But for us old scientists on the board, would you not change your mind when presented with enough convincing proofs? Won't you? At the end, that is the sigil of a great scientific mind!
Why does the Steady State Theory not work?
- Thread starter Luckyflux
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iguana_tonante said:
But for us old scientists on the board, would you not change your mind when presented with enough convincing proofs? Won't you? At the end, that is the sigil of a great scientific mind!
Yes I would, however I have not seen enough evidence. I think that there are forces at work that Humans either don't know about yet or are being misunderstood. I would hate say "OK you're right, Big Bang is good to go." Then maybe 3 years down the road, Scientists find something that refutes the Cosmic Background Radiation, or they find some particle that moves faster than the speed of light, thereby causing the Big Bang to be revised.
I just think that Humans are in an infancy period when it comes to Cosmilogical Understanding....more discoveries will be made in the future that changes our way of thinking. I just wish I were smart enough to know what those could be.
I feel very passionite about this subject, and I don't want to change the way I feel just because everyone else feels a certain way...I might go to my grave beleiving the Steady State is correct only to be grossly mistaken, but I am prepared for that. I'd rather be wrong but know the truth, then believe in something that doesn't make sense to me.
Why can't I have that?
You can do whatever you want to do. It is a democracy.
You are also so right that we know a fraction of what is really going on when it comes to the universe. Dark energy, which is want we are talking about here, comprises 70% of the universe. It has to be there to match what we measure but we don't have the slightest idea of what it is. Same goes for dark matter, which is 25% of the universe. In other worlds, we don't know what makes up 95% of the universe. We don't know shit.
It's just interesting that you'd make your main argument in a forum dedicated to science. Science has rules and procedures. One of the rules is you go where the evidence leads. The greatest theory in the world, if it is shot down by experimental evidence, is a piece of horse pitute. When it comes to the creation of the universe, you want to defy the current evidence because of your feelings and beliefs. That's perfectly OK. It's your right. Go for it. It just isn't science.
You are also so right that we know a fraction of what is really going on when it comes to the universe. Dark energy, which is want we are talking about here, comprises 70% of the universe. It has to be there to match what we measure but we don't have the slightest idea of what it is. Same goes for dark matter, which is 25% of the universe. In other worlds, we don't know what makes up 95% of the universe. We don't know shit.
It's just interesting that you'd make your main argument in a forum dedicated to science. Science has rules and procedures. One of the rules is you go where the evidence leads. The greatest theory in the world, if it is shot down by experimental evidence, is a piece of horse pitute. When it comes to the creation of the universe, you want to defy the current evidence because of your feelings and beliefs. That's perfectly OK. It's your right. Go for it. It just isn't science.
Absolutely. But simply I cannot see how that could belittle what we know. It's like saying: since we don't know exactly how the human body work, let's not try and cure anyone.
That would be just fine with me! Scientific theory are discarded all the time, supplanted by new and more accurate understanding of the universe. If presented with enough evidences, I will gladly change my mind: I was wrong in the past, I will be wrong in the future.
Well, I really can't answer this question. This is not a matter of following the masses: the question is "does the theory fit the data?" If the answer is "no" (and surely it seems so), then I see no reason to cling on it.
And by "I'd rather be wrong but know the truth", I don't really understand what you mean. Believing something to be true even without evidences, and even against evidence, is bordering of faith. Which could be just fine with you, no problem. But that just ain't science.
Hey bro, great minds think alike!
If you discount everything that you can't wrap your mind around, you'll essentially be sticking yourself back in the pre-specialization age. You don't have to understand something to accept that others do.
I know more about computers than many people, yet there are still things about the microchip hardware I can't quite get my head around. That doesn't stop me from accepting that the things work.
We don't know everything about the universe. We don't even know all that much. But we do know enough to form reasonable theories and assign them degrees of confidence; and the steady-state model just isn't as likely as the big-bang model given what we've seen.
I know more about computers than many people, yet there are still things about the microchip hardware I can't quite get my head around. That doesn't stop me from accepting that the things work.
We don't know everything about the universe. We don't even know all that much. But we do know enough to form reasonable theories and assign them degrees of confidence; and the steady-state model just isn't as likely as the big-bang model given what we've seen.
Also, if in fact we make some discoveries that show our current understanding is flawed or incomplete it doesn't necessarily make the steady state model correct. At some point in the past, there was a large group of scientists who thought that the Earth was a sphere, but some people in the general population still felt that maybe it was flat. Turns out that the "sphere" crowd wasn't correct (as the Earth is a slighty flattened oblate spheroid) - but that didn't mean that the "flat-earth" crowd was correct instead. In fact, the sphere theory was actually much closer to the reality of the situation.
It's similar with the Big Bang and its associated ideas - even if they aren't the actual correct theory (and it's highly likely they aren't completely correct), it's extremely likely that the Big Bang is a much better approximation of the "truth" than the steady state model. Even if the Big Bang is wrong, steady state is wronger than wrong (to paraphrase Isaac Asimov).
-MEC
It's similar with the Big Bang and its associated ideas - even if they aren't the actual correct theory (and it's highly likely they aren't completely correct), it's extremely likely that the Big Bang is a much better approximation of the "truth" than the steady state model. Even if the Big Bang is wrong, steady state is wronger than wrong (to paraphrase Isaac Asimov).
-MEC
Well, it's a fairly basic, really. For example, a fundamental 'rule' of the universe is that mass generates a gravitational force. Why it does this, we still don't know, which is a big part of the problem. Then we start to realize that there's too much gravity, not enough mass. So we call the source of the extra gravity "Dark Matter". The rules are broken.
Calling something 'Dark' like 'Dark Energy' simply means: The universe isn't following our rules, but we label it as something familiar. In our experience, only mass can make gravity, therefor, this new source of gravity must also be a type of mass! But it isn't actually mass, it's something else.
We are like children trying to learn calculus without knowing what causes 2+2 to equal 4.
Plenty of evidence. You just don't understand it.
There is not "before the universe". I don't see why this is any more difficult to imagine than an eternal universe though.
The temperature is uniform (at least to one part in 10,000) probably because of the inflationary period at the beginning. On large scales, the universe is smooth.
...
Now this is not fair. He is asking questions which has generated this conversation as to what the evidence is. So far he has chosen not to accept it. That is his right.
It's not a lack of comprehension. It's a matter of belief. Luckyflux chooses not to believe in the evidence.
Reducing it to the extreme, I choose not to believe the Green Bay Packers have a poor football team this year. My personal empirical evidence is that they aren't bad; in fact, they are 1-0 so far this year. I choose not to believe the Packers offense sucks even though the evidence is that they were last in the NFL in rushing the first week of the season. Hey, they were good enough to beat a much better team in the Philadelphia Eagles. I can choose to believe the offense simply had an off game and the Packer offense will shine this weekend against the Giants. And if they suck then, too? I can still choose to believe they simply had two off weeks.
It's not that I don't understand the Packers are a bad team this year. I just choose to have faith that they are better than last in the league. Luckyflux chooses to believe that the universe is constant.
The difference here is the universe could give a rat's ass what Luckyflux believes. On the other hand, betting on my beliefs will cost me money.
Sorry ancient but in reading your posts I'm confused by something. Hubble's law states that recessional velocity is proportional to distance, not time. It doesn't say that the universe was expanding faster the further back in time you go.
Or am I misinterpreting your posts?
Robert
Or am I misinterpreting your posts?
Robert
While I'm not quite sure exactly what "..." means in this case, I don't think it means you are accepting Lindley's point.
If that is the case, mostly it is because of a nice job of editing on your part, Fox Muldar. Here is Lindley's full statement:
You can see that he was actually making a point negating his first sentance. It's easy to reject somebody's point that they reject themselves.
But let's take that first sentence and examine it. Let's see if it is accurate in and of itself. We'll do a thought experiment. I flip a coin 10 times in a row. Each time it lands heads up. I can give you two explanations for this outcome:
(1) It's bound to happen with a fair and balanced coin. Each flip has a 50/50 chance of turning up heads. My statistics were always for shit in school so my math might be wrong but I believe this result will happen roughly one time in a thousand.
(2) It's a rigged coin, with heads on both sides. It will certainly land heads up every time.
I have presented two diametrically opposed theories that both explain the observation. In one case the coin is true and in the other the coin is bogus. Both theories work and both could be correct. Only further experimentation will determine which is the right theory, which was Lindley's point all along.
All along I have just wanted information and "evidence" that tells me why the Steady State doesn't work. I only want knowledge. I just feel that the current evidence is not enough and is possibly misunderstood regarding the origin of the universe. What is the problem?
Posting in this forum has helped point me in the right direction for things that I need to study to get a better understanding. Most people have offered great insight into this topic....others have not.
I am not saying that the Steady State is correct, I am just curious as to what other people think.
Posting in this forum has helped point me in the right direction for things that I need to study to get a better understanding. Most people have offered great insight into this topic....others have not.
I am not saying that the Steady State is correct, I am just curious as to what other people think.
I'm not sure.
What I was pointing out was merely that objects at greater distance appear to us as they actually were millions/billions of years ago thanks to the comparatively slow speed at which radiation/light/gravity force moves. They give us the best clue as to what the universe used to be doing.
A reasonable request. All along we've been giving you evidence why the Big Bang had to be. Let's take it from this perspective instead.
(1) The universe is expanding. Plus objects further away from us are moving away faster than objects that are closer. Given an object's proximity to us, it can even be moving towards us (the Andromeda Galaxy) but overall, the universe is expanding away from us. This is an incontrovertible fact that has been proven experimentally again and again since Edwin Hubble explained this in the 1920s. For this to happen and have the universe be a steady state one, pockets of matter would have to keep being created. If the universe is expanding away from us, somehow we need a mechanism to create matter so that stars and galaxies would exist nearby. We've never seen any evidence of this matter creation. Matter changed and converted, yes, but created from nothing, no. We should see this. Our instruments are sensitive enough to detect this level of matter creation. It hasn't been detected. You want to win a Nobel Prize? Show how Dark Matter or Dark Energy is being converted into visible matter or energy without leaving a trace. You'd also certainly discover a truth more fundimental than E=MC². That's all.
(2) We discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation. There exists a very low level of energy that is detectable throughout the entire universe. Think of it as a glow of a campfire after the flames go out. It is remarkably uniform, down to many decimal places. I has been shown to be a thermal radiation, again think of a glow, as opposed to more conventional x-ray, infared, visible or other form of radiation. A steady state theory would have to explain how this exists. It hasn't. Instead, a remarkably hot event, the Big Bang, followed by a period of intensely rapid expansion, or inflation, does explain it. The cosmic background radiation is the afterglow of the Big Bang. Steady State theory can't explain it at all; the Standard Cosmological Model does.
(3) Why aren't there any quasars nearby? And by nearby I mean in the vast majority of the visible universe. All the quasars are a ways away. If the universe is the same as it always was, why are all the quasars really far away from us, which is another way of saying very old? Steady State theory hasn't explained this.
(4) Overall, you can see the universe has a sense of time. It shows growth. This is the antithesis of Steady State. Instead of being the same now and forever, the universe shows a physical expansion and evidence of change. How does Steady State explain this? It hasn't. However, a Big Bang creation explains it nicely.
It isn't just that the Standard Model explains the universe better. It's that Steady State theory can't explain the universe as we see it.
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