I just finished a book called Before the Big Bang: The Origins of the Universe and the Nature of Matter, by Ernest J. Sterngalss. It presents a rather non-standard model of the universe and is based on a “primeval atom” principle.
I like keeping an open mind to different ideas, so I read it with enthusiasm.
I found it extremely interesting, but I have a difficul time accepting the undectable ether idea (which he tries tries to resurrect) and can’t find any justification in his “statistically variant” seed pairs thought.
Anybody else read this or have any thoughts on it?
knowing nothing about the book or it’s contents, how does the author explain an undetectable ether?? if it has exactly no detectable effects, what is the difference between that and nothing at all??
The undetectable ether hypothesis is the model that was created because people had a hard time conceiving of a wave (light) without a medium. When it was first hypothesized, people expected it to be detected, but further experiments failed to show any of the theorized effects. If you’re interested in more detail, you should find an encyclopedia and look it up. It’s rather interesting, but I don’t see that it really belongs in GD.
My philosophy is not try to delve into “Big Bang” debates… after all, an explosion as big as the universe is bound to obliterate any evidence about what came before, or soon after, it, right?
Sternglass (spelt his name wrong up there) requires some kind of ether, an ideal fluid or whatever, not as a medium for light but as a reference for his idea that the Universe as a whole is rotating.
Further, he conceptualizes forces and matter to be something like vortex rings in this ideal fluid. Too much to try to explain his reasoning in a couple of posts (it took him about 300 pages) but it’s not as far fetched as any other GUT.
Sorry if this message doesn’t belong here. Somebody left a link to it from a science forum saying that this forum was much better. It sure is in it’s layout, but by scanning over other messages it seems less science and more social. Which is cool, but not a place for drab science I guess.
Seed pairs are his way of explaining the fragmentation of the primeval atom.
