Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > > > John M writes: > > >>When did you last learn that the tenets of ongoing >>physics are only "provisionally" accepted as 'real'? >>(I just wanted to tease members of this list. >>Of course on THIS list 'thinking' people gathered and >>such thoughts are not unusual. We are the exception.) >> >>An example is the Big Bang. Many scientists almost put >>it into their evening prayer. Doubting is heresy. >>This is why I scrutinize what we 'believe in' and try >>alternate narratives: do they hold water? Are the new >>(alternate) ideas palatable to what (we think) we >>experience? > > > I'm sure all the Big Bang theorists would say that they would > change their views if new evidence came to light. Of course, > there are thousands of ideas out there and most of them are > pretty crazy, pushed by people who don't understand even > the basics of what they are criticising, so it is understandable > that these ideas would sometimes be dismissed out of hand by > people working in the field. It is also undestandable that > scientists are only human and get quite attached to the theories > on which they base their careers, so they may not change as > quickly as they ought to in the light of new evidence. > > Stathis Papaioannou
In fact there are serious theories of the universe in which there is no originating big bang. For example Paul Steinhardt has published papers on a model in which the universe we see is one of two 3-branes in a 10-dimensional space. http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0403020 The origin of particles and energy and their flying apart as we see them is due to collision of our 3-brane with the other 3-brane. He shows that this can be a cyclic process in which the universe empties out due to expansion and then another collision can occur. While a few individual scientists may consider the big bang origin of the universe dogma, every scientist working in a field like cosmogony wants to make his name by showing that current theories are wrong. Brent Meeker --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
