Did the Big Bang Theory Withstand Challenges from Eric Lerner and Metaresearch?

[Theatre Of Fate]

Salutations!

What do you think about the objections made by Eric Lerner and http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/BB-top-30.asp against the Big Bang's Theory?

 

[pervect]

Ned Wright has a FAQ page on Eric Lerner's errors

Errors in "The Big Bang Never Happened"

 

[Chronos]

Hi TOF! Welcome to PF. I think those guys are nuts [and I'm not alone]. Pervect gave you a great jumping off place to compare ideas.

 

[Gale]

ya, it happened and you missed it! damn... don't worry, you can catch it next time.

 

[Theatre Of Fate]

Salutations!

I need to study better the refutation made by Dr. Wright. But let me comment a specific point...in the section "Is there dark matter?", Dr. Wright criticizes the MOND model due to the fact that there was not (until that time - 2003) a relativistic version of MOND. However, recently Jacob Bekenstein elaborated a Relativistic gravitation theory for the MOND paradigm.

 

[saltydog]

My goodness. We've come so far from the Middle Ages yet we still seem to have "quantatitively" a similar amount of uncertainty. Will that always be the case? Unfortunately, I think so. 10,000 years from now we will have learned so much; the amount of uncertainty in Astronomy, I think, will remain and be just of a different sort. It is perhaps best that way: an endless regression of complexity perhaps is necessary to give rise to an intellect that considers the question.

 

[turbo]

My goodness. We've come so far from the Middle Ages yet we still seem to have "quantatitively" a similar amount of uncertainty. Will that always be the case? Unfortunately, I think so. 10,000 years from now we will have learned so much; the amount of uncertainty in Astronomy, I think, will remain and be just of a different sort. It is perhaps best that way: an endless regression of complexity perhaps is necessary to give rise to an intellect that considers the question.

Regarding complexity: The standard model gets more and more complex with time as it is massaged to fit observation. (One example: Inflation that switches on, then off again in a smoothly coordinated fashion thoughout the universe.) When we hit on an accurate model, it will likely resolve and eliminate these complexities. The universe cannot obey a complex set of rules and yet remain isotropic and homogeneous. Very small imbalances in behavior would cause huge (and very obvious) anisotropies, which we do not observe. The complexities in the standard model arise because we are interpreting the behavior of the universe incorrectly and have to make adjustments (think epicycles) to make the model conform with observations.

 

[Nereid]

The universe cannot obey a complex set of rules and yet remain isotropic and homogeneous. Very small imbalances in behavior would cause huge (and very obvious) anisotropies, which we do not observe.

Hmm, maybe I've misunderstood ... in that there are four 'fundamental' forces, and a veritable 'zoo' of 'elementary' particles, doesn't the universe 'obey a complex set of rules', at the quantum level, yet quite clearly it remains 'isotropic and homogeneous'? Am I missing something?

There is, indeed, a 'very small imbalance' - the CP violation - and it does result in a 'huge (and very obvious) anisotrophy' ... very little matter, cf antimatter

Yet this 'anisotrophy' was only observed in the last century; who's to say that other 'anisotropies' - perhaps more subtle, but no less 'huge' - will become glaringly obvious in the next century?

 

[Chronos]

Turbo-1, I have nothing left to say. You are a crackpot.

 

[turbo]

Turbo-1, I have nothing left to say. You are a crackpot.

Do you even read and consider anything I post, or do you just lurk about waiting to call me names? Since you are apparently an expert in standard cosmology, please explain why inflation occured, especially the part about how inflation shut off simultaneously in causally-disconnected regions of the universe.

Then you can explain how the gravitational energy of the quantum vacuum is precisely fine-tuned to cancel the expansive pressure of the vacuum (CC almost exactly zero). Please use only those entities assumed by conventional cosmology - you wouldn't want to be a crackpot like me.

 

[turbo]

Hmm, maybe I've misunderstood ... in that there are four 'fundamental' forces, and a veritable 'zoo' of 'elementary' particles, doesn't the universe 'obey a complex set of rules', at the quantum level, yet quite clearly it remains 'isotropic and homogeneous'? Am I missing something?

The observed variety of particles may arise from a very simple set of rules. The non-detection of supersymmetric particles is a plus.

Gravitation (one of the four "fundamental" forces) may in fact not be fundamental. While it is the dominant force at long distances in our universe, it may in fact be an emergent force, resulting from the interaction of matter with the polarized field of the quantum vacuum. Mach believed that inertia arises from the acceleration of matter in reference to a universal background field. Sakharov believed that gravitational attraction and inertia arise from the interaction of matter with the quantum vacuum. Neither proposed a mechanism to explain these behaviors, to my knowledge. I believe that Sakharov got closer to the truth, and that mass, inertia, and gravitation are conferred upon matter by its interaction with the LOCAL quantum vacuum field.

There is, indeed, a 'very small imbalance' - the CP violation - and it does result in a 'huge (and very obvious) anisotrophy' ... very little matter, cf antimatter

That is a very fortunate anisotropy, indeed.

Regarding imbalances and unseen anisotropies: if the gravitational equivalence of the energy of the quantum vacuum is sufficient to crush the universe to a diameter smaller (MUCH smaller actually) than the orbit of our Moon, and the repulsive pressure of the quantum vacuum is 120 OOM too strong to be responsible for the CC, this suggests (screams, in fact) that for these forces to remain in exquisite balance for the life of the universe, both forces must arise from the same field. Regardless of the density at which the virtual particle pairs of the vacuum can be packed by their interaction with mass, they will always come to an equilibrium state in which the Pauli exclusion principle supplies an equivalent repulsive pressure. If these two forces did not arise from the same field, any tiny imbalance in field density would have caused the universe to collapse or explode long ago.

Perhaps less obvious but just as important observationally: If the Higgs field conveys mass to matter and the gravitational field mediates the attraction between masses, these fields must also be remarkably concordant (to the nth degree!), else we would not observe galaxies and clusters behaving in relatively predictable ways all over the observable universe. This is proof that mass and gravitational attraction must arise from the same field.

These remarkable "coincidences" linking mass, gravitational attraction, and Fermionic repulsion (CC) are critical motivations for my ZPE model of gravitation. If these effects do not all arise from the same field, I see no way to derive a stable isotropic universe. Einstein's CC was not a blunder - it is absolutely essential for the formulation of a stable universe. The "blunder" was that he plugged it into GR without accounting for its origin or deriving a mechanism by which it could come to an equilibrium state with gravitation. Of course, he did not have the benefit of decades of work in quantum theory by which he might have figured this out. I am presuming of course that were he alive today, he might have reconciled himself with the notion that quantum theory is telling us important things about the nature of the universe.

Yet this 'anisotrophy' was only observed in the last century; who's to say that other 'anisotropies' - perhaps more subtle, but no less 'huge' - will become glaringly obvious in the next century?

I would like to take the "long view" on this matter, but as I will likely not survive much beyond the first quarter of the next century, I am a bit impatient. I think we already have some keys to the big puzzles in cosmology. We have to be willing to question our assumptions before they can be applied. Here is a link to a nice series of lectures in streaming video that have been given at Princeton. Roger Penrose gave a series of three lectures in October 2003 on "Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe" If you haven't watched them, you'll be interested in his "take" on modern physics.

http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/lectures/

 

[NewScientist]

hey guys,

Cosmology isn't really my thing but wasn't there once an idea that there were may little bangs?! (I do not like how that sounds!)

-NewScientist

 

[turbo]

hey guys,

Cosmology isn't really my thing but wasn't there once an idea that there were may little bangs?! (I do not like how that sounds!)

-NewScientist

Yes, there are variations of steady state cosmology in which matter is continually created in "little bangs". There are also "bounce" models in which the universe forms, expands, collapses, and re-bangs. I have a worse problem with this model than with the conventional BB, because how do you get the previous universe to collapse to a perfect singularity so you can get the next BB? Lee Smolin has also put forward a model in which the universe is fine-tuned to produce black holes, which can spawn new universes beyond our view.

Smolin's black-hole conjecture, which he offered as an alternative to the anthropic principle, has a very interesting side-effect in my polarized vacuum model of gravitation. Since antimatter is preferentially oriented toward masses in our universe in this matter-dominated universe, black holes will absorb an excess of antimatter virtual particles and will produce a net excess of new "real" matter particles via their Hawking radiation. In the antimatter-rich domain on the other side of the black hole's singularity, there will be a universe in which black holes preferentially suck up matter virtual particles, creating a net excess of antiparticles in that universe. Hawking radiation is an incredibly small contribution to the matter in our universe, but in a temporally infinite universe...

 

[setAI]

here is another site exposes the errors of the 'no Bing Bang' cranks: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/RelWWW/wrong.html#bang

 

[Phobos]

Let's keep this topic focused on the OP (a BB model response to the raised objections).

Let's keep personal theories to the TD forum.

Let's keep the name-calling out of PF altogether.