Why do some people deny the evidence for the Big Bang Theory?

[nicktacik]

I was arguing with someone who denies big bang cosmology. I presented him with the following evidences
-Hubble's law
-CMB
-Abundance of helium
-Existence of deuterium

But apparently this did not convince him. Can someone point me in the direction of more evidences?

 

[Wallace]

http://www.simonsingh.net/Big_Bang.html is a good explanation at a popular level.

 

[mathman]

I was arguing with someone who denies big bang cosmology. I presented him with the following evidences
-Hubble's law
-CMB
-Abundance of helium
-Existence of deuterium

But apparently this did not convince him. Can someone point me in the direction of more evidences?

If someone doesn't want to accept the evidence for the big bang, there is not much you can do. Some people believe is the Genesis version of creation and no evidence otherwise will persuade them.

 

[nicktacik]

If someone doesn't want to accept the evidence for the big bang, there is not much you can do. Some people believe is the Genesis version of creation and no evidence otherwise will persuade them.

His main arguments were that the laws of physics break down at t=0, so it is therefore false. Rubbish, of course. And that he is a "true atheist" since he does not believe in god or the big bang (apparently big bang is akin to genesis creation and atheists should not believe it).

 

[marcus]

His main arguments were that the laws of physics break down at t=0, so it is therefore false.

Well physicists brought this on themselves by making unclear statements to the public.

In fact the theory of General Relativity DOES break down at t = 0.

And it is the prevailing theory of gravity----and the geometry of space.

that doesn't mean ALL the laws fail to apply---we don't know for sure which laws are applicable and which arent (all laws have some range of applicability)

The classical Gen Rel theory IS NOT THE ONLY possible model for the geometry of space. There are quantized versions of cosmology which reproduce all the classical successes and also do not break down at t = 0, but they HAVEN'T BEEN CONCLUSIVELY TESTED YET.

So your friend is right that GR breaks down. He is wrong to make a blanket that ALL laws break down. And the scientists who told him about GR breaking down SHOULD have told him that considerable progress is being made on fixing GR so that it will NOT break down. Quantizing the classic cosmological model so that it won't develop singularities.

I tend to agree with Mathman that some people you just can't argue with.
So you are cordially invited to hang out here at PF where there are quite a few people you can engage in reasonable discussion

 

[marcus]

I was arguing with someone who denies big bang cosmology. I presented him with the following evidences
-Hubble's law
-CMB
-Abundance of helium
-Existence of deuterium

But apparently this did not convince him. Can someone point me in the direction of more evidences?

His main arguments were that the laws of physics break down at t=0, so it is therefore false.

Well actually that kind of makes sense. If someone is a real stickler, he could object to classic bigbang cosmology because it breaks down at t=0.

Reasonable people tend to forgive it for failing at t=0 because it does so remarkably well right back to, but not including, that instant. But this guy is not in the mood to be reasonable. So there is no way to satisfy him with the classic theory.

but there IS theory in the works that goes right back to t=0 and into the timeperiod before that, and does NOT break down.

Can someone point me in the direction of more evidences?

You want something to cite as a reference. But if his objection is that the classic model breaks down then you can't overcome that just by citing more evidence that the classic model works back to but not including that time.
You already gave plenty of evidence for it working for all t > 0.

what you have to persuade him, I think, is that cosmological models don't HAVE to break down at t = 0, merely because the currently favored classic theory fails there.

the failure of the laws of physics (that he talked about) is not a fact of nature, but is simply a failing of the 1915 GR theory (which predicts infinities at t = 0, infinite curvature and density---a nonsense context in which other laws cannot be applied)

there are dozens of papers that have been published in professional journals recently about the quantized version, which does not break down but continues back (with a changeover from contraction to expansion). That is evidence that the laws of physics do not HAVE to break down.

the fact that they happen to fail in the familiar publicized case is just an artifact
of what model one choses to use. maybe that would make him wake up.
if you want links to preprint copy of some quantum cosmology (QC) papers just say. much of what has been published in the past 2 or 3 years is available free online.

 

[dimensionless]

He might just dismiss things that he does not understand. With a background in general physics, the existence of the following is not persuasive of big bang theory:

-Hubble's law
-CMB
-Abundance of helium
-Existence of deuterium

What is so special about the CMB, abundance of helium, and existence of deuterium that he should believe in the big bang? Hubble's law may be consistent with the big bang, but by itself, it is not sufficient to reach big bang theory as a conclusion.

I imagine that having more background in the field of cosmology would help me understand the argument for the existence of the big bang. For the time being, I can only accept it on faith.

 

[russ_watters]

It shouldn't be hard for even a layman to understand the significance of the four pillars of the Big Bang: http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/bb_pillars.html

 

[dimensionless]

They can be understood, but the 1,000 word explanation and the typical hour long television show are not all that comprehensive. The idea is a lot to chew on. It just begs the question: Are you sure about all this? -because, on the surface it sounds a little bit crazy. It reminds me of the tribesman, completely detached from industrial society, who tried to provide an explanation for the source of tsunamis.

 

[russ_watters]

I don't know why it would sound crazy. You have a simple choice: you can accept that people who have studied the phenomenea for decades aren't complete idiots or you can look at a concept, think it is crazy and think people who have studied it for decades are complete idiots.

Seriously, how hard is this: The universe is expanding. So in the past, the universe must have been a lot smaller.

It shouldn't be hard for even a layman to understand the significance of the four pillars of the Big Bang.

 

[Chronos]

I prefer the T>0 explanation. Trying to explain time before time confuses me. The part after T=0 seems fairly simple.

 

[dimensionless]

I don't know why it would sound crazy. You have a simple choice: you can accept that people who have studied the phenomenea for decades aren't complete idiots or you can look at a concept, think it is crazy and think people who have studied it for decades are complete idiots.

Seriously, how hard is this: The universe is expanding. So in the past, the universe must have been a lot smaller.

It shouldn't be hard for even a layman to understand the significance of the four pillars of the Big Bang.

I will admit, I'm not in a very good position to argue with those who have studied it for decades. I might also be derailing this thread somewhat, I'm not sure.

Back to the tribesman analogy. There are people living on remote islands in the Indian Ocean. They have no contact with industrial society. When one of these tribesman asked about the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, he explained that the world sits on top of a giant tree. Something shook the tree and caused the water to roll out. The three swung back, and with it came a wall of water.

When I think about it from his point of view, he has a very logical explanation. How could the ground shake if the world did not sit on top of a giant tree. Nothing else in his known universe can shake like that. The tree theory is also consistent with both the water rolling out, and the tidal wave that came back.

I wouldn't stake my reputation on all this, but I have trouble discerning the quality of the logic behind the tribesman's tree theory of tidal waves and the physicist's big bang theory of origin.

 

[russ_watters]

Even given the tribesman's access to data, there are no known trees strong enough to hold up the world. So that "theory" has a pretty obvious flaw that even the tribesman should see. His biggest problem isn't with what he doesn't know but rather with applying logic to what he does know.

If you are having trouble following/accepting the logic, then I guess the place to start is with study of the scientific process/method, not with trying to understand actual theories.

Still, I have trouble understanding why people can't see that Hubble expansion implies a big bang. It is such a straightforward piece of information and logical implication. Can you explain the trouble you have with this?

 

[dimensionless]

The tribesman has reached a reasonable explanation. While you may see obvious "flaws" in his theory, there are comparable ones in the big bang theory. The problem with the tribesman's theory is that it is based on a limited knowledge of the universe. Like the tribesman, our knowledge of the universe is also limited. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, our knowledge of the universe might very well be approximately equal to his. As for Hubble's law, a 90 dimensional universe would provide for plenty of other explanations.

 

[marcus]

With a background in general physics,...

-Hubble's law
-CMB
-Abundance of helium
-Existence of deuterium

What is so special about the CMB, abundance of helium, and existence of deuterium that he should believe in the big bang? Hubble's law may be consistent with the big bang, but by itself, it is not sufficient to reach big bang theory as a conclusion.

I imagine that having more background in the field of cosmology would help me understand the argument for the existence of the big bang. For the time being, I can only accept it on faith.

two reactions
1. what theory of gravity do you accept? for a lot of us, the evidence for GR (except where it develops singularities and does not apply) is persuasive. the precision with which it agrees with observation is impressive.

but do you have an alternative model of gravity that you prefer?

2. if you accept GR as a good approximation (except at the places it fails to compute) then some of what you say I find inconsistent.
Because assuming uniformity (homog. isotrop.) seems pretty reasonable and, if you add that to GR, you get expanding universe solutions!

So what's crazy? If you already accept GR, then you can't pretend to be in the position of a naive primitive tribesman who can't comprehend things. The expanding universe picture has to look pretty reasonable to you because it comes right out of GR.

But you say:

They can be understood, but the 1,000 word explanation and the typical hour long television show are not all that comprehensive. The idea is a lot to chew on. It just begs the question: Are you sure about all this? -because, on the surface it sounds a little bit crazy...

So I have to question your consistency, dimensionless. Are you who you say? You started out suggesting you have a "general physics background" and now you are shifting viewpoint and saying "think about the guy who watches an hour TV show, shouldn't he be skeptical?"

Who are you then? Are you one of the great mass of clueless who watch science popularization TV? Or are you in part textbook-educated?
Are you saying that an expanding universe picture seems crazy to YOU? Or are you worried about it seeming crazy to SOMEBODY ELSE?
Could you be appealing rhetorically to the existence of a Homer Simpson, the average TV viewer, who may well find the science fare crazy but that's another issue.

People like us at PF are obviously not responsible for whatever may be misleading or confusing on sci-pop TV, that really is a whole other issue which we can't very well address here. I for one do not watch TV and I don't have the necessary familiarity with it to respond cogently and discuss specific mistakes.

The reason I ask you for some consistent self-definition is because we get a certain kind of anti-science termite-type visitor who uses POPULIST RHETORIC in the age-old know-nothing tradition of American politics and whose main agenda is to undermine science credibility.
I'm not calling you one of them, I just want you to know this. I've met a bunch and their aim is not to learn but to discredit.
And they often use a ploy of attacking the alleged HUBRIS of scientists. (whereas people in the scientific community must be humbly aware of limitations of knowledge since they deal with testable theories in a systematically skeptical way---statements are normally qualified by reference to the theory)
The attack on science also uses the ploy of STANDING UP FOR THE unschooled LITTLE GUY, although the attacker rarely seems to be the little guy himself and it is doubtful that the little guy benefits in any way from the attack.

So basically they come here and they engage in a subtle AD HOMINEM ATTACK against scientists in general (hubris, arrogance, egg-heads, big-brains, talking down to the little guy, pushing "crazy" ideas the little guy can't grasp, and all the faults of sci-pop TV programs...)

It is a low-key persistent ad hominem attrition-war, and often people come in who use these ploys in a very gentle soft way---sometimes seem motivated by religion as if scientists are somehow infringing on theo-turf---often they seem to be asking US here at PF to explain or defend some vague impression that they or someone they know got from watching TV---often there is this Science is myth message which comes thru in your harping on the "primitive tribesman explaining the tsunami" story.

I'd like to ask you to stop repeating and repeating reference to your "tribesman" story. Just forget it. If empirical science is a type of myth (which I doubt) then it is a coherent system of myths which has made thousands of fruitful predictions and is constantly being tested to the full extent possible.
The comparison with primitive myth is propagandistic rather than informative. Instead of harping on your "tribesman" story, why don't you say what it is precisely that you want explained, and we can, if we choose, try to do our best to explain it.

I am assuming you have a general physics background, as you seemed to indicate, and that you are NOT one of those people who consistently fan populist resentment of science.

thanks,

Marcus

 

[russ_watters]

The tribesman has reached a reasonable explanation.

No. The tribesman knows darn well that there are no trees big enough to hold up the Earth. If he doesn't, then he just plain isn't thinking.

While you may see obvious "flaws" in his theory, there are comparable ones in the big bang theory.

Such as?

The problem with the tribesman's theory is that it is based on a limited knowledge of the universe.

No. He has plenty of knowledge to know his "theory" can't be right.

As for Hubble's law, a 90 dimensional universe would provide for plenty of other explanations.

I've never heard that - can you explain it?

 

[dimensionless]

No. The tribesman knows darn well that there are no trees big enough to hold up the Earth.

The Earth shakes like a tree
Nothing else in the world shakes the same way that a trees does
Therefore,
The Earth sits on a giant tree.

If he doesn't, then he just plain isn't thinking. Such as?

We know of no place that is large enough to contain an expanding universe. You and I both know that. If such a place did exist, one could reason that it might also have trees big enough to hold up the Earth.

He has plenty of knowledge to know his "theory" can't be right.

I think what he is trying to do, is come up with the best explanation he can based on the available knowledge. This is the same process by which scientists came up with the big bang model.

I've never heard that - can you explain it?

If there were 90 dimensions in the universe, then our perceived 4 dimensional universe might have some kind of interaction with the other 86. It's easy for me to imagine some process in the 86 that leaks Gaussian radiation into our 4.

 

[marcus]

the time and temperature of de-coupling?

my understanding is that decoupling preceded the origin of the CMB by hundreds of thousands of years.

AFAIK the Microwave Background comes from the epoch of last scattering, sometimes called "recombination", ordinarily supposed to be around 380,000 years after beginning of expansion.
===============

You wrote to Martin Rees the Astronomer Royal, as I understand. Did he write back saying that your analysis was correct? Or did he simply NOT reply that your analysis was incorrect? There is some ambiguity in your post about this.

 

[cristo]

===============

You wrote to Martin Rees the Astronomer Royal, as I understand. Did he write back saying that your analysis was correct? Or did he simply NOT reply that your analysis was incorrect? There is some ambiguity in your post about this.

That is exactly what I was thinking, Marcus.

Bernard, exactly which cosmologists did you send you work to? And did any of them reply and tell you that your work was correct? I note from your webpage that you studied at QMUL (presumably for a PhD?) I presume, therefore, that you sent your work to some of the cosmologists there. Did they tell you you were correct?

 

[Bernard0Bligh]

To Correspondents on the Hot Big Bang Theory,
I will try and answer all the questions raised.
Yes, according to the Hot Big Bang Theory the Microwave Background Radiation is supposed to come from the epoch when the Universe changed from being opaque to being transparent, - recombination of protons and electrons to make hydrogen (I thought that the term "de-coupling" was also used for this epoch).
By the way, this "Recombination" should yield the energy of ionization which is 1,318,000,000 joules per kg. The energy of ionization of helium is even larger! These are enormous amounts of energy, - many orders of magnitude greater than gravitational energy, but they are completely ignored by cosmologists. The straight line graphs of the (supposed) cooling of the Universe are wrong. This is more evidence that the Hot Big Bang Theory is fallacious.
Yes, I did study Astrophysics at Queen Mary College, London, and I sent a copy of my paper showing that the CMB ought to have a "smeared spectrum" to Dr. P. Ade there; he did not reply.
I also sent my paper to Prof. S.W. Hawking (Cambridge), Prof. P. J. E. Peebles (Princeton), Sir Martin Rees and many more.
My past tutor from Oxford University and one other correspondent agreed that my analysis is correct.
None of the others replied except Sir Martin Rees.
He replied that the "entropy is overwhelmingly in the radiation and not in the hydrogen". I did some more calculations - following his line of thought, and I showed that it did not really work. I sent my calculations to him but he did not reply a second time.
In summary, so frequently cosmologists use "hand-waving arguments" to support the Hot Big Bang Theory without actually putting in numbers and doing the calculations.
The point is that matter has properties, - pressure, temperature, density, internal energy, enthalpy, entropy, energy of ionization and energy of combination (atoms of hydrogen to molecules). These need to be evaluated and used in rigorous calculations; this I have done, - but cosmologists haven't.
By the way, the original correspondent, who raised the question, and who used the helium content of the Universe as evidence for the Hot Big Bang Theory, is now on shaky ground. Latest observations show that the helium content in distant galaxies is not what the theory demands.
Bernard R. Bligh.

 

[hellfire]

By the way, this "Recombination" should yield the energy of ionization which is 1,318,000,000 joules per kg. The energy of ionization of helium is even larger! These are enormous amounts of energy, - many orders of magnitude greater than gravitational energy, but they are completely ignored by cosmologists.

The distortion of the CMB spectrum due to recombination lines at the recombination epoch is certainly not ignored by cosmologist but neglected. There is a fairly amount of literature on this subject. See for example this paper and the references therein:

The imprint of cosmological hydrogen recombination lines on the power spectrum of the CMB, J.A. Rubino-Martin, C. Hernandez-Monteagudo, R.A. Sunyaev

 

[Bernard0Bligh]

If the correspondent will give me the full reference - Rubino-Martin, Hernandez-Monteagudo and Sunyaev, I will have a look at it.
I have read at least 14 books on Cosmology and scores of scientific papers and none of them apply the fact that the energy of ionization of hydrogen is 1,318,000,000 joules per kg.
A standard work is Weinberg's "Gravitation and Cosmology" and he makes no reference to this numerical value.
There is a paper by Peebles et alia (1965) showing a straight line graph between temperature and expansion factor; this is certainly wrong; it cannot be a straight line because this ionization energy would make a severe kink in the curve. I have written to Prof. Peebles about this twice but he has not replied.
Bernard R. Bligh.

 

[George Jones]

If the correspondent will give me the full reference - Rubino-Martin, Hernandez-Monteagudo and Sunyaev, I will have a look at it.

Click on one of the download links on the right of page to which hellfire gave a link.

 

[hellfire]

I have read at least 14 books on Cosmology and scores of scientific papers and none of them apply the fact that the energy of ionization of hydrogen is 1,318,000,000 joules per kg.

Your calculation seams to be correct. I assumed all of the recombination photons to be Lyman-alpha photons with 13.6 eV (other recombination lines neglected) and I get a similar result for one kg hydrogen.

However, your conclusion seams to be wrong. You have to note that there is a baryon-to-photon ratio of about 10^-9. If we assume that all the protons recombine into neutral hydrogen that emit one Lyman-alpha photon we will get one recombination photon against 10⁹ photons of the background, which is negligible. I don't think it is necessary to do a calculation of energy density or temperature to verify this.

Precision measurements of the CMB might measure recombination lines considering on the other hand that those photons have very specific wavelenghts today a bit smaller than the peak microwave background photons at 2 mm (as you can verify considering that a Lyman-alpha photon has a wavelength of 1216 Angstrom and is redshifted by a factor of 1000).

I think that the paper I mentioned previously (astro-ph/0502571) goes into more details and mentions also future detection.

 

[Nereid]

I was arguing with someone who denies big bang cosmology. I presented him with the following evidences
-Hubble's law
-CMB
-Abundance of helium
-Existence of deuterium

But apparently this did not convince him. Can someone point me in the direction of more evidences?

Aside from one item not on the list (large-scale structure, or P(k)), there's a perhaps subtle, or not, aspect that's missing: consistency.

To me, one of the most astonishing things about modern cosmological models is their consistency ... the observational results match the models, across such a range of quite independent approaches*!

Going beyond the evidences, there are two other aspects worthy of at least mention:

-> What's the alternative? For several centuries now, science has been about 'the best theory', not 'the truth, nothing but the truth, ...'. Wrt cosmology, AFAIK, there's nothing at all that even adequately addresses even two of the four/five pillars, consistently, much less the whole lot.

-> How do we come to the LCDM models, observationally? Pause for a minute and consider this. The answer is ... totally, entirely, and completely through the passive detection of photons^. The rest of cosmology rests on a principle (or set of principles) and extrapolation of what's been determined, through 'lab experiments', 'here'.

*AFAIK, there's only one fly in the ointment - the primordial abundance of Li.[/size]
^OK, I exaggerated somewhat; beyond the solar system astronomy also includes a few neutrinos and an isotropic rain of cosmic rays ... and the non-detection of DM particles and GWR.[/size]

 

[mattex]

What's the alternative? For several centuries now, science has been about 'the best theory', not 'the truth, nothing but the truth, ...'.

I wonder here, what does it take for a new "paradigm" if you will, to emerge & be taken seriously? Wouldn't ANYTHING that opposed the mainstream be instantaneously lampooned out the door? I have this awful feeling that we are stuck with the established science we have today, even if it turns out to be wrong. Human beings are generally very hostile towards change. Must be an insecurity thing.

Sure, science is about "best model", not truth per se... But I always wonder, what of "Truth"? Does it exist? Where is it? What is it?

Nereid's comments suggest that this "Truth" is unobtainable!? If so, why science? If all is meaningless...WHY BOTHER?

 

[Nereid]

I wonder here, what does it take for a new "paradigm" if you will, to emerge & be taken seriously? Wouldn't ANYTHING that opposed the mainstream be instantaneously lampooned out the door? I have this awful feeling that we are stuck with the established science we have today, even if it turns out to be wrong. Human beings are generally very hostile towards change. Must be an insecurity thing.

Sure, science is about "best model", not truth per se... But I always wonder, what of "Truth"? Does it exist? Where is it? What is it?

Nereid's comments suggest that this "Truth" is unobtainable!? If so, why science? If all is meaningless...WHY BOTHER?

If it's Truth^TM that you're looking for, then I've got bad news for you mattex: you've come to the wrong place.

The Nereid version of science (well, at least physics, astrophysics, cosmology et al.) goes something like this: Theories are the engine.

Theories should pass the 'three consistencies' test:
-> be internally consistent
-> be consistent with other, well-established, theories where the respective domains of applicability overlap
-> be consistent with all relevant, good observational and experimental results.

Not a word about 'truth', much less "Truth^TM" (spoken in a deep, booming bass voice).

In this scheme, science (physics) has a certain darwinian quality - survival of the fittest theory. Indeed, competition between theories can be fierce, and survival of theories may require adaptation.

As for lampooning, well, if an alternative has obvious inconsistencies (and many of those you read on crackpot websites do have such), it richly deserves all the lampooning it will get.

For more serious new ideas, whether part of the mainstream or an alternative, critical testing is essential; one thing to realize here is that the critical examination is not an attack on the person proposing the idea ... or it should not be.

And of course new ideas do go from being wild alternatives to mainstream; for example, almost none of the key elements of LCDM models even existed a century ago, so they weren't even alternatives back then!

Oh, and in closing, even the briefest of reviews of the history of physics is likely to lead you to conclude that all of contemporary physics is 'wrong' in some sense or other.

 

[russ_watters]

Nereid's comments suggest that this "Truth" is unobtainable!? If so, why science? If all is meaningless...WHY BOTHER?

The fact that science cannot provide "Truth" does not in any way imply that "all is meaningless." It's like saying your car is useless because it doesn't fly. That just ain't what your car is for!

 

[SpaceTiger]

One thing that drives me crazy about the popular conception of the Big Bang Theory is that the laymen never really seem clear on which aspect of the theory they're trying to refute or why they're trying to refute it. There are probably hundreds or even thousands of comparable scientific paradigms that are never given a second thought by your average person and that most people wouldn't feel qualified to refute...

Yet here we have non-experts trying to compare a vast body of scientific knowledge to the observations of a remote tribesman. Why? What is so compelling about this topic that compels people to argue beyond their grasp?

Just FYI, there are no holes in the expanding universe theory back to nucleosynthesis, at least (though the physical parameters that govern the expansion are still a matter of debate). Prior to that, things get fuzzy, but when most scientists refer to the Big Bang Theory, they're usually referring to the later stuff that we astronomers take for granted. We are still far from understanding everything in cosmology, but the expanding universe blows away all of the competing theories at the moment. Nereid is right that we can never be 100% sure or grasp the absolute truth so many religions claim to be privy to, but the "Big Bang" has long since been filed with Newtonian physics as phenomenological and effective "scientific fact" in their intended regimes.

If you're still unhappy with that, there are many universities to which you can apply, graduate from, and get an astrophysics degree so that you can obtain the necessary prerequisite knowledge to make this into a debate.

If any aspect of this is unclear, feel free to ask in another thread, but please have the humility to accept the explanations given to you by the experts.