posted
Another link for the SF minded, this document throws down a challenge to the notion not only of the timing of the big bang, but whether there was such an event at all.
Experimental data may or may not end up bolstering his model, but it's really quite a bold imagining even if he turns out to be completely wrong. He certainly presented things in a manner that eventually convinced me that his theory is definitely worth testing, even though I was initially prepared to dismiss him as an aging crackpot (believe me, you'll be asking yourself "who does this guy think he is?" after the first couple of pages).
I also found something interesting, and perhaps alarming, right after the summary of the conclusions. You can tell me what you think of it if you end up reading the whole thing.
posted
It was a creditable presentation. He seemed very confident until he hit the stupid button with that line that it will bring a 'satisfying peace of mind to people of all faiths".
What a strange and fatuous way to end.
It is an interesting idea especially the 'fixed' wormholes. Even though he said the centre of the S3 had no physical analog, I still want to know what is in there. I really didn't understand much of it on first pass. Pages 25-28 enapsulated it for me, I guess it was because of the diagrams used.
The thankyou at the end was just painful/embarrassing.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited February 05, 2006).]
posted
I agree with hoptoad's comment about the ending... blech
However, I am not inclined to agree with this person's ideas. He is emphatic about the point that time is not linear, which I might be able to agree with if he provided something other than 'time and space did not exist until the big bang'... what a bunch of hooey... While I agree that the current model is much too limited, we have shown that in our calculations of physics, we can set our time t=0 at any point. For all we know, the universe may have collapsed upon itself to form this singularity from whence came the big bang. And to think that time is multidimensional is (in my opinion) implicitly silly. Since he says that time is the same as space, can we then say that one person is "above" another in time?
Another thing that bothered me was his idea that 100% of the universe is made of atoms. He asks "If the universe is 4% atoms, how come 100% of the entire solar system is made of atoms?"... The answer is that it is not. But the Solar system has a higher percentage of atoms because it is just that- a solar system. It formed from a nebula... and of course a cloud of gas is going to have a large percentage of atoms in it. And just because you see that one area has a large percentage of atoms does not mean that the entire universe behaves the same.
I could go on and on, but I think I've ranted enough. I think that his work is commendable but, like all theories, it needs work.
posted
Well, what it actually needs is testing, since he makes a number of bold predictions about the true nature of the cosmic microwave background radiation and so forth. This rather radical theory is grounded mostly on the author's work with GRT, which is a redshift applied to any object moving orthagonally to an applied acceleration (namely orbiting bodies, which move orthagonal to gravity).
His work on GRT looks very sound, though it too needs to be tested. Certainly, since both are lectures rather than papers, there are gaps. And some of the evidence isn't terribly strong, like the power dissapation gap for the Earth-Moon system (I'd always assumed that most of that energy ended up heating the interior of our planet, with only a small amount of it accelerating the moon).
Anyway, I thought the line about "people of all faiths" wasn't unnecessary for a theory that implies that the universe doesn't even have a beginning. To put it bluntly, I suspect that a lot of opposition to this is going to come from the crypto-creationist crowd. Whether or not that matters (in this instance) depends on whether the experiments he suggests bear out his theory, but I find it telling that he bothered with such a statement. True, he's an astrophysicist rather than a pollster, but I suspect he's right about the way science gets done.
posted
Saying that the universe has to be 100% atoms because the solar system is 100% atoms is like saying the Earth is 100% land covered because you're standing in Nebraska.
posted
I'll agree with that...but it cuts both ways. If you've never seen anything but Nebraska, it would be unreasonable to assert that most of the Earth was covered with water. It still might be true, but you'd just be making a wild guess.
I don't think his argument hinges on the fact that nobody has ever actually observed any of this "dark matter" (that's why we call it dark matter, after all). He's just saying that it's not reasonable to infer that most of the universe is made out of stuff that we've never observed and which has no known properties other than fixing one of several major flaws with a certain model of the universe.
His argument mainly hinges on the larger implications of GRT applied to a curved (hyperspherical) universe. Since this would explain the observed redshift without resorting to claims that the entire universe is younger than many observable galaxies, it is worth taking seriously.
Certainly, his lecture on GRT has important (and testable) implications. I think the grand cosmology thing is rather less important from a sheerly scientific point of view, which is why it's likely to be much more contraversial (whether or not it tests out according to the predictions of his theory).
posted
Interesting. I do think the kid's presentation is a bit over-confident -- okay, more than a bit. 'Pompous' and 'arrogant' comes to mind, in a few places. Really, I viewed the presentation itself (not the subject matter) as a perfect example of how to piss off anyone who has made astrophysics their career. I especially enjoyed the line about how everyone has been wasting their time and should now embrace this new theory as pretty much the gospel.
Nevertheless, if one is able to get past the pomposity and arrogance (is this kid fifteen years old?), it's certainly an interesting theoretical model on space-time. The idea that black holes create and feed white holes that make new galaxies isn't new, though. At least, I'm sure I've read that elsewhere. As to the rest, well... I'm not cosmo-literate or mathematically inclined enough to comment intelligently on it. Good fodder for science fiction, though.
posted
Just because I can use this to seque my own theory:
The universe and matter:
In the beginning, there was the big bang, Boom, the univers is filled with Hydrogen. Since the hydrogen did not distribute evenly, the individual gravities of the atoms soon start gathering clusters of hydrogen, when these get big enough we get enough of a gravity well to form a star.
Inside Stars, in the dense gravity hyrdogen fuses to form heavier elements.
WHen a star can no longer sustain itself it sheds its outer layers, either slowly or explosion (nova, supernova) and the material is sent out there to gather again into another star.
When a very massive star forms, its a black hole. And it will someday get too massive and explode. (Hypernova) The material gets sent out to gather again.
Eventually everything in the universe will coalesce into a single massive black hole and then...it will explode and Big Bang, start over...
quote:When a very massive star forms, its a black hole. And it will someday get too massive and explode. (Hypernova) The material gets sent out to gather again.
I'd like to think that there's a big crunch, so to speak, too, but I don't think your "theory" holds. In a black hole, matter is condensed to a single point anyway. Why would adding more mass spur some new reaction that would create this hypernova?
As far as Mayer goes, he's quite brash, but he's also being realistic. Suggesting a theory of grand cosmology that basically overthrows the Big Bang...yeah. It's not worth treading around the subject.
posted
So here's my theory... every home, every office has a Black Hole. Admit it; you have one yourself. You know, when you set something down, turn your back, and when you look again it's simply VANISHED. Perhaps not found for months, if ever. Now, THAT theory isn't new.
But what I've discovered is that there is a quasar or some sort of matter emission vortex in every home or office, too. THIS explains the sudden appearance of things you've never seen before. For instance, the pair of red children's eyeglasses I found on the arm of my couch once. They belonged to a child who had to have been blind without them, given how strong the prescription was. Neither of my kids knew who they belonged to, nor did they know of any of their friends who wore similar glasses.
I figured during the night someone's black hole wandered across the child's nightstand, then transfered the eyeglasses via the quasar vortex and spit them out in my house. Then, said child woke up the next morning unable to find his or her glasses.
I got one of my favorite T-shirts that way. It simply appeared in my laundry one day. After a few weeks of not being claimed, I started wearing it. I never did find who it belonged to, but that was OK with me.
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