MODERATOR: These posts were pulled from the "Advice for ATM theory supporters" thread as inappropriate since they're addressing a specific theory rather than giving advice.

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“A successful theory should progress as a river grows, from trickles on numerous hillsides, to a moderate number of tributaries, and then, by amalgamation, into a broad stream. This has not happened with the big bang, which has almost no success to offer in return for a great deal of effort over the past two decades.”

Fred Hoyle, 1994


“New insights into the relationship between human beings and life processes have come from individual artists and movements. It would be ludicrous to imagine a da Vinci, van Gogh, Corot or Duchamp producing their work as a member of a University Art Department. Writers who move the culture say that the surest way to kill writing ability is to work in a Literature Department. Even seminal workers closer to science such as Galileo, Freud or Gropius would obviously stick in the throat of an academic institution. So why can great physics and cosmology only be produced at a lavishly funded institution? The answer is that it isn’t…"

Halton Arp, 1998


There is a third point to be made: Though observations have clearly defied explanation and contradicted predictions made by the big bang-inflation world-views, no clear hypothesis or interpretation has emerged within the opposition, alternative theories, that consistently brings together all empirical data in a cosmological world-model that evolves according to the natural laws of thermodynamics, the general theory of relativity, along with some form of quantum theory.

Something has only just begun

Coldcreation

Try facts. These logical excuses for being flat out wrong... grow tiresome. Indeed, something has only just begun. That would be my foot tapping in anticipation of compelling new evidence. Have you read 'Seeing Red'? and still find it convincing?

There is a fourth point to be made:

Einstein’s own cold and calculated view on the inadmissibility of singularities, whether they are point particles, black holes, worm holes, or primordial bang events, was so profound that he was driven to publish a paper declaring that the Shwarzschild singularity does not appear in nature ‘for the reason that matter cannot be concentrated arbitrarily…because otherwise the constituting particles would reach the velocity of light.’ As for the big bang, Einstein’s last words on the subject were …’One may…not assume the validity of the equations for very high density of field and matter, and one may not conclude that the “beginning of expansion” must mean a singularity in the mathematical sense’ (Pais 1982).

So much for your beloved big bang...

Coldcreation

Einstein wasn't gun-ho about the idea of black holes at first. I'm not quite sure if he ever really 'believed' in them, but beliefs don't play much into science at all...
The second statment by Einstein, he was refering to was GRs area of aplicability. At such extreme energies GR does indeed breakdown. Also, at the point of a singularity it breaks down.
Nothing groundbreaking here either... yawn.

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Feynman
>~~~~<
Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.

What's your point? A lot of discoveries have taken place since Einstein. No theory has come closer to displacing relativity than quantam mechanics.

You want to argue against singularities? I can call up hordes of folks who don't believe it possible. But can you quanTitatively tell us why they are impossible?

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My son is my universe.

It is utterly useless to sight quotes from famous scientists when they specify no scientific information and give no new insights. That is to say, authority is worthless in science.

We have seen many great minds make mistakes and deceive them selves, Einstein and Hoyle being prime examples. Quoting such people gives no additional credibility, and provides no evidence. If you wish to propose an alternative theory to the BB, please give a more substantive argument.

Art and science are two completely different things. Art is all about the subjective, while science tries to eliminate the subjective. So I don't think DaVinci being unsuitable for a department chair head (even if universities had existed at the time) has much to do with cosmological theories.

Nitpick; many universities did exist at the time. Bologna: 1088; Oxford: +-1100; Paris: +- 1150; Leuven 1425; ...

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

For the record, I did not start this thread (Coldcreation anti-BB discussion) even though it bares the Coldcreation signature. I’ll be glad to participate though. From the shape of things, it should have been called Coldcreation: Art and Science (very interesting indeed).

This is not the beginning of a major anti-cosmology movement; it is a continuation from an era before which our conception of the universe changed radically, from a point when the laws of physics with which we were familiar became of no use in explaining what had happened.

ColdCreation is a continuation of a tradition of fundamental science; it is an attempt to elucidate the mysteries of matter creation and to show how the evolution of the universe was necessarily the outcome of the deepest laws that govern all of physical reality.

ColdCreation is a theory that has nothing to do with the exotic laws of ‘new’ physics that have tried in vain to enlighten the workings of a universe whose evolutionary processes stem from an extraordinarily small hot dense amorphous fireball. It involves the development of a concept that does, however, have to do with our universe—one that evolved in accord with general relativity and the laws of thermodynamics, from the infinitely large, extremely cold environment of empty space, from the quasi-stable equilibrium ground-energy state of the very early universal vacuum, from the irreducible substratum of space and time, to what is observed today in nature.

For details about Coldcreation see the thread (that I did start) titled called ColdCreation Cosmology: the Ultimate Theory.

I really would like to regroup these two threads. There is no use in having the same discussion in two threads. After all, the Coldcreation universe is not told as an end in itself. Alongside, we find an account of the mounting attacks on standard cosmology throughout the modern era: their essential characters, the issues targeted, and its burgeoning as the decades succeed one another. In this way the big bang and it opposition, one aspect of Coldcreation, are in view from the outset, parallel to one another. The observational evidence is the same, only the interpretations differ.

Coldcreation
aka Alexander Mittelmann

To introduce his new ‘discovery’ of world models with variable radius of curvature, Friedmann had a few words published. You’ll get a BANG out of this:

The variable type of universe represents a great variety of cases; there can be cases of this type when the world’s radius of curvature…is constantly increasing in time; cases are also possible when the radius of curvature changes periodically: The universe contracts into a point (into nothing) and then again increases its radius from a point up to a certain value, then again, diminishing its radius of curvature, transforms itself into a point, etc. This brings to mind what Hindu mythology has to say about cycles of existence, and it also becomes possible to speak about “ the creation of the world from nothing,” but all this should at present be considered as curious facts which cannot be reliably supported by the inadequate astronomical experimental material.” (Friedmann, 1923, from Kragh, 1996, p.25)

Why the scientific community has such a high tolerance for artistic dissent is complex. The boundary between what is permitted and forbidden by the natural laws has shifted, and official sanction seems to be dealt out idiosyncratically—whenever principles are detrimental to the big bang. New physics is intended to serve as the unquestioning instrument of the policies. The incoherence of this policy and lack of clearly defined facts or evidence is deeply disquieting to many within the big bang leadership—the false vacuum is the largest obstacle pitted against nature. Guth tastes his own medicine (and it’s no free lunch).

The root of the problem with inflationary models is that their curators have compromised the pivotal role of nature by encouraging theorists to make their own laws and to choose how to display them. The so-called avant-garde inflation fashion has turned world-models into instant museum pieces and their designers have become artists rather than scientists. Weird and wonderful wanton creations may be best appreciated framed in a museum context, instead of as mere world-views.

Artistic vision is not enough to make cosmology work.

Scientists and artists on all sides agree there is one fundamentally scientific method capable of resolving the controversy: explicitly, by means of comparing theory with observation. The problem is that there is not always a clear consensus as to their interpretation, especially when certain features in a theory remain hidden forever (e.g., behind an event horizon) or when many interpretations are available for the same observation.

The call of Einstein to geometry was nothing less than the realization of the creative faculty that every true artist carries in him. The initial resort to geometric standards with the objective no longer of arranging nature nor creating it but recognizing its structural composition—explicitly constructed from elements and systems known in the real world—without any psychological or anthropomorphic expression, became the only rule. A rule that fundamentally constitutes the only and the very simple empirical principle that Einstein’s opponents represented as complicated, obscure, mathematical and contradictory.

Coldcreation

Nope, I didn't get a bang out of this. Much opinion, less facts.
What is e.g. the Big Bang leadership, and can you give some names of those 'many' within it that are 'deeply disquieted'?

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

Cosmologists Ponder Missing Energy “Cosmologists gather at Fermi National Laboratory in effort to explain compelling new evidence that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate and to understand what appears to be an unknown form of energy associated with vacuum of space, the so-called ‘missing energy’ of the universe; if both current theory and new observations are correct, this energy must be acting as repulsive force to counteract gravity’s restraining influence and thus speed up cosmic expansion” (New York Times, May 5, 1998 Sec: F Science Desk p. 1). Wary Astronomers Ponder An Accelerating Universe (New York Times, March 3, 1998 Sec: F Science Desk p. 1)

Revolution in Cosmology …something is amiss. At the very least, the expansion is not decelerating as rapidly as once though. Either scientists must reconcile themselves to kooky energy, or they must modify or abandon inflation. (Scientific American, Jan. 1999 Vol. 280, 1

Accelerating the Cosmos “The cosmological constant, also called lambda (L), is a uniform, background energy permeating all of space. This energy gives space itself a sort of springiness, counteracting gravity on large scales…It came as a shock…the universe appeared to contain twice as much energy in the cosmological constant as it did in matter. POW…Thunderstruck astronomers…particle physicists are studying the structure of space to determine just what lambda might be…funny energy…gravity that bends space…slightly illicit…cosmological constant was mentioned as a possible culprit, but that reasoning still seemed to strange to take seriously…a huge cosmological constant…some form of energy we don’t understand…weird, fluid-like substance called quintessence, a squishy possibility…“This led me to reconsider my theoretical prejudices. I now think it is very reasonable that there should be a cosmological constant” [the latter is a quote from S. Hawking] (Astronomy, Oct. 1999 Vol. 27, 10, p. 44-51)

Re-read the last sentence by Hawking.

BANG

Lambda is back!

Coldcreation

One thread is indeed sufficient. Please direct responses to the existing thread.