Observations of Great Debate - ID and thermodynamics

From: WMAP Cosmology 101: Shape of the Universe Didn't this demonstrate that the universe was flat, and thus open? If not, why isn't the conclusion valid? Is it because the observations only apply on a local scale, and thus are not enough to extrapolate as referring to the geometry of the entire universe? I'm a bit confused. Any clarification would be fantastic. Thank you in advance.

Take heart. Everyone has some bits that they don't comprehend; and there are some bits that no-one comprehends yet. One thing I don't quite comprehend is your question. Expansion does increase the "timespace" (we normally say spacetime) between distant galaxies. The distances between things changes as they move, and also as space expands; something remains the same size when these effects cancel.Expansion, like motion, has a kind of momentum. That is, an expanding space continues to expand at the same rate unless something can slow it down. Gravity can slow the expansion of space itself; this is not the same as gravity moving things through space, but now I am getting out of my depth again to explain the distinction completely.Recent discovery of "accelerating" expansion indicates that space does have some sort of small intrinsic energy... but no-one comprehends why, and we have real problems about how much. Now this gets really weird. Quantum theory allows us to make a calculation of the expected energy density of the vacuum. (I don't understand quantum theory, so this calculation is one thing I won't be able to explain!) The result of the calculation is a problem! Quoting The Accelerating Universe, from a course by Professor Harrison B. Prosper at Florida State University: This problem of the unexpected small energy density of the vacuum is well known; it shows up in a number of the references I've been using.Moral of the story... no-one understands all about this stuff as yet. That is not a good reason to give up trying to learn, or to insist that all views are equal, or to try and invent a new theory all by yourself without understanding the relevant physics that we do know. We do know that space expands. We don't know all about why, and we especially don't know how it got started, and we don't understand the processes involved in inflationary expansion.Cheers -- Sylas

Yes, this very strongly suggests that the universe is flat, and thus open. This is good reason for confidence that the universe continues to look roughly the same far beyond the bounds of visibility.It is also support for the notion of an infinite universe. My only quibble is that this relies on an assumption that all the rest of the universe continues to look like the bits we can see, and though Ockham's razor justifies this as a working assumption, I personally consider this to be a bit weak. I'm personally agnostic on whether the universe is finite or infinite, with a philosophical preference for finite; but I recognize that the WMAP results, together with Ockham's razor in the form of the cosmological principle, are an indication of an infinite flat open universe.To get a bit more technical, the evidence indicates Ω_M ≈ 0.27 and Ω_Λ ≈ 0.73. That is surprising. Most books or papers more than about five years ago (I think) generally assumed no cosmological constant, which means Ω_Λ = 0. The Ω_M is a measure of mass density as a fraction of a so-called critical value, and the Ω_Λ is a measure of a so-called dark energy of space itself, or the cosmological constant, again as a fraction of a critical value. There is a lot to be said about these results, and I am still in the process of learning about it. I may be able to put together a post on the subject soon.With the assumption of no cosmological constant, there were only three cases.

• Positive curvature, and eventual collapse as expansion reverses itself.
• Negative curvature, and never-ending expansion.
• Flat curvature, and a never-ending expansion that approaches zero as time goes to infinity.

But now with strong evidence for a positive cosmological constant, the models give a never-ending expansion, even if the curvature is positive. The curvature defined by Ω_M + Ω_Λ is very close to the boundary beteen positive and negative curvature. In other words, as far as we can measure the universe is flat; but it expands for ever in any case.Assuming homogeneity at all sufficiently large scales, and assuming no funny topological tricks, a flat universe is infinite.Cheers — Sylas Fix HTML literals. --AdminThis message has been edited by Admin, 01-27-2005 20:56 AM

My question is that if space passes through the mass of things in the universe, such as diamonds, walls, and I suppose that would mean also planets, , i.e. individual things which occupy galaxies, your statements seem to imply that space is passing through the whole galexy. In short, if space passes through the parts of the whole, why not the whole? Yes. I've been reading about these ethereal particles as one person called them. A few of these intergalactic particles I jotted down are photons, hydrogen, gravitons, dark matter, dark energy (same as photons?), gas particles which seem to be present in our visible section of the universe. I am assuming that they must allegedly exist in all space, including our own local space. Two things come to mind here.1. These are allegedly particles of the makeup/nomenclature of space. There is nothing between these particles which exist in intergalactic space. Is that correct? I am assuming that if these were not present in the intergalactic space, there would be no alleged expansion of space. Correct?2. From what I've been reading in secular science links, I'm coming to realize that you and I are talking two definitions of space and two definitions of the universe, mine being what modern science refers to as expanse, in which things may or may not exist and yours being space, limited to that area relative to existing things. It sounds like that is what relativity is about. I haven't gotten that far, yet.Your alleged universe seems to be limited in that it's bounds are where even ethereal particals cease to exist. My alleged universe is all of boundless expanse, areas of which particles both may or may not exist. Yes, I remember reading this and some other stuff elsewhere. It comes to mind that it seems to be ok for secular science to assume so much reality from the ethereal mysterious while the the mysterious aspects of ID creationists are regarded as 100% faith based and supernatural. Well, I think you're beginning to get me hooked on physics 101. Thanks again for taking the time you've put into it. Well you've a ways to go for me to accept it. My definition of space is what's between particles, including that space between galactic and intergalactical particles as well as what's beyond where particles end, i.e. the expanse, so mine, being noninclusive of all particles, cannot expand. I'm not denying the existence of these alleged ethereal particles, but saying that these exist inspace and should not be included in the definition of space.Regarding the above paragraph, this quote from a conventional scientific source: Note the phrase: ....space is FILLED with tiny particles....
(empasis mine) PREACH IT, BROTHER! This is essentially what my point is, that intergalatical; all cosmic particles as well as all intragalactical particles fill/occupy space, and are notspace.Edit to add that my hypothesis has been based on a nothingness definition of space, and not that of modern conventional science. I have, on occasion, both in the GD and in this thread noted that.NOTE: It's late/early AM here in NY and too tired for proofread. Forgive for any existing gramatical or spelling errors.This message has been edited by buzsaw, 01-28-2005 01:16 AM

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In Jehovah God's Universe, time, energy and boundless space had no beginning and will have no ending. The universe, by and through him, is, has always been and forever will be intelligently designed, changed and managed by his providence. buzsaw

Ifen and others, your patience would be appreciated. I've not had time to post much last few days with water system problems and business. I'm trying to keep current with this dialogue with Sylas in what little time I have. Thanks!

I still don't understand the question. I'm not sure what you mean by "passes through"; but at a guess, yes; space passes through the whole. I think you’ve missed the point about the virtual, or ethereal, or ephemeral particles. (Are you sure your source did not say ephemeral rather than ethereal?) They are not the particles that you can easily see moving through space. They are particles that pop in and out of existence. They always occur in matching pairs (you could get an electron and a positron pair, for example) and this effectively borrows a tiny bit of energy. They can do this, by the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, as long as the energy is restored within a very short period of time. The two particles then annihilate each other almost immediately, releasing a small amount of energy; just enough to restore what was borrowed. Net effect; two particles suddenly appeared in empty space, from nothing; and then vanished again without upsetting the energy balance of the universe. This is going on all the time, everywhere, with enormous numbers. Sensitive measurements can actually detect a small pressure from these virtual particles. It is called the Casimir effect.I don’t know what you mean by nothing between these particles. Of course there is a bit of space between particles, and indeed you can get more virtual particles appearing briefly in the space between other virtual particles. The vacuum is effectively a seething ocean of ephemeral particles.How this relates to the expansion of space is uncertain. I’m not aware of any argument that expansion of space requires such particles. Expansion is a predicted (and observed) consequence of classical gravitation theory, which is not (yet) a quantum theory. So no; I don’t think expansion requires virtual particles. But virtual particles may contribute to a vacuum energy density, which may manifest as a cosmological constant, and this may have an effect on how expansion develops over time.Warning... at this point I am starting to exceed the bounds of my ability. Quantum mechanics is definitely not my thing. But it seems to me that your point 1 is not correct. I’ll defer to any quantum mechanic in the audience. At the risk of being mean, I am pretty sure the real problem is not that you are using different definitions, but that you are wrong about physics. You’ll never get anywhere with modern physics while trying to hold on the kinds of ideas you’ve been expressing here. Progress means recognizing when you are wrong, and revising ideas accordingly. But that is a meta-discussion that we don’t need to get into.I’m just going to keep explain how modern physics works, to the best of my ability.You have also profoundly misunderstood the quote from Da Wei Cai. He is not speaking of virtual particles, but of normal persistent particles. He is also speaking of the interstellar medium, which means the dust between stars within a galaxy. The density of particles in between galaxies is far less. In any case, your inferences from this just don't make sense. The particles do, as you say, occupy space; but the space still is an expanding space. It could even be a contracting space within a galaxy (I’m not sure on this) because mass density tends to slow and even reverse expansion. How that plays out locally I am not sure; but it is quite definite that the net effect for the universe as a whole is an expansion of space, which is too slow to be measured within galaxies, but very noticeable in deep space between distant galaxies.I know you don’t accept this; but so far you have given no actual argument against it at all, other than continuing to insist on private definitions that have long since been falsified by modern physics. They simply do not correspond to reality.Cheers — Sylas

No, what I meant was what we could see today with our telescopes, like the sun, orbits and such have become logical, now that we understand them by imperical evidence. What I failed to factor into my answer, however, by a reread, was Sylas's point that the logic of folks in the past was insufficient due to their lack of evidence which we have today. Admittedly, my response here was definitely not a good one and I see your point. I should have read Sylas here more carefully before posting. Thanks

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In Jehovah God's Universe, time, energy and boundless space had no beginning and will have no ending. The universe, by and through him, is, has always been and forever will be intelligently designed, changed and managed by his providence. buzsaw

My dictionary say's and explosion is a rapid outburst with noise. I guess whatever detonated or set of the big bang is too mysterious to determine whether this is the right term, or whether the submicroscopic whatever simply quietly began to rapidly expand.This leads to another question. Was it space alone from which the big bang originated? Space is the term Rich Gore of National Geographic used in an article I read back in the 80's. I saved the article, but have missplaced it. He referred to it as an area of space billions of times smaller than the proton of an atom.

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In Jehovah God's Universe, time, energy and boundless space had no beginning and will have no ending. The universe, by and through him, is, has always been and forever will be intelligently designed, changed and managed by his providence. buzsaw

I don't think space is expanding, I feel its just wrapping around the object moving through space. That there maybe particles popping in and out of this vacuum might be like how gold, water becoming a vapor in space. This is likely how God created the stars out of these etherel particles over infinity past.A submarine when it goes through the water it displaces the water laminally around its hull. In the same way the sun's matter displaces space (this vacuum) being displaced around the sun by the substance of the sun.Just looking at how vortex energies is what allows fish to swim into a stream, & birds to fly. That as space vacuum is displaced it simply flows around the objects as the etheral particles move's thru the object as these objects move thru space.If objects are being seen moving at over twice the speed of light apart. It makes me wonder if there is not currents in space. Like we have currents in the Oceans.EurekAlert! Science News ReleasesP.S. I enjoyed reading your posts. I'm just theorizing based on how creatures fly & fish swim. I'm thinking it only gets complicated when you have space expanding, when it might simply be that space is simply equalizing around the object as the object is moving thru space.

Can I propose a forum solely for Tom and Brad McFall?

JonF, What I said was quite clear, that space is not expanding, but its the objects that are expanding into space.

Hi Tom,Let me see if I can explain JonF's comment. Imagine you're a math teacher, and you're showing the class how to solve the equation 3y-12=0. You write this on the board: A student raises her hand and says, "Mr. Tom, I don't think y is 4, I think it's 7." Obviously this student understand nothing about the solution you just presented.And in the same way, coming just after Sylas had explained at great length across a number of posts why we believe space is expanding, when you said, "I don't think space is expanding, I feel its just wrapping around the object moving through space," it came across as possibly indicating that you hadn't understood the earlier discussion. The available evidence lends no support to this view. That doesn't obligate you to abandon this view, but in light of our Forum Guidelines it does mean that you have to support your view with evidence and/or informed argument if you want to continue to discuss it. Simply stating what you believe isn't sufficient.--Percy

Percy, Sylas says space is expanding, likely he means its stretching but not expanding. If its expanding then your violating energy being created out of nothing. Whats happening is space is moving in the wake of the object as its moving through space.If you disagree then your the one saying 4 times 3 = 24 and not 12. By saying space is expanding your saying that matter is being created out of nothing. Unless your saying that space is made up of nothing, even then it can not expand. 0 + 0 = 0.It can only be that space goes on infinitely in all directions, its not expanding. (stretching perhaps, but not expanding).This message has been edited by Tom, 01-28-2005 17:04 AM

The current scientific understanding of the expanding universe is pretty interesting, and I think Sylas has done a pretty good job of explaining it. I learned that I knew far less than I thought I did.I don't think what you're saying captures Sylas's explanations very well, so you might want to go over them again. The scientific view has some pretty good support in the form of observations, experiments and a rigorous mathematical framework, and it can very very rewarding to work toward an understanding of it.--Percy

Nope. Expanding is my preferred term. Space is not moving in the wake of an object; but space is expanding.We are past the magic 300 posts limit. I have a really wonderful little puzzle, that I will post for the start of a new thread. As a teaser, here is the puzzle.Suppose that you have two particles, and that you hold them at a fixed separation distance, of one MegaParsec, for example, holding them together despite the expansion of space.Now, release them, and let them move, or not, in freefall.Will the distance between them start to increase, or to decrease, or remain the same? Look for the new thread!Cheers -- Sylas