NASA scientists discover the beginning of time. (Their description)

John MacNeil

I am not one to begin slinging mud and if you don't like sharp retorts, then you should leave the character attacks out of your posts and stick to discussing the topic.

The contents of that article really matter less than the picture itself and the title which was presented as a description. And it was the idea expressed in the title that I was addressing. That is not the first instance of NASA having declared they could look back to the beginning of time. They used the same argument to get funding for the multi-billion dollar HST program and it is explicitly expressed in many other of their articles. Other people express the view that they can look back in time as well, and the illogic of that idea perverts science by having young, impressionable people thinking about nonsensical ideas that have zero chance of being correct.

Cartoon theories such as black holes, infinite density, big bangs and ten or twelve dimensional space, which all rely on physics not existing at some critical point for them to exist, are nothing more than a chimera. There are different reasons for people to present such fallacious theories, but none of the reasons will ever make any of that nonsense practical.

When you are discussing light, you should present your idea of how you think a photon travels through space. Your idea implies that each photon has an eternal momentum and an eternal life, when in reality nothing maintains a constant physical condition forever. Except maybe diamonds.......or is that just a gimmick to get you to buy some overpriced stones?

Why you would mention that you are blocking me from sending you messages is a puzzle to me, and heart rending. When did you expect to get the first one? Anyway, if that's what you did, don't bother inviting me to your birthday party, either.

Hurkyl

The problem is you do more than simply question. You are asserting claims in direct opposition with the conventional view. The instant you step across the line between skepticism and denial, you have to fulfill the burden of proof.

(Note: By "denial" I mean simply that you deny a claim. In other words, you assert that the claim is false. I am not using the colloquial meaning of "denial": refusal to accept a truth)

LogicalAtheist

For once I agree with Hurkyl![:D]

John MacNeil

Well, if I couldn't present a logical view that is in direct opposition to the conventional view, then I would have no basis for claiming that much of the conventional view is hogwash. The difference between my view and what you call the conventional view is that I think in terms of physics and much of the conventional view is daydreaming that goes beyond physics and which is given credibility by the simple expedient of being repeated ad nauseum. When the proponents of those cartoon theories claim that physics breaks down just before their theory can take effect, then that should be a giant red flag to anyone who studies physics with honorable intent.

And why is it now the responsibility of someone who thinks physics is the tool for describing the universe who is responsible for providing the proof that cartoon theories are not reality? Aren't the ones who propose the theories supposed to attempt to provide the proof that their theory has validity? How and when did that get turned completely around? All anyone seems to need anymore to get a theory accorded a place in theoretical physics is for them to have a vivid imagination. In reality, that kind of daydreaming is nothing more than science fiction, and that is the only realm that it belongs in.

As far as time goes, there is no possibility of looking back in time in any way, shape or form. All matter exists in real time and it is never static, therefore time can never be reversed. When we look back on a light stream that is projected off of a distant object, we are looking at a phenomena that exists at the time we are looking at it. For us to see a representation of the object the lightstream came from, then there must be a connectivity from the photons which are reachng us and the photons which are directly behind it. If there was no connectivity in a photon stream, then there would be a continuous stobe effect of a photon sequencially followed by a blank space.

When photons are first illuminated by the fusion reaction of a star, there must be a propulsive agent which propels them along at their recorded speed of 300,000 kilometer a second. If you say a photon packet is constant, then which energy is it which propels the photon at such an incredible speed? If it is the photon's own energy, then the photon would be degrading in magnitude from the instant it was illuminated until the point it reached it's destination, or until it exhausted it's store of fuel and became dormant.

If the photon energy packet is not using it's own stored energy for propulsion, then another agent must be responsible for pushing the photon along on it's speedy journey. That agent can only be the next photon behind it, which was illuminated immediately after the photon in front and needs to push the photon in front out of the way so that the next photon in the stream can be illuminated and keep the fusion action perpetuating.

Hurkyl

It isn't.

It's the responsibility of someone who claims a theory is not reality to provide proof that the theory is not reality.

Hurkyl

You seem to imply there is something wrong with a "continuous stobe effect of a photon sequencially followed by a blank space".

Go read how a CRT monitor works, or how a television works. Want something hands on? Get a movie projector and a roll of film and investigate for yourself. Go visit your local science museum, they may have one of those "movie cylinders" you can play with; they have holes around the perimiter through which you can look and see still drawings of some object inside. When you spin it slowly, you get a visible strobe effect, but when you spin it quickly the strobe effect vanishes and you see continuously moving images on the inside.


Newton's Laws. Inertia in particular. If no force is acting on an object, then the object's momentum remains constant. If there's no force acting on a photon, then no energy is required to keep the photon hurtling along at the speed of light.




Now that I've put forth some of the "cartoony science" behind these things, I will analyze your claim.


Let's assume this is true.

Let's assume this is true.

Let's also assume this is true.


Then, wouldn't the correct conclusion then be that the second photon must be degrading because it's using its energy to propel the first photon?



So we assume that light travels with this speed.

How can this be true? If an object is 300,000 kilometers away, then the light must have taken 1 second to reach us. How, then, can we be seeing anything but how the object was 1 second ago?

(Q)

John

In just a couple of short weeks it appears you’ve once again firmly established your position as crackpot and kook on yet another science forum. Bravo!

You have also successfully verified my statement in your first thread:

Thanks John!

I'd love to argue your ridicuous assertions but we did that already at Sciforums, ad nauseum - it looks like you've learned nothing since.

John MacNeil

The only thing you did at sciforums, Q, is display the same kind of stupidity which you displayed in that last post. You didn't ever engage in discussion over there, you only made childish remarks about other people's personality (not just mine) in your infantile efforts to discredit anyone who presented a logical view which contrasted with your narrow minded beliefs. I made a thread in the general discussion forum about wacky psuedonyms being a convenient cloak for some ignorent people to lash out irrationally at other people. Perhaps you should put your obviously limited thinking ability to work in that thread and see if you can really insult me in a way that will mean anything. Of course, you will have to use all of your sixty-nine IQ to hope to really insult me, because I don't get angry at fools, ...I pity them.

chroot

What exactly is a sixty-nine IQ? Does having a high sixty-nine IQ mean that you know which end of the girl you're supposed to lick?

- Warren

John MacNeil

Hurkyl, when you say,

..."It's the responsibility of someone who claims a theory is not reality to provide proof that the theory is not reality."

...you are saying that any theory that anyone can think up is true until it is proven wrong. That clearly is not the case, or alien visitations, alien spaceships, alien abductions, ghosts, the loch ness monster, bigfoot, fairies, and a gazillion other things would have to be regarded as true until they are scientifically shown not to be true. The onus has always been on the presenters of theories to prove their case, not the other way around.

When you use a projector as an example for the possibility of light having a blank space between each photon, your example is only dealing with the limitations of our vision. There are plenty of animals in the world which have far better vision that we humans do, so our physical ability to perceive light with our eyes cannot be deemed to be unique, nor to be used as a scientific measurement tool. We have to delve deeper and try and imagine what are the physical characteristics of photons and what force propels them.

You mention Newton's Laws declaring that if no force is acting on an object then it's momentum remains constant. What we have to do first, is imagine how the photon gained the momentum in the first place. So when we try to imagine how the photon first began moving we must conclude that it is either using it's own physical reaction as a propellant , in which case it would be using a portion of it's own energy to travel, or it is being pushed by something. Those are the only two options. If we believe that the photon is using it's own energy, then we have to have a reasonable explanation of how it came into being at the point of fusion and how did it use it's own energy to travel away from gravity. In any event, after the photon came into being there would immediately be another photon right behind it and that second photon would need to push the first photon out of the way in order for it to have a place to reside. Since the second photon is already described as having to push the first photon out of the way in order for it to take it's place in the light stream, then the logical conclusion is that all photons push the preceding photon out of the way so that they can take their place in the photon stream.

It makes no sense to attribute two acceleration characteristics to a single action, so the idea of a photon supplying it's own momentum must be discarded and the idea of photons pushing the preceding photons along is the only logical conclusion because those second photons have to come into being and they have to have a place to be . If the photons are physically pushing each other along, then they must be in contact to such an extent that there is a connectivity of photons all along the photon stream.

The photons don't carry pictures engraved on their surface. They enable us to see things by them being bright and by their being in contact with each other, so it doesn't matter what distance the light has to travel for us to see an object in real time. If each photon is in physical contact with the photons in front and behind it, then they prevent each other from decaying by keeping each packet of energy corralled as long as it is in transit. The photon stream does take a long time to reach us when it first comes from a distant object, but it is not delivering pictures of the object, it is illuminating a path to the object. When we use telescopes we look along the path of light and see the object at the other end. The photon stream needs a constant source of new photons in order to maintain the pressure which keeps the photons moving. If the source of the new photons was suddenly expunged, then the photon stream would have to scatter because it would not have a force of new photons to keep it moving in a uniform direction.

(Q)

John

The difference between my view and what you call the conventional view is that I think in terms of physics

Really? Let’s have a look at your view and compare that to conventional physics.

Aren't the ones who propose the theories supposed to attempt to provide the proof that their theory has validity?

They can test the theories by experimenting and see if the observations match the theory – so can anyone else for that matter.

How and when did that get turned completely around? All anyone seems to need anymore to get a theory accorded a place in theoretical physics is for them to have a vivid imagination

Name one person that follows that criterion.

As far as time goes, there is no possibility of looking back in time in any way, shape or form. All matter exists in real time and it is never static, therefore time can never be reversed. When we look back on a light stream that is projected off of a distant object, we are looking at a phenomena that exists at the time we are looking at it.

Therefore, according to you, light travels instantaneously. Conventional physics states that light travels at c. If it travels a c then it must take time to travel great distances, which would suggest that the distant object we are looking at is the object, as it existed some time ago. Would that not constitute looking into the past, John?

For us to see a representation of the object the lightstream came from, then there must be a connectivity from the photons which are reachng us and the photons which are directly behind it. If there was no connectivity in a photon stream, then there would be a continuous stobe effect of a photon sequencially followed by a blank space.

And do you see the individual frames and their borders when you watch a movie? Movies run at a frame rate of about 30 frames per second – how many photons do you think are entering your eye in one second, John?

When photons are first illuminated by the fusion reaction of a star, there must be a propulsive agent which propels them along at their recorded speed of 300,000 kilometer a second. If you say a photon packet is constant, then which energy is it which propels the photon at such an incredible speed?

You said it yourself, the energy released from the star.

If it is the photon's own energy, then the photon would be degrading in magnitude from the instant it was illuminated until the point it reached it's destination, or until it exhausted it's store of fuel and became dormant.

Are you referring to the “Tired Light” theory? There is no known way in which a photon can lose its energy without changing in other observable ways, like interacting with other particles, for example. If it did, we would not be able to observe distant objects as we do now.

So what is it that you suggest would cause photons to degrade in magnitude and lose their energy, John?

If the photon energy packet is not using it's own stored energy for propulsion, then another agent must be responsible for pushing the photon along on it's speedy journey.

The photon is not a little putt-putt boat, John. Propulsion suggests acceleration – photons don’t accelerate.

That agent can only be the next photon behind it, which was illuminated immediately after the photon in front and needs to push the photon in front out of the way so that the next photon in the stream can be illuminated and keep the fusion action perpetuating.

Photons are also not little tugboats, John. They don’t need to push or be pushed. They propagate freely because of the permittivity and permeability of space. Try reading up on Maxwell’s equations.

Well John, it appears your view certainly does not comply with conventional physics or any physics at all for that matter.

What’s next up on your kooky madcap agenda?

Hurkyl

That is incorrect. The status of "a gazillion other things" would be regarded as indeterminate; neither verified nor falsified... and this the appropriate way to treat them because they have been neither verified nor falsified.



Since you were somewhat vague on the issue, I had to try to fill in the details myself. Since I am apparently wrong, please elaborate on the reason why you stated: "If there was no connectivity in a photon stream, then there would be a continuous stobe effect of a photon sequencially followed by a blank space."


The momentum was stored in the atoms. When the atoms fused, the surplus momentum went into the creation of 1 or more photons.


Conventional science states that as a photon climbs out of a gravity well, it does indeed lose energy (gravitational redshifting) and as it falls into a gravity well it gains energy (gravitational blueshifting).


Please state a reason for both of those claims.


What acceleration? And what do you mean by "characteristics"? Photons don't start at rest and have to accelerate up to speed; they are moving the speed of light at the very moment of their creation.


Correct. The only information they carry is their momentum, or equivalently their direction and color. They enable us to see things by beng sent en masse; it is essentially a mixture of movie projection and pointillism. At least, so says conventional science.

drag

[:D]
All ends would be the best choice. [;)]

John MacNeil

Is that so, Hurkyl? By that reckoning the big bang theory should be treated as indeterminate more so than aliens visiting our planet. There are plenty of eyewitnesses who claim they saw alien spaceships, and there are none who claim they saw the big bang. When you deal with any theory that has no possibility of being proved scientifically, then you have to be skeptical of the veracity of the presented claim. As far as the big bang and black holes and other cartoon theories go, when they claim physics must stop working at some point for their theories to have an origin, then you should deduce right away that those kind of theory are illogical and are the work of shoddy thinking, or fraud.

The whole idea about photons needing to be in physical contact with other photons in a photon stream is dependant on the photons being pushed away from the gravity of the star by being so numerous that the presence of the newly formed ones continually added to the stream forces the outermost photons beyond the gravity of the star, and hence into space. It is not enough to assert that photons have a momentum inherent with their creation. We have to try to figure out how they get that momentum, and describe it in a way that satisfies physical laws, or it is not science. To state that photons "just have momentum" is equivalent to saying that black holes condense millions of star down to the size of a basketball without ever giving a physical explanation how they could do that. Saying that physics breaks down at such a point, or that it changes into something else altogether, is a childish assertion and avoids reality. Bugs Bunny can throw a black hole on the ground and jump into it, but that kind of fantasy doesn't happen for real physics.

When we regard photons in a photon stream, then we have to imagine how they are propelled. If they have their own propulsion, then the possibility that a black blank space could exist behind each one might have some validity, or at least it would be worth investigating with further thought experiments. But if we go that route, we would have to also agree that since the photon is using it's own energy to travel on, then that energy would naturally have to be limited by the size of the photon and would therefore be susceptible to burning out before it got anywhere. We would also have to think of a physical action that occurs within the photon that could give it directional flight. Those possibilities effectively eliminate the constant speed of light because it would have to be assumed that the photon could regulate it's burn rate by turning itself on and off by degrees in order to maintain a constant velocity. Since the photon having it's own internal propulsion system presents insurmountable problems, then we must move on to the next logical idea, and that is that an outside force is acting on the photon in order to move it away from the star.

We know that light travels at approximately 300,000 kilometer a second, so if we agree that photons are tiny packets of energy, then a continuous succession of photons must be created at the point of fusion at a rate which equates to the amount of photons that would fit end to end in a 300,000 kilometer line in one second. Whatever that huge, astronomical number would be, is the speed at which photons are created. The photons coming into being at any one point cannot occupy the same space in which the previous photon is sitting, so if the previously created photon is not accelerating out of the way by using a propulsion method of it's own, then the newly forming photon must give it a push in order to occupy a space. The fundamental nature of light leads us to believe that photons are virtually identical in size and energy, because of their constancy while in motion, so we can conclude that a photon can can have a regulatory effect on the speed of light by it's creation process.

Edited: Just corrected the mispelled word 'say' to 'saw' and added the word 'in' for clarification.

FZ+

No. The difference is that of all the theories, the idea that the current order of the universe has a finite beginning best explains the cosmic background radiation, spectral analysis of matter composition, red shifting we see. Meanwhile there are a variety of alternative explanations to UFO sightings that correspond better to evidence that the assertion of alien visitation. So while big bang has a hugh truth value, alien visitation has a low one. Skepticism is useless without alternatives.

The sort of proof you want, no theory at all can be proved. The thing about big bang and the others is that they make specific predictions that have been shown to be correct, and have been constructed from assumptions that have been experimentally confirmed. This is about as good as it gets. True that some parts cannot be proven, and some could not be known about, but testability does certainly exist.

No, you cannot make that deduction, because there is no reason for you to do so. You can test the predictions and assumptions made, to see if they correspond to reality. Since I have not seen a cartoon featuring the Big Bang, I will not deign to comment on that particular idiocy.

That is nonsense, because gravity as a force is infinite. There is no way to go beyond the gravity of the star.

Let's at this point define what you mean by physical laws. Newtonian mechanics? Aristotlean philosophy? Because you don't seem to notice that the momentum of photons is in itself a physical law. Photons have a set velocity, because they are based on the propagation of magnetic and electrical waves. (Read on Maxwell's equations) Photons have momentum because momentum is based on mass, and mass is a form of energy. (Read up on Einstein's Relativity) To say that photons do not have momentum is in itself an assertion, and one easily disprove the moment you point a torch at a needle in a vacuum flask, and watch the needle move by photonic pressure.

Yep, they are equivalently true, as any further study on your part would show. But if you don't try to understand, they are equivalently meaningless.

Do you by any chance know what reality IS? Reality is real in itself. Our physical laws are made by us to describe reality. They are imperfect, because we made them. These imperfect laws are broken and remade in each moment of discovery, and we accept that they may only be true within a very specific context. To say that our present laws will remain forever inviolate, to ignore the inherent exceptions that exist in each of our laws, to say that what we made in a experiment on earth is always valid is not just a childish assertion that ignores the reality of the universe, but is a foundamental disagreement with the scientific principle - WE DON'T KNOW THE TRUTH.

No, there is no bugs bunny.

Or better yet REAL experiments, which all confirm that there is a black, blank space behind each one.

Do you understand Newton's laws? Or the conservation of energy? The photons do not expend energy to travel, and if they did expend energy, where would it go?

Do you know what a photon IS? A photon is a wavepacket. Within the photon, there are two kinds of field - an electric field, and a magnetic field. These fields mutually generate each other, and hence they propogate. A photon is not a smart missile. It is a case of magnetic induction in action. The speed of light, c is itself expressed from c = 1/(electric field constant * magnetic field constant)^0.5

Hurkyl

That's why the actual scientific version of those theories don't make those kinds of claims. That's why "black hole theory" talks about the observable effects of the area of space around the black hole such as accretion disks, frame dragging, and x-ray jets. That's why general relativists always caution that, according to GR, any speculation on what happens inside the event horizon must remain just that; speculation. That's why big bang theorists cringe every time popular media says that they predict an initial singularity when the theorists are just saying that some time in the past, the universe was compressed into a comparitavely small volume and they don't have any evidence for what happened before that.


I know of the law of conservation of momentum. The momentum of the fusion byproducts is less than the momentum of the fuel, thus there is surplus momentum when the reaction occurs. That's from where the photons' momenta come from. Quantum mechanics may have additional conservation laws that explain the phenomenon better, but I don't know them off the top of my head.


No conventional scientific theory claims that millions of stars get condensed down to the size of a basketball.





Let's try some household facts about light to see how your theory holds up. How do you explain mirrors, transluscence, rainbows, and prisms? How do you explain why the sky is blue and the sunset orange? How do you explain that you can make yellow light by mixing red light and green light? How do you explain that some yellow light cannot be seperated into a red and green parts? How do you explain how light can have a color at all? How do you explain the brilliance of a diamond? How do you explain the colors when you reflect light off of a CD? How do you explain the swirling colors in a thin film of gasoline? How do you explain diffraction patterns when you shine light through a slit?

Phobos

[s(]
This topic is hanging on by a thread. Heated debate is acceptable but I have no more patience for cheap personal insults and dirty jokes here.