Why does the Steady State Theory not work?

[Outpost4]

Not only is the universe expanding, it is expanding at an increasing rate. Observation has shown that. It's really hard to come up with a model for a steady state universe that fits that particular observation. You almost have to invent a universe that beats like a heart to make it fit a steady state model and there is no observational evidence for that at all.

And BTW, at the risk of commenting on a poster, not a post, these "I'm more scientific than you" arguments are exactly what's kept me out of this forum over the years. A real scientist realizes how ignorant he is. An enlightened scientist realizes how his beliefs subtlely color his work.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Outpost4 said:
And BTW, at the risk of commenting on a poster, not a post, these "I'm more scientific than you" arguments are exactly what's kept me out of this forum over the years. A real scientist realizes how ignorant he is. An enlightened scientist realizes how his beliefs subtlely color his work.

You're replying to my post, so are you commenting on me?

 

[Outpost4]

No. I simply replied to the last post in the thread.

 

[ancient]

Outpost4 said:
Not only is the universe expanding, it is expanding at an increasing rate. Observation has shown that.

It's actually slowing down. The further back in time we see, the faster they are moving. The closer galaxies are, the slower they move. Really, the universe can't be speeding up without violating it's own rules.

Never-the-less, it is not steady-state yet. It may continue expanding forever, become Steady, or it many collapse. Scientists aren't 100% sure which yet.

In any case, we won't learn until waaaay after the fact, when the light, radiation, and gravity changes reach us.

 

[Outpost4]

Wait. Maybe my cosmology is off. We know there was a great inflationary period after the Big Bang that gave us the uniformity of the universe. I thought we'd recently discovered that a second stage of inflation was happening right now. This is why it is looking like Einstein's use of a cosmological constant was maybe not the mistake everyone thought it was.

 

[scotthm]

ancient said:
the universe can't be speeding up without violating it's own rules.

Which rule would an increasingly expanding universe be breaking?

Scientists aren't 100% sure...

Exactly, and even if they were, they may not be 100% correct.

---------------

 

[bryce]

ancient said:

Outpost4 said:
Not only is the universe expanding, it is expanding at an increasing rate. Observation has shown that.

It's actually slowing down. The further back in time we see, the faster they are moving. The closer galaxies are, the slower they move. Really, the universe can't be speeding up without violating it's own rules.

*cough*....Dark Energy...*cough*...

Yeah, it *should* be slowing down, stopping, or maybe even reversing (given enough mass) but it's not.

The rate of expansion is accelerating.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Freakness said:

iguana_tonante said:
I know my anwer will sound harsh, but here it is: you got it wrong from the first sentence. You can't believe on not believe in a scientific theory. At the time being, the Big Bang is the one theory on the origin of the universe that best matches observational data. You can't discard that on a whim because you don't like it.

that is the dumbest fucking thing i've ever heard.

In that case, I reckon you heard very little.

of course you can believe or not believe in a scientific theory. you can believe or not believe whatever the hell you want. nobody is OBLIGATED to believe anything just because science or religion or your mom tells you "this is what seems to make the most sense right now."

Mh... no. Maybe I didn't make myself clear, so I'll rephrase that: you can believe whatever you want, but it doesn't make it so. You can believe that the world is flat for all I care, but it doesn't make it so. It's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of facts. Scientific facts.

Frankly, I can not see how in earth or heaven could someone believe in something that was proven wrong, like the Steady State. It was proved wrong because it could not stand to comparison with observational data. So, you can't believe in it: if you do... well, you are wrong.

This is not some theological or political argument: this is science. Scientific theory are falsiable, and thay could be proven false in two ways: mathematical fallacies or incompatibility with data. The Steady State was rejected not because someone said so (this would be fascism), but because it was incompatible with observational data. Scientis have a motto: reality rules. That means that if a theory is in contrast with observed data, the theory is wrong and it should be discarded. Period. Your (my, theirs) opinions do not matter. The only opinion that counts is the universe's. Call it "reality's dictatorship" if you like, but it's the only method to make science, opposed to philosophy.

science doesn't progress by everyone towing the current party line, it progresses by someone saying "what we currently think is wrong, such-and-such makes more sense to me" and then trying to prove it. what kind of dogmatic scientific fascism are you promoting here?

No one is promoting fascism or dogmatism here (and I will let the accusation slide since you obviously have no idea what you are talking about and mods have already spocken about it), just pointing out the difference between something right and something wrong. You can belive whatever you want, but you must be prepared to defend your position with actual arguments, not because you "think different".

In the end: you may have the right of being wrong, but you are still wrong.

ancient said:

Outpost4 said:
Not only is the universe expanding, it is expanding at an increasing rate. Observation has shown that.

It's actually slowing down. The further back in time we see, the faster they are moving. The closer galaxies are, the slower they move. Really, the universe can't be speeding up without violating it's own rules.

No, Outpost4 is right, according to the last observations the universe's expansion is accelerating. It's not actually a new inflactive period (the physics of inflaction is really peculiar and right now we do not have reasons to believe we are in such a period), but the espansion is decidedly accelerating. This is why the Big Crunch hypothesis is most probably wrong (and with that, the Oscillating Universe scenario). Right now, the mos likely hypotesis the Big Rip (everything is Big in cosmology! ) The reasons for that are still fuzzy, but the best candidate is the Dark Energy pressure. If you are curious, Wikipedia have quite good articles on all of these:

Big Crunch

Oscillatory Universe

Big Rip

Dark Pressure

 

[scotthm]

iguana_tonante said:
according to the last observations the universe's expansion is accelerating.

More correctly, we can currently think of no better way to explain current observations. How we explain them 100 years from now may or may not be the same.

---------------

 

[Ronald Held]

I do not understand(no flaming please) why anyone currently believes in the Steady State theory of Hoyle, Bondi, etc?

 

[Meredith]

Could the universe itself be 4 dimension (spatial dimensions) on a large scale, yet be 3-D on a smaller scale of say galaxies and planets and people and stuff. I have heard that extra dimensions can be curled up into really small spaces near plank length, but could some of the extra dimensions be so large we are like a fish in water not knowing there is stuf above the pond?


Also the size of the universe... If the universe was say really frickin' huge I mean in the hundreds of billions of light years across and the big bang pushed out all the matter at near the speed of light, then based off the observation point you use you would get different measurements.

1. the center point of the big bang ie. absolute time. over 100 billion years have passed.

2. the huge shockwave of matter thrown out, (50 billion light years thick. Moving at 99.99% SOL from point 1, 15 billion years have passed due to time dilation. Light still hasn't been able to completely make it from one side of the shockwave to the other and it looks consistant all the way through for any observer that is near the center of the shockwave.





Imagine a baloon, instead of thinking of the galaxyies as points on the surface, think of them as atoms in the wall of the baloon, same expansion, even bigger scale.

 

[Luckyflux]

Ronald Held said:
I do not understand(no flaming please) why anyone currently believes in the Steady State theory of Hoyle, Bondi, etc?

Why is it so hard to understand? Can't people believe in what they want to?

I just can't accept that the Universe had a beginning. Nature makes sense, everything in Nature works and works well. To me, the Big Bang doesn't make sense. What was before the Universe (and I understand the concept of an Ant walking on an inflating balloon)? Why is the temperature of the Universe uniform? Has it ever happened before that a super large amount of Mass, has ever been shrunk to fit inside of an Atom?

If the four forces of Nature are steady, then why can't the Universe be steady? Gravity always works right? It is never NOT present.

And someone above said that what we think now and what we think in 100 years might be dramatically different. I think that is true. Also what kind of Scientist would I be if I thouhgt I knew everything?

I totally appreciate the valuable insight from posters that replied to me (on topic of course.) Everyone else that just wants to harass and flame and talk junk, please go to another post and do that, it is not helping here.

 

[Lindley]

Luckyflux said:

Why is it so hard to understand? Can't people believe in what they want to?

So long as your beliefs are based on evidence, sure. We have many observations of the universe available today, and although I don't claim to understand the specifics, I know those observations don't appear to support the steady-state model.

So what explanation do you offer for this? Do you have a theory how it all fits, or are you just throwing out unsupported gut feelings? That's called "wishful thinking".

I just can't accept that the Universe had a beginning. Nature makes sense, everything in Nature works and works well.

At the macro level, sure. Tell me that again after you've studied a bit of quantum mechanics.....

To me, the Big Bang doesn't make sense. What was before the Universe (and I understand the concept of an Ant walking on an inflating balloon)?

We're not entirely sure. Thinking too much about this will make anyone's head hurt. One possibility is that our universe began in the instant after another universe suffered its Big Crunch.

There are mathematical models which predict (postdict?) the nature of the universe in the first instants, but we cannot model anything within the first time quantum, from what I understand.

Why is the temperature of the Universe uniform?

Well, it isn't, quite. Witness Florida vs Antarctica. However, generally speaking, a uniform-temperature universe would be consistent with numerous models----both expansionist (gas cools uniformly when under less pressure) and steady-state (heat diffuses where it is uneven).

Has it ever happened before that a super large amount of Mass, has ever been shrunk to fit inside of an Atom?

Thinking of it this way requires some form of measurement independent of the universe. When space itself is expanding, all the yard sticks are as well. It's possible that 1 meter used to be 1 millimeter, but an observer within the universe wouldn't really be able to tell the difference.

If the four forces of Nature are steady, then why can't the Universe be steady? Gravity always works right? It is never NOT present.

Yes, the four forces are constant. This is how astronomers are able to use their observations to predict how the universe used to be. I fail to see why you'd think this would be an argument for *dismissing* their findings on the matter....

And someone above said that what we think now and what we think in 100 years might be dramatically different. I think that is true. Also what kind of Scientist would I be if I thouhgt I knew everything?

There's a key issue here. YES, a scientist's job is to challenge the accepted models and provide new insights. However, that *must* be done in a manner consistent with observations, not on blind faith.

When Copernicus introduced his model of planetary movement, many people didn't believe it. That doesn't make them advancers of science just because they questioned him----just the opposite. As it turned out, Copernicus wasn't quite right.....but it was a refinement of his model that led to our current understanding, not a complete abandonment of it.

There are cases when two diametrically opposed theories can explain evidence equally well. However, these are exceedingly rare. The vast majority of scientific progress comes from incremental refinements of existing theories to better fit observational data.

Is the Big Bang theory wrong? Maybe. But is it wrong so completely that the steady-state model is more likely? Given the observational data available, this seems highly doubtful.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Luckyflux said:

Ronald Held said:
I do not understand(no flaming please) why anyone currently believes in the Steady State theory of Hoyle, Bondi, etc?

Why is it so hard to understand? Can't people believe in what they want to?

Not. When. It. Is. Wrong!

Listen, I understand that you are here with the best intention, but this is not the correct frame of mind to discuss science. If you defend you position with "I can believe what I want", no one will treat you seriously. Scientific understanding is a cumulative process, and theory are analyzed and discussed ad nausem before they are integrated in common wisdom. The steady state theory was subjected to such scrutiny and it was found lacking. Maybe in the future there will be a return to such theory, but it will be because of new experimental data, not because of what "make more sense to me".

I just can't accept that the Universe had a beginning. Nature makes sense, everything in Nature works and works well. To me, the Big Bang doesn't make sense.

Science is not made like this. It doesn't matter what you think make sense or not, the only things that counts is if a theory is supported by experimental data or is confuted by that. The steady state was a good idea at the time, but since then new observational data made that theory obsolete. If you want to read the minutiae about that process, I'm sure that on-line you will find some excellent resources. I really suggest to read them with an open mind, trying to understand that personal "feelings" have no place in science, just mathematical consistency and compatibility with experimental data.

What was before the Universe (and I understand the concept of an Ant walking on an inflating balloon)?

There was no "before", because in current understanding time started with the Big Bang.

Why is the temperature of the Universe uniform? Has it ever happened before that a super large amount of Mass, has ever been shrunk to fit inside of an Atom?

Well, astronomically there are black holes, where ginormous amouts of mass are stivated in a point of space that theoretically has no dimension (the so-called singularity). Unfortunately, their gravitational pulling is so strong that they curves space-time so strongly that light can not run away from them (up to a limit called the event orizont).

If the four forces of Nature are steady, then why can't the Universe be steady? Gravity always works right? It is never NOT present.

Actually, the four force of nature (gravitation, electromagnetism, strong force and weak force) are thought to be manifestation of a singular universal force, separated one from another when temperature/energy decreased after the BB (an event called symmetry breaking). This was shown to be true for the electomagnetic and weak force in current particle accelerators (the resultant force was called with little fantasy electroweak), and it is supposed to be true for strong force and even for gravitation, but the energies involved are beyond our current technology. The behaviour of such "super-force" is now beyond even our theoretical models.

And someone above said that what we think now and what we think in 100 years might be dramatically different. I think that is true. Also what kind of Scientist would I be if I thouhgt I knew everything?

But at the same time, what kind of scientist would you be if you believe in a theory that was proven false and discarded by the scientific community? Maybe you a lone genius whose theories will be honored in times ahead, but if you are not an expert in this field (and I am not, since I'm a cosmologist but I specialize in large scale structure and not cosmogony) I humbly suggest to bow to the current wisdom.

I totally appreciate the valuable insight from posters that replied to me (on topic of course.) Everyone else that just wants to harass and flame and talk junk, please go to another post and do that, it is not helping here.

Well, thank you for keeping an open mind. I apologize if I sound too harsh, but I understand that you are here to learn and discuss and I really care that these kind of topic are discussed correctly, since they are really difficult and counterintuitive and thus prone to misunderstanding.

Hope that this will help!

 

[Luckyflux]

I have no proof of why I belive this, I just do. I think that current observations might be incorrect. I might be wrong and the BB might be correct, but I still think that we are missing other factors, and I'll leave it at that.

I would like to thank everyone that posted, it gave me alot to think about and alot of questions that I need to pursue. I know I need to learn alot more about this topic to make an accurate assessment of a theory, but this is how I feel right now. If anyone has anymore Science links that might be revelant please post them. Thanks again!!!

 

[Kolrad]

Lindley said:

Luckyflux said:
Has it ever happened before that a super large amount of Mass, has ever been shrunk to fit inside of an Atom?

Thinking of it this way requires some form of measurement independent of the universe. When space itself is expanding, all the yard sticks are as well. It's possible that 1 meter used to be 1 millimeter, but an observer within the universe wouldn't really be able to tell the difference.

Just pulling out this part because I have a question-- I'm not sure this explanation is right. If it were, you could argue that the universe has been in a "steady state" of expansion forever. Actually, if all of our systems of measurement were expanding along with it, I don't think we would be able to even detect the expansion at all.

But we do detect expansion, because physics predicts that the basic physical forces will make the matter in the universe behave differently depending on the density of the universe.

In the present, matter is spread out so much that gravity (the weakest of the four forces, but the one with the widest range of effect) is the main force determining how matter behaves-- it's why we have galaxies, clusters, and superclusters sticking together while the spaces between them get larger.

Run time backwards far enough, to a few minutes after the Big Bang, and you get to a point when the matter in the universe would have been dense and hot enough that it was a soup of protons and neutrons, and the electromagnetic force was the main force, and it determined how they organized into atoms. Cosmologists have worked to develop models of what the universe would have been like at this stage, trying to arrive at a result that explains the proportion of different types of atoms in the early universe.

And if you go back even farther, to a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, you get to a point when the matter in the universe would have been so dense and hot that the electromagnetic force would not be strong enough to hold atoms together; instead, the strong nuclear force would be working over even shorter ranges to clump quarks together into protons and neutrons.

And so on, back to the point where we have no understanding of physics to form a model of what would have gone on.

Anyway, that is my understanding of why the observed expansion of the universe leads us to believe that it had a beginning. Is this explanation correct?

 

[Lindley]

Well, you certainly made it sound plausible, at least.

As for correct, that's for people smarter than me to decide.

 

[scotthm]

iguana_tonante said:
There was no "before", because in current understanding....

I think you're being a bit dogmatic here, because the fact is we don't know whether there was a 'before' or not. Our current understanding is just too incomplete to say for sure.

Luckyflux said:
I have no proof of why I belive this, I just do.

But even without proof, you must have some reason. Why does it make more sense to you, for example, to believe that the universe has existed forever in a relatively steady state, rather than to believe that it continually expands and contracts over long periods of time?

You did, after all, ask why the steady state theory isn't currently in favor, so I'm assuming you have an open mind on the subject.

---------------

 

[iguana_tonante]

Kolrad said:
Just pulling out this part because I have a question-- I'm not sure this explanation is right. If it were, you could argue that the universe has been in a "steady state" of expansion forever. Actually, if all of our systems of measurement were expanding along with it, I don't think we would be able to even detect the expansion at all.

As I understand it, we could not measure the expansion directly but we could detect its consequences, for example the fact that the redshift of far away galaxies is proportional to their distance from us (i.e. the Hubble's Law), the evolution of galaxies along the z-axis and the cosmic microwave background radiation, all features that are quite impossible to justify in a steady state model.

Anyway, that is my understanding of why the observed expansion of the universe leads us to believe that it had a beginning. Is this explanation correct?

To the best of my knowledge, you are essentially correct, there are just ways other than chemical and physical evolution to justify the expansion model (background radiation for one).

scotthm said:

iguana_tonante said:
There was no "before", because in current understanding....

I think you're being a bit dogmatic here, because the fact is we don't know whether there was a 'before' or not. Our current understanding is just too incomplete to say for sure.

Yeah, you are right. It's just that, even if there was a "before" the BB, right now we don't have any ideas about what could be going on there, so I tend to just dismiss it. But you are correct: we don't know.

 

[Luckyflux]

Luckyflux said:
I have no proof of why I belive this, I just do.

But even without proof, you must have some reason. Why does it make more sense to you, for example, to believe that the universe has existed forever in a relatively steady state, rather than to believe that it continually expands and contracts over long periods of time?

You did, after all, ask why the steady state theory isn't currently in favor, so I'm assuming you have an open mind on the subject.

---------------

[/QUOTE]

In my posts above I stated a few reasons why I believe in the Steady State. Most of my reasons are discounted for various reasons, but the biggest reason seems to be that it is not a Steady State because everything that Humans have observed so far seems to lead to a Big Bang. I argue that Humans don't have a firm enough grasp of understanding to say once and for all that this is the way it is. I believe that we might be incorrect about a few things and that will change peoples opinions over time.

I wish I were smart enough to know all of the reasons, but that just isn't true. And for me personally, it all needs to make sense and TBB just doesn't make sense to me. I am not saying I am right, it is just how I feel.