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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
 Posted - 09/17/2006 : 18:52:43
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(This is the proper continuation of the Big Bang debate from the Surface of the Sun thread)
quote:
Originally posted by Michael Mozina
quote:
Originally posted by Cuneiformist
This might be the lamest attempt to defend your position on inflation you've thus far used. If I understand correctly, you're arguing that since wikipedia doesn't have much to say about inflation, nothing much has been done?
It means that never once has any credible scientist created a reproceable experiment to demonstrate the existence of A) monopoles that were used as the basis for introducing the concept of inflation to BB theory, or B) the existence of inflaton/particle fields.
If and when any such experiment is ever created, I'll be the first to claim "there is evidence" to support the idea *outside* of the idea itself. Until then, it's just another interesting idea among many interesting ideas.
But that wasn't your original claim, Michael. You noted (clearly having read nothing on the subject in 10+ years) that "not one inch" of progress has been made on inflation. Now, however, making "one inch" of progress-- contra every reasonable interpretation of the expression-- now means something akin to being proven true. Perhaps you figuratively measure progress in sixteenths of an inch or something.
In any case, yours is a rather safe position to take. But if you held your iron-sun theory to the same standard, you'd only waste time and effort constructing a website about it after we'd landed a probe on the sun's surface and taken core samples. The double standard is comical.
You still refuse to admit that you were wrong about monopoles, even though I cited published evidence to the contrary.
You refuse to accept that the theory of inflation is falsifiable, but this is only an example of the fact that you haven't read a shred of literature on the topic. I read this morning a review in the New York Times of two books on string theory. Both books argued that scholars should abandon string theory since it hasn't been proven, and the like. I thought of you when the reviewer wrote: quote:
Taken together, Smolin's and Woit's arguments boil down to just a few points: string theory makes no predictions, there isn't a complete theory yet after more than 20 years of intense effort and a monolithic tribe of arrogant string advocates are hogging resources.
Switch "string theory" with "inflation" (or perhaps just "Big Bang") and it's you!
But the reviewer rightly observes that such concerns are a bit off the mark: quote:
If the final form of string theory does not yet exist, it's strange to claim in advance that it can make no predictions. And why the 20-year time limit? Science must be testable in principle, but that is not necessarily the same thing as testable in practice, given current technological limitations. Smolin contends that previous great theories have been rapidly supported by favorable evidence, but evidence is not the same thing as the definitive proof he seems to demand from string theory. It is not uncommon for decades to go by before th
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Edited by - Cuneiformist on 09/17/2006 18:56:22
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2006 : 07:53:25 [Permalink]
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On the topic of monopoles, I refer the interested reader to the journal
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Vol. 304, No. 1482 from 1982 (I have a PDF if anyone wants it).
There is an article, "Magnetic Monopoles in Grand Unified Theories," by P. Goddard which discusses a number of the problems related to them. More specifically, he notes: quote:
it is an intriguing aspect of grand unified theories that their conventional structure is just such that they possess classical particle-like solutions with the interpretation of magnetic monopoles.
He cites two different publications where the details are spelled out more clearly. Indeed, throughout the piece, numberous articles are cited when referring to GUTs and monopoles. It is clear that monopoles were not invented so that Guth could come up with a solution for them. Indeed, it seems that they are demanded to some extent by an inflation-free Big Bang.
New ideas are obviously being studied and tested regarding monopoles, e.g. a very technical (but optimistic) article by G. Volovik, "Monopoles and Fractional Vorticies in Chiral Superconductors," in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 97 no. 6 (2000). Studies such as this (one gets numerous hits doing a library search for monopoles) show that these ideas are in fact testable and falsifiable, and that as technology catches up to theory we'll have a change to improve our understanding of the early universe. |
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furshur
SFN Regular
USA
1536 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2006 : 08:43:34 [Permalink]
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quote:
It is clear that monopoles were not invented so that Guth could come up with a solution for them. Indeed, it seems that they are demanded to some extent by an inflation-free Big Bang.
That is my understanding also.
From wikipedia:
quote:
Non-inflationary Big Bang cosmology suggests that monopoles should be plentiful, and the failure to find magnetic monopoles is one of the main problems that led to the creation of cosmic inflation theory. In inflation, the visible universe was much smaller in the period before inflation, and despite the very short time before inflation, it would have been small enough for the whole visible universe to have been within the horizon, and thus not requiring many monopoles, perhaps only one. At the moment, versions of inflation seem to be the most likely cosmological theories.
It seems Michael is demanding evidence of monopoles and inflation which just demonstrates more of his lack of understanding these theories.
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If I knew then what I know now then I would know more now than I know. |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2006 : 11:50:23 [Permalink]
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It's funny that Michael thinks that the Big Bang isn't falsifiable. In fact, it's hilarious. In another post, Mozona linked to a press release where scientists tested various assumptions about the Big Bang and they came up wanting. For several weeks, he jumped up and down claiming that this was the proof that "the whole *basis* of [one's] belief in Big Bang theory has been undermined by the very data set that was used to demonstrate the background radiation in the first place!" (see here.)
Now, he's claiming that "there is no way to falsify the idea" of the Big Bang.
Clearly this isn't the case. Indeed, the Big Bang has made a number of predictions and they've been shown true. The above probably has an explanation within the realm of our current understanding of the Big Bang, but it is also possible that a paradigm shift (do I hear a "Big Slam"?) is in order. Level heads will wait for more tests, but not all have such an approach to science. |
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GeeMack
SFN Regular
USA
1093 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2006 : 13:09:12 [Permalink]
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Well if there is any considerable dissent within the astrophysics community regarding the validity of the Big Bang theory, you sure wouldn't know it by reading this article...quote Yahoo! News:
U.S. Duo Win Physics Nobel for Backing up Big Bang
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Americans John Mather and George Smoot won the 2006 Nobel prize for physics on Tuesday for work on cosmic radiation that helped pinpoint the age of the universe and added weight to the Big Bang theory of its birth.
[. . .]
Their work took the Big Bang theory, which holds that the universe began 15 billion years ago as a tiny dot that exploded into today's huge system of stars and planets, out of the realm of mathematical equations and into the world of precise science.
When their research was published in 1992, famed cosmologist Stephen Hawking called it the "greatest discovery of the century, if not of all time."
Unless Michael can offer up any better endorsement than that of Stephen Hawking, I think I'll take Mather and Smoot's word over Mozina's for the time being.
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2006 : 13:30:31 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by GeeMack
Well if there is any considerable dissent within the astrophysics community regarding the validity of the Big Bang theory, you sure wouldn't know it by reading this article...quote Yahoo! News:
U.S. Duo Win Physics Nobel for Backing up Big Bang
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Americans John Mather and George Smoot won the 2006 Nobel prize for physics on Tuesday for work on cosmic radiation that helped pinpoint the age of the universe and added weight to the Big Bang theory of its birth.
[. . .]
Their work took the Big Bang theory, which holds that the universe began 15 billion years ago as a tiny dot that exploded into today's huge system of stars and planets, out of the realm of mathematical equations and into the world of precise science.
When their research was published in 1992, famed cosmologist Stephen Hawking called it the "greatest discovery of the century, if not of all time."
Unless Michael can offer up any better endorsement than that of Stephen Hawking, I think I'll take Mather and Smoot's word over Mozina's for the time being.
I saw that this morning and was rather excited. Of course, the voters probably missed the articles Mozina recently linked (admitedly in refereed journals and conducted by mainstream scientists), but I'm guessing that the observations of Mather and Smoot will be born out in the end... |
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