Why Didn't the Universe Always Exist?

[Pogo]

Common as dirt on rf

My old quit
Common sense is like dirt, it is everywhere but not terribly valuable.

 

[Audie]

My old quit
Common sense is like dirt, it is everywhere but not terribly valuable.

Well put.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Actually, I suspect in the long term, the 'tired light' theory of red shift will do away BB theory. According to this understanding, the cause of red shift is due to photons losing energy through interacting with space though which the light is travelling, this in turn causes a decrease in photon frequency, resulting in the red shift noted by astronomers. BB expansion theory is based on the red shift being a doppler phenomenon, and so all bets are off on BB imho.

I don't expect the acceptance of tired light to happen right away as the old school rejected TL as being the cause of red shift, but it seems to be getting some traction again nowadays and makes more sense to me than doppler with its necessary BB cause.

BB Expansion, or Tired Light?

 

[Pogo]

Actually, I suspect in the long term, the 'tired light' theory of red shift will do away BB theory. According to this understanding, the cause of red shift is due to photons losing energy through interacting with space though which the light is travelling, this in turn causes a decrease in photon frequency, resulting in the red shift noted by astronomers. BB expansion theory is based on the red shift being a doppler phenomenon, and so all bets are off on BB imho.

I don't expect the acceptance of tired light to happen right away as the old school rejected TL as being the cause of red shift, but it seems to be getting some traction again nowadays and makes more sense to me than doppler with its necessary BB cause.

BB Expansion, or Tired Light?

Tired light has been disproven, it is no longer in the running, but you know better as we understand

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Tired light has been disproven, it is no longer in the running, but you know better as we understand

Old school believe it has, other scientists don't believe it has. Naturally the old school will cling to BB, they have been programmed, next generation we shall see.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Not required. Reality is *defined* by what works.

To instrumentalists it is. To take an instrumentalist stance is to deny realism, and accept that science tells us nothing about nature's unobservable properties or processes. In such a view, laws of science can only make predictions based on observed regularities; they cannot offer explanations of those observations, not tell us facts about the world. Is that your position?

 

[ratiocinator]

Actually, I suspect in the long term, the 'tired light' theory of red shift will do away BB theory.

As I posted before, this has been falsified multiple times now. It doesn't explain the CMB, for a start. That killed the idea for all but a few stubborn contrarians.

"Tired-Light" Hypothesis Gets Re-Tired

 

[Ben Dhyan]

As I posted before, this has been falsified multiple times now. It doesn't explain the CMB, for a start. That killed the idea for all but a few stubborn contrarians.

"Tired-Light" Hypothesis Gets Re-Tired

Old school believe it has, other scientists don't believe it has. Naturally the old school will cling to BB, they have been programmed, next generation we shall see. Tick Tock.

Here is an article about research by Rajendra P. Gupta that is using TL in his work.

New research suggests that our universe has no dark matter

There is also a paper by Chinese astronomers Ming-Hui Shao, Na Wang and Zhi-Fu Gao, who base their work on TL.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330944246_Tired_Light_Denies_the_Big_Bang

 

[ratiocinator]

Here is an article about research by Rajendra P. Gupta that is using TL in his work.

New research suggests that our universe has no dark matter

This is a tentative new hybrid model.

Abstract​

The primary purpose of this paper is to see how well a recently proposed new model fits (a) the position of the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) features observed in the large-scale distribution of galaxies and (b) the angular size measured for the sound horizon due to BAO imprinted in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy. The new model is a hybrid model that combines the tired light (TL) theory with a variant of the ΛCDM model in which the cosmological constant is replaced with a covarying coupling constants' (CCC) parameter α. This model, dubbed the CCC+TL model, can fit the Type Ia supernovae Pantheon+ data as accurately as the ΛCDM model, and also fit the angular size of cosmic dawn galaxies observed by the James Webb Space Telescope, which is in tension with the ΛCDM model. The results we obtained are 151.0 (±5.1) Mpc for the absolute BAO scale at the current epoch, and the angular size of the sound horizon θsh = 0

60, matching Planck's observations at the surface of the last scattering when the baryon density is set to 100% of the matter density and ∣α∣ is increased by 5.6%. It remains to be seen if the new model is consistent with the CMB power spectrum, the Big Bang nucleosynthesis of light elements, and other critical observations.​

Testing CCC+TL Cosmology with Observed Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Features​

Science is doing what it does.

There is also a paper by Chinese astronomers Ming-Hui Shao, Na Wang and Zhi-Fu Gao, who base their work on TL.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330944246_Tired_Light_Denies_the_Big_Bang

A book, rather than a paper, that pre-dates the research I referenced in the previous post.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

This is a tentative new hybrid model.

Abstract​

The primary purpose of this paper is to see how well a recently proposed new model fits (a) the position of the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) features observed in the large-scale distribution of galaxies and (b) the angular size measured for the sound horizon due to BAO imprinted in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy. The new model is a hybrid model that combines the tired light (TL) theory with a variant of the ΛCDM model in which the cosmological constant is replaced with a covarying coupling constants' (CCC) parameter α. This model, dubbed the CCC+TL model, can fit the Type Ia supernovae Pantheon+ data as accurately as the ΛCDM model, and also fit the angular size of cosmic dawn galaxies observed by the James Webb Space Telescope, which is in tension with the ΛCDM model. The results we obtained are 151.0 (±5.1) Mpc for the absolute BAO scale at the current epoch, and the angular size of the sound horizon θsh = 0

60, matching Planck's observations at the surface of the last scattering when the baryon density is set to 100% of the matter density and ∣α∣ is increased by 5.6%. It remains to be seen if the new model is consistent with the CMB power spectrum, the Big Bang nucleosynthesis of light elements, and other critical observations.​

Testing CCC+TL Cosmology with Observed Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Features​

Science is doing what it does.


A book, rather than a paper, that pre-dates the research I referenced in the previous post.

Ahem, last time I checked, 2018 comes after 2001?

TL will emerge as the source of red shift in the long run imho, but the BB community won't give in that easily.

 

[ratiocinator]

Ahem, last time I checked, 2018 comes after 2001?

Oops, quite right, misremembered the date. Ho-hum. Still only a book, though. You'll always find somebody who doesn't want to accept the weight of evidence.

 

[Polymath257]

To instrumentalists it is. To take an instrumentalist stance is to deny realism, and accept that science tells us nothing about nature's unobservable properties or processes. In such a view, laws of science can only make predictions based on observed regularities; they cannot offer explanations of those observations, not tell us facts about the world. Is that your position?

The term 'unobservable property or process' is meaningless.

Actually, we *can* offer 'explanations' for many aspects of the universe. Those explanations are deductions from observed regularities that lead to hypotheses than can be used to predict behavior in novel situations.

For example, Newton's laws of motion 'explain' the behavior of rotating bodies. Those laws, when applied to such bodies, allow predictions that are then verified and tested. Quantum Mechanics 'explains' the spectra of atoms and molecules: when the basic laws are applied to those situations, they lead to predictions that can be tested and verified.

The notion of 'fact about the world' is simply either observations made or tested and verified hypotheses about how the universe behaves.

 

[gnostic]

Old school believe it has, other scientists don't believe it has. Naturally the old school will cling to BB, they have been programmed, next generation we shall see.

ben.

First.

You still don’t understand that all alternative theoretical models, have largely gone untested, therefore they are not science, and if they are not science, then these are not even “new schools”.

Cyclical Universe models (there are more than 1 model), Multiverse, MOND, String Cosmology, Brane Cosmology, etc. All these are proposed alternatives, but yet to meet the requirements of Scientific Method.

Einstein had Static Universe model in the 1930s. Two out of the 3 models to Steady-state cosmology: and since Hoyle’s passing, supports for the 3rd model (1993) has evaporated, as no one have expressed any interests in updating it, or testing it.

Second.

The tired light hypothesis - first proposed by Fritz Zwicky in 1929, as alternative explanation for the redshift (loss of light energy, as Zwicky explained the redshift) that differed from Lemaître the gravitational redshift of cosmic expansion (Expanding Universe model, 1927). They were 2 competing hypotheses at the time.

As decades passed, the tired light hypothesis have been already falsified a number of times. Actually the expanding universe model became stronger with the discovery of CMBR in 1964, further verified by numbers of Redshift Survey (eg 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, DEEP2 Redshift Survey, etc), as well as by WMAP, the Planck, the Hubble & JWST.

Zwicky’s tired light hypothesis is not the same as Lemaître’s universe expansion model…you are confusing them as if they are the same.

Either you are being misinformed (or misunderstood the TL hypothesis) or you are the one doing the misinforming.

Lastly, the Big Bang theory may have started in the 1920s with model developed by Friedmann & Lemaître, hence you could certainly call it “old school”, but in the the decades that followed, the BB theory have expanded beyond the original model with 3 more models:

• 1948: the CMBR developed by Ralph Alpher & Robert Hermann, and Alpher with George Gamow developing the Big bang Nucleosynthesis.
• Early 1980s: the Cosmic Inflation or the Inflationary model, developed independently by Alan Guth, Andrei Linde & Alexei Starobinsky, which solved both the Flatness problem & Horizon problem that plagued the 1948 model.
• Late 1990s: the Lambda-CDM (ΛCDM) model that not only explained that expansion of the universe is accelerating, ΛCDM also covered the abundance & distribution of light elements (particularly hydrogen, which is the main building blocks of star formation) throughout the early universe, and the distribution of large structures (which included galaxies).

ΛCDM model would be the “new school”. So the Big Bang theory comprised of old school & new school.

Like it or not, the Big Bang theory is still a solid theory today. And like I said, while there are numbers of interesting out-of-the-box alternatives, these alternatives are still not “science”, yet, as they still have met the requirements of Scientific Method. Until they do, you are bit premature in accepting winners that have won.

Being an “out-of-the-box” concept, don’t automatically make a concept to be true…only testing the concept (in accordance with Scientific Method), can determine its validity. And such tests, require sufficient experiments, evidence & data.

Yes, I know that you believe the Universe is eternal, but there are still not enough evidence & data to test your the eternal universe concept…what you believe, is still speculative.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

ben.

First.

You still don’t understand that all alternative theoretical models, have largely gone untested, therefore they are not science, and if they are not science, then these are not even “new schools”.

Cyclical Universe models (there are more than 1 model), Multiverse, MOND, String Cosmology, Brane Cosmology, etc. All these are proposed alternatives, but yet to meet the requirements of Scientific Method.

Einstein had Static Universe model in the 1930s. Two out of the 3 models to Steady-state cosmology: and since Hoyle’s passing, supports for the 3rd model (1993) has evaporated, as no one have expressed any interests in updating it, or testing it.

Second.

The tired light hypothesis - first proposed by Fritz Zwicky in 1929, as alternative explanation for the redshift (loss of light energy, as Zwicky explained the redshift) that differed from Lemaître the gravitational redshift of cosmic expansion (Expanding Universe model, 1927). They were 2 competing hypotheses at the time.

As decades passed, the tired light hypothesis have been already falsified a number of times. Actually the expanding universe model became stronger with the discovery of CMBR in 1964, further verified by numbers of Redshift Survey (eg 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, DEEP2 Redshift Survey, etc), as well as by WMAP, the Planck, the Hubble & JWST.

Zwicky’s tired light hypothesis is not the same as Lemaître’s universe expansion model…you are confusing them as if they are the same.

Either you are being misinformed (or misunderstood the TL hypothesis) or you are the one doing the misinforming.

Lastly, the Big Bang theory may have started in the 1920s with model developed by Friedmann & Lemaître, hence you could certainly call it “old school”, but in the the decades that followed, the BB theory have expanded beyond the original model with 3 more models:

• 1948: the CMBR developed by Ralph Alpher & Robert Hermann, and Alpher with George Gamow developing the Big bang Nucleosynthesis.
• Early 1980s: the Cosmic Inflation or the Inflationary model, developed independently by Alan Guth, Andrei Linde & Alexei Starobinsky, which solved both the Flatness problem & Horizon problem that plagued the 1948 model.
• Late 1990s: the Lambda-CDM (ΛCDM) model that not only explained that expansion of the universe is accelerating, ΛCDM also covered the abundance & distribution of light elements (particularly hydrogen, which is the main building blocks of star formation) throughout the early universe, and the distribution of large structures (which included galaxies).

ΛCDM model would be the “new school”. So the Big Bang theory comprised of old school & new school.

Like it or not, the Big Bang theory is still a solid theory today. And like I said, while there are numbers of interesting out-of-the-box alternatives, these alternatives are still not “science”, yet, as they still have met the requirements of Scientific Method. Until they do, you are bit premature in accepting winners that have won.

Being an “out-of-the-box” concept, don’t automatically make a concept to be true…only testing the concept (in accordance with Scientific Method), can determine its validity. And such tests, require sufficient experiments, evidence & data.

Yes, I know that you believe the Universe is eternal, but there are still not enough evidence & data to test your the eternal universe concept…what you believe, is still speculative.

Not speculative, logical. Something cannot come from nothing, and in any event, nothing does not exist, therefore existence exists everywhere eternally.

Unless science can create or show how something can come from nothing, BB can't be taken seriously. Now a multiverse may be a reality.

 

[ratiocinator]

Not speculative, logical. Something cannot come from nothing, and in any event, nothing does not exist, therefore existence exists everywhere eternally.

The standard model BBT doesn't even cover the very start (as has been pointed out multiple time now), we don't know what happened when the GR model collapses into a singularity.

Nobody is proposing that anything came from nothing* or that nothing ever existed. This is true even if time is finite in the past, Just because you don't understand how that can be the case (we established that back with the North Pole analogy) doesn't make it impossible, illogical, or inconsistent.

---

* There is, however, at least one hypothesis that one could describe as coming from 'nothing' but the scare quotes are there for a reason. It's not literally nothing, just as close to it as we think is physically possible.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

The standard model BBT doesn't even cover the very start (as has been pointed out multiple time now), we don't know what happened when the GR model collapses into a singularity.

Nobody is proposing that anything came from nothing* or that nothing ever existed. This is true even if time is finite in the past, Just because you don't understand how that can be the case (we established that back with the North Pole analogy) doesn't make it impossible, illogical, or inconsistent.

---

* There is, however, at least one hypothesis that one could describe as coming from 'nothing' but the scare quotes are there for a reason. It's not literally nothing, just as close to it as we think is physically possible.

It doesn't cover the very start because there wasn't one, the universe is eternal.

 

[ratiocinator]

It doesn't cover the very start because there wasn't one, but look, I know you believe the BB science, and you know my understanding is that there is an SS universe, so one of us is eventually going to find out they were wrong.

The big difference is that the evidence is strongly in favour of the BBT, which is why I accept it as much more likely. It's very difficult to imagine a genuinely steady state model managing to explain all the evidence for the BB (which goes way beyond just the red-shift).

The nature of the BB (where GR collapses into a singularity) is unknown, and time may extend back further (or change direction, even, so both ways are forward), the universe could be cyclic (in more than one way), or even a loop. I have no settled view on this, because we don't have evidence.

If the remarkable happens, and some radical new theory does manage to explain all the evidence for the BB in a steady state model, I'll change my mind.

Nothing, however, is going to restore the intuitive/Newtonian version of time because it has been falsified by evidence.

What I find odd it that you seem to want to believe something despite the evidence. That just seems bizarre to me.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

The big difference is that the evidence is strongly in favour of the BBT, which is why I accept it as much more likely. It's very difficult to imagine a genuinely steady state model managing to explain all the evidence for the BB (which goes way beyond just the red-shift).

The nature of the BB (where GR collapses into a singularity) is unknown, and time may extend back further (or change direction, even, so both ways are forward), the universe could be cyclic (in more than one way), or even a loop. I have no settled view on this, because we don't have evidence.

If the remarkable happens, and some radical new theory does manage to explain all the evidence for the BB in a steady state model, I'll change my mind.

Nothing, however, is going to restore the intuitive/Newtonian version of time because it has been falsified by evidence.

What I find odd it that you seem to want to believe something despite the evidence. That just seems bizarre to me.

Huh! My proof rests on the evidence that the universe actually exists and that there is no evidence to demonstrate that it can be made it to cease existing.

You otoh have to prove the universe is not eternal, that there was a BB, and you can't.

 

[ratiocinator]

Huh! My proof rests on the evidence that the universe actually exists and that there is no evidence to demonstrate that it can be made it to cease existing.

You otoh have to prove the universe is not eternal, that there was a BB, and you can't.

1. You don't seem to have read my post very carefully. I did not claim that the universe wasn't eternal or even that I believed it wasn't. Scientifically, it's an open question, because we don't know enough to reliably extrapolate back to the GR singularity.
2. Nobody can prove anything in science. Hypotheses can be disproved (by making a testable prediction that fails the test), but no matter how much evidence we have, we cannot prove the truth of any theory.
3. We have endless evidence that supports the view of space-time given by GR, which means that time is not the immutable background that our intuition or the Newtonian view would claim. Hence, time starting or ending is far from impossible.

The current evidence is clear. The universe is expanding and was in a very hot dense state some 13.5 billion years ago. I accept it, you, apparently, don't, because you don't like it and/or don't understand it.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

1. You don't seem to have read my post very carefully. I did not claim that the universe wasn't eternal or even that I believed it wasn't. Scientifically, it's an open question, because we don't know enough to reliably extrapolate back to the GR singularity.
2. Nobody can prove anything in science. Hypotheses can be disproved (by making a testable prediction that fails the test), but no matter how much evidence we have, we cannot prove the truth of any theory.
3. We have endless evidence that supports the view of space-time given by GR, which means that time is not the immutable background that our intuition or the Newtonian view would claim. Hence, time starting or ending is far from impossible.

The current evidence is clear. The universe is expanding and was in a very hot dense state some 13.5 billion years ago. I accept it, you, apparently, don't, because you don't like it and/or don't understand it.

There is no direct evidence of BB, there is only theory, no actual replicable proof.

I otoh am saying the universe is SS, and the evidence and proof is here and now. Disprove me directly, not theoretically.

ps. And here is a little reminder for all those who are academics, scientists, students, etc..
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary/exam depends upon his not understanding it."
-Upton Sinclair.