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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Pumpsump
February 11, 2015 6:48 am
Indeed. Big Bang theory is and was never ‘settled’, to imply it ever was is a misrepresentation. Some (fairly good) evidence and some maths (general relativity) points to a Big Bang, it has never been conclusive and unlikely ever to be, just the best we have to date and subject to modification. Any good scientist remains open minded and comfortable with the absence of certainty, which ably highlights the absurdity of ‘settled climate science’.
HankHenry
February 11, 2015 6:49 am
Didn’t we learn from the discovery of dark energy that the Hubble constant isn’t constant?
Red shift is observed in distant stars increasing with the distance of a star.
If an electromagnetic oscillation is subjected to a powerful electromagnetic shock-wave (such as it may come from a supernova explosion, common throughout universe) the frequency of the oscillation will be slightly altered downwards, i.e. a red shift will be introduced. Since shock propagates at or near speed of light in all directions it may affect any light wave encountering the shock for a much longer longer period of time than the duration of actual SN burst.
Perhaps astronomers and physicists in particular, need to do far more rigorous analysis of the red shift spectral composition, before the cause of it can be accepted with absolute certainty.
.
Halton Arp had numerous data showing that the farther quasars were from the mother galaxy that their red shifts decreased indicating that the red shift as a sign of age not speed that of course contradicts the standard model. He had to relocate to another observatory.
I agree Vuk, the light gets tired travelling through all sorts of obstacles, the further away the light source the more red shifted. Does have no bearing on their relative motion to us.
jayhd
February 11, 2015 7:16 am
You can ridicule me if you want, but I say God created the big bang. I haven’t seen an explanation to date to disprove it. And it certainly sits better with me than having to believe everything is random and accidental.
There is nothing to ridicule, I say aliens from an alternate universe created the big bang. I haven’t seen an explanation to disprove it. Actually there isn’t an explanation to disprove an infinite number of other possibilities.
Everyone is welcome to their beliefs, but because beliefs have not or cannot be been dis-proven is not proof.
That’s where faith comes in, dear Tom.
God, according to a rather amazing book
(given the prophecies made written hundreds of years earlier which happened, e.g., Jerusalem’s fall to the Babylonians and the later fall of Babylon… even Alexander the Great is accurately predicted in the book of Daniel — and there are TONS more pretty amazing facts you need to consider before rejecting that book out of hand….. and, thus, what it says about other things…),
is self-existent and is the “Alpha,” i.e., the beginning without a beginning.
That is, the definition of the “term” “God” is why jayhd can make the assertion he or she does.
Of course, back to the top, that means one must believe in God at all.
So far, “God” is the most logical explanation — given that we just do not “know.” Something had to be self-existent … .
OUR LITTLE BRAINS JUST CAN’T GRASP THAT, so, we choose to believe it is possible. Just as we just believe in the Trinity, i.e., that three can = one — can’t explain it; it just is.
We must be humble enough to admit that there are some truths beyond the grasp of our mind’s power to comprehend.
We also can’t grasp the idea of “forever,” as in space going on thus, or as in our souls existing on and on… .
Just
believe!
#(:))
Janice
P.S. That Jesus did (and said) what he did is a pretty amazing thing… from that historical event, in comes all the rest of the belief… if you are willing to give Jesus serious consideration… . Oh, come, now (smile) that many of his followers are jerks (like I, according to at least one person) does not negate what HE said and did.)
dp
February 11, 2015 8:02 am
If the universe were infinite and has always existed and is not expanding at or faster than the speed of light then our skies should be constantly changing as objects previously too far away from us to be seen come into view. It would be difficult not to have noticed that. Olber’s paradox requires this. There would also be a red and blue shift caused by the movement of our reference frame through the universe that would allow us to calculate our speed and direction. I would expect too that the background temperature of the universe would have to be much higher than it is currently thought to be. Conservation of energy would cause global warming, freeing my mind from worrying about lighting up my furnace today. I am worried though that our planet is plummeting willy-nilly through the universe at nearly 500,000 mph and nobody is driving. This can’t end well in such a cluttered universe. Version 2.0 will have to address this.
The galaxies are not moving at all, hence no infinite mass. It is space that is stretching with galaxies sitting still just like raisins in a rising raisin-bread:
No, it is not tired light [which is nonsense], but simply the result of the wave being stretched together with the space it is embedded in. Here is a good overview: http://star-www.st-and.ac.uk/~kdh1/cos/cos.html
Thanks, Leif. The second link was helpful. The first link was a semester’s worth of study, and I’m unwilling at this point to put other things aside for that. Much easier to ask you, and I accept everything you say because you’re the expert.
If it’s not too much trouble, this link is just a page long. It’s interesting. What do you think? The guy says conservation of energy is wrong. Einstein is the default, so I’m hesitant to accept anything else. But I don’t even know what I don’t know about cosmology. After Einstein you are the expert here. Thanks.
The problem with your link is that the assumption that ‘new space is created’ is not reasonable. Space is not empty, but is a seething bath of virtual particles and has a ‘zero point’ energy.
Read at least the overview: http://star-www.st-and.ac.uk/~kdh1/cos/cos01.pdf
Gravity condenses new galaxies out of the intergalactic medium, but most galaxies that could form this way are already here. Today, galaxies actually disappear [also due to gravity] by being swept up by neighboring larger galaxies. The Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy will one day collide and form an even larger single galaxy. Very few new raisins.
Dr. S:The galaxies are not moving at all, hence no infinite mass. It is space that is stretching
….
The Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy will one day collide
Two galaxies should not collide if galaxies are moving apart due to space expansion.
Andromeda is 2.2 million light years away, it should be mowing away and not towards Milky Way, and so excluding possibility of their collision.
Is this one of the exceptions to the rule?
Is the gravitational attraction of two galaxies overriding force of the BB expansion?
Do we have galaxies moving in all direction?
Or is it that the BB theory is not working as it is suppose to?
The Andromeda and the Milky Way are both members of the so-called Local Group [of about 20 galaxies] that are bound to each other by gravity [like the planets and the Sun in the solar system]. The members of the group move around [like the planets] the center of gravity of the group. The local group itself is gravitationally bound to the local super cluster, moving at 627 km/sec relative to the CMB. The expansion is only strong enough to overcome gravity on the scale of galaxy clusters [tens of millions of light years]. None of this is controversial in any way.
Every time I see these topics I cringe. I have a few simple statements that might help clear things up or add to the confusion! 🙂
1. Space is infinite in all directions. If you get to the end, guess what? There’s more space on the other side, it just keeps going…
2. Time is infinite backwards and forewards. There was no “start” there will be no “end” to time. It always has been and always will be.
3. The Big Bang is just the current “bang”. If you could speed up time and zoom out far enough, you would see the repeated “bangs” happen over and over and over again. This bangs have been happening infinitely in the past and will continue infinitely in the future. The current bang we are a part of is nothing new and nothing special.
4. The idea of a steady state “universe” is parallel to the idea of steady state climate, cute and cuddley, but not true.
5. The idea of all of space was contained in a single point is a fun thing assophisicists love to throw about. It is of course ludicrous, just like dark matter, dark energy, parallel universes, wormholes and the accelerating expansion of the universe. Fun concepts, but just mental fapping none the less.
6. Many assophisicists want fame, fortune and recognition, just like most other people. The more preposterous and bizarre claim they can throw out and substantiate via models and hand-waving, the better for them. Sound familiar? Many of them are no better then our dear climastrologists.
7. Best part of all? Just like religion, nobody can prove they are right and nobody can prove anyone else is wrong.
Food for thought…
Eric, I believe you’re mistaken about at least some of those points:
1. I’m not sure space or time can be infinite in the manner you suggest if they came from a big bang or similar. To be sure, you cannot fly beyond the edge of the universe, but that’s because there is no beyond to fly into 🙂 . Similarly, you cannot go back in time to before the big bang, because there is no before.
2. The idea of an endless cycle of big bangs and big crunches has been floated before now, but hasn’t been (dis)proven (kinda hard anyway, if everything ends up in a singularity 😛 ). I think the current consensus (dirty word here I know, but anyway) is that inflation is too powerful for a big crunch to occur, and that the universe is due to end in a heat death scenario. Of course, cosmologists tend to be much happier to dump said consensus than some people (I guess the grant money just isn’t there 😛 ).
3. I think a steady state universe raises some rather interesting questions (for starters, how to square the existence of stars etc with entropy and the way in which everything tends to decay, or why all the galaxies we can see appear to be flying apart). Would be preferable to the rather bleak endings most scientists believe we’re due, but there’s a lack of evidence for it these days.
4. I suspect that most astrophysicists are more concerned about what their colleagues think than about what Joe Public thinks (at least unless Joe Public is seriously considering a multi-trillion-dollar anti-universal-inflation project…) – the lack of money and such probably tends to act as a dampener on the making of outrageous claims.
5. You can prove particular theories right or wrong (at least insofar as you can “prove” anything in science), because you can compare theories to observations. Of course if there are no observations to be made (hi string theory…) then you’re right, but there is, for example, a wealth of observational data backing up general relativity.
+ + +
As for the main topic under discussion… looks interesting 🙂 . I’m in agreement with others here in disliking dark matter & dark energy, but frankly my personal preferences are besides the point. If nothing else, hopefully this work will, by being proved wrong, work to strengthen the foundations of the big bang theory. And if it’s right… fun times ahead 🙂 …
Great reply! I only have one “Butt”
“To be sure, you cannot fly beyond the edge of the universe, but that’s because there is no beyond to fly into 🙂 ”
The term “universe” is typicaly used to describe the area where there is matter. Beyond and between all the matter is space. So, yeah, the beyond to fly into is space, which never, ever ends. It just goes on into nothing for infinity.
Food for thought…or for howling at the moon since for many things scientific answers do not exist.
We do need people thinking crazy thoughts or “outside the box”, that is how knowledge advances in leaps.
No one is hurt by a mathematician speculating on the nature of time, plenty of damage is done with climate scientists stating humanity is creating a doomsday climate with 95% certainty or whatever current rhetoric states. That is the problem with climate science, they have lost line between possibility and probability, hypothesis and reality.
I agree with you 100%. I’ll go back to howling at the moon now. 🙂
JJM Gommers
February 11, 2015 8:30 am
Our universe is part of a continuous space system of which the entropy of the entire space system is constant.
Our univers has limits in space, time and velocity of light due to entropy increase.
Maybe we should know our place better.
Alx
February 11, 2015 8:37 am
So either everything banged out of nothing or everything always existed.
The big bang theory never completely worked since it needed a singularity existing… where? The big bang theory explains everything compressed within a singularity, it does not explain or even attempt to explain what existed outside the singularity. That requires explaining nothing as a something, which is significantly more difficult than a dog juggling knives.
Since dogs can’t juggle knives, might as well admit everything always existed all the time, no beginning, no end. Humanities metaphorical representation of that concept is God, commonly described as, was, is and always shall be. Science doesn’t do God, so we go back to the BBT, because that has a beginning and an end, just like the physical world we are familiar with and can actually study.
Round and round we go, continually advancing our knowledge of the universe, while at the same time like our ancient ancestors, ending up spending considerable time howling at the moon.
Of course if we get to the point of time travel or invent a warp drive (faster than light travel) then we’ll be much better equipped to determine how valid BBT is.
There is plenty of applied physics in our everyday life, so we can cut cosmologists a break, however there is no applied climate science, unless you count creating doomsday chicken little politics as applied science.
Alex, BB is not everything out of nothing. BB is not everything from nothing. The BBT theory is everything was created out of an infinite energy unquantifiable beyond cause and affect something, the alternative is (steady state) everything always was and came from nothing, it just was. Cyclical theory is just a different version of steady state.
In this you have identified what philosophers call the cosmological argument, which supports everything coming from an infinite beyond cause and affect something, which some call God
johann wundersamer
February 11, 2015 8:49 am
and yes, the cretes language is smarter than logic:
‘all cretes are liars explains the
autochthon crete to the
tourist’
understood by every crete
as ‘all cretes / BUT ME / are liars explains the
autochthon crete to the
tourist.’
THOUGHT before logical speech: logic + language are the tools.
Regards – Hans
Earl
February 11, 2015 8:54 am
The standard model fails at the beginning per physics 101! You cannot create something from nothing. Even God created the heavens and earth out of chaos. The electrical model of the universe offers a much better description of what we observe in the cosmos.
minarchist
February 11, 2015 9:09 am
Anthony,
You have a great blog and are doing a phenomenal service exposing the controversies, fraud and deception in climate science. So, please don’t blow it by posting this kind of fringe cosmology crapola. Thanks.
minarchist,
Hey, I like reading the latest speculations on cosmology! Apparently many others do, too, with 400 comments so far. You can always skip over articles you don’t like.
Leif, there are zero studies showing a consensus on CAGW. (poorly done or not) Personally I support BBT as IMV, everything can not come from nothing, or have always been with no cause, which is the same as saying everything came from nothing and has no cause. BBT mathematically implies that everything came from an infinite energy beyond cause and affect something. However I do not assume it is non-controversial.
Leif, the first sentance to that link states…”The zero-energy universe theory states that the total amount of energy in the universe is exactly zero: its amount of positive energy in the form of matter is exactly canceled out by its negative energy in the form of gravity.[1][2]”
===================================================
Therefore it is not denying energy, it is saying there is an equal amount of negative energy.
Not in my thinking. The centripetal force of the earth in orbit is canceled by the centrifugal force of the earth in motion. Both forces still exist.
Steve Thayer
February 11, 2015 9:14 am
I don’t think any explanation of how the universe was created is credible until we can understand what the universe is right now. To say it is the collection of stars and matter that is 15 billion light years or so wide is not complete because it doesn’t account for what is outside of that. Is it just a void with no matter that goes on forever? And ever and ever? And if that ends what is outside of that? With our 3-D perception of the world the void outside of our “universe” of matter would have to go on for infinity. That is not possible, but it is all our minds can come up with, so we ignore that basic fact that we can’t even comprehend the expanses of the volume of space we are living in. And we tell ourselves that the universe is this 15 billion light year wide group of matter that is infinitely small within the infinitely large void that surrounds it. There is a certain amount of arrogance in science, asserting that we understand great mysteries while ignoring the fact that we can’t even explain basic things within the same subject matter.
Mark Lee
February 11, 2015 9:34 am
I am reminded of a fundamental difference between Roman Numerals and Arabic Numerals. We use Arabic numerology in large part because of zero. The Romans didn’t have a way to express zero or use it in their math. Just a thought here, maybe Big Bang cosmology needs a zero so they can explain mathematically and cosmologically the “zero” before the Big Bang. We can express negative numbers, less than zero, perhaps time needs it as well.
Perhaps ‘energy direction’ evolution of universe (positive expanding, negative collapsing) is a bit like cot(x) function, whereby past so called ‘BB’s were at -2pi, -pi, 0 and future at pi, 2pi etc, no need for singularity, just critical mass compression. http://www.calculatorsoup.com/images/trig_plots/graph_cot_pi.gif
Alan, what died that day in the garden? We are born without spirit, the image of God.
(But I think if we continue along these lines we’ll be trying the mods patience.8-)
Yes GungaDin, but if we don’t behave, there will be an unbearable plague and a catastrophic tsunami of “little g’s” running around, remaking everything for their image. (;
Oh wait…too late.
ref: Ps 82
Gunga Din,
While knowing little and believing less and then finding certain verses compelling for their implications of our true nature, the exploration of which might prove to be a necessary road for the completion of our journey to understanding of such as the universe, I also have no wish to break glass at the host’s table.
It was Hubble’s observation of the constant that is in his namesake that first convinced people as far as I can tell. The only method we have currently to verify that the CMB might tell us something about the early universe is how the universe looks in more recent times. Since the CMB has been traveling through the observable universe for the last 13.7 billion years (if current theory is correct), the possibility of contamination of data seems possible.
Cinaed Simson
February 11, 2015 11:25 am
In the beginning there was nothing – and then it exploded.
Hmm, that would only work if you believe in a god.
Oh wait…the Big Bang was formulated by a Belgian Jesuit priest.
Since the Universe is roughly 70-90% plasma, the 4K background radiation can be explain by light scattering off the plasma and being shifted to the microwave region. Simulations reproduce the observed pattern.
A Big Bang universe and a Black Hole universe are mathematically inconsistent.
In General Relativity – which is a nonlinear theory (only extremely simple problems can be solved) the is only one black hole – and it’s the coordinate singularity.
It’s equivalent to using spherical coordinates to map the Earth and then claiming the North Pole – which requires independent coordinate patch is a Black Hole.
If you approximate General Relativity as a linear theory, then mathematically you can have a universe with multiple black holes but it’s no longer a global theory – it’s a local approximation. And since it’s linear theory – that is one has thrown the baby out with the bath water – one can add Black Holes whenever one needs to explain the unexplainable.
Dark matter is a result of the break down in Hubble’s Law . Quasars the brightest objects in the Universe don’t follow the rule. So they guess. And it breaks down at 1 billion light years for normal objects so we have to guess at the total mass of the Universe to estimate their velocity.
Cosmology is climatology – they’re never wrong but they’re seldom right.
One more time, BB is not something from nothing, but steady state and cyclical are. BB is not everything from nothing. The BBT theory is everything was created out of an infinite energy unquantifiable beyond cause and affect something, the alternative is (steady state) everything always was and came from nothing, it just was. Cyclical theory is just a different version of steady state.
In this you have identified what philosophers call the cosmological argument, which supports everything coming from an infinite beyond cause and affect something, which some call God
Michael J. Dunn
February 11, 2015 1:08 pm
Cosmology is an excellent example of a field in which the mathematical theorists pull the experimentalists around by the nose, much as in “climate science” (or, as I like to call it, “climate seance”).
First, we have the notion of “space expanding,” a concept that doesn’t survive deep thought. Expanding relative to what? A “space yardstick” by which we measure an expanding yardstick? This is a self-referential spiral.
And then we have the ASSUMPTION (I don’t have italics or bolds) that the red shift is due to the Doppler effect. Edwin Hubble, who discovered the red shift vs. distance relationship nevertheless did not believe it was due to Doppler shift, for demonstrable reasons. (I read a paper of his on this point years ago, but regret that I cannot find it again.) There are many explanatory alternatives to the Doppler effect, any one of which would resolve Olber’s Paradox.
And then we have the actual observations by Halton Arp of phenomena and relationships that should be precluded by the “standard theory,” yet can be seen in abundance. His reward was to be kicked into the ditch to discourage him from upsetting the Big Bang applecart. What is fascinating about his observations is that he may have made the only systematic study of ongoing cosmogenic processes.
Did I mention that most cosmologists imagine that gravity is the only cosmic force operating, and that plasma physics should not be considered? Yet, some of the very large scale structure observed falls out as natural phenomena of plasma oscillations.
All was well with the infrared background radiation being evidence of a Big Bang–until the structure in the field was discovered. Whereupon, this new-found structure was trumpeted as being “proof” of the Big Bang after all! I recall the news when it happened. A pretty good theory, to be confirmed both by the absence of structure and the presence of structure. Remind you of anything familiar? (Like “climate change”?)
“Dark Matter” and “Dark Energy” violate the cosmological principle, in that they are postulated substances and phenomena that are not observed locally. (Don’t know about the cosmological principle? Read up on it. A pretty big deal among cosmologists…until they decided to ignore it.)
It goes on and on. Each new discovery causes the beetles in the Hive of Standard Theory to scuttle and scurry around until they can apotheosize a new Scarabus (a universe made in the imagination of man).
The “yardstick” is the speed of light, so distances are measured relative this quantity. Alternatively, a certain distance could have been chosen in which case the speed of light would have varied, rather than distance. (Think Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction). Or a certain length of time could have been chosen.
Arp was an excellent observer and Gits admire empiricism greatly. It’s certainly true that he was shabbily treated, but then so was Hoyle.
From the Wiki-bloody-pedia:
…William Alfred Fowler won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983 (with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar), but for some reason Hoyle’s original contribution was overlooked by the electors, and many were surprised that such a notable astronomer missed out.[15] Fowler himself in an autobiographical sketch affirmed Hoyle’s pioneering efforts:
The concept of nucleosynthesis in stars was first established by Hoyle in 1946. This provided a way to explain the existence of elements heavier than helium in the universe, basically by showing that critical elements such as carbon could be generated in stars and then incorporated in other stars and planets when that star “dies”. The new stars formed now start off with these heavier elements and even heavier elements are formed from them. Hoyle theorized that other rarer elements could be explained by supernovas, the giant explosions which occasionally occur throughout the universe, whose temperatures and pressures would be required to create such elements.
— William Fowler
The Anti-Crackpot Index
I am sure you are all familiar with the Crackpot Index devised by John Baez as a “fun” way to identify “crackpots”. Now there is also a growing phenomenon of the anti-crackpots, that is people who go to enormous trouble to try to debunk other people’s theories but instead of using solid arguments they produce a useless diatribe laced with rhetoric, sarcasm and irrelevant ridicule. I think it is now time to redress the balance and produce the anti-crackpot index as a fun way to help identify such people, so here it is:
It’s great fun to see very intelligent scientific people (and many such have commented on this thread) arguing metaphysics. I echo Alan Robertson’s “What a thread!”
Unfortunately for some, this thread also gives me an opportunity to unleash one of my awful limericks:
There once was a metaphysician,
Who asked, in time-honoured tradition,
“Is the Universe real?
Or just something I feel?”
He couldn’t prove either position.
A philosopher once had the following dream.
First Aristotle appeared, and the philosopher said to him, “Could you give me a fifteen-minute capsule sketch of your entire philosophy?” To the philosopher’s surprise, Aristotle gave him an excellent exposition in which he compressed an enormous amount of material into a mere fifteen minutes. But then the philosopher raised a certain objection which Aristotle couldn’t answer. Confounded, Aristotle disappeared.
Then Plato appeared. The same thing happened again, and the philosophers’ objection to Plato was the same as his objection to Aristotle. Plato also couldn’t answer it and disappeared.
Then all the famous philosophers of history appeared one-by-one and our philosopher refuted every one with the same objection.
After the last philosopher vanished, our philosopher said to himself, “I know I’m asleep and dreaming all this. Yet I’ve found a universal refutation for all philosophical systems! Tomorrow when I wake up, I will probably have forgotten it, and the world will really miss something!” With an iron effort, the philosopher forced himself to wake up, rush over to his desk, and write down his universal refutation. Then he jumped back into bed with a sigh of relief.
The next morning when he awoke, he went over to the desk to see what he had written. It was, “That’s what you say.”
Dunno the answer to that one. Or “What is the meaning of wife?” and “Is there wife after death?”
Cosmic Creation
February 11, 2015 2:43 pm
Don’t get too excited this kind of theoretical physics is really more philosophy than science. These are are mathematical models relying on particles, and dimensionalities with little or no connection to reality. But that doesn’t matter much to theoretical physicist, for whom reality is far less exciting than an interesting model.
barn E. Rubble
February 11, 2015 3:21 pm
RE: “So Big Bang or not, there was a beginning.”
I believe it is only human conditioning or/or the the way we are taught that ‘everything’ has to have a beginning, middle and end, like a story or a theory. Altho difficult to grasp, there is the possibility that there was no beginning . . . or an end; just lots and lots of middle . . . but then again, I’ve only been on this planet for 54 years.
Hello, what is not mentioned is where did all the energy come from for wht may wll have ben a single giant Black hole, rather than a so called pinpoint. Anyway we are really only talking about the visible Universe, what is on th other side. If for examples we were to build a wall around the whole visible universe, what is on the other side. The answer, unacceptable to our human minds is that the Universe can never end,
As for alternatives, The steady state theory is far more logical than the big bang ever was.
Michael Elliott, VK5ell40@gmail.com.
Steady state is something from nothing. BB is not everything from nothing. The BBT theory is everything was created out of an infinite energy unquantifiable beyond cause and affect something, the alternative is (steady state) everything always was and came from nothing, it just was. Cyclical theory is just a different version of steady state.
It is possible that the Universe’s energy content is precisely zero as the energy we see is counterbalanced by an equal amount of potential energy, which is negative…
Doug
February 11, 2015 5:29 pm
The study simply says there might not have been a true singularity, but the “big bang” theory is still largely unaltered. Space and time grew out of an incredibly small point, which the new study simply says might not have been infinitely small. The headline is misleading.
Indeed. Big Bang theory is and was never ‘settled’, to imply it ever was is a misrepresentation. Some (fairly good) evidence and some maths (general relativity) points to a Big Bang, it has never been conclusive and unlikely ever to be, just the best we have to date and subject to modification. Any good scientist remains open minded and comfortable with the absence of certainty, which ably highlights the absurdity of ‘settled climate science’.
Didn’t we learn from the discovery of dark energy that the Hubble constant isn’t constant?
Red shift is observed in distant stars increasing with the distance of a star.
If an electromagnetic oscillation is subjected to a powerful electromagnetic shock-wave (such as it may come from a supernova explosion, common throughout universe) the frequency of the oscillation will be slightly altered downwards, i.e. a red shift will be introduced. Since shock propagates at or near speed of light in all directions it may affect any light wave encountering the shock for a much longer longer period of time than the duration of actual SN burst.
Perhaps astronomers and physicists in particular, need to do far more rigorous analysis of the red shift spectral composition, before the cause of it can be accepted with absolute certainty.
.
Halton Arp had numerous data showing that the farther quasars were from the mother galaxy that their red shifts decreased indicating that the red shift as a sign of age not speed that of course contradicts the standard model. He had to relocate to another observatory.
I agree Vuk, the light gets tired travelling through all sorts of obstacles, the further away the light source the more red shifted. Does have no bearing on their relative motion to us.
You can ridicule me if you want, but I say God created the big bang. I haven’t seen an explanation to date to disprove it. And it certainly sits better with me than having to believe everything is random and accidental.
There is nothing to ridicule, I say aliens from an alternate universe created the big bang. I haven’t seen an explanation to disprove it. Actually there isn’t an explanation to disprove an infinite number of other possibilities.
Everyone is welcome to their beliefs, but because beliefs have not or cannot be been dis-proven is not proof.
But then you still have the same problem, how was God created?
That’s where faith comes in, dear Tom.
God, according to a rather amazing book
(given the prophecies made written hundreds of years earlier which happened, e.g., Jerusalem’s fall to the Babylonians and the later fall of Babylon… even Alexander the Great is accurately predicted in the book of Daniel — and there are TONS more pretty amazing facts you need to consider before rejecting that book out of hand….. and, thus, what it says about other things…),
is self-existent and is the “Alpha,” i.e., the beginning without a beginning.
That is, the definition of the “term” “God” is why jayhd can make the assertion he or she does.
Of course, back to the top, that means one must believe in God at all.
So far, “God” is the most logical explanation — given that we just do not “know.” Something had to be self-existent … .
OUR LITTLE BRAINS JUST CAN’T GRASP THAT, so, we choose to believe it is possible. Just as we just believe in the Trinity, i.e., that three can = one — can’t explain it; it just is.
We must be humble enough to admit that there are some truths beyond the grasp of our mind’s power to comprehend.
We also can’t grasp the idea of “forever,” as in space going on thus, or as in our souls existing on and on… .
Just
believe!
#(:))
Janice
P.S. That Jesus did (and said) what he did is a pretty amazing thing… from that historical event, in comes all the rest of the belief… if you are willing to give Jesus serious consideration… . Oh, come, now (smile) that many of his followers are jerks (like I, according to at least one person) does not negate what HE said and did.)
If the universe were infinite and has always existed and is not expanding at or faster than the speed of light then our skies should be constantly changing as objects previously too far away from us to be seen come into view. It would be difficult not to have noticed that. Olber’s paradox requires this. There would also be a red and blue shift caused by the movement of our reference frame through the universe that would allow us to calculate our speed and direction. I would expect too that the background temperature of the universe would have to be much higher than it is currently thought to be. Conservation of energy would cause global warming, freeing my mind from worrying about lighting up my furnace today. I am worried though that our planet is plummeting willy-nilly through the universe at nearly 500,000 mph and nobody is driving. This can’t end well in such a cluttered universe. Version 2.0 will have to address this.
If space is infinite then infinitely far away galaxies are receding infinitely fast from us, giving them relatively infinite mass…
help. I’m lost.
The galaxies are not moving at all, hence no infinite mass. It is space that is stretching with galaxies sitting still just like raisins in a rising raisin-bread:
Ah. Thanks. I was looking at it wrong.
On a related subject, maybe this guy knows where the universe’s missing mass went.
Leif,
Thank you for that clarification.
I think.
Or maybe I think I think.
Leif,
If galaxies are stationary and it is space that is expanding, what explains the red shift? Is it ‘tired light’?
No, it is not tired light [which is nonsense], but simply the result of the wave being stretched together with the space it is embedded in. Here is a good overview:
http://star-www.st-and.ac.uk/~kdh1/cos/cos.html
And something on tired light: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/tiredlit.htm
Thanks, Leif. The second link was helpful. The first link was a semester’s worth of study, and I’m unwilling at this point to put other things aside for that. Much easier to ask you, and I accept everything you say because you’re the expert.
If it’s not too much trouble, this link is just a page long. It’s interesting. What do you think? The guy says conservation of energy is wrong. Einstein is the default, so I’m hesitant to accept anything else. But I don’t even know what I don’t know about cosmology. After Einstein you are the expert here. Thanks.
The problem with your link is that the assumption that ‘new space is created’ is not reasonable. Space is not empty, but is a seething bath of virtual particles and has a ‘zero point’ energy.
Read at least the overview: http://star-www.st-and.ac.uk/~kdh1/cos/cos01.pdf
Thanks, Leif. Now that is an interesting link! It will take a while, but I will read it all.
Thanks again for the quick reply.
Leif – where do the new raisins come from?
Gravity condenses new galaxies out of the intergalactic medium, but most galaxies that could form this way are already here. Today, galaxies actually disappear [also due to gravity] by being swept up by neighboring larger galaxies. The Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy will one day collide and form an even larger single galaxy. Very few new raisins.
Dr. S:The galaxies are not moving at all, hence no infinite mass. It is space that is stretching
….
The Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy will one day collide
Two galaxies should not collide if galaxies are moving apart due to space expansion.
Andromeda is 2.2 million light years away, it should be mowing away and not towards Milky Way, and so excluding possibility of their collision.
Is this one of the exceptions to the rule?
Is the gravitational attraction of two galaxies overriding force of the BB expansion?
Do we have galaxies moving in all direction?
Or is it that the BB theory is not working as it is suppose to?
The Andromeda and the Milky Way are both members of the so-called Local Group [of about 20 galaxies] that are bound to each other by gravity [like the planets and the Sun in the solar system]. The members of the group move around [like the planets] the center of gravity of the group. The local group itself is gravitationally bound to the local super cluster, moving at 627 km/sec relative to the CMB. The expansion is only strong enough to overcome gravity on the scale of galaxy clusters [tens of millions of light years]. None of this is controversial in any way.
Every time I see these topics I cringe. I have a few simple statements that might help clear things up or add to the confusion! 🙂
1. Space is infinite in all directions. If you get to the end, guess what? There’s more space on the other side, it just keeps going…
2. Time is infinite backwards and forewards. There was no “start” there will be no “end” to time. It always has been and always will be.
3. The Big Bang is just the current “bang”. If you could speed up time and zoom out far enough, you would see the repeated “bangs” happen over and over and over again. This bangs have been happening infinitely in the past and will continue infinitely in the future. The current bang we are a part of is nothing new and nothing special.
4. The idea of a steady state “universe” is parallel to the idea of steady state climate, cute and cuddley, but not true.
5. The idea of all of space was contained in a single point is a fun thing assophisicists love to throw about. It is of course ludicrous, just like dark matter, dark energy, parallel universes, wormholes and the accelerating expansion of the universe. Fun concepts, but just mental fapping none the less.
6. Many assophisicists want fame, fortune and recognition, just like most other people. The more preposterous and bizarre claim they can throw out and substantiate via models and hand-waving, the better for them. Sound familiar? Many of them are no better then our dear climastrologists.
7. Best part of all? Just like religion, nobody can prove they are right and nobody can prove anyone else is wrong.
Food for thought…
Eric, I believe you’re mistaken about at least some of those points:
1. I’m not sure space or time can be infinite in the manner you suggest if they came from a big bang or similar. To be sure, you cannot fly beyond the edge of the universe, but that’s because there is no beyond to fly into 🙂 . Similarly, you cannot go back in time to before the big bang, because there is no before.
2. The idea of an endless cycle of big bangs and big crunches has been floated before now, but hasn’t been (dis)proven (kinda hard anyway, if everything ends up in a singularity 😛 ). I think the current consensus (dirty word here I know, but anyway) is that inflation is too powerful for a big crunch to occur, and that the universe is due to end in a heat death scenario. Of course, cosmologists tend to be much happier to dump said consensus than some people (I guess the grant money just isn’t there 😛 ).
3. I think a steady state universe raises some rather interesting questions (for starters, how to square the existence of stars etc with entropy and the way in which everything tends to decay, or why all the galaxies we can see appear to be flying apart). Would be preferable to the rather bleak endings most scientists believe we’re due, but there’s a lack of evidence for it these days.
4. I suspect that most astrophysicists are more concerned about what their colleagues think than about what Joe Public thinks (at least unless Joe Public is seriously considering a multi-trillion-dollar anti-universal-inflation project…) – the lack of money and such probably tends to act as a dampener on the making of outrageous claims.
5. You can prove particular theories right or wrong (at least insofar as you can “prove” anything in science), because you can compare theories to observations. Of course if there are no observations to be made (hi string theory…) then you’re right, but there is, for example, a wealth of observational data backing up general relativity.
+ + +
As for the main topic under discussion… looks interesting 🙂 . I’m in agreement with others here in disliking dark matter & dark energy, but frankly my personal preferences are besides the point. If nothing else, hopefully this work will, by being proved wrong, work to strengthen the foundations of the big bang theory. And if it’s right… fun times ahead 🙂 …
Great reply! I only have one “Butt”
“To be sure, you cannot fly beyond the edge of the universe, but that’s because there is no beyond to fly into 🙂 ”
The term “universe” is typicaly used to describe the area where there is matter. Beyond and between all the matter is space. So, yeah, the beyond to fly into is space, which never, ever ends. It just goes on into nothing for infinity.
Food for thought…or for howling at the moon since for many things scientific answers do not exist.
We do need people thinking crazy thoughts or “outside the box”, that is how knowledge advances in leaps.
No one is hurt by a mathematician speculating on the nature of time, plenty of damage is done with climate scientists stating humanity is creating a doomsday climate with 95% certainty or whatever current rhetoric states. That is the problem with climate science, they have lost line between possibility and probability, hypothesis and reality.
I agree with you 100%. I’ll go back to howling at the moon now. 🙂
Our universe is part of a continuous space system of which the entropy of the entire space system is constant.
Our univers has limits in space, time and velocity of light due to entropy increase.
Maybe we should know our place better.
So either everything banged out of nothing or everything always existed.
The big bang theory never completely worked since it needed a singularity existing… where? The big bang theory explains everything compressed within a singularity, it does not explain or even attempt to explain what existed outside the singularity. That requires explaining nothing as a something, which is significantly more difficult than a dog juggling knives.
Since dogs can’t juggle knives, might as well admit everything always existed all the time, no beginning, no end. Humanities metaphorical representation of that concept is God, commonly described as, was, is and always shall be. Science doesn’t do God, so we go back to the BBT, because that has a beginning and an end, just like the physical world we are familiar with and can actually study.
Round and round we go, continually advancing our knowledge of the universe, while at the same time like our ancient ancestors, ending up spending considerable time howling at the moon.
Of course if we get to the point of time travel or invent a warp drive (faster than light travel) then we’ll be much better equipped to determine how valid BBT is.
There is plenty of applied physics in our everyday life, so we can cut cosmologists a break, however there is no applied climate science, unless you count creating doomsday chicken little politics as applied science.
Alex, BB is not everything out of nothing. BB is not everything from nothing. The BBT theory is everything was created out of an infinite energy unquantifiable beyond cause and affect something, the alternative is (steady state) everything always was and came from nothing, it just was. Cyclical theory is just a different version of steady state.
In this you have identified what philosophers call the cosmological argument, which supports everything coming from an infinite beyond cause and affect something, which some call God
and yes, the cretes language is smarter than logic:
‘all cretes are liars explains the
autochthon crete to the
tourist’
understood by every crete
as ‘all cretes / BUT ME / are liars explains the
autochthon crete to the
tourist.’
THOUGHT before logical speech: logic + language are the tools.
Regards – Hans
The standard model fails at the beginning per physics 101! You cannot create something from nothing. Even God created the heavens and earth out of chaos. The electrical model of the universe offers a much better description of what we observe in the cosmos.
Anthony,
You have a great blog and are doing a phenomenal service exposing the controversies, fraud and deception in climate science. So, please don’t blow it by posting this kind of fringe cosmology crapola. Thanks.
minarchist,
Hey, I like reading the latest speculations on cosmology! Apparently many others do, too, with 400 comments so far. You can always skip over articles you don’t like.
I agree totally. BBT can result in as much or more controversy than CAGW. IMO
Only if you are scientific illiterate
So Leif, are you referring to CAGW, or BBT , or both as being non controversial? Or perhaps you just like to insult?
BBT is not controversial. CAWG seems to be, at least in this crowd, wouldn’t you agree?
Leif, there are zero studies showing a consensus on CAGW. (poorly done or not) Personally I support BBT as IMV, everything can not come from nothing, or have always been with no cause, which is the same as saying everything came from nothing and has no cause. BBT mathematically implies that everything came from an infinite energy beyond cause and affect something. However I do not assume it is non-controversial.
It is quite possible that the total energy content of the Universe is precisely zero:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_universe
Leif, the first sentance to that link states…”The zero-energy universe theory states that the total amount of energy in the universe is exactly zero: its amount of positive energy in the form of matter is exactly canceled out by its negative energy in the form of gravity.[1][2]”
===================================================
Therefore it is not denying energy, it is saying there is an equal amount of negative energy.
So the TOTAL energy is zero. 5+(-5)=0
Not in my thinking. The centripetal force of the earth in orbit is canceled by the centrifugal force of the earth in motion. Both forces still exist.
I don’t think any explanation of how the universe was created is credible until we can understand what the universe is right now. To say it is the collection of stars and matter that is 15 billion light years or so wide is not complete because it doesn’t account for what is outside of that. Is it just a void with no matter that goes on forever? And ever and ever? And if that ends what is outside of that? With our 3-D perception of the world the void outside of our “universe” of matter would have to go on for infinity. That is not possible, but it is all our minds can come up with, so we ignore that basic fact that we can’t even comprehend the expanses of the volume of space we are living in. And we tell ourselves that the universe is this 15 billion light year wide group of matter that is infinitely small within the infinitely large void that surrounds it. There is a certain amount of arrogance in science, asserting that we understand great mysteries while ignoring the fact that we can’t even explain basic things within the same subject matter.
I am reminded of a fundamental difference between Roman Numerals and Arabic Numerals. We use Arabic numerology in large part because of zero. The Romans didn’t have a way to express zero or use it in their math. Just a thought here, maybe Big Bang cosmology needs a zero so they can explain mathematically and cosmologically the “zero” before the Big Bang. We can express negative numbers, less than zero, perhaps time needs it as well.
Whoa…this thread is sure expanding rapidly!
Inflation!
A monetary phenomenon.
Yes, and I extrapolate will soon be expanding faster than the speed of light. But that’s OK; no information is being conveyed 😉
Perhaps ‘energy direction’ evolution of universe (positive expanding, negative collapsing) is a bit like cot(x) function, whereby past so called ‘BB’s were at -2pi, -pi, 0 and future at pi, 2pi etc, no need for singularity, just critical mass compression.
http://www.calculatorsoup.com/images/trig_plots/graph_cot_pi.gif
“settled science”
http://mkaku.org/home/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/geneva.jpg
Interesting conjecture. I wonder how they explain the ‘background’ cosmic radiation that first convinced people that the ‘Big Bang’ happened.
And God said let there be light and there was?
… and then said; Let us make man in our image… and here we are?
Alan, what died that day in the garden? We are born without spirit, the image of God.
(But I think if we continue along these lines we’ll be trying the mods patience.8-)
Yes GungaDin, but if we don’t behave, there will be an unbearable plague and a catastrophic tsunami of “little g’s” running around, remaking everything for their image. (;
Oh wait…too late.
ref: Ps 82
Gunga Din,
While knowing little and believing less and then finding certain verses compelling for their implications of our true nature, the exploration of which might prove to be a necessary road for the completion of our journey to understanding of such as the universe, I also have no wish to break glass at the host’s table.
It was Hubble’s observation of the constant that is in his namesake that first convinced people as far as I can tell. The only method we have currently to verify that the CMB might tell us something about the early universe is how the universe looks in more recent times. Since the CMB has been traveling through the observable universe for the last 13.7 billion years (if current theory is correct), the possibility of contamination of data seems possible.
In the beginning there was nothing – and then it exploded.
Hmm, that would only work if you believe in a god.
Oh wait…the Big Bang was formulated by a Belgian Jesuit priest.
Since the Universe is roughly 70-90% plasma, the 4K background radiation can be explain by light scattering off the plasma and being shifted to the microwave region. Simulations reproduce the observed pattern.
A Big Bang universe and a Black Hole universe are mathematically inconsistent.
In General Relativity – which is a nonlinear theory (only extremely simple problems can be solved) the is only one black hole – and it’s the coordinate singularity.
It’s equivalent to using spherical coordinates to map the Earth and then claiming the North Pole – which requires independent coordinate patch is a Black Hole.
If you approximate General Relativity as a linear theory, then mathematically you can have a universe with multiple black holes but it’s no longer a global theory – it’s a local approximation. And since it’s linear theory – that is one has thrown the baby out with the bath water – one can add Black Holes whenever one needs to explain the unexplainable.
Dark matter is a result of the break down in Hubble’s Law . Quasars the brightest objects in the Universe don’t follow the rule. So they guess. And it breaks down at 1 billion light years for normal objects so we have to guess at the total mass of the Universe to estimate their velocity.
Cosmology is climatology – they’re never wrong but they’re seldom right.
One more time, BB is not something from nothing, but steady state and cyclical are. BB is not everything from nothing. The BBT theory is everything was created out of an infinite energy unquantifiable beyond cause and affect something, the alternative is (steady state) everything always was and came from nothing, it just was. Cyclical theory is just a different version of steady state.
In this you have identified what philosophers call the cosmological argument, which supports everything coming from an infinite beyond cause and affect something, which some call God
Cosmology is an excellent example of a field in which the mathematical theorists pull the experimentalists around by the nose, much as in “climate science” (or, as I like to call it, “climate seance”).
First, we have the notion of “space expanding,” a concept that doesn’t survive deep thought. Expanding relative to what? A “space yardstick” by which we measure an expanding yardstick? This is a self-referential spiral.
And then we have the ASSUMPTION (I don’t have italics or bolds) that the red shift is due to the Doppler effect. Edwin Hubble, who discovered the red shift vs. distance relationship nevertheless did not believe it was due to Doppler shift, for demonstrable reasons. (I read a paper of his on this point years ago, but regret that I cannot find it again.) There are many explanatory alternatives to the Doppler effect, any one of which would resolve Olber’s Paradox.
And then we have the actual observations by Halton Arp of phenomena and relationships that should be precluded by the “standard theory,” yet can be seen in abundance. His reward was to be kicked into the ditch to discourage him from upsetting the Big Bang applecart. What is fascinating about his observations is that he may have made the only systematic study of ongoing cosmogenic processes.
Did I mention that most cosmologists imagine that gravity is the only cosmic force operating, and that plasma physics should not be considered? Yet, some of the very large scale structure observed falls out as natural phenomena of plasma oscillations.
All was well with the infrared background radiation being evidence of a Big Bang–until the structure in the field was discovered. Whereupon, this new-found structure was trumpeted as being “proof” of the Big Bang after all! I recall the news when it happened. A pretty good theory, to be confirmed both by the absence of structure and the presence of structure. Remind you of anything familiar? (Like “climate change”?)
“Dark Matter” and “Dark Energy” violate the cosmological principle, in that they are postulated substances and phenomena that are not observed locally. (Don’t know about the cosmological principle? Read up on it. A pretty big deal among cosmologists…until they decided to ignore it.)
It goes on and on. Each new discovery causes the beetles in the Hive of Standard Theory to scuttle and scurry around until they can apotheosize a new Scarabus (a universe made in the imagination of man).
The “yardstick” is the speed of light, so distances are measured relative this quantity. Alternatively, a certain distance could have been chosen in which case the speed of light would have varied, rather than distance. (Think Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction). Or a certain length of time could have been chosen.
Arp was an excellent observer and Gits admire empiricism greatly. It’s certainly true that he was shabbily treated, but then so was Hoyle.
From the Wiki-bloody-pedia:
Bravo…
What a thread!
Indeed.
As fine a collection of crackpot comments as I’ve ever read.
Makes me wonder about the comments I read on the climate posts.
It takes a crackpot to recognize a crackpot, wouldn’t you agree?
http://blog.vixra.org/2010/09/13/the-anti-crackpot-index/
It’s great fun to see very intelligent scientific people (and many such have commented on this thread) arguing metaphysics. I echo Alan Robertson’s “What a thread!”
Unfortunately for some, this thread also gives me an opportunity to unleash one of my awful limericks:
There once was a metaphysician,
Who asked, in time-honoured tradition,
“Is the Universe real?
Or just something I feel?”
He couldn’t prove either position.
A philosopher once had the following dream.
First Aristotle appeared, and the philosopher said to him, “Could you give me a fifteen-minute capsule sketch of your entire philosophy?” To the philosopher’s surprise, Aristotle gave him an excellent exposition in which he compressed an enormous amount of material into a mere fifteen minutes. But then the philosopher raised a certain objection which Aristotle couldn’t answer. Confounded, Aristotle disappeared.
Then Plato appeared. The same thing happened again, and the philosophers’ objection to Plato was the same as his objection to Aristotle. Plato also couldn’t answer it and disappeared.
Then all the famous philosophers of history appeared one-by-one and our philosopher refuted every one with the same objection.
After the last philosopher vanished, our philosopher said to himself, “I know I’m asleep and dreaming all this. Yet I’ve found a universal refutation for all philosophical systems! Tomorrow when I wake up, I will probably have forgotten it, and the world will really miss something!” With an iron effort, the philosopher forced himself to wake up, rush over to his desk, and write down his universal refutation. Then he jumped back into bed with a sigh of relief.
The next morning when he awoke, he went over to the desk to see what he had written. It was, “That’s what you say.”
Git,
I thought you were gonna say, “What do women want?”
Dunno the answer to that one. Or “What is the meaning of wife?” and “Is there wife after death?”
Don’t get too excited this kind of theoretical physics is really more philosophy than science. These are are mathematical models relying on particles, and dimensionalities with little or no connection to reality. But that doesn’t matter much to theoretical physicist, for whom reality is far less exciting than an interesting model.
RE: “So Big Bang or not, there was a beginning.”
I believe it is only human conditioning or/or the the way we are taught that ‘everything’ has to have a beginning, middle and end, like a story or a theory. Altho difficult to grasp, there is the possibility that there was no beginning . . . or an end; just lots and lots of middle . . . but then again, I’ve only been on this planet for 54 years.
Hello, what is not mentioned is where did all the energy come from for wht may wll have ben a single giant Black hole, rather than a so called pinpoint. Anyway we are really only talking about the visible Universe, what is on th other side. If for examples we were to build a wall around the whole visible universe, what is on the other side. The answer, unacceptable to our human minds is that the Universe can never end,
As for alternatives, The steady state theory is far more logical than the big bang ever was.
Michael Elliott, VK5ell40@gmail.com.
Steady state is something from nothing. BB is not everything from nothing. The BBT theory is everything was created out of an infinite energy unquantifiable beyond cause and affect something, the alternative is (steady state) everything always was and came from nothing, it just was. Cyclical theory is just a different version of steady state.
It is possible that the Universe’s energy content is precisely zero as the energy we see is counterbalanced by an equal amount of potential energy, which is negative…
The study simply says there might not have been a true singularity, but the “big bang” theory is still largely unaltered. Space and time grew out of an incredibly small point, which the new study simply says might not have been infinitely small. The headline is misleading.