I am beginning to think that establishing a serious alternative to BB cosmology must 1st somehow find away past a catch 22.

The EU model has been dismissed on the grounds that it is more of a set of ideas than a propper theory. But you are extremely unlikely to be granted the right to study EU under any scientific establishment that has the requisite facilities to turn these ideas into something more substantial. And until these ideas are turned into something more substantial, it is going to be hard to argue the case that study time and research money be spent on an alternative to the BB (particularly when, according to cosmologystatement.org, 'funding comes from only a few sources, and supporters of BB dominate all the peer-review committees that control the funds').

Is this not a case of no access to requisite facilities until ideas are substantiated/ no substantiation of ideas until access to requisite facilities are granted?

A catch 22 in other words.

It certainly sounds like all the bean counters are in one camp, and they all have the same sign. Fortunately, you don't need a license to think. If mankind waited for funding to accomplish every single thing, we would be chopping trees with sharp rocks and eating berries in season. Press on, young Sir.
Best regards, Dan

(My bold) Well, this does not make sense at all. All over the world people are working on plasma(astro)physics, which, if you look at it closely, is EU, because all the theories that the EU proponents say that are barred from investigation, are used in plasma(astro)physics, be it Birkeland currents, double layers etc.
The problem is that up until now no EU theory has been able to show any good results, starting with the "electric sun" to stay close at home, and moving outward to the BB.
Now please note, that plasma(astro)physics is an element that has to be taken along in cosmology (how else are you going to describe the early universe?). EU proponenst seem to think that plasma physics and electric fields are forbidden terrain for mainstream scientists.
If you can show that your EU idea has merit, which means put it to the scrutiny of your peers, and it is found to be valid then it will be accepted over a period of time (to go into details e.g. in space physics the discussion between the reconnection and the current disruption models, where the latter could be seen as the "EU" in this discussion, and I happen to think both processes take place). Nothing goes immediately, people (even scientists) need time to digest new ideas.

So, if you Extropia DaSilva have any ideas on EU, please share them with us, and we discuss them.

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Any comments in glorious red are to be considered in ModeratorMode.


善數, 不用籌策 (shàn shù, bù yòng chóu cè)
He who is good at counting, uses no counting tools
“A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is”
道德經, 二十七 (dào dé jīng, 27)

Uhuh.

It must be possible to break out of this catch 22, because if it were not there would never have been any paradigm shifts in scientific thinking.

Do not hold your breath waiting for me to write an EU theory that has any merit. Sadly, we are no longer in the good old days when scientific debate was held in centres of great learning that shut their doors to all but the highly qualified. These days any old fool can put forward an opinion on forums. Luckily, there are probably REAL experts who can explain how, where and why the opinions of the less well-qualified are in error. Which means I get to learn far more quickly than I ever would have in an age without forums

Right now I am more interested to know why EU is not in any way accepted as a real alternative. The answer is becoming clear very quickly, I assure you.

'All over the world people are working on plasma(astro)physics, which, if you look at it closely, is EU, because all the theories that the EU proponents say that are barred from investigation, are used in plasma(astro)physics, be it Birkeland currents, double layers etc.'

Indeed. One of the unexplored features of the universe are the magnetic fields that stretch across clusters of galaxies. It is proposed that inflation could be responsible for this because, when electrons and protons 1st formed the 1st hydrogen atoms, photons would have scattered off electrons and protons. Being as they are a lot heavier than electrons, the photons would have scattered differently off them, generating small differences in the velocoties of protons and electrons and this would have created electric currents and, therefore, magnetic fields.

'EU proponenst seem to think that plasma physics and electric fields are forbidden terrain for mainstream scientists'.

The work I mentioned above is enough to show this is not the case. Electricity DOES feature in inflationary cosmology. But, as I understand it, the PC community's complaint is that electricity is invoked only at a particular stage in the universe's development and is afterwards ignored. Regardless of the fact that the PC community has not provided sufficient quantitive analysis, is it REALLY so wrong to be suspicious that general relativity might be a good description of a theoretical universe that is governed by gravity and not OUR universe that is mostly plasma and therefore electrically charged and therefore controlled mainly by electromagnetic effects?

Well, just give it a try, Extropia DaSilva, and see if magnetic fields are more important than gravity. The intergalactic magnetic field is approximately 0.1 nT (I think I have that correctly), and look at the effects that you think are important.

Now, the problem with electrical effects is ofcourse that plasmas are quasi-neutral and therefore electric fields only appear under special circumstances (like e.g. double layers) and for the rest are shielded in the deBye sphere. Therefore, a plasma blob can usually be taken as just a big blob under the influence of gravity.

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Any comments in glorious red are to be considered in ModeratorMode.


善數, 不用籌策 (shàn shù, bù yòng chóu cè)
He who is good at counting, uses no counting tools
“A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is”
道德經, 二十七 (dào dé jīng, 27)

Well, I wouldn't look to "cosmologystatement.org" for an unbiased view of the situation.

I don't think the funding panels are nearly as closed-minded or dogmatic as you seem to imagine. And I think it's wrong to characterize participants in funding panels as "supporters of [the big bang]." They are supporters of science and of ideas that are supported by evidence.

Who are these funding panels? For the largest funding organization, the National Science Foundation, funding panel members are just researchers from around the country invited to review proposals. Yes, the proposals they choose to fund aren't going to be "insubstantial." They have to show promise. Proposals that are "against the mainstream" do not get tossed out thoughtlessly. They may be given more of a chance, because panelists are not particularly interested in verifying something we already know. Innovative is good. But a proposal must also show that there is a reasonable chance for success.

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

This is an excellent example of why there is no catch-22. The mainstream scientist at this point, points out that the inflationary period was 300,000 years before the universe cooled off enough for atoms to form.

The answer is quite clear and immediate: as it stands, there is no EU theory which agrees with the observable universe nor with the basic laws of physics.

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"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
Mark Twain

Avatar courtesy of Bunny.

Hi Kesh.

I got into this EU 'debate' on another forum and a couple of people assured me that if I were to argue its case amongst propper physicists I would find myself hopelessly out of my depth with EU in tatters.

They certainly seem to be in the right. I AM out of my depth on this forum and nothing I have collected on ES/EU stands as justification to call it a theory, let alone suggest it is superior to anything else.

I have not yet read all the threads on the EU debate so my refutation of it is somewhat cautious. But, certainly, what little I have read is showing it to be the worthless pseudoscience I was always warned it was. (PS, I do not think the ES HYPOTHESIS was psuedoscientific because it put forward a model that could be tested and falsified. Tim Thompson seems to have shown that what evidence exists in its favour is a distortion of the truth and I currently know of ZERO EU papers that put forward a propper scientific argument that quantitively defends the ideas. I therefore consider it BUNK and realise it was psuedoscientific to claim the 'evidence' I had in its favour was otherwise).

the thing is though Cosmic Plasmas(EU, as some refer to Cosmic Plasmas,I do not. by the way I don't like Cosmic Plasmas referred to as EU, it just somehow rubs me the wrong way). interestingly enough, is the starting point of the BB. theory.

One reason why any "Catch 22" case would be particularly hard to make (pace the signatories to the petition Extropia DaSilva cites) is surveys.

Whether it's 2dF, SDSS, 2MASS, IRAS, DENIS, WMAP, .... these huge surveys are fully public - even the raw data is available (in many cases).

Anyone - when developing an alternative cosmological theory or not - can get these survey data, for free! (you will need a broadband internet connection, and you may need to live in North America, the EU, Australia, Japan, ....)

This data is very much richer and better than anything available only a few decades ago - deeper, more consistent, more wavebands, errors much better characterised, ....

Further, ALL HST data - including the raw data - becomes available after a proprietary period (6 months, a year), and for much of it (HDF, UDF, ...) the proprietary period is 0 days.

With such a huge wealth of high quality data available, for free, what more could anyone developing an alternative want?

Maybe they want computing power? A top-of-the-line, out-of-the-box PC today has computing power that astronomers only 25 years ago couldn't have even dreamed of, much less bought. And with science grids like BOINC, and the widespread, free, availability of the underlying grid protocols, anyone developing an alternative, with a need for really heavy-duty computing, could have it - I'm sure the PCs of the signatories to the petition, plus those of their friends and relatives would make a big dent into any computing project.

So what, in fact, is the Catch 22? A paying job at a university?

'The answer is quite clear and immediate: as it stands, there is no EU theory which agrees with the observable universe nor with the basic laws of physics.'

It is curious, then, that such a clear and immediate falsification of the EU hypothesis should have generated a thread that runs to more than 70 pages.

Either one side is stubborn to the point of lunacy when it comes to avoiding admitting defeat or it is not as clear and immediate as you say.

Should I really declare everything about EU to be bunk? Could that possibly be as premature as Einsteins famous retraction of the cosmological constant?

Once you've finished reading the the EU thread, I for one would be very interested to know what you conclude.

One thing that you may conclude is that there is not a binary choice to be made (or, perhaps, not the binary choice you state).

For example, "the EU hypothesis"; AFAIK (as far as I know) no EU proponent, in that thread, characterised it as a (mere) hypothesis, so a 'clear and immediate falsification' was not (and is not) possible.

It's the former. The EU gang refuse to let anything like a lack of experimental evidence for their concept stand in their way of declaring everything about physics to be wrong.

Yep. The situation with the cosmological constant was ambiguous, so it's no surprise the Einstein turned out to be wrong in declaring it a mistake. The EU situation is different. They want to replace general relativity with their concept (it's not even a hypothesis) while ignoring the amazing accuracy with which GR matches many observations. My standard challange to EU types is to provide a description of the behavior of binary pulsars. The agreement between GR and the observation is astounding. Any alternative, such as the EU concept, must do at least as well before it can even be considered as viable. So far no one has done so.

Many take Pauli's comment as in my sig to indicate his opinion of ideas that cannot be tested. They are "not even wrong" because they make no predictions that can be used to prove them wrong. The EU concept certainly falls into this category. Of course, it also fulfills the more obvious interpretation. It's an idea that's so far out there that it bypassed wrong and went straight to ridiculous.

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"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

'It's an idea that's so far out there that it bypassed wrong and went straight to ridiculous.'

Given that its rival has generated speculation in extra dimensions curled up in the fabric of the cosmos and time travel and gateways to parallel universes and creating new universes by heating up a region of space to 10^29 degrees K and letting it rapidly cool and 70% of the universe made up of something very dark and mysterious...

I would say that EU would have to come up with some wayyyyyy crazy ideas to top that list!

As you say, those are speculations (except for that last point), and I'm not so sure they are necessarily "generated" by the reigning paradigm. It sounds like you're just reading the wrong authors. You should be reading Murray Gell-Mann, not Michio Kaku.

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

String theory is cutting edge physics (or highly speculative depending on your point of view.) There are many in the scientific community who view it with suspicion because it has yet to make new testable predictions. That being said, string theorists realize that their theories have to be compatible with current theories and many string theories do make predictions that match those of QED, QCD, etc. This puts them way ahead of anything the the EU proponents have done have done with their "model". Most EU types seem to scorn the idea that their idea has to do anything like this, hence the scorn with which I, and other physicists view that idea.

For the purposes of the present discussion, however, string theories are a red herring. EU ideas (or at least the ones I've encountered here) seek to displace general relativity as a theory of gravity and view gravity as a manifestation of the EM force. Thus my challenge still remains. GR is the current, mainstream, theory of gravity. Any theory that seeks to replace it must do at least as well at matching observations. Binary pulsars are a classic example. When an EU model can match the data as well as GR does (as you can find in the link to the Nobel prize site I provided above) then maybe we can talk. Until then, the EU has no legs to stand on.

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"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

The real Catch 22, is that the current standard model lacks the kind of definition Neried insists on seeing in any plausible alternative. No one has a good model for Dark Energy, Dark Matter, Inflation or galactic evolution that is consistent with observational evidence. Peebles & company openly concede this, but in a recent UT article, they were blaming this on the lack of computing power...and these guys have access to every mip we can give them. Whatever I come up with on whatever system, it will be a less rigorous model than what is 'out there' under the guise of the BB. These non-working but highly complex models have taking a centuries of manhours to develop. Neried will have to wait a long time for anyone to half-cover that many bases...

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

I count myself as one of the "EU gang" and I never claimed "everything about physics to be wrong". I don't mind it when you want to state that EU is not a theory (yet, imo), or lacking experimental evidence (and there are areas where this isn't true), but don't characterise the EU gang as declaring everything about physics to be wrong.

I don't know how off-topic we are in this thread, but what facts about binary pulsars disproves the EU concept of electrically powered stars?

Cheers.

Yes, there are unsolved problems in astrophysics. All the problems you list have come about as the result of observations, and of course any solutions to these problems are thereby constrained.

But the fact that there are unsolved problems in astrophysics is no excuse for any lack of rigor in any alternative theory. If one is putting forward a theory, it has got to be well supported, etc., etc. AFAIK, no one from the mainstream is exactly putting forward any "theory" explaining dark energy, for example. They have just noted that the observations require an explanation. Most researchers readily admit that there is not yet any solid explanation for these observations.

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

The problem is that there is no single "EU" theory. There are types like Thornhill who basically feel that gravity, as usually defined, does not exist. Rather it is an EM effect. It's to this school that my question about binary pulsars is directed.

As to the electric sun, don't get me started. That's a subject for another thread, and I know there have been several. Let's just start by repeating Tusenfem's question in this post. Where is the energy coming from that keeps the sun shining. Provide us with the current source if there is one and quantitatively explain the sun's spectrum, power output as well as the standard solar model does. Even better, explain where in an electric sun model where solar neutrinos come from and provide a quantitiatve comparison with the observed flux that matches the observed flux as well or better than the standard solar model.

OK, I got started. Sorry.

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"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

And you can defend this assertion?

I'm particularly interested in the part about what a certain "Neried" insists on seeing in any plausible alternative.

Please be as specific as you can in your reply Jerry.Cougar has already addressed some of this mish-mash, but let's take a look, shall we?

"Dark Energy": A shorthand, for the apparent behaviour of the universe, when thousands of high-quality astronomical observations are analysed using GR (as applied to the whole universe).

"Dark Matter": A somewhat ambiguous term (is it non-baryonic DM?), referring to a wide range of well-established (by observation) astronomical phenomena. Pace Jerry, there are many "good models" of DM; perhaps you'd be kind enough to specify - in some detail - just what you meant by this claim Jerry?

"Inflation": A range of models/hypotheses/theories; a very different kettle of onions than either DE or DM. Many very good "models" have been published, and are available for all to read, in the technical literature; perhaps you'd be kind enough to specify - in some detail - just what you meant by this claim Jerry?

"galactic evolution": presumably this refers to the study of how galaxies evolve. Surely nothing more than a neat phrase that, when you peel back the covers, reveals a great many different things - from how galaxies change ('evolve') inside clusters, how they change after collisions and mergers, how the morphology of distant galaxies differs from that of closer ones, how ... Some of this involves (very good) models; some is little more than high-quality survey work; some is directly ties to cosmology; some is essentially independent of cosmology; .... perhaps you'd be kind enough to specify - in some detail - just what you meant by this claim Jerry?
And since when did every piece of work in astronomy, related to every area of active research suddenly become conflated with one particular article by "Peebles & company"?

The clear implication of your claim, Jerry, is that all areas of mainstream astronomy are in the same 'fix' as the one that "Peebles & company" are talking about. Which is, of course, nonsense.

But, since you made the claim, here in the ATM section, let's see you defend it ... please show that every area in modern astronomy is in the same kind of pickle.So here is one disconnect - although the first sentence of the OP relates to cosmology, the rest of it clearly doesn't ("The EU model" purports to be, as you well know Jerry, an alternative for just about every part of modern astronomy).

But even if it were confined to just cosmology, your little list conveniently seems to focus on just a few aspects of such cosmology - how much heavy lifting did the SCC folk need, to develop what they claim is a good alternative? Or Narlikar?

Here in BAUT's own ATM section we have lots of examples of alternatives (to concordance cosmology) - how much work is needed to get any of them on the map (in terms of showing even the most basic agreement between idea and observation)?

The main reason that there are no serious alternatives is that almost none of any alternatives can even show internal consistency, much less consistency with good observational and experimental results, even when the bar for the latter is set very low indeed.We have a whole thread devoted to this topic, here in this ATM section; should we continue discussion in that thread?

Bad model

There's your source of dark energy.

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PW -- Plant Whisperer

Three words: Structure, metallicity and denial.

As far back as we can see, there are mature galaxies with high levels of metallicity. Yes, population three stars remain a possible reason for this. It is just as reasonable to conclude the universe is much older than current theory allows, therefore some of the basic premises are wrong. But which type of paper is most likely to be accepted for publication, which research strategy will attract institutional funding?

Why is it that millions are being spent trying to find gravity waves which have not been observed, but there is virtually no funding directed towards understanding or duplication the Pioneer 6,10 and 11 acceleration anomalies? Why are gravitational assists yielding non-Newtonian results? Why did the gravity braking exercise of the MRO yield results so different from the models? Why can't the Cassini team understand the atmospheric behavior of Titan? What is Titan made out of? How can Ganymede have severe gravity anomally where there are no surface features? There are many markers out there telling us the universe is quite different from what we expected. These are the clues we should be pursuing - with relish.

I lament about this, but I really don't require an answer, because I already know something fundament is wrong. The Phoenix mission will soon attempt another landing on Mars, and once again it will be iffy. Once again, the 'fickle Mars atmosphere' will be blamed.

We are still waiting to hear how much less gravitational braking was experienced by Messenger than expected during the Venus gravitational assist maneuver. Watch, listen, and learn.

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

To avoid an all too common occurance, let's take your claims one by one, shall we Jerry?(my bold)Your reply did not seem to answer this question; perhaps it was unclear, so let me try again ...

1) What "kind of definition" does "Neried" insist "on seeing in any plausible alternative"?

2a) I gather from your reply that, in your view, "the current standard model" is astronomy based on Newtonian or GR gravity; is that so?

2b) If so, why is astronomy based on modern quantum theory not mentioned?

3) More generally, what is this "current standard model" you refer to?

Continuing ...Your reply seems to make no reference to, or mention of, DM.

Please specify - in some detail - just what you mean by this claim.

Your reply seems to make no reference to, or mention of, inflation.

Please specify - in some detail - just what you mean by this claim.

Your reply seems refer, indirectly, to your own pet theory (something amiss with gravity in our solar system), and galactic evolution.

However, your claim was quite sweeping - you conflated all areas of active research in astronomy with some problems you saw in one particular article by "Peebles & company".

I asked you to defend that sweeping claim. I expect that you cannot.

Please either defend the claim, retract it, or modify it.

This really means nothing. There are some galaxies that look like modern ellipticals at high redshifts but there ages are all young. When their ages are measured they are consistent with a Universe that is 13.7 Gyr old. So for example we can measure the ages of galaxies about 9Gyr ago and they alway turn out to have ages consistent with being 5Gyr or younger at that point (thanks to some very important work by Maraston et al. on the effects of TP-AGB stars on stellar spectra).

Whats more these galaxies are mostly less massive then the equivalent galaxies in the nearby Universe.

Furthermore the ages of the Globular Clusters (which mostly formed during the very earliest epoch of star formation i.e second or third generation stars) of nearby galaxies are consistent with the age of the Universe. Also the observed [alpha/Fe] (thats the ratio of alpha elements to Iron, which acts as a clock for star formation) ratios of GCs and elliptical galaxies are telling us that these systems formed very rapidly in the very early Universe, exactly as you would expect if these "mature" galaxies you are talking about formed very early in the Universe (within the first 2Gyr) and rapidly from many smaller clumps of stars, think along the lines of the spiderweb galaxy and you probably have what is going on.

The fact that galaxies at high z have a high metallicity is neither here nor there, the bursts of star formation that we measure in these systems (objects like the SCUBA submm galaxies) are so huge (of the order 1000 Msun per year) that you very rapidly increase the metallicity without even having to worry about Pop III stars.

From every observation we have the Universe >10Gyr ago was a very different place to what it is today, and the galaxies that inhabit it are mostly very different from today.

Reread your rather flippant assessment of Russell's work:
Then look again at Ari's response - he has taken the time to seriously study the work of Russell, who is doing very careful and meticulous analysis...raising his hand and saying something is different from what we are all being taught...and ignored.

Again - who is really taking a hard look at the work of cosmic microwave background and supernova methodology? You can't assume the galaxy contamination of the CMB is limited to the 20 degrees either side of the central plane, you can't assume a single stretch parameter corrects the magnetude stretch relationship of supernova - but these researchers do things with data no one doing legitimate research in other fields would dare touch - and no one is calling them on it!

What is really sad, is we have so much good data now, that could tell us so much, if the theories were not so perfectly well defined, and perfectly wrong.

I don't know how to answer this question, since the two sets of theories are so mutually incompatible, but yes, I consider the Robertson/Walker etc etc the standard model, which now includes some form of inflation, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, a 'big bang' primal event, 9 billion years of gyrating metallicity, galactic evolution, and mysterious red stuff in the outer solar system that looks suspiciously like rust.

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?