This is an archive of past discussions about Big Bang. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
He originally is the one that put forward the theory although it was of a different name, I think he deserves some recognition. 137.149.138.56 (talk) 12:42, 26 June 2008 (UTthey were very help full in this journey! fic, not religious. Other papers cited in this article are also peer-reviewed. That would be a start for what you want to consider, but there are newer papers too. (Epleite (talk) 17:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC))
"Physics Essays, an international, peer-reviewed journal of impeccable quality, supported and advised by a renowned Editorial Board, has been established as the sole journal to act as the voice of the international physics community in a truly interdisciplinary fashion."
Interesting that they say that. They aren't peer reviewed in the normal sense. Their editors are a little "out there", you see. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:50, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes it is peer reviewed, believe you or not. I am sorry if it makes you unhappy. I know of a guy who had a paper rejected in this journal and the paper was sent to 3 referees (instead of the common 2) and all of them revised the paper twice. There seems to be little room for you to consider anything outside of what you think is "correct", so I will not carry this debate any further. You may write direct to the editors of the journal asking what is the procedure to get a paper accepted for publication or, if you work in the field, you could try to submit a paper for publication there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Epleite (talk • contribs) 02:51, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
Very unprofessional start to this article
The first sentence logically cannot be tenable. "..is best supported by all lines of scientific evidence and observation" is a closed-minded start to an article about a theory in which many of the details have not come close to being resolved. There are so many "lines of scientific evidence and observation" related to the formation of the universe that use of the words "all lines" is total inappropriate in this context.
The article contradicts itself by saying later that there are many "issues and problems" with the theory.
That would imply that there are some "lines of scientific evidence" that don't support the theory.
The level of certainty we should express in this article is a very controversial, old, recurring debate, and taking the time isn't the issue. The scientists here (not me) tend to argue that they are more sure of the Big Bang than the rest of us, and the article reflects their attitude. They would also say that the "issues and problems" are largely resolved. Art LaPella (talk) 20:38, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I am a scientist and I use the Big Bang model every day in my research. I also dislike the opening sentence, and in particular the "all lines" phrase. I also have a couple other minor quibbles about the opening paragraph. First the definition of the Big Bang is somewhat context relevant. How is inflation treated? There is not general model for it yet accepted by all. Are you including inflation or just the "classical Big Bang" model? I would prefer a paragraph more like
“
The Big Bang refers to any cosmological model of the universe whose basic premise includes the idea that the universe expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some finite time in the past. This premise is strongly supported by a large array of experimental data. Georges Lemaître proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe in 1931[cite]. The framework for the model relies on Albert Einstein's General Relativity as formulated by Alexander Friedmann. After Edwin Hubble discovered in 1929 that the distances to far away galaxies were generally proportional to their redshifts, this observation was taken to indicate that all very distant galaxies and clusters have an apparent velocity directly away from our vantage point. The farther away, the higher the apparent velocity.[1] If the distance between galaxy clusters is increasing today, everything must have been closer together in the past. This idea has been considered in detail back in time to extreme densities and temperatures. Experiments, such as particle accelerators and satellites, have been built to probe such conditions and the leftover evidence, resulting in significant confirmation of the theory. To match experimental data probing the universe's earliest moments, the model is usually supplemented by a period of accelerated expansion, called inflation, that occurred early in the universe's history. In still earlier times and higher energies, current physical theories are not expected to be accurate leaving the earliest instants still a mystery that awaits future breakthroughs in physics. The Big Bang theory, even when including inflation, does not provide any explanation for the initial instant of the expansion. It only explains the general evolution of the universe after that instant. It does however warn that the conventional notions of time and space are no longer valid at the earliest moments in the universe's history and interpretation of those times will need progress in physics.
”
This is a only rough draft but addresses some of the other problems I had with the opening paragraph: 1) "and continues to expand to this day" rules out the old models of contracting big bang models (sure, data rules those out now but they are still big bang models even if they don't describe the universe), 2) "and continues to expand to this day" potentially gets the reader confused before they even start and should be omitted, 3) more credit should be given to the CMB people, and 4) at least something that warns that there are philosophical problems with the notion of time at the "instant" of creation. I'm also concerned that Lemaitre is getting too much credit (but it's hard to say without going back and reading a ton of papers in chronological order) and I'm also concerned that Robertson and Walker aren't getting any but maybe Friedmann deserves the opening paragraph fame.
The main point I am making is that "The Big Bang" is not really a single theory but refers to many theories built upon the same foundations (GR, expansion, sometimes inflation, and so on). It has constantly evolved as our knowledge has increased. Even the most up-to-date version, usually called the "Standard Big Bang" to indicate explicitly that inflation is incorporated, is still not unique because inflation itself is not uniquely handled. Jason Quinn (talk) 01:33, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
problem with bigbang
According to theories of rahul soor the universe originate from a nodal area. Each and every point inside nidal area will communicate with all other points creating quantum wave density.In ayurveda nodal area is termed as AVYAKT. Avyakt and nodal area
Ancient ayurveda believe that the present universe is originated from avyakt. The avyakt term is formed from the combination of two different words a + vayakt which when combines toughter indicates something which doesn’t be received by our five sense organs. The nodal area is exactly analogous to ancient avyakt. Nodal area is an area were there no particle but only n information of null ness actually vaykt and nodal area were the basic platform of universe the platform on which the universe exist ,hence through information laws and properties we can understand how universe take birth.
time and universe
Time and universe were mutually depended on each other to know the origin of one you must know to the origin of other. The theory mentioned in this paper is based upon the information carried by quantum waves. Every thing which exists must have its origin and all such origination require information. Every event has its own information .this information transit through quantum wave medium. Informative waves when swept out time of that particle manifested.
Present universe originated from a nodal area, due to an internal communication setup of nodal area quantum wave density created which further results for formation of particles. The interaction of information was responsible for the origin of the known space-time. Electron is a wave structure made by inward and outward wave. To understand this we have to go through the properties of quantum waves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rahulsoor india (talk • contribs) 08:02, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
SEND BY RAHUL ASHOK SOOR ,INDIA, —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rahulsoor india (talk • contribs) 08:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Please see the big red hand at the top of this page - this page is for discussing the article - not your theories of how the universe began. There are other more appropriate pages for your contributions.PhySusie (talk) 13:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
File Type: Unknown
Please convert the Timeline, Overview of the Big Bang graphic to a file type recognizable by Windows, which is used by more than 95% of all computer users worldwide. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.177.13.232 (talk) 11:17, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't know anything about image file types, but both graphics work on my Windows (Windows XP version 5.1, Flock browser). Did you mean the graphical timeline link at the start of Big Bang#Timeline of the Big Bang, or the Hubble Ultra Deep Field picture? Art LaPella (talk) 20:31, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
Sci Am News Scan article placement
This is a request to consider a source and some additional content into this article, or suggest an alternative article as more appropriate.
This article provides a very concise history of major Big Bang-related theories; therefore, it could appear in the 'Further reading' section.
This article also provides awareness-level information on two sets of theories emerging in the months preceding September 2007, both of which were purported to be alternatives to inflation-involved theories. This could be represented as either a single bullet-line or two bullet-lines in the section Big Bang#Speculative physics beyond the Big Bang.
Thanks for considering this in terms of its suitability for inclusion; if the consensus is to, yes, give it a go, I will add the material as described for further consideration.
Hmm... I haven't looked at the full article, but the short preview is packed with enough errors that I'm leery of using this as a source:
According to conventional big bang thinking, the universe emerged from a point of infinite energy and density, a singularity where the laws of physics break down—singularities are where theories break down, not where the universe breaks down. Maybe people took the singularity seriously in the early days, I'm not sure, but the modern thinking is that it means we need new physics to understand the early universe. See Age_of_the_universe#Explanation.
The universe then underwent "inflation," briefly expanding much faster than the speed of light—first, inflation isn't "expansion faster than light"; depending on how you define it, faster-than-light expansion either happens in all eras or doesn't happen at all. Second, this sentence implies that inflation happened after the initial singularity in the standard big bang model, which is wrong. Inflation is what happens instead of the singularity. It's the new physics.
inflation solved a number of puzzles, including why spacetime is "flat," whereby light commonly travels in straight, not warped, lines—spacetime is not flat, and inflation obviously doesn't predict that it is. Space in any given cosmological era is flat when considered as a 3D manifold, and inflation does predict/explain that. This is more than just a typo because light doesn't travel within the flat spacelike surfaces, so their flatness alone can't explain why light travels in straight lines (to the extent that it does so at all).
I probably couldn't tell you whether the description of the new cosmologies is accurate even if I had the full article, but it's clear that Choi doesn't understand cosmology and I wouldn't trust anything he wrote on the subject. I'm frustrated that this was published two years after Misconceptions about the Big Bang. Apparently the SciAm editors didn't learn anything from that article. -- BenRG (talk) 10:45, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Vandalism
Anyone want to remove the vandalism in the opening part of the page that says "big Bang is nothing but bullshit"? Doesn't really seem encyclopaedic to me, or at the very least it is OR. Gavintaig (talk) 12:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
I searched for that phrase in the article, and it isn't there, nor was it there at the time of the post above, 12:52 9 September. I didn't find anything like that phrase either. But if you find something that you are sure is vandalism, you can remove it, and it isn't much harder than posting here. See Wikipedia:Revert for more details. Art LaPella (talk) 22:17, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
At the time the article was semi-protected, and the vandalism was there. I just checked the history and couldn't find it either, very strange. I assure you that it was there, why else would I have posted? Gavintaig (talk) 07:05, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I think I see what happened. The vandalism you saw was actually vandalism of Template:Physical cosmology, which is included in the Big Bang article, but which has a separate revision history, and so now that the vandalism has been reverted, there's no evidence left here that it was ever there in the first place. Scog (talk) 13:01, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Big Bang = Religion
Let's discuss the article, not the Big Bang.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The big bang is really fake and nothing more. The only difference between the big bang theory and other religions is that this one is government funded... I personaly do not believe in the theory, but like other religions, I have no problem in other people believing. The only thing that angers me is that it is used in modern science books. There is no definate, or even moderately close evidence that proves that this is how the universe was truly formed, whereas when I think of science, I think of information based on facts.
I think you may have a misunderstanding of what "theory" means in the scientific context. A scientific theory is an explanation that has been throughly tested and is supported by the currently available scientific evidence. If you wish to read about the scientific evidence supporting the Big Bang model you will find a good deal of it on this or related pages. Please remember that this talk page is for discussing improving Wikipedia's page on the Big Bang model, not for debating the merits of the theory. Coffeeassured (talk) 02:00, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
No, Big Bang is not a religion. Yet more, "religion" is an entirely different concept, you cannot f.ex. replace "religion" with "Big Bang" such as in "the religion of my grandparents was Jewish mysticism" with "the Big Bang of my grandparents was Jewish mysticism", and expect the listener to perceive the same thought for the different sentences. Said: Rursus (☻) 08:52, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Big Bang Theory Assumptions
Section 2.2 should begin with the primary assumption, that the cosmological redshift is due to a Doppler effect caused by a hypothesized expansion of space. Carl Sagan clearly states in his books that the Big Bang theory absolutely depends on this hypothetical assumption. Sagan expresses his scepticism of the assumption in his book Cosmos pages 208-211. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.186.213.96 (talk • contribs) 03:44, 5 September 2008
Cosmos was published in 1980, and an enormous amount of new astronomical data has become available since then. The alternatives Sagan discussed have been ruled out by the new data. Sagan was right to be skeptical 30 years ago, but he wouldn't be skeptical now.
It's somewhat ambiguous what the "assumptions" of a theory are; generally you can develop the same theory from many different starting points. The only unambiguous thing about a theory is its predictions. It follows from the assumptions listed in section 2.2 (general relativity and quantum mechanics and the cosmological principle) that the redshift is due to recession of the galaxies (or, equivalently, expansion of space). -- BenRG (talk) 11:18, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Carl Sagan's criticisms are every bit as valid today as 30 years ago, see American Scientist article of Sept 2007 by Prof. Michael J. Disney Modern Cosmology: Science or Folktale?, there Prof. Disney of Cardiff University writes that the Big Bang crumbles like a house of cards if the cosmological redshift can be shown to be explained by other than the hypothesis of expansion of space. This absolutely belongs at the very beginning of Section 2.2 as the primary assumption. 72.186.213.96 (talk) 20:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Actually, the cosmological redshift is not caused by the Doppler Effect but is a natural feature of a GR-metric that has an expanding scale-factor. The scale factor originates from other more fundamental assumptions. One need not assume anything about the "cause" of the redshift: even if there was no light emanating from distant objects and there was no observed redshift-distance relations, the Big Bang theory would still hold. It is therefore not manifestly dependent on the assumption of a redshift mechanism. Indeed, the Big Bang theory itself only provides an explanation for the observed redshift-distance relation. It is not dependent on it any more than, for example, quantum mechanics is dependent on discrete spectral lines being associated with the differences in energy levels in atoms. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
That is pure double-talk nonsense. You have presented a fundamental assumption yourself, that the redshift is caused by a GR-metric scale factor, which is circular reasoning, a tautology, which is based on your additional assumption that the big bang is true. Circular reasoning par excellence. The fact is, no one knows what causes the redshift - the big bang theory is based on the primary assumption that it is caused by an expansion of space - this Expansion hypothesis is indeed the primary fundamental assumption of the big bang theory, and it absolutely belongs at the very beginning of Section 2.2 14:02, 18 September 2008 (UTC)72.186.213.96 (talk).
Please, guys!! A politer tone is on my wish list, such as "please clarify what you perceive as the difference of the Doppler Effect versus expanding scale-factor – is that not two different ways to say the same thing?" Said: Rursus (☻) 10:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Dr. Michael Disney is Professor Emeritus of Astrophysics at Cardiff University, here published in a top journal. It is Wikipedia's policy to accept such top sources. It must not be simply ignored by Wikipedia. It puts the state of the big bang theory into perspective for Wikipedia readers. Dr.Disney calls the expansion of space a hypothesis. - and hypothesis means assumption, his published source therefore belonging in section 2.2 as a proper reference. 72.186.213.96 (talk) 21:58, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
To proclaim that the big bang is in support of all scientific evidence would be falsified information. Any record of complexity in our natural environment is strong evidence to disprove this Theory, for that is all that it is. An educated guess about the formation of the world as we know it. let me explain. The big bang theory is described as an occurance in which there is absolutely nothing in existance, no time, no matter, no energy. Then suddenly there is a tremendous explosion of compressed particles that did not previously exist. Which would be a direct contridiction to one of the very basic rules of phisics: "matter cannot be created nor destroyed." providing scientific evidence that disproves such a theory. Now let us assume that this could happen anyway, that there was a big bang. A trumendous explosion of matter that spread across millions if not billions of light years apart. This explosion, or bang, or whatever you want to call it is in essence a creation of chaos. life, beauty, matter, and every natural thing in this world is never created by chaos. a bang is a disruption and killer of life, matter, and nature. Not a creator of one, and I can garentee that no explosion can ever result in anything but destruction. As for the creation of a world, one that can sustain life, it is scientifically impossibe for a world to meet the exact specifications needed to sustain life randomly. What with the exact placement the earth has to be as compared to the sun, the spin of the earth at the precise speed and angle to provide a sustainable gravitational pull, and the impossibly complex shielding that the autmosphere protects us from numerous dangers that would instantly kill all life on this planet if one small factor is off. These complications and any that are observed in this world disprove with trumendous force that our world, our planet was created by accident. It would be simpler to explain that the Mona Lisa was an explosion of compressed paint and paper.
I don't want to sound rude, but by your post, it's very clear that you didn't even bother to read more than the first few sentences of the article. Read it, and then post your more educated dispute not here, but somewhere else because this talk page is for improving the article, not for disputing the validity of the big bang. I would also suggest that you look up the scientific definition of the word "theory", which is not the same as you seem to be using it. Also check up on quantum mechanics - matter does actually spontaneously come into existence all the time.Farsight001 (talk) 07:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
We report what those with authority in the area believe, so in this case we report scientific consensus. If you'd like to change what's written here try and change their minds, not ours.--Serviam(talk)18:02, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Just a little clarification here. If someone reads something in the article and thinks it may be a lot of baloney, discussing that point is an attempt to improve the article. I guess what you mean to say is, "Don't question the experts. You are just too stupid to understand, and you are clogging up the discussion pages with useless commentary." Personally, I think you are wrong. Questioning what is being written does help improve the article. Perhaps you know what you are saying, but you say it badly. Hearing an objection may aid you in writing more clearly. On the other hand, it is very possible that you don't know what you are talking about at all. In which case, please stop regurgitating drivel into this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.94.176.22 (talk) 01:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
We do indeed mean to say "Don't question the experts – just report what experts think". For more explanation, please notice the big hand at the top of this page. By the way, I am definitely not an expert on this subject. Art LaPella (talk) 02:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Ah! You caught me being sloppy in my use of language. I meant you when I said expert. If a non-expert says that Einstein didn't know what he was talking about, that statement would have no place in this discussion unless there were experts who could be quoted, etc. Yes I agree with that. My complaint is that this article apparently misquotes, paraphrases badly, and makes huge jumps in logic. So, If Einstein says that the Big Bang Theory is now proved, quote Einstein. Give the context of the quote too. Or quote Stephan Hawking, etc. I tried to add to the article, perhaps badly myself. But rather than trying to understand my complaint with the current wording, my revisions were simply reverted. So, I am trying to make my points here in the discussion. If someone has something to say, try to understand it. Don't just delete it. The Big Bang Theory may be the theory de jour, but it is still a theory. Hawking for example seems to give a little caveat when he talks about the Big Bang theory being universally excepted. Say that experts think this theory explains more of the empirical phenomena that has been observed and hypothesized. And please differentiate between the observed universe and the Universe meaning all there is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.94.176.22 (talk) 03:50, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm not that kind of expert either – my usual contributions are spelling, grammar, and re-explaining repetitive issues like the big hand. So if I misinterpreted what you meant, it's because you seemed to be defending Dck1990, whose post can be summarized as intelligent design, not a debate over what Hawking believes. Art LaPella (talk) 06:11, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
I am not defending intelligent design, but Dck1990 does make a valid point. That is, Big Bang is a theory. This article needs to make that clear. Don't quote an expert and leave out his or her little caveat. That is my point. If you weren't so quick to dismiss Dck1990 as a fanatical cultist, you might actually try to reread the article to see his points. For example, Hawking says: "Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang." See? Theory.
BTW, speaking of cultists, you might want to add that Lemaître was a Christian Priest. I think the article should have that and not just leave it to the Lemaître link. Just say Father George Lemaître, or his reverence, or whatever the proper title is. and leave it at that. I mean, I think it is important to show that this theory springs from and is excepted by the Catholic Church. That is a fact. It might also mention that the Pope has stated that the kind of experiment being done by the Hadrian Collider to recreate the act of creation should never be done.
Personally, I don't believe that the Pope is God's voice on earth, but enough people do that it makes his expert opinion in matters of metaphysics important.
So, finally, please read comments critically and don't just rubber stamp with the big hand, POV, or original research. That gets old fast, and may keep valuable contributors away. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.94.176.22 (talk) 08:51, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
===I'm concerned about the logic of the Big Bang Theory from the Boolean logic standpoint. In Boolean algebra and science you have the two sets 1: fact, and 2: Opinion. And these sets are not mutually exclusive. And I can see where the Big Bang theory fits into the Opinion category, But I dont see how it could fit into the Fact category, given the existing available information. WFPMWFPM (talk) 23:24, 9 October 2008 (UTC)WFPMWFPM (talk) 23:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
===My comment was more related to how you would ever get a computer to consider such a propisition to be a fact, given the Boolean logic of a computer. And if you cant convince a computer, then all you have is a calculator, which will say that in digital mathematics, 0.999999999 is equal to zero. WFPMWFPM (talk) 04:36, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia won't trust unaided computers to decide if the Big Bang is a fact, until computers become as smart as Star Trek computers. For now, Wikipedia's criterion is to publish what leading scientists believe. (By the way, you meant one, not zero.) Art LaPella (talk) 06:11, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
==When I was learning Basic and approaching 1 in digitalo math from below I was always fascinated that no matter how close to 1 you could get from below, the answer in digital math always was zero. Binomial zero, that is. WFPMWFPM (talk) 12:29, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Big Bang
If you think that the various aspects of the universe came into existence from a "Bang" of none existing particles is absurd!! Next you will try to tell me that a house is made up of wood and nails that just magically appeared and formed a house. you can't make something out of nothing, Energy is neither gained nor destroyed: it is transferred. You may ask how did the house get their? It's simple-someone created it...just like God, the one and only, who created the galaxies and everything in-between. Everything has a creator. You don't have to be a genius to figure it out. If you want to believe the "Big Bang" I hope that you don't, but if you do you will be spending eternity in Hell. Read the Bible...the truth, the word that God provided for his children so that we can learn to live for him and do his will. It's your choice...I just gave you the information, you have to decide if you will accept the truth, or keep living the same old lie. The Bible says every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.163.77.24 (talk) 00:49, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Did you notice the red octagon with a hand in it, at the top of this page? Your Christian witness might improve if you at least recognized the hand. Art LaPella (talk) 01:20, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
We report what the scientific community thinks, if you want to change what they think take it up with them not us. On an unrelated note, if you believe there is a God and there is evidence for a big bang, isn't it reasonable for you to assume that God must have created the big bang? Just a thought--Serviam(talk)17:29, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
I forgot to say to 172.163.77.24, which could be implicitly read between my lines: it is undesirable (and damaging) for the religious person himself/herself, to structure and tune ones own personal faith as to rely on objections against the principles of science – in the long run one condemns oneself to a detachment from ones own common sense – such self-organizations invariably lead to false dream-worlds that aren't usable for oneself. That is my religious conviction. Said: Rursus (☻) 10:34, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
models including the Hartle-Hawking no-boundary condition in which the whole of space-time is finite; the Big Bang does represent the limit of time, but without the need for a singularity.[52]
The Hartle-Hawking model simply declines to re-convert to real numbers. If we do, then the singularity re--appears. Hawking admits, ‘Only if we could picture the universe in terms of imaginary time would there be no singularities . . . When one goes back to the real time in which we live, however, there will still appear to be singularities’ (Hawking 1988: 138-9).
Hawking means to include himself when he asserts that ‘almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the Big Bang’ (Hawking and Penrose 1996: 20).
brane cosmology models[53] in which inflation is due to the movement of branes in string theory; the pre-big bang model; the ekpyrotic model, in which the Big Bang is the result of a collision between branes; and the cyclic model, a variant of the ekpyrotic model in which collisions occur periodically.[54][55][56]
In September of 2001 Borde and Vilenkin, in cooperation with Alan Guth, were able to generalize their earlier results on inflationary models in such a way to extend their conclusion to other models. Specifically, they note, ‘Our argument can be straightforwardly extended to cosmology in higher dimensions,’ specifically brane--cosmology. According to Vilenkin, ‘It follows from our theorem that the cyclic universe is past--incomplete’, that is to say, the need for an initial singularity has not been eliminated. Therefore, such a universe cannot be past-eternal.
chaotic inflation, in which inflation events start here and there in a random quantum-gravity foam, each leading to a bubble universe expanding from its own big bang.[57]
In 1994, however, Arvind Borde and Alexander Vilenkin showed that a universe eternally inflating toward the future cannot be geodesically complete in the past, that is to say, there must have existed at some point in the indefinite past an initial singularity. They write,
A model in which the inflationary phase has no end . . . naturally leads to this question: Can this model also be extended to the infinite past, avoiding in this way the problem of the initial singularity?
. . . this is in fact not possible in future--eternal inflationary spacetimes as long as they obey some reasonable physical conditions: such models must necessarily possess initial singularities.
. . . the fact that inflationary spacetimes are past incomplete forces one to address the question of what, if anything, came before (Borde and Vilenkin 1994: 3305, 3307).
In his response, Linde concurs with the conclusion of Borde and Vilenkin: there must have been a Big Bang singularity at some point in the past (Linde, A, Linde, D. and Mezhlumian 1994). Therfore, inflationary models, like their predecessors, failed to avert the beginning predicted by the Standard Model.
I think there are good references above that show that the picture painted in the article is incorrect. I'd like to hear other opinions before I make any edits, however, as this would entail a large change the section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Motocop (talk • contribs) 20:02, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
ScienceApologist is right, but there are plenty of citations here to more reliable people like Hawking and Guth, so I'll try to comment on that.
"When one goes back to the real time in which we live, however, there will still appear to be singularities"—I think what Hawking meant is that the singularities are only apparent, i.e. not real. "Real" and "imaginary" time derive their names from real and imaginary numbers, not reality and fantasy.
"almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the Big Bang"—this is not true; in fact I think a significant majority of cosmologists would disagree with that statement. A search for the quote turns up nothing but religious sites, making me wonder if it's even genuine. If it is genuine it must have been taken out of context. (Or maybe it was true in 1996 and opinion has shifted since then? I'm not actually sure.)
"In 1994, Arvind Borde and Alexander Vilenkin showed that a universe eternally inflating toward the future cannot be geodesically complete in the past"—apparently referring to a predecessor of this paper. I think the paper is fine (I assume it's fine or Guth wouldn't have put his name on it), but one of their key assumptions is that the average expansion rate in the past is positive, and (as they mention on the last page) there are singularity-free models that violate that assumption. I can't comment on the brane-cosmology stuff.
Most importantly, though, these models don't have a Big Bang singularity even if they have an initial singularity of some other kind.
Thanks for the quick replies. For the record (whatever that means) I also agree that William Lane Craig is not a good source for this, however I only include the article because that's where I found the other references and thought it would be useful to the discussion here on the talk page if we all had access to the same sources of info.
Actually I think the quote shows that Hawking meant the opposite, that the singularity is real or perhaps that the singularity only "vanishes" if we look at it in terms of a mathematical construct (the positivist position). I think that is more readily apparent by this quote from Hawking ‘I’m a positivist . . . I don’t demand that a theory correspond to reality because I don’t know what it is’ (Hawking and Penrose 1996: 121). Or ‘I take the positivist view point that a physical theory is just a mathematical model and that it is meaningless to ask whether it corresponds to reality’.(Hawking and Penrose 1996: 4)
The quote is found in Nature of Space and Time, Hawking and Penrose, pg 20, which conveniently (or inconveniently), the preview for it stops at page 17, but I'm guessing it's not a made up quote either. But either way the previous Hawking quote is enough to show that the Hartle-Hawking model is not intended to reflect reality, as such.
Our argument can be straightforwardly extended to cosmology in higher dimensions. For example, in the model of Ref. [15] brane worlds are created in collisions of bubbles nucleating in an inflating higher-dimensional bulk spacetime. Our analysis implies that the inflating bulk cannot be past-complete.
And they go on to talk about other models that they were able to invalidate, but I didn't see the reference to any that they were not able to invalidate. I probably just missed it, but either way, it does seem to apply the the second bullet of the article in reference to brane cosmology.
If it is true that they have a singularity, but don't have a Big Bang singularity, then I think it's ok to point that out in the article too. The article looks like it is talking about avoiding a singularity completely, so I just was providing some sources that seem to contradict the article. I mean, in the interest of full disclosure, I do want there to be a singularity, but I recognize that my personal desires are completely immaterial to wikipedia's goal of accurately reporting the scientific consensus. Then having said that, I think that the references I provided are valuable and do seem to point to a different conclusion than the article in regards to the current scientific consensus.Motocop (talk) 13:15, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Hartle-Hawking model is an inflation alternative that received notable fame because of two things: 1) It has Hawking's name attached to it, and 2) it avoids a singularity in a way similar to the de-Sitter waist/cap avoidance of a singularity when it is matched to a Schwarzschild solution. WLC thinks that because Hawking used imaginary numbers that his solution is "unphysical". This only evinces the ignorance of WLC. The "imaginary time" used is simply another way of expressing how the mathematics can consistently work while avoiding a singularity in 3D+1 spacetime. Whether other "topological defects" occur or not is entirely too much for inclusion on a page about the Big Bang.
The "existence of an initial singularity in the past" exercise is academic and misses the point of eternal inflation. Given "infinity" a lot of weird things happen. That's all they're saying. For WLC to claim that this somehow "regains" an ab initio point is like someone who doesn't believe in an infinite universe using the idea that at some point in an infinite universe everything that is possible to happen will happen and therefore a finite universe will happen and the universe is finite. Avoiding this kind of logical mindtrap is difficult, but it certainly doesn't belong on this page.
I submit that your proposed additions are actually not based in the best understanding of the mathematics or the theoretics of these proposals.
I do regret that I gave a link to the christian article as I recognize from your couple posts that you don't like WLC, which I think is just fine, but I never quoted WLC and it seems like you would need to deal with the sources that I actually did quote. Your first point highlights what I quoted Hawking as saying, namely, that his model is a useful tool for making predictions, not that it corresponds to reality. You're right when you say that I don't have the best understanding of these theories (I am not an expert which is why I have quoted the experts). Having said that, I think I have understood Hawking correctly when he says, "... a physical theory is just a mathematical model and that it is meaningless to ask whether it corresponds to reality." However, if you feel really strongly that we shouldn't bring that up in the article, then I'd like to hear some other opinions, but if I'm in the minority I'll back off the Hawking bullet point. Are the other two ok?
I'm not sure what you mean by the "other two" bullet points. I haven't really found anything that you are arguing for to be worthy of inclusion here. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:45, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Re-read my first and second posts and you'll see that I'm providing additional source information for the three bullet points in the article. You seem to have been objecting to alterting the first bullet but haven't said anything about the other two. In the second bullet regarding brane cosmology, it appears that the theories have been tested and falsified (see sources). Similarly the third point regarding chaotic inflation has been falsified according to the sources I referenced. I would disagree that additional scientific research on this field is not worthy of inclusion to wikipedia. I get the feeling that you're against anything I add just because I referenced an article by William Lane Craig ... look, I don't give a rip about that guy one way or the other, but the references seem pretty straightforward. Motocop (talk) 14:45, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
I already addressed the initial singularity issues and pointed out that such arguments are not relevant to this particular page. As for "chaotic inflation being falsified", I see no indication of this anywhere in the sources you cite. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:46, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Moreover, there seems to be a misconception about whether an "initial singularity" "truly" exists. In the most basic epistemological way, an initial singularity does not exist in the way it is conceived in our current models simply because singularities are physical paradoxes. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
The references are certainly valid and relevant as they provide more recent findings than those referenced in the article. If you don't like the idea, I'd encourage you to take it up with Hawking, Arvind Borde, Alexander Vilenkin, Linde, etc. as they seem to disagree with you. Motocop (talk) 16:06, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
As it happens, I just had a seminar with Arvind the other day. I can assure you he would NOT agree with your attempted (re)interpretations of his work. What I'm saying is the way his work is supposed to be interpreted. What you are saying is the way William Lane Craig interprets their work. Sorry. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:29, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
I'll just say this one more time then I'm done responding to you on this. I suggest you pick up the paper he authored with Guth and Vilenkin, found here. Look at the references I provided and how they relate to what is in the article. I think it's clear that the newer references add relvant information to the article, even if it's just as footnotes. Motocop (talk) 17:00, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Re this whole discussion, I think I should point out that a singularity and a beginning of time are totally different things. Nobody likes singularities and nobody "believes in" them, because they're just places where the theory breaks down. A theory can have singularities without having a beginning of time (like the Landau pole of the particle physics Standard Model) or it can have a beginning of time without a singularity (like the Hartle-Hawking instanton). Physicists have no particular preference for or against theories with a beginning of time, but theories that are nonsingular at the Big Bang are better than theories that aren't. Some such theories have been shown to be singular elsewhere, and that's unfortunate, but they might still have something useful to say in the regimes where they're nonsingular. I assume you don't care one way or the other about singularities, you just want a theory with a beginning of time because you believe that to be a necessary consequence of your religious beliefs (but see below). In that case you should have no objection to a section about theories that try to avoid the Big Bang singularity, particularly since some of them (like Hartle-Hawking) still have a beginning of time.
Also, I'd like to encourage you to rethink your idea that "creation" of the universe must be associated with an earliest time. If there's one thing we've learned from general relativity it's that time is intrinsic to the universe, not something external in which the universe evolves. The law of cause and effect is a law of physics. The idea that there was a time "before the universe existed" is logically incoherent. That doesn't mean that there was no earliest time—it means that, if there was, it really was the earliest time! To get a little more concrete, the Borde, Guth and Vilenkin paper that I linked above mentions a singularity-free eternal inflation cosmology of Aguirre and Gratton. If they're talking about the same idea I'm thinking of, this is a model where entropy is minimized at the "waist" of a de Sitter space and increases both into the past and into the future. Because the perceptual arrow of time derives from the thermodynamic arrow of time, we see the universe as shrinking in our "past" regardless of which half of it we're in. Can you reconcile your religious beliefs with a model like that, which has a thermodynamic beginning of sorts but no endpoint of spacetime where God can touch His Sistine-Chapel finger to start things off?
Incidentally, Hawking's part of The Nature of Space and Time is available online, and he does baldly say (top of page 15) that almost everyone thinks that time began at the Big Bang. Of course, Hawking was at that time promoting his instanton theory in which time does begin at the Big Bang, but it didn't (and still doesn't) have nearly enough support from other cosmologists to justify a statement like that, so I remain mystified. I should also say that I'm strongly opposed to the cherry-picking of quotes that Craig seems to be engaged in here. It's not generally hard to find quotes from prominent scientists seemingly in opposition to their own work, because part of the culture of science is being your own harshest critic and recognizing that your pet ideas may turn out to be totally wrong. When someone says "the recent work of Grackle and Floop may invalidate our work," it doesn't mean they think it does invalidate it, it's just a form of full disclosure. I think using quotes like this as evidence that the theory is in trouble is dishonest and potentially harmful to science in the long term (if it discourages scientists from expressing their doubts). -- BenRG (talk) 17:41, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I'll let this drop. If you all think something should be added or changed based on the provided references (unlikely), I'll leave it to you.Motocop (talk) 18:37, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
I think such a site as www.bethinking.org should carefully be avoided, because they try to provide science sources to "prove" christianity, which is in disaccord with Matthew 16:1-4, and else would allow the arguments of any insane sect to have any weight for a pure science topic. Christianity is decidedly not about proofs, it's about faith without proofs, and as for alternative opinions, I'll refer to Ori (Stargate) in the Stargate SciFi series, realistically exploring the option of a religion not requiring pure faith. Said: Rursus (☻) 10:56, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Is this sentence at all scientific?
"The core ideas of the Big Bang—the expansion, the early hot state, the formation of helium, the formation of galaxies—are derived from many independent observations including Big Bang nucleosynthesis, the cosmic microwave background, large scale structure and Type Ia supernovae, and can hardly be doubted as important and real features of our universe."
I'm not even going to go into the problems with that, like the cosmic background radiation being far weaker than predicted, the naivety of thinking telescopes looking through a zillion stars and a huge mess of light can see the entire universe when we don't even know almost anything about the planets in our own solar system, blah blah blah... But that sentence is essentially telling people that the Big Bang is scientific fact, which it isn't.
See the top of this page, with a red octagon with a hand in it; thus I'm glad you won't go into the problems with that. For Wikipedia the right question is, to what extent do leading scientists worldwide consider the Big Bang a fact? I'm not a scientist, but according to previous discussion, they pretty much do consider it a fact. Wikipedia is intended to reflect their opinions, not ours. Art LaPella (talk) 22:17, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Wow!! I am sure you do not have any contact with scientists that work in this field. By no means they consider any Big Bang theory as a fact. One must not confuse the actual collected data with the inferences made while interpreting them. They know they are making unverified (although reasonable) premises and adjusting lots of contradictory data so as to fit in the theories, by using ad-hoc hypothesis (this is very common in Science). Even the event called "Big Bang" can't be considered as a fact because this is the result of a conclusion based on data interpretation (which is subject to premises, inferences, etc.), not a direct observation (of course) (an example of a more direct observation that IS a fact is the red-shift of light) — EPLeite 15:33, 16 July 2008 (UTC).
You're right, I don't; my cosmology education comes more from Wikipedia than anywhere else. If you don't want to take my word for what previous discussion was like, you could review the archives here (find the word "Archives" near the top of this page), or you could let the scientists here speak for themselves; I'm only trying to summarize that information. But I'm glad to see you're now making assertions about what "scientists that work in this field" think, not about what we should think. That's a beginning. Art LaPella (talk) 20:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
We have Big Bang theories. These are theories, therefore, not "facts". It may be based in a collection of facts plus logical reasoning and so forth, but there is no such thing like "Big Bang as a fact". Fact is something you get from a "direct" observation (no trully direct observation can occur, that is the reason for the quotation marks). One could consider the event called "Big Bang" as a fact, but that is just inappropriate, because this is just an infered hypothesis to explain lots of data, after many assumptions and intermediate inferences have been made. I think most of the people who have the tendency to call Big Bang a "fact" is atheists to try to strengthen their positions when discussing the Universe with religious people. I am an atheist myself, but I don't need to lie just to "win" a debate. (EPLeite 03:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Epleite (talk • contribs)
You're still criticizing my statement that "leading scientists ... pretty much do consider [the Big Bang] a fact." According to philosophical skepticism there are no facts, which would invalidate my summary but not the article, which doesn't use the word "fact" to describe the Big Bang anyway. The right question is, does the article overstate the confidence of leading scientists (not just us) in the Big Bang? Art LaPella (talk) 05:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I dont like the idea that the Big Bang theory provides for the creation of both Electrically charged "quarks" and then for electrically charged "electrons/positrons" and then goes on to the theory that the unit of electric charge is made up of the relative charge relationship between a plus or minus charged electron/proton and the sum of the charges on 3 quarks. Sounds like mathematical manipulations to me. WFPMWFPM (talk) 01:47, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Mathematical manipulations are very useful in other branches of science, for calculating satellite orbits for instance, so I probably misunderstand the objection. However, you have neither proposed a change to the article nor cited leading scientists who agree with you, so did you notice the big hand at the top of the page? Art LaPella (talk) 05:00, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Could I cite the arguments of Lucretious "Nothing can be created out of nothing." Maxwell did in the 9th edition of the EB. WFPMWFPM (talk) 12:40, 10 October 2008 (UTC)It's a low "tautological" argument, but at least I haven't noticed any discussions of "negative energy" recently so maybe there's hope. WFPMWFPM (talk) 13:53, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Since the prev discussion deviated from the article to whether Big Bang is proved or not, I will repeat the sentence in question:
"The core ideas of the Big Bang—the expansion, the early hot state, the formation of helium, the formation of galaxies—are derived from many independent observations including Big Bang nucleosynthesis, the cosmic microwave background, large scale structure and Type Ia supernovae, and can hardly be doubted as important and real features of our universe."
Is this sentence really encyclopedic in tone? It contains such a subjectivity as "can hardly be doubted", which borders to not NPOV. And more: the sentence is badly structured, since it stacks this-fact and that-fact, in order to allege-prove by emotionalizing and black-paint the mayhap opponent as not-of-a-real-mind. Said: Rursus (☻) 09:02, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
And it contains WP:weasels such as "many independent observations", which should typically be marked {{who}} or {{fact}} (citation needed). Said: Rursus (☻) 09:06, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Oh, maybe. "can hardly be doubted" sounds a bit too much like "doubted by anyone" which would be false, but the context of the previous paragraph is about the scientific consensus. Other than that, the sentence probably represents leading scientific opinion pretty well, according to previous discussion, although I will leave the details of that proposition up to others. "many independent observations" is explained as "including Big Bang nucleosynthesis, the cosmic microwave background, large scale structure and Type 1a supernovae", so I would think any challenge would be to each piece of alleged evidence separately. Art LaPella (talk) 18:17, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
===Suppose I could boil the discussion about the Big Bang into the difference between two assertions. 1: In the beginning (of time) there was no universe. 2: Now there is one. Am I allowed to argue the validity of the first premise, or say that it is not necessary to presume that? WFPMWFPM (talk) 18:40, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
The article now says: "Without any evidence associated with the earliest instant of the expansion, the Big Bang theory cannot and does not provide any explanation for such an initial condition; rather, it describes and explains the general evolution of the universe since that instant." There are presumably no experts (other than theologians) to quote about "the beginning (of time)", so about all we can say is that we don't know. It is not necessary to presume anything about the beginning to describe the Big Bang theory; for Wikipedia it is enough to note that many leading scientists endorse the Big Bang. Art LaPella (talk) 22:20, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Vandalized talk page
Someone vandalized the talk page. I managed to get rid of their words, but I can't figure out how to fix the coding issue at the very top. Help! (and feel free to delete this after it's fixed) Farsight001 (talk) 22:08, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
66.94.176.22 has been adding comments at semi-random locations in the talk page, in one case in the middle of an unrelated existing thread. I've moved everything here. -- BenRG (talk) 21:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Who asked you to move my comments. Now the comments are meaningless, since they are not positioned to coincide with the text. Plus, some comments have simply been deleted. But I'm used to having my work destroyed on Wikipedia. Perhaps you spent a great deal of money on a PhD, so that gives you the right to treat others badly. How would you like it if someone took all of your comments and stuck them out of context in an idea ghetto. Creep! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.94.176.22 (talk) 08:09, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Looking over the COBE map that supposedly shows the background radiation in the universe, I noticed that it is an earth centric model. That is, we are in the center of the COBE map. This must be wrong. Every earth centric cosmological model has turned out to be incorrect in the past. This one must be wrong too. At best, it may show the limits of how far we can "see." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.94.176.22 (talk) 18:59, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
local mini bang and CMB
Is it not true that a localized bang occurred in otherwise empty space that the CMB map would look exactly the same? That is, if the universe turned out to be a trillion times larger than expected and it had a large empty space - much larger than what area of space we can currently detect, and a "bang" event occurred within it, the CMB would look the same as what we would expect if the entire universe had been create from a bang event? What reasons could there possibly be, if this is true, to jump from a more modest hypothesis regarding local space to a grander one involving the whole universe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.94.176.22 (talk) 03:24, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
CMB MAP Universe/Observable Universe
Shouldn't the Map be changed in the article to say observable universe - or even better, observable space? Calling this a map of the Universe is very misleading. Scientific writing needs to be done with some rigor - even for popular science.
Big bang theory assumptions
This section is a mess.
"These ideas were initially taken as postulates, but today there are efforts to test each of them. For example, the first assumption has been tested by observations showing that largest possible deviation of the fine structure constant over much of the age of the universe is of order 10−5.[29] "
This makes a statement about the age of the universe. We can only approximate the age of the part of the universe we can detect.
"If the large-scale universe appears isotropic as viewed from Earth, the cosmological principle can be derived from the simpler Copernican Principle, which states that there is no preferred (or special) observer or vantage point. "
What is meant here by large-scale? This would appear to be a value judgement.
The article states: "The universe has been measured to be homogeneous on the largest scales at the 10% level.[32]" How can the Universe have been measured? We have no idea how large the universe is. We can say that the part of the universe that is known to us has been measured, but how can we say more. Once again the word "universe" is used without apparent rigor. Perhaps there are scientists who understand the Big Bang, but they do not appear to be the authors of this article. Either that or these scientists cannot write well. Please, only write about what you understand. Adding formulas and jargon doesn't make the article better. Good plain language is what is needed. First get the basics right, then attempt the details. If you mean to state that the unmeasurable has been measured, explain yourself. And once again, I think that scientists must differentiate when they mean Universe - all there is, and universe, all that is known. Perhaps some new standardized terminology is needed. Cosmologists, please take note. I don't mean to beat a dead horse here, but obviously, my point is not getting through.
I would like to get to understand this, but in every article or program I have viewed, the use of language is so sloppy, it is impossible to make any sense of what is being stated. When this kind of thing is read critically, it reads like nonsense. Does one have to throw away all logic to appreciate this? Should one dispense with Aristotle's idea of the excluded middle? I mean, either something is measurable or it isn't. Which one is it? Do you really think to suggest that everyone except a physicist is too stupid to get something so basic? People are not that stupid; so which is it? Or maybe you just don't know. Don't feel bad if that is the case. Self knowledge has value. Knowing that you don't know is a good start. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.94.176.22 (talk) 00:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
If you have some comments for how to improve the section, let them be known. Obviously, the claim that the expansion of space is "just a hypothesis" is not reliably sourced and so cannot be included. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
I have some: Dr. Disney's objections towards Big Bang being "scientifically attested" are good ones, based on pure clean scientific reasoning, so the image that the article provides as Big Bang being "well attested", should be weakened to something like "somewhat attested but with serious holes". F.ex. we can
improve the formulation "While the Big Bang model is well established in cosmology" - section Speculative physics beyond the Big Bang
replace the section name Speculative physics beyond the Big Bang with Refinements and alternatives (to Big Bang),
the section name Features, issues and problems could be reformulated to Unsolved issues and problems to stress that it is a "Criticism section",
we need some sources for statements like "Other issues, such as the cuspy halo problem and the dwarf galaxy problem of cold dark matter, are not considered to be fatal as it is anticipated that they can be solved through further refinements of the theory." – this statement is one in a set of many statements that gives the impression of "apologizing" Big Bang, we're not in the religious business here, we're editing an encyclopedia and if it has often referred to weaknesses then it simply has,
(OK, I'm a Big-Bang-ologist myself, but very reluctantly because of all unsolved scientific issues). Said: Rursus (☻) 11:29, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
How would you improve it?
This section isn't about "alternatives", is there anything particularly problematic about the current wording?
Most of those "problems" are solved. It's really not a "criticism" section.
We can get some sources for this point, but it is undeniably true.
So , on a grand scale, we don't know which way is up. What's the big deal?What can one possibly hope to deduce from the fact that we can't see major differences in any direction in space?
===In the subject of cosmology, they hide behind the casuality of things by saying that in the case of a singularity it isn't fair to ask what happened before that. But afterwards when we rebuild our concepts, you would think that we would start out with the same diffuse distribution of energy in space with the same physical accumulation problems. WFPMWFPM (talk) 19:04, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Moved from article
= In the 1979 edition of the EB it shows Lsmaitre"s concept of the "big Bang" as starting at time T=zero and then having a slow but positive rate of expansion for a while, and then for the "expansion" rate to increase such that an extrapolation of the "present rate" back in time results in "t" time of universe existence that in less than the time "T" period. Is that what they are talking about when they say that the rate of "space" expansion of the universe has been determined to be "presently increasing"? WFPMWFPM (talk) 15:38, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
::I removed this from the article for several reasons:
First, you won't find other Wikipedia articles that ask the reader a question like that. It seems inconsistent with the purpose of WP:YOU, although that guideline doesn't specifically mention asking the reader a question. This objection could be met by rephrasing to something like "This seems consistent with the recent finding that the rate of "space" expansion is increasing."
Second, WP:SIGNATURE states "Edits on main Wikipedia article pages should not be signed—the article is a shared work based on the contributions of many people and one editor should not be singled out above others." You won't find such signatures on other Wikipedia articles. Maybe you meant to edit the talk page and edited the article by mistake.
Third, the grammar and punctuation. Nobody else uses equal signs all the time. And although I could fix the :=, "Lsmaitre"s", and "big Bang", I can't fix "an extrapolation of the "present rate" back in time results in "t" time of universe existence that in less than the time "T" period." because I don't know what it means. Did you mean "that is" instead of "that in"? Does it mean "... results in a calculation of the time of the existence of the universe, t, that is less than the time period 'T'"? If so, what is T if it isn't the same as the age of the universe?
Fourth, there are likely to be objections to the science and to the relevance of this information, but I will leave that to others. Art LaPella (talk) 16:30, 22 October 2008 (UTC)No longer relevant due to the apology. Art LaPella (talk) 16:39, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Religion and Science should not be mixed. It causes many complications to people who want to study about the Big Bang. The Big Bang started our Universe and I don't deny that it has happen. How the Universe is another question. Religion is how man thinks and believes in. Science is/can be considered by some and not by others. The problem is that both cannot prove to the other which is not correct. It is possible for both. But in the meantime, reserve judgement. Albertgenii12 (talk) 21:22, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
I consistently argue that the purpose of science is to provide information, not tell people what "is" or "is not" (I got enough of that crap from religion, thank you). It is each individual's responsibility to form their own beliefs. I believe that we are most successful with this when simply given the tools (i.e., information in this case) without dictation of when or how we "should" use them. Expressing opinion is great stuff! But attempting to manage or dictate the beliefs of others is just brainwashing. While I'm not atheist, I think that the worst thing religion has done is to tell people not to think freely or have beliefs that don't "fit with the herd".
I do not particularly agree or disagree that the big bang is how the universe started, but I love everything I've learned about it and it makes me richer as a person. Maybe I'm lucky enough to not feel a need to "know" how things happen, but curious enough to explore the possibilities. Daniel Santos (talk) 08:07, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Fred Hoyle and his coining of the term "Big Bang"
I would like to point out that this article's opening comments on Fred Hoyle's motivation for coining the term 'Big Bang' is in direct contradiction with the information given on Fred Hoyle's wikipedia entry page. In the second paragraph of the opening section of this article, it is stated:
"Fred Hoyle is credited with coining the phrase 'Big Bang' during a 1949 radio broadcast, as a derisive reference to a theory he did not subscribe to."
"The theory was the only serious alternative to the Big Bang which agreed with key observations of the day, namely Hubble's red shift observations, and Hoyle was a strong critic of the Big Bang. Ironically, he is responsible for coining the term "Big Bang" on a BBC radio program, The Nature of Things broadcast at 1830 GMT on 28 March 1949. It is popularly reported that Hoyle intended this to be pejorative, but the script from which he read aloud clearly shows that he intended the expression to help his listeners. In addition, Hoyle explicitly denied that he was being insulting and said it was just a striking image meant to emphasize the difference between the two theories for radio listeners."
That's certainly something which needs addressing, yes - thanks for mentioning it Antartic-adventurer. I'll try and get hold of the source cited in Fred Hoyle (Fred Hoyle: a life in science) since it's bad practice to cite a source one hasn't actually read, but I may not get chance to do so for a while. If anyone else has access to a copy and can verify it feel free to make the modification. Olaf Davis | Talk13:58, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Probably the same reason the gravity article is not titled "theory of gravity" and the cell article is not titled "cell theory". Articles are generally named by the most popular use of the word/phrase/title/whatever. "Big bang" is more commonly used than "big bang theory", so that's the title of the article. Farsight001 (talk) 05:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
The real answer is that scientists feel pretty insecure about their theories. The Big Bang seems like it might explain some things, and there is even a little bit of evidence to give it some credibility, but overall it's on pretty shaky ground. To compensate for their feelings of insecurity, and to try and deter people from asking too many questions, they like to hide the word 'theory' whenever they can. Biologists are the worst. Try telling one that evolution is 'just a theory' and you'll see them throw a tantrum rivaling even the most terrible two-year old in no time at all! I hope that answers your question. Cheers, Ben (talk) 05:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Scientist are not "insecure". Theory does not mean "A random guess", it means paradigm or framework. The fact that we choose to not use the word theory is because we think we're smart enough to understand what we mean when speaking to each other. You don't say "The United States of America country invaded the Iraq country" or "A spoon utensil is much better than a fork utensil to eat the food soup". Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 07:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Without any evidence associated with the earliest instant of the expansion, the Big Bang theory cannot and does not provide any explanation for such an initial condition; rather, it describes and explains the general evolution of the universe since that instant.
I think the italics are unnecessary and rather excessive; they give the impression that the reader assumes the opposite and that the writer of the text is angry/fed up. The manual of style says that italics should be used sparingly, so I would be willing to compromise with this verion:
Without any evidence associated with the earliest instant of the expansion, the Big Bang theory cannot and does not provide any explanation for such an initial condition; rather, it describes and explains the general evolution of the universe since that instant.
In the section entitled ‘Religious Interpretations’ the article states that “The Big Bang is a scientific theory, and as such stands or falls by its agreement with observations.” This is an understandable - and commonplace - description, and purports two things: (1) science is grounded by observational evidence, and (2) the Big Bang theory is scientific because evidence supporting this theory can be observed.
Yet, notwithstanding this statement, the article also points out that “Since the universe has a finite age, and light travels at a finite speed, there may be events in the past whose light has not had time to reach us. This places a limit or a past horizon on the most distant objects that can be observed.”
As such, according to Big Bang theory there may be events / objects that cannot be observed. While other aspects of the theory (e.g. theorised ‘dark matter’) are problematic in observational terms, they may nonetheless be inferred from what can be directly observed. But the so-called ‘horizon problem’ is quite different. As a central tenet of the Big Bang theory, the horizon problem proclaims a definite unobservable nature of the universe.
If certain events / objects of the Big Bang theorised universe are unobservable by the very nature of the universe itself, such a theory of the universe does not in fact stand or fall by its agreement with observations. In this context, the Big Bang theory is either unscientific or a scientific theory does not stand or fall only by its agreement with observations.
Maybe the article needs a little re-wording. Personally, I do agree that the Big Bang theory is scientific - but not all aspects of science stand or fall by their agreement with observation. Some aspects of science stand only as untested, unobserved theories - e.g. scientific theories of the multiverse. Simon P Blackburn (talk) 18:26, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow your reasoning - specifically, when you say "If certain events / objects of the Big Bang theorised universe are unobservable by the very nature of the universe itself, such a theory of the universe does not in fact stand or fall by its agreement with observations." I can think of three possible meanings of the theory 'falling':
The theory being shown to disagree with observations (or more precisely to agree with them less well than some rival theory)
The theory being replaced by a rival theory which explains the observations equally well, but is simpler
Most cosmologists dropping the theory due to some large ideological change in what they view as a good theory, such as all converting to Creationism
Some combination of 1 and 2 is what I would normally mean, and what I take the article to mean. Evidently you're not talking about 1, and if you're talking about 2 or 3 then I don't see what the cosmological horizon has to do with it. Are you using some fourth interpretation I haven't thought of? What exactly do you mean by the theory "falling"? Olaf Davis (talk) 21:16, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Lots of science is unobservable directly. For example, we can't "see" individual atoms or forces, but we can be sure they exist because we can observe their effects. The Big Bang theory is a scientific theory because it makes testable predictions (such as the abundance of elements) - see under "observational evidence".
I'm puzzled at your last point: the multiverse is only mentioned under "Speculative physics beyond the Big Bang". --h2g2bob (talk) 22:05, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
The first sentence of the second full paragraph reads thus: "Fred Hoyle is credited with coining the phrase "Big Bang" during a 1949 radio broadcast, as a derisive reference to a theory he did not subscribe to.[2]"
For the greatest part, ending sentences with prepositions or prepositional phrases is incorrect grammar. Examples include the oft-heard "where are you at?," which pithy retort is "in between the 'A' and sitting on the 'T'."
May I suggest instead of the present wording, a better sounding "... as a derisive reference regarding a theory to which he did not subscribe."
As well, the opening paragraph is EXCEEDINGLY lengthy. It should be divided into several, more easily read sentences, with the summary opening as the first sentence or paragraph.
Finally, the phrase "... coining the phrase..." might be more appropriately reworded as "... credited with originating the phrase..." To write "coining the phrase" is introductory to a banal remark or cliché. Is the term "big bang" either a banal remark or cliché?
Proverbially, I "have no dog in this fight," regarding the content, and hope that my suggestions toward greater clarity may be found useful.
Ending sentences with prepositions isn't unambiguously incorrect, it's controversial; see Preposition stranding. I don't think I would make such a change, but I wouldn't stop you from doing it. By the way, ending a sentence with a prepositional phrase is standard English; even your own quote "in between the 'A' and sitting on the 'T'" ends with the prepositional phrase "on the 'T'". But that's moot because the Fred Hoyle sentence ends with a preposition.
The opening paragraph is the longest paragraph in the article. I suggest separating the first 2 sentences into their own paragraph, because those are the only sentences that summarize the entire article.
I couldn't verify the claim that "'coining the phrase' is introductory to a banal remark or cliché". To the contrary, "coining the phrase 'Big Bang'" gets 271 Google hits, but "originating the phrase 'Big Bang'" doesn't get any Google hits. Art LaPella (talk) 03:49, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Art's suggestion re. the first paragraph seemed a good one, so I've implemented it.
Under the entry for 'coin' in the OED are the two entries:
"To frame or invent (a new word or phrase); usually implying deliberate purpose; and occasionally used depreciatively, as if the process were analogous to that of the counterfeiter"
"to coin a phrase, an expression commonly used ironically to introduce a cliché or a banal sentiment."
The opening sentence of this article currently reads:
The Big Bang is the cosmological model of the universe that is best supported by all lines of scientific evidence and observation.
This appears to be both incorrect and misleading. While I haven't kept up with the science too heavily, I recall recent findings that raised serious questions about the theory (e.g., Nov 2007 Wired article, findings by Gerrit Verschuur). I propose a less assertive opening statement be used, such as replacing "all" with "most" or some such. I hope a career physicist, cosmologists, astronomer, or similar who has followed these findings can comment. At a minimum, the findings should be mentioned in the article. Daniel Santos (talk) 15:53, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, yes, but had you actually read the article instead of being lazy you would have been referred to the Astrophysical Journal's December 10th edition. I'm not an expert in this field and would rather not get involved in this article, but it seems clear to me that this finding is significant enough to pose reasonable questions about the theory and render the opening statement incorrect. As I understand it (and it's a limited understanding) this only challenges one of the 3 mechanisms used to determine and verify the age of the universe, but it appears to significantly challenge it none the less. Please do be a reasonable editor. As I said before, I would rather an expert in the field examine this and adjust the article accordingly, but if they are going to be lazy then it will either relegate the task to a non-expert or leave the article in an incorrect/out of date state and we should be too snooty to allow that (the latter that is). Please do give it a look and forgive my own (perhaps hypocritical) laziness. Daniel Santos (talk) 11:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Here's the full paper online, found by searching Google for the title. The description of the work in the Wired article screams "crackpot", but the paper itself passed peer review and looks like real science. Note that he's not questioning the CMBR blackbody (which is definitely not of local origin), just the details of the perturbations in it. -- BenRG (talk) 12:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for the very late response, but I was hardly "promoting sensationalism". Editors who splash around these types of accusations are not helping Wikipedia. Absolutism is a bad policy and the opening statement is clearly an absolute statement that I assert is incorrect. I suppose one could debate what a "line of scientific evidence" is, but it appears to be saying that all scientific evidence supports it and that is simply untrue. That doesn't mean that the theory is incorrect nor does a mass of scientific evidence "prove" that it is correct. Science, by it's own definition is incapable of proving or disproving anything, but simply refining hypothesis into theories and demonstrating probability. When one takes a demonstrated probability, even as drastic as 1+E24 to one against and translates it into "impossible" or the inverse into "definitely true", you leave the realm of science and enter a realm akin to religion. So all I'm saying is that making absolutist statements appears damaging, close-minded and unnecessary as it's obvious that the overwhelming majority of evidence supports the theory and that is enough. The goal should be to provide information to people, not indoctrinate them. Daniel Santos (talk) 07:52, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
The goal of Wikipedia is to present summative information on a particular subject. In science, due to the fallacy of induction nothing is "known" for "certain" unlike in more epistemologically rigorous subjects such as mathematics where the assumptions can be made clear and the logic can be shown to be unassailable. Your example of an event that is 1024 to one against in odds is a good one. It could have been taken directly from our article on the second law of thermodynamics. You'll note, however, that the second law of thermodynamics when summarized does not mention the possibility of 1 but focuses instead on the 1024. That's considered the right way to write articles on these subjects. Our goal is not to provide the smidgen of doubt that is inherent in all arguments about large systems: our goal is to provide a simple and easy-to-understand description. The article does not say that the big bang is "definitely true". It says plainly that it's the model which best matches all the evidence. That's the best science ever says and, in fact, this is absolutely true. Only the most dyed-in-the-wool pathological skeptic is contemplating throwing out the Big Bang and Disney, while doing some good work, has a reputation in the community for being a bit too happy to declare devil's advocate positions. He's not quite as bad as Arp or Narlikar, but he works in a similar vein as Richard Lieu: pestering the community about perceived inconsistencies. Lieu, in his presentations, indicates that he believes that the current standard model is akin to the Bohr atom and a new cosmology may be out there that is similar to full quantum mechanics. This is pretty deep stuff and not at all relevant to the basic physics of the situation. It's really a question of "how" the Big Bang happened rather than "whether" the Big Bang happened. A typical creationist tactic is to use such minor disputes as justification for saying that (fill in the blank with your hated scientific theory) is not really "certain" since there is all this dispute about it. The creationist, like you, has missed the forest for the trees. It would be as if in seeing the discrepancies of the Bohr atom you insisted in the 1915 version of Wikipedia that we not indicate that atomic theory was as certain as it was. I would express the same to that sort of agitating then as I would today: Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. It may be that the theory as we currently understand it will be replaced. However, it is not Wikipedia's job to accomodate anyone's predictions of such future events. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:26, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
How about pointing out that the theory of the "Big Bang" event doesn't allow the presumption of existence at time T=0, But requires the passage of a prerequisite (practically instantaneous) time of "space expansion", which then decreases and now is thought to be maybe increasing. This allows the estimate of the size of the universe to be larger than the volume of space that can be occupied by matter moving with the velicity of light.WFPMWFPM (talk) 13:55, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
==In order to better understand this I was forced back to reading the 1979 edition of the EB and came to a plot of the "time continuim T versus Universe age t", where it showed the universe first occurring and then dwadling in expansion until a later time when the expansion rate started to increase. This must be what they are now "discovering" and reporting about, isn't it?. If so, The the "fig 3" plot would be a big help in understanding the Wikipedia article. WFPMWFPM (talk) 03:02, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
I too took note of the introductory sentence in question. It had suprisingly little of the weasel words that typically plague Wikipedia, such as “some scientists believe.” But when I parse the logic of that beautiful sentence, I realize that it is perfectly correct. That sentence must not be interpreted to suggest that all experiments always perfectly support all aspects of Big Bang theory; it merely says “[the Big Bang model is the one that] is best supported by all lines of scientific evidence and observation.” This is true. Regardless of the scientific discipline (nucleocosmochronology, cosmology, etc.), all of them point to the Big Bang as the best explanation for these observations of the natural world without invoking supernatural phenomena. Greg L (talk)03:03, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
ScienceApologist:
Not everyone who opposes the Big Bang Theory is a creationist. For instance, I'm not. The idea of Wikipedia is to be NPOV, not to push your own point of view on the world. With the power of being able to edit articles that many people take as fact comes responsibility: the responsibility to tell the truth. The responsibility to be open-minded and concede that maybe your opinion isn't the law. To spell it out for you, Wikipedia is about socialism. The ideal is to have people working together to make an encyclopedia that's better for everyone. It's about the entire community, not one person or a group of people.
The Big Bang is supported by a lot of evidence, but there are glaring holes that are conveniently ignored by believers in the standard model of cosmology. The Big Bang contradicts itself in many ways (dark energy causes the universe to expand more quickly over time yet can't pull apart large scale structures because they're surrounded by dark matter, a fairy tale a five year-old wouldn't believe) and presents absolute absurdities to make the theory work as new evidence comes to light. The age of the universe and the temperature of the CBR have changed more times than you and I can count. Equations are written retroactively to produce a specific answer. Generally, the Big Bang is far from solid. It is the most GENERALLY ACCEPTED theory, but to say it is "the cosmological model of the universe that is best supported by all lines of scientific evidence and observation" is misleading anduntrue. I'm going to correct it- you can debate it here with me, that's what talk pages are for.
There is nothing in my statement which indicates that I believe everyone who "opposes" the Big Bang is a creationist. What you should realize is that a big part of WP:NPOV is WP:WEIGHT when it comes to matters like this. The preponderance of experts accepts the evidence for the Big Bang. It is Wikipedia's job therefore to not provide an artificial balance between the experts and the non-experts (or the tiny minority of arguable experts) on this matter. This article does an excellent job of "telling the truth", but more importantly, this article is verifiably accurate. If you want a more sympathetic treatment for your disbelief, try Wikinfo on for size. Wikipedia isn't about a "community"; the community supports Wikipedia and the content rules govern the content. Your beliefs, or the beliefs of any other community member about the Big Bang ideally plays no part in how the article gets written. As for "gaping holes", the fact is that science runs based on the available evidence and the models which best fit that evidence. The model that does this in cosmology is the Hot Big Bang model. All other alternatives fall short. There are also people who believe that "holes" exist who are sadly misinformed. Your parenthetical statement is painfully misinformed: I would encourage you to do more research before trying to push your particular brand of misinformation here. You also have a pretty strained exaggeration of the history of the development of the model and your opinion about the "solidity" of the theory is likely due to one of three possibilitiees:
Your own web-based research (or possibly book-based research) which brought you to various credulous pseduscientific sites about how wrong the big bang is. None of those sites is reliable and most contain really ridiculous errors.
Someone you know personally convinced you of this. I'm willing to bet that this person isn't a professional astronomer.
I'd love to know which of the two it is, but that's not something for this talkpage. E-mail me and we'll discuss it, if you like. As for your proposal, I'm afraid it's dead on arrival. You're going to have to live with an article that presents facts surrounding the Big Bang without it accommodating your own personal beliefs that contradict those facts.
Book-based research isn't reliable? It's a hell of a lot more reliable than web-based research, as this site proves. I've read countless books and articles from people who are for and against the Big Bang, and after thinking about it and looking at what I knew, formed my own conclusions. That's what science is. Hypotheses based on all the data available, not selectively picking and choosing data that fits a constantly-adjusted hypothesis. Edwin Hubble believed the universe was expanding because he thought all galaxies were moving away from each other, based on a red shift caused by the Doppler Effect. We've taken that and run with it, despite the countless problems with the theory. Now, it's taken for granted that there was a Big Bang whenever new scientific data comes to light, and as opposed to analyzing said data while making no assumptions, we analyze it based on how it fits into the Big Bang theory. We find out that all the observable matter in the universe wouldn't produce a gravitational field strong enough to hold together against forces of expansion- clearly, this means that 96% of the universe is composed of dark matter and dark energy! Then we find out that the universe is actually expanding at an increasing rate- but in the past, the rate of expansion has slowed down and then sped up again. Fairly arbitrary, no? But it's interpreted as proof for dark energy.
Science involves reasoning while making no assumptions. Real scientists use something called methodic doubt. You're against pseudoscience, yet you mock my "disbelief"- disbelief is what took us out of the Dark Ages. The accepted 'model of cosmology' once held that the Earth was at the centre of the universe. Dissent and questioning what one holds to be true is what science is about.
There are too many misconceptions in your paragraph to be worth commenting on here. I mock nothing about your belief. There's nothing more to discuss here. Your own private original research is not going to make it into the article. ScienceApologist (talk) 09:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
ScienceApologist, this has nothing to do with belief, it is almost a rule that you dont use absolutes in an article as they arent verifiable. Instead of getting into a long and drawn out argument just change the word ALL to MOST. That way it is verifiable and accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GundamMerc (talk • contribs) 02:41, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Just reading Gandalfs rewrite of the intro paragraph.
I have a problem with the last part of the sentence. Scientific evidence and observation provide the explanations, not the theory /model that is proposed. It is important to remember that and so I have changed it slightly to reflect this to -
Gandalf
The Big Bang is the cosmological model of the initial conditions and subsequent development of the universe that provides the most comprehensive and accurate explanation of current scientific evidence and observation.
Current
The Big Bang is the cosmological model of the initial conditions and subsequent development of the universe supported by the most comprehensive and accurate explanations from current scientific evidence and observation.
I think I disagree with the new wording, unless I have misinterpreted it. It seems to say that explanations come directly from evidence and observations. I don't think this is correct. Evidence and observations are just facts - they don't come complete with built-in explanations (if they did, a scientist's job would be much easier). The explanation comes first in the form of an hypothesis, which leads to predictions, which are then tested by further experiments or observations. If the predictions are confirmed then the hypothesis graduates to become a theory, and, if it is sufficiently comprehensive, it may become a mianstream model against which other hypotheses are checked for consistency. So the Big Bang is a model which provides explanations of evidence and observations - the explanations do not come from the evidence itself. In other words, the theory is the explanans ("that which does the explaining") and the evidence is the explanandum ("that which is explained"). Gandalf61 (talk) 11:56, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Sorry for any confusion caused. I will try and explain why I worded it this way.
I agree that a theorem attempts to explain evidence. I also agree that this theorem was promoted from hypothesis on the basis of scientific evidence.
As a model it attempts to describe the formation of the Universe by combining other theorems into one model. To explain this model one must refer people to the evidence from other theorems and so it is explained by those theorems
If we look at it from the bottom up, we have evidence which needs a theorem/model - this gives us the big bang model
If we look at this top down we have a model which needs an explanation and as this article is an explanation of the big bang model it is supported and explained by these other theorems and evidence from observation
The Big Bang is the cosmological model of the initial conditions of the universe that provides the most comprehensive and accurate explanation of its subsequent development, and is supported by current scientific evidence and observation.
I'm no expert so I won't get too involved in this one, but it would be good to keep it short. At the moment people are likely going to have to double take to get all the info in this sentence. As a suggestion, could be be cut down to just:
The Big Bang is the cosmological model of the initial conditions of the universe that provides the most comprehensive and accurate explanation of its subsequent development.
or something? I'm not saying we should throw away the info I chopped off of the end, but I think it's time to start a new sentence at this point. Cheers, Ben (talk) 11:30, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
What was wrong with the original sentence? The revisions have gone from "model of the universe" to "model of the initial conditions and subsequent development of the universe" to, in the latest proposals, just "model of the initial conditions". Suggesting that Big Bang cosmology is about the initial conditions of the universe plays into a common misconception. The model does assume certain initial conditions in the mathematical sense, but "initial" just means "at the earliest time to which the Big Bang model applies". The highly uniform nature of those initial conditions strongly suggests previous evolution according to unknown physics (probably inflation, and before that who knows). The time at which the Big Bang model starts working is not the time at which the Universe/Existence/Creation began. I also don't see why we should change "the theory is supported by the evidence" to "the theory explains the evidence". They're both true statements but the former is the more ordinary way of saying it, I think. -- BenRG (talk) 13:55, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Careless wording
I feel the wording of too many sentences is too much careless for a featured article. I pointed out only one in the article. Note that some sentences like this one, are too vague to clearly understand their meaning (a reference to appropriate WP articles should be added), while others are correct but the wording is too loose (e.g. "the collective frequencies sketch out the black body curve". Ever heard of the word "spectrum"?). Even some titles are vague (such as: "Speculative physics beyond the Big Bang". Here the meaning of "beyond" is far from clear.) Pinea (talk) 22:15, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
WP:SOFIXIT seems relevant here. "Beyond the Big Bang" is a common phraseology at the level that this article is written. It's seen, for example, in many popular reports on the subject. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:39, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
You stated: The sentence ("General relativistic cosmologies, however, do not actually ascribe any "physicality" to space") is explaining that the growing squares are physically meaningless. Comments:
Space in General Relativity and quantum mechanics has a strong physical meaning: it is endowed with local properties such as curvature and false vacuum energy. Of course it is not matter and it is "transparent" to matter (matter goes through space as light goes through glass). Still, by denying the physicality of space, you seem to consider it a mental construction as in the theories of Kant and other philosophers. This is quite far from the point of view of contemporary physics. The sentence has to be deleted or clarified.
The two sentences seems to be quite unrelated. Why don't you simply state that the figure is a conceptual sketch? Note that it is well conceived: it considers a portion of a flat universe (as currently believed by most cosmologist) and shows its expansion in size, while matters gets "diluted" in the wider space. Although the grid is simply a conventional graphical method to represent space (and I suppose this is what you really mean), I actually believe the sketch is physically very meaningful. Pinea (talk) 23:44, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
I have no problem with your edits but I'm a bit unhappy with your bullet points above about expanding space. The trouble with talking about expanding space is that it suggests that the physics responsible for the recession of galaxies is different from the physics responsible for ordinary relative motion at human scales, and that isn't true. General relativity only has one kind of relative motion. At scales less than a billion [light] years you can treat the relative motion of galaxies as special relativistic and get the right answers for redshift, etc., because it is special relativistic motion, just like any other motion at small scales (which is to say, only approximately, but it's a pretty good approximation). Talking about expanding space leads people into specific conceptual errors, like thinking that the expansion is a kind of force that makes things start to separate even if they weren't initially. That's wrong—the cosmological constant is a force that pushes things apart and accelerates the expansion, ordinary gravitation (GM/r²) is a force that pulls things together and decelerates the expansion, but the expansion itself is just inertia. For practically any "reasonable" pair of objects, like two dust motes at relative rest a kilometer apart in outer space, ordinary gravitation dominates the Λ repulsion and the objects drift together with time. Hubble's constant doesn't enter into the equation at all.
The difference between space and matter (like bread or glass) is that space doesn't obey a continuity equation. To talk about "new space" being created you would have to be able to distinguish it from "old space", which would require some way to identify particular bits of space at one time with particular bits of space at another, and there's no such thing. All of the space at any given time is "new"—it's an all-new collection of points in spacetime. This is probably what the sentence you deleted, about "physicality of space", was trying to convey. I don't think the word "physicality" works here since, as you said, space is endowed with various properties (though I would say "points in spacetime" instead of "space"). I can't think of a word that works in its place, unfortunately. At least let me delete the phrase "and useful" from the caption (I know you didn't write it), since in my opinion the analogy is worse than useless... -- BenRG (talk) 13:21, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
Of course, space is an external object that expands. Where is this space? In space, of course. When it expands, into what does it expand? Into space, of course, as all physicists know.Lestrade (talk) 13:28, 24 February 2009 (UTC)Lestrade
"Useful" is a POV word, so deleting it is correct. I don't agree on other considerations, as far as I can understand them. In any case your point of view or mine are both nothing more than personal "visualisations"
of the governing equations of GR, they both acceptable but partially wrong. In many applications it is useful to view space as a fluid incurring into dilation (like heated matter), while masses operate like wells in hydraulics, which "eat" the fluid. As free bodies "float" in space, they are brought closer by the elimination of part of the fluid between them. Of course this is a drastic simplification, governing equations are a bit more complex than that.
This, however, is much simpler to understand than explaining GR by saying that gravity force is due to curvature of spacetime; which moreover most people try to visualize as a curvature of space, with no success. Pinea (talk) 20:29, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't like the fluid model for the following reason. The time reversal of an attractive gravitational field is still an attractive gravitational field, but the time reversal of an inward fluid flow is an outward fluid flow. Therefore the attraction of gravity can't be attributed to inward fluid flow, even in this model, because the model has to predict that an outward flow would be attractive too. The explanation that "free bodies ... are brought closer by the elimination of part of the fluid between them" is objectively incorrect, at least inasmuch as it implies that, conversely, free bodies would be pushed farther apart by the introduction of additional fluid. No fluid model can be consistent with both claims (unless it fails to approximate Newtonian gravity at all, in which case it's wrong in a more basic way). This is similar to my problem with expanding space. In both cases the analogy seems to mix acceleration with velocity. They don't mix well, and the time reversal argument is one way of seeing that.
There is no arguing, we are simply comparing hidden mental schemes, which is always useful. I agree on most of your points. I feel our POV are complementary sides of the same coin You have in mind mainly the inertial motion, while my fluid scheme handles the incipient motion under gravity. Looking into incipient motion is the trick for managing the acceleration/velocity problem, as applied for instance in ("The Meaning of Einstein's Equation", John C. Baez� and Emory F. Bunny, January 4, 2006). Of course this is only a portion of the truth (as GR provides usually newtonian behavior, here violated), but the novel one. Pinea (talk) 10:16, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
This image is quite puzzling and deserves a wider comment. I believe that the grid is physically correct but the image of the CMBR on the left as a surface (rather than as a circle) and the representation of stars as points rather than geodesics, are simply artist concepts and readers should be warned. Any objection against pointing out the ambiguity of an image from a qualified source? Do you believe they are really correct? Pinea (talk) 09:46, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
(Image copied here for easier reference) I have mixed feelings. On the one hand it's one of those pictures that's "pretty" but doesn't do a great job of illustrating the actual science. On the other hand it could do a lot worse. I'm still trying to figure out what the scale (radius of the circular cross-sections) is supposed to represent. It's not the FRW scale factor because then the inflationary epoch and the CMB would be invisible (smaller than a pixel). Then I thought it was the comoving radius of the observable universe, but then it shouldn't flare outward on the right or have that point on the left (the graph of the comoving radius can only be concave upward if the universe is shrinking). Maybe it's the scale factor with a significant amount of distortion to make the early eras visible, but then the "Inflation" label is pointing to the wrong place—it should be pointing basically where "Quantum Fluctuations" is pointing. Or it could be the log of the scale factor, but that has the same problems as the comoving radius.
The illustration of the evolution of the galaxies is kind of cool, and could perhaps be justified by saying that they took slices of the universe of nonzero thickness at intervals of, say, 100 million years and stacked those on top of each other. That would explain the lack of continuous world lines. Are people going to get that? I don't know.
This image, which I found at the Commons, addresses some of both of our objections. The embedding is described here. I think it's a neat image and ought to be used somewhere on Wikipedia (currently it isn't used anywhere).
I believe both pictures summarize some features of big bang and could be used. Simply we have to point out all artist rendering to avoid that intelligent readers get too puzzled. You are right in pointing out the additional problems about overall scale and inflation indication. The other picture has some problem too. Main issue is again that the CMBR image cannot pe pasted over an area, as it actually collapses into only one line (the border one, where legend is). I haven't read much of the embedding, but I have some problem with the inflation portion too. It happens to be quite different from the description given in our section on "Horizon". There the "bee stinger" is considered as the shape before inflation (when time passes without considerable space expansion), while true inflation begins with rapid space expansion, namely at the end of the stinger. Basically the inflation here considered starts at time zero (or even before, according to the author notes), but I understand this is not the standard way of presenting the subject Pinea (talk) 22:49, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Please review my legend of the first picture. I am looking forward to comments on my remarks to the second picture.
One of my friends passed along a comment from a professor's class notes about this article (it is required reading for the class). I thought it would be nice to share it here:
“
Science educators should be ashamed that the best explanation of the Big Bang is on Wikipedia. It’s even better than the only detailed explanation available from NASA.
I would like to point out that this article's opening comments on Fred Hoyle's motivation for coining the term 'Big Bang' is in direct contradiction with the information given on Fred Hoyle's wikipedia entry page. In the second paragraph of the opening section of this article, it is stated:
"Fred Hoyle is credited with coining the phrase 'Big Bang' during a 1949 radio broadcast, as a derisive reference to a theory he did not subscribe to." (The source provided mentions nothing about his intention of the term as a derisory comment, only that he coined the term).
"The theory was the only serious alternative to the Big Bang which agreed with key observations of the day, namely Hubble's red shift observations, and Hoyle was a strong critic of the Big Bang. Ironically, he is responsible for coining the term "Big Bang" on a BBC radio program, The Nature of Things broadcast at 1830 GMT on 28 March 1949. It is popularly reported that Hoyle intended this to be pejorative, but the script from which he read aloud clearly shows that he intended the expression to help his listeners. In addition, Hoyle explicitly denied that he was being insulting and said it was just a striking image meant to emphasize the difference between the two theories for radio listeners."
So it would seem clear that he did not intend for the term to be perjortaive, and perhaps this should be changed on the Big Bang page. I mentioned this some time ago on the talk pages (now archived), but nothing has been changed. Whoever is watching this page closely should consider revising this section. Antarctic-adventurer (talk) 20:02, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS
Big Band Article could help Wikipedia Users to find a 'quick' answer to the underlying assumptions in their own understanding.
Think, for a minute, why users are asking about the Big Bang theory...
Just for a moment, put aside all the students who are seeking to truncate the amount of time they need to satisfy their professors or teachers, and concentrate instead on the 'casual' user or the general public and ask yourself - "What do they really want to understand about the Big Bang?"
NOTE: THIS IS NOT A CRITICISM - Please withold all personal abuse to another time?
The general public just wants to know and understand the BASIC idea of the Big Bang. Granted... I hear you say, therefore they don't deserve to read this article and should be satisfied with some other explanation. However, Wikipedia IS the new 'alternative' source of information and this article (in particular) is celebrated for its veracity and comprehension.
Believe it or not - there are many Wikipedia users in the world who do not possess a 1st world education but still would like to understand the Universe a little better. Spare a thought for them.
NOW
Consider this:
The timeline section of the article includes; "infinite density and temperature" as attributes of the singularity you call the Big Bang. This leads to a plethora of "Underlying Assumptions" in the reader that ought to be acknowledged and put to rest.
For Example:
Are you saying - the infinite singularity. Or just a singularity of infinite density and temperature.
Are you saying - this infinitely dense and hot singularity just went 'Bang' or are you saying this singularity is STILL venting its infinite density into this physical Universe?
Consider this:
Many readers do not have the intellectual discipline required to constrain their assumptions within the field of this theory. Call them old fashioned, but they equate "infinite" with religion, etc. Before we damn them, and disqualify them from reading this article - let's just answer their 'underlying assumption'...
The big bang is/or isn't still going. An infinitly dense singularity can/or can't just go bang once and give rise to the universe. Infinite does/or doesn't mean infinite - just really big. An infinitely dense singularity can expand from a singularity to a Universe without any of its infinite density taking more than 13 Billion years to go from singularity to expanded density. The Big Bang is over - only the Universe remains.
See the 'underlying assumption' yet? GPC (talk) 01:31, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
If you want the scientists here to write this article more understandably for everyone: Good luck! If you just want to understand it for yourself, the Simple English version here is pretty good. If you're asking about the infinite singularity: Today everything seems to be flying apart, so it all seems to have come from the same small place. Was it an infinitely dense single point with a whole universe packed into it? It sounds impossible, but before you laugh it off, don't take it for granted that the laws of nature now are the same as the laws of nature in that one-of-a-kind situation. Scientists don't know what the first moments were like, and they don't know if anything came before. So maybe it was just a small area with a really big density, not a point with an infinite density. But if there was an infinite singularity, it existed only for a moment 13.7 billion years ago, and doesn't exist now. Art LaPella (talk) 04:38, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Opening Sentence
The opening sentence struck me as a bit confusing. If I'm not just stupid, could someone change it so it sounds professional but to-the-point? 74.33.174.133 (talk) 20:10, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
"The Big Bang is the cosmological model of the initial conditions and subsequent development of the universe supported by the most comprehensive and accurate explanations from current scientific evidence and observation". So it is a model of the beginnings and later development of the universe. And it is not just any old model, it is the one that best fits what we can observe about the current state of the universe (as far as we know). So it provides the best scientific explanation that we have of how the universe came to be the way it is. Is that any clearer ? Gandalf61 (talk) 20:25, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Some people may be content to read the first sentence to get an idea of what the Big Bang is. Their first question would be "What is it?", not "Are you sure?" So I think a simple improvement would be to divide that sentence in two: "The Big Bang is a cosmological model of the initial conditions and subsequent development of the universe. It is supported by the most comprehensive and accurate explanations from current scientific evidence and observation". Art LaPella (talk) 21:31, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Art's version looks good to me: I agree the current one is slightly weighted down by the density of information it tries to get across. Olaf Davis (talk) 16:38, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
First, this is an awesome article. Nowhere else, online or offline, one can find such a good explanation of the concept. However, there is still room for improvement.
I believe the idea is sufficiently controversial to have a 'Criticism' section. It is true that scientifically it may be the most accepted origin theory, but Wikipedia is not a science journal. We should try to present an unbiased view with an emphasis on the most acceptable one instead of just the most acceptable view. And by view I mean view on Big Bang theory and not on origin theories in general.
While fully agreeing to the 'No original research' policy of Wikipedia, there is no harm in mentioning any renowned scientist, or other important criticism of the Big Bang theory.
Do you have any suggestions for specific scientists or criticisms of the theory we could include? I can't think of any notable enough to warrant inclusion but there may be someone I've forgotten (or not heard of). Olaf Davis (talk) 22:12, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Chaotic inflation is already mentioned in the article under 'Speculative physics beyond Big Bang theory'. Given its level of obscurity I'd say it probably has enough space there. I know very little about QSSC so I don't really have an opinion on whether it deserves a section. Olaf Davis (talk) 09:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Where's the meat?
No physics or know science is presented in the Wikipedia article to explain the Big Bang; i.e., why it occurred. This casts the whole theory into the same seriousness as the tooth fairy as far as citation/reference support as required in Wikipedia. These vital areas are not even touched on in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjfmiller (talk • contribs) 16:15, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
If "why it occured" means "what caused or gave rise to or preceeded the Big Bang", then some ideas around this are mentioned in the section titled "Speculative physics beyond Big Bang theory". Gandalf61 (talk) 16:48, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
If on the other hand you mean "how we know it occurred" then the article contains plenty: and this is, after all, what matters. If we had very good evidence for the tooth fairy's existence but no idea why she existed, she'd still be 'serious' enough for Wikipedia. Olaf Davis (talk) 18:28, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
Small comment
i haven't changed it, but does anyone else not think that "During the first few days of the universe" sounds just a wee bit odd? i know what's meant, of course, but it sounds more... biblical... than scientific. there weren't really any "days" back then, surely? HieronymousCrowley (talk) 19:24, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
Only if you define "days" as Earth rotations. The word "days" is used at Alpha Centauri for instance. The alternative "During the first few 105 seconds" would take me a little longer to understand. However, I would replace "of the universe", and similar phrases, with "after the Big Bang", since we get so many questions about what was before the Big Bang and we don't know. I've been told that the beginning of the universe is scientific shorthand for just after the Big Bang, but it isn't any shorter, so why can't we say what we mean? Art LaPella (talk) 20:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
thing is, that IS normally how you define days isn't it? well, at least, not necessarily Earth rotations, but related to planetary rotations in general. admittedly there are other definitions ("an era of existence or influence", for example) that make its use here sound more appropriate, but it just seems rather... imprecise in context. still, as i say, it was a minor comment, just something that jumped unpleasantly off the page at me as a complete non-expert in the field —Preceding unsigned comment added by HieronymousCrowley (talk • contribs) 07:55, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
In astronomy people tend to use 'day' as a unit of measurement in lots of situations completely disconnected from the rotation of the Earth - including ones before the Earth was formed. That said I'd happily see it replaced with something more intuitive to the layman (who is after all for the most part the intended reader) if someone thinks of something - as Art says, 105s is not very satisfactory. Olaf Davis (talk) 09:07, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
IIRC SI defines a day as exactly 86400 seconds. If you use this concise definition than its perfectly useful and more readable to the layperson. It probably isn't a big deal when figures are only known to orders of magnitude anyway.
Falsifiability of Hypotheses Under the Scientific Method and the Notion of Acceleration or Dark Energy
If neutrality is prized, in this article there should be more discussion of the weakest links in the logical chain of thought regarding the Big Bang, especially the lambda CDM version, the so called standard model. For instance, the argument concerning acceleration of expansion since 9 billion years ago depends critically on an interpretation of the high z SN-1a results. These supernovae seem to be further away than they should be based on a value of H0. Which value? They are not further if some values are used and are even further if others are used. Why use the value that was used and why discount other values?
As a matter of fact, Tony Smith's Cosconsensus website [1] identified several H0 values that are purportedly of high quality and are probably reliable. They were determined by the use of standard candles at various ranges of distances. If these values are plotted versus the average distances of the ranges, H0 is seen to be not a constant at all, so it is useful only for objects in the respective ranges of distances. This is one reason why H is often referred to as a parameter. To use H0 properly, one must zero in on an answer by successive approximations.
More importantly, H0 increases substantially along a very tight linear regression line as distance from us increases. If an inappropriate value for H0 was used to compare the present expansion rate of the universe with the distances to high z SN-1a objects and with the expansion rate therein implied, the conclusion that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating could be wrong.
Curiously, one can use the high z SN-1a results to find a new value of H0. One also finds a value for H0 using CMB data. According to data compiled by Smith, one finds that these and the earlier determinations all fall on the same tight linear regression line having negative or decreasing slope toward the present era or position. But, if the universe is enlarging at an accelerating rate, H0 should be increasing toward the present.
It is a mistake to state that high z SN-1a results imply that the expansion rate was lower in the distant past, as stated in the article. H0 calculated from the high z supernovae absolute luminosity distances and actual redshifts is higher than all but the CMB determinations. This is not my data nor my research. It is plain fact available for anyone to analyze.
H0 increases linearly with distance away from us or decreases on approach to our present position or time. At least a half dozen truly independent measurements show this. Contrary evidence for the Big Bang, Inflation or Dark Energy should not be so easily swept under a carpet. Why should an encyclopedic article be so chained to some claim of consensus? Consensus has frequently been wrong. I call this the H0 paradox or the Hubble problem of the Dark Energy hypothesis.
Other weak points are the codependence of several phenomena that are used to "independently" corroborate this acceleration conclusion and the implied existence of Dark Energy, like the pattern of clusters or the large scale structure of the universe. Corroboration must come from truly independent lines of observation or experiment not from corrolated measurements. Also, the unsupported premise of Dark Matter is used to help reinforce the Dark Energy hypothesis, as if the existence of dark matter had already been proven.
For any theory to be considered valid, it must be falsifiable. It must be possible to construct a null hypothesis and the evidence for or against this must be evaluated. The null hypothesis is one that nullifies the original hypothesis, it must be contradictory. If the null hypothesis can be proven true or false by means of a critical experiment, the theory or hypothesis in question is denied or proven. More attention should be given to null hypotheses and their disproof. This is especially true regarding Dark Energy because statements have been made regarding it by prominent scientists that threaten the integrity of science itself.
We cannot relax our grip on science by loosening our standards for proof, as has been suggested. If Dark Energy, quintessence or a nonzero cosmological constant are not experimentally falsifiable hypotheses, they do not deserve to be regarded as viable hypotheses at all in the first place.
The biggest objection to Dark Energy is that it indeed appears to be unfalsifiable - on other words, miraculous. How ironic it is that the scientific method has brought us so far that we may feel free to begin to doubt it. We doubt in order to embrace an ad hoc hypothesis for our convenience and to cloak our lack of imagination. It is no small matter that experiments to determine the repulsive effect of vacuum energy due to quantum fluctuations show that it (the Casimir Effect) is a hundred orders of magnitude too large to account for Dark Energy. The real paradox is that problems like this are minimized or dismissed by we who profess allegiance to the scientific method.
So, the best resolution to the paradox of Dark Energy and Neo Inflation or Acceleration is that they do not exist. It is simpler to believe that a short sequence of misconceptions, misinterpretations, mistakes and mistatements has resulted in propagation of a big error than to believe in such a momentous miracle.
Overall, the article does not remain neutral when the discussion touches on Acceleration and Dark Energy. There is still much debate. It is an unsupported claim that there is a consensus in support of Dark Energy and Acceleration.
Artificially restricting our thoughts to only those theories which are falsifiable unnecessarily hinders our imagination and creativity. Why tie our own hands behind our backs? This is self–defeating and reminiscent of world superpowers who are destroying themselves by imposing their own self–destructive laws on their own actions. Did Einstein, Maxwell, Newton, Galileo, or Kepler worry about whether their theories were falsifiable? No, they gave free rein to their thoughts and didn't concern themselves with their falsifiability. In particular, Einstein cared only about the logical order of the deductions from his proposed principles and didn't concern himself with any other aspect of his theories.Lestrade (talk) 17:33, 8 May 2009 (UTC)Lestrade
Actually, Einstein, Newton, et al. did worry about whether their theories were falsifiable, since they're not theories unless they are falsifiable.Farsight001 (talk) 20:41, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
The scientific issue is beyond my understanding, but being "chained" to consensus is a dead horse issue throughout Wikipedia. "Consensus is often wrong", but mavericks are more often wrong. Wikipedia reports the scientific consensus. If that consensus is wrong, convince the scientists first; then Wikipedia will report it. For more details, WP:FRINGE is as good an article as any. The hand at the top of this page is also relevant; it doesn't matter if you can convince us that dark matter is wrong; what matters is whether we have correctly described the consensus. Art LaPella (talk) 21:50, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
Falsifiability was never a concern for scientists. It has only become a concern as a result of the writings of Karl Popper. Einstein and Newton stated principles and then deduced propositions from them. These scientists were convinced that the propositions would correspond to experience if the deductions were correctly deduced from true principles in a logical manner.Lestrade (talk) 17:09, 9 May 2009 (UTC)Lestrade
Art is right. If Tony Smith publishes his ideas in a mainstream academic journal, and significant numbers of cosmologists agree (or at least think he might perhaps be on to something) then tertiary sources like Wikipedia can report it (if he has, then feel free to point it out). As for Dark Energy having no 'null hypothesis', my experience is that there are plenty of cosmologists investigating potential alternatives. Much of their work can be found on the arXiv or ADS. The same is true of alternatives to Dark Matter, although the existence of the latter is sufficiently accepted by consensus among astronomers that I don't think your calling it an 'unsupported premise' is justified.
Consensus among astronomers has, of course, been wrong before - but if we reject it on those grounds we really have no metric at all for determining inclusion. Olaf Davis (talk) 19:41, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
Falsifiability of the Big Bang and Dark Energy Hypotheses 2
A statement of fact must be falsifiable, according to the principles of the scientific method. This is not a matter of debate. Maybe scientists need not worry about this when they propose an hypothesis or a new theory, but their peers do. It is not a matter of constraining imagination, it is a matter of getting real. If we admit nonfalsifiable descriptions into science, we open the door to superstition and mere wishful thinking.
The articles about the Big Bang and Dark Energy are biased. They present Dark Energy and acceleration of expansion in the modern era as though there was no longer any debate. But there is still much debate and it comes from pretty important sources like Oxford's Clifton, Ferreira and Land < 1. Timothy Clifton, Pedro G. Ferreira, and Kate Land. Living in a Void: Testing the Copernican Principle with Distant Supernovae. Phys. Rev. Lett., 101, 131302 (2008) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.131302/>
The matter is by no means settled, but the article speaks as if it is. I would modify it to express a little bit of flexibility in the discussion and acknowledge that there is still some doubt.
See my previous recent posts in this talk forum in the archive.
Your understanding of cosmology seems pretty spotty judging from your last post. The Hubble parameter H changes with time, the Hubble constant H0 is the name given to its value in the present era. So it's meaningless to talk about a time-varying H0, presumably you mean H. Time variation of H doesn't contradict the standard model, it's predicted by it. In ΛCDM H decreases with time; it was much larger in the past and in the era of exponential expansion it approaches a constant asymptote. All of this is taken into account in fitting the supernova data. You need to get a better understanding of the standard model before you criticize it. Also, you cite Tony Smith, who's a complete nutcase—check out his page on predicting volcanic eruptions with the I Ching.
The Oxford paper presents a falsifiable hypothesis; that's what scientists do. It doesn't mean they believe it's true, they only believe it's plausible enough to be worth testing. I don't find it very plausible myself. They mention that we might be more likely to be in the center of a low-density region for anthropic reasons, but that's not good enough even if it's true—you're more likely to be within 0.01σ of the center of a Gaussian than you are to be within 0.01σ of anywhere else, but you're very unlikely to be there in absolute terms. Their model requires us to be extremely close to the center (as they mention); it also requires the void to be spherically symmetrical with a particular radial density distribution in order to fit the data, but doesn't explain or predict that shape. That kind of model is never going to be preferred over ΛCDM as long as ΛCDM remains unfalsified, because ΛCDM is able to fit the supernova data with just one extra real parameter (Λ) while their model uses infinitely many (the shape of the void). In terms of falsifiability, the void model is far worse than ΛCDM. Yes, ΛCDM might be wrong. It's the current consensus model because the models with fewer parameters have been ruled out, and if it's ruled out then the consensus will shift to the next simplest viable model, probably some kind of time-varying scalar field. But that's always true—all scientific knowledge is provisional in that way. It's not the job of this article to explain to people that theories are subject to revision in the face of new evidence, there are other articles for that. -- BenRG (talk) 21:21, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
Fred Hoyle and his coining of the term "Big Bang"
I would like to point out that this article's opening comments on Fred Hoyle's motivation for coining the term 'Big Bang' is in direct contradiction with the information given on Fred Hoyle's wikipedia entry page. In the second paragraph of the opening section of this article, it is stated:
"Fred Hoyle is credited with coining the phrase 'Big Bang' during a 1949 radio broadcast, as a derisive reference to a theory he did not subscribe to."
"The theory was the only serious alternative to the Big Bang which agreed with key observations of the day, namely Hubble's red shift observations, and Hoyle was a strong critic of the Big Bang. Ironically, he is responsible for coining the term "Big Bang" on a BBC radio program, The Nature of Things broadcast at 1830 GMT on 28 March 1949. It is popularly reported that Hoyle intended this to be pejorative, but the script from which he read aloud clearly shows that he intended the expression to help his listeners. In addition, Hoyle explicitly denied that he was being insulting and said it was just a striking image meant to emphasize the difference between the two theories for radio listeners."
Additionally the source that is given here to back up the claim links to a BBC News article on Hoyle which states nowhere that his coining of the term was perjorative. The source does not back up the claim.
So it would seem clear that he did not intend for the term to be perjorative, and perhaps this should be changed on the Big Bang page.
Antarctic-adventurer (talk) 17:17, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out, Antarctic-adventurer. Unfortunately neither of the sources cited in Fred Hoyle (Fred Hoyle: A life in science and The Alchemy of the Heavens) appear to be available online. Does anyone have access to check? I'd happy remove the stuff about it being pejorative based on A-a's observation but wouldn't want to state in the article that it was non-pejorative without seeing the source myself, of course.
Also, I see you've now mentioned this several times on this talk page without receiving any reply - in general that's probably a good indication that you can safely go ahead and make a change without risk of people complaining! Olaf Davis (talk) 20:54, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
