Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by ROMAN ROMACH on April 29, 2011 at 10:30am

This is the first that I've heard of  this theory, so I can't speak to the specifics.  But on a general note:  there has been a spate of theories about the universe, like string theory, then membranes, etc., and they're mind-boggling and fascinating.  But ultimately...so what?  It does not advance our knowledge of the universe in any way.Whether there are 9 dimensions or 11 or 41 matters not one whit!  It does not matter if another dimension exists just a fraction of an inch from me because it will never be proven.  Membranes collide and create the big bang?  Really?  Can you prove it?

 

I agree with the view that astronomy is becoming more like philosophy than a hard science.  Could the universe be an atom in an atom in an atom? 

 

Let's prove the strong theories first - like dark matter and the God Particle - before we convince ourselves that we're just a program in a computer.  

 

 

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on April 30, 2011 at 10:37am

I personally prefer a universe in which physicists are encouraged to follow all of the clues, with all of the hypotheses they generate, to a universe in which outliers are sidelined to wait while the most favored theories, which may not be testable, are proved first.

Permalink Reply by ROMAN ROMACH on April 30, 2011 at 7:20pm

I believe all knowledge is good, and that all current knowledge is born of all that has come before.  I'm not saying that any inquiry is useless; in fact the purist research (curiosity) is what has often given us the most significant discoveries.   But astronomy is a hard science based on observation and measurement - and it's now drifting into hypothetical realms where almost anything is possible as long as the math is good.

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on May 1, 2011 at 10:50am

I sympathize with you longing for hard data. At least Vanishing Dimensions has proposed a gravity wave test, which will eventually be do-able, and particle tests as well. Then there's that hint from the circular dispersion of the highest energy cosmic wave particle showers, instead of conic dispersion. It's something.

Permalink Reply by ROMAN ROMACH on May 1, 2011 at 12:38pm

Yes, and I wasn't knocking that in particular...just the parade of concepts which keep changing and leave me in limbo. : )

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on July 18, 2011 at 1:41am

On astronomy becoming more like philosophy:

I recently saw cosmology defined as astronomy and metaphysics.

One pop physicist on TV said black holes resulted when a someone plugged a point mass into some equations. I wondered "What is a point mass?"

I also doubt big bang theory. It sounds too much like xianity's first cause. The idea of some that space and time originated with the bang sounds like fantasy. It's certainly unprovable.

Beware of cosmologists bearing theories.

Permalink Reply by Susan Stanko on July 18, 2011 at 7:18am

The Big Bang model, or theory, is the prevailing cosmological theory of the early development of the universe.^[1] The theory purports to explain some of the earliest events in the universe (but not the absolute earliest state of things, or where it comes from). Our universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state that expanded rapidly (a "Big Bang"). There is little consensus among physicists about the origins of the universe itself (i.e. just as evolution seeks to explain our past only after the origin of life, the Big Bang theory explains only what happened after the uncertain origin of the universe). 

 

How is this like Christianity's first cause?

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on July 18, 2011 at 10:55pm

Susan, Ptolemy's model once prevailed. Astronomical observations killed it.

A cosmological theory is a guess; a scientific theory is not a guess.

To say the Big Bang created time and space, which cosmologists do say, is unfalsifiable.

The BB is like Xianity's first cause (god) in that it is unfalsifiable.

 

A question for you: the BB theory requires an explosion, sending mass out in all directions. What forces caused galaxies to change direction so that they collide?

Permalink Reply by Susan Stanko on July 19, 2011 at 7:00am

Did you actually read  the Wikipedia article or do you have such an axe to grind against cosmology you refuse?  I actually learned something, I thought it explains the origins of the universe but, it doesn't.  And yes, you don't have to be condicending to me any explain that theories change over time. 

 

http://youtu.be/7ImvlS8PLIo

Permalink Reply by Thoughtland on June 29, 2011 at 2:09am

Meh its another theory you can't do anything with. I could knock up my own theory after a strong coffee and it would be equally unprovable.

Permalink Reply by ROMAN ROMACH on July 18, 2011 at 10:36am

@thoughtland.  Of course you can.  Any reasonable person can conclude that anything that is old must have been younger.  And since the universe is expanding, it must have been smaller at some point.  Simply dismissing a theory as "just another theory", without offering any fundamental contradictory evidence, merits no consideration.

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on July 18, 2011 at 10:58pm

Simply stating a theory, without offering any supporting evidence, merits no consideration.

In more philosophical language, what is freely asserted can be freely denied.

 

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