| Topic: |
Science > Physics |
| User: |
"bbbl67" |
| Date: |
10 May 2006 04:06:33 PM |
| Object: |
Recycled Universe: what is the discrepancy? |
I was reading this article, and I'm puzzled by what exactly the author
is saying is the discrepancy here?
***
SPACE.com -- Recycled Universe: Theory Could Solve Cosmic Mystery
"Scientists are still not sure what lambda is. According to one popular
idea, it is the energy of space itself. According to quantum physics,
the seemingly empty vacuum of space actually contains phantom particles
that continually blink in and out of existence like flecks of sea foam.
These particles are fleeting, but their energies combine to give every
cubic centimeter of space a certain amount of energy. According to
general relativity, this "vacuum energy" produces an anti-gravitational
force that pushes space-and the matter in it-apart.
But there is a problem: the lambda that scientists have detected is
more than a googol (1 followed by 100 zeros)times smaller than what
theory predicts. To explain such a large discrepancy, physicists have
been forced to come up with ever wilder theories."
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060508_mm_cyclic_universe.html
***
So is the writer saying that if lambda is the vacuum energy, and it's
way too small to explain the accelerating universe?
It goes onto explain that the universe may have existed in the past and
had gone through previous big bangs and crunches, which has exhausted
its vacuum energy to the level we see it at now. If that's the case,
then why is vacuum energy even relevant to today's universe? If vacuum
energy was large enough during a previous incarnation of the universe
to explain expansion, then how is it even relevant to explain today's
universe? The previous incarnations must've used up that energy for
themselves, so how could today's universe make use of that to fuel
expansion?
BTW, a lot of these big bang theories are now eerily starting to sound
like religion.
Yousuf Khan
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| User: "George Dishman" |
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| Title: Re: Recycled Universe: what is the discrepancy? |
10 May 2006 05:25:43 PM |
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"bbbl67" <yjkhan@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1147295193.747112.216210@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
I was reading this article, and I'm puzzled by what exactly the author
is saying is the discrepancy here?
***
SPACE.com -- Recycled Universe: Theory Could Solve Cosmic Mystery
"Scientists are still not sure what lambda is. According to one popular
idea, it is the energy of space itself. According to quantum physics,
the seemingly empty vacuum of space actually contains phantom particles
that continually blink in and out of existence like flecks of sea foam.
These particles are fleeting, but their energies combine to give every
cubic centimeter of space a certain amount of energy. According to
general relativity, this "vacuum energy" produces an anti-gravitational
force that pushes space-and the matter in it-apart.
But there is a problem: the lambda that scientists have detected is
more than a googol (1 followed by 100 zeros)times smaller than what
theory predicts. To explain such a large discrepancy, physicists have
been forced to come up with ever wilder theories."
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060508_mm_cyclic_universe.html
***
So is the writer saying that if lambda is the vacuum energy, and it's
way too small to explain the accelerating universe?
The other way round, QM predicts a value of vacuum energy
that is about 100 orders of magnitude too big, it would
have blown the universe apart in a very short time.
BTW, a lot of these big bang theories are now eerily starting to sound
like religion.
Quite the opposite. At the moment, there is no theory
that works completely so they are not even believable.
George
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| User: "Yousuf Khan" |
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| Title: Re: Recycled Universe: what is the discrepancy? |
10 May 2006 09:40:40 PM |
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George Dishman wrote:
So is the writer saying that if lambda is the vacuum energy, and it's
way too small to explain the accelerating universe?
The other way round, QM predicts a value of vacuum energy
that is about 100 orders of magnitude too big, it would
have blown the universe apart in a very short time.
So you're saying that QM needs some readjustment? Has anyone been able
to measure the actual vacuum energy yet? Or is vacuum energy entirely
derived from observations about the speed of expansion of the universe?
BTW, a lot of these big bang theories are now eerily starting to sound
like religion.
Quite the opposite. At the moment, there is no theory
that works completely so they are not even believable.
Wasn't really referring to the stubborn belief in one theory over
another aspects of religion. I was referring more to some of the
creation stories in various religions. For example this reincarnating
universe seems to match some Hindu beliefs, and probably some others as
well.
Yousuf Khan
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| User: "George Dishman" |
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| Title: Re: Recycled Universe: what is the discrepancy? |
11 May 2006 06:21:08 PM |
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"Yousuf Khan" <bbbl67@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:DMqdnVq-P4avOf_ZRVn_vQ@giganews.com...
George Dishman wrote:
So is the writer saying that if lambda is the vacuum energy, and it's
way too small to explain the accelerating universe?
The other way round, QM predicts a value of vacuum energy
that is about 100 orders of magnitude too big, it would
have blown the universe apart in a very short time.
So you're saying that QM needs some readjustment?
"some readjustment" is perhaps understating a little.
The universe is about 10^10 years old, or 10^17 seconds
so if QM is out by around 100 orders of magnitude, a
volume of the universe 1 light second across would have
expanded to the size it is now in 10^-83 seconds
Has anyone been able to measure the actual vacuum energy yet? Or is vacuum
energy entirely derived from observations about the speed of expansion of
the universe?
Purely from expansion, gravity is the weakest force but
it is stronger than expansion over ranges less than
a few hundred million light years.
BTW, a lot of these big bang theories are now eerily starting to sound
like religion.
Quite the opposite. At the moment, there is no theory
that works completely so they are not even believable.
Wasn't really referring to the stubborn belief in one theory over another
aspects of religion. I was referring more to some of the creation stories
in various religions. For example this reincarnating universe seems to
match some Hindu beliefs, and probably some others as well.
For any scientific theory, you can probably find
a similar belief in some religion somewhere. They
have pretty much covered every possibility.
George
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| User: "bbbl67" |
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| Title: Re: Recycled Universe: what is the discrepancy? |
12 May 2006 02:34:30 PM |
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George Dishman wrote:
"Yousuf Khan" <bbbl67@yahoo.com> wrote in message
So you're saying that QM needs some readjustment?
"some readjustment" is perhaps understating a little.
The universe is about 10^10 years old, or 10^17 seconds
so if QM is out by around 100 orders of magnitude, a
volume of the universe 1 light second across would have
expanded to the size it is now in 10^-83 seconds
Well, isn't QM supposed to be some sort of roll-your-own theory, where
you adjust some constant here and some parameter there, and eventually
you get something that resembles The Universe? Why don't they just
adjust something in QM to make vacuum energy become much more
reasonable?
So anyways, how exactly is this Reincarnating Universe theory supposed
to explain away the vacuum energy discrepancy anyhow? Are they simply
saying that previous incarnations of The Universe used up all of the
vacuum energy?
For any scientific theory, you can probably find
a similar belief in some religion somewhere. They
have pretty much covered every possibility.
I think we're close to proving the one where we live on the back of a
gigantic turtle floating in the middle of an even more humongous ocean
theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_myth#Iroqouis
Yousuf Khan
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| User: "George Dishman" |
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| Title: Re: Recycled Universe: what is the discrepancy? |
12 May 2006 06:45:46 PM |
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"bbbl67" <yjkhan@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1147462469.997712.8950@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
George Dishman wrote:
"Yousuf Khan" <bbbl67@yahoo.com> wrote in message
So you're saying that QM needs some readjustment?
"some readjustment" is perhaps understating a little.
The universe is about 10^10 years old, or 10^17 seconds
so if QM is out by around 100 orders of magnitude, a
volume of the universe 1 light second across would have
expanded to the size it is now in 10^-83 seconds
Well, isn't QM supposed to be some sort of roll-your-own theory, where
you adjust some constant here and some parameter there, and eventually
you get something that resembles The Universe? Why don't they just
adjust something in QM to make vacuum energy become much more
reasonable?
Because all the constants have already been set in
order to model the observed physics of particles. The
values that are required from particle accelerator
experiments give an impossible prediction for vacuum
energy.
So anyways, how exactly is this Reincarnating Universe theory supposed
to explain away the vacuum energy discrepancy anyhow? Are they simply
saying that previous incarnations of The Universe used up all of the
vacuum energy?
For any scientific theory, you can probably find
a similar belief in some religion somewhere. They
have pretty much covered every possibility.
I think we're close to proving the one where we live on the back of a
gigantic turtle floating in the middle of an even more humongous ocean
theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_myth#Iroqouis
Show me your mathematical derivation of that and
I might believe you. What I see is no theory that
works and a lot of people still looking.
George
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| User: "Llanzlan Klazmon" |
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| Title: Re: Recycled Universe: what is the discrepancy? |
11 May 2006 12:21:00 AM |
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"bbbl67" <yjkhan@gmail.com> wrote in news:1147295193.747112.216210
@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
I was reading this article, and I'm puzzled by what exactly the author
is saying is the discrepancy here?
***
SPACE.com -- Recycled Universe: Theory Could Solve Cosmic Mystery
"Scientists are still not sure what lambda is. According to one popular
idea, it is the energy of space itself. According to quantum physics,
the seemingly empty vacuum of space actually contains phantom particles
that continually blink in and out of existence like flecks of sea foam.
These particles are fleeting, but their energies combine to give every
cubic centimeter of space a certain amount of energy. According to
general relativity, this "vacuum energy" produces an anti-gravitational
force that pushes space-and the matter in it-apart.
But there is a problem: the lambda that scientists have detected is
more than a googol (1 followed by 100 zeros)times smaller than what
theory predicts. To explain such a large discrepancy, physicists have
been forced to come up with ever wilder theories."
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060508_mm_cyclic_universe.html
***
So is the writer saying that if lambda is the vacuum energy, and it's
way too small to explain the accelerating universe?
No. The measured value of lambda is the value derived from the observed
(supposedly accellerating) expansion of the universe. The problem is that
the value of lambda predicted by some theory is so big that the universe
would have blown itself completely apart almost as soon as it formed i.e no
stars, galaxies etc. Since the actual measured value of lambda is much
smaller that these predicted values, then such theories (if you could call
them that) are obviously wrong. As far as we can tell General Relativity
should give the correct answer when the correct value of lambda is plugged
in. The problem is that General Relativity by itself, is silent on what
lambda should be (it enters the theory as an arbitrary constant). You
appear to need some sort of quantum theory to explain why lambda should be
a particular value and why and how it should change over time. The bottom
line is that the current quantum gravity/string theories still need a lot
of work! They could be completely barking up the wrong tree of course.
It goes onto explain that the universe may have existed in the past and
had gone through previous big bangs and crunches, which has exhausted
its vacuum energy to the level we see it at now. If that's the case,
then why is vacuum energy even relevant to today's universe? If vacuum
energy was large enough during a previous incarnation of the universe
to explain expansion, then how is it even relevant to explain today's
universe? The previous incarnations must've used up that energy for
themselves, so how could today's universe make use of that to fuel
expansion?
Would have to have a look at the actual paper to see what they are on about
here.
BTW, a lot of these big bang theories are now eerily starting to sound
like religion.
How so. The big bang theories are open to falsification just like any other
scientific theory.
Klazmon.
Yousuf Khan
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| User: "Ben Rudiak-Gould" |
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| Title: Re: Recycled Universe: what is the discrepancy? |
10 May 2006 06:47:37 PM |
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bbbl67 wrote:
BTW, a lot of these big bang theories are now eerily starting to sound
like religion.
Despite the best efforts of intellectuals to bring rationality to the world,
most people continue to think of scientists essentially as a priesthood, and
technology essentially as magic.
The paper that's the subject of this thread has been widely reported on in
the popular press. The paper may have scientific merit---I don't know---but
I'm pretty sure it's not because of merit that it's gotten so much
publicity. It's because it suggests a new creation myth, a rival to the Big
Bang creation myth, not to be confused with Big Bang cosmology. It *is*
religion to most people. They don't know or care about singularity theorems
or primordial density fluctuations. They just care whether the paper du jour
can be interpreted to support their religious or anti-religious beliefs.
That's the audience the magazines are catering to, and that's why the
article seems religious.
Sorry to sound so bitter, but you touched a nerve. I just feel like there's
an enormous gulf between what science looks like to most people, and what it
actually is.
-- Ben
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| User: "Yousuf Khan" |
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| Title: Re: Recycled Universe: what is the discrepancy? |
10 May 2006 10:35:51 PM |
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Ben Rudiak-Gould wrote:
Despite the best efforts of intellectuals to bring rationality to the
world, most people continue to think of scientists essentially as a
priesthood, and technology essentially as magic.
Not an unreasonable point of view to take. Afterall, you don't have to
understand everything at every level about the world around you to make
use of it. For example, you don't have to be an auto mechanic to drive a
car. So yes, scientists are a modern world's equivalent of a priesthood;
only certain people are cut out to know this stuff. It's perfectly
logical that the world has decided to divide up tasks among small groups
of people, and let those people get to know their own specific tasks
extremely well. There's only enough capacity in each human brain, so
mankind has decided that compartmentalized knowledge is the best way to
achieve a greater collective intelligence.
It's not important that everybody knows the universe at the level of a
physicist. It's only important that *somebody* out there is learning
about it and getting to understand it. I don't expect a surgeon to know
quantum mechanics, nor do I expect a physicist to perform my appendectomy.
The paper that's the subject of this thread has been widely reported on
in the popular press. The paper may have scientific merit---I don't
know---but I'm pretty sure it's not because of merit that it's gotten so
much publicity. It's because it suggests a new creation myth, a rival to
the Big Bang creation myth, not to be confused with Big Bang cosmology.
It *is* religion to most people. They don't know or care about
singularity theorems or primordial density fluctuations. They just care
whether the paper du jour can be interpreted to support their religious
or anti-religious beliefs. That's the audience the magazines are
catering to, and that's why the article seems religious.
You're losing the big picture here. Riemann geometry, tensor functions,
and what-not are not important for other people to understand. That's
*your* job as a physicist, not their job. You then condense it down to
something they can understand. If in the process of summarizing it, it
begins to sound suspiciously like some creation myths, then maybe that's
not an accident, maybe there's some truth in those creation myths which
you've stumbled upon. Really it shouldn't be embarrassing that science
proves some aspects of some religion. Maybe science is just the pursuit
of man to fully understand what religion says?
Sorry to sound so bitter, but you touched a nerve. I just feel like
there's an enormous gulf between what science looks like to most people,
and what it actually is.
And I don't think it's that important that people understand everything
about everything.
Yousuf Khan
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| User: "Marc" |
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| Title: Re: Recycled Universe: what is the discrepancy? |
11 May 2006 07:35:57 AM |
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Yousuf Khan wrote:
<snip>
You're losing the big picture here. Riemann geometry, tensor
functions, and what-not are not important for other people to
understand. That's *your* job as a physicist, not their job. You then
condense it down to something they can understand. If in the process
of summarizing it, it begins to sound suspiciously like some creation
myths, then maybe that's not an accident, maybe there's some truth in
those creation myths which you've stumbled upon. Really it shouldn't
be embarrassing that science proves some aspects of some religion.
Maybe science is just the pursuit of man to fully understand what
religion says?
<snip>
Yousuf Khan
Science doesn't prove any aspect of religion. As there are any number of
creation myths, it is not surprising that some of them may appear to have
superficial similarities to some scientific cosmological models. The only
'truth' arising from these myths is not found in the content of the myths
themselves but rather in the demonstration that man has an innate drive and
curiosity to explain the world and hence has invented creation myths as a
primitive first attempt to achieve this. As man's understanding progresses,
these simplistic and child-like creations myths are superseded by the
development of scientific models based on theory, mathematics, and
experiment based observations. Creation myths are then seen for what they
are, nothing more than a product of human imagination serving as a
comforting psychological artefact to explain the world. Science can indeed
help man to fully understand what religion says, indeed what religion
demands - turn off your brain and stop thinking.
Marc
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| User: "Ben Rudiak-Gould" |
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| Title: Re: Recycled Universe: what is the discrepancy? |
11 May 2006 06:57:00 PM |
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Yousuf Khan wrote:
Riemann geometry, tensor functions,
and what-not are not important for other people to understand. That's
*your* job as a physicist, not their job. You then condense it down to
something they can understand. If in the process of summarizing it, it
begins to sound suspiciously like some creation myths, then maybe that's
not an accident [...]
It's misrepresentation, not ignorance, that I'm objecting to. It's not true,
and never has been, that Big Bang cosmology says that the universe began
13.7 billion years ago. Big Bang cosmology is a model of the evolution of
the universe over the last 13.7 billion years. Nothing whatever is known
about the immediate neighborhood of the singularity. Maybe that was the
beginning of time, maybe not. Probably the singularity is just a
mathematical artifact of general relativity. It's always been understood, by
physicists, that present physics can't tell us anything about the
singularity. But reading some of the popular descriptions you'd think that
the Big Bang theory was all about the singularity and its behavior.
It's not just quasi-religious stuff that gets misreported. Recently it was
widely reported that:
* A paper proposed that the universe is shaped like a dodecahedron.
(Some articles even said a soccer ball.)
* Another paper said that the universe is 156 Gly across.
Neither of those statements is true. The Poincare dodecahedral space doesn't
have a shape. The 156 billion light years is a lower bound on the size, not
an estimate, and there's no reason to think the actual size is anywhere
close to that. I'd be happy if articles were condensed summaries of papers
written in language that a layperson can understand, but usually they seem
to be collections of wrong statements about the papers.
One could plausibly argue that, since the information in the papers is of no
use to non-scientists, it makes no difference whether it's reported
correctly or not. But that's such a depressing thought that I'd rather not
dwell on it...
-- Ben
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Recycled Universe: what is the discrepancy? |
10 May 2006 07:19:38 PM |
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In article <e3tu2s$gp3$1@gemini.csx.cam.ac.uk>, Ben Rudiak-Gould <br276deleteme@cam.ac.uk> writes:
bbbl67 wrote:
BTW, a lot of these big bang theories are now eerily starting to sound
like religion.
Despite the best efforts of intellectuals to bring rationality to the world,
most people continue to think of scientists essentially as a priesthood, and
technology essentially as magic.
The paper that's the subject of this thread has been widely reported on in
the popular press. The paper may have scientific merit---I don't know---but
I'm pretty sure it's not because of merit that it's gotten so much
publicity. It's because it suggests a new creation myth, a rival to the Big
Bang creation myth, not to be confused with Big Bang cosmology. It *is*
religion to most people. They don't know or care about singularity theorems
or primordial density fluctuations. They just care whether the paper du jour
can be interpreted to support their religious or anti-religious beliefs.
That's the audience the magazines are catering to, and that's why the
article seems religious.
Sorry to sound so bitter, but you touched a nerve. I just feel like there's
an enormous gulf between what science looks like to most people, and what it
actually is.
Yes:-(
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Recycled Universe: what is the discrepancy? |
11 May 2006 05:11:17 AM |
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In article <uqv8g.26$25.2038@news.uchicago.edu>,
wrote:
In article <e3tu2s$gp3$1@gemini.csx.cam.ac.uk>, Ben Rudiak-Gould
<br276deleteme@cam.ac.uk> writes:
bbbl67 wrote:
BTW, a lot of these big bang theories are now eerily starting to sound
like religion.
Despite the best efforts of intellectuals to bring rationality to the world,
most people continue to think of scientists essentially as a priesthood, and
technology essentially as magic.
The paper that's the subject of this thread has been widely reported on in
the popular press. The paper may have scientific merit---I don't know---but
I'm pretty sure it's not because of merit that it's gotten so much
publicity. It's because it suggests a new creation myth, a rival to the Big
Bang creation myth, not to be confused with Big Bang cosmology. It *is*
religion to most people. They don't know or care about singularity theorems
or primordial density fluctuations. They just care whether the paper du jour
can be interpreted to support their religious or anti-religious beliefs.
That's the audience the magazines are catering to, and that's why the
article seems religious.
Sorry to sound so bitter, but you touched a nerve. I just feel like there's
an enormous gulf between what science looks like to most people, and what it
actually is.
Yes:-(
Coincidentially, I was thinking about this yesterday. The
computer biz had a similar problem in the 60s, 70s, and
most of the 80s until the w^3 thingie started showing
up in newspaper ads. I'm trying to figure if the attitude
disappeared or is merely subliminated. I hope it's not
the latter.....but....I keep getting odours.
/BAH
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