We’ve all heard of the claim of “settled science” when it comes to global warming/climate change, and we’ve all heard of the “Big Bang Theory”, and I’m not just talking about the popular TV show. The scientific theory goes all the way back to 1927.
This is an artist’s concept of the metric expansion of space, where space (including hypothetical non-observable portions of the universe) is represented at each time by the circular sections. Note on the left the dramatic expansion (not to scale) occurring in the inflationary epoch, and at the center the expansion acceleration. The scheme is decorated with WMAP images on the left and with the representation of stars at the appropriate level of development. Credit: NASA
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model for the birth of the universe. It states that at some moment all of space was contained in a single point from which the Universe has been expanding ever since. Modern measurements place this moment at approximately 13.8 billion years ago, which is thus considered the age of the universe. After the initial expansion, the Universe cooled sufficiently to allow the formation of subatomic particles, and later simple atoms. Giant clouds of these primordial elements later coalesced through gravity to form stars and galaxies. The Big Bang theory does not provide any explanation for the initial conditions of the Universe; rather, it describes and explains the general evolution of the Universe going forward from that point on. (Source: Wikipedia)
Now, it seems there’s a challenge to this ‘settled’ science, and a new quantum equation predicts the universe has no beginning.
(Phys.org) —The universe may have existed forever, according to a new model that applies quantum correction terms to complement Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The model may also account for dark matter and dark energy, resolving multiple problems at once.
The widely accepted age of the universe, as estimated by general relativity, is 13.8 billion years. In the beginning, everything in existence is thought to have occupied a single infinitely dense point, or singularity. Only after this point began to expand in a “Big Bang” did the universe officially begin.
Although the Big Bang singularity arises directly and unavoidably from the mathematics of general relativity, some scientists see it as problematic because the math can explain only what happened immediately after—not at or before—the singularity.
“The Big Bang singularity is the most serious problem of general relativity because the laws of physics appear to break down there,” Ahmed Farag Ali at Benha University and the Zewail City of Science and Technology, both in Egypt, told Phys.org.
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don penman
February 10, 2015 10:12 pm
I think that the idea that we can travel back in time and alter the present,as many sci-fi films suggest,is not true because we see no evidence of this happening in the present and we assume that time travel will be possible in the future.it is possible to move forward in space to a certain location and then travel backward in space to the starting point but it could be that moving through time is not like that and moving backward in time is just as probabilities as moving forward in time.We know what happened in the past because we remember or have records of what happened in the past but if we could travel backward in time it could be as uncertain as travelling into the future.
Climate Heretic
February 10, 2015 10:24 pm
Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.[1]
Regards
Climate Heretic
[1]Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
It is ironic that Hubble himself was far from convinced that his famous constant was due to the doppler effect and an expanding universe .In a 1934 lecture he said
“The field is new, but it offers rather definite prospects not only of testing the form of the velocity-distance relation beyond the reach of the spectrograph, but even of critically testing the very interpretation of red-shifts as due to motion. With this possibility in view, the cautious observer refrains from committing himself to the present interpretation and prefers the colourless term “apparent velocity.”
Similarly the galactic rotation curves shows that Einstein’s gravitational equations which work well enough on the tiny scale of the solar system ,simply do not scale up to galactic masses . In order to preserve the standard cosmological model the consensus cosmological herd simply shovel enough conveniently unobservable dark matter into the calculations to preserve Einsteins equations.
The red shift is much more simply explained using the Beer Lambert Law as light passes through the rarified inter-galactic medium see eg – the nice originally illustration of the red shift in green laser light passing through a medium at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer%E2%80%93Lambert_law
Twentieth century science post the 2nd world war was organized so that various fields became dominated by a relatively small self perpetuating clique who came to control academic appointments, the peer revue process, and the awarding of grants etc.so that real progress was held back in favour of preserving the currently fashionable consensus conventional wisdom .Let’s face it – what tenured professor is going to supervise and perhaps fund a Doctoral thesis that might fundamentally challenge the work on which his own career and reputation is based.?
Again look at how Arp was denied telescope time to study the anomalous red shifts and had to leave the US to continue his investigations.
Establishment Climate Science since 1990 is a particularly egregious example of this process.
Twentieth century science post the 2nd world war was organized so that various fields became dominated by a relatively small self perpetuating clique who came to control academic appointments, the peer revue process, and the awarding of grants etc.so that real progress was held back in favour of preserving the currently fashionable consensus conventional wisdom .
It was also observed in a laboratory ” Intrinsic Plasma Redshifts Now Reproduced In The
Laboratory”: http://vixra.org/pdf/1105.0010v1.pdf
“In fact the lines are redshifted with the degree of redshift increasing with the surrounding free electron density”
It is clear that one cannot reproduce the many light-year distances in the laboratory – and this is replaced with higher plasma density in the laboratory, however the result should be consistent, and for my simple brain the logic seems to be explaining pretty nicely how red-shift is taking place:
“Energy lost to an electron during emission or absorption =Q**2/ 2e m c**2, where Q is the energy of the incoming photon, e, m the rest mass of the electron and c the speed of light.”
“On their journey through plasma, the photons will make many such collisions and undergo an increase in wavelength of /eh m ceach time. On this basis red shift becomes a distance indicator and the distance – red shift relation becomes: photons of light from sources twice as far away will travel twice as far through the plasma, make twice as many collisions and thus undergo twice the red shift. Conservation of linear momentum willensure the linear propagation of light. ”
I thought this would be the end of the big bang when I first read about it, but the train seems to continue to run at full speed.
After reading this it seems to me that a change in the notion of CAGW by many scientist is not going to happen anytime soon especially when you consider the huge difference in money spent on the science.
Dr Norman Page
Let me throw a different challenge at the assumed 14 billion year-old Big Bang.
Conventional consensus places the Big Bang 14 billion years ago. Fine. 13.5 in some recent papers.
Conventional consensus holds that most ordinary cycle stars are much smaller than supernova-capable; almost all main sequence stars will quietly go through their H-He-C-Ne-O burning (fusion) cycles and then quietly go into a neutron (cold, dark) solid star. No supernova, no release of ANY mass from the main sequence star, no released of ANY heavier atoms fused in He-C-O-Ne etc reactions from that star. A dead end, so to speak.
Conventional consensus holds that although many stars (all stars) build up heavier nuclei by fusion, ONLY the extreme blast of a supernova can blow those new nuclei out away from the first (parent) supernova’s into a second supernova’s gravity well. once inside that secondary supernova, the nuclei are further built up, fused together, then blown out into subsequent supernovas, blown up again and then re-released as dust and gasses into interstellar space. Once in interstellar space, the dust is collected into the local gravity wells of stars, and the dust rotated into planetary orbits, planetary blobs, then planetary solid condensed spinning globes. Thus, all atoms we recognized (larger than the first few of H and He) come from a series of earlier supernova’s, then traveled through space, then were collected here from space into our solar system.
Fine. We have all read that.
Radioactive decay dating, continental movement, early fossils and existing Canadian Shield rocks, etc date the earth as a “rotating, solid, stable globe with today’s features” at 4.5 billion years ago. Absolutely.
That means the solar system of one radiating sun surrounded by nine planets, a herd of asteroids, and all of the Oort cloud gasses and dirt and dust and ice and carbon and comets existed as it is now somewhere between 5 billion years ago and 4.5 billion years ago, right? Certainly, we were NOT bombarded by ANY nearby supernova’s, nova’s, death stars, or other galaxies between 5 billion years ago and today. And only a couple of asteroid hits for that matter between 4.5 billions years ago and today.
Thus,
If the escape velocity from the solar system as we know it today, for a random low weight mass (say a particle of dust coming from the galaxy) at the radius of Saturn’s orbit (which will include almost all of the mass of the solar system) is only13.6 km/sec, then … How could ANY particle traveling faster than 13.6 km/sec be trapped in some proto-solar-system dust cloud? Such a fast interstellar particle would sling right through the more loosely organized proto-dust cloud, and continue on its way only slightly deviated. (Obviously, direct collisions are possible, and probably did happen. But not enough. )
So, the only dust that could be collected reliably from inetrstellar space would be slow-moving (cosmically speaking), and thus would take ????? years to get here from the “parent” supernova site. Which is (now) and would have had to be (then) more than ???? light years away. (In fact, I know of NO former supernova sites near us in the galaxy that could have sent the number of particles needed. Yes, they would not be radiating now, but where are these parents and grandparents and the thousands of earlier supernova’s?)
Further challenging the supernova-succession problem is the radial expulsion of the gasses and nuclei from each supernova. They are thrown out (as the 1054 supernova dust cloud shows vividly) in all radial directions away from the original star. Thus, you need to assume some proportion of the new-created nuclei will not get thrown in the right direction to
(1) get thrown towards the next supernova waiting to blow up (before it blows up!)
(2) get captured by the next supernova’s gravity field, react within the fusion zones of that supernova (and not all nuclei within the star are going to fuse!)
(3) get thrown out away from the supernova_2 back into space (again, not all mass escapes the blast zone)
(4) get thrown a second time in the right direction to get to the third supernova location
(5) get captured by that supernova’s dust cloud, get absorbed in that supernova’s solar mass, react and fuse within that supernova’s fusion zones …
Etc. If the probability of a civilization occurring on one planet around one star is minute, try calculating the probably of creating a single iron nuclei! A single Nickle, Chromium, Argon, Krypton, or Cadmium, Gold, and Silver atom.
A single Uranium nuclei.
but, it gets worse than that.
Every Uranium atom created and passed along to our solar system must be made independently of the next iron, silver, magnesium or Chromium atom. That is, if a supernova creates and ejects an iron nuclei (AW = 56), then the fusion cycles that created the iron could not create a silver or gold atom. The fusion cycles that linked up to create the Uranium atom we see today, could not create any of the intermediate lower weight atoms. Every atom we have today had to be independently created from a different fusion chain. A different ejection reaction chain away from the parent and grandparent supernova, and thus a slightly different interstellar trajectory before coming into the solar system’s original cloud.
Now, obviously, a single supernova is going to create many tons of particles. Some of those particles will even follow parallel paths towards us. But they have to get here to the solar system’s original dust cloud. Which is a very, very small target a very long distance from any other stars. And from any known former supernova’s ..
So. The particles got here. Got formed inside supernova strings. How long did it take for all of those miraculous supernova strings to form the atoms? How much time did they spend in transit at 13.6 km/sec to get here and be captured?
You only have 13.5 billion – 5.5 billion = 8 billion years to form all of the nuclei in our solar system.
And, there are apparently some 1.243E+54 “heavy” atoms in our solar system that must be created.
10 to the 54th some-odd reaction chains are needed just to create the heavy atoms in the solar system.
10^ 60 supernova’s? After all, less than 1/10,000,000 atoms ejected from each supernova will end up going in the right direction to get here. Or will more be “aimed” the right direction?
10^40 some-odd supernovas? 10^ 20 supernova’s? How many were needed to form the atoms we see?
If the shortest sequence of supernova strings to create all of the atoms we see were linear – a single long particle accelerator so to speak, where is it? If all the atoms could be created from one supernova very close by, so the dust particles did not need to travel millions of years across space, where is the core now? If the supernova’s were popping off very close to each other back then, so transit times were very small and multiple reaction chains almost assured, where are the remnants now, and why are star evolutions so different now? We see only 1 or 2 a decade, and those in ALL of the many galaxies visble.
Where are the 10^10 supernova remnants in the nearby region we need? Remember, any dust particle captured by a main sequence star or dark cloud or dark matter can’t get here. That particle was properly created, but it dropped down a gravity well and can’t get up.
This intrigued me so I discussed it with a friend who studied Astrophysics. He made the following counterpoints.
•The density of the universe was a lot higher in the past, which is obvious if big bang is true, therefore supernova remnants are more likely to run into other supernova remnants from nearby and gas clouds, and form new stellar nurseries in the past.
•The size of stars in the early universe was much bigger than is typical now. More massive stars = shorter lifespans, more supernovae more often, more gas/elements to spew out. To put some figures on this, we are talking about stars with masses up to 100,000 times that of the sun. These beasts run out of fuel in under 2 million years. You can fit a lot of 2 million year stellar lifecycles between 560million years after big bang, when the first stars formed and 9 billion years after big bang when our solar system was formed.
•Looking at the universe as we see it gives a misleading impression. Stars blow away (by em charged particles) the gas clouds that they form out of – there is a very decent amount of matter in interstellar space. Supernovae are very rare today, but back in the second half billion years of the universe’s existence they would have been going off.
He also pointed out that frequent supernovae are not conducive to life, because the radiation and general disruption within hundreds of light years will sterilise practically anything conceivable.
Perhaps this makes the improbability of heavy elements less improbable?
M Courtney
I accept each of his comments, each of his approximations (and the assumptions that are required behind the approximations to make them appear reasonable.)
But … (and you knew the “but” was coming, didn’t you?)
All of the mass in our current solar system was present as a local cloud somewhere – and that cloud had all of the elements we can now count (weigh) in it. Almost nothing has been added between initial “cloud” gathering and the subsequent consoliation into spinning planets with the sun in the middle.
He claims 560 million years between the big bang and supernova sequence. OK. Let’s use it, and assign a 13.65 billion year ago BB. Solar system cloud was gathered in this arm of this galaxy 5.5 billion years ago. Then it was gathered together, then those proto-planets accumulated mass to become actual planets. Our own earth is 4.6 billion years old. You may choose whatever age is appropriate for the creation of a stable (non-supernova-blasted!) dust you want, but you have to pick something. Let’s use 5.0 billion years for the “solar system dust cloud” as an distinct entity in space.
So everything had to be made in that time interval = 13.68 x 10^9 – 5.0 x 10^9 years -0.5 x 10^9 years = 2.57 x 10^17 seconds. Sounds like a lot of time, doesn’t it?
Quoting Wikipedia, and its several dozens of references, is always risky, but let’s assume they re right. After all, it is merely repeating what your friend said.
“Studies of the structure of the Kuiper belt and of anomalous materials within it suggest that the Sun formed within a cluster of between 1,000 and 10,000 stars with a diameter of between 6.5 and 19.5 light-years and a collective mass of 3,000 M☉.”
So, we have to arrange some 10,000 stars – which we will all assume were supernova-capable and were supernova’s that did explode at the right time in the right sequence of chains to create the cosmic dust that makes up who we are today – in a pattern of some 20 parsecs across.
So, how many isotopes do we have to create in the available time frame?
The weight of our solar system = 1.992 x 10^33 grams.
But, the weight of just the top 25 isotopes by weight in our solar system is about = 3.79 x 10^31 gms.
From Avagadro’s number and the appropriate molar mass fractions of the top 25 isotopes, this means some ~ 1.24 x 10^54 “heavy” isotope nuclei were formed, ejected, transported across space, and collected into the original solar system dust cloud.
So, if the dust was created uniformly and evenly in a supernova cloud during the entire time from the Big Bang until the solar system dust cloud was gathered in its isolation (13.68 billion – .5 billion (you need to form the supernova cloud first) – 5.0 billion (solar system age) = 8.15 billion years = 2.57 x 10^17 seconds. So you need to form 4.83 x 10^36 nuclei per second for 10^ 17 seconds to create the heavy isotopes in just our single little solar system. Every second. For for every second in that long 8.15 billion year time frames. Then all of the supernova’s have to vanish (or be left behind somehow. or themselves go faster than the left-over dust cloud) because that remaining isolated solar system dust cloud 9us!) has to be stable in space far enough away from everything else to slowly accumulate by itself and begin rotating into the orbits we know exist. Continuously passing nearby stars and multiple supernova’s – though one may be needed to start the accumulation! – will disrupt the accumulation sequence. No accumulation sequence means no planets in stable orbits.
Obviously, this idea is wrong. Each supernova is a single burst, creating many earth-masses of high weight isotopes in each blast.
But that very blast of many earth-masses (plus the mass of Venus, plus Mars, plus the moon, plus Mercury plus the Oort cloud plus the asteroids) are randomly blasted into the entire ster-radian sphere around each of the assumed supernovas in every area of the assumed supernova cloud. Arrange the supernova cloud too far away, and too few drifting atoms are sent this way to forms the dust cloud in that little target area. Too close, and each supernova must be timed exactly right – like the micro-second accuracy of a the explosions that form the spherical crushing pressure around a plutonium fission bomb – so the ejected nuclei will all arrive at the same location in the same period of time. Too early a supernova? The nuclei are formed, are ejected in the right direction, travel here in the right length of time, but cross this target area too early to be a part of the dust cloud when it begins gathering. Too late? They arrive, but after the dust cloud has passed by.
if you throw out the requirement for a chain of supernova’s – which nobody ever has! – then you need to assembly every chromium, iron, nickle, vanadium, and uranium atom now in existence in one super-supernova.
But nobody has named the formation stream for anything much past the simple “resonances energies” of the early 2He4 combinations: 8O16 ; 6C12 ; 14Si28 ; 16S32. Nobody has – to my knowledge and after all of my searching – explained how many reactions of what kind are needed to form Fe56. (Which reactions, and how likely are each different fusion tree are needed.) No one has ever done anything other than wave their hands “and then all of the other elements are formed” … the early formation tree is very compelling: A series of He4 fusions does indeed make sense because the resonance daughter products ARE the most common isotopes we find! But that resonance “tree” does NOT explain how the rest are made!
To repeat. How many supernova’s are needed to make one 26Fe (AW 52, 54, 55, 56, or 58) isotope? How many are needed to make one 92Uranium isotope? they were made. But how?
So, your friend needs to tell you his assumptions for the number of supernova’s needed and the size of that supernova cloud so we can check his assumptions: In particular, we need some guess of transport time from the final supernova cloud surrounding the solar system dust cloud’s to the solar system. Given any transport time (since we know the max speed of the incoming dust particles) we can figure out how many supernova’s need to blast at the same time to get their particles all here at the same time so they can be collected.
M Courtney
February 12, 2015 at 4:36 am
This intrigued me so I discussed it with a friend who studied Astrophysics. He made the following counterpoints.
•The density of the universe was a lot higher in the past, which is obvious if big bang is true, therefore supernova remnants are more likely to run into other supernova remnants from nearby and gas clouds, and form new stellar nurseries in the past.
Hm, interesting but is not the inflation period before the stellar systems? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_%28cosmology%29
“The inflationary epoch lasted from 10−36 seconds after the Big Bang to sometime between 10−33 and 10−32 seconds. ” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:History_of_the_Universe.svg
So the density does not seem to vary as much in the time post 3 minutes to now…
So you are saying that the universe must be very much older than 13.5 billions years?
Kasuha
February 10, 2015 10:39 pm
This is way too funny. Cosmology does not require us to destroy our civilization in order to save the planet so I don’t ever remembering anyone claiming that cosmology and particularly big bang is “settled science”. Not any cosmologist anyway. Galaxies are flying away from each other, that’s an easily observable fact. Also, there is cosmic microwave background, not as easily observable but now measured to extreme precision. Distribution of matter throughout the universe, age and texture of CMB, and measurements of expansion rate changes throughout the history from supernova explosions are asking for explanations and therefore scientists are coming with theories trying to explain that. There’s little doubt the universe used to be very dense, but the singularity is just hypothetical thing, projection of the expansion, and actual Big Bang theory does not depend on it. Anything that goes beyond matter density greater than what physics can reliably describe is pure speculation. Hypotheses that the very dense state was not preceded by a singularity but rather some previous universe crashing on itself are very old. That does not prevent us to set up age of _our_ universe to the moment when this very dense state happened.
The vague term “Big Bang” refers to the expansion of the universe from its initial very dense state, not to existence of the singularity. And there’s little doubt the expansion has happened. The new hypothesis does not get rid of that, it’s just working around the singularity.
Kasuha you say ” Galaxies are flying away from each other, that’s an easily observable fact.”
See my 10:38 post above. What is observed is the red shift. That they are flying away from each other is a hypothetical interpretation. The distribution of matter throughout the universe is incompatible with the estimated age of the universe unless you bring in a theoretical inflation to preserve the Big Bang model.
The whole Big Bang model is a house of cards built on a very shaky observational foundation.
It’s not like there are no attempts at explaining the redshift without expansion of space, they just don’t provide satisfactory answers. It’s not problem with imagination, I can imagine static universe with redshift corresponding to distance easily. It’s mathematical problem. Many cool hypotheses about universe or quantum physics failed to materialize in usable mathematical apparatus – their results just did not match the reality or failed the Occam’s razor test. Most often both.
The theory posted above is not questioning superdense state and expansion of space. It just works around the singularity. Which is a nice thing, I’m no friend of the singularity either. There is no doubt among experts that Einstein’s general relativity is wrong in similar sense how Newton’s physics was wrong. It’s just not clear how to expand it. And this is not even the first mildly popular attempt to expand it. These go way back to 1960s.
The “public” notion of Big Bang is all wrong in any case. So are most of depictions of Big Bang in media. Most people have very twisted and incorrect idea of how did Big Bang look like.
Richard
February 10, 2015 11:06 pm
Hang on a minute. Agreed that “singularity” is “problematic” and it would be immensely satisfying to have a universe that has always existed and will always exist, but how does one equation explain away the apparent expansion of the Universe? Is it an illusion? If so how so? Galaxies and stars are born and they die and the cosmos is in a state of flux. there is no reason why the Universe itself cannot be born and die. And then there are Black Holes. They are also singularities.
Wishes do not explain reality. There is nothing “steady state” about the cosmos around us. It changes just like the climate.
Black holes are not singularities; they each contain a singularity. A singularity occurs where the mathematics generates an infinity — an infinite mass for example, or infinite size. What occurs at a singularity is therefore beyond our physics to describe.
Hoyle and Gold’s Steady State Universe wasn’t at all “steady”. It was expanding just as the observable universe appears to. It did not, however, have a beginning and attendant singularity problem.
“Problems with the steady-state theory began to emerge in the late 1960s, when observations apparently supported the idea that the Universe was in fact changing: quasars and radio galaxies were found only at large distances (therefore could have existed only in the distant past), not in closer galaxies. Whereas the Big Bang theory predicted as much, the Steady State theory predicted that such objects would be found throughout the Universe, including close to our own galaxy.
For most cosmologists, the refutation of the steady-state theory came with the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965, which was predicted by the Big Bang theory. Stephen Hawking described this discovery as “the final nail in the coffin of the steady-state theory”.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_State_theory
Hmmm, I was lent a magazine by a Creationist recently that claimed certain scientists had measured singularities in the 19thC. Tell me oh wise and toothless one, how do you measure infinite density in a zero volume? If it can’t be measured, then I’m as sceptical as hell.
there is an energy associated with any given volume of the universe. If that volume increases, the inescapable conclusion is that this energy must increase as well. And yet physicists generally think that energy creation is forbidden.
Baryshev quotes the British cosmologist, Ted Harrison, on this topic: “The conclusion, whether we like it or not, is obvious: energy in the universe is not conserved,” says Harrison.
This is a problem that cosmologists are well aware of. And yet ask them about it and they shuffle their feet and stare at the ground. Clearly, any theorist who can solve this paradox will have a bright future in cosmology.
The nature of the energy associated with the vacuum is another puzzle. This is variously called the zero point energy or the energy of the Planck vacuum and quantum physicists have spent some time attempting to calculate it.
These calculations suggest that the energy density of the vacuum is huge, of the order of 10^94 g/cm^3. This energy, being equivalent to mass, ought to have a gravitational effect on the universe.
Cosmologists have looked for this gravitational effect and calculated its value from their observations (they call it the cosmological constant). These calculations suggest that the energy density of the vacuum is about 10^-29 g/cm3.
Those numbers are difficult to reconcile. Indeed, they differ by 120 orders of magnitude. How and why this discrepancy arises is not known and is the cause of much bemused embarrassment among cosmologists.
It’s not just the Steady State theory that has problems. I used to have a link to an Australian cosmologist whose class was presented with around a dozen different cosmologies for comparison, but alas it has gone stale.
Are you talking to me? I have all my teeth thank you, Pompous Git.
” Tell me oh wise and toothless one, how do you measure infinite density in a zero volume?”
Pompous Git I think you have answered your own question – you don’t measure it – it is calculated mathematically, when you divide a finite number by zero.When a finite mass collapses to zero volume the density becomes infinite.
And while you are about it Pompous Git, look up the difference between a sceptic and a naysayer or cynic. You might discover you are in the latter category.
Richard, when you divide any number by zero, you generate an undefined quantity. Any claim that this quantity exists is entirely speculative and not backed by empirical evidence.
“Any claim that this quantity exists is entirely speculative and not backed by empirical evidence.”
Pompous Git, you have not looked up the difference between a sceptic and a cynic. There is plenty of evidence that Black Holes exist. But I leave you to research that or remain in your cynical world, which is more likely.
Pompous Git, you have not looked up the difference between a sceptic and a cynic. There is plenty of evidence that Black Holes exist. But I leave you to research that or remain in your cynical world, which is more likely.
So where did I claim black holes do not exist? I was taught that they have an event horizon, i.e. a boundary in spacetime beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer. The singularity, if it exists, lies beyond that event horizon and is therefore beyond any possibility of having its properties determined empirically. Further, despite the underlying assumption in physics that its laws apply everywhere and at all times, that assumption cannot be corroborated beyond said event horizon. The laws of physics we know and love so much may well not be applicable, thus casting further doubt on the existence of such peculiar things as singularities.
NB The Git received a distinction for his major assignment in Cosmology at the tertiary level in 2006.
[“NB” ? .mod]
“I was taught that they have an event horizon, i.e. a boundary in spacetime beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer.” What! Really? Which events? You mean like the World cup? Or Wimbledon? Where did you plagiarise that from? Wikipedia?
This event horizon sounds very much like what lies between you and your claim to fame. Your “distinction”, if it exists, lies beyond that event horizon and is therefore beyond any possibility of having it confirmed empirically.
I was taught by a different physics teacher. Escape velocity, speed of light …that sort of stuff. You will admit that you might feel gravity more on Jupiter than on Earth and even more on a neutron star and possibly more so in a Black Hole.
“…despite the underlying assumption in physics that its laws apply everywhere and at all times, that assumption cannot be corroborated beyond said event horizon.” For once Pompous Git I am at a loss for words. Your statement is irrefutable. But here is a thought experiment. We travel to the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy and we shoot you at, through and past the event horizon, armed with a pendulum and stop watch. You may have the satisfaction of knowing whether your suspicions were correct before the gravity of the situation gets you. You will also have empirical evidence whether this peculiar thing called singularity exists, (if indeed the existence of something that theoretically is non-existence, is possible), or you land on a bit of “solid matter”. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) you will not be able to share your knowledge with the “outside world”.
PS (A slightly lower brow way of saying NB) Pompous Git = A puffed up fool (English / English Slang), IOW, the idiot thinks he knows from which end he pontificates.
@Dale Rainwater Norman Page ” In order to preserve the standard cosmological model the consensus cosmological herd simply shovel enough conveniently unobservable dark matter into the calculations to preserve Einsteins equations”
What utter poppycock. Dark matter is not necessary or relevant for Einsteins equations to be preserved. Its existence is revealed by the extra gravity observed unaccountable by visible matter.
You have just spouted a load of ignorant bs.
“Dark matter is not necessary or relevant for Einsteins equations to be preserved. Its existence is revealed by the extra gravity observed unaccountable by visible matter.”
Not really. We do not know exactly what is causing the difference in the star movement and we explain it with dark matter.
However the way how we have to place the dark matter in bubles around the galaxy to make it work does not seem right to me. Why would dark matter gather in the form of a ball around the Milky Way?
Just to make stars move like they do? If it interacts through gravity why would it not collapse?
And then there are lots of problems:
” Huge Dark Matter Experiment Finds Nothing but More Mysteries” http://www.wired.com/2013/10/lux-dark-matter/
“Dwarf Galaxies Dim Hopes of Dark Matte” https://www.quantamagazine.org/20141025-dwarf-galaxies-dim-dark-matter-hopes/
and so on:
“Dark matter is not behaving as predicted, and it’s not obviously clear what is going on. Theories of galaxy formation and dark matter must explain what we are seeing.” http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/10/full/
With a bit of dark matter, dark energy, some dark variations of the constants and dark time flows we can make the universe start some 6000 years ago and everybody is happy….
When 96% of the universe must consists of dark something to help our theories explain what we see, maybe the theories are simply wrong.
Nothing is established but there are many streams of observational evidence for Dark Matter:
“The first to postulate dark matter based upon robust evidence was Vera Rubin in the 1960s–1970s, using galaxy rotation curves.[7][8] Subsequently many other observations have indicated the presence of dark matter in the Universe, including gravitational lensing of background objects by galaxy clusters such as the Bullet Cluster, the temperature distribution of hot gas in galaxies and clusters of galaxies and, more recently, the pattern of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. According to consensus among cosmologists, dark matter is composed primarily of a not yet characterized type of subatomic particle.[9][10] The search for this particle, by a variety of means, is one of the major efforts in particle physics today.[11]
Although the existence of dark matter is generally accepted by the mainstream scientific community, some alternative theories of gravity have been proposed, such as MOND and TeVeS, which try to account for the anomalous observations without requiring additional matter.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter
Lars, I think you nailed the head on the hit here. Dark matter affects ordinary matter via gravitational attraction, but does not appear to be affected by gravitation itself, a somewhat mysterious occurrence. Gravitation is a symmetric affair with ordinary matter.
Richard
February 11, 2015 at 12:28 am
Nothing is established….
And from there quite a few possibilities can be evolved. None of them established. I am anti.
“And from there quite a few possibilities can be evolved. None of them established. I am anti.”
What I meant was science is never settled. No point being anti just for the sake of it. You could think of many possibilities to explain the movement of Galaxies etc., god, angels, but they are not all equally probable. Evidence is the key. If your hypothesis explains the evidence and goes onto making predictions that are again confirmed by evidence then the chances are it explains to some measure how things are in the universe.
jmorpuss
February 10, 2015 11:29 pm
Until we learn to bend wireless optics and watch flavours interact Man will never see the other side of the universe and understand it. If you stand at the waters edge, it doesn’t matter how powerful your optical instrument is you’ll only see about 7 miles . So what we can see with the Hubble is only like a grain of salt in comparison to what’s out there. As long as we know that friction can create heat, expansion , resistance and then a spark, then the big bang theory will be hard to defeat . The big question to me is what was the capacitor that stored all that electric potential flavours ?
logos_wrench
February 10, 2015 11:38 pm
No kidding the laws of physics breaks down at the singularity. There doesn’t yet exist a universe within which to have physical laws. Why is this surprising?
jim hogg
February 11, 2015 1:24 am
The idea that the universe (ie the totality of what is, was and will be) has temporal and spatial limits is simply anthopocentric and absurd . . How could there possibly be such limits? Much of the scientific speculation as to what has been happening locally SINCE the occurrence of our most recent local big bang makes a lot of sense though, but at this stage we’re still only scratching at the surface of it all. Imv there will be an infinite number of “big bangs” in an infinite number of locations within infinite space and time, and from time to time more than one of those big bangs will occur in similar places and times ( which is not the same as proposing a multiverse model, which is just as absurd as the idea of the universe starting with OUR big bang). Once we can perceive of the products of our local big bang as simply a local cluster in an infinite number of such clusters we’ll be getting a little closer to the beginning of an understanding, is my view.
mothcatcher
February 11, 2015 1:24 am
Amazing the number of comments attracted by a post that has nothing at all to do with climate, let alone climate warming! Just wish I had the math to understand even a little of this subject, but guess I never will.
My brain just hurts. I’ll go away and console myself with Everett’s ‘many worlds’ (=many universes) hypothesis which I have always found most attractive and reassuring. Please somebody don’t tell me it’s been debunked..
This topic , which has attracted so much interest , albeit unrelated as you say to climatology , illustrates a growing realisation on my part about what it is that makes this site so popular.
It is a reincarnation , for many , of their student days and the evenings spent solving the world’s scientific and political problems , ever more lively after a few beers.
Everyone gets a chance to speak , no matter how unorthodox their opinions , and the moderator’s rod is lightly spared and only in the interests of civilised taste.
Stephen Richards
February 11, 2015 1:34 am
Bloody nora. 332 comments on Quantum Mechanics.
Kelvin Vaughan
February 11, 2015 1:43 am
It’s all down to basics. Is the red shift due to expansion or is it just radiation using energy to travel through the universe. That’s would explain why the further you look the greater the red shift.
I read about 20%, and appears that the ‘experts’ say that this non physical scenario is physical reality, and when I put up something like this those same experts scream ‘not possible !’ . http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AT-GMF.gif
It not that it’s “not so settled after all” as the new hypothesis has to be vetted and compared against all the evidence. Challengers to the current best theory show up from time to time in most fields, this is a normal healthy part of actual science and eventually even this challenger will be vetted and may or may not be tossed into the dust bin of science history, if it isn’t may be the Big Bang Theory exits stage left for that same dust bin. Time and independent verification based upon actual empirical evidence will tell the tale. There is lots of evidence to overturn to get the BBT to exit stage left.
The problem in some sciences, such as climate science, is that the proponents and their supporters, are so dedicated to their claims of c02 climate doomsday raptures that they are blind to the evidence that their claims have already been falsified by the evidence from the objective reality of Nature. She’s not cooperating with their doomsday prognostications, er, predictions. In science when your predictions are wrong your claims are wrong and automatically falsified by the scientific method. Don’t like it then don’t be involved in science.
The root of their problem is that they believe they are attempting to save the Earth, belief has no place in science at all for when you take on beliefs you put on blinders to the actual evidence. A belief being an assumption that something is true (or false) without requiring evidence. This is the opposite of science, the void in the human mind where there is no science, that endarkened void of faith based beliefs. Even a belief that motivates you to do some science can suck you into the black hole of confirmation bias where you are blind to anything that falsifies your hypothesis and derived claims; once you pass the event horizon of the black hole your beliefs you’re no longer following The Scientific Method, you’re doing something else and not much will save you except casting off of all beliefs and committing (once again) to the principles of The Scientific Method, Empirical Evidence Above all else including above your hypotheses.
londo
February 11, 2015 2:15 am
Wow. They challenge the prevailing theory without being chastised and excommunicated? Maybe there is till hope for science in our world after all. But maybe it’s just me jumping to conclusions. I love the idea of big bang and its inflationary beginnings but I love a good challenge even more. It’s a good day.
I really don’t like this comparison. Cosmologist and quantum guys would be the first to admit that the reality is the unknown, and all we have is theories that fit some of the facts and leave huge questions unanswered
The contrast with the science is settled crew is complete.
I’ve also read Bohm, and I have to say he is closer to a climate scientist than most. He seems to be looking for a solution that fits his preferred worldview, not simply looking at the facts. I.e. he proposes hidden variables that ‘explain’ things so that hie doesn’t have to give up a classical view of the world.
jpatrick
February 11, 2015 4:57 am
Physics in general and cosmology in particular have quite a lot of fundamentally disturbing problems. Here is one.
The rate of gravitational propagation, the “speed of gravity” if you will, has never been confirmed. We are told to just believe that it is the speed of light. Just don’t use that value when solving orbit problems or you will get the wrong answer. To solve orbits, you have to take gravitational interaction as instantaneous.
Jpatrick The harmonic you are looking for is 14 times the speed of light.
Twobob
February 11, 2015 4:58 am
If space is expanding to fill space between galaxy’s.
Where is the space coming from?
Why is everything expanding away from us.
But then that is not true what about the galaxy that we are due to collide with.
But as there is so much space most of it will miss colliding with our galaxy.
Big bang does not work for me.
Got to say to infinity and beyond, now seem to be feasible.
William Weronko
February 11, 2015 5:02 am
Physics has been in a state of crisis for some time. Under existing theory the universe just doesn’t make sense. It is ridiculously improbably and oddly anthropic. Because the existing paradigm has run its course it is being attacked on all quarters
This is not the only or the first or only proven science that was later shown to be without merit.
Just this week a draft version of the new USDA dietary guidance was leaked. Since the 1960s it was recommended on proven science that dietary cholesterol be closely regulated. No more than one egg per day for example was suggested.
The new guidance will have no dietary cholesterol recommendations what-so-ever. Apparently all that settled science was not so settled.
Perhaps the pinnacle of bad science was the nature / neuter (gender / nature) debate of the 1960s -1980s. It was proven science that humans have no innate genetic predispositions. We were born as clay and society normed us.
If you said otherwise you were a dinosar or worse.
Since the 1980s brain scans and genetic research has shown overwhelmingly that humans like all other creatures are strongly behaviorally influenced by innate biology. Pretty amazing considering how settled the science was at the time.
I’ve spent too much of my life already arguing against the BB theory, the last remnant of creationism in physics. Strangely, the Big Bang proponent are usually even more fanatical than environmentalist wackos, though it would seem that there ain’t no money in cosmology. Or is there?
Instead of repeating the usual, very long list of observations that contradict the Big Bang dogma, let me mention two latest nails driven into its coffin.
1) So-called “gravity waves,” supposedly confirming the BBT and registered in 2013, have been proven the duct clouds’ artifact.
2) The recent Scottish experiment proved that the speed of light in vacuum is variable and slows under the influence of magnetic fields changing the “impulse structure.” Whatever “impulse structure” of light is (and I am not claiming the complete understanding of their experiment), it means that Fred Hoyle was right, after all. Light “tires” with distance, and red shift is not a consequence of “Doppler-analogous” effect.
P.S. By the way, no other but Mandelbrot himself, mathematically, explained that there is no “Olberg’s paradox.” Read all about it!
Alexander. It seems to me that if everything is moving away from us due to the Doppler effect that would place us in the center of the universe. That we would be in the center seems very unlikely. I’m going with you and the tired light. My understanding Hoyle was thought to be very pig headed for not ever changing his mind.
I thought I made a mistake once but I was wrong.
P.P.S. Please, excuse some typos, I’ve been working all night.
Joseph Murphy
February 11, 2015 5:18 am
I do not have a problem with BB theory, it fits our data quite well. I do have a problem with assurance that it is true from the more public advocates like L. Susskind and L. Krauss. The beggining of the universe is the most distant thing from us in space/time and hence our view of it is most limited. I am reminded of Edwin Hubble: Thus the exploration of space end on a note of uncertainty. And necessarily so. We are, by definition, in the very center of the observable region. We know our immediate neighborhood rather intimately. With increasing distance, our knowledge fades rapidly. Eventually, we reach the dim boundry – the utmost limits of our telescopes. There we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurment for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. Not until the empirical resources are exhausted, need we pass on to the dreamy realms of speculation.
tadchem
February 11, 2015 5:35 am
The strongest, most rigorous argument for the Big Bang origin of the observable universe is (to me, at least) the concept of Entropy.
In the words of Ludwig Boltzmann, Entropy S = k lnW. W, the number of possible states of motion available to the atoms in a system is simply a cardinal number (a count) and cannot be less than 1 (for a system with no atoms). The minimum possible value for S is therefore 0. But the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that the entropy of the universe can only increase.
Retracing the state of the Universe backwards in time finds that earlier states had less entropy, and ultimately that the earliest state of the universe had zero entropy.
The Big Bang is that event that increased the W of the Entire Universe from 0 to 1 – an empty universe (in which the concept of entropy is meaningless because lnW is undefined) becoming a universe containing one motionless object, with a total entropy of 0.
Thermodynamics: It’s the Law.
anna v
February 11, 2015 5:47 am
I also do not like the comparison. Another ‘settled science’ topic is not so settled after all – Big Bang theory questioned
In physics, and cosmology is a branch of physics , there is no “settled science” ( http://www.phy.davidson.edu/FacHome/thg/320_files/physics-is-dead.htm )since the quote from the end of the [19th] century:
: The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote . . . Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals attributed to A.A.Michelson.
Physics now works with “standard models” which are continuously questioned and measured against the data, and all experiments and observations test the models against the data. I have been studying and working in physics since 1958 and have seen many models evolve and transmute as more and more data were accumulated and accuracies grew. There may be fashions and schools, but comparison with data predominates and sifts the numerous theoretical proposals, and what is a “standard” model in some decades becomes outdated in the next.
How do standard models change? By peer acknowledgement. Peer acknowledgement starts with citations. If one goes to the Inspire citations, one finds (http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&p=refersto%3Arecid%3A1325962 ) 1 citation to the preprint the past six months. This means peers were not impressed enough to site it . For or against makes no difference in the number, this lone citation indicates indifference, not taking the peers by storm. In this day of computer connections citations should appear very fast, still, we should wait a year and see whether some interest in the peer groups is raised before assuming that it is a valuable and correct new interpretation of century long data.
In contrast to physics research where the models are always open to change if their predictions fail to be validated, climate models are fossilized extrusion from fanatical minds which tend to bend the data to their prejudices and work with “my mind is settled, don’t bother me with the facts” mind set.
Alan Robertson
February 11, 2015 6:36 am
Physical Laws govern all physical existence; every action and motion. Our inability to explain that which we can now observe, leads to the awareness that there are other Laws which we do not yet grasp, other phenomenon which we can not yet observe.
The fact that all declarations such as “the science is settled” have not been met with overwhelming roars of disapproval from the ranks of those who would call themselves scientists, leads to a very big question: “why not?”
I think that the idea that we can travel back in time and alter the present,as many sci-fi films suggest,is not true because we see no evidence of this happening in the present and we assume that time travel will be possible in the future.it is possible to move forward in space to a certain location and then travel backward in space to the starting point but it could be that moving through time is not like that and moving backward in time is just as probabilities as moving forward in time.We know what happened in the past because we remember or have records of what happened in the past but if we could travel backward in time it could be as uncertain as travelling into the future.
Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.[1]
Regards
Climate Heretic
[1]Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
It is ironic that Hubble himself was far from convinced that his famous constant was due to the doppler effect and an expanding universe .In a 1934 lecture he said
“The field is new, but it offers rather definite prospects not only of testing the form of the velocity-distance relation beyond the reach of the spectrograph, but even of critically testing the very interpretation of red-shifts as due to motion. With this possibility in view, the cautious observer refrains from committing himself to the present interpretation and prefers the colourless term “apparent velocity.”
Similarly the galactic rotation curves shows that Einstein’s gravitational equations which work well enough on the tiny scale of the solar system ,simply do not scale up to galactic masses . In order to preserve the standard cosmological model the consensus cosmological herd simply shovel enough conveniently unobservable dark matter into the calculations to preserve Einsteins equations.
The red shift is much more simply explained using the Beer Lambert Law as light passes through the rarified inter-galactic medium see eg – the nice originally illustration of the red shift in green laser light passing through a medium at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer%E2%80%93Lambert_law
Twentieth century science post the 2nd world war was organized so that various fields became dominated by a relatively small self perpetuating clique who came to control academic appointments, the peer revue process, and the awarding of grants etc.so that real progress was held back in favour of preserving the currently fashionable consensus conventional wisdom .Let’s face it – what tenured professor is going to supervise and perhaps fund a Doctoral thesis that might fundamentally challenge the work on which his own career and reputation is based.?
Again look at how Arp was denied telescope time to study the anomalous red shifts and had to leave the US to continue his investigations.
Establishment Climate Science since 1990 is a particularly egregious example of this process.
Henry Bauer wrote of such here at WUWT about his book on same. A very interesting read.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/05/dogmatism-in-science-and-medicine-how-dominant-theories-monopolize/
It was also observed in a laboratory ” Intrinsic Plasma Redshifts Now Reproduced In The
Laboratory”:
http://vixra.org/pdf/1105.0010v1.pdf
“In fact the lines are redshifted with the degree of redshift increasing with the surrounding free electron density”
It is clear that one cannot reproduce the many light-year distances in the laboratory – and this is replaced with higher plasma density in the laboratory, however the result should be consistent, and for my simple brain the logic seems to be explaining pretty nicely how red-shift is taking place:
“Energy lost to an electron during emission or absorption =Q**2/ 2e m c**2, where Q is the energy of the incoming photon, e, m the rest mass of the electron and c the speed of light.”
“On their journey through plasma, the photons will make many such collisions and undergo an increase in wavelength of /eh m ceach time. On this basis red shift becomes a distance indicator and the distance – red shift relation becomes: photons of light from sources twice as far away will travel twice as far through the plasma, make twice as many collisions and thus undergo twice the red shift. Conservation of linear momentum willensure the linear propagation of light. ”
I thought this would be the end of the big bang when I first read about it, but the train seems to continue to run at full speed.
Bless you for that one, Lars. My attention tends toward the life sciences, but I still enjoy cosmology.
After reading this it seems to me that a change in the notion of CAGW by many scientist is not going to happen anytime soon especially when you consider the huge difference in money spent on the science.
Dr Norman Page
Let me throw a different challenge at the assumed 14 billion year-old Big Bang.
Conventional consensus places the Big Bang 14 billion years ago. Fine. 13.5 in some recent papers.
Conventional consensus holds that most ordinary cycle stars are much smaller than supernova-capable; almost all main sequence stars will quietly go through their H-He-C-Ne-O burning (fusion) cycles and then quietly go into a neutron (cold, dark) solid star. No supernova, no release of ANY mass from the main sequence star, no released of ANY heavier atoms fused in He-C-O-Ne etc reactions from that star. A dead end, so to speak.
Conventional consensus holds that although many stars (all stars) build up heavier nuclei by fusion, ONLY the extreme blast of a supernova can blow those new nuclei out away from the first (parent) supernova’s into a second supernova’s gravity well. once inside that secondary supernova, the nuclei are further built up, fused together, then blown out into subsequent supernovas, blown up again and then re-released as dust and gasses into interstellar space. Once in interstellar space, the dust is collected into the local gravity wells of stars, and the dust rotated into planetary orbits, planetary blobs, then planetary solid condensed spinning globes. Thus, all atoms we recognized (larger than the first few of H and He) come from a series of earlier supernova’s, then traveled through space, then were collected here from space into our solar system.
Fine. We have all read that.
Radioactive decay dating, continental movement, early fossils and existing Canadian Shield rocks, etc date the earth as a “rotating, solid, stable globe with today’s features” at 4.5 billion years ago. Absolutely.
That means the solar system of one radiating sun surrounded by nine planets, a herd of asteroids, and all of the Oort cloud gasses and dirt and dust and ice and carbon and comets existed as it is now somewhere between 5 billion years ago and 4.5 billion years ago, right? Certainly, we were NOT bombarded by ANY nearby supernova’s, nova’s, death stars, or other galaxies between 5 billion years ago and today. And only a couple of asteroid hits for that matter between 4.5 billions years ago and today.
Thus,
If the escape velocity from the solar system as we know it today, for a random low weight mass (say a particle of dust coming from the galaxy) at the radius of Saturn’s orbit (which will include almost all of the mass of the solar system) is only13.6 km/sec, then … How could ANY particle traveling faster than 13.6 km/sec be trapped in some proto-solar-system dust cloud? Such a fast interstellar particle would sling right through the more loosely organized proto-dust cloud, and continue on its way only slightly deviated. (Obviously, direct collisions are possible, and probably did happen. But not enough. )
So, the only dust that could be collected reliably from inetrstellar space would be slow-moving (cosmically speaking), and thus would take ????? years to get here from the “parent” supernova site. Which is (now) and would have had to be (then) more than ???? light years away. (In fact, I know of NO former supernova sites near us in the galaxy that could have sent the number of particles needed. Yes, they would not be radiating now, but where are these parents and grandparents and the thousands of earlier supernova’s?)
Further challenging the supernova-succession problem is the radial expulsion of the gasses and nuclei from each supernova. They are thrown out (as the 1054 supernova dust cloud shows vividly) in all radial directions away from the original star. Thus, you need to assume some proportion of the new-created nuclei will not get thrown in the right direction to
(1) get thrown towards the next supernova waiting to blow up (before it blows up!)
(2) get captured by the next supernova’s gravity field, react within the fusion zones of that supernova (and not all nuclei within the star are going to fuse!)
(3) get thrown out away from the supernova_2 back into space (again, not all mass escapes the blast zone)
(4) get thrown a second time in the right direction to get to the third supernova location
(5) get captured by that supernova’s dust cloud, get absorbed in that supernova’s solar mass, react and fuse within that supernova’s fusion zones …
Etc. If the probability of a civilization occurring on one planet around one star is minute, try calculating the probably of creating a single iron nuclei! A single Nickle, Chromium, Argon, Krypton, or Cadmium, Gold, and Silver atom.
A single Uranium nuclei.
but, it gets worse than that.
Every Uranium atom created and passed along to our solar system must be made independently of the next iron, silver, magnesium or Chromium atom. That is, if a supernova creates and ejects an iron nuclei (AW = 56), then the fusion cycles that created the iron could not create a silver or gold atom. The fusion cycles that linked up to create the Uranium atom we see today, could not create any of the intermediate lower weight atoms. Every atom we have today had to be independently created from a different fusion chain. A different ejection reaction chain away from the parent and grandparent supernova, and thus a slightly different interstellar trajectory before coming into the solar system’s original cloud.
Now, obviously, a single supernova is going to create many tons of particles. Some of those particles will even follow parallel paths towards us. But they have to get here to the solar system’s original dust cloud. Which is a very, very small target a very long distance from any other stars. And from any known former supernova’s ..
So. The particles got here. Got formed inside supernova strings. How long did it take for all of those miraculous supernova strings to form the atoms? How much time did they spend in transit at 13.6 km/sec to get here and be captured?
You only have 13.5 billion – 5.5 billion = 8 billion years to form all of the nuclei in our solar system.
And, there are apparently some 1.243E+54 “heavy” atoms in our solar system that must be created.
10 to the 54th some-odd reaction chains are needed just to create the heavy atoms in the solar system.
10^ 60 supernova’s? After all, less than 1/10,000,000 atoms ejected from each supernova will end up going in the right direction to get here. Or will more be “aimed” the right direction?
10^40 some-odd supernovas? 10^ 20 supernova’s? How many were needed to form the atoms we see?
If the shortest sequence of supernova strings to create all of the atoms we see were linear – a single long particle accelerator so to speak, where is it? If all the atoms could be created from one supernova very close by, so the dust particles did not need to travel millions of years across space, where is the core now? If the supernova’s were popping off very close to each other back then, so transit times were very small and multiple reaction chains almost assured, where are the remnants now, and why are star evolutions so different now? We see only 1 or 2 a decade, and those in ALL of the many galaxies visble.
Where are the 10^10 supernova remnants in the nearby region we need? Remember, any dust particle captured by a main sequence star or dark cloud or dark matter can’t get here. That particle was properly created, but it dropped down a gravity well and can’t get up.
This intrigued me so I discussed it with a friend who studied Astrophysics. He made the following counterpoints.
He also pointed out that frequent supernovae are not conducive to life, because the radiation and general disruption within hundreds of light years will sterilise practically anything conceivable.
Perhaps this makes the improbability of heavy elements less improbable?
M Courtney
I accept each of his comments, each of his approximations (and the assumptions that are required behind the approximations to make them appear reasonable.)
But … (and you knew the “but” was coming, didn’t you?)
All of the mass in our current solar system was present as a local cloud somewhere – and that cloud had all of the elements we can now count (weigh) in it. Almost nothing has been added between initial “cloud” gathering and the subsequent consoliation into spinning planets with the sun in the middle.
He claims 560 million years between the big bang and supernova sequence. OK. Let’s use it, and assign a 13.65 billion year ago BB. Solar system cloud was gathered in this arm of this galaxy 5.5 billion years ago. Then it was gathered together, then those proto-planets accumulated mass to become actual planets. Our own earth is 4.6 billion years old. You may choose whatever age is appropriate for the creation of a stable (non-supernova-blasted!) dust you want, but you have to pick something. Let’s use 5.0 billion years for the “solar system dust cloud” as an distinct entity in space.
So everything had to be made in that time interval = 13.68 x 10^9 – 5.0 x 10^9 years -0.5 x 10^9 years = 2.57 x 10^17 seconds. Sounds like a lot of time, doesn’t it?
Quoting Wikipedia, and its several dozens of references, is always risky, but let’s assume they re right. After all, it is merely repeating what your friend said.
So, we have to arrange some 10,000 stars – which we will all assume were supernova-capable and were supernova’s that did explode at the right time in the right sequence of chains to create the cosmic dust that makes up who we are today – in a pattern of some 20 parsecs across.
So, how many isotopes do we have to create in the available time frame?
The weight of our solar system = 1.992 x 10^33 grams.
But, the weight of just the top 25 isotopes by weight in our solar system is about = 3.79 x 10^31 gms.
From Avagadro’s number and the appropriate molar mass fractions of the top 25 isotopes, this means some ~ 1.24 x 10^54 “heavy” isotope nuclei were formed, ejected, transported across space, and collected into the original solar system dust cloud.
So, if the dust was created uniformly and evenly in a supernova cloud during the entire time from the Big Bang until the solar system dust cloud was gathered in its isolation (13.68 billion – .5 billion (you need to form the supernova cloud first) – 5.0 billion (solar system age) = 8.15 billion years = 2.57 x 10^17 seconds. So you need to form 4.83 x 10^36 nuclei per second for 10^ 17 seconds to create the heavy isotopes in just our single little solar system. Every second. For for every second in that long 8.15 billion year time frames. Then all of the supernova’s have to vanish (or be left behind somehow. or themselves go faster than the left-over dust cloud) because that remaining isolated solar system dust cloud 9us!) has to be stable in space far enough away from everything else to slowly accumulate by itself and begin rotating into the orbits we know exist. Continuously passing nearby stars and multiple supernova’s – though one may be needed to start the accumulation! – will disrupt the accumulation sequence. No accumulation sequence means no planets in stable orbits.
Obviously, this idea is wrong. Each supernova is a single burst, creating many earth-masses of high weight isotopes in each blast.
But that very blast of many earth-masses (plus the mass of Venus, plus Mars, plus the moon, plus Mercury plus the Oort cloud plus the asteroids) are randomly blasted into the entire ster-radian sphere around each of the assumed supernovas in every area of the assumed supernova cloud. Arrange the supernova cloud too far away, and too few drifting atoms are sent this way to forms the dust cloud in that little target area. Too close, and each supernova must be timed exactly right – like the micro-second accuracy of a the explosions that form the spherical crushing pressure around a plutonium fission bomb – so the ejected nuclei will all arrive at the same location in the same period of time. Too early a supernova? The nuclei are formed, are ejected in the right direction, travel here in the right length of time, but cross this target area too early to be a part of the dust cloud when it begins gathering. Too late? They arrive, but after the dust cloud has passed by.
if you throw out the requirement for a chain of supernova’s – which nobody ever has! – then you need to assembly every chromium, iron, nickle, vanadium, and uranium atom now in existence in one super-supernova.
But nobody has named the formation stream for anything much past the simple “resonances energies” of the early 2He4 combinations: 8O16 ; 6C12 ; 14Si28 ; 16S32. Nobody has – to my knowledge and after all of my searching – explained how many reactions of what kind are needed to form Fe56. (Which reactions, and how likely are each different fusion tree are needed.) No one has ever done anything other than wave their hands “and then all of the other elements are formed” … the early formation tree is very compelling: A series of He4 fusions does indeed make sense because the resonance daughter products ARE the most common isotopes we find! But that resonance “tree” does NOT explain how the rest are made!
To repeat. How many supernova’s are needed to make one 26Fe (AW 52, 54, 55, 56, or 58) isotope? How many are needed to make one 92Uranium isotope? they were made. But how?
So, your friend needs to tell you his assumptions for the number of supernova’s needed and the size of that supernova cloud so we can check his assumptions: In particular, we need some guess of transport time from the final supernova cloud surrounding the solar system dust cloud’s to the solar system. Given any transport time (since we know the max speed of the incoming dust particles) we can figure out how many supernova’s need to blast at the same time to get their particles all here at the same time so they can be collected.
M Courtney
February 12, 2015 at 4:36 am
This intrigued me so I discussed it with a friend who studied Astrophysics. He made the following counterpoints.
•The density of the universe was a lot higher in the past, which is obvious if big bang is true, therefore supernova remnants are more likely to run into other supernova remnants from nearby and gas clouds, and form new stellar nurseries in the past.
Hm, interesting but is not the inflation period before the stellar systems?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_%28cosmology%29
“The inflationary epoch lasted from 10−36 seconds after the Big Bang to sometime between 10−33 and 10−32 seconds. ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:History_of_the_Universe.svg
So the density does not seem to vary as much in the time post 3 minutes to now…
So you are saying that the universe must be very much older than 13.5 billions years?
This is way too funny. Cosmology does not require us to destroy our civilization in order to save the planet so I don’t ever remembering anyone claiming that cosmology and particularly big bang is “settled science”. Not any cosmologist anyway. Galaxies are flying away from each other, that’s an easily observable fact. Also, there is cosmic microwave background, not as easily observable but now measured to extreme precision. Distribution of matter throughout the universe, age and texture of CMB, and measurements of expansion rate changes throughout the history from supernova explosions are asking for explanations and therefore scientists are coming with theories trying to explain that. There’s little doubt the universe used to be very dense, but the singularity is just hypothetical thing, projection of the expansion, and actual Big Bang theory does not depend on it. Anything that goes beyond matter density greater than what physics can reliably describe is pure speculation. Hypotheses that the very dense state was not preceded by a singularity but rather some previous universe crashing on itself are very old. That does not prevent us to set up age of _our_ universe to the moment when this very dense state happened.
The vague term “Big Bang” refers to the expansion of the universe from its initial very dense state, not to existence of the singularity. And there’s little doubt the expansion has happened. The new hypothesis does not get rid of that, it’s just working around the singularity.
Kasuha you say ” Galaxies are flying away from each other, that’s an easily observable fact.”
See my 10:38 post above. What is observed is the red shift. That they are flying away from each other is a hypothetical interpretation. The distribution of matter throughout the universe is incompatible with the estimated age of the universe unless you bring in a theoretical inflation to preserve the Big Bang model.
The whole Big Bang model is a house of cards built on a very shaky observational foundation.
It’s not like there are no attempts at explaining the redshift without expansion of space, they just don’t provide satisfactory answers. It’s not problem with imagination, I can imagine static universe with redshift corresponding to distance easily. It’s mathematical problem. Many cool hypotheses about universe or quantum physics failed to materialize in usable mathematical apparatus – their results just did not match the reality or failed the Occam’s razor test. Most often both.
The theory posted above is not questioning superdense state and expansion of space. It just works around the singularity. Which is a nice thing, I’m no friend of the singularity either. There is no doubt among experts that Einstein’s general relativity is wrong in similar sense how Newton’s physics was wrong. It’s just not clear how to expand it. And this is not even the first mildly popular attempt to expand it. These go way back to 1960s.
The “public” notion of Big Bang is all wrong in any case. So are most of depictions of Big Bang in media. Most people have very twisted and incorrect idea of how did Big Bang look like.
Hang on a minute. Agreed that “singularity” is “problematic” and it would be immensely satisfying to have a universe that has always existed and will always exist, but how does one equation explain away the apparent expansion of the Universe? Is it an illusion? If so how so? Galaxies and stars are born and they die and the cosmos is in a state of flux. there is no reason why the Universe itself cannot be born and die. And then there are Black Holes. They are also singularities.
Wishes do not explain reality. There is nothing “steady state” about the cosmos around us. It changes just like the climate.
Black holes are not singularities; they each contain a singularity. A singularity occurs where the mathematics generates an infinity — an infinite mass for example, or infinite size. What occurs at a singularity is therefore beyond our physics to describe.
Hoyle and Gold’s Steady State Universe wasn’t at all “steady”. It was expanding just as the observable universe appears to. It did not, however, have a beginning and attendant singularity problem.
Singularity is a point in spacetime in which gravitational forces cause matter to have an infinite density and zero volume, such as black holles
“Problems with the steady-state theory began to emerge in the late 1960s, when observations apparently supported the idea that the Universe was in fact changing: quasars and radio galaxies were found only at large distances (therefore could have existed only in the distant past), not in closer galaxies. Whereas the Big Bang theory predicted as much, the Steady State theory predicted that such objects would be found throughout the Universe, including close to our own galaxy.
For most cosmologists, the refutation of the steady-state theory came with the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965, which was predicted by the Big Bang theory. Stephen Hawking described this discovery as “the final nail in the coffin of the steady-state theory”.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_State_theory
Hmmm, I was lent a magazine by a Creationist recently that claimed certain scientists had measured singularities in the 19thC. Tell me oh wise and toothless one, how do you measure infinite density in a zero volume? If it can’t be measured, then I’m as sceptical as hell.
It’s not just the Steady State theory that has problems. I used to have a link to an Australian cosmologist whose class was presented with around a dozen different cosmologies for comparison, but alas it has gone stale.
Are you talking to me? I have all my teeth thank you, Pompous Git.
” Tell me oh wise and toothless one, how do you measure infinite density in a zero volume?”
Pompous Git I think you have answered your own question – you don’t measure it – it is calculated mathematically, when you divide a finite number by zero.When a finite mass collapses to zero volume the density becomes infinite.
And while you are about it Pompous Git, look up the difference between a sceptic and a naysayer or cynic. You might discover you are in the latter category.
Richard, when you divide any number by zero, you generate an undefined quantity. Any claim that this quantity exists is entirely speculative and not backed by empirical evidence.
“Any claim that this quantity exists is entirely speculative and not backed by empirical evidence.”
Pompous Git, you have not looked up the difference between a sceptic and a cynic. There is plenty of evidence that Black Holes exist. But I leave you to research that or remain in your cynical world, which is more likely.
So where did I claim black holes do not exist? I was taught that they have an event horizon, i.e. a boundary in spacetime beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer. The singularity, if it exists, lies beyond that event horizon and is therefore beyond any possibility of having its properties determined empirically. Further, despite the underlying assumption in physics that its laws apply everywhere and at all times, that assumption cannot be corroborated beyond said event horizon. The laws of physics we know and love so much may well not be applicable, thus casting further doubt on the existence of such peculiar things as singularities.
NB The Git received a distinction for his major assignment in Cosmology at the tertiary level in 2006.
[“NB” ? .mod]
NB = Nota Bene (Latin: Note Well). IOW, The Git knows whereof he squeaks 😉
“I was taught that they have an event horizon, i.e. a boundary in spacetime beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer.” What! Really? Which events? You mean like the World cup? Or Wimbledon? Where did you plagiarise that from? Wikipedia?
This event horizon sounds very much like what lies between you and your claim to fame. Your “distinction”, if it exists, lies beyond that event horizon and is therefore beyond any possibility of having it confirmed empirically.
I was taught by a different physics teacher. Escape velocity, speed of light …that sort of stuff. You will admit that you might feel gravity more on Jupiter than on Earth and even more on a neutron star and possibly more so in a Black Hole.
“…despite the underlying assumption in physics that its laws apply everywhere and at all times, that assumption cannot be corroborated beyond said event horizon.” For once Pompous Git I am at a loss for words. Your statement is irrefutable. But here is a thought experiment. We travel to the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy and we shoot you at, through and past the event horizon, armed with a pendulum and stop watch. You may have the satisfaction of knowing whether your suspicions were correct before the gravity of the situation gets you. You will also have empirical evidence whether this peculiar thing called singularity exists, (if indeed the existence of something that theoretically is non-existence, is possible), or you land on a bit of “solid matter”. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) you will not be able to share your knowledge with the “outside world”.
PS (A slightly lower brow way of saying NB) Pompous Git = A puffed up fool (English / English Slang), IOW, the idiot thinks he knows from which end he pontificates.
Richard: “infinite density and zero volume”
####
Chuckles. You give yourself away.
And I was taught by:
http://hapi.uq.edu.au/a-professor-phil-dowe
http://www.utas.edu.au/humanities/home/gender-studies/people/philosophy-profiles/Richard-Corry
Both physicists, philosophers. and first class instructors. It was a privilege to be taught by them. I suspect that you are just a Richard…
@Dale Rainwater Norman Page ” In order to preserve the standard cosmological model the consensus cosmological herd simply shovel enough conveniently unobservable dark matter into the calculations to preserve Einsteins equations”
What utter poppycock. Dark matter is not necessary or relevant for Einsteins equations to be preserved. Its existence is revealed by the extra gravity observed unaccountable by visible matter.
You have just spouted a load of ignorant bs.
“Dark matter is not necessary or relevant for Einsteins equations to be preserved. Its existence is revealed by the extra gravity observed unaccountable by visible matter.”
Not really. We do not know exactly what is causing the difference in the star movement and we explain it with dark matter.
However the way how we have to place the dark matter in bubles around the galaxy to make it work does not seem right to me. Why would dark matter gather in the form of a ball around the Milky Way?
Just to make stars move like they do? If it interacts through gravity why would it not collapse?
And then there are lots of problems:
” Huge Dark Matter Experiment Finds Nothing but More Mysteries”
http://www.wired.com/2013/10/lux-dark-matter/
“Dwarf Galaxies Dim Hopes of Dark Matte”
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20141025-dwarf-galaxies-dim-dark-matter-hopes/
and so on:
“Dark matter is not behaving as predicted, and it’s not obviously clear what is going on. Theories of galaxy formation and dark matter must explain what we are seeing.”
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/10/full/
With a bit of dark matter, dark energy, some dark variations of the constants and dark time flows we can make the universe start some 6000 years ago and everybody is happy….
When 96% of the universe must consists of dark something to help our theories explain what we see, maybe the theories are simply wrong.
Nothing is established but there are many streams of observational evidence for Dark Matter:
“The first to postulate dark matter based upon robust evidence was Vera Rubin in the 1960s–1970s, using galaxy rotation curves.[7][8] Subsequently many other observations have indicated the presence of dark matter in the Universe, including gravitational lensing of background objects by galaxy clusters such as the Bullet Cluster, the temperature distribution of hot gas in galaxies and clusters of galaxies and, more recently, the pattern of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. According to consensus among cosmologists, dark matter is composed primarily of a not yet characterized type of subatomic particle.[9][10] The search for this particle, by a variety of means, is one of the major efforts in particle physics today.[11]
Although the existence of dark matter is generally accepted by the mainstream scientific community, some alternative theories of gravity have been proposed, such as MOND and TeVeS, which try to account for the anomalous observations without requiring additional matter.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter
Hang on to your wallets folks as the admirable Crichton once said 😉
And the end blockquote is in the wrong place. Time for dinner…
Lars, I think you nailed the head on the hit here. Dark matter affects ordinary matter via gravitational attraction, but does not appear to be affected by gravitation itself, a somewhat mysterious occurrence. Gravitation is a symmetric affair with ordinary matter.
Richard
February 11, 2015 at 12:28 am
Nothing is established….
And from there quite a few possibilities can be evolved. None of them established. I am anti.
“And from there quite a few possibilities can be evolved. None of them established. I am anti.”
What I meant was science is never settled. No point being anti just for the sake of it. You could think of many possibilities to explain the movement of Galaxies etc., god, angels, but they are not all equally probable. Evidence is the key. If your hypothesis explains the evidence and goes onto making predictions that are again confirmed by evidence then the chances are it explains to some measure how things are in the universe.
Until we learn to bend wireless optics and watch flavours interact Man will never see the other side of the universe and understand it. If you stand at the waters edge, it doesn’t matter how powerful your optical instrument is you’ll only see about 7 miles . So what we can see with the Hubble is only like a grain of salt in comparison to what’s out there. As long as we know that friction can create heat, expansion , resistance and then a spark, then the big bang theory will be hard to defeat . The big question to me is what was the capacitor that stored all that electric potential flavours ?
No kidding the laws of physics breaks down at the singularity. There doesn’t yet exist a universe within which to have physical laws. Why is this surprising?
The idea that the universe (ie the totality of what is, was and will be) has temporal and spatial limits is simply anthopocentric and absurd . . How could there possibly be such limits? Much of the scientific speculation as to what has been happening locally SINCE the occurrence of our most recent local big bang makes a lot of sense though, but at this stage we’re still only scratching at the surface of it all. Imv there will be an infinite number of “big bangs” in an infinite number of locations within infinite space and time, and from time to time more than one of those big bangs will occur in similar places and times ( which is not the same as proposing a multiverse model, which is just as absurd as the idea of the universe starting with OUR big bang). Once we can perceive of the products of our local big bang as simply a local cluster in an infinite number of such clusters we’ll be getting a little closer to the beginning of an understanding, is my view.
Amazing the number of comments attracted by a post that has nothing at all to do with climate, let alone climate warming! Just wish I had the math to understand even a little of this subject, but guess I never will.
My brain just hurts. I’ll go away and console myself with Everett’s ‘many worlds’ (=many universes) hypothesis which I have always found most attractive and reassuring. Please somebody don’t tell me it’s been debunked..
This topic , which has attracted so much interest , albeit unrelated as you say to climatology , illustrates a growing realisation on my part about what it is that makes this site so popular.
It is a reincarnation , for many , of their student days and the evenings spent solving the world’s scientific and political problems , ever more lively after a few beers.
Everyone gets a chance to speak , no matter how unorthodox their opinions , and the moderator’s rod is lightly spared and only in the interests of civilised taste.
Bloody nora. 332 comments on Quantum Mechanics.
It’s all down to basics. Is the red shift due to expansion or is it just radiation using energy to travel through the universe. That’s would explain why the further you look the greater the red shift.
Red negative, Blue/ green positive
Red away , blue /green towards
I read about 20%, and appears that the ‘experts’ say that this non physical scenario is physical reality, and when I put up something like this those same experts scream ‘not possible !’ .
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AT-GMF.gif
It not that it’s “not so settled after all” as the new hypothesis has to be vetted and compared against all the evidence. Challengers to the current best theory show up from time to time in most fields, this is a normal healthy part of actual science and eventually even this challenger will be vetted and may or may not be tossed into the dust bin of science history, if it isn’t may be the Big Bang Theory exits stage left for that same dust bin. Time and independent verification based upon actual empirical evidence will tell the tale. There is lots of evidence to overturn to get the BBT to exit stage left.
The problem in some sciences, such as climate science, is that the proponents and their supporters, are so dedicated to their claims of c02 climate doomsday raptures that they are blind to the evidence that their claims have already been falsified by the evidence from the objective reality of Nature. She’s not cooperating with their doomsday prognostications, er, predictions. In science when your predictions are wrong your claims are wrong and automatically falsified by the scientific method. Don’t like it then don’t be involved in science.
The root of their problem is that they believe they are attempting to save the Earth, belief has no place in science at all for when you take on beliefs you put on blinders to the actual evidence. A belief being an assumption that something is true (or false) without requiring evidence. This is the opposite of science, the void in the human mind where there is no science, that endarkened void of faith based beliefs. Even a belief that motivates you to do some science can suck you into the black hole of confirmation bias where you are blind to anything that falsifies your hypothesis and derived claims; once you pass the event horizon of the black hole your beliefs you’re no longer following The Scientific Method, you’re doing something else and not much will save you except casting off of all beliefs and committing (once again) to the principles of The Scientific Method, Empirical Evidence Above all else including above your hypotheses.
Wow. They challenge the prevailing theory without being chastised and excommunicated? Maybe there is till hope for science in our world after all. But maybe it’s just me jumping to conclusions. I love the idea of big bang and its inflationary beginnings but I love a good challenge even more. It’s a good day.
I really don’t like this comparison. Cosmologist and quantum guys would be the first to admit that the reality is the unknown, and all we have is theories that fit some of the facts and leave huge questions unanswered
The contrast with the science is settled crew is complete.
I’ve also read Bohm, and I have to say he is closer to a climate scientist than most. He seems to be looking for a solution that fits his preferred worldview, not simply looking at the facts. I.e. he proposes hidden variables that ‘explain’ things so that hie doesn’t have to give up a classical view of the world.
Physics in general and cosmology in particular have quite a lot of fundamentally disturbing problems. Here is one.
The rate of gravitational propagation, the “speed of gravity” if you will, has never been confirmed. We are told to just believe that it is the speed of light. Just don’t use that value when solving orbit problems or you will get the wrong answer. To solve orbits, you have to take gravitational interaction as instantaneous.
Jpatrick The harmonic you are looking for is 14 times the speed of light.
If space is expanding to fill space between galaxy’s.
Where is the space coming from?
Why is everything expanding away from us.
But then that is not true what about the galaxy that we are due to collide with.
But as there is so much space most of it will miss colliding with our galaxy.
Big bang does not work for me.
Got to say to infinity and beyond, now seem to be feasible.
Physics has been in a state of crisis for some time. Under existing theory the universe just doesn’t make sense. It is ridiculously improbably and oddly anthropic. Because the existing paradigm has run its course it is being attacked on all quarters
This is not the only or the first or only proven science that was later shown to be without merit.
Just this week a draft version of the new USDA dietary guidance was leaked. Since the 1960s it was recommended on proven science that dietary cholesterol be closely regulated. No more than one egg per day for example was suggested.
The new guidance will have no dietary cholesterol recommendations what-so-ever. Apparently all that settled science was not so settled.
Perhaps the pinnacle of bad science was the nature / neuter (gender / nature) debate of the 1960s -1980s. It was proven science that humans have no innate genetic predispositions. We were born as clay and society normed us.
If you said otherwise you were a dinosar or worse.
Since the 1980s brain scans and genetic research has shown overwhelmingly that humans like all other creatures are strongly behaviorally influenced by innate biology. Pretty amazing considering how settled the science was at the time.
I’ve spent too much of my life already arguing against the BB theory, the last remnant of creationism in physics. Strangely, the Big Bang proponent are usually even more fanatical than environmentalist wackos, though it would seem that there ain’t no money in cosmology. Or is there?
Instead of repeating the usual, very long list of observations that contradict the Big Bang dogma, let me mention two latest nails driven into its coffin.
1) So-called “gravity waves,” supposedly confirming the BBT and registered in 2013, have been proven the duct clouds’ artifact.
2) The recent Scottish experiment proved that the speed of light in vacuum is variable and slows under the influence of magnetic fields changing the “impulse structure.” Whatever “impulse structure” of light is (and I am not claiming the complete understanding of their experiment), it means that Fred Hoyle was right, after all. Light “tires” with distance, and red shift is not a consequence of “Doppler-analogous” effect.
P.S. By the way, no other but Mandelbrot himself, mathematically, explained that there is no “Olberg’s paradox.” Read all about it!
Alexander. It seems to me that if everything is moving away from us due to the Doppler effect that would place us in the center of the universe. That we would be in the center seems very unlikely. I’m going with you and the tired light. My understanding Hoyle was thought to be very pig headed for not ever changing his mind.
I thought I made a mistake once but I was wrong.
P.P.S. Please, excuse some typos, I’ve been working all night.
I do not have a problem with BB theory, it fits our data quite well. I do have a problem with assurance that it is true from the more public advocates like L. Susskind and L. Krauss. The beggining of the universe is the most distant thing from us in space/time and hence our view of it is most limited. I am reminded of Edwin Hubble:
Thus the exploration of space end on a note of uncertainty. And necessarily so. We are, by definition, in the very center of the observable region. We know our immediate neighborhood rather intimately. With increasing distance, our knowledge fades rapidly. Eventually, we reach the dim boundry – the utmost limits of our telescopes. There we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurment for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. Not until the empirical resources are exhausted, need we pass on to the dreamy realms of speculation.
The strongest, most rigorous argument for the Big Bang origin of the observable universe is (to me, at least) the concept of Entropy.
In the words of Ludwig Boltzmann, Entropy S = k lnW. W, the number of possible states of motion available to the atoms in a system is simply a cardinal number (a count) and cannot be less than 1 (for a system with no atoms). The minimum possible value for S is therefore 0. But the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that the entropy of the universe can only increase.
Retracing the state of the Universe backwards in time finds that earlier states had less entropy, and ultimately that the earliest state of the universe had zero entropy.
The Big Bang is that event that increased the W of the Entire Universe from 0 to 1 – an empty universe (in which the concept of entropy is meaningless because lnW is undefined) becoming a universe containing one motionless object, with a total entropy of 0.
Thermodynamics: It’s the Law.
I also do not like the comparison.
Another ‘settled science’ topic is not so settled after all – Big Bang theory questioned
In physics, and cosmology is a branch of physics , there is no “settled science” ( http://www.phy.davidson.edu/FacHome/thg/320_files/physics-is-dead.htm )since the quote from the end of the [19th] century:
: The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote . . . Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals attributed to A.A.Michelson.
Physics now works with “standard models” which are continuously questioned and measured against the data, and all experiments and observations test the models against the data. I have been studying and working in physics since 1958 and have seen many models evolve and transmute as more and more data were accumulated and accuracies grew. There may be fashions and schools, but comparison with data predominates and sifts the numerous theoretical proposals, and what is a “standard” model in some decades becomes outdated in the next.
How do standard models change? By peer acknowledgement. Peer acknowledgement starts with citations. If one goes to the Inspire citations, one finds (http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&p=refersto%3Arecid%3A1325962 ) 1 citation to the preprint the past six months. This means peers were not impressed enough to site it . For or against makes no difference in the number, this lone citation indicates indifference, not taking the peers by storm. In this day of computer connections citations should appear very fast, still, we should wait a year and see whether some interest in the peer groups is raised before assuming that it is a valuable and correct new interpretation of century long data.
In contrast to physics research where the models are always open to change if their predictions fail to be validated, climate models are fossilized extrusion from fanatical minds which tend to bend the data to their prejudices and work with “my mind is settled, don’t bother me with the facts” mind set.
Physical Laws govern all physical existence; every action and motion. Our inability to explain that which we can now observe, leads to the awareness that there are other Laws which we do not yet grasp, other phenomenon which we can not yet observe.
The fact that all declarations such as “the science is settled” have not been met with overwhelming roars of disapproval from the ranks of those who would call themselves scientists, leads to a very big question: “why not?”