[Marxism] Fwd: No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning or end
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Whew, that's a relief. The universe is permanent. That means Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue" will be appreciated a gazillion years from now. https://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * I never understand the article as arguing for a "steady state" or that nothing happened 13.8 billion years ago or thereabouts. Only that there was something else going on before that time. ML _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * At 21:49 21-02-16 +0100, Jeff via Marxism wrote: > >I still have to read this article, So not only did I read the article, but I went ahead and downloaded the paper it was based on (ostensibly). So here's a postscript to my previous post. First, I absolutely stand by every word I wrote concerning the irresponsibility of typical popular science writers. As I'll point out, in this case it's even worse than I had warned. But from reading the paper itself (disclaimer: I do not have expertise in general relativity or cosmology, and am not familiar with some of the cosmological issues that are referred to, and do not understand the argumentation in any detail) I see that the bigger problem isn't with the paper but how it was presented in the popular article. The headline stated: "No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning," but that is misleading: the paper was not arguing for any sort of steady-state theory and certainly wasn't arguing against the expansion of the universe. It accepts the main picture of the universe expanding over the last 13 billion years (though such numbers might vary a bit) more or less the way that we observe it. >From what I understand, the paper's variance with the accepted Big Bang theory has to do with what we would call the "early days" of the universe, when it was much more compact. At the present time, the galaxies of the universe are racing away from each other. So if you run time backwards (think of a movie of an explosion being played backwards), then all the matter of the universe converges, compresses, and (according to the Big Bang theory) comes together at a specific time into a point. The DIFFERENCE according to this paper is that rather than reaching that point (aka "singularity") in the past, the convergence of the matter (expansion played backwards) slows down and never comes to a point. Rather, it goes on forever (into the past). In terms of fundamental physics, that's a huge difference. In more everyday terms, however, it doesn't change the fact that the universe expanded from a small volume 13 billion years ago, only after which came stars, planets, and life (at least in one place) as we see the universe now. Nor does it appreciably change the future of the universe in which that expansion continues indefinitely, as the stars burn out and useful energy is depleted after trillions of years. I can't judge the likelihood of the paper's explanation, though I would point out that it is "normal" in physics for such theories to be advanced in order that they can be disproved (except for the rare ones that are never disproved, and become standard theory!). It was accepted by a reputable physics journal for the exact reason that it can't be summarily disproved, it isn't patent nonsense. Unfortunately the popular science article written about it doesn't do it justice, and I have no doubt that the authors would have discouraged writing about their highly theoretical work in a popular science article. (Also, I don't know if David Walters was being serious or comical in mentioning the "Plasma Universe" theory, but THAT is absolutely pseudo-science and isn't going to be published in a reputable journal). - Jeff Should you wish, the paper itself can be downloaded from: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1404.3093v3 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * At 12:55 21-02-16 -0500, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: > >The universe may have existed forever, according to a new model I still have to read this article, and judging by its short length it will not reveal much. I can't say it is definitely wrong, but I can say is that it is very much on the fringe of cosmological research and should NOT have become an article in the popular press, for the very reason that was so well elucidated towards the end of the last physics article Louis posted on Friday (for "popular books" substitute "popular articles"): The problem, however, is whether the proposal itself warrants packaging these individual pieces together into an entire book. When scientists write popular books about science, there is an implicit mandate to present a balanced perspective of the most exciting recent developments. Because the general public does not as a whole possess the critical scientific knowledge adequate to the task of distinguishing which new scientific claims are widely supported and which are not, it is easy for a book to either knowingly or unknowingly mislead. The danger of doing this, often seen when dubious preliminary results are instead reported as exciting discoveries in the popular press, is that when they are later retracted or shown to be false the publicâs trust in the scientific process, and in the dependability of results that have stood the test of time and experiment, diminishes. I was so amazed at the quality of that book review including the above discussion by the writer concerning other popular science writers' irresponsibility that I couldn't believe it. But then I checked, and in fact, in this one case, the popular article (book review in this case) was written by an ACTUAL cosmologist and not the journal's "science writer." So that explains the one excellent physics article Louis found in the mainstream press. The above explanation concerning what is appropriate for explanation to the general public and what is (99% of the time) misleading, absolutely applies to this new article which presents a theory apparently denying the Big Bang. I say 99% because it is fringe theories like this, of which there are many advanced by respected physicists (as there should be, since all ideas need to be considered before they are proven wrong), which are most "interesting" if not shocking, and thus make good reading material for popular audiences, but which turn out to be wrong (at least) 99% of the time. In this particular case, challenging the Big Bang, is challenging one of the very strongest proven theories of cosmology. There are lots of other widely accepted ideas at the frontiers of physics which can and should be challenged as much as possible (that's the way you eventually find out they were right!), but challenging the Big Bang is about like challenging that the earth is round: you'd have a hell of a lot to explain! I believe the Flat Earth Society still exists, but for very good reason their latest theories are not taken seriously, not even in the popular press. That is partly because most people have seen pictures of the earth from space; unfortunately the equally strong evidence for the Big Bang is not so well appreciated by the general public. To go further I could address the post of Mark (who will admit that he is not a physicist) which might sound reasonable on the face of it: At 14:25 21-02-16 -0500, Mark Lause via Marxism wrote: > >I've always thought the Big Bang was a conveniently "let-there-be-light" >explanation for the evidence. ... > but the culture frames how these things get >understood, and it's hard to separate the western religious tradition from >the BBT. That is almost completely opposite to how the current cosmology came to be. Until well less than 100 years ago, most astronomers (before "cosmology" became a named field) just assumed that the universe always existed and always would. There was no evidence to the contrary, and it was the natural thing to conclude. When I was a child, I remember reading Fred Hoyle who was opposing the Big Bang theory with his Steady-State theory, and thinking that it was much more satisfying philosophically (as if that should be a criterion!) and probably true. Of course I found out, and Fred Hoyle later admitted, that he had been wrong and that the evidence for the Big Bang was extremely compelling. Again, it had nothing to do with preconceptions or religious influences (after all, any physicist or astronome
[Marxism] Fwd: No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * And of course this from Eric Lerner: http://www.plasma-universe.com/Plasma_Universe_resources#The_Big_Bang_Never_Happened_by_Eric_J._Lerner _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * I've always thought the Big Bang was a conveniently "let-there-be-light" explanation for the evidence. :-) I don't mean that the scientists were fudging their interpretation, but the culture frames how these things get understood, and it's hard to separate the western religious tradition from the BBT. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * (Of course the universe has no beginning. As Hegel pointed out, nothing cannot become something. That's Jeffrey Hegel, my 9th grade chemistry teacher not the German philosopher.) 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. full: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
