The Big Bang is NOT Scientific

quote:

---

Dont even try to understand it.

---

Heh. That pretty much sums it up, eh?

---

"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

The question this brings up is 'If God has always been, why can reality without God not have always been?' Evolutionists do say stuff about the big bang, but if you want to learn what science has to say about it, it's best to ask cosmologists not biologists. Cosmologists certainly don't say anything as easy to understand as "it exploded generating all space time and matter". If they did, I'd certainly reject the Big Bang as a hypothesis. See Message 77 for evidence of this.As it turns out cosmologists start talking about general relativity (see earlier in this very thread), the geometry of space time, and if you start pushing them they might start talking to you about Quantum Fields and stuff. You are right though, 'it' likely didn't make itself - but what processes led to the rapid expansion of space and the procession of time is something which our current physics struggles to explain.There are some interesting ideas, but there are no clear cut winners in the debate yet since there is an unfortunate mathematical constraint (and problems with our models at a certain scale (sub-Planck scale). It may be that the question is unanswerable by science, but philosophers and theologians specialize in areas that are left ununanswered by science.

Hi again Cavediver. I'll deal only with the secular aspects of your message here so as not to cause a problem. It has always been my understanding that LTD is assumed to be applicable for the universe until shown otherwise and that what is observed in our own galactic environs is the primary model we have for other regions of the cosmos. It appears that you are excusing the BB from these observed laws so as to avoid dealing with the problems related to the BB. Of course, that's pure speculation.

---

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW

quote:

---

It has always been my understanding that LTD is assumed to be applicable for the universe until shown otherwise and that what is observed in our own galactic environs is the primary model we have for other regions of the cosmos.

---

The universe is under no obligation to behave according to "rules" that we arbitrarily assign. All laws of physics are simply statements about what we have observed about the universe. The laws of thermodynamics just tell us what we have observed so far. It is entirely possible that new observations will require that we modify or abandon these laws as descriptions of how the universe works.It is pretty straight forward. The universe is expanding, and in the distant past the universe was very hot and very dense. If this implies that the laws of thermodynamics are not absolute, or that they do not apply to the early universe, then we have to accept that. If this merely implies the possibility that the laws of thermodynamics are not absolute, then we are justified in examining the implications of this.Notice the ifs. So far, we do not yet know whether the laws of thermodynamics have been violated.

---

"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

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.

I see no problems in this thread right now, this is merely preemptive.Generally speaking, science strives to gather evidence in order to understand how the universe around us works. It builds theories that place the evidence within an explanatory context that can be used to make predictions about what science should find in the future.Ideally those who have other views of how science should work would take their ideas to the [forum=-11] forum, while those who view contrary evidence as something to be ignored would avoid the science forums altogether, but this often doesn't happen. EvC Forum permits a variety of approaches in the science forums, and members are therefore not required to accept any particular evidence or perspective, no matter how well established, nor are they obligated to understand the topic they're discussing.For this reason members who believe they possess some scientific knowledge and understanding are encouraged to maintain a patient and forbearing approach that stays within the Forum Guidelines when they encounter approaches that may appear unconstructive or unduly skeptical.

---

--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

quote:

---

We are looking at the universe as an entire entity.

---

Psst. The buzzword is "Fallacy of Composition".-

quote:

---

It may sound like I am arguing from authority (mine) but the alternative is to call me a liar or incompetent. Neither are acceptable

---

Actually, it is acceptable. But it is only acceptable if and when someone can bring up actual observational evidence that contradicts your claims, and/or provides a well-reasoned alternative interpretation of the evidence that exists.Simply stating that what you say contradicts what they want to believe and therefore you are simply wrong is indeed unacceptable, at least in the science forums.

---

"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

Thermodynamics gives us equations about the change in entropy. It does not give us a way of determining the entropy of the cosmos as a whole.It has always been my assumption, that if the cosmos is infinite then the total entropy for the cosmos is also infinite. And if it is infinite, then talk of increase in entropy for the cosmos as a whole becomes nonsensical.With BB cosmology, it is always possible that the process of expanding of the cosmos also reduces entropy. Or perhaps it increases, but due to expansion the entropy of a local region is decreasing. Or perhaps, overall, it is in stasis.There really isn't enough known to be able to draw conclusions as to what is happening, in terms of entropy, to the cosmos as a whole.

Remember that even if we accept that there was a t=0 before which there was no time (a "beginning" of time itself), the laws of thermodynics may be completely valid and still not contradict the idea of a "beginning" of the universe.The conservation of energy says that the amount of energy must be the same at any two points in time. Even with the idea of the universe having a "beginning", this remains true; there has never, even under this idea, been a point in time when the universe contained a different amount of energy.And if we ignore, momentarily, the statistical nature of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the 2LoT simply says that the total entropy at a later time will be greater than at an earlier time. t=0 was the earliest possible time, and so this would be the point when entropy was a minimum. There was never a time prior when the entropy was greater.This is also ignoring other facts, like the points cavediver was making about the difficulties in applying our concepts of "time" and "energy" to the universe near the singularity. Or the fact that when our understanding of physics becomes such that we can investigate the universe near the singularity, we may very well find that the laws of thermodynamics CAN be violated under certain circumstances. Or that our laws of physics may not apply to whatever, outside of what we know of the universe, "caused" the universe (if the universe can be said to have a "cause").And never mind that if we are talking about the origin of time itself, "before" which there was neither time nor space, I don't even know what "cause", "creation", or "beginning" even means any more.

---

"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

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.

But yes or no? We have assigned the TDLs to to the entire universe, past and present util shown to be inoperative in any given region.

---

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW

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"?

Is that how it is in the physics textbooks in school? I haven't noticed this in my reading on the web. I'm asking.

---

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW

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.