# Is the Big Bang Theory Doomed?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 8, 2006, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518 "2006-02-08T06:59:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@matt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2006, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/21 "2006-02-09T10:56:41Z")
> [@she sells sea snails](#):
>
> And the simplest demonstration of that is the reddening of our own star as it sets. It gets redder because of the increased atomosphere it must travel thru.
Judging by [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7083037&postcount=3), I’d say there’s a _chance_ you’re being satirical. And if you’re going to be satirical in GQ, I’d recommend one of these 😃 to let people know, else you’re going to get into trouble. If you were serious, forget I said anything…
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### Author:  [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2006, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/22 "2006-02-09T11:38:54Z")
> [@yBeayf](#):
>
> He’s listed as a “visiting scholar” in the physics department at Stanford. Doing a bit of Googling, I came up with [this (outdated) personal website](http://perso.fundp.ac.be/~amayer/index_eng.html). If that’s the same guy, he’s definitely a legitimate, published physicist, albeit with a specialty in something other than cosmology.
Thanks for digging yBeayf. It’s not the same guy. The other if from Stanford, he’s Australian. His homepage is:
[http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:0J7112lY8McJ:www.stanford.edu/~afmayer/+http://www.stanford.edu+afmayer&hl=en&gl=au&ct=clnk&cd=1](http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:0J7112lY8McJ:www.stanford.edu/~afmayer/+http://www.stanford.edu+afmayer&hl=en&gl=au&ct=clnk&cd=1)
but his links are forbidden. He seems serious though. Anyway, he’s not the only one to question the big bang theory…
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### Author:  [@SlowMindThinking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlowMindThinking)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2006, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/23 "2006-02-09T16:34:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Well, I don’t have the time to look into this idea (I won’t call it a “theory”) in any great detail. But just from his starting point that the number of time axes is a local phenomenon, I can say that he’s going to have a hell of a time satisfying any sort of continuity conditions. And if the state of his variable-number time axes is not continuous, I’d sure expect to see some evidence of the discontinuities.
>
> If GR requires a modification, it’ll be either very small, or absolutely huge. A non-metric theory of gravity would not necessarily be describable in terms of the post-Newtonian parameters, and there are, in fact, a few non-metric models one occasionally sees bandied about (the most common is probably Milgrom’s Modified Newtonian Dynamics, but I’ve seen a few others). A shift from GR to a non-metric theory would be pretty big, but personally, I don’t expect it to happen: Metric theories of gravity are just too elegant.
IIRC, the framework for comparing gravity theories is more general than just the post Newtonian framework (or the post post Newtonian! For those who aren’t Chronos, post Newtonian refers to treating a theory of gravity as a correction to Newton’s theory. You add posts as you get to finer levels of corrections.) It is just that one generally compares parameters within the post Newtonian framework, because that is where almost all of our experiments are. I mentioned something called “torsion” earlier for example. I doubt one could construct a theory that could approximate Newton’s theory using only torsion and not a metric, but it could be handled by the framework. For those with a strong interest, the world expert in post Newtonian analysis back in my day, was [Clifford Will’s](http://wugrav.wustl.edu/people/CMW/index.html) In particular, look at his “Confrontation between GR and Experiment: A Living Review”.
All that said, I wrote before I glanced at his site. I doubt a theory with an infinite number of time dimensions is covered by any such framework. I’ll give the guy credit, though. Most crack pots try to shoe horn the facts into a theory that is, in their opinion, less weird than GR or QM. I think most would consider an infinite number of time dimensions stranger than GR. (Even profs can be crack pots, btw. I met a few engineering profs, for example, who couldn’t accept QM, and some have sufficient skills with mathematics to attempt alternative theories. One guy I met accepted that an alternative to QM had to be mathematically the same. I don’t think I ever convinced him that mathematically identical theories are the same theories.)
Eyer8, if I can find the time, I’ll try to look at his “excess radius” and redshift claims. The problem with crack pots is that there are so many of them, it makes it hard to find the one or two with good, original ideas. I am assuming it is better to start with his founding gedanken experiments than his result. I’m with Chronos, there are all sorts of problems of an infinite number of time dimensions. Just showing that they collapse to one time dimension in our solar system would be pretty tricky, too. Integration in infinite dimensional spaces can be pretty hard.
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### Author:  [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2006, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/24 "2006-02-09T16:55:20Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Dust reddening is a real effect in astronomy, and is an entirely different effect from the “tired light” model discussed in that Wikipedia entry. It is, however, entirely distinguishable from Doppler or cosmological redshift. Dust reddening occurs because interstellar dust (or atmospheric dust, for that matter) will more effectively absorb or scatter blue light than red light. Preferentially absorb blue light, and what’s left will appear more reddish. **she sells sea snails** is correct that this is why our own Sun appears reddish as it’s rising or setting, because it’s then shining through more dust. However, this will not shift the position of spectral lines. Some lines might become shallower, but they’ll stay in the same place. By contrast, gravitational redshift, Doppler shift, and cosmological redshift will all move spectral lines. In the actual data that we observe, distant galaxies have their spectral lines shifted, which must be accounted for by gravitational, Doppler, or cosmological shift. Or, of course, by some other mechanism, but there’s no other known mechanism for shifting spectral lines, so this is rather speculative.
Just to nail this down for **she sells seashells** and others who might be puzzled by this. [Here are some spectra](http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/dwsimm2000/detail?.dir=/8cf7&.dnm=7718scd.jpg&.src=ph) showing the difference between the red-shift resulting from recession of an object and reddening resulting from preferential scattering of the blue light.
For those unfamiliar with spectra. Line spectra are shown The position of the lines represents the wavelength of the received light. The height of the vertrical lines represents the light intensity at any wavelength.
The top spectrum represents the spectrum emitted by the object as the solid lines and the spectrum received as the dotted lines. Notice that as the wavelength gets longer the distance between the original emitted line and the received line gets longer. Suppose the original lines are at, say, 1 nanometer and 2 nanometers. If the shift is by a factor of 1.1 then the received lines would be at 1.1, a difference of 0.1, and 2.2, a difference of 0.2.
The next two spectra represent scattering. The top one is the original emitted spectrum and the bottom one is the received spectrum. The lines are at the same wavelength in both but the received intensity of the blues is lowered and so the light is redder than that which was emitted.
Just to show you that I’m not blowing smoke[here are some actual spectra.](http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/doppler.htm) The dark lines result from absorbtion of the star’s light by elements, mostly in its atmosphere and can be seen as shifted toward the red as the objects gets further away.
If it was just joking, as **Matt** said you can forget it. However for those who might be fooled, ignore what **she sells seashells** said, whether or not she was joking. It’s wrong.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2006, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/25 "2006-02-09T19:54:09Z")
Just noticed that she sells sea snails has been banned. Since “she” had only 13 posts, probably a sock. We’ll never be sure therefore whether the stupidity was real or just a side effect. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2006, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/26 "2006-02-09T20:01:19Z")
> [@SlowMindThinking](#):
>
> Eyer8, if I can find the time, I’ll try to look at his “excess radius” and redshift claims. The problem with crack pots is that there are so many of them, it makes it hard to find the one or two with good, original ideas. I am assuming it is better to start with his founding gedanken experiments than his result. I’m with Chronos, there are all sorts of problems of an infinite number of time dimensions. Just showing that they collapse to one time dimension in our solar system would be pretty tricky, too. Integration in infinite dimensional spaces can be pretty hard.
Thanks **SlowMind**. I agree that the founding gedanken’s are both better and easier to start with than his results. I would definitely appreciate your comments on these two starting points; if they don’t hold up the guy is definitely a crackpot. The excess radius of the rotating reference frame is the key to the whole thing (at least how I read it). Regarding the infinite time dimensions, I not sure that is what he is saying but I’m not sure if I understand the distinction…
Anyway, both your and **Chronos’** responses have cooled my ardor for this guy. This, combined with the web page being yanked make me think he is just a nut. (I still would like your evaluation of his starting points however… I will hopefully have some time this weekend to do some reading and evaluation also.)
> [@Gymnopithys](#):
>
> > [@yBeayf](#):
> >
> > He’s listed as a “visiting scholar” in the physics department at Stanford. Doing a bit of Googling, I came up with this (outdated) personal website. If that’s the same guy, he’s definitely a legitimate, published physicist, albeit with a specialty in something other than cosmology.
>
> Thanks for digging yBeayf. It’s not the same guy. The other if from Stanford, he’s Australian. His homepage is:
> [http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache...au&ct=clnk&cd=1](http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache...au&ct=clnk&cd=1)
> but his links are forbidden. He seems serious though. Anyway, he’s not the only one to question the big bang theory…
I’m not sure if these are the same guy or not… The guy that **yBeayf** found was also at Penn state recently: [Cite](http://www.phys.psu.edu/people/display/index.html?person_id=336) (Postdoc position maybe?). Regardless, relativity is not what Dr. Alexander Mayer of Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix is into…
Thanks, all, for the responses…
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### Author:  [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2006, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/27 "2006-02-09T20:44:26Z")
> [@](#):
>
> This, combined with the web page being yanked make me think he is just a nut.
His web page going away doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a nut. It was posted on slashdot, which has a tendency to overwhelm sites’ bandwidth quickly. If it did go down cos it was slashdotted, I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2006, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/28 "2006-02-09T21:07:47Z")
> [@](#):
>
> IIRC, the framework for comparing gravity theories is more general than just the post Newtonian framework
Well, the post-Newtonian parameters are the metatheoretical framework with which I’m most familiar. Doubtless, one can construct more general frameworks, with a greater number of parameters. The point is, for any given framework, there’s always some sort of modification one can make that would be outside the parameters of that framework. In all of the standard frameworks, the best fit to the data appears to be GR or something very close to it, but it’s conceivable that the true behaviour of gravity differs from GR in some manner not encompassed by whatever framework one uses.
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### Author:  [@kim\_ney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kim_ney)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2006, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/29 "2006-02-09T22:56:32Z")
> [@matt](#):
>
> Judging by [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7083037&postcount=3), I’d say there’s a _chance_ you’re being satirical. And if you’re going to be satirical in GQ, I’d recommend one of these 😃 to let people know, else you’re going to get into trouble. If you were serious, forget I said anything…
Matt, you are always so preachy and arch. Why don’t you simply accept the fact that some people choose not to agree with you? Or in this case that someone ignored you and you disagreed with them.
Your problem seems to be that you believed Exapno Mapcase when he dragged out that old straw horse of “tired light”. Tired light is not what seashells was talking about. That’s just what you want her to be talking about so you can dump on her. Fine, that’s your right, I guess, but you certainly do a lot of that sort of thing around here. Let people speak for themselves, don’t try to pretend you know they are joking.
As for those who ask, ad nausem, “How can dust ever possibly in any way change “wavelength” ???” And they aaalways act stunned by the idea. Let me point out that light is not nor ever was a wave. That’s an eighteenth century construct, and useful in explaining macro phenomena like interference patterns, but simply isn’t a realistic depiction of light.
Light is photon particles. When you have many coming at you from the same general direction, you can count how many arrive in a time period and that’s the frequency. When a few are reflected by dust, there are fewer that arrive in that same time period. Thus lower frequency. “Wavelength” is the idea that the photons will be evenly spaced. But since wavelength is the derived measurement, not the direct measurement, that need not be the case.
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### Author:  [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2006, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/30 "2006-02-09T23:04:18Z")
> [@kim ney](#):
>
> Light is photon particles. When you have many coming at you from the same general direction, you can count how many arrive in a time period and that’s the frequency. When a few are reflected by dust, there are fewer that arrive in that same time period. Thus lower frequency. “Wavelength” is the idea that the photons will be evenly spaced. But since wavelength is the derived measurement, not the direct measurement, that need not be the case.
What!? Am I being whooshed here?
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### Author:  [@kim\_ney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kim_ney)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2006, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/31 "2006-02-09T23:16:57Z")
> [@gazpacho](#):
>
> What!? Am I being whooshed here?
No.
And it does you no good to be rude. I don’t deserve that.
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### Author:  [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2006, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/32 "2006-02-09T23:19:47Z")
The frequency of light is not how many photons hit a surface per unit time.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2006, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/33 "2006-02-09T23:25:37Z")
> [@gazpacho](#):
>
> What!? Am I being whooshed here?
Heh. Think how I feel. 😃
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### Author:  [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2006, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/34 "2006-02-09T23:51:10Z")
> [@kim ney](#):
>
> Light is photon particles. When you have many coming at you from the same general direction, you can count how many arrive in a time period and that’s the frequency.
No, that’s the _intensity_ of light. “Frequency” is a measure of energy contained in each photon. Otherwise, how is it possible to have a dim blue light or bright red light? And if you step closer to a lamp, it doesn’t turn blue, does it?
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### Author:  [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2006, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/35 "2006-02-10T00:13:03Z")
> [@kim ney](#):
>
> Light is photon particles. When you have many coming at you from the same general direction, you can count how many arrive in a time period and that’s the frequency. When a few are reflected by dust, there are fewer that arrive in that same time period. Thus lower frequency. “Wavelength” is the idea that the photons will be evenly spaced. But since wavelength is the derived measurement, not the direct measurement, that need not be the case.
I’m sorry **kim** , but you are wrong. I suggest reading about the photoelectric effect to clear up your confusion between frequency and photon flux. Next you shouldlook for a solution to Maxwell’s equations in a homogenous, charge free space. The solution will be an electromagnetic wave propogating at speed c. This solution, combined with the photoelectric effect will hopefully convince you that light is both a wave and a particle.
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### Author:  [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2006, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/36 "2006-02-10T00:28:27Z")
Oh, and regarding the absorption/re-admission of light causing a wave length shift, this is pretty much impossible with atoms. Effects like this could possibly happen if you couple some of the absorbed energy into a rotational or vibrational mode of an absorbing molecule (Google Raman Spectroscopy), but the effect should be statistically balanced with the loss of energy of some photons being offset with the gain in energy of others. With atoms the only shifts that are possible are due to collisions and doppler effects. All of these effects will cause line broadening, not line shifts. The only possible exception would be if you are some how pumping (or draining) energy from the atoms/molecules using some other source (i.e. excite a vibrational mode of a molecule, absorb a photon, release photon with energy of absorbed photon and vibrational mode as entire molecule falls to ground state, re-excite vibrational mode, etc…)
Anyway, it sounds like tired light to me.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2006, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/37 "2006-02-10T00:37:20Z")
> [@kim ney](#):
>
> No.
> And it does you no good to be rude. I don’t deserve that.
Actually, you deserve worse, but we are merciful.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2006, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-big-bang-theory-doomed/343518/38 "2006-02-10T00:43:46Z")
If I’m not mistaken, this one has gone way beyond the OP(not that it wasn’t enlightening).
If no one objects, I’m closing it before ignorance gets a second wind.
**samclem**
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