last key questions that science has not definitvely answered yet (as I see it) as proof of the existence of gods. How did the universe begin and how did life begin. Important questions to be sure. You can claim this victory as yours if you wish, but religion has lost every battle with science and retreated to the shore line of reason. For the sake of humanity I hope that soon we can dispense with these bronze age myths.
@James Willis – actually science has only described the physics of how things attributed to God could be done. It has not described why they occurred. So the myths still exist.
Science cannot answer all questions. But it can provide possible explanations for how things occur.
The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system is constant; energy can be transformed from one form to another, but cannot be created or destroyed.
Vibrating strings nor energy can just pop into existence. If we are expanding what are we expanding into?
Frank K. says (March 17, 2014 at 10:46 am): ‘That’s always been my proof for the existence of God. Where did that “tiny piece of space” that “inflated” to become the known universe come from???’
Strangely enough, the existence of God has always been my proof for the existence of Super-God. After all, where did God come from? 🙂
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/08/models-all-the-way-down/
Expanding inside Al Gores dark matter.
Our expanding universe is made up of the dark matter that did not make the grade in the dark matter universe.
mkelly says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:46 pm
If we are expanding what are we expanding into?
A late guest comes to a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, but all are taken for the night. The guest asks for room, and the clerk says “no problem, Sir’ and just asks all guests to vacate their room and move into the room with room number one higher. This leaves room #1 vacant, and the new guest can be accommodated. Then an infinite number of guest show up. ‘No problem’ says the clerk, and asks every resident guest to move to a room number twice that of his current room, leaving an infinite number of vacant rooms [all those with an odd room number].
As there is no edge to the infinite [open] space there is always room to expand.
Paul Westhaver says (March 17, 2014 at 1:39 pm): “So.
Where is the center of the Cosmos?”
According to Nobel Laureate Al Gore, it’s wherever he is. Excelsior! 🙂
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s10e06-manbearpig
(Sorry, couldn’t resist)
God is always there. Eternity. We live in a temporary world…Sure, it was created with the universe by the eternal God who was and is and is always, All other explanations don’t work.
LOL, Hotel California, where you can check out anytime you want but you can never leave.
I have a few of big bang dust bunnies I would like explained. Please keep in mind I may not have understood the subject matter correctly when I originally read material relating to the big bang. But here goes anyway.
I have always wondered what was before the big bang, and how did what exploded get to that point in the first place? When I have asked this question, I’ve got the response that there was no time before the big bang, and that time started at that point. My confusion stems from the logic that if there was a state 1, and the bang was state 2, how could the transition occur if there was no time?
Second, where did all this stuff come from. The observable universe is very large, at least to us. How did all the energy fit into a such a tiny area as the definition of a point? What caused it to change state?
If all the matter and energy in the universe came from this object, what were its properties before it exploded? Does the math predict any of this?
It still feels like we know little enough that it still seems like magic. I notice that a number of comments invoke God which does not explain anything. It isn’t that there isn’t a God that did it, its just that the question we’re asking is what happened and how did it work and is there a way to understand it? Each time we get an answer, we find more questions to ask. The “who”, if any, will show up after we understand what it takes to create a big bang.
It would be like if we had tested atomic bombs on an inhabited planet that didn’t know about us. They would see the pillar of fire, the mushroom cloud and wonder what the beep just happened. They could attribute it to God but they would have no evidence until they figured out nuclear physics and realize that explosions like that can’t happen without someone or something creating it. We haven’t got that far with the big bang just yet.
In the meantime, if anyone has explanations for my questions, I’d love to read them.
A late guest comes to a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, but all are taken for the night…
If you changed your religion, you could be a cantor! ☺
[That’s a Hilbert joke. Nevermind…]
Jeff Mitchell says: March 17, 2014 at 2:06 pm “I have a few of big bang dust bunnies I would like explained. I have always wondered what was before the big bang, and how did what exploded get to that point in the first place? In the meantime, if anyone has explanations for my questions, I’d love to read them.”
Lee Smolin – #Theories_and_work #The_Trouble_with_Physics #Publications at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Smolin
Think outside the ever expanding circle and you will be the answer.
At 1:45 onwards in the video Prof Linde states, “Even if this is true…”, and then goes on to express his worry about having been tricked by nature and that he could still be wrong. Quite incredible and humbling to hear such a distinguished gentleman talk like that about his life’s work.
That is the humility common to all truly great scientists who seek the truth and they are the ones who advance mankind’s knowledge and boundaries. Contrast that with the pig-headed arrogance of those who have the ear of our policy makers and who would gladly destroy real science and propel man back into the dark ages. Hopefully, the modern scourge of faux-science will soon be swept away along with the charlatans that practice it.
I feel better now!
lsvalgaard says:
1. In an infinite universe any “big bang” would need to have been merely a local event.
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2014/01/08/boss-one-percent/
http://www.extremetech.com/…/174427-astrophysicists-create-the-first-accurate- map-of-the-universe-its-very-flat-and-probably-infinite
2. Inflation requires a mechanism to do the inflating. As you have often said regarding theories lacking same. Have not seen anything really ringing that bell as yet. The problem with inflation is that it is too convenient for explaining observations which do not support the “big bang” theory.
It may well be but the science is not settled here, either. It is good that the researchers still sound skeptical even within their desire to grab the gold ring.
Last week, I happened to purchase Max Tegmark’s, Our Mathematical Universe (which was nice timing for this announcement). For those not well versed in cosmology, it may be as good a place as any to begin understanding cosmology. So far it has been an interesting and entertaining read. I got my copy via Kindle.
Many of the questions posed here are discussed in this book. Cosmologists have built the Big Bang theory based principally on mathematical theory which appears to be getting confirmed by observations such as this latest announcement. If Tegmark is an example, cosmologists are getting more and more confident in their theory, but recognize they still have a long,long way to go. Each new discovery/observation seems to create more mysteries. Heck, I’m hoping to be around when the day comes that we can define dark matter and dark energy – more than 70% of the universe and of which we have dang little clue.
I am closely paying attention to those here who dissent against the Big Bang theory. If you can point me to alternative explanations, I would be grateful.
“In the first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, stretching far beyond the view of today’s best telescopes”.
Did it really. So from the inside of our galaxy, with its own super massive black hole, these guys claim to have measured something in inter galactic space (which they don’t understand anyway namely Gravity.)…which proves that in the first fleeting fraction of a second the entire universe expanded exponentially etc…’
Sounds very much to me like the sound of one hand clapping.
Jim G says:
March 17, 2014 at 2:35 pm
2. Inflation requires a mechanism to do the inflating.
The detailed physics is not yet known, but we are not completely in the dark:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_(cosmology)
“While the detailed particle physics mechanism responsible for inflation is not known, the basic picture makes a number of predictions that have been confirmed by observation.[5] The hypothetical particle or field thought to be responsible for inflation is called the inflaton”
The problem with inflation is that it is too convenient
A good explanation is never ‘too convenient’. It is like you are saying “Newton’s law are too convenient for explaining away the idea that angels are pushing the planets along in their orbits”.
Jeff Mitchell
Hey whoa! Before the big bang? LOL I’d like an answer to before, before there was a fore!
Science, being the useful tool that it is, requires models, data, observations. “before the big bang” has none of these.
I’d say you are in the realm of philosophy and logic and maybe ….causality.
I do see a trend amongst those who claim to be scientists like Michio Kaku who have stepped wwwaaaayyy into the metaphysical on this one. The trend is… “we scientists better come up with an unprovable, untestable, unfalsifiable alternative to “creation” from nothing for if we don’t, we might have some splainin’ to do.”
These guys have defacto become the new priests of the cosmos multiverse/brain-ism. Not unlike the Gaia Earth-God Green religion. Anything but that Hewbrew God! It is kind of amusing to witness the desperate explanations.
aGrimm says: March 17, 2014 at 2:37 pm “If you can point me to alternative explanations, I would be grateful.” Lee Smolin mentioned and linked above offers an alternative.
lsvalgaard says:
Until there is a mechanism, it is too convenient. The angels were too convenient for the theories of that time. The numbers worked for Newton to overcome the angels theory but not well enough to overcome relativity when it came along with better predictions. In both latter cases there was a mechanism and good observations. Gravity as a “force” was just not as good as curvature of space/time.
No comment about the infinite universe?
Jim G says:
March 17, 2014 at 2:54 pm
Until there is a mechanism, it is too convenient.
There is a mechanism. It may not a detailed mechanism, but you have to begin somewhere, in short: “decay of the false vacuum”.
“Inflation was first discovered by Guth while investigating the problem of why no magnetic monopoles are seen today; he found that a positive-energy false vacuum would, according to general relativity, generate an exponential expansion of space”.
No comment about the infinite universe?
Are any needed?
http://www.metrolyrics.com/uhh-eeh-uh-ah-ah-ting-tank-walla-walla-bing-bang-lyrics-cartoons.html
They almost got right?
(Sorry for the diversion…almost.)
Frank K, the fact that you WONDER about where the Big Bang came from is your PROOF for god?
If you are interested in the latest developments in the field, presented in a pop-science way that everybody can understand, read Lawrence Krauss’ A Universe from Nothing, or watch one of his numerous talks on the subject on Youtube. Because your proof really isn’t that compelling in plain day light…
lsvalgaard says:
No comment about the infinite universe?
“Are any needed?”
I am always interested in your thoughts on such an issue. There are actually two issues. Infinite in space only and infinite in time as well. And, yes, I do realize that no one knows, but your thoughts would be welcomed.
lsvalgaard says (March 17, 2014 at 2:59 pm): ‘There is a mechanism. It may not a detailed mechanism, but you have to begin somewhere, in short: “decay of the false vacuum”.’
This stuff makes my head hurt, but I looked up “false vacuum” on Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum
While I don’t pretend to understand the “mechanism” or its implications, I was reminded of Douglas Adams:
“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
This theory has little to with the big bang myth……the universe was known to be expanding in the 15th c., congrats 21rst c., on catching up but this idea by itself does not prove that order came from chaos or constellations from expanding gases……title of article is false and misleading.
Jim G says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:06 pm
I am always interested in your thoughts on such an issue. There are actually two issues. Infinite in space only and infinite in time as well.
One cannot separate space and time. E.g. for a photon time does not exist. People who don’t like a ‘beginning of time [or of space or of ‘space-time’] can think of a ‘bouncing universe’ [e.g. as proposed by Lee Smolin: http://www.leif.org/EOS/PT-Lee-Smolin-2014.pdf ]
“However, as Guth, who is now a professor of physics at MIT, immediately realized, certain predictions in his scenario contradicted observational data. In the early 1980s, Russian physicist Andrei Linde modified the model into a concept called “new inflation” and again to “eternal chaotic inflation,” both of which generated predictions that closely matched actual observations of the sky.”
Where were Popper and Feynman to tell them that the whole theory must be falsified.
No fair making changes and improving theory. its either false or true.
hehe
Inflation seems to be nearing confirmed, but don’t mistake that for confirmation of the Big Bang. There are many ways to get gravity waves – big bang is just the simplest one we have thought of. For example, it could be that regions of the universe undergo inflation. If the inflated region we are in is large enough, we will never see outside of it and thus conclude inflation is everywhere.
I am waiting for the mechanism behind inflation before I start counting my chickens – or gravitons in this case.
People shouldn’t get too hung up on the “expanding into what” questions. No one has a simple answer for that. The lower dimensional analogies (ie. surface of a sphere) require a third, higher dimension to embed the surface, just as a Klein bottle requires a fourth to allow the edges of the Mobius strip to join.
And Dr Svalgaard’s hotel room example is interesting, but I’m having a hard time thinking of an equivalent analogy that deals with uncountably infinite sets (probably a geometrical example akin to the surface is the best).
There are also a number of simplifying assumptions that have to be made before you get to a reasonable definition of a (not “the”) underlying metric involved in solutions to Einstein’s equations: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Exact_solutions_of_Einstein's_equations.
There’s a decent, very simplified description and example here talking about metric expansion and measuring distances here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space#Measuring_distances_in_expanding_space. Again, a very simplified picture.
I think the common depictions of the Big Bang (a terrible phrase) have a lot to do with the confusion about what was going on. Black screen, giant explosion, stuff flying out in all directions – childishly simplistic and the product of animators and designers rather than physicists. First off, you could not have “seen” it from the outside, because there was no outside – the birth of the universe was also the creation of space and time, so not only was there no place outside from which to observe it, there was no time “before” the event. In fact it’s impossible to depict as it wasn’t ‘like’ anything and all analogies will be flawed.
No need to invoke gods or supernatural forces either – in fact, by doing so you put an end to all further enquiries by putting it in a box labelled “god did it” and closing the lid. Worse, it just creates another layer of insoluble problems – what is god? Where did it come from? Why? And so on, ad infinitum. No. Much better to leave all that stuff in the Bronze Age, where it came from and move forward with observation and enquiry. To be sure, science doesn’t have all the answers, but then it doesn’t claim to. We’re really still at the start of the process, not the end, but consider how far we’ve come in just a few hundred years, armed with nothing more than our brains and some things made from glass and metal. The best is yet to come!
@Adrian Mann – I disagree about God putting a lid on discovery. Let each believe what they will. And yes, I fully acknowledge that my knowledge is limited, but each time scientists push back the barriers (in time) of understanding of the universe, it just raises more questions. That will never end, as it is a constant cycle. So I do not see a belief in a supreme being being a hindrance. Even scientists who do believe still search for understanding.
This may be the most significant confirmation of theory since the 1919 expedition confirmed Einstein’s prediction.
All that we can see is our universe and there is no evidence of anisotropy, and thus of your regions. The multiverse is Popper unfalsifiable.
Robert of Texas says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:41 pm
Inflation seems to be nearing confirmed, but don’t mistake that for confirmation of the Big Bang.
Big Bang does not need inflation for confirmation. There are many other [and better] confirmations of the BB.
James Smyth says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:42 pm
And Dr Svalgaard’s hotel room example is interesting, but I’m having a hard time thinking of an equivalent analogy that deals with uncountably infinite sets
For the simplest such sets [a line segment], there are infinitely ‘many’ points between any two points, no matter how close. With infinities there are always ‘room enough’.
lsvalgaard says:
I assume that the following is that to which you were referring or at least a description of it.
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Guth/Guth3.html
And I also assume that the small patch that he indicates begins the inflation process is 10 to the -24th not 10 to the +24th cm. A very interesting paper that I had not seen. Are the “details” being still pursued?
I will check out your most recent link reference. As far as space and time, Hořava believes that unzipping space-time may solve some of the problems, answer some of the unanswered questions in today’s physics. And João Magueijo seems to think a variable speed of light has some answers. I am sure you are aware of both but I mention them as they are both outside the box and have, as yet, not been burned at the stake.
In any event, thank you for your responses.
Jim G says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:49 pm
I am sure you are aware of both but I mention them as they are both outside the box and have, as yet, not been burned at the stake.
What is important is that cosmology today is a highly precise observational science. Our progress is driven by observations and hard data. To me it is amazing how even some of the bizarre predictions of some theories are increasingly being confirmed, while other theories are being ruled out. Hard data is driving the whole field.
Janice Moore says:
March 17, 2014 at 11:12 am
No version of the Big Bang Theory in any way corresponds to the various creation myths in the Bible. Your tendentious editing & mistranslation of the account of one of them cannot gloss over this inconvenient truth.
“In the beginning, … God said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light. … And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse … And it was so.’” Genesis 1:1-8.
The Hebrew word you have falsely translated as “expanse” is “raqiyeh”, which is onomatopoeic & means something solid pounded out of metal, as a copper bowl (thus making a racket). The Alexandrian Jewish scholars in the centuries before Jesus who translated the Old Testament as then known into Greek (the Septuagint or Apostles’ Bible) rendered “raqiyeh” as “stereoma”, ie something beaten or hammered into a hard form, which Jerome later translated into Latin as “firmamentum”.
Thus in Genesis & elsewhere in the Bible, earth is flat with the vault of heaven over it, like a domed stadium. The waters above the dome include the storehouses of rain, snow & other precipitation, which fall to earth through windows, the control levers of which God Himself operates. The waters below the flat earth, supported upon its immoveable pillars, can gush forth to fill the oceans, or overflow them onto the land, as in Noah’s flood, in which “the fountains of the great deep” are mentioned even before the “windows of heaven”.
Note also please that the author of Genesis 1 fails to make the connection between the sun & light, since God creates light before the sun, nor realizes that the moon shines by reflected sunlight. He also imagines that plants appeared before the sun which makes photosynthesis possible. Of course in other biblical creation stories, like the Adam & Eve myth, the order differs.
Genesis 1 (King James Version):
“1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.”
Whatever its scientific merits, the multiverse hypothesis appeals to atheists because it gets around the various Anthropic Principles which some cosmologists & other physicists find convincing.
Robert of Texas says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:41 pm
The cosmic background radiation confirms the Big Bang Theory. Speed of inflation is a detail. Important for understanding the process of expansion, but not needed to confirm the Big Bang. Think of Einstein’s improving on Newtonian gravitation theory.
Doug Huffman says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:46 pm
A multiverse is theoretically falsifiable. M Theory makes predictions for which some observers claim to have found evidence.
SFAIK, the underlying universal essence that comprises cosmic matter and energy can’t be made to absolutely unexist by any known scientific process, theoretical or in practice, how then can it have come into existence in the first instance? But material forms are a different matter, all Cosmic material forms are finite, everything that has a beginning has an ending, but the underlying essence from which the forms are comprised is without beginning or end.
Perhaps some people are conflating cosmic universal form with its underlying essence, Personally I find it as unimaginable that there was a beginning to absolute cosmic essence as it is for any and all cosmic forms to not have had a beginning.
Ben D says:
March 17, 2014 at 4:38 pm
IMO that mass & energy should exist within it is a property of multidimensional space-time.
lsvalgaard:
James Smyth says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:42 pm
And Dr Svalgaard’s hotel room example is interesting, but I’m having a hard time thinking of an equivalent analogy that deals with uncountably infinite sets
For the simplest such sets [a line segment], there are infinitely ‘many’ points between any two points, no matter how close. With infinities there are always ‘room enough’.
Right, at which point your particular analogy reaches it’s usefulness, being prefaced as it is on numbering (ie. counting) rooms. Which is why I deferred to more geometrical example to handle aleph one.
“In the first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, stretching far beyond the view of today’s best telescopes.”
Amazing. Let’s see . . . So all the matter and energy is expanding outwards, all particles shooting away from each other at what — by definition — is a speed much greater than the relative escape velocity. Yet — somehow — a whole bunch of particles happened to stick right next to each other the whole time, defying this tremendous explosion of energy and ironically refusing to be subject to the higher-than-escape-velocity trajectories of normal physics, until they eventually . . . wait for it . . . slowed down in empty space, got attracted to each other (notwithstanding the prior velocity), and then coalesced into things like stars and planets and galaxies.
Amazing.
The universe suddenly existed out of a set of physical principles that no longer apply. Sometimes it takes less faith to believe in God.
James Smyth says:
March 17, 2014 at 4:45 pm
Right, at which point your particular analogy reaches it’s usefulness, being prefaced as it is on numbering (ie. counting) rooms. Which is why I deferred to more geometrical example to handle aleph one.
Analogies almost break down at some point, but then again, there are [quantum] theories that posit that space is quantized, so countable…
Robert of Texas says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:41 pm
In science, there is no final confirmation. To say that a theory is confirmed is to say that we have found something that was predicted from the theory. Always, there remains the possibility that our next prediction will prove false and the theory will require modification. Disconfirmation, falsification, is absolute and demands a change.
All this was brought to public attention in 1748 when David Hume published his “Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.” Hume had shown, in arguments as powerful as any ever produced by philosopher or logician, that all inferences from experience are probable only.
A far more modern version of the same thesis came from the late W.V. Quine who argued that the sum total of all possible evidence must “underdetermine,” his word, physical theory. Hence, there can be at least two physical theories that are logically incompatible yet imply all and only the same observation statements.
All good scientists know these truths, though they might articulate them differently. The idea that science can be settled is an embarrassment to all good scientists.
Eric Anderson says:
March 17, 2014 at 4:51 pm
Amazing.
And very likely true…
There is no getting around that we live in a temporary earth universe and universe where things grow and decay with time. There has to be an eternity where things always exist and a God able to create a temporary earth and universe. Otherwise one always goes back to Ok who created God, or what was there before the “big bang”. There is an eternity and a God who created the earth and universe, and “big bang” if you like that term, There is no need to go back beyond God and eternity as it is always there and always has been, time is eternal, not like time on earth, this is always there and has to be to make any sense of anything. You need to grasp what eternity is, always there and never ending and forget the temporary earth and universe time. Then it all makes sense.
We are just in a temporary existence here in a temporary body to learn and prepare our souls to go back to where we came from eternity. Find God and you will find life and meaning to all existence. Without Him nothing makes any real sense at all. The bible tells the whole story in a way we human minds can grasp. The reality is way beyond our comprehension down here in this temporary home. Seek to learn and prepare for your eternal; home while in this temporary testing ground. God is eternal love, find this, and you don’t need to search for any “big bang”!
From the papers authors
“It’s going to be controversial,” he told Space.com. “We can expect that people will try to shoot at it from every direction, and we invite that — that’s the scientific process, and it’ll be fun and interesting.”
http://www.space.com/25078-universe-inflation-gravitational-waves-discovery.html
How refreshing. These guys are obviously NOT climate scientists. 😉
milodonharlani says:
IMO that mass & energy should exist within it is a property of multidimensional space-time.
—————————
Apparent multidimensional space-time is a description of reality as perceived by a consciousness functioning in space-time (as we mortal do), nevertheless the Cosmos is a unity. All perceived aspects of Cosmos are merely differentiations abstracted from the non-dual absolute nature.
Pardon me for being stupid but to me “Yes, that is how it works. Hubble’s law makes eminent sense as the light waves are stretched out by the expansion of space and thus look redder in proportion with the distance traveled.” simply means that space is expanding into space or explain where space stops and a new and so far undefined new space starts that space can expand into.
John Peter says:
March 17, 2014 at 5:08 pm
simply means that space is expanding into space
No, there is no ‘into’. All of infinite space expands. This simply means that the distance between ANY two objects [no matter where] increases with time.
Science has a need to explain everything. We all get that. But sometimes they just get ahead of themselves in explaining too much, too soon, with insufficient information. The Big Bang will never be proven, nor can it be. It’s a completely unsatisfying concept to me. It resolves nothing. I’d sooner accept creationism.
@ grumpyoldmanuk says:
March 17, 2014 at 10:40 am
“In the first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, stretching far beyond the view of today’s best telescopes”.
I’m confused. Doesn’t this imply that there is a mechanism in the known physical universe for FTL travel?
________________________________________________
No, it doesn’t say that, though it seems that way. What happened, according to the theory, is that the universe jumped in size from about the size of a marble to something large enough to contain our galaxy in the space of about 3.10^-36 seconds, at something like 1×10^-35 seconds into the existence of time (the numbers are off the top of my head; I can go back and get them, but the point is, very very soon after the universe came into existence, while matter was all plasma so dense that photons couldn’t pass through it, the whole shebang (h/t Stephen Hawking) expanded “exponentially”. A truly dizzying amount.
It’s the expansion that you have to have a picture of, to understand that no one is saying that the speed of light can be exceeded, or that it was, or that some “law” is not a “law” or has exceptions. Think of the “fabric” of Time/Space as being the skin of a balloon—not the volume of the balloon which we fill with air, but only the skin. All of existence, all the dimensions we’re familiar with, 3D + time, or if you prefer by Superstring Theory, 10 (or 36), but all of perceivable reality, is the skin of the balloon—not the portion we fill with gas.
Picture that with a pen, we mark two points on the balloon. When we inflate the balloon, they appear to move apart. From the perspective of the universe, they aren’t actually moving—Spacetime is simply stretching so that the distance between them grows. Light still propagates at the same speed (or perhaps does not…but that’s another theory and the difference is as yet imperceptible, so if it’s getting slower, we haven’t been able to prove that yet), but the fabric of Timespace can stretch such that two points in the universe can become farther apart faster than light may travel.
However, as far as the Inflationary Theory works, or as far as I understood it, the conditions for that sort of inflation to take place existed only then, early on in the life of the universe. Could such conditions happen again? You’ve got me. I suppose that hypothetically, it could happen again, and space expand such that the distance between two locations stretches faster than light could travel between them—which doesn’t violate the cosmic speed limit—but probably not.
Yet, who knows? I can’t recall right off what the theory states was the driving force for the inflation. I read of the theory when Alan Guth first proposed it, or shortly after. Professor Linde hadn’t refined the theory as yet when I first hear of it. Part of what sparked the idea behind the theory was the way the behavior of the four forces: Strong, Weak, Electrical, and Gravitational, appeared to have changed as the energy-density of the universe dropped. The Strong remained as a separate force to hold the nuclei of atoms and the sub-atomic components together, the Electro-weak force was the result of two, and gravitation remained an outsider. The other three forces appear fairly closely related in behavior and interaction with matter and light. Not so with Gravity, which is weaker than the weak force—-but operates over the greatest distances. The strong force which is the strongest, but operates over the smallest distances.
As I recall it, it was theoretical observations about the interactions of the forces and changes in their behavior and the lack of symmetry that led Alan Guth to first propose the inflationary theory.
But though it creates the paradoxical condition where places can become separated in distance faster than the speed of light can travel between them, the theory doesn’t violate the General Theory of Relativity, which is where we find that the Cosmic Speed Limit is the speed at which light propagates.
Does that help or confuse?
@P@Dolan – “Does that help or confuse?” – Both! But I appreciate your explanation, along with Lief’s explanation. I see that Grumpy’s question and my follow up are based on too little knowledge.
It is hard for a layman to wrap their head around a concept of something expanding, but not expanding into anything.
From the T/Q/U maps, Dr. S., what is E- mode dominate? Wow horizontal and vertical patterns and and and diagonal patterns..
http://bicepkeck.org/B2_2014_ii_figs/B2_instrument_fig24.png
Figure 24: Polarization maps and coverage maps used to calculate map depth (color scales in parentheses). The maps are Stokes Q and U in the three-year data set, with full coadds on the left and differenced chronological jackknife maps on the right. The Q maps show a horizontal and vertical pattern, while the U maps show a diagonal pattern, together revealing the dominant E-mode polarization of the CMB. The jackknife maps contain no signal but only noise. They are used to calculate the depth in our polarization maps. The lower left panel shows the integration time per 0.25°×0.25° pixel and the 70% contour used in the older definition of the map depth, while the lower right panel shows the variance-weight map used in the definition adopted here.
And in the color version of these maps reminds me of granulation and other solar features.
http://bicepkeck.org/B2_2014_i_figs/tqu_maps.png
Carla says:
March 17, 2014 at 5:21 pm
From the T/Q/U maps, Dr. S., what is E- mode dominate?
http://background.uchicago.edu/~whu/polar/webversion/node8.html
JTF talk about your right handed and left handed gravitational vortex structures whew.. what a scale..and polarized orientations too..curious..
Dominate E-modes and B-modes with swirly handedness
“”Our team hunted for a special type of polarization called ‘B-modes,’ which represents a twisting or ‘curl’ pattern in the polarized orientations of the ancient light,” said BICEP2 co-leader Jamie Bock, a professor of physics at Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Gravitational waves squeeze space as they travel, and this squeezing produces a distinct pattern in the cosmic microwave background. Gravitational waves have a “handedness,” much like light waves, and can have left- and right-handed polarizations.
“The swirly B-mode pattern is a unique signature of gravitational waves because of their handedness,” Kuo said.””
‘Smoking Gun’ Reveals How the Inflationary Big Bang Happened
.
By Alan Boyle
“””BICEP2’s detectors were built to look for patterns of polarization in the cosmic microwave background radiation, the glow left over from the Big Bang. A characteristic pattern known as the B-mode, which is twisted like a pinwheel, would point to the imprint of gravitational waves from the cosmic blow-up.
http://media1.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2014_12/257761/140317-coslog-bicep4_6330cdd624fb0c7ac5706207bf311d70.nbcnews-ux-960-520.jpg
Image: Polarization BICEP2 Collaboration
A map of temperature differences in the cosmic microwave background reveals characteristic pinwheel patterns in the polarization of light, which points to the imprint of primordial gravitational waves.'””
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/smoking-gun-reveals-how-inflationary-big-bang-happened-n54686
Dear Mr. James Willis,
Re: “Important questions to be sure.”
Here’s question for you: Do you know where you are going when you die?
Religion (mine, anyway) answers that question.
Pretty important. Where your soul will spend eternity… .
Hoping you seek until you find the Truth!
Janice
******************************************************************
Dear Mr. “Harlani,” (per you, this is not your real name),
Re: your 4:16pm attempt to discredit the Bible in order to rationalize your not believing in an Intelligent Designer
1. “No version of the Big Bang Theory in any way corresponds to the various creation myths in the Bible.”
Comment: I was only referring to the “bang.” Not the Big Bang Theory as a whole.
2. “…raqiyeh”, … something solid pounded out of metal, as a copper bowl … . … Thus in Genesis & elsewhere in the Bible, earth is flat with the vault of heaven over it, like a domed stadium.
Comment:
a. A vault made by God (as defined by Judeo-Christianity) can be very large. If that “metal” were of certain types, it could expand.
b. Illogical conclusion here: “Thus,… earth is flat… .” This is conclusion is NOT warranted by the Bible’s text. Perhaps, you are merely unaware of that, but this tends to indicate your bias.
3. Re: “… the storehouses of rain, … windows, … immoveable pillars, ‘the fountains of the great deep’ … .”
Comment:
a. You mistake poetic description for literal description.
b. “Control levers” are your personal invention. God wills or God speaks — and it is so. There are no “control levers” mentioned in the Bible. Your deliberate mischaracterization using ridiculous imagery belies a deep-seated bias, here.
4. Re: Light, Sun, and Moon
Comment: The Sun is not necessary for there to be “light.” Failure to mention Moon-Sun reflectivity does not meant the author disagrees with or is unaware of that concept.
5. Re: Plants before Sun
Comment: You ignore a major premise upon which the author of Genesis is relying. Thus, you mistakenly conclude that what appears to you to be an impossibility was overlooked or unknown to the author. That premise is: God can do ANYTHING. Thus, God can make plants continue to exist even when there is no Sun. To be perfectly candid (and as you know) I believe those plants only had to exist for 24 hours without sunlight. God can do anything; including create a world in 6 days. I do not have the faith you have in the accuracy of the carbon or beryllium isotopes dating beyond about 6,000 years.
You have your beliefs, dear Mr. Harlani. I have mine. You consider my beliefs to be “junk.” I consider you to be mistaken out of an emotional bias against any evidence the implications of which are that you might, in the end, have to bow the knee to God. I’ve been praying for you ever since we first “met.” And, no matter how you snarl and growl at me and, at times, mischaracterize me, I’ll continue to pray. So far, lol, it is pretty clear that the answer is: “Not yet.”
Do you know why I will continue to pray earnestly for you (and a TON of others on WUWT)? I love you. How can I, after how you have spoken to me in the past? The answer is: Jesus. HE loves you and, through me (admittedly, a far-from-perfect instrument), expresses that love.
With agape,
Janice
P.S. To respect our generous host’s wishes, I am going to avoid, if at all possible, talking about religion further, here. If you have religious questions or concerns, there are MANY intelligent, informed, loving, believers near where you live. Find one and ask her or him.
I thought there was nothing faster than the “speed of light”. Opps?
You can call me a Big Bang denier. There is nothing convincing to me that the universe is finite.
lsvalgaard says:
No, there is no ‘into’. All of infinite space expands.
————————————-
How does infinity get to expand if it is already absolute infinite?
Ben D says:
March 17, 2014 at 6:03 pm
How does infinity get to expand if it is already absolute infinite?
Infinity is a slippery subject. The simplest way to think about the expansion is this:
The distance between ANY two objects [sufficiently far apart already so their mutual gravitational attraction is negligible] increases with time. That way there is no concept of edges, debris fronts, ‘into’, or other dubious things, so no confusion will arise.
Thanks, Leif. This is great news!
Congratulations, Dr. Linde!
Big thanks, Dr. Chao-Lin Kuo.
Well, that’s pretty damn cool. I think I’m more excited about the gravity wave images than the inflationary model predictions bearing out, been waiting for some way to observe gravity waves for a loooooong time now.
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 6:09 pm
Infinity is a slippery subject. The simplest way to think about the expansion is this:
The distance between ANY two objects [sufficiently far apart already so their mutual gravitational attraction is negligible] increases with time. That way there is no concept of edges, debris fronts, ‘into’, or other dubious things, so no confusion will arise.
——————————–
Ok, but that would not mean infinite space is expanding, rather that there is a finite bubble of some sort within the finer infinite spacial underlying background that is expanding.
Ben D says:
March 17, 2014 at 6:17 pm
ok, but that would not mean infinite space is expanding, rather that there is a finite bubble of some sort within the finer infinite spacial underlying background that is expanding.
It is that ‘spacial underlying background’ that is expanding. The objects within that are essentially sitting still.
May be I don´t understand something, but AFAIK the CMB that we see was created 100,000 years AFTER Big Bang. The earlier Universe was simply opaque.
The “polarization waves” they detected could be anything, not necessarily gravity waves. I´d rather expect these are some plasma waves close to the moment as the Universe became transparent (it was plasma before).
However, the Stanford mafia seems to gain power. May be they can overcome any skeptical point of view.
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 6:21 pm
It is that ‘spacial underlying background’ that is expanding. The objects within that are essentially sitting still.
———————
Ok, then I am suggesting that there is an even more underlying background within which this spacial underlying background is expanding in which the objects within are essentially sitting still.
Iow, my definition of infinity is an absolute,,,it can’t expand. However to avoid a never ending to and fro here, I will accept you have a different definition if infinity.
Navy Bob says:
March 17, 2014 at 10:59 am
I love this part: “The team analyzed their data for more than three years in an effort to rule out any errors.” Can you imagine members of another too-familiar “discipline” doing that?
——————
Nay.
They needed 3 years not for “analysis”, but for observations.
Their signal is masked by noise. To average the noise out, they needed a long observation time.
They did not wait to show their results if that is what you meant.
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 5:24 pm
Carla says:
March 17, 2014 at 5:21 pm
From the T/Q/U maps, Dr. S., what is E- mode dominate?
http://background.uchicago.edu/~whu/polar/webversion/node8.html
_____________________________
Thank you Dr. S., for that link, good explanation and ref. for this topic.
So from the question..then he was saying that the E electric field dominates the B mag. field in the Cosmic Microwave Background CMB? For the area of the view? And gravity waves oh my.
Good night
Confusion reigns supreme in the world of theoretical physics and cosmology.
The mathematics of imaginary numbers and the borrowing of imaginary particles
from an Aether they say does not exist to confirm their standard settled science
model. Leaves one some what nonplussed.
Then recently the cosmologists discover that their model can not work, as most
of the universe is missing. Thus they invent dark matter, this proved not enough
so they invented dark energy. More imaginary friends to make their settled science work.
Punishing people for having different ideas outside these settled sciences is endemic.
Big bang BS, from their ideas we must be traveling outward from the bang at umpteen trillion times the speed of light into an empty vacuum or as Leif mentioned a false vacuum, another
imaginary concept.
The failure of science to to come to terms with gravity, and explain what it is and what causes it
is major impediment to physics and cosmology, they all need to tear up their theories, go back to square one and start again.
Quietly waiting for 50 years for science to break out of their 1920 consensus. Not hopeful at this time, as they seem happy with their imaginary friends.
At the end of this inflationary period, the universe was only the size of …
… a fist,
a basketball,
a room,
a solar system,
a galaxy.
There are various sizes given. But is was still very small, very hot, very weird and it only lasted for 10^-32 seconds.
It was still 300,000 years later before real atoms gave off real light.
But in that unbelievably short time of 10-32 seconds, the main physical forces did not exist and only one something force existed. It is important because we want to have a grand unification theory and if we understand how to use that theory, we could blow up Russia and the rest of the Universe at the push of a button.
Maybe someone was working on a physics experiment 13.7 billion years that went a little off-track.
Addendum to my 5:55pm comment:
3. Re: “… the storehouses of rain, … windows, … immoveable pillars, ‘the fountains of the great deep’ … .”
Comment:
a. You mistake poetic description for literal description.
Add: The “vault” referred to above, as analogized to an earth-metal container, falls into the category “poetic description.” That is, the “vault” is not a literal metal container.
@ Janice Moore:
G’day, Milady! (Go get ’em!)
7;->
Heinlein said it best: “A Black Hole is where God divided by zero!”
Happy Monday!
p@
@p@ Dolan – re: Heinlein said it best: “A Black Hole is where God divided by zero!”
I had forgotten that quote. Thank you!
However, consider the apparent anomaly in the article linked by Mark:
Without getting into ‘electric universe’ theories, note this observation:
A quasar of high redshift is in front of a galaxy of lower redshift. Observations of many other such instances have been documented by the (now unfortunately late) astronomer Halton Arp, including objects of different redshifts connected to each other. These observations directly contradict the starting assumption of Big Bang theories, namely Hubble’s hypothesis that redshifts in stellar objects indicate distance and speed of recession away from us. If, instead, redshifts were an intrinsic property of many stellar objects, and the universe is not expanding, what then happens to those theories and the elaborate mathematical models built upon them?
For a layman’s exposition: Halton Arp, Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science, http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Red-Redshifts-Cosmology-Academic/dp/0968368905
/Mr Lynn
Terry Pratchett explained this best. “In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.”
Basically, if you want to talk about this, do it the Willis way. That is, you should first know what it said, and not criticize stuff you make up about it. It is clear what is said below because that is what it actually says, if you read exactly what it says, only what it says, and do not read in stuff it does not say. A little looking up the original words helps in some cases. Also, for most of history, it was read without any science to explain it, so for much of history it was not understood, and much BS has ensued (much of it still with us today, some even recently made). When you DO know the science, it makes perfect sense.
Genesis 1 (King James Version):
“1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
This says there was a beginning of space/time, we now call this “the big bang”, there are multiple proofs that it happened (as far as science can tell for now). The “problem” with this big bang is, it seems statistically impossible for it to have created a universe such as the one we inhabit. This has resulted in a number of theories of multiple universe, for which there is no evidence, some evidence against it, and no way to get evidence (some methods suggested are conveniently impossible). The evidence against it, as well as one of the improbabilities, is the way this universe started with extremely low entropy. The idea of it being from a collision of other universes (for which there is no evidence) actually creates bigger problems, as these other universes would also have to have the same or lower entropy, thus doubling or tripling the problem. There are also many other improbabilities, such that Douglas Adams would actually like this universe(dark matter, dark energy??) . The fact that this universe is observationally as it is rather than any of the vastly more likely versions suggests that something intelligent with infinite computing power dreamed up an infinite number of possible universes looking for one that would come out more or less OK, and chose one which, while extremely improbably, was physically possible IF an exact sequence of events were planned to happen and the initial conditions were set up so that they would, another problem requiring infinite computing power. With the state of the science we have now, it still appears that the universe is almost infinity unlikely to have come out as we see it. Note the provision “with the state of the science now”. The above article as yet does not change this, although it does mean we are approaching the day when we will have a detailed explanation of the big bang, which we do not as yet have.
Note also, in other passages, it says “God stretched out the heavens”. The word used for stretched in some instances indicated a continuing stretching. The first stretching is described above, the inflationary model, the later, the continued stretching as described by poster “Isvalgaard” above. If it was stretched out, it must have started smaller, eventually the logical conclusion is that it started at one point, then there was a “bang”. Note one problem, “an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an outside force”, the question then arises, what made it go bang? And outside, that would be outside both space and time, right?
Infinite computing power is not possible in this universe, or any other composed of matter, energy, and the like. Thus, if that is needed for a universe to have come out in this (as they called it when confirming the cosmic background radiation) “preposterous” way, then the universe must have been created by something immaterial, not made of matter, or energy, or anything else we can detect, what is called a “spirit”. The idea that this universe could have created itself, dreamed up itself, is therefor disproved by the physical laws we see in it. The word is “falsified”.
Note, the original language this was written in indicates that the time interval between verse 1 and 2 could be any length of time, could be very long, and that the above heaven (stars, planets etc) and earth were already in existence before verse 2. Also, it does not say what condition they were in at that time, or say it was just like now.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Clearly stated, the earth was NOT like it is now, having just some together. It was hot, and liquid water could not exist on the surface, hence it was surrounded by a thick cloud (water vapor, ash, gasses). It is specified here the point of view being spoken of, earth, at what we now call sea level, “the surface of the deep”. This is the only place specified, not outer space, under water, under the surface, up in the air, or anywhere else. Sea level is thus true of the below verses as well, true for ONLY that SPECIFIED place and no other.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
The surface cooled enough for liquid water to exist on the surface, which meant the clouds got thinner, and there was light AT THE PLACE SPECIFIED ABOVE, at sea level, on earth, only. Physical proof, ancient crystals said to be from the earliest period of earths history that we have evidence of show that 100% of those crystals that formed on the early earths surface did so in the presence of liquid water. Sounds like a late heavy bombardment is too late.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
True at sea level on earth. Basically, you could see your hand in front of your face in day, and not at night, and that is all it really says.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
See above. Also, the first “day” was Echad Yom, a construction that could mean anywhere from 12 hours to infinity. It does not mean “day” as we know it.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
The ancient Hebrew writers could not understand that the waters above referred to clouds, and of course had no clue about water vapor. They thought there was liquid water up there somehow, and invented the idea that something solid, say, a clear crystal dome, held liquid water up there, and put that meaning into the “firmament” word. We know better today, this is merely saying that a stable hydrological cycle came about, water, evaporation, clouds, rain, all that. Nothing is stated here about whether the earth was flat or round, whatever later peoples though is separate from these verses, and is their opinion alone. Later passages that suggest flatness do so in the exact same manner that your paper says what time the sun will rise from the point of view of you, the observer, without going into earths rotation or all that other stuff that you can’t really see from where you are anyway.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
The crust of the earth (we are still talking about sea level on earth only here) cooled enough to wrinkle, hence dry land appearing.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
Note, it was “the earth” that brought forth the plants, hence, evolution. It is NOT stated that they were created out of nothing, or anything else, but came out of earth, a material, physical, physics based process. Once again, another thing which is currently believed to be statistically impossible (we cannot do it in the lab after decades of trying, indeed, we appear to have falsified many methods), yet which appears to have happened anyway. Like this universe, physically possible, yet statistically impossible unless it was planned that a series of extremely improbable events would happen at one single place and time on one tiny point on one small planet in a very big universe, once again suggesting infinite computing power, something impossible materially. Note that the later creation of man is stated to be different than this, a special case. Note also that the second chapter simply states one creation, man only, the garden being planted in the same way we make gardens today from existing plants, seeds, and the like. The garden also appears to be different than the earth around it, just as our gardens and farms are different than the wild, uncultivated earth around us.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
Them plants did their thing on the atmosphere, eventually converting it to the type of atmosphere we know today, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. That made it possible to see blue sky, sun, moon, stars, etc. These things were not created at that time, merely visible at the specified location, sea level, on earth.
The rest followed, fish, then birds (as dinosaurs at the time they first appeared, described here as birds since no dinosaurs were ever seen by man, who this was written for), then land critters (after the dinosaurs, thus likely mammals etc). Finally, mankind was created, only stating in the first chapter that they were created, not exactly how, that is stated separately in the second chapter, which goes into detail about their special case creation and the special limited area garden they lived in.
Oh, “the Flood”, this was very early, mankind lived in one small area (there weren’t very many of them yet), the ice age ended, the water rose up, they were now below sea level, about what you would expect happened. The animals on that ark were probably composed of local types suitable for later human beings, dog and cat and horse and cattle ancestors, that sort of thing. Probably around here http://www.livescience.com/10340-lost-civilization-existed-beneath-persian-gulf.html , the location of the Garden of Eden being now more or less found near the upper end of the Gulf of Oman, when they discovered the dry river beds that led into that area, the other two rivers mentioned as being at that garden already being known. That location would be above sea level in an ice age, below it when that ice age ended. Ice ages ending also end to produce great changes in the weather, hence the rain.
All that other stuff you’ve no doubt heard about, creationism, seven days, thorns only after “the fall” (there were no thorns in the garden, because it was, after all, a garden), and the like, are made up by people so ignorant that they cannot read the above even in the English, what it clearly says (like the sea level place specified), to say nothing of the original language. Oh, and those genealogies that say it was only 4000 years, well, the word “father” can also mean grandfather, great grandfather, etc. They were merely mentioning the important, notable people from back then, not everybody.
So if you want to criticize it, fire away, just criticize it for what it says, not what it does not say.
And it said, thousands of years ago, that there was a beginning, and an expansion, so the whole big bang and inflation model could have been with us for those thousands of years if the earlier people had had the wit to read the above and only read exactly what it said.
I’m sorry I haven’t had time to read thru all of these responses, so if i”m just echoing others, forgive me. Forgive me also for being a natural skeptic. My question is – what other explanation(s) could be given for what these researchers detected (observed)? They’ve assumed a “Big Bang” in the first place, so aren’t they biased towards this being evidence of that?
milodonharlani says:
March 17, 2014 at 4:16 pm
…lots of stuff… and…
Whatever its scientific merits, the multiverse hypothesis appeals to atheists because it gets around the various Anthropic Principles which some cosmologists & other physicists find convincing.
___________________________________________________________________
Leave it to the self-described atheist to inject voluminous samples of religious text in a hostile assault on a seemingly kind person, eg Janice Moore.
I say atheist does not describe you at all. I would say anti-theist would be a better noun. An atheist would simply ignore scripture. You went on an over-the-top rant. ggrrrrr you did.
Then… you postulate this multiverse BS as some sort of theoretically falsifiable hypothesis.
Absurd.
No information transits t=o; In the world of science.
As such your atheist-loved and unsubstantiated belief in multiverse is a case of you torturing reality to fit your model so that you can thereby persist in the anti-theist tirade.
Science, a beautiful method to look at the world, does not care whether the user is an atheist or a believer. Case in point, Georges Henri Lemaitre. PhD +. Axe grinders like you, and Fred Hoyle who DENIED the big bang theory up until his death in 2001.. 201!!! just because, in his puny mind, it implied a creator will miss obvious solutions to cosmological problems because you are too preoccupied in appearing NOT religious.
Hoyle held back the big bang theory for 40 years because he had a closed mind.
An idea:
Lief says that one of the reasons we see increasing red shift from very distant (edge of univers type distances) stuff is that the expanding universe is stretching the light and thus lowering the frequency, which makes sense. Others, however, talk about red shift, as if the object making the might is moving away at ever increasing speed. Of course, with an expanding universe stretching that light, the object making the light would indeed be moving away from us, however, part of the red shift we may be seeing might be because the light itself is being stretched. Thus, the object that made the light may not be moving away from us as fast as it’s red shift would seem to indicate. Thus, the universes’ expansion may not be accelerating, and the need for dark energy goes away.
Am I right here, is Lief saying the light itself is being stretched, and thus some of the red shift seen is NOT from the object making the light moving away?
Either way, the universe itself is expanding, only the speed may change.
Janice Moore,
There are people who do not comprehend metaphor. It usually indicates a lesion in or tumor of or incomplete fusiform gyrus in the temporal lobe region of the brain. Were you to ask the question to them: “What does all that glisters in not gold means.” they would give you some technical explanation of reflectivity of many substances that are not gold. It would never occur to them that you were referring to the nasty nature of a outwardly affable person.
These people make fantastic engineers, policemen, or biobots. There are many among us and they get to vote, pay taxes, comment on blogs.
Poetry is a complete loss to these people. Science is all they can achieve.
It is sort of the opposite of synethesia.
There is no amount of explanation that can get around this obstacle to comprehension.
Cast not your pearls before swine for they will trample them, then turn and rend you.
Cheers.
[The mods will pick up any pearls left on the floor by Janice after Janice’s random casting of pearls before pigs. 8<) Mod]
[The mods will NOT pick up after any pigs cast after the pearls have been cast. Mod]
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 6:21 pm
Ben D says:
March 17, 2014 at 6:17 pm
ok, but that would not mean infinite space is expanding, rather that there is a finite bubble of some sort within the finer infinite spacial underlying background that is expanding.
It is that ‘spacial underlying background’ that is expanding. The objects within that are essentially sitting still.
==================================
The way I see it, your “spatial underlying background” is actually time, and it is the passage of time that gives us the appearance that the Universe is expanding.
Our view of everything we can observe in the cosmos is constrained by the speed of light, and while we (understandably) think of the speed of light as being extremely fast, on a cosmic scale it is actually painfully slow. Because of this, I believe the TRUE nature of the Universe, as opposed to our perception of it, remains a complete and utter mystery….
Mr Lynn says:
March 17, 2014 at 7:00 pm
A quasar of high redshift is in front of a galaxy of lower redshift. Observations of many other such instances have been documented by the (now unfortunately late) astronomer Halton Arp, including objects of different redshifts connected to each other.
Those were just coincidental alignments. We now have observed orders of magnitudes as many galaxies as Arp have and his claim has turned out to be spurious.
Legatus says:
March 17, 2014 at 7:40 pm
stuff is that the expanding universe is stretching the light and thus lowering the frequency, which makes sense. Others, however, talk about red shift, as if the object making the might is moving away at ever increasing speed.
The objects are not moving away from us. Space is simply stretched between objects.
Yay, gravity waves! more unfalsifiable nonsense! give yourselves a great big prize!
Mr Lynn says:
March 17, 2014 at 7:00 pm
A quasar of high redshift is in front of a galaxy of lower redshift. Observations of many other such instances have been documented by the (now unfortunately late) astronomer Halton Arp, including objects of different redshifts connected to each other.
More on this: http://arxiv.org/abs/0807.2641v2
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 7:55 pm
“The objects are not moving away from us. Space is simply stretched between objects.”
Andromeda galaxy is observable and moving toward [our] galaxy, older galaxies are moving away from each other. lets all jump to conclusions and proclaim to be correct! we’ll call it a ‘job well done’ and have a big official reward ceremony!
Legatus says:
March 17, 2014 at 7:18 pm
Thank you for the excellent and detailed commentary.
but let me (politely) disagree with the first few verses though.
These ancient itinerant shepherds – unable to count well and completely lacking the zero, powers-of-ten and logarithms – actually got all of the nucler physics and interstellar astronomy and paleo-geology and plate tectonics and amospheric chemistry and biology right.
Well before we (modern so-called scientists) got any of those topics right.
As you noted, “First, everything was created.”
Depending on your translation, “in a great wind” or “with a great disturbance” or the like.
Only then, AFTER this energy cooled, was “light” formed
Then, a little later, that “light” cooled into “matter”.
And, only after “matter” (the leptons and electrons and thus the solid matter we know now) was formed from the cooling light, could that light form shadows – which of course, separate the light from the dark as you noted.
SO, we are left with separating the”waters above” from “waters below” ..
Again, look carefully at the translations. For example, several versions use “dome” to describe this. Others, a “vault”. (In Roman and Medieval architectural, a vault was the dome (a rounded ceiling) arched structure creating a room within a building.) Or, as you look “up” at the hemisphere of the visible sky, a “dome” separating the waters (er, fluids, gasses, dust, plasma, and stars) above from the “waters” below (water, gasses, fluids, gasses, and vapors that we know and live within.) Again, these shepherds got their algebra and geology and astronomy right.
As you noted, the earth’s water was gathered into one “sea” (around the single continent obviously) despite the visible and practical evidence that 5 or 6 “seas” were actually surrounded their actual physical homeland. Plate tectonics of course broke this single continent up into the seven we recognize in today’s world. Funny that “science” viciously fought this idea only 60 years ago.
The “rest of the story” is well presented, though I have used different examples in the past.
May I borrow your knowledge and examples as well?
Sparks says:
March 17, 2014 at 8:13 pm
Andromeda galaxy is observable and moving toward or galaxy, older galaxies are moving away from each other. lets all jump to conclusions and proclaim to be correct!
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. At short distances [e.g. within groups of galaxies] galaxies move around in space at random due to gravity from neighboring ones. On large distances, those local movements average out and the uniform expansion of space becomes important.
@Lsvalgaard – Re: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
No, in this case it is a frustrating thing. But at least we can learn.
What they never seem to discuss is the opposite and equal reaction to the expansion that most likely fills the so called vacuum with quantum particles of gravity.
The only problem with seeing the gravity waves in the past is that in doing so they’ve perturbed the future, because they looked at it.
mod.. see search vilaynur ramachandran ted
time stamp 20:00 to 24:00 especially.
Seems your fusiform gyrus is fully functional.
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 7:55 pm Legatus says:
March 17, 2014 at 7:40 pm
stuff is that the expanding universe is stretching the light and thus lowering the frequency, which makes sense. Others, however, talk about red shift, as if the object making the might is moving away at ever increasing speed.
The objects are not moving away from us. Space is simply stretched between objects.
I am aware of that, that is not what I am talking about.
Thought experiment:
Say that the object, a star, quasar, something, is creating light. It is a very long way away, further than we can measure by any means other than redshift. It is slinging around a large gravitational object, say a black hole. It is thus moving toward us. The speed it is moving toward us is exactly the same as the amount it is appearing to move away from us (even though it is not) due to the expansion of the universe, of space itself. Thus, if it were possible to stretch a really long string from here to there, it would stay taught, not stretching more or less, or going slack. The distance between us and it would remain the same (for a while, anyway).
Now, it emits light toward us. During the very long time the light travels from it to us, the space it travels through expands, that is, the universe expands “out from under” the light. Does this make the light appear to be of lower frequency because it is “stretched”? If it does, might the object appear to be increasing it’s distance from us due to observed redshift, even though the object is maintaining a constant distance from us due to it’s actually moving toward us while the universe expands it away from us.?
I also wonder if the age of light might be effecting things. That is, when that light was created , near the time of the birth of the universe, were the natural laws as we now know them exactly the same, or have they changed slowly over time as the universe expands? Might that effect redshift? I ask this be cause we infer that the object is either moving away from us, or is being stretched away from us, due to observed redshift, however, we cannot directly measure very distant (edge of universe) objects to verify that the redshift we observe is measuring increasing distance. All we can say for certain is, very distant object have increased redshift compared to closer ones.
Legatus says:
March 17, 2014 at 8:50 pm
It is slinging around a large gravitational object, say a black hole. It is thus moving toward us. The speed it is moving toward us is exactly the same as the amount it is appearing to move away from us (even though it is not) due to the expansion of the universe, of space itself.
First such an object will not move at the enormous speed of the expansion, so you cannot find such an object, and even if you could it wouldn’t matter because there are billions of other objects that do not fit your thought experiment..
Second: an object moving in space is not the same as space stretching. The first give rise to a Doppler shift, the second to a frequency change due to the stretching. These two effects are completely different.
Third, the ‘tired light’ hypothesis has been debunked many times, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tired_light
Fourth, we can measure the distance of very far away objects using gravitational lensing, e.g. http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9611229
Are they space time gravity waves or are they Graviton gravity waves? What is gravity anyways?? I cant wait for LIGO to actually detect something instead of just setting upper bounds..
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 8:21 pm
At short distances [e.g. within groups of galaxies] galaxies move around in space at random due to gravity from neighboring ones.
Don’t force an assumption on me. Lets diagnostically look at the flaws in your assumption! flaw number 1, galaxies are formed in their current state, i.e releasing energy! Number 2. galaxies are random. According to what law states that young galaxies are paired and older galaxies are not? considering the length of time the light from a galaxy reaches us, all of your assumptions are null and void.
Belief?
Janice Moore says (March 17, 2014 at 5:55 pm): “Here’s question for you: Do you know where you are going when you die? Religion (mine, anyway) answers that question.”
Let me guess…Elysium? Valhalla? A new body? 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_underworld#Elysium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation
“Pretty important. Where your soul will spend eternity… .”
That reminds me of a question raised in the first Star Trek novel, Spock Must Die!, which I read back in 1970:
Dr. McCoy: “Does the man who comes out of the other end of a journey by transporter have an immortal soul or not?”
Spock: “I do not know. I can only suggest, Doctor, that if someone were to give me an answer to that question, I would not know how to test the answer. By operational standards, therefore, such a question is meaningless.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spock_Must_Die!
A nice thing about “answers” like the Big Bang is that they can be tested. 🙂
You cant debunk tired light. Only the version of tired light discussed. Just like the Aether. The only thing ever disproved was the version of aether discussed… The Big Bang itself is an illogical construct. Creation from a seed or from nothing depending on which version you believe… It was invented by a priest…
One of the greatest signs that the big bang is wrong is the high red shift quasar in front of a low redshift galaxy. As well as the many low red/high red shift object associations.
As for the CMB, the model is in the calibration files which can reflect anything they want….
I think there is much more proof for something like a steady state but nobody has given a great red shift model for SS..
@ Brant Ra, re your 12.19am 18 March, sorry to contradict you, but Einstein’s theory said that Michelson-Morley did NOT disprove the Aether. His theory stated that the reason they failed to detect drift is because their entire apparatus was in motion in respect to the light they were using, and because of relativistic effects canceling out the drift, they didn’t detect any.
QED, Aether has not been proven to not exist. Honest. It was, in fact, this experiment, coupled with some questions already surfaced by other scientists as early as the 1870s which led him to his Theory of Relativity. In fact, I have heard from others that he was a “fraud”, in that the theory didn’t originate with him. I do believe—though I cannot surface a quote on memory and will not search for one now—that Einstein subscribed to the same philosophy as Isaac Newton, who wrote to Robert Hooke, “If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
“Euclid” is credited with many theorems in Geometry. And while most scholars agree that Euclid was a single individual, few believe he came up with all those theorems on his own—especially given that many surfaced “independently” in places like India, thought it’s well documented that there was traffic between the two regions in antiquity. What many scholars believe was the individual know as Euclid’s great gift to posterity was not the theorems, but his organization of those into givens, axioms, and proofs, newer proofs usually built on earlier proofs, establishing a logical, self-supporting whole. This presentation of the theories is a single organization, and could be the magnum opus of a single individual. That all the separate theorems came from a single person? Very unlikely.
Not to get too far afield, but sorry to dispute your point, but no, Aether wasn’t disproven by Michelson-Morely, and Einstein proved why their experiment was doomed to failure. While I don’t believe his theory actually proves Aether… To say it doesn’t exist? We have no direct proof of that.
The question is simple:
Either something was there, or something was not.
If something was there already, then you have something before and we need to study that something before.
The big bang would thus only be an arbitrary and moot point in time since one would have to look long before that point in time.
The simple issue is either the universe existed in some form before the big bang, or it did not. A bang thus is not important if the claim is something before existed.
The problem is science lost the concept and general science belief of a static universe by the 1920’s.
By the way the idea of a static or always existing universe was a science consensus for 100’s of years and yet shown to be wrong.
The logic is simple:
If you walk into a room and observe a candle burning, then by logic we know that this candle could not have always been burning and since it has a limited fuel supply and thus has limited life span.
And when we discovered fusion we thus realized that stars are like tanks of fuel being “burned” up. Thus they could not have been burning forever. And we all know basic physics has NEVER shown that rocks move uphill by themselves.
There is no science in the universe that shows the universe can create fuel but only CONSUME such fuel.
So it was thus high time to “dump” the concept of an enteral or a universe that always existed. The science community thus had to (grudgingly) adopt the view of a caused universe. The problem is there is no such thing as any event without a cause.
And a cause by definition means intention. And worse the science community hated having to adopt this position since it also what the Christians taught (the universe is caused, and does not have to exist and did not always exist). In other words the universe was not enteral and did not always exist. The concept thus requires a creator that is separate from the universe. There not a need to ask who created the creator since that is assumed to be eternal and by definition means without a start.
As noted, we used to think of the universe that way and if science could show the universe is always existed then no need for a creator. However that darn pesky thing science and physics proved that the universe is caused and not eternal.
The basic pretext of the big bang is a universe from nothing.
Many of recent have attempted to modify the big bang and claim there was something. But then it means the universe was already there! So we then back to the cause of this bang and for what reason it occurred, but that did not create the universe if one reasons something was already there! And worse, we now have to explain how rocks move up-hill on their own?
Something cannot occur without a cause.
There is no such thing as a caused universe without a cause!
Yet the big bang is an admittance of a caused universe. If the theory says something was there already, then this is just a convenient kicking of the can and the basic question down the street. However entropy and those darn “tanks of fuel” running out of gas presents a problem since rocks don’t go up hill by themselves. Nor do atoms or electrons.
So exactly what is the claim of things before the big bang then if the theory assumes something was already there?
And if something was there then what was it doing and how long did it take to wake up and what occurred to cause this? If it was already there then how long did this previous universe exist before this “cause” took effect? In other words this view means the big bang is quite much a moot point or we back to that of a caused universe.
Sparks says:
March 17, 2014 at 9:15 pm
all of your assumptions are null and void
Nonsense, your statement is based on ignorance. No need for me to elaborate. Go educate yourself, before you embarrass yourself further.
Start with this one: http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-origin-of-the-universe.html
Google ‘books on the origin of the universe’ and find much more. Read some of them. Learn.
@ Paul Westhaver says:
March 18, 2014 at 7:05 pm
…
dbstealey,
I have no quarrel with you at all and neither do I have a quarrel with Lief beyond his poor communication and uninvited acerbity. The fact that you feel it necessary to think for him and explain what he actually meant, is making my only point.
If he was clear, and not in error by virtue of his poorly chosen words, he likely wouldn’t have to explain it a multitude of of times. I suspect the ole codger was exploiting boundary language to evoke intellectual shock and awe or maybe he thought he WAS being clear.
_____________________________________________________________
Mr Westhaver, you DO realize who you’re calling an ‘ole codger’? I humbly suggest that if you think he is in error, it would be the better part of wisdom to double check your own theories for inaccuracy first. Dr Lief doesn’t have to bandy about words to evoke shock or awe, and no doubt has bigger fish to fry than to bother with trying to impress folks who are essentially nobody to him.
Just sayin’. When I find myself disagreeing with an expert in his own field of expertise, outside MY field of expertise, it’s usually right before i find out I’m wrong.
Brant Ra says:
March 17, 2014 at 9:19 pm
You cant debunk tired light.
Well, there are climate-change deniers, big- bang deniers, evolution deniers, moon-landing deniers, all sorts of ignorance-based deniers. You seem to have joined one or more of those. Be happy with your choice, don’t let me rock your boat.
albertkallal says:
March 17, 2014 at 9:25 pm
The basic pretext of the big bang is a universe from nothing.
Educate yourself: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html
[svalrgaard] theory that spacetime is quantized, so countable…
Someone mentioned the rabbit hole … Can you point me to to a serious explication of quantum theory implying countability of the “points” in space time. No need for these kinds of arguments (http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html), which have their place as thought experiments, but I’m talking about a rigorous treatment leading from quantum theory to countability. I really am curious.
All it takes is 1 quasar in front of a low redshift galaxy to disprove red shift equals distance…
albertkallal says:
“And when we discovered fusion we thus realized that stars are like tanks of fuel being “burned” up. Thus they could not have been burning forever. And we all know basic physics has NEVER shown that rocks move uphill by themselves.”
And that is the model that you use. A different power source like electricity or Aether( even though we believe right now its fusion) would not put the time clock on the universe…. You wouldnt even know how old it was… I think the sun is trillions of years old.
There are problems with The HR diagram. metallicity, etc.. As the say The devil is in the details.
Here they proclaiming we know stars lifetime when they dont even know how the corona is hotter than the photosphere of our own sun…
They only way that is strictly solved is by using an electrical cathode model. It reproduces all observable phenomena… If you dont think so you haven’t studied the sun closely enough.
The problem is that you need a new model of gravity… Oh wait, that isnt a problem since the current one is broken.
The sun is a real time converter of energy not a storage unit that releases it over time…
Of course it always comes back to the question of what the prime mover is…
What causes to go from its highest state to the back ground state.
I believe that fresh matter is created in quasars and the like, as a “stream of aether(energy)” that cools to matter – E = Mc^2. 🙂
Whether its charge separation or gravity or aether flow or singularity space gnomes or God, nobody has truly answered that question.
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 9:37 pm
Educate yourself: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html
Energy(quantum fields) is massless…. Nothing new… Massless energy has been on my mind for the last 15 years….
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:35 pm
Janice Moore says:
March 17, 2014 at 1:31 pm
Chem Man: “… you are saying that the matter itself isn’t moving but the space it sits in is pulling it along with it… .”
Perhaps the word ‘pulling’ is not the ‘right’ one as there are no forces involved. Maybe ‘going along with the ride’ would be better, but for the understanding of the issue being pedantic about it does not bring more enlightenment.
Dr. Svalgaard, Janice, and Chem Man,
Perhaps this is a ‘reference frame’ issue? Each ‘person’, from their reference frame, sees space expanding around and away from them, giving the ‘appearance’ that they are at rest at the center of the universe and all else is accelerating away.
lsvalgaard says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:47 pm
For the simplest such sets [a line segment], there are infinitely ‘many’ points between any two points, no matter how close. With infinities there are always ‘room enough’.
——————–
This would be true if our space-time would be a continuum.
We do not know whether this is the case.
More probable, the space-time is granular with “pixels” at the Planck scale.
James Smyth says:
March 17, 2014 at 9:54 pm
a rigorous treatment leading from quantum theory to countability. I really am curious.
E.g. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1305.3363v1.pdf and references therein.
“Recently a great interest has been devoted to the study of the generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) [1–14]. The main consequence of the GUP is the existence of a minimal length scale of the order of the Planck length, which can be deduced in string theory and other theories of quantum gravity [15–22].”
Or this more accessible one: http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/BackTo286.html
So that’s how science works! it’s all settled.
Then do what you want! go for it.
Sooo, how fast is “the enormous speed of the expansion” anyway, it would have to be very fast. Has it been measured?
I would only need one such object for this to work.
What I am looking for is, how do I tell the difference between “a Doppler shift” and “a frequency change due to the stretching”? Can I tell, if I detect them, which one is which? If I can, the problem goes away, as does the need for this “experiment”, if I cannot, that is what it is for, to ask how one would tell, by spotting an object from which one could tell.
I read about tired light, not really what I was suggesting, however…Let me get this straight. There is a period of inflation. It ends, and out pops energy, matter, etc, all operating under natural laws exactly the same as we now know, the same everywhere, and all this stuff being essentially unmoving in relation to all the other stuff, just popped out and stayed in place since then. Meanwhile, the space itself that it popped out into is stretching, moving stuff apart. This would explain two differnt observations that now say space is flat.
What I was suggesting was that the very old light was created in a time when the natural laws were slightly different, however, the inflationary idea suggests that once the inflation stopped, the laws have been exactly the same everywhere since that point in time.
So with gravatational lensing, we have been able to verify that very distant, say even edge of the universe(ish) distant, that have high redshifts, are really “moving” away as fast as the redshift suggests? Yes, I know they are not moving, lets say, the distance between us is increasing. That would allow us to calibrate amount of redshift to actual increase of distance or “speed”. I wonder, then, if the hypothesised amount of redshift of the object matched its lensing measured speed?
fobdangerclose said:
March 17, 2014 at 12:38 pm
If you were moving away from Al Gores bs at the speed of light, would that help at all?
————
You would have to pass through a warm hole.
Brant Ra says:
March 17, 2014 at 10:03 pm
Massless energy has been on my mind for the last 15 years….
Luckily, it will then not weigh heavily on you, although such a weighty concept could have massive implications, weighing you down to where you can’t get the energy needed to escape back up.
Legatus says:
March 17, 2014 at 10:28 pm
I would only need one such object for this to work.
I think you will never find one because space is expanding in far in excess of the speed of light for far away galaxies r, and if you think you have one, how do you ensure it is the object you are looking for and the data is not contaminated by some other effect or circumstance?
Einstein predicted gravity waves but Einstein didn’t say a word about Big Bang, dark matter, or dark energy. Gravity waves can and do exist without any of these modern creationist fairy tales.
I have never seen any proof of gravity waves confirming the Creation of everything out of nothing (which, in a nutshell, is the BB theory).
Leif Svalgaard says:
“Well, there are climate-change deniers, big-bang deniers, evolution deniers, moon-landing deniers, all sorts of ignorance-based deniers.”
Everybody can see his true colors by now? In his half-mind climate change and big bang skeptics equal evolution and moon-landing deniers. Don’t gratify this 5th column veteran with your answers.
REPLY: His “true colors” are simply placing data based truth before opinionated “truth”. Quite frankly I’ll take his method over your complaining any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Feel free to be as upset as you wish – Anthony
Alexander Feht says:
March 17, 2014 at 10:38 pm
I have never seen any proof of gravity waves confirming the Creation of everything out of nothing
That you ‘have never seen’ or don’t know or don’t understand something, does not mean that what you have not seen or don’t understand does not exist.
BTW, “something from nothing” about the big bang.
Simply put, if we try to detect anything from, say, 15 billion years ago, we cannot. We may say that there was something there then, or that there was nothing, but we have absolutly no data to work on. In fact, I havent really seen anthing that can be verified about what happend before that big bang, just unsubstantiated theories.
We now have ideas about what happend a very very small amount of time right after that big bang, as seen by gravity waves, but do we have even the slightest actual data of what happened even one second before that?
Trying to say what came before what we actually have data on really is ‘something from nothing”.
Legatus says:
March 17, 2014 at 10:56 pm
Simply put, if we try to detect anything from, say, 15 billion years ago, we cannot.
Simply put, because there wasn’t anything then. Even the notion of 15 billion years ago is dubious if time began 13.75 billion years ago.
If this discovery is reproducible (which it is not yet, on par with the single dubious sighting of a glitch that produced the Higgs’ boson brouhaha), and will become a scientific fact, the only thing it confirms is the general relativity theory. It has nothing — absolutely nothing — to do with the big bang or any other creationist fantasies (or with the mathematical neurosis called “the string theory”).
P.S. Re Dr. Svalgaard: whatever the man of his manners says doesn’t matter within any reasonable discussion of civilized people. World is full of bullies flaunting their diplomas and insulting everybody around. It is high time to stop listening to their conformist noises.
I love it when a bully troll says “Educate yourself” — and gives you a link to the New York Times article, of all things! Pathetic.
Alexander Feht says:
March 17, 2014 at 11:02 pm
the only thing it confirms is the general relativity theory
In General Relativity, the Universe is unstable. It must either expand or contract. As it is observed to expand, it must have been smaller [and thus hotter] at any time in the past, and smaller [and hotter] yet at at point before that, and still smaller [and hotter] at a time before that, etc. The Big Bang is just the name we give to the early stages of that process. At some point in time the temperature must have been 8.6 billion Kelvin. At that temperature Deuterium [‘heavy hydrogen’] begins to form from a proton and a neutron. From this, one can calculate the amount of Helium formed in the early life of the Universe. The result is 24% as is actually observed. See http://www.leif.org/research/Helium.pdf
Dear Paul Westhaver,
And how KIND of YOU!
Thank you!
#(:))
Janice
P.S. Sometimes, one responds to a pig for the sake of the other, more honest, humble, truth-seeking, animals on the farm. And, I can’t help hoping that all of those pigs are “still pervious, through a chink or two,” and will one day have a change of heart and that they may, then, stoop down to pick up one of the remaining pearls still lying at their feet, and be so enthralled with its Beauty that they can’t help but believe in Truth.
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Dear P@trick (well, it’s your day!),
Thank you, dear sir. I hope that it was a good day for you and for Merci, Jack Russell, Cassie, and Einstein. Wishing you an even better day tomorrow!
You WUWT pal,
Janice
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And, Mod. (smile) — Thank you, so much, dear 8>)
#(:))
“In General Relativity, the Universe is unstable.” We see a lot of this pseudo-argument, don’t we?
Einstein disagreed; it can be flat. Modern observations don’t prove the existence of “inflation.”
The so-called “inflation” of the Universe is a primitive interpretation of the space-time curvature as a curvature of space without any change in time, whereas it has been experimentally shown that time changes depending on the observer’s distance from the mass.
And THANK YOU, DR. SVALGAARD, for running the gauntlet of this thread to bring so much LIGHT to us all. Every one of your posts above was helpful to me. Pay no attention to those drooling hyenas, O Lion. Perfect character actors for St. Patrick’s day: their eyes are green with…….. envy. Ha! They whine at your low growls above… they should hear you ROAR!
They do not realize the extent to which you have velveted your sharp wit and mighty arguments.
And, no doubt, you would say that it would not be fair to their small stature to do otherwise.
Good show!
Janice
Alexander Feht says:
March 17, 2014 at 11:26 pm
“In General Relativity, the Universe is unstable.” We see a lot of this pseudo-argument, don’t we? Einstein disagreed; it can be flat. Modern observations don’t prove the existence of “inflation.”
A link [that should be at your level – or perhaps a bit above] has more on this: http://www.space.com/9593-einstein-biggest-blunder-turns.html
A more elaborate [but still accessible] exposition is here: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Sept04/Hubble/Hubble1.html
As you study the materiel carefully, you might come upon this:
“The kinds of universes that would be compatible with the relativity principle and the assumption of homogeneity have been determined by intricate mathematical reasoning. A body of necessary characteristics has been derived, one of which is of exceptional interest for our immediate problem, Such a universe, if it contains matter, will be unstable. At best it could be in unstable equilibrium, like a ball balanced on a point. The slightest disturbance would upset the balance – and internal disturbances evidently must occur. The universe would then revert to its natural state of either contraction or expansion. Theory does not indicate either the direction or the rate of the change to be expected. The universe might be expanding or contracting and at a rate that is rapid or imperceptible. At this point the cosmologist seizes upon the observed red-shifts, interprets them as velocity-shifts, and presents them as visible evidence that the actual universe is now expanding, and expanding rapidly. It is for these reasons that relativistic cosmology is described as the theory of homogeneous, expanding universes which obey the relativistic laws of gravitation.”
Have you ever seen anything more nauseating then the previous comment by Janice Moore? Just how obsequious one can be?
Besides, Dr. Svalgaard, in one sentence, equals climate change skeptics with moon-landing d-ers, using “d” word 4 times in a row, and his comment gets an automatic green light, while my comment containing only a quote from his insulting rant, ends up in the moderator’s “forever bin.” Nice policy!
REPLY: Really? Forever Bin? It’s right there. Moderation hold based on the automated flagging filter and “forever bin” are two entirely different things. But, since you think that they are one and the same, I’m happy to oblige. – Anthony
Just because it resonates with me (originally a Buddhist saying)…
“There is THAT which was never created, nor was it born, nor did it evolve, if it were not so, there would be no refuge ever from being created, or being born, or evolving. THAT is the end of all suffering. THAT is G-D** ”
** Substitute whatever name suits….Nirvana, Allah, Brahman, the Great Way (Tao), God, Cosmos, etc….
“The universe might be expanding or contracting and at a rate that is rapid or imperceptible. At this point the cosmologist seizes upon the observed red-shifts, interprets them as velocity-shifts”…
Stop right there. Imperceptible? Really? And why “the cosmologist” wouldn’t seize on many observed contradictions to his simplistic velocity-shift interpretation?
My late father, one of the leading topologists in Russia, and a specialist in the elementary particle physics, used to remark about the Big Bang theory: “We don’t know what we don’t know. But an aggressive consensus among the proponents of any particular theory is always suspect. In the case of the Big Bang theory they are not simply aggressive, they become outright hysterical when they face any kind of criticism. One wonders, why.”
Alexander Feht says:
March 17, 2014 at 11:26 pm
Modern observations don’t prove the existence of “inflation.”
Modern inflation theory predicts structure in the CMB near multipole 85 [that means a structure that will fit 85 times around the sky]. The article we are discussing reports that just that predicted structure has now been observed. This is strong support for inflation. Forget the word ‘proof’. That has no place in science [except in mathematics]. One should use words like ‘supports’, ‘confirms’, ‘strengthens’. And the new observations strongly ‘supports’ the theory by observing what the theory predicted ahead of time. That is the way good science works.
Alexander Feht says:
March 17, 2014 at 11:55 pm
In the case of the Big Bang theory they are not simply aggressive, they become outright hysterical when they face any kind of criticism. One wonders, why.
It seems to me that the hysteria is on your part. One wonders not about that.
Excuse me? How a single observation in one point of the sky (which is what the BICEP2 telescope did) fits the theoretically predicted structure of the cosmic microwave background 85 times around the sky?
Before we continue this rather fruitless discussion, let me ask two questions:
1) The observed gravity waves were predicted by the Einstein’s general relativity theory in the absence of any reference to the Big Bang inflation, dark matter, or dark energy. Yes or no?
2) Fred Hoyle, as well as many other distinguished astrophysicists, pointed to the simple fact that there are pairs of connected galaxies exhibiting different red shifts or even a red shift and a blue shift simultaneously. How is it consistent with the prevailing Doppler interpretation of the red shift?
As long as the obligatory instability of the Universe can express itself “imperceptibly” — as you kindly admitted — it is not necessary to accept creationist Ptolemaic circles around the truth, painstakingly introduced at Vatican’s direction by Monseigneur Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître.
Alexander Feht says:
March 18, 2014 at 12:42 am
Excuse me? How a single observation in one point of the sky (which is what the BICEP2 telescope did) fits the theoretically predicted structure of the cosmic microwave background 85 times around the sky?
you should take the trouble to actually read the paper [what a concept] then you would see that it was not a single point observation, but covers an area 20 degrees x 100 degrees.
1) The observed gravity waves were predicted by the Einstein’s general relativity theory in the absence of any reference to the Big Bang inflation, dark matter, or dark energy. Yes or no?
Yes, but a red herring.
2) Fred Hoyle, as well as many other distinguished astrophysicists, pointed to the simple fact that there are pairs of connected galaxies exhibiting different red shifts or even a red shift and a blue shift simultaneously. How is it consistent with the prevailing Doppler interpretation of the red shift?
As pointed out here http://arxiv.org/abs/0807.2641v2 based on a sample of hundred thousand galaxies the associations are no more than can be explained by chance.
As long as the obligatory instability of the Universe can express itself “imperceptibly” — as you kindly admitted
The theory does not predict how fast the expansion should be, but our precise observations show that the expansion is present and clearly perceptible.
— it is not necessary to accept creationist Ptolemaic circles around the truth, painstakingly introduced at Vatican’s direction by Monseigneur Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître.
What has ‘creationism’ to do with anything? We are talking about observations. But you just gave away from what well your venom springs.
Alexander Feht says:
March 18, 2014 at 12:42 am
How is it consistent with the prevailing Doppler interpretation of the red shift?
And BTW, the red shift is not a Doppler shift as the galaxies are not moving through space [if they did, it would be a Doppler shift and the speed of light would be the limit], but it is rather space itself that is stretching [making the light waves longer and thus redder] for which the light-speed limit does not apply.
@Alexander Feht: “…..painstakingly introduced at Vatican’s direction by Monseigneur Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître”.
???! Lemaître published his theory in 1927. It wasn’t until 24 years later that the Pope became a fan.
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre :
“By 1951, Pope Pius XII declared that Lemaître’s theory provided a scientific validation for existence of God and Catholicism. However, Lemaître resented the Pope’s proclamation. When Lemaître and Daniel O’Connell, the Pope’s science advisor, tried to persuade the Pope not to mention Creationism publicly anymore, the Pope agreed. He convinced the Pope to stop making proclamations about cosmology. While a devoted Roman Catholic, he was against mixing science with religion.“
Adrian Mann says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:43 pm
“…In fact it’s impossible to depict as it wasn’t ‘like’ anything and all analogies will be flawed.
No need to invoke gods or supernatural forces either – in fact, by doing so you put an end to all further enquiries by putting it in a box labelled “god did it” and closing the lid.”
I see what you mean by “flawed” analogies.
If the universe is endless , more than 1 Big Bang is possible. What is the chance we run in incoming material from an other BB.
If in our local BB universe we are still traveling away from the centre of the BB why The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are going to collide in the future?
It is sad that our ‘teacher’ must admonish “Forget the word ‘proof’. That has no place in science …” here among the presumably scientifically literate. Falsifiability provides the demarcation between science and non-science.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Fascinating post, and the comments are an education. Dr. Leif Svalgaard is always worth paying attention to.
To Grumpyoldmanuk
General Relativity allows space to expand at faster than light speed. This is what inflation says ie that space expanded at many multiples of light speed. However objects with space cannot exceed light speed
God, how I hate religion.
Steven Mosher says:
March 17, 2014 at 3:30 pm
“However, as Guth, who is now a professor of physics at MIT, immediately realized, certain predictions in his scenario contradicted observational data. In the early 1980s, Russian physicist Andrei Linde modified the model into a concept called “new inflation” and again to “eternal chaotic inflation,” both of which generated predictions that closely matched actual observations of the sky.”
Where were Popper and Feynman to tell them that the whole theory must be falsified.
No fair making changes and improving theory. its either false or true.
hehe
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We are more forgiving when they do not claim certainty. 😉
Frank K. says:
March 17, 2014 at 10:46 am
@philjourdan
That’s always been my proof for the existence of God. Where did that “tiny piece of space” that “inflated” to become the known universe come from???
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Why should the existence of God hinge on a mystery? If one defines God then all that is needed is something that fits the definition. If God is the creator, and you are quite sure you didn’t create yourself, then God necessarily exists (and is not you, it’s no fun when your God. One could argue some random, spontaneous, pop into existence scenario. Which is fine, that’s God then.). For a more complex definition, God is the creator, omnipotent, and omniscient. We have the universe itself which fits that definition (one could say “everything” instead of “universe” if you want to take precaution against a multi-verse). The universe is the cause of existence (big bang being part of the universe for this thought experiment) and it contains all power (energy) and all knowledge (laws and arrangement of energy, and also our own knowledge). I always found it strange that people who wanted to argue for God what to argue for something entirely beyond the scope of our comprehension and perception. Arguing for God with science and logic seems like a much easier endeavor.
@Alexander Feht:
“painstakingly introduced at Vatican’s direction by Monseigneur Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître.”
???!
Lemaître published his theory in 1927. It wasn’t until 24 years later that the Pope became a fan…
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre :
“By 1951, Pope Pius XII declared that Lemaître’s theory provided a scientific validation for existence of God and Catholicism. However, Lemaître resented the Pope’s proclamation. When Lemaître and Daniel O’Connell, the Pope’s science advisor, tried to persuade the Pope not to mention Creationism publicly anymore, the Pope agreed. He convinced the Pope to stop making proclamations about cosmology. While a devoted Roman Catholic, he was against mixing science with religion.“
milodonharlani says (March 17, 2014 at 4:16 pm): “No version of the Big Bang Theory in any way corresponds to the various creation myths in the Bible.”
Boo, hoo, hoo. Those evil theists. They will never acknowledge the right of us scientists to be rulers of everything, as Plato properly placed us, in his Republic.
Job 26:7: “He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.”
–A two-for: God continues to spread the sky, AND Job informs us that the earth is not resting on turtles all the way down, but is hung over nothing.
For a poem to be so spot-on to the cosmology that was not recognized by “science” until nearly 3,000 years later should raise an eyebrow.
I wonder how this jives w/D-brane theory? Some have been saying that the theory of a D-brane collision produces similar effects that inflation would. I’d ask Motl on his blog, but his webpage locks up my browser.
There is science, and there is scientism. Science is a process for indicating the most likely theories about the nature of the physical world; Scientism is the belief that the physical world is all there is, and all knowledge must be organized to fit this initial principle.
My physical body -the actual atoms, the actual cells – have been replaced many times over, yet I can pretty well recall being myself going decades back in time. Am I merely a physical-material bag of cytoplasm? I have a hard time buying this Scientism.
I understand people not being religious, and or not believing in God. I used to be in that type of boat, generally. That is quite different from the anti-religious hostility felt and conveyed by some. To defend Scientism, itself quite shaky, cult-like attitudes are required. This includes vilifying non-believers. Also, it includes declaring how “science” has answered so many questions, and should be preached from all pulpits.
Thank God that genuine scientists show more humility.
A few illogical things have been said on this thread.
Objects cannot be motion less. There is no zero speed in the universe. Motion less is in contradiction with relativity.
Also, the expansion of the universe cannot stretch photons. Let’s prove that with a thought experiment.
We have a cylinder with a perfect mirror at each end and both are parallel. If a photon is constantly bouncing from one mirror to the other in an expanding universe, does it experience a red-shift? No, because of conservation of energy. Take in note that the number of bounces per second can be modified by changing the length of the cylinder.
In the same cylinder, we put a second photon in such a way that the two photons hit any mirror at a different time. Does the distance between the two photons change with time? No, there is no way to tell which photon is the first and which is the second. If you have two points on a circle and you measure the distances clock-wise. Increasing the distance from A to B would reduce the distance from B to A. Also, if the timing of the two photons was changing, it would suggest a different speed and at some point the two would hit at the same time. The idea that an expansion of the fabric of the universe would increase the distance between two photons makes no sense at all.
So we know that the expansion of the universe cannot stretch photons in any kind of way. The red-shift associated with an expansion is probably a combination of the Doppler effect and a change in referential. An other possibility would be that the expansion only affects massive objects.
I love the sound of crushing consensus of academics.
Love all these moronic god-believers desperately trying to make sense of this discovery by finding the odd phrase in the bible to cling onto. I thought he did the whole thing in 7 days, not the 14,000,000,000 years that we now know the universe has existed. Bit of a difference, huh? And what the hell was he doing for the 13,998,000,000 million years before humans appeared? OK, we know there were dinosaurs from 13,750,000,000 years after the big bang, but that’s still a lot of sitting around doing nothing for billions of years, and anyway dinosaurs didn’t make it into the bible, as the people who made up the bible weren’t armed with any facts.
Come on people. Study this amazing science about the universe’s origins, not some old book written by ignorant middle-eastern shepherds 2 thousand years ago!
The amount of processing and adjustments of the original CMB data might be interesting to quantify and itemize sometime.
John,
“And the earth was without form, and void. And darkness moved upon the face of the deep.” If you use “fluid” instead of “deep” this is an accurate depiction of the coming heat death of the Universe. Those shepherds weren’t so far off, and it was a lot more than 2000 years ago that the Book of Genesis was written…
Michael
Your quote from the Bible is about the start of the world not the end of the world. So even if it accurately depicts the heat death of the Universe (which it doesn’t because by the time of the heat death the earth won’t exist any more), since it is suppose to be depicting the begin of the Universe it is obviously way off base. Nice job shooting your own foot.
John says:
March 18, 2014 at 8:38 am
Stop.
Take a breathe.
Calm down.
What anyone else believes as a matter of THEIR faith makes NO difference to what you believe as a matter of YOUR faith.
On the other hand, certain 7th century fundamentalist faiths and the modern, up-to-date, computer-assisted and deliberately ungodly current anti-theist “faith” of government and universal institutions of government-paid workers (er, professors) are an exception Those ungodly and god-hating “faiths” ARE trying to, and fully capable of, actually DO WANT to kill you and actually ARE killing you, your family, and many millionis of other innocents as a required process of THEIR “faith” in THEIR “books” … Such as the IPCC, UN, and the current climate science CAGW religions.
THOSE are the people of “faith” in THEIR beliefs who ARE killing people.
US poor skeptics are merely reading those “old books by itinerant shepherds” who couldn’t write, couldn’t read, and had problems counting past 70 x 7 … and marveling at how those guys got all of the nuclear physics and biology and plate tectonics and evolution right.
Marc77 says:
March 18, 2014 at 8:27 am
If a photon is constantly bouncing from one mirror to the other in an expanding universe, does it experience a red-shift? No, because of conservation of energy.
There is no violation of conservation of energy. The energy is the same, but in an expanding universe the constant energy is spread over an increasing volume, so the energy per unit of volume [and unit of time] becomes less.
more from Stanford: https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/news/2014-03-17-physicists-find-cosmic-inflation.aspx
?itok=Z81_5mkl
This is a nice pictorial: