Why believe in the Big Bang?
by defender of truth 17 Replies latest social current
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defender of truth
" A major challenge to the big bang has come from observers using the corrected optics of the Hubble Space Telescope to measure distances to other galaxies. The new data is giving the theorists fits!
Astronomer Wendy Freedman and others recently used the Hubble Space Telescope to measure the distance to a galaxy in the constellation of Virgo, and her measurement suggests that the universe is expanding faster, and therefore is younger, than previously thought. In fact, it “implies a cosmic age as little as eight billion years,” reported Scientific American magazine just last June. While eight billion years sounds like a very long time, it is only about half the currently estimated age of the universe. This creates a special problem, since, as the report goes on to note, “other data indicate that certain stars are at least 14 billion years old.” If Freedman’s numbers hold up, those elderly stars would turn out to be older than the big bang itself!
Still another problem for the big bang has come from steadily mounting evidence of “bubbles” in the universe that are 100 million light-years in size, with galaxies on the outside and voids inside. Margaret Geller, John Huchra, and others at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have found what they call a great wall of galaxies some 500 million light-years in length across the northern sky. Another group of astronomers, who became known as the Seven Samurai, have found evidence of a different cosmic conglomeration, which they call the Great Attractor, located near the southern constellations of Hydra and Centaurus. Astronomers Marc Postman and Tod Lauer believe something even bigger must lie beyond the constellation Orion, causing hundreds of galaxies, including ours, to stream in that direction like rafts on a sort of “river in space.”
All this structure is baffling. Cosmologists say the blast from the big bang was extremely smooth and uniform, according to the background radiation it allegedly left behind. How could such a smooth start have led to such massive and complex structures? "
" Professor Fred Hoyle likened the efforts of the Ptolemaic cosmologists at patching up their failing theory in the face of new discoveries to the endeavors ofbigbangbelievers today to keep their theory afloat. He wrote in his book The Intelligent Universe: “The main efforts of investigators have been in papering over contradictions in thebigbangtheory, to build up an idea which has become ever more complex and cumbersome.” After referring to Ptolemy’s futile use of epicycles to rescue his theory, Hoyle continued: “I have little hesitation in saying that as a result a sickly pall now hangs over thebigbangtheory. As I have mentioned earlier, when a pattern of facts becomes set against a theory, experience shows that it rarely recovers.”—Page 186.
" The children of today’s atomic age have chosen as their paradigm for creation, not the ancient sea monster, not Newton’s “machine,” but that overarching symbol of the 20th century—the bomb. Their “creator” is an explosion. They call their cosmic fireball the big bang. "
1/22/1996 Awake
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"If the cosmos and everything in it are the product of spontaneous combinations of elements after the primordial big bang, then there can be no real purpose to life."
g 12/09 pp. 4-8 -
jgnat
Two bangs really, the first completed in nanoseconds.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gravity-waves-cmb-b-mode-polarization/
This new model factors in the variability of temperature found throughout space and cosmic expansion. Some enterprising scientists have been looking for evidence through our coolest air in Antarctica and have found it. Magnetic waves. Think of the swirling patterns on a soap bubble just before it bursts. Stable, but not for very long.
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snare&racket
It says much that as a JW I could not even explain the concept and evidence for the big bang and didn't meet a JW that could, yet the WT feel it necessary to NOT start with the mountains of evidence for it, but random decades old quotes from scientists that didn't have access to the evidence we now have.
The WATCHTOWER don't want to understand, they want to undermine, that is no place to start with science and is very dishonest to their readers.
The Jehovah's Witness writers have no place talking science that they don't understand. It would be irresponsible of someone even with a physics degree to write such an article! Anything on this topic from someone less than an expert, and I mean EXPERT, is useless, You need a full picture of cosmology and modern physics just to discuss such topics in an honest manner, never mind publish articles on it.
The realm of physics has exploded in the last 20 years with technology allowing modelling of theories via computers and large hadron colliders allowing physical experimentation of atomical physics for the first time!
Watchtower quoting doubts from stand alone scientists like Hoyle from decades ago is totally disingenuous and irresponsible. The article writer clearly doesn't not understand the topic or worse, does and is being deceitful, they were merely sewing together quotes from scientists asking questions out of context of the mountain of evidence, in order to undermine the big bang theory, NOT to understand it. This is important as I am yet to meet a JW that understands the theory.
In reality, with the big bang theory we have more evidence & more understanding of what went on 13 billion years ago..... than we do the theory of gravity!
Watchtower are just attempting to muddy the waters and make it appear like science is in conflict and unable to find truths. We have only had science as a method to understand the world approx 150 years and it has taken us from riding horses to internationsal space stations. The Watchtower leaders and writers have yet to predict or understand ONE thing correctly and have contributed NIL to society. Compare the progress of science to that of the 150 years of Watchtower, scrambling around in ignorant darkness. In 150 years the self proclaimed uneducated leaders couldn't even agree on what the word 'generation' means. Well, the truth being that armageddon keeps, embarrassing for them, not coming therefore requiring 'new light' on the meaning of the word...... so embarrassing.....who on earth are they to talk shop about cosmology! Really!
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designs
Sounds like Perry wrote the article....
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Phizzy
Why believe in the Big Bang ? I don't have to believe the Universe started in this way ( though "Big Bang" is sort of Tabloid Journalese for the event/s).
Belief is trusting that something is true without evidence. There is plenty of evidence that the Universe started pretty dramatically, describe this how you like.
But, as with all things Scientific, "belief", as per the definition above, does not come in to it.
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Londo111
Because it's such a funny show...
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Caedes
I don't believe in it, the evidence supports the theory.
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kepler
Defender of Truth,
Note the quote:
" Professor Fred Hoyle likened the efforts of the Ptolemaic cosmologists at patching up their failing theory in the face of new discoveries to the endeavors ofbigbangbelievers today to keep their theory afloat. He wrote in his book The Intelligent Universe: “The main efforts of investigators have been in papering over contradictions in thebigbangtheory, to build up an idea which has become ever more complex and cumbersome.” After referring to Ptolemy’s futile use of epicycles to rescue his theory, Hoyle continued: “I have little hesitation in saying that as a result a sickly pall now hangs over thebigbangtheory. As I have mentioned earlier, when a pattern of facts becomes set against a theory, experience shows that it rarely recovers.”—Page 186.
This pruning of sources suggests an argument concocted from the Watch Tower. It's fraudulent. With your moniker you should be ashamed of yourself.
I always liked Fred Hoyle. He wrote some great science fiction which had a lot of 1960s and 1950s era astronomy and science within it. But to quote Fred Hoyle on the imminent demise of Big Bang theory is akin to quoting the ghost of Ptolemy on the imminent demise of Copernican theory. Like Ptolemy Hoyle was on the losing side. What wiped out Hoyle's Steady State proposition was the discovery of the cosmic background radiation in the microwave band back in the early 1960s. It was cosmic and omni-directional. And it was consistent with another principle of astronomy: as an energy source irradiates into space, its characteristic black body temperature decreases. This was consistent with observations and theory of others, physicist, mathematician and cleric Lemaitre for one. General relativists applying Einstein's theory among others.As far as I can tell, astronomer Wendy Freedman has been a participant in the measurement of the Hubble constant for the expansion of the universe. And as far as I know, she has subscribed to the theory (not an article of faith!) that it is an expansion from an event billions of years earlier. During the Hubble Space Telescope era, there was a controversy about whether the universe was younger or older based on two different measures: calculated ages of ancient stars in star clusters - or the Hubble expansion rate. It would not be surprising that Freedman in an individual report cited an inferred age of 8 billion years - perhaps 20 years ago - and the stellar age people were figuring perhaps 20 billion based on some of their measures. But it got resolved to the figures you hear quoted today - and astronomy moved on to other issues.
Looking around on the web, you might see some reports or articles where Freedman and others are commenting on the evidence for an increasing expansion rate rather than a deceleration. Why? Well you can join the rest of us and study the question or wait for an explanation in the WT.
