Talk:Big Bang/Archive 1

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Archive 1

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Unsectioned talk page archive of Talk:Big bang, 2001–January 2004

"distant galaxies can actually move apart faster than the speed of light"

I admit that I am not a physicist, but this really surprises me. Is this actually true?

Yes - nothing can travel "through" space faster than the speed of light. However if the space itself is expanding then two objects which are at rest (relative to their local environment) can move away from each other at speeds greatly in excess of the speed of light. To conceptualise this - imagine a balloon with dots drawn all over it. Blow up the balloon. Now none of the dots have moved relative to the balloon itself, yet they are now further apart from each other. Read Lawrence Krauss's book "The Physics of Star Trek" - he explains this beautifully (exploitation of this was the justification for how the warp drive worked) - MMGB

In the observable universe (that sphere around us of radius n light years, where n is the age of the universe in years) I do not think it is possible for two objects to recedes faster than the speed of light. Due to the initial inflation the universe is much larger than the observable universe and perhaps the example here is the relative motions of galaxies that are farther apart than n light years and so are not mutually observable -- however such objects can never be seen from each other and in generaal it is impossible for either to have any influence on the other ever (I think). --Eob

Eob - you're absolutely correct. Take Galaxy A (at the edge of our sphere of light perception, and receding at just below c, relative to us) and Galaxy B (likewise at the edge of our sphere of light perception, but diametrically opposed to Galaxy A, with the Earth at the centre of the imaginary line connecting all three). The light from Galaxy A and B is travelling at c and hence we can just perceive each. But relative to each other, they are receding at the linear addition of their recession velocities". They would not ever be able to perceive each other. Hence the "observable universe" of Galaxy A would have the earth at the extreme fringe of it (or "where the Earth was going to be when it formed" relative to their timeline) and nothing beyond it. Galaxy B would not exist, nor would it have ever existed, in their reference frame. Likewise, there is probably a Galaxy C beyond Galaxy B that we cannot perceive, and never will.

Even if C keeps moving away from us faster than c, there is a priori no reason to assume that we will never see C. Think of the light emanating from C as an ant walking towards us on a rubber band extending from us to C. The ant is walking at speed c relative to the rubber band, the rubber band is stretched, but the ant will still reach us eventually (unless you keep stretching faster and faster, in an exponential way, which is not what galaxies do). --AxelBoldt

The definition of our "observable universe" is "all the stuff that is moving away from us at less than the speed of light, hence we can still see it. Some versions of the inflationary hypothesis speculate that we can only see 1 millionth to a billionth of the real cosmos. Not that it matters, we cannot (by definition) ever verify it one way or the other (barring the discovery of wormholes, and let's NOT go there). - MMGB

No, objects in the observable universe can be receding faster than the speed of light. It works because what we see lies in the distant past - just because the objects are too far away for light to reach us now, doesn't mean they were when the light was emitted.

I see. But what does "now" mean? Under relativity there is no concept of simultaneity.

Simultaneity is irrelevant - we are only considering our reference frame. "Now" means "our now".

Given our now, it still appears to me to be impossible to talk about galaxies receding faster than the speed of light. I still think that this statement should be removed from this article, unless we have an astrophysisist in the house who can clarify this point.

Again I have to prefix this with "I am not a physicist and I don't play one on TV", but...even with the "balloon" analogy, I am having a hard time believing that it is possible for the dots on the balloon to move apart faster than the speed of light under the constraints of relativity. The fact that they are locally "at rest" doesn't really mean anything anyway, does it? After all, in Einsteinian space-time there is no absolute sense in which anything is at rest anyway.

I am not saying that it is wrong that galaxies can move apart faster than the speed of light--but it is completely alien to my (admittedly limited) understanding of relativistic physics. Egern

I'm not sure of the which is right, but perhaps this issue is being conflated with the apparent superluminal velocity of distant galaxies? [1] -- DrBob

Nah, it's quite definite that some galaxies are receding at true superluminal velocities. This works because limits on relative velocities - you're quite right that local rest doesn't come into it - only apply to objects starting at the same point in space and time. The possible paths of an object there make up a cone, called the point's future, and contain no relatively superluminal paths. In flat static spacetime all cones are oriented the same way, so the same applies, but with the expansion of the universe the cones are relatively tilted. Remember relativity is a local theory. -- Josh Grosse

Replaced the following

Although the Big Bang Theory is widely accepted, it probably will never be proved; consequently, it leaves a number of tough, unanswered questions.

with

The Big Bang Theory is now the accepted scientific view of the origin of the Universe.

because it gave the wrong impression -- no scientific theory is ever fully "proved". Statements like this just gives fodder to the creationists and their ilk. (Woops, stepping a little outside NPOV there). Perhaps the original author could elaborate on the "number of tough, unanswered questions" -- Eob

I changed the wording a bit. I'd say that the big bang model is accepted by about 98% of the cosmologists out here, but there are a few here and there who don't accept it, and there are a few models here and there which attempt to challenge big bang. I don't think that they will get anywhere, but they exist. I also added some text about cbr. -- Chenyu

Here is a reasonably well-written (though VERY biased) web page regarding "opposition" to the Big Bang theory. The author is well informed (which is not to say correct). Even though I personally think he's way off-target, it still merits reading and critical consideration. [2] - MMGB

For the record, the stars older than the universe thing was more or less resolved a while ago. The linked page doesn't appear that well informed, I'm sure we can do better.

OH absolutely, but it provides a good launching point for addressing the criticisms. The pages presents an appallingly distorted view of the evidence. - MMGB

Why is this article at Big_bang rather than Big_Bang? The article itself consistently writes "Big Bang". --Zundark, 2001 Nov 20

Half an explanation - I wrote most of the article, and used "Big Bang" because that seemed proper to me. I'll ask LMS to make the call. - MMGB

Someone called for an astrophysicist?

O.K. It's possible for two galaxies to be moving with respect to each other faster than the speed of light. Imagine a string of galaxies

A B C D E F G H I J

Now suppose that A and B are expanding from each other at 0.2c. Then A and C are going to expanding from each other at 0.4c. A and D are going to be expanding from each other at 0.6c. Eventually, you will have two galaxies that are expanding from each other at more than c. Another way of thinking about this is to use the Hubble law.

  velocity = Hubble constant * distance

If distance is large enough, velocity will be more than c.

This does not violate special relativity. Special relativity says that if you can send information faster than light, then you it is possible to have a path in space time that is a loop. This causes problems since it means that you can meet your father and shoot him before he has kids. This isn't a problem with Hubble expansion since if two galaxies are travelling faster than the speed of light with respect to each other, it means that a signal from one will never reach the other.

This actually causes problems with the big bang model and is the reason that people now believe that there was a hyper-rapid expansion of the universe at an early stage. The problem is that if galaxies A and H can't sense information to each other than how do galaxies A and H manage to have the same temperature and emit the same amount of cosmic background radiation. Answer: at some distant time in the past A and H were close to each other so that they could exchange information and end up with the same temperature. Then there was a rapid expansion and A and H could no longer communicate with each other. You can then play some more games and estimate the amount of lumpiness in the cosmic background radiation.

-- Chenyu

When you just add speeds together, you are using Newtonian mechanics for computing the totals of velocities as objects move apart. Based on what I've been able to find on the subject, in relativistic mechanics, you don't do a simple addition of speeds. I did a little lookup on the net to find an example of the math involved, and came across the following page: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~physics/sci.physics/faq/velocity.html . I haven't done this kind of math since my college days, so I'm pretty rusty, but the implications are clear even to me--you can never add the speeds of receding objects together such that they will move apart faster than the speed of light.

Yes, but they objects are not "moving apart at the speed of light" as such. However the space between them is expanding at a rate determined by the Hubble Constant (which is not yet precisely known, but is somewhere between 50 and 70 kms per second per 3.26 million light years.) There is a (bad) habit of saying that the objects are "moving". They are only "effectively moving, relative to our position, due to space expansion". Relative to their own reference frame, the galactic objects are moving at the (trivial by comparison) speed of several hundred kms per second.

Everything you are saying about addition of velocities under SR is correct, but SR goes out the window in this case, we have to consider GR. I will repeat - Special Relativity does not apply in this case. Special relativity deals with space as being "flat" (hence it is called "special relativity" as it deals with a special case). To be fair. one needs to examine a region of space of over a billion light years in diameter before SR even begins to get fuzzy. (Space is expanding at somewhere between 1000 and 1400 kms per second at this distance, and so the GR effects start to become noticable). - MMGB

One other nit. I get really annoyed when people say that special relativity proves you can't travel faster than the speed of light. The situation is

1) if special relativity is correct, and 2) if it turns out that you can send information faster than the speed of light,

then

3) from someone's point of view you are sending information back in time

Sending information back in time is a bad thing since it leads to all sorts of theoretical problems (what happens if you send a message to kill your father)? Unless we have evidence that someone is sending messages back in time, we'd rather avoid the problemby assuming that you can't do (3). Special relativity *seems* to be a good description of reality so we want to keep (1). That means the only thing left is to kill assumption (2). Of course, reality might have other ideas.

One consequence of this is that you can have "things" move faster than the speed of light, provided that those "things" don't exchange information.

But I think special relativity also says that massive objects cannot travel faster than c, since their energy approaches infinity as they reach speed c.

Also, when you say above that A and H cannot send information to each other: is that really true? Couldn't a light beam emitted from H eventually reach A, like in my "ant-on-a-rubber-band" example above? --AxelBoldt

What does it mean to have "emerged spontaneously"? I just looked up spontaneous in the dictionary and I'm not sure which definition would apply to the emergence of the universe. My guess is that, there might be a better word for what is meant here. - Tim

Sometimes human language with its inherent notions of past-present-future makes it hard to understand concepts of space-time. One way to think of it is to use an analogy in lower dimensions: Imagine the universe as a one-dimensional curve. We can move back and forth along this curve like beads on a string. The observable universe is a long segment of this curve with us at the center, but on an even larger scale this curve forms a closed horizontal circle. (The objects shuttling back and forth on the curve have no way of moving "sideways" into the two-dimensional horizontal plane.) As time evolves this curve gets larger as the universe expands. Now think of time as a third dimension going up perpendicular to the circle. Now you can think of the circle as a horizontal slice through a three-dimensional surface that is like a big cup that gets wider as you move up. Objects moving back and forth on the circle appear as lines zig-zagging up the curve of the cup. The beginning of time is the curved bottom of the cup. The Big Bang is just the lowest point on this curve. There is no concept of any thing "before" the Big Bang, the bottom point is just one point in a self-consistent space-time cup structure. --Eob

As far as I know this model Eob mentions was developed by Hartle & Hawking. It is explained in depth in Paul Davies book "The Mind of God, pp 63-66. As a simplification of Eob's description, we are so convinced that time moves in a linear fashion that we forget that this is not necessarily so. With the intense gravitational effects of the early moments twisting all definitions of space and time, it becomes mathematically meaningless to talk of time having "A beginning". Think of time as behaving in a 1/x fashion, approaching zero ever more slowly. (This is not what Hawking is saying, but I find it helps to use simple mathematical analogies).- MMGB

Claiming that the energy or mass of an object increases to infinite is a bad way to explain special relativity. A better way is just to say that light is always moving at the speed of light, so no matter what you do, light is always moving at the speed of light away from you.

Similarly light is always moving from the galaxy at the speed of light, and if that galaxies is moving away at 1.3 c, that light will never reach you.

-- Chenyu

That's not true. The light is moving away from the galaxy at c, but will still be moving towards you at c in your reference frame, so will end up reaching you.

Sorry - it is true. The reason that the galaxy is moving away from you at supra-light speeds has nothing to do with the galaxy itself (which is moving slowly, relative to its own reference frame), it is because (relative to our position) the intervening space is expanding at supra-light speeds. Hence the distance the light must cross is also expanding at supra-light speed, and the light will thus never close the gap. People keep trying to include Special Relativity in this discussion but it is irrelevant, as SR only explains how objects move through space, and has no bearing on the geometry of space itself. - MMGB

The mathematics does not distinguish between objects moving through space and objects carried along by space, it simply describes how the observed distances and times change in each frame. The idea that the light can't close the gap doesn't take into account the expansion is proportionately smaller when you get closer to us. I'm pretty sure that there are Friedmann models where you can see objects receding at superluminal speeds.

I think we can settle this if you cite a literature reference to a Friedmann model where you can see superluminal speeds. Offhand, I don't see how this would work..... - Chenyu

Nov 21 - I've posted to sci.astro regarding this - MMGB

I had that same question once and also posted to usenet, and here's what I remember:

special relativity constrains local speeds: you can never see any massive body whizzing by faster than the speed of light, c.
this does not contradict the fact that some distant galaxies are moving away from us faster than c, something that is predicted by some cosmological models in general relativity. The space in between expands.
light's speed is equal to c locally, which means if a photon whizzes by, everybody will measure its speed to be c.
this does not contradict the fact that a photon emitted by a galaxy which moves away from us faster than c can eventually reach us. Locally it will always travel with speed c, the space between the galaxy and us expands, so the photon is exactly in the situation of the "ant-on-a-stretched-rubber-band" that I described above. Now, it depends on the particular cosmological model; in some models, some photons shot in our direction will never reach us. In the cosmological models that are currently en vogue, for every galaxy, there is a time when we will see it, we just have to wait long enough. The observable universe constantly enlarges and captures more and more galaxies as we speak. Note that this does not mean that there will be a time when we can see all galaxies at once.

Here are the Google links: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&threadm=xzqoh1dtok9.fsf%40uni-paderborn.de&rnum=19 and http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&threadm=AXEL.98Jan20204156%40euler.uni-paderborn.de&rnum=17 --AxelBoldt

User's Comments on their changes

"incomplete"

I removed the following text between "dominant" and "theory". All current physical theories are incomplete, no?

 , though incomplete,

The problem with that is the Big Bang is portrayed almost universally as the final word in cosmology. Some people that dont see the word incomplete might never think twice about it, and never realize that it is indeed incomplete. -Ionized 16:39, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

Right. Even more dangerous that the wikipedia is (also) meant for people who aren't too familiar with subtlieties of science, and may blindly believe what they read as "scientific information". So it should be rather described as "..., though incomplete as all current physical theories, ..." Jim 08:27, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A confusing paragraph

Old Talk

In 1927, the Belgian priest [Georges Lemaître] was the first to propose that the universe began with the explosion of a primeval atom. His proposal came after observing the redshift in distant nebulae by astronomers to a model of the universe based on relativity.

What does this mean?

Also, the claim that the universe was initially microscopic is suspect as discussed on talk:Redshift. If the universe is infinite, than it was infinite already at the very first moment. --AxelBoldt

Contemporary view is that the universe is not infinite. The space of our universe is supposed to be closed within itself. Kind of Moebius band without edges. Jim

"Nit-picking" the Language used in the article

I've made a few corrections - but this is far from complete.

According to this theory, the universe emerged spontaneously between 10 and 20 billion years ago from a gravitational singularity, at which time started and all distances in the universe were zero.

Good points. A couple of comments: AxelBoldt 03:15 Oct 5, 2002 (UTC) (Interspersed by User:MrJones)

Uncategorised

"emerged" implies existence of a previous space - it's wrong

"from a ..." is wrong - the singularity is part of the universe

"time started" assumes two concepts of time, since you can't conjugate a verb in time (e.g. past) if you're talking about time itself.

Distance has no meaning when t is equal to zero in the Big Bang model

"all distances...were zero" - if you think of the singularity as a single point, then it's meaningless to talk about distances - a distance only makes sense between two distinct points

A common way to think about this theory is to think of global time and space separately - the theory assumes Weyl's postulate, which states that this is possible. Thinking in this way, space itself has only existed for about 13-17 billion years. Thinking backwards in time towards the "beginning", this "beginning" can be thought of as a gravitational singularity.

The model includes all of space-time, so the question "What was there before the Big Bang?" is meaningless in terms of the standard model.

The description of the singularity as "all distances being zero" seems to me to be correct. Even if it is a point, then all distances are zero: you don't need two different points to measure distance. I think it gives the beginner a good picture of what the singularity is like. Also, a point is often thought of as something infinitely or microscopically small, which doesn't fit well with the (most likely) spatially infinitely large universe right after the big bang.

AxelBoldt 03:15 Oct 5, 2002 (UTC)

Rates of Stretching of Space?

Because of this, the distance between distant galaxies increases faster than the speed of light. This is possible because special relativity only states that matter and information cannot travel through space faster than the speed of light. It doesn't limit how fast space itself can stretch.

"It doesn't limit how fast space itself can stretch." The stretching of space is not a velocity. "fast" means a change in quantity X with respect to time, usually X=distance. It only has a meaning once you know what definitions of distance and time you are talking about.

Because of this, the change in comoving distance between distant galaxies divided by cosmological time can be greater than the speed of light. This a theoretical concept and not an observational one. For example, galaxies whose light will not reach the Earth for tens of billions of years can be said to be moving away faster than the speed of light according to this definition. This does not violate the laws of special relativity, which is a local theory, which states, among other things, that matter and information cannot travel through space faster than the speed of light, but does not deal with global space-time concepts.

If an observational definition of distance to distant galaxies, e.g. the distance integrated along the path of a photon from a distant galaxy to the observer, using the locally valid distances at each point of the path, is used instead, then the change in this distance divided by cosmological time cannot be greater than the speed of light.

A strict empiricist might say that using the former definition only relates to galaxies which do not exist, in the sense in which chocolates hidden in an unopened box do not exist to the observer, but further discussion of this should go to one of the philosophy pages. User:boud

"Scientific"

I removed the word "scientific" from the front of "theory" in the second paragraph of Preamble.

The pont is that a theory in physics to be scientific has to be either consistent with the rest of physics or openly explain why it postulates new physics ("new physics" is physics without conservation of energy). The BB theory wouldn't work if energy couldn't be created from nothing since then photons would have distance dependent redshift even in a stationary space. According to Einsteinian gravitation this redshift would be within observational error of what is observed. But it doesn't seem good enough reason for postulating physics without conservation of energy.

Many people don't even know that Einsteinian gravitation with conservation of energy (unlike "general relativity", which is Einsteinian gravitation with conservation of energy removed for mathematical reasons) predicts parameters of accelerating expansion (apparent in this case) as they are measured in the real universe. Since those facts contradict the BB theory and not addressing facts that contradict one's theory is a basic sin against science (as explained by Feynman) the word "scientific" should be removed.

IMHO we should face the fact that we don't have a scientific cosmological theory yet, and we better start treating the Einsteinian gravitation seriously, istead of switching back to the Newtonian gravitation with its "attractive" and now even "repulsive forces". Maybe after almost a century we should finally acknowlede the fact that "gravitational attraction" (or "repulsion") is gone from physics forever? Just a thought. Jim 11:02, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Your opinion is interesting, but non-notable. The Big Bang is a scientific theory in that it is consistent with physics. Conservation of coordinate energy is not demanded in GR -- conservation of energy is a local law that is due to a time symmetry (which doesn't exist in GR). 128.138.96.220 02:08, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

More Suggestions from AxelBoldt

Good points. A couple of comments: AxelBoldt 03:15 Oct 5, 2002 (UTC)

I would move Weyl's postulate out of the first paragraph, which should only outline the highlights of the theory, and explain it later. Most people intuitively separate space and time anyway, so it's no biggie that the theory does the same, except for people who constantly think about spacetime manifolds.

Right now, the first paragraph contains too many "think"s and "thought"s. We should try to find more definite language.

Regarding the different distance definitions: We probably need a page explaining the various defintions of distance in an expanding universe.

AxelBoldt 03:15 Oct 5, 2002 (UTC)

Clarification of the definition of 'K-correction'

Who put the bit about the K-correction? Nowadays it means something slightly different, but I don't know about the history of the term to know if the reference in the text is right.--AN 00:59 Oct 25, 2002 (UTC)

Who put the bit...

Guilty as charged. i've put in wirtz. He published in a journal whose abbreviation is identical with your nick: "AN".

You'd have to read the AN article (in German) to check - i don't have convenient access - so i don't remember whether his K-correction was a magnitude (logarithm of luminosity) correction or the redshift (shift in wavelength). But i agree the definition has probably evolved, though AFAIK this is where the term comes from.

User:boud

A new article about comoving distance.

Regarding the different distance...

I've started with comoving distance User:boud

Fred Hoyle ... but there's a younger F. Hoyle - Fiona Hoyle - doing observational cosmology research ... User:boud

Comments on interstellar space, Gamow, Eddington

Latest comment: 19 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I think this article is coming along nicely. While I personally will not lay my hands on this article, there are some things that I would change if I did. I would like to see changed the claim the Gamow was the "original" predictor of the CMB, and the only one that predicted its value correctly, since his predictions diverged from the correct value. By 1965, Gamow was not predicting the correct value (please see non-standard talk for reference, Assis and Neves 95.) - Ionized Feb 10th, 2004 (this paragraph is now a fragment.)

User:Peak Please note that when Eddington (which Eddington are you talking about? Mr. Jones 20:14, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)) wrote about the "temperature of interstellar space", he was not talking about the CMB. He was writing about starlight. Specifically:

The source of the radiation was taken to be as follows -- 5% from stars at 18,000 deg., 10% 12,000 deg., 20% 9,000 deg, 40% 6,000 deg.; 25% 3,000 deg.

This is a c-n-p off of this pages JDR (PS. you can see the entire thread and the discussion here)

(See Eddington's "The Internal Constitution of Stars", pp 371-377; these page numbers come from the second impression published in 1930.)

Alternative theories

Sabotage or valid reference to non-standard theories?

User:Peak, inserting (in your words) "nonsense" into the Preamble is not sabotage (nor has that been my intent). The proper place to address the non-standard theories is at Non-standard cosmology, though acknowledging them (just a few sentences, which seem like there is now) in the main article is called for (i.e.. there is valid "nonsense", or alternative thinking, to consider when understanding the BBT). The improvement to the non-standard cosmology articles are needed, though, and I will focus on them also. Sincerely, JDR

The references to non-standard cosmology

The two main references in this article to non-standard cosmology are well worded and decently placed. Another thing I would like to see changed is the paragraph on Hubble. He initially found a correlation between luminosity and redshift. Only later was this interpreted as a velocity/distance relation. He was cautious the whole time, explicitly warning that it could be wrong, and that alternate interpretations of redshift will change the validity of certain interpretations of the Hubble law. In his latter years, Hubble had severe doubt about the velocity/distance interpretation, arguing that the universal expansion is incorrect (again, see references in the non-standard talk page.) Reddi, I too would like to see the non-standard articles improved, to a similar extent as this one. - Ionized 00:05, Feb 10, 2004 (UTC)

Olber's paradox

Olber's paradox is a metaphysical or philosophical debate based on faulty premises, much like Xeno's paradox. Olber's paradox states that the sky should be infinitely bright always. For this to be true, space would have to be a perfect conductor of energy and there would have to be an infinite amount of energy a finite distance from Earth. Neither of these assumptions hold true when compared to reality. Olber's paradox is not a paradox to be solved but a red herring to be discarded. Though Olber's paradox is not relevant in any way to reality, solutions have also been offered based on the assumptions that the universe is essentially infinite in age and size as well as being completely ordinary with no fantastic, unobservable matter or fantastic, unobservable energies[3].

The cited paper is actually a very nice paper. There is one problem. He concludes that Olber's paradox results in finite energy, but he doesn't go ahead and calculate the integral. If he does, he'll find out what people did in the early 19th century when they tried this solution and that is that you end up with the sky being the same temperature as the surface of the stars. The problem with shielding is that if you shield the energy, the shielding will heat until it reaches the same temperature as the radiating object. You don't end up with infinite amounts of energy, but you end up with non-black skies. Roadrunner 02:17, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Once again, space is not a perfect conductor. It's very good, but not perfect. Conservation of energy rules here. Regardless of the "solution" I offered for Olber's paradox, none of that changes the fact that Olber's paradox is not science. Olber's paradox is more of a metaphysical riddle or joke than a true paradox that needs to be resolved, much like Xeno's paradox. It is offered as support for big bang, so it needs to be balanced with criticism in the weaknesses and criticisms section. - Plautus satire 03:02, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

By the way, Olber's paradox contains quite a bit of information refuting the idea that it is anything more than meandering waffle. - Plautus satire 03:27, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Removal of Olber's paradox POV

Curps, I'm wondering why you chose to remove this point of view from the big bang page:

[note: the following character is not stray, but is a quotation mark indicating the beginning of a quotation]

"===Olber's paradox=== - - Olber's paradox is a metaphysical or philosophical debate based on faulty premises, much like Xeno's paradox. Olber's paradox states that the sky should be infinitely bright always. For this to be true, space would have to be a perfect conductor of energy and there would have to be an infinite amount of energy a finite distance from Earth. Neither of these assumptions hold true when compared to reality. In short, Olber's paradox is not a paradox to be solved but a red herring to be discarded. Though Olber's paradox is not relevant in any way to reality, it has been "solved" using the assumptions that the universe is essentially infinite in age and size as well as being completely ordinary with no fantastic, unobservable matter or fantastic, unobservable energies[4]."

Thanks in advance for your consideration and your patience, Curps. - Plautus satire 17:20, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I have just carefully reviewed this edition and I think that it is indeed too colloquial for an encyclopedia entry. I think I know what the problem is, how about if I change "it has been "solved" using the assumptions" to "solutions have been offered using the assumptions"? - Plautus satire 17:28, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The wording you use is still problematic. I don't have the time right now to go into details. Curps

If you don't have time to properly compose an edit, perhaps it would have been better to postpone the edit until you did have time. I realize there is a strong temptation to overwhelm the presumed opposition with hasty replies, but maybe you could take a break for a while, maybe compose your thoughts, or gather them, or however it is you organize them and come back when you do have time to produce a proper edition. Thank you so much for your consideration of my editions and for your infinite patience on this issue. - Plautus satire 20:37, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I have changed this paragraph to:

Another piece of evidence cited by proponents of the big bang theory is Olber's paradox. This paradox is summed up by the question, "Why is the night sky black?". If the Universe is infinitely vast, any line extending outward from the Earth should eventually intersect a blue giant star, so the sky should be a speckled blue-white. The Big Bang theory resolves this paradox by supposing that the more distant stars are redshifted into invisibility. There are also other proposed solutions; see [3] (http://home.wanadoo.nl/ronald.koster/olber.pdf) for one example. Critics of Olber's paradox argue that it is a metaphysical or philosophical debate based on faulty premises, much like Zeno's paradox, and thus that it has no scientific value.

If this is no good, you'll have to change it back manually, I'm afraid; I've made several other changes to the article as well. Ben Standeven 04:07, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well for starters the part where you say "Hans Alfven has shown that" which is extremely POV (and simply false). As you are perfectly aware. Yet you continue in this fashion.

In your opinion it is false. Where are your cited sources proving what you are now claiming is correct?

The big problem with that paragraph is that Hans Alfven *DOESN'T* (or at least didn't) argue that the redshifts weren't the result of receding

galaxies. The Alfven model presumes that galaxies are receding. Roadrunner 06:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly where you got this idea, but Hans Alfven pioneered plasma cosmology and was one of the most vocal proponents of the idea that the universe is infinite and has always existed, not to mention governed by electromagnetic forces much more so than gravity. He did not believe in big bang, and the expansion to which he refers to in his theories was the assumed expansion that was used to explain curious redshifting.

Right. Hence the statement that

Redshift is often cited as evidence verifying big bang hypotheses. The works of Hannes Alfven, a pioneer of plasma cosmology, Halton Arp, and others have shown that big bang is unnecessary and strange, and that redshift does not correlate in any observable way with distance or with velocity, recessional, precessional, accessional or otherwise.

is false. Alfven believed that the redshift did correlate with distance and velocity. It's an essential part of his theory. Roadrunner 06:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You are most certianly Wrong. Alfven did not believe in big bang, and sought fruitlessly for other explanations for the perceived expansion of the universe. - Plautus satire 06:38, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Even though he failed to completely understand the implications of his works, Hannes Alfven contributed most dramatically to undermining the big bang hypotheses. For this reason I intend to reinsert the material regarding Hannes Alfven, only this time I will spell his name correctly. - Plautus satire 02:46, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I am pausing because the question of how to deal with the material depends on whether you are willing to move it to a more appropriate page. Curps 21:25, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The sheer volume of material you have added is excessive. Most or all of it should go on Non-standard_cosmology or Beyond_the_standard_Big_Bang_model, or some brand new page.

Consider the Apollo_moon_landing_hoax_accusations page, to which you yourself contributed under the 24.79.3.230 IP address. The material is on its own separate page, rather than cluttering the mainstream page. Curps 19:51, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If this is the case then all the criticisms of unproven and unprovable black hole hypotheses (and all unproven and unprovable hypotheses) belong on a seperate page. As it stood, there was a pre-existing section titled "weakness and criticism" or something similar so I used it. If you dispute my information then kindly show me where I can find evidence that shows I am wrong. I hate when my errors go undetected. It seems strange to me that suddenly you seek to remove criticisms and weaknesses of unproven and unprovable black hole hypotheses now that I have added a few terse, cogent criticisms. Is that section only for absurd claims that are demonstrably false? Please help me understand. - Plautus satire 20:30, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You are still stuck on your old incorrigible and arrogant ways. The main page on a topic is for mainstream material, or for "genuine" controversies where significant numbers of mainstream practitioners in a field disagree on both sides of an issue. It is not a place where unorthodox views of an extremely tiny minority (a polite way of saying "crank") are presented on a basis of equality with the opinions of the overwhelming majority. There is a home for your material on the pages I have suggested, or perhaps on a brand new page of your own choice. It cannot remain as-is on the current page.

Mention of crticism (and brief mentions of unorthodox views) should be allowed on the page (and clearly marked), but it does't need to be big nor overwhelming (pending the exact phrase). Extremely tiny minority opinions are unenyclopedic. Beyond_the_standard_Big_Bang_model may be applicable (primarily individual thoeries) ... (Non-standard_cosmology may also (if specifically a cosmology))... or a new article. JDR 05:29, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

And how does one ever expect to remove erroneous "mainstream" material from an entry? Let's assume a hypothetical entry that is ninety-eight percent wrong, but accepted by ninety-eight percent of observers? Is that good or bad? What if the "extremely tiny minority" is demonstrably correct? I have seen in recent hours a page discussing the wonders of irisology or some such apparent nonsense, and the page describing it is filled with ridicule and scorn for the very idea. Is this acceptable?

Problematic paragraphs. The main problem is that they are uncited, and it's not clear who is making this objection.

~~Where are all the other citations except wikilinks in that entry? Is every claim backed up by a source? - Plautus satire 02:46, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)~~ [struckout comment result of misunderstanding of comment above]

I see what you mean, you mean the broken-up editions are not properly cited and is confusing to read. Sorry this formatting comment was lost in the shuffle.

Please move all *explanation* of Olbers' paradox to the page Olbers' paradox, leaving only a brief pointer to that page on both the official Big Bang article and this discussion page. Thank you. DavidCary 04:55, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This seems like a very sensible idea to me. We shouldn't have allowed the big bang talk page to get so cluttered discussing trivialities of Olber's paradox, since it clearly has its own page. Does anybody want to volunteer for this maintenance task? - Plautus satire 05:12, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I have one other request that may have gotten lost in the shuffle, that is for somebody to clean up the "cosmic background radiation" subsection in the supporting evidence section of big bang. It's huge and unwieldy and in my opinion a lot windier than it needs to be. - Plautus satire 05:23, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Isotropy of observable universe

Critics of big bang point out that that big bang before the ad hoc insertions of dark matter, dark energy and universal inflationary expansion did not predict isotropy unless the Earth was in the approximate center of the universe, and indeed in any incarnation only predict isotropy of the observable universe from the approximate center. As a consequence, isotropy would only support big bang in a geocentric universe. Any other region but the approximate center of a big bang universe would have an anisotropic sky as a result of the spherical or sometimes hyperspherical, toroidal or hypertoroidal shape of the universe predicted by big bang.

Citations??? Pretty much every astronomy paper that has been written in the last fifty years is at adswww.harvard.edu. Can you cite who is making this objection?

This is not rocket science. If you are inside a spheroidal, homogenous universe, any place but the center will give you an anisotropic sky to look at. Hope this helps to alleviate some of your confusion on this issue. - Plautus satire 02:48, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If it is not rocket science, you should come up with a reference to someone who has made this argument Roadrunner 06:25, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There are already more than enough citations to big bang beliefs. - Plautus satire 06:32, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Plautus satire, I do not understand the significance of your argument. I suppose you've read some popular astronomy/cosmology litterature? There, as you might recall, is very often given an example: paint a number of dots on a balloon, inflate it, and it is very clealry visible that all distances increases. Also, from every point inside this surface (*not* inside the balloon, but in the 2-dimensional surface constituting the border (i.e. the 'rubber')) it would seem isotropic. Now if you instead imagine the 3-dimensional sphere, you can do the same comparison - and get an analogous result.

By the way, I should say here that I don't know anything about you besides what I've read on this talk page, so you might think this example to be trivial. Then I cannot do anythin but encourage you to work out the maths yourself, about how the distances on S ³(t) will change when t increses, maybe trying some random experiments with assigning dots randomly on S ³ together with an "earth" and then examining the different directions from this "earth" - calculating the number of dots less than a certain distance from it, and choosing a number of different positions of "earth" in S ³. If you don't see already that this will in fact give an isotropy for every position of "earth" by pure symmetry reasons, try it!

There is of course the possibility that the universe is best described as the interior of a ball, and hence has a 'border'. Your argument, or so it seems to me, does nothing but proves that if the universe is (basically) the interior of a ball, then there is only one point of isotropy. However, what if the universe is rather a closed manifold (of approximately constant curvature)? For all that I know, it could be a sphere. Maybe there are reasons why not - I don't know of them. But to prove it impossible, you need other arguments than you have given here.

Mikez 21:27, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Cosmic background radiation (blast radiation)

Critics of big bang argue that big bang hypotheses state alternately that big bang was an explosion and was not. For purposes of determining what is known as cosmic background radiation, big bang is assumed to have been an explosion, from which we should be able somehow, while being inside it, to see its lingering radiation. For purposes of evaluating observed violations of faster than light motion, big bang is assumed not to be an explosion but an explosive, true genesis of the universe at a tremendous rate.

The big bang is not an explosion in the conventional sense. IIRC, BB Cosmythology spacetime expands (being condensed "prior" to cosmic inflation). JDR

Actually this comment points out something I wanted to bring up before, but since it involved deletion I just rejected the idea. I am willing (damned enthusiastic, actually) to concede one or the other of these assumptions being made by big bang hypotheses, but not both, unless it is explicitly stated that differing big bang hypotheses make different assumptions about the nature of the bang and mention that some theories seem to be inconsistent in their take on the bang. The entry as it stands makes both claims, that it is an actual explosion (in its latest incarnation it seems to suggest that hypothetical, hitherto unobserved strange primordial matter and energy is responsible, not really an explosion but something that acts identical to an explosion but is explained using newly-coined words) and that it is simply an explosive genesis or creation of some combination of space, time, matter and energy. - Plautus satire 05:04, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Again. Can you cite the person or persons making this criticism?

Uhh...I'm making this criticism? A criticism of the big bang page which makes competing claims just on the pro side, to say nothing of the rapidly-dwindling con side. I'm sorry if my long-winded edition confused you. - Plautus satire

Are you familiar with black hole hypotheses? They all invariably dodge the faster than light motion issue by claiming the motion is not motion, but an expansion of the space between everything. And they all invariably refer to "cosmic background radiation" as "proof" of big bang, when it is nothing of the kind. Big bang theory states that at some point in the past the universe was opaque to electromagnetic radiation, and that cosmic background radiation proves that the universe was once opaque. Every time we make a new, better telescope and peer farther into space and farther back in time we see more and more, not less and less.

No we don't. We long ago reached the distance at which galaxies no longer existed. Roadrunner 06:25, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This is absolutely preposterous. - Plautus satire

Where is this "opaque" universe? We haven't yet observed it.

Yes we have. The cosmic background radiation Roadrunner 06:25, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You mean the fact that the universe seems to be transparent to electromagnetic radiation is proof that it was once opaque? I'm sorry, I don't see how that follows. Can you please explain for us simple-minded folks? - Plautus satire 06:35, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You can cite ten thousand papers that talk about how opaque the universe once was. Where is the evidence? There is none. Hope this clears up some of your confusion on this issue. - Plautus satire 02:52, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I have a request to make here, in the cosmic background radiation subsection of the supporting evidence section of the big bang entry it states that "it says that as the universe was extremely hot at one point, it should still be a little bit warm even today, and calculations predicted a residual temperature of about 3 Kelvin". Does anybody know where I can verify how these calculations were made? Unless I'm mistaken, these calculations begin with the assumption that big bang occurred, and they also assume that redshift=distance=velocity=age and that the limits of human observation defined the limits of the universe. None of these assumptions is supported by any evidence except evidence resting only in the light of the big bang hypotheses, and these hypotheses are getting more complex and convoluted and more filled with exception than rule every month is seems. This is typical of big bang cosmologers, who often cite circular arguments as "proof" of their claims about big bang. - Plautus satire 03:22, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Abundance of primordial elements

Critics of big bang point to the claim that there is an abundance of primordial elements in the universe as further circular logic behind big bang. It is assumed by big bang proponents that only big bang could produce deuterium, so any deuterium in a big bang universe must be a result of the big bang, and since deuterium is believed to be rapidly consumed by stars, the age of a big bang universe therefore is finite. Critics note that if big bang did not occur, then there is another way for deuterium to be created. Critics also remark that no evidence has yet surfaced that suggests the universe is being depleted of deuterium. Assumed abundance of deuterium neither verifies nor falsifies big bang hypotheses.

Citations. There have been dozens of attempts to try to generate deuterium, but no one has succeeded. The basic problem is that any situation in which you can generate deuterium quickly becomes hot enough to convert it into helium.

Do you understand what a circular argument is? If the initial premise (big bang) is false, the argument (deuterium could only be created in big bang) has no merit and the conclusion (big bang universe is of finite age, proven by "lack" of big bang, which is proven by assumption that big bang occured and was and is the only possible source of deuterium) is specious. The actual "lack" of deuterium, now, is dependent on the assumption that big bang did occur and is the only process in the universe capable of creating more. The universe is an awfully big place, and electromagnetic energy often does very surprising things, like fusion of deuterium.

That's a pretty good example of a circular argument; you are claiming that, since the big bang is wrong, there must be some other source of deuterium, and are then using this argument to refute the big bang. In reality, the original argument has the form P->Q (The big bang is the only source of deuterium), R (deuterium exists), S & -P -> -R (deuterium is consumed by stars), and S (stars exist). Q (the big bang occured) is a valid conclusion, and there is no circular reasoning. Of course, the truth of the premise P->Q might be questioned, but to impress a scientist you would need to provide an alternate source of deuterium, not just note that one might exist. Ben Standeven 05:38, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Actually, we should mention that critics think there might be some unknown means of producing deuterium; this article isn't supposed to impress scientists, only explain the issues. Ben Standeven 06:01, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Remove Alfven from the redshift argument. Alfven doesn't dispute that the redshifts are receding galaxies. Roadrunner 02:07, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Alfven is dead. While he was alive, he fruitlessly sought other explanations for the perceived expansion, as he did not believe in big bang myths. - Plautus satire 17:07, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Redshifts can be explained by expansion. Also, electromagnetic interaction (along with other mediums) can perturb the measured levels of data. JDR

But Alfven did pioneer plasma cosmology, which today is better able to predict than big bang. Alfven was taught that redshift equals distance, and he knew of no other ways that light could be redshifted, so he carried on in the only framework he knew. Despite this crippling handicap he was still able to break new ground in cosmology, ground that is still unsafe to tread on today. Heretics are still burned at the metaphorical stake to this day. - Plautus satire 02:59, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't get this. The text ascribes views to Alfven that he did not have. Roadrunner 06:25, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

No, you ascribe views that Alfven didn't have, namely that he believed in big bang. - Plautus satire 17:07, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

True, but Alfven did explicitly hint that he was basically saving his own butt by allowing his model to account for expansion. As I stated last year, had he been alive and aware of the recent developments concerning redshifts in plasma, he might have changed his theory. Alfven also never agreed that it was a big bang, but that the apparent expansion might be a local expansion due to a release of energy in a double-layer instability. I cant say I agree with all the changes made to this article, but since I wont touch it myself I guess I cant say anything. -Ionized 19:47, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)

Is Criticism Appropriate?

The black hole entry had a pre-existing weaknesses and criticisms section when I started editing it. I simply expanded the section to include some very common criticisms of big bang. If none of these valid criticisms belong in the entry then I would suggest moving all criticism of big bang to its own page rather than have all my relevant editions reversioned again. - Plautus satire 03:15, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Abundance of primordial elements

The bit on Abundance of primordial elements is faulty. There is no circular reasoning in the following logical sequence, which, if I understand correctly, is the one that's being attacked:

Deuterium will only exist if the big bang theory is true.
Deuterium exists.
Therefore, the big bang theory is true.

Now, the assumpution that "deuterium will only exist if the big bang theory is true" is open to debate, and may be false, but the logic is sound, and in no way circular. Evercat 03:32, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

On the other hand, perhaps the argument is:

Big Bang is true.
If Big Bang is true, deuterium exists.
Therefore, deuterium exists.
If deuterium exists, Big Bang is true.
Therefore, Big Bang is true!

This certainly would be circular, but I doubt any scientists are stupid enough to reason like this. It strikes me as a straw man. Evercat 03:38, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Strangely, your argument with yourself is almost as compelling as my persuasive number below:

Interpretation of a perceived lack of deuterium as being evidence for big bang relies on two assumptions. One assumption is that big bang would be the only process capable of creating deuterium. You state this above as "deuterium will only exist if big bang is true". Another assumption is made about the total matter in the universe, which is assumed to be finite as per big bang. This finite size is used to determine amounts of deuterium "expected" from big bang as the only genesis of deuterium. This assumed finite size is determined by calculating the size of the presently observable universe (which is expanding all the time, not by magic, but by the use of better telescopes). The only evidence offered to support the claim that big bang would be the only process capable of creating deuterium is the fact that we can not presently create deuterium. No evidence is offered to support the assumption that the amount of matter in the universe is finite, and all indications are that the total amount of matter in the universe is infinite. We haven't yet seen the "edge" of the universe. The farther we look the more we discover that the universe is pretty much the same all over. A homogenous universe is not consistent with big bang, which predict the farther away you observe, the more different and strange the universe should become. What we find from observation is that the more we look the more we find the universe is bland and predictable. Just not predictable by failing hypotheses like big bang and black hole, to say nothing of the riotous unobservable dark matter and dark energy. - Plautus satire 03:43, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Since I feel it may be overlooked, let me point out that my long-winded description boils down to Evercat's "straw man" hypothetical argument. Big bang cosmologers do indeed begin by assuming big bang is true. Their methods dictate that they do so. - Plautus satire

P.S.: Am I the only one who feels very silly when trying to compose reasonable sentences describing a circular argument? - Plautus satire

You don't understand the argument. It's a weak argument, but its not circular. It's not *assumed* a priori that only deuterium can be created in the big bang. The possibility that deuterium was created only in the big bang comes from the fact that people have tried very, very hard to come up with ways of creating deuterium, but have failed. (In the process of trying to create deuterium, they have manageed to create Li-6 and a whole other bunch of elements through cosmic ray spallation.) The argument is that since people have made a good faith effort to come up with deuterium production methods and consistently failed, that this is evidence that there are no such mechanisms.

Jedamzik, Karsten, "A Brief Summary of Non-Standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Scenarios". Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Garching. .... JDR 07:16, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You can attack this argument on the basis that we haven't looked hard enough for deuterium creation mechanisms. This is a valid criticism. But it's not a circular argument. Also keep in mind that this is an argument against an argument for the big bang. Even if you manage to demolish the deterium argument for the big band, this doesn't count as a argument against BB. Roadrunner 06:11, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If you use this argument to support big bang, it rapidly becomes circular, because initially assuming big bang is required for the evidence to be interpreted as support for big bang. - Plautus satire 01:37, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Quasar evidence

Just to fend off any possible criticism of my insertion of the criticism of relying on quasar evidence to support big bang, I cite the following:

"This galaxy which shows a plasma bridge connecting it to its infant quasar was spotted and image-processed by Sotira Trifourki of Manchester Astronomical Society. Her image-processing reveals that the jet continues well past the quasar. This recalls the discredited Steady State Theory of Fred Hoyle, Herman Bondi and Thomas Gold! They said “Galaxies breed Galaxies, generation on generation”."[5]

And this:

"The proper motion of TON 202 is perpendicular to the orientation of its radio lobes (Rogora et al., 1986). If it is truly as far as its redshift implies (z=0.362) its tranverse velocity would be of the order of one thousand times the speed of light, a clear indication that the cosmological redshift hypothesis is completely untenable. Which leads us to conclude that this quasar is a star within our galaxy (Varshni, 1973, 1974a, 1974b, 1975, 1979, 1982, 1988) the strong optical emission lines are due to recombination laser action in a rapidly expanding stellar atmosphere."[6]

The more I read... well, I shall not even ask why the second reference was unpublished, although such a result would have had some major impact, if confirmed.

Isotropy of observable universe

Some critics of big bang assert that only in a geocentric universe would isotropy be predicted by big bang hypotheses.

Again. Just name a name. Who makes this argument. Arp doesn't. Alfven doesn't. Lerner doesn't. Hoyle doesn't. Roadrunner 06:29, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Alfven is dead, while he was alive he was not a big bang believer. - Plautus satire 18:03, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Cosmic background radiation (blast radiation)

Some critics of big bang argue that big bang hypotheses state alternately that big bang was an explosion and was not. For purposes of determining what is known as cosmic background radiation, big bang is assumed to have been an explosion, from which we should be able somehow, while being inside it, to see its lingering radiation. For purposes of evaluating observed violations of faster than light motion, big bang is assumed not to be an explosion but an explosive, true genesis of the universe at a tremendous rate.

Who makes this argument? Alfven? No. Arp? No. Hoyle? No. It's also a mistatement of the theory. The cosmic microwave background is the point at which the universe becomes opaque. Roadrunner 06:29, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

And this opacity has never been observed to exist. So cosmic microwave background radiation falsifies big bang if anything. - Plautus satire 18:04, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Abundance of primordial elements

Some critics of big bang point to the claim that there is an abundance of primordial elements in the universe as further circular logic behind big bang. It is assumed by big bang proponents that only big bang could produce deuterium, so any deuterium in a big bang universe must be a result of the big bang, and since deuterium is believed to be rapidly consumed by stars, the age of a big bang universe therefore is finite. Since the interpretation of the evidence relies on the foregone assumption that big bang did occur, this is a logical fallacy. Critics note that if big bang did not occur, then there is another way for deuterium to be created. Critics also remark that no evidence has yet surfaced that suggests the universe is being depleted of deuterium. Assumed abundance of deuterium neither verifies nor falsifies big bang hypotheses.

Who argues that the deuterium argument is circular? Again. All you have to do is to name a name. Does Arp think this? Does Hoyle? Does Alfven? Does anyone? Roadrunner 06:30, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It's circular on its face. You don't need to appeal to authority to use logic. Examine the claims and you will find they are circular. Very simple. Sorry if you got confused here, I'll try to be more succinct if I explain it to you again. - Plautus satire 18:05, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

William C. Mitchell has expressed many of these ideas, summed in 2 books which are still available. Concerning geocentric, Y.P. Varshni gave an interpretation (although I dont recall that it had to do with isotropy, rather it had to do with the quantized redshift observations.) I am in agreement that an appeal to authority on these matters is hardly necessary. There is no authority on problems with the Big Bang that any BB proponent would recognize as valid anyhow. -Ionized 19:30, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)

Verifying Hypotheses by Falsifying

The following statement is in the big bang entry: "Their discovery provided substantial confirmation of the general CMBR predictions (correcting the inaccuracy of previous predicted values), and pitched the balance of opinion in favour of the Big Bang hypothesis." Clearly this passage states that "their discovery provided substantial confirmation of the general CMBR predictions". However, it further goes on to state: "[their discovery falsified CMBR predictions by] correcting the inaccuracy of previous predicted values". Am I the only one who sees a conflict here? - Plautus satire 01:41, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure what it being referred to here. The only thing that I can think of is that Gamov guessed the temperature of the CMBR to be between 5 and 50 Kelvin and the actual temperature is 2.73 K. I moved out the statement in the hopes that someone will describe exactly what is being referred to. Roadrunner 04:33, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

All the predictions (BB and others) missed it (you can say "guessed" but it was a BB prediction).

And Varshni and many others have shown that big bang predicts only slightly worse (15% of the time) and with much more confidence using arbitrary nonsense data as it does actual observations. In other words, if you feed big bang random garbage data, it makes the same predictions (due to now-incalculable numbers of fudge factors) and conclusions based on garbage nonsense data as it does of the observable universe. This proves that big bang has become so complex and ad hoc that any arbitrary data put into it (even nonsense) produces the same "solution". No scientifically valid model that has any predictive capability at all makes identical predictions based on good or garbage data. The defense rests. - Plautus satire 17:17, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The predictions of the Big Bang theory regarding CMBR were inaccurate (these values were modified later from experimentation to fit the observational data). The article should not imply that the CMBR detection confirmed the BB theory (as the BB prediciton were as wrong as other theories) ... and this inference was the state of the article before including the info.

I've changed the wording to state what I think the author was referring to. Gamow predicted a 5K black body background. We see a 2.73K black body background. That looks pretty good to me. Roadrunner 14:20, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

As wrong as other hypotheses, and not nearly as right as many others such as plasma cosmology or the laser star hypothesis (while even though incomplete in a cosmological sense, STILL makes better predictions than big bang). - Plautus satire 17:17, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

From the above readings [see above discussions (2004 head)] that correct calculations couldn't be done by Gamow, many different helium mediums compatible to photon:baryon ratios, and there was around two orders magnitude higher of expected baryon density than current data.

Gamow assumed baryon density much higher than what we think now. However, He-4 abundances are relatively insensitive to baryon density. This actually works in the theories favor, because if the He-4 abundance were very different from what we see (i.e. if He-4 abundance was 10% or 50% rather than 20%), Big Bang would have some serious problems. Roadrunner 14:20, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The CMBR predictions by the BB proponents (and it's later detection) is cited as a reason why the BB is the prevealant "standard" theory. Though this prediction was inacurate. The BB theory just changed it values and claimed "victory".

This info should be included. JDR

If you are going to include this, then just state the prediction, the result, and let the reader decide if this was a good fit or a bad one. Roadrunner 14:20, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Stating the prediction, stating the result, and stating that the two were in error is not an interpertation ... just a statement of what is true. JDR

Error is an interpretation. If Gamow asserted 5K +/- 0.1 K and you see 2.73, that's an error. He didn't. He asserted "around 5K" and 2.73K is around "5K". If you want, I can pull up the original papers. Roadrunner 15:43, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Error is not an interpretation. 5K is not "around" 2.73K (3K is ... and 2K is also ...) ... but 5K about 45% off. JDR

Do you mean to say, Roadrunner, that an overestimate to the tune of 100% is not significant? 5K is approximately twice the observed value. Does the big bang hypothesis have some mechanism for accounting for a 200% error? - Plautus satire 15:48, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

If Gamow was making an order of magnitude calculation, then being off by a factor of two isn't a significant error. Ben Standeven 06:33, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Moved this here... These are consistent with the big bang, but they are also consistent with a whole bunch of other scenarios.

Isotropy of observable universe

Proponents of big bang also cite isotropy of the observable universe to one part in one hundred thousand as evidence that big bang is valid[7]. They further state that what minute anisotropy does exist is consistent with big bang hypotheses which include dark matter hypotheses, which necessitates the further ad hoc inclusion of dark energy and inflationary or accelerated universal expansion to accord with known observations.

The redshift of galaxies

By analyzing the light from distant galaxies, one notices that the shape of the light's spectrum is very similar, but the whole spectrum is shifted towards longer wavelengths for more distant galaxies. This suggests that the galaxies are moving away from us, resulting in an effect akin to the Doppler effect called redshift.

This interpretation of "more distant galaxies" being more "redshifted" is based on the premise that redshift equals distance. It is still a circular argument and it is still utter crap. Redshift is assumed to equal distance, and is then used to calculate distance, the result of which is then used to "prove" that "distant" objects are all highly-redshifted. - Plautus satire 17:29, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Moved here

Olber's paradox

The utility of Olber's paradox in verifying or falsifying big bang hypotheses is in dispute. Some critics contend that Olber's paradox is a philosophical conundrum and constitutes and unwarranted precept.

The problem is that Olber's paradox is not particularly strong evidence for the big bang. The big bang offers one way out of Olber's paradox, but there are many others.

I said I wouldn't touch this article, but I had to in order to correct some misleading wording, and to reinsert the quite valid sentence concerning quasar light curve. -Ionized 18:54, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)

I added a pretty strong statement about nucleosynthetic predictions, but I'll retract it if someone points me to an alternate theory that even tries to make nucleosynthetic predictions. Roadrunner 14:43, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I have a problem with this paragraph. The trouble is that Vashini thinks that quasars are local, but as far as I know, he doesn't challenge the big bang. Arp *does* challenge the big bang, but he things that quasars are galactic, and Vashini's arguments would kill Arp's ideas.

These comments bear little resemblance to observable reality. Who said this? - Plautus satire 15:50, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Distribution of quasars

Some critics of the Big Bang theory have claimed that some quasars show proper motion and that therefore extreme distances are not possible[8]. There are two counterarguments. The first is that these observed proper motions are not real, and that there are well known processes for producing superluminal jets. The second is that even if it were demonstrated that quasars are not distant objects, this would not necessarily mean that normal galaxies are not receding.

How can superluminal jets be produced again? And why are these explanations consistent with big bang? Without violating faster than light motion? Can you explain here? - Plautus satire 15:55, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Oops. Read some more of Vashni's papers. He doesn't think that any redshifts are real. I changed the paragraph, because what he and Arp are asserting go beyond quasars. Roadrunner 15:02, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Actually he explains in numerous papers he doesn't believe redshift from velocity is significant, as there are many other known processes that account for high redshift, and that do not predict (based on observations) that there are quasars at the edge of the visible universe moving at superluminal velocities. - Plautus satire 15:55, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Changed "some" to "a few". If you want justification, do a random sample of cosmology papers published in adswww.harvard.edu last year. I'll change the wording, if you can show that more than 2% of the authors support a non-standard cosmology.

Keep in mind that science isn't a popularity contest. I'm willing to bet that <1% of the cosmologists in 1995 would have even considered an accelerating universe. A few isn't necessarily wrong, but a few is a few. Also, modified Newtonian dynamics was considered very fringe three years ago. It isn't mainstream, but it has some respectability now. Ditto the anthropic principle.

A few isn't wrong, but a few is a few.

Roadrunner 15:07, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

"random sample of cosmology papers published"? Umm ... that would be biased as those that do support it don't get published [I think this is related to previous statements in talk here that journals don't publish non-standard positions).

"science isn't a popularity contest"? YMMV on that ... but generally it isn't ... and a few is some ...

Few isn't wrong ... but it does neglect that more may support it ...

JDR

ATTENTION: I wish to completely remove the following paragraph from the article, because the evidence against this view was removed from the article by others here. "Galactic evolution and quasar distribution One observation that has become increasing apparent since the early 1970s is that while the universe appears to be isotropic in space (i.e. the universe in one direction looks very much like the universe in another direction) is is not isotropic in distance. As one looks to increasingly large distances, the universe looks very different. For example, there are no nearby quasars, many quasars once you pass a given redshift, and then the quasars disappear at a further distance. Similarly, the types and distribution of galaxies appears to change markedly over time and once one passes a given distance, the number of galaxies fall off considerably."

Why can the article get away with flat out claiming that quasars are distant, when it has been shown that evidence against this view has existed since their initial discovery (early 1960s)? Why does the article omit this view, yet still claim that quasars are distant AND THEN use the claim as evidence in support of BB? If you want NPOV, then you must either re-introduce properly the view that quasars are not distant (as most vividly expounded by Arp), or simply remove from the article the view that quasars are distant and hence "evidence" for BB. THINK ABOUT IT, I dont want to start another edit war with anyone, but for the sake of NPOV write a proper article! You ban people like Plautus for trying to change what needs changing, then go about your business like nothing is wrong... NOTICE that I am requesting this be changed before going ahead and doing it. Also notice that if the request is not discussed, and acted upon, I will go ahead and make the changes, which will inevitably result in another edit war. You people 'drew first blood', I am being cautious and asking nicely that the behavior and correspondingly the article, be modified. -Ionized 19:31, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm new to the Cosmology areas of the Wikipedia, and I'm not familiar with Arp's work (though I have had a quick look at his website and some others about his work). I'm curious to know how his nearby-quasars hypothesis accounts for the distribution of quasars in redshift (lots with z > 2ish, but not many with z>7 or so, though the UKIDSS survey expects to find ~10 of those), which is the observational fact at the heart of the paragraph you're objecting to (you can challenge the interpretation of redshift as equal to distance, but not the number of quasars observed to have a given redshift, surely?). It strikes me that the best way to resolve this would be for someone familiar with his work to write a page about it (either at Halton Arp or variable-mass hypothesis or some similar title), and then when we discuss things like this we can present the observational facts (the paragraph above could be recast solely in terms of redshifts re: the observations if desired), and say that while other interpretations are possible (and give a link to that article) the mainstream scientific thinking is ... and then the interpretation in the context of the Big Bang theory (and since this is an article about the Big Bang theory that seems fair). (And is Arp really claiming, as my small amount of reading suggests, that the mass of the proton and electron change as cosmological objects evolve?) -- Bth 20:16, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)~

You are correct, the number of quasars 'observed to have a given redshift,' is not under scrutiny, as counting them is an empirical observation which is largely independent of conceptual bias. What is more specifically objected to is that quasar redshift is strictly a Doppler effect (not to mention our friends the 'superluminal jets'.) This objection arises from a variety of causes. But in our specific case of quasars, the objection from Arp is based most on empirical observations of high-redshift objects tied directly to low-redshift objects via low surface-brightness filaments. Numerous examples of this observation exist. Arp has clearly indicated the existence of these groupings as close as the local Virgo cluster. In order to make the point that this observation contradicts the standard interpretation of quasars, and that in turn the standard interpretation should not be used as evidence for the big bang, it is not entirely necessary to go into the physics behind the observed quasar groupings, or how Arps model predicts the distribution of quasars. What is generally discounted is that the observations are even correct. This is not the first request for good information on Arp's ideas. Had I the time to re-read his work and to write a coherent and factual page on it, I would (maybe this summer?) But for now please read his books. Quasar groupings indeed take on a different light if you consider Arp's observations to be correct. Based on observed groupings, it is predicted that quasars start with very high-redshift when they are first ejected from the core of AGN (ie when they are at close proximity,) and that schematically the redshift of ejected quasar are inversely proportional to the distance away from the core. Periodicities are seen as well. We could predict the distribution of quasars around their host galaxies, and if an impartial observer where to take these assocations and look for more, they would most likely see them. Arp has been coming up with them for 40 years now. Last year(2003) he published a new "Catalog of Discordant Redshifts". Keep in mind that the variable mass theory is secondary to the actual observations however. Yes the basis of that theory is that new matter has lower mass and a correspondingly lower redshift. But please nobody confuse the theory with the data itself. I might write more after thinking more, and try to answer your question more specifically. -Ionized 23:59, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, don't have time to reply fully now (nor to read Arp's books, I'm afraid) but I'm curious: what's the problem with superluminal jets? These are a simple consequence of projection effects when close-to-lightspeed motion is close to the line-of-sight, and can be easily derived using basic relativity (and you only need special relativity). I didn't get the impression Arp was denying relativity, but perhaps I'm wrong ... --Bth 09:36, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Arp scrutinizes the chance occurances of alignment involved in allowing superluminal jets to account for many quasars. 'Superluminal jets' play no part in most non-standard interpretations of quasars, since the redshift is interpreted differently. Arp has a fair share to say about this. -Ionized 20:34, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)