The Big Bang is NOT Scientific

1) Welcome to EvC 2) What explosion are we talking about? This is about the Big Bang, not an explosion. The two have as much in common as penguins and chairs.3) How much of your past experience do you think is relevant to understanding the deepest mysteries of the universe?

I know. Crap isn't it when books you would hope you can learn from can't get it right. The trouble is that the Big Bang has no similarities to anything in our everyday experience, so popular science writers struggle with their descriptions.By the way, I'm not an evolutionist, I'm a cosmologist and theoretical phjysicist... oh, and a Christian You'd be surprised... there's actually rather a lot. Not really. Before the Big bang scenario, most thought the universe was eternal and had no beginning. In fact, the biggest resistance to the Big Bang was by atheistic scientists who thought that it smacked too much of creation

Welcome Admiral Bob! Well, yes it does, or at least it can do. But to understand the point you must first understand that "matter" isn't what you think it is, and an origin is not necessarily a beginning, but simply a location. Interested?

Hi Percy, Just to be picky, but it is an important point: while your paragraph is completely correct, I get nervous when it is used around "something from nothing" arguments with the Big Bang. Although you stopped shy of that, it was used further up the thread (Crash?). Although I am sure this was first advanced by some public speaking cosmologist as a good "shut them up with some techno-speak" it is almost totally unrelated to the issue of the Big Bang.Virtual particle pairs are merely rumblings in the quantum fields. It is the quantum fields that are the real objects and they are always there... they are the ocean and the particle pair are a couple of induced waves. So this does not help at all with the Big Bang, as here we are looking at the very creation of fields, not just the particles.I did say "almost totally unrelated", but that is a very long story...

Sorry, I wasn't quite clear in my analogy. All particles, virtual or not, are waves on the ocean of the quantum fields. Think of the virtual particles as the undulations on an almost flat sea. There are no discernable waves coming and going, just this unceasing vertical motion. A real particle is an observable distinguishable wave moving across the water, interacting with these undulations.Hawking Radiation can be described by the virtual pair picture but it misses much and the whole thing only really works when you consider the quantum fields in the viinity of the horizon. It comes down to the fact that what constitutes an observable wave (particle) on the quantum field is observer dependent. It really muddies the water of what is matter and what is not. Understood. What you presented I have seen many times on good cosmological TV documentaries, and read in numerous books. It's the comsologists' fault, not yours

Exactly.That said, in quantum cosmology we do consider some fairly wacky things that get close to this. But at this stage we are treating the action/Lagrangian as more fundemental than the resulting universes. Hawking was big into this in the eighties.

Hi Buzz, Why would ID be skeptical of the BB? It has to be the most pro-theistic/deistic/creationist scientific theory we have. The main reson it was so resisted to begin with is because of perceived divine overtones.

Particle physics including virtual particles is one of the most rock-solid areas of science. What is not rock-solid are the layman and popular descriptions used to describe this science, and it is these decsriptions that lead to confusion.Particles do not become non-existant... they simply change form. Although it can appear that an electron and a positron can appear from nothing, all that has actually happend is that two photons have turned into an electron and a positron. Likewise when they "disappear", the two photons reappear. The problem is that most descriptions don't mention the photons other than as vague "energy".Even this description doesn't quite do justice to the situation because the particles (electrons, positrons, photons) are not fundemental entities in this universe. They are more like waves and disturbances on the sea. The real entity is the sea itself, which we call the quantum field (fields actually as there are more than one).Hope this helps a little.This message has been edited by cavediver, 03-24-2006 06:20 AM

I've just read through some (not all) of your exchanges with Sylas and I can appreciate where you are coming from, in regards to your views on "space". I realise now that you'd already gone through the stuff I mentioned above. Too busy at the moment, but if you want to take this deeper (much deeper!), we can discuss it here, or even start a new thread. Hopefully I'll be able to explain some of the thinking and answers behind your questions such as "how can empty space have properties of curvature?" (teaser - it doesn't )Warning: this is advanced stuff that goes far beyond any popular account you'll find, and will require me devising analogies on the fly.Let me know if you are interested...[edit test -Admin]This message has been edited by Admin, 03-24-2006 02:17 PM

No problem! I've read some of you previous posts on this. The above seems fair enough. An eternal universe is quite possible even within the Big Bang scenario... Ok, my first question before we get started is simply... why the hang-up with TD? This is quite a deep concept but Thermodynamics and even energy itself only really makes sense locally (by local I mean any decent lump of space, such as around the earth, the solar system, or even the Local Group of galaxies)When we move to look at the whole universe, concepts such as energy and thernmodynamics no longer make a huge amount of sense. Think of north, south, east and west. Four directions, each rotated 90 degrees from the previous. But we know that as you approach the poles this concept starts to break down, and actually at the north pole there is only one direction: south. When we look at the Earth as a whole, we realise that north, south, east and west don't have quite the fundemental meaning we once thought. However, this doesn't invalidate their usefulness when navigating in some "local" area of the US for example. Put like that, I understand your objection But why should God have His existence in the physical universe? I have always envisioned the universe as a globe held in His hand!Furthermore, although the classic Big Bang scenario has the entire universe "scrunched" into this state, there is absolutely nothing wrong with considering our universe as an expanding bubble nucleating from within a larger (potentially eternal) universe reality. This is quite possible.Finally, there is no pre-Big Bang eternity (unless as the eternity of the larger embedding universe.) Time (as I'm sure you have heard repeatedly) begins at the Big Bang. For this reason alone, it makes no sense at all to me to think of God constrained by the physical universe. God is Spirit after all... I don't really see anything random in the Big Bang (though quantum fluctuations back then had a very large impact on the development of the universe) There doesn't appear to be anything counter to ID or TE here. Perhaps you could expand on this if you still don't agree. I don't see why the BB runs counter to the order and design we observe. Don't get hung up on those horrible layman presentations of the BB as some explosion creating randomness and mayhem. This idea has nothing to do with the BB. It actually fits so perfectly that it's difficult to convey my meaning. The universe (however it is arranged: eternal, BB, mixture of the two, etc) dictates the real meaning behind energy and TD, not the other way round. As I said before, all we see normally are the local aspects of energy and TD...Apology: fair mixture of theology here with the science... sorry Admin. Where would you prefer this taken?

In most cases yes, but not all regions are as simple as our own neck of the woods. And considerations of the BB are not considerations of some "region of the cosmos". We are looking at the universe as an entire entity. Back to my north-south analogy. Most places on the earth are appropriate for considering north, south, east and west. A few places are inappropriate. Looking at the earth as a whole, it is very inappropriate. Careful Buzz, you are on the line of questioning my integrity here. I'm not passing on information that I have picked up somewhere. I used to research and teach this stuff at the University of Cambridge. I know what problems there are in Cosmology, and TD is not one. It may sound like I am arguing from authority (mine) but the alternative is to call me a liar or incompetent. Neither are acceptable If you want any discussion with me you have to accept the above and believe me that I will not lie, mis-represent or hide anything. If I do not know something, I will tell you. If there are multiple reasonable interpretations, I will present them and perhaps tell you my preference.There are a multitude of problems in Cosmology, particle physics and fundemental physics... I am open to all of these and would discuss them happily if they were at an appropriate level. Unfortunately most are rather complicated. One slightly more accessible is the problem of time in General Relativity. But that is a whole thread (or two) in itself.Sorry for the harsh tone, but it's as well to get this out of the way at this stage.

True, though it would be interesting evidence if you think about it! I'm not claiming that the Big Bang happened, merely that our understanding of the validity of the Big Bang is not affected by our understanding of thermodynamics.But I really want to stress that these are not just my claims. I am (doing my best at) presenting the consensus.

Ok, let's take this a bit deeper. When you say a point in time, that only relates to one point in the universe. If you want to measure the energy in the universe, surely you need to measure it across some hypersurface containing your point but which spans the universe? Now, this hypersurface is obviously spacelike, so there is no such thing as "all the points are at the same time". The temporal ordering of all of the points is completely observer dependent. So how do you go about defining what you call the energy "now"?

Buzz, I'm sure you agree that Newton's laws of motion have been superceded by Special Relativity?I''m also sure you agree that Newton's Law of Gravitation has been superceded by General Relativity?Would you agree then that it makes sense that classical thermodynamics has been superceded by relativistic thermodynamics?It may also be helpful if you would spell out your understanding of the Laws of Thermodyamics and why you think something like the Big Bang is not compatible with these laws. That way we can discuss the specifics rather than bouncing vague comments back and forth. Thanks

You're asking questions at the post-grad/post-doc level and you expect to see this stuff in a schoolbook This is why you don't see much of this on the web. It's beyond just about everyone out there! The role of entropy in the universe is just about as deep as you can get at the moment. A one-time student (later colleague) of mine has become rather famous in this area.