I never said it was wrong I only wanted to know what the board thought the evidence for it was. I want to know if you have good reason to believe what you do. When I was in high school this was not discussed much or else I was not paying attention but shortly after that I read some (actually all I think) of Carl Sagans books and was hooked. I also read several of a young Stephen Hawkings. Since then I revisit the subject of cosmology very often.
So I am self-taught in a manner of speaking by reading books and the internet. I have no problem with scientists following the evidence where it leads them but I do have a problem with the way this is taught in high school by the time they get to college they can think for themselves and that is the time to explore these theories IMO.
BTW to pull a percentage out of my hat IMO some 80% of scientists do just follow the evidence. It is the ones that talk in absolutes that I have a problem with.
During the tv show Curiosity Stephen Hawkings claimed that the primordial egg had “infinite density and infinite gravity” and that it was proven.
Ha I had to look up FFS I dont think you meant flash file system so I guess it was the other one.
Yes I understand that it is a placeholder in fact the whole problem is that BBT is full of placeholders.
My youngest child graduated high school two years ago and her textbooks (I wish I still had them to quote from) talked about BBT like it was proven fact. Sure they called it a theory but only after they explained that theory was something that had been tested time and time again and backed up by observational data.
Does string theory and multiverse theory pass that muster?
I have not figured out the multi quote function but it is on my to do list I hope I did not butcher this to bad.
I agree that the effect dark matter has on light along with the fact that stars on the outside of our galaxy are moving faster that ones closer in (at least till they get close to the suspected black hole in the middle) is very good and logical proof of dark matter.
I do not see the same kind of evidence for dark energy. The farther away we look the faster everything is fleeing us I do not see the logical leap to something pushing us I see a better explanation being we have a very bad understanding of gravity.
I also agree that the CMB would point to a more uniform beginning but how do you get smaller from it?
Dark energy isn’t really a part of the Big Bang Theory. It’s part of cosmology in general, but I don’t think it’s necessarily for the BBT to work.
So the description was full and accurate. That’s good to hear!
No. String theory doesn’t make any predictions that I’m aware of, and it certainly isn’t universally accepted. It’s a controversial theory and some of its detractors have a problem with it because so far it’s had little to offer in the way of predictions or testability. I’m not sure there’s really a multiverse theory in the scientific sense. The concept is out there and some people think it’s implied by quantum mechanics, but it’s not proven or universally accepted.
Our model of gravity seems to work, though.
The CMB may not imply on its own that the universe is expanding, but in combination with the other things we know - like the Doppler shifting - that’s what it suggests.
But some of these hypotheses are used to support BBT such as inflation. BBT dosent work to well without inflation does it?
And my quarrel is not with the majority of mainstream scientists and in fact most of the ones I see on tv do a pretty good job of explaining what they feel is “proven” and what is not. But the textbooks they use in school do not. So I guess my quarrel would be more with the teachers unions? I am not really sure who decides what goes in the textbooks and how it is presented.
The Doppler shift implies that expansion is going on at the moment and the CMB implies that things were more uniform at some point but neither suggest a big bang we need inflation for that.
No. If the predictions and measurements don’t match, we take better, more careful measurements, reexamine the theory, find new explanations, build better equipment to take even more certain measurements, and repeat until an explanation is found that fits all the observed facts.
There’s a great deal of evidence for both. We can see that galaxies that are farther from us are moving away from us faster than nearer ones, for example.
Would you mind explaining why?
I said the idea is out there but it’s not universally accepted and has probably not reached the status of a scientific theory. This article says the exact same thing.
You’re not making sense here. Would you mind explaining what you mean by inflation?
You didn’t say inflation, you said string theory and multiverses, and I said those were hypotheses.
It so happens that inflation is also a hypothesis, though it’s one with some evidentiary support and not a lot of evidentiary contradiction.
Well, I guess it was your responsibility as a parent to check on this at the time, but if your youngest child is already out of high school, it’s too late.
If course, in practical terms, unless a kid pursues college courses in physics, astronomy and/or cosmology, the simplified explanations they get in high school become mere trivia.
Marley
Sorry for the interuption the power blinked it happens sometimes out here in the sticks. And it is bedtime but I will take a stab at answering what is on my plate first.
You seem to use the terms inflation and expansion interchangeably I am pretty sure they are not the same thing. I agree there is overwhelming evidence for expansion.
Inflation is a period of time in which the universe expanded at a rate much faster than the speed of light. Without inflation the standard model just sucks back together due to gravity and even if it dosent things would be much closer together than what we observe.
IIRC there has never been a mechanism to turn inflation on or one to turn it off. The standard big bang model does not work without it.
The problem I have with the textbooks is that no alternative theories are even mentioned much less explored. I thought it would be pretty obvious that I believe in intelligent desgin but perhaps not. I am 45 and my ideas on this subject and my faith is very much in flux and always have been. I will try in the near future to find some examples of the textbooks I am talking about. I would not want them to explore any particular creation story in detail but I would prefer that they mention that science has not found anything that would prove intelligent design false in fact IMO they have found the exact opposite.
Without an intelligent designer we hit the cosmic lucky shot of all time. Not only did the laws of physics align in such a way to make it possible for both stars and planets to form but they did form. We got just enough matter and energy but not to much. We got everything we needed and in just the right amounts.
I invite you to consider the possibility that a hundred billion universes have arisen and disappeared and this is the first that happened upon a combination that was suitable for life as we know it.
Well I have two Bryan and I feel like I did fail the older one a little bit he is not much interested in this discussion eiither way but more concerned with the things most 22 year old males are concerned with. A good time in other words. Whichever side of the argument (and we know there are much more than 2 sides) he would come down on I just wish he would give it some thought. But yes I do shoulder at least part of the blame for that.
My daughter was always easier to talk to about this kind of thing and it was her that brought this to my attention and we discussed it often and still do. She is in a well accredited junior college working towards a teaching degree.
This I have no problem with and in the scientific world that is how it works But then we have Dan Brown and Stephen Hawkings among others telling us those measurements and observations have proved there is no intelligent designer.
I disagree emphatically and I think the opposite is suggested.