Time after the Big Bang

[rov1100]

Its remarkable how we can look back billions of years soon after creation. If all those events happened billions of years ago how do we know what happened to those events since?

[d9f1c7]

by looking at closer objects.

[rov1100]

http://www.google.co....QsAQ&biw=1016&bih=532

These pictures of the Andromeda galaxy have taken millions of years to reach us. So what could have resulted from these old pictures TODAY.


eg I saw Mike Smith yesterday but haven't a clue what he is doing today.

[d9f1c7]

we cannot know, that information is unavailable to us, look up "Light cones" for an explanation. We cannot ever see things outside our light cone for example we can look at the sun how it was 8 minutes ago. We cannot know how it was 4 minutes ago.

The objects in the sky from Billions of years ago have long since changed/moved/dissipated.

For example Betegeuse is a red giant, ripe to become a supernova any time soon, it's 640 light years away, for all we know it could already have exploded, but that is not in our light cone so we cannot possible know.

[rov1100]

Thats my point d9f1c7.

[d9f1c7]

ok then to answer your question: We cannot know.

[jomifl]

By 'creation' you mean the 'big bang'? if not then if god wanted us to know anything he would have put it in th bible. :-)

[venator]

I find the whole thing hard to swallow.

From nothing, apparently, the universe suddenly appeared, and is expanding in all directions.

The majority of the mass in the universe is missing.

Do you think there were people who couldn't swallow the earlier, palpably loony, theories which were presented as facts by eminent authority?

[jomifl]

Venator, I don't think many people have claimed that the universe came from nothing, it seems to have condensed out of somthing else which is difficult to comprehend because we have little or no experience of it.

[starone]

This is Science jomifl, not Religion. Do you really think god wrote the Bible?

[jake-the-peg]

Venator - you find it difficult to swallow because you do not understand it.

I've noticed that when you don't understand something you have a tendancy to think that everybody else must be wrong.

Perhaps you might like to start from a more modest set of assumptions

For example - the mass is not literally "missing"- that is just a turn of phrase.

We know the mass is there because we can observe it's gravitation we just cannot see it.

We call it "missing" or "dark" because at the moment we don't exactly know what it is - there are several candidates

For example it could be dark burnt out stars - a theory that's taken more of a back seat over recent years

It could be a type of sub-atomic particle we don't know about or mis-understand. For example neutrinos have recently been found to have mass - a really tiny amount, we can't even measure how little but we know it must have some because of its behaviour - but there are a lot of neutrinos one for every photon! that's a lot of missing mass

But for goodness sake do try to accept that there are some people who know more about their subject than you and it's just your understanding that's lacking not some bizaare scientific fantasy

[venator]

A beetle is trapped in a bottle. It crawls up the side of the bottle, and slips back, but can move freely lengthways.

It is an intelligent insect, and formulates its religion - we are not meant to travel in any but the true direction etc. As a scientific beetle genius, it formulates the Laws of Motion - I'm sure you can infer them.

It has no more idea of the reality of the bottle, its maker, and the universe than we human beings have of what's outside our bottle.

Our big bang theory is no better than the beetle's, as both are based on a total lack of understanding.

Which isn't to say we shouldn't stop searching; just that we shouldn't accept the latest barmy theory in a long line of barmy therories as fact.

[venator]

Come on, shoot me down - shine the light of understanding into my bottle...

[Old_Geezer]

We all start with a lack of understanding but by creating hypothesis and testing them we trust we are increasing our knowledge. At no time do we have the full picture but at each point we have more than we did. And having only limited experience then sure, some facts may seem counterintuitive but that doesn't mean they are not facts, merely that we have trouble picturing and accepting them. occasionally we find we have made a 'wrong turn' in our thinking and gone down a blind alley of false belief, but that is not to be expected to be the case as otherwise we'd get discouraged from further progress. At each point we have good reason to believe what we believe and it may well be right.

As to what happened to those events since, well we can postulate based on the scientific knowledge we have gained and what that tells us is probably going to occur. It's the best we can do until we find a way for information to travel FTL.

[vascop]

These are NOT barmy theories, but are based on observations of the universe - just like your intelligent beetle's observations.
You are the only barmy component in all this.

[venator]

Thanks, OG, that's a reasoned defence of the scientific process; I accept we should keep on squinting through the glass of our bottles!

I just find it hard to swallow the guff from narrow minded people who say I don't understand because they've got their noses buried deeply in their theories and can't see that they will be proved wrong, as most other big ideas have been.

In the good old days, I suppose I'd have been burned at the stake for heresy...

[venator]

Vascop - the man who resorts to insults has admitted that his reasoned argument has failed.

I treasure your admission.

[jake-the-peg]

Perhaps you'd like to just ignore all the science from the last 100 years Einstein on that is hard to swallow.

You know time slowing down ( despite the fact that SatNav won't work then)

Or quantum mechanics ( forget tunnel diodes and lasers that rely on the principles )


You don't seem to grasp that the 20th and 21st century physics that you find hard to swallow is not just the stuff or arcane theories but actually underpins a lot of the technology that you take for granted.

I love your idea that the big bang theory is barmy

Perhaps you'd like to explain the red shift of galaxies, the expansion of the universe and the cosmic background radiation without it!

In the middle ages nobody understood how theories need to be backed up with observation and experiment

I think you'd have felt quite at home

[Khandro]

//In the middle ages nobody understood how theories need to be backed up with observation and experiment // Well maybe, Jake. Then came along Galileo, followed by Newton, and by the end of the 17th century everything seemed to be explained beyond doubt, but then again came Einstein, and all that changed, as it seems to be changing again. It appears to us that we are moving in a linear direction towards a full understanding of everything, that it's all 'out there' waiting to be discovered by us. But could it not be the case that we are rationalising facts in a manner that is only comprehensible to the human brain, the Anthropic Principle.

[venator]

I don't ignore "all" the science - the benefits we have gained from pure research are staggering if seen from a viewpoint 50 years in the past.

I was, and still am, attacking the dogmas we are required to accept, such as the Big Bang. It's as daft as phlogiston and the big man in the sky moving the sun around.

OK, it's the best idea we've come up with so far, and I do read & understand a lot of the science, but I suggest that it will be replaced by something with less big gaping holes in it.

Meanwhile, I invite you scientists to accept the more sensible postulates of the First Church of Answerbank - click on this magic red incantation..Ab Editor

as you'll see, I'm a happy sceptic...

You need the big bang to explain what you see through the glass of your bottle. If I can't explain it, that doesn't mean it's true.

[vascop]

venator: You are the one who started hurling insults around by calling all the theories barmy, which means that all the people who came up with them were barmy too.