[guest39538]

If something is not 100% correct then it must be deemed to be 100% wrong.


What is the probability that the ''big bang'' is correct?

[jeffreyH]

The universe is observed to be expanding in all directions so that in the past it must have been smaller. Looking out into space is equivalent to looking back in time. When astronomers do so they see this trend continuing into the past. This implies that at some past moment everything originated from a small dense region that is considered to be the source of the big bang. While you cannot state absolutely that this is what happened I wouldn't want to put much money on it being wrong.

[PmbPhy]

If something is not 100% correct then it must be deemed to be 100% wrong.

Where on Earth did you get such an insane idea such as that? Newton's laws and theory of gravity are not 100% correct but they're quite useful and are used every single day in industry and by NASA to get probes out into the solar system to get them where they want them to be.

What is the probability that the ''big bang'' is correct?

Anybody who knows anything about math can tell you that question is meaningless.

These are the results of refusing to learn math and physics the right way. I.e. people ask insane questions. In cases like this there really are dumb questions.

[evan_au]

What is the probability that the ''big bang'' is correct?

I was listening to one esteemed physicist talking about the Big Bang.
He suggested that cosmologists are fairly sure what happened back to 1 second after the Big Bang, but not so clear before that.

So at best, we could call it an incomplete theory. (...but aren't all theories incomplete, in some way?)

[PmbPhy]

The big bang is incorrect. We are in the outflow associated with a universal black hole.

Please don't take the way that I phrase my question as an insult.

I'm very curious. I have no desire to insult anybody in any forum. However, when someone such as yourself, i.e. not a trained cosmologist or even a physicist (I'm guessing on this from what I've read of your posts), posts such a provocative assertion regarding a theory which has been on very solid grounds, both theoretically and observationally, for many decades, claiming that said theory is wrong I can't help buy wonder why you said that and what your background in math and physics is. Theories such as these are not forwarded without a great deal of effort, again both theoretically and experimentally (by which I mean extensive  observations and data collection) by thousands of very brilliant physicists all over the world. Please understand that I'm not trying to claim that I'm a brilliant cosmologist so please don't think that I'm trying to toot my own horn here, okay?

Given what I just said: Why should anybody except what you just said as valid? And by valid I mean a theory that is on solid grounds, can explain all the data collected over the last century, is logically sound and there is a good reason to accept that theory over the Big Bang Theory?

Now that I have the chance I'd like to ask you what your background in physics is so that I know where we stand when we're discussing physics. If you don't mind that is? We can do this in PM if you prefer? I'm not asking you so that I can judge you or use it in the future as a weapon to insult you. Okay? The reason I ask is because when I explain something in physics to someone I need to know their education level, i.e. math background, physics courses or texts you've read or the level you can understand. Is that okay with you? Thanks Stacy.

Pete

[PmbPhy]

Stacy; I spent a great deal of my time and effort writing a post to ask you a simple question. It took a long time because I had to make very sure that you didn't misunderstand what I said and think I was insulting you. But you posted a response to my post as if you didn't even read it. I asked you some very specific questions, all of which you ignored. Why did you do that? If that's the way you treat people I won't discuss physics, consider your ideas, or try to help you learn physics in the future. I'd guess that makes no difference to you by the way you ignored everything I wrote.

What you think is a big bang is the outflow associated with a universal black hole.

Stacy - There is no need to repeat yourself. All you have to do is explain it once and you don't have to say it again. And when you make an assertion like that in the manner that you just did you're not being very scientific. No physicist in his right mind would make a claim like that. I.e. we don't go around saying "Theory X is wrong. All this time you didn't know what was 'really' going on." That isn't how science works, i.e. it's contrary to the scientific method.

Some of the matter falling towards the holes is converted into energy.

This has nothing to do with the current subject but its a common misconception that matter can be converted into energy. This erroneous belief has been corrected by physicists in the physics literature since 1945 when Roland Eddy published an article in the journal Nature explaining what the nature of the misconception is.

Stacy; if you really wish to start understanding physics the right way and not going off on half baked tangents then I recommend you read the physics literature. Start with this article

Does nature convert mass into energy by Ralph Baierlein, Am. J. Phys. 75
4, April 2007. You can download it from my website at:
http://www.newenglandphysics.org/other/mass_into_energy.pdf

I recommend reading the other articles there. If you have a sincere desire to learn physics then reading those articles would be a very good start. Just click on: http://www.newenglandphysics.org/other/other.htm

This energy is delivered to the surrounding gas, and leads to large outflows of matter, which stretch for hundreds of thousands of light years from the black holes, reaching far beyond the extent of their host galaxies

So what? That subject matter of that website is not related the OPs question. It also doesn't support your claims.

I don't know why thousands of 'brilliant' physicists can't understand our universe is a larger version of what we see throughout our universe.

That's an erroneous assumption. Not only is it false but you're basing it strictly on your impressions of what you think physicists know. It's becoming quite apparent that you have a very low opinion of physicists. It's as if you think that all the physicists who work on the things you've been thinking about have no clue on what they're doing and if you were in their place you'd prove them all wrong. At least that's the kind of image we get when people come here making wild claims and refusing to back them up. Why is it so hard for you to state why you believe what you believe?

What exactly do you mean by our universe is a larger version of what we see throughout our universe. Here again your lack of knowledge and your poor logic skills are leading you to make a serious logical mistake. It's a well-know fact through the fields of astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology that there is what's known as the particle horizon, beyond which we have no, and cannot have any, knowledge of the universe beyond that. One of the postulates of the Big Bang Theory is know as the Cosmological Principle which states that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic about every point in the universe. We have to postulate it because it can't be known.

I can't figure out what's going on in their minds. The only thing I can conclude is an 'education' in physics is more of a brainwashing and the big bang is the religious dogma associated with brainwashed members of a religious cult.

That's because your grasp of cosmology has a great deal to be desired. You come here making the claim that everyone else is wrong and you're right but refuse to give any supporting argument to back up what you claim. Then you go on to claim that they're ignorant and you're the only one who understands cosmology. What are you basing that assumption on?

At this point, since you refused to directly answer my questions but chose the politicians trick of merely responding to them, if you do this again I won't discuss physics with you again. Again, given the way you think about physicists you probably could care less. Oh well.

However, if you want to discuss those articles in my website from the physics  literature I'd be more than happy to.

Pete

[stacyjones]

This has nothing to do with the current subject but its a common misconception that matter can be converted into energy.

The quote is what the astronomers said.

“Some of the matter falling towards the holes is converted into energy. This energy is delivered to the surrounding gas, and leads to large outflows of matter, which stretch for hundreds of thousands of light years from the black holes, reaching far beyond the extent of their host galaxies,” the astronomers explained.

I happen to agree that matter does not convert into energy. The matter evaporates into dark matter. It's the dark matter that is the outflow associated with the supermassive black holes. It's the dark matter that pushes the gas far beyond the extent of the host galaxies.

On a larger scale this is referred to as dark energy and the stuff which is being pushed are the galaxy clusters.

[PmbPhy]

I happen to agree that matter does not convert into energy. The matter evaporates into dark matter.

You have no idea what you're talking about. This comment is just another example of how little you know about dark matter, particle physics and astronomy.

Since you yet once again ignore all my questions and acted like a politician I won't respond to anything you post from now on, regardless of how wrong you are. This is not arrogance on my part, by far. It's just that I refuse to waste my time talking to someone who is so rude that he won't even acknowledge that I even asked you a question proved you wrong. So keep on making erroneous assertions. I could have helped you learn a great deal of physics like I have here for so many people over the years. But you chose otherwise. So be it.

[stacyjones]

Since you yet once again ignore all my questions and acted like a politician I won't respond to anything you post from now on, regardless of how wrong you are. This is not arrogance on my part, by far. It's just that I refuse to waste my time talking to someone who is so rude that he won't even acknowledge that I even asked you a question proved you wrong. So keep on making erroneous assertions. I could have helped you learn a great deal of physics like I have here for so many people over the years. But you chose otherwise. So be it.

The question is, "What is the probability of the ''big bang'' is correct?"

The answer is 0%.

We are in the outflow associated with our Universal black hole. Dark energy is the energy associated with the outflow, pushing the galaxy clusters, causing them to accelerate away from us.

[arcmetal]

Given what I just said: Why should anybody except what you just said as valid? And by valid I mean a theory that is on solid grounds, can explain all the data collected over the last century, is logically sound and there is a good reason to accept that theory over the Big Bang Theory?

uugh, actually I have come across quite a bit of observations that show that there is no "expansion" of the universe, and therefore no big bang.   And so the theory is on very shaky ground.

No one has ever measured, or observed the expansion of space.  The only yard stick we have out there approaching any thing near a measuring stick are the Voyager space probes.  So, I'd say its probably best to wait and see what they measure before being so definite about an expanding universe.

The redshift is an observable measurable effect. The expansion of the universe is a conclusion, its not an observable.

[agyejy]

uugh, actually I have come across quite a bit of observations that show that there is no "expansion" of the universe, and therefore no big bang.   And so the theory is on very shaky ground.

No one has ever measured, or observed the expansion of space.  The only yard stick we have out there approaching any thing near a measuring stick are the Voyager space probes.  So, I'd say its probably best to wait and see what they measure before being so definite about an expanding universe.

The redshift is an observable measurable effect. The expansion of the universe is a conclusion, its not an observable.

Apparently you've never actually bothered to learn the history of Hubble's Law or you failed to understand it. To put it briefly Hubble used a known and verified means of measuring distances to cosmological objects (the standard candle method) and noticed that there was a correlation between the distances he calculated using that method and the velocities (redshifts) observed. He did not use redshift to measure distance. Today's astronomers will sometimes use redshift to estimate distance if they cannot find a standard candle but only because no one has ever found a substantial deviation from Hubble's Law. Things that are farther away are simply moving faster than things that are closer.

http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~ger/ASTRO-110_sp08/Lecture27_Hubble_Expansion.pdf <- some easy reading on the history of measuring cosmological distances

[evan_au]

The only yard stick we have out there approaching any thing near a measuring stick are the Voyager space probes.

The Voyager craft are barely outside our Solar system. The Solar system is gravitationally bound, and so the expansion of the universe has no visible effect.

The Voyager craft are not outside our galaxy. The galaxy is gravitationally bound, and so the expansion of the universe has no visible effect.

The smallest scale you could hope to see an effect is in the distance between galaxy clusters.

You would need to wait a very long time before the Voyager craft reach another galaxy cluster (which they never will, at their current velocity - at best they are in an orbit around the center of our galaxy).

The Hubble constant is currently thought to be around 70km/s per Megaparsec (with recent measurements spanning a range of 64 to 76).
For comparison, some meteorites can strike the Earth's atmosphere at 30km/s.
So you would need to travel at least a Megaparsec to have any hope to see visible expansion, ie about 3 million light years, or about the distance of the Andromeda galaxy (which is in our local cluster).

So you had better choose another yardstick - a number have been tried, with various cross-checks; see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_distance_ladder

[arcmetal]

Apparently you've never actually bothered to learn the history of Hubble's Law or you failed to understand it. To put it briefly Hubble used a known and verified means of measuring distances to cosmological objects (the standard candle method) and noticed that there was a correlation between the distances he calculated using that method and the velocities (redshifts) observed. He did not use redshift to measure distance. Today's astronomers will sometimes use redshift to estimate distance if they cannot find a standard candle but only because no one has ever found a substantial deviation from Hubble's Law. Things that are farther away are simply moving faster than things that are closer.

Do you not see what you are saying here?

[arcmetal]

The only yard stick we have out there approaching any thing near a measuring stick are the Voyager space probes.

The Voyager craft are barely outside our Solar system. The Solar system is gravitationally bound, and so the expansion of the universe has no visible effect.

The Voyager craft are not outside our galaxy. The galaxy is gravitationally bound, and so the expansion of the universe has no visible effect.

The smallest scale you could hope to see an effect is in the distance between galaxy clusters.

And, so this says what?

[agyejy]

Do you not see what you are saying here?

Apparently you didn't bother to take the opportunity to educate yourself. If you had you would know that astronomers started by using radar to measure the solar system. Once then had a good idea of the size of Earth's orbit they used the parallax method to directly measure the distance to many nearby stars. If you plot the apparent brightness vs the surface temperature of many stars that are all about the same distance from us you get a relatively straight line. This is known as an HR diagram. You should note that you first construct an HR diagram from stars with distances directly measured via parallax. Then you can look for clusters of gravitationally bound stars (not hard to find and I don't mean galaxies) that are too far away from parallax. If you plot the apparent brightness vs surface temperature of those stars you still get a line but it is shifted on the HR diagram vs the stars you first measured using parallax. The amount of shift tells you how much further these new stars are from you than the old ones. Once you have the distance to many star clusters that are much farther away than you can measure by the parallax method you can start measuring so called Cepheid variable stars. It turns out that their brightness is directly related to the rate at which pulse. Thus if you can find a Cepheid variable at an unknown distance you can measure its distance by measuring its period which tells you its absolute brightness and by comparing the absolute brightness to the observed brightness you know how far the star is due to the inverse square law for light. Hubble used this method to measure distances and it works very well with well known error.

Since Hubble's time we've found a special type of supernova (type 1a) that has a very unique light curve (basically brightness as a function of time but also spectral lines) that allows them to be used as a standard candle. These supernova can be slightly easier to use than Cepheid variables because you don't have to measure them for long periods but they are still only used as secondary sources. There are other independent ways to measure these distances as well that I haven't gone over and they all agree to within our ability to measure the quantities in question. Redshift is only ever used as a distance measure if there is no other way to measure the distance and only because we have a lot of data relating redshift to measured distance.

[arcmetal]

Since Hubble's time we've found a special type of supernova (type 1a) that has a very unique light curve (basically brightness as a function of time but also spectral lines) that allows them to be used as a standard candle. These supernova can be slightly easier to use than Cepheid variables because you don't have to measure them for long periods but they are still only used as secondary sources. There are other independent ways to measure these distances as well that I haven't gone over and they all agree to within our ability to measure the quantities in question. Redshift is only ever used as a distance measure if there is no other way to measure the distance and only because we have a lot of data relating redshift to measured distance.

Ok, I realize that it may be difficult to understand fundamental concepts, so one way to explain it is with a simple example.  I will try to lay it out as simply as I can possibly put it. 

In this example we'll use a megaparsec, which is about 3.26 million light years.
In this example you can replace what is within these quotes "standard candle distance",
with whatever fancy candle distance measure you wish, it has no effect on the outcome.

Here is the hypothetical measurement example (which may not be to scale):

------------------------------------
(1 megaparsec = 3.26 million light years)

Let's measure some distances to two galaxies: galaxy A, and galaxy B.

"standard candle distance" to galaxy A:  1,000 megaparsecs
"standard candle distance" to galaxy B:  500 megaparsecss

... ok let's measure their redshifts, as observed through an instrument:

redshift for galaxy A:  2 mm
redshift for galaxy B:  1 mm

And so, here we see a correlation between the redshift of the light coming from the distant galaxy correlates with the "standard candle distance" of the two galaxies.

Well great, since we can see a correlation then that means we can use the redshift for other galaxies for which we have a harder time measuring their "standard candle distance".
------------------------------------

Above is a simple example of a usage of the "standard candle distance", the redshift, and their applications. So where, pray tell, is there a measurement of "speed" in that calculus??

"Speed" is a measure taken between two points: a difference in distance divided by a difference in time of those two points.

There is no measurement of "speed" within the measurements of "standard candle distance", nor within the usage or observations of the "redshift".

Therefore, no measurement of "speed", therefore no measurement of anything moving.  No measurements of galaxy A moving from galaxy B, nor is there a measurement of the galaxies moving from us.  Thus, the "expanding" universe is a conclusion, not a measurement.

[agyejy]

Ok, I realize that it may be difficult to understand fundamental concepts, so one way to explain it is with a simple example.  I will try to lay it out as simply as I can possibly put it. 

In this example we'll use a megaparsec, which is about 3.26 million light years.
In this example you can replace what is within these quotes "standard candle distance",
with whatever fancy candle distance measure you wish, it has no effect on the outcome.

Here is the hypothetical measurement example (which may not be to scale):

------------------------------------
(1 megaparsec = 3.26 million light years)

Let's measure some distances to two galaxies: galaxy A, and galaxy B.

"standard candle distance" to galaxy A:  1,000 megaparsecs
"standard candle distance" to galaxy B:  500 megaparsecss

... ok let's measure their redshifts, as observed through an instrument:

redshift for galaxy A:  2 mm
redshift for galaxy B:  1 mm

And so, here we see a correlation between the redshift of the light coming from the distant galaxy correlates with the "standard candle distance" of the two galaxies.

Well great, since we can see a correlation then that means we can use the redshift for other galaxies for which we have a harder time measuring their "standard candle distance".
------------------------------------

Above is a simple example of a usage of the "standard candle distance", the redshift, and their applications. So where, pray tell, is there a measurement of "speed" in that calculus??

"Speed" is a measure taken between two points: a difference in distance divided by a difference in time of those two points.

There is no measurement of "speed" within the measurements of "standard candle distance", nor within the usage or observations of the "redshift".

Therefore, no measurement of "speed", therefore no measurement of anything moving.  No measurements of galaxy A moving from galaxy B, nor is there a measurement of the galaxies moving from us.  Thus, the "expanding" universe is a conclusion, not a measurement.

Redshifts don't just happen they have to have a cause. From experiments on Earth we know of two causes of redshift. Those are gravity and velocity (aka Doppler shift). The redshift we observe from galaxies is not correlated with the mass of the galaxies or the objects emitting the light and therefore cannot be a gravitational redshift. Therefore Hubble concluded at the time that the redshift must be caused by velocity (aka a Doppler shift). It is relatively trivial to work out the velocity of the emitting object relative to you using the Doppler shift after all this is how the police catch you speeding. Therefore Hubble defined a speed based on the observed redshift because that was the only possible source of redshift he could think of at the time.

Modern astronomers tend to think of the observed redshift as indicating how much the space between us and the emitter has expanded instead of an actual velocity of the emitter through space. This way of looking at things is actually equivalent to the velocity way of looking at things because the expansion of space produces an apparent velocity between us and the emitter and that apparent velocity is precisely the velocity we calculate via the Doppler method. One significant difference is that if it space expanding and not galaxies moving through space then the apparent speed generated by the expansion can be greater than c were as the speed of galaxies moving through space must always be less than c.

Of course all of this was quite thoroughly covered in the very first link I posted in this thread. A link which you clearly did not bother to read (or at least no very carefully) and thus I must conclude that you don't actually have any desire to actually considered any evidence. Thus you clearly have decided that you are completely infallible and discussion with you about your errors is going to be largely futile. 

[arcmetal]

Redshifts don't just happen they have to have a cause. From experiments on Earth we know of two causes of redshift. Those are gravity and velocity (aka Doppler shift). The redshift we observe from galaxies is not correlated with the mass of the galaxies or the objects emitting the light and therefore cannot be a gravitational redshift. Therefore Hubble concluded at the time that the redshift must be caused by velocity (aka a Doppler shift). It is relatively trivial to work out the velocity of the emitting object relative to you using the Doppler shift after all this is how the police catch you speeding. Therefore Hubble defined a speed based on the observed redshift because that was the only possible source of redshift he could think of at the time.

I think you assume too much.

Since you mention Hubble, I think I'll agree with him on this point.  Later in life he realized that this whole "expansion" bit was incorrect, and that some other mechanism is at play with the cause of the redshift.

[agyejy]

I think you assume too much.

I disagree.

Since you mention Hubble, I think I'll agree with him on this point.  Later in life he realized that this whole "expansion" bit was incorrect, and that some other mechanism is at play with the cause of the redshift.

Citation required. Preferably from direct quotes of Hubble. Of course it doesn't matter anyway as all available evidence is consistent with expansion.

[agyejy]

For clarity Hubble himself was largely agnostic about the source of the redshift. He felt the interpretation was better done by theorists. However, Hubble did assign apparent speeds based on the redshift even if he didn't completely commit to the idea of expansion.

Modern measurements of greater precision and accuracy have pretty much removed all doubt that the universe is expanding.