Observations of Great Debate - ID and thermodynamics

That is a great feeling; and I'm delighted to have shared it! I got the same feeling with a blinding flash just last month, as I was reading through a bunch of papers trying to get to grips with the rates of expansion over time and the accelerating universe model. That post was my attempt to share what I finally figured out then.Suddenly a lot of stuff made sense. I still can't solve the equations for the separation distance of a photon from its source against time in expanding space, but I know the differential equations and could get an iterative approximatation by standard numeric methods.I had the same experience many years ago when I suddenly realised what cosmic background radiation was, and how we can see right now, just by looking at it directly, what the universe looked like when it was much hotter and more compact. That was the moment I figured out expansion, since the background radiation from that early hot dense universe still fills all of space. There is no center.Cheers -- Sylas

I see space as nothing, absolutely nothing, i.e. area in which things may or may not exist.
1. How can nothing be stretched?
2. It would seem that energy or something would be required to cause stretching to occur, i.e. causation. How could photons cause nothing/area/space to expand? Why couldn't it be things which exist in nothing/area/space moving out in space that is being observed? I don't see an answer to that yet, unless I've missed your answer. I'm going by a process of elimination as per your theory. According to your statements, what other explanation than into itself?, (an impossibility, imo) How can you drop "into?" Doesn't expansion require an "into" by definition? What other alternative? It appears you're simply sweeping that "into" problem under the rug. I sure wish this alleged nature of space were being observed in my warehouse. I have yet to discover it. On the other hand, maybe not so good, considering I'd have blown out walls. But then if somehow there weren't an outside of for the walls to go........???? Could our perspective of the speed of distant things be obfuscated by the spinning/motion of and relative to, our location in our own spinning galaxie from which we are doing the observation of other distant galaxies?This message has been edited by buzsaw, 01-25-2005 00:49 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

There is no basic revealed axiom about space that says space can’t be stretched. If you hold on to this as some kind of absolute revealed truth by definition, then you will never understand the real world. There is no a priori reason for rejecting the expansion of space, apart from insisting on an intuitive idea about space that is known to be inaccurate. Definitions are made to fit the observed world, not the other way around.As for what causes expansion... energy or something is not a bad way of putting it, informally speaking. For scientists, we don't know all the answers, and struggle to develop models for what we observe. How expansion got started is something for which we don't know the answer at all. Inflationary style expansion requires a kind of vacuum energy, which is not well understood at all. But the evidence that inflation has occurred is very strong, albeit indirect. There is also evidence of a small vacuum energy which is continuing to accelerate expansion very slightly. This shows up as a small cosmological constant in the relativistic field equations. Apart from that, the current expansion is carried along by momentum.Philosophers in ancient times (Aristotle) argued how can something keeping moving unless it is being pushed? They had a kind of axiomatic understanding that without being pushed, objects will stop moving. It seemed logical; and it fit their experience of motion (for the most part). Some motions were a bit harder to explain, such as the flight of an arrow. What is pushing it?The solution, found by Galileo, was to recognise that the starting assumption was wrong. In fact, objects in motion remain in motion unless pushed to a stop.It turns out that space is a lot like that. An expanding space will keep expanding, unless something halts it somehow. Gravity can slow expansion, and even reverse it if there is a sufficient density of matter. So the question really ought to be... how did expansion get started?The answer is, we don’t know.For nonscientists or pseudoscientists the models seem to come first and no amount of observation can shift them from the model, to an extent far beyond simply trying to maintain a model in the light of new evidence. The notion that space is simply "nothing, absolutely nothing" and that it cannot expand is simply one model that fails to fit the evidence.We can see the universe expanding. The reasons why it is expansion and not simply motion in a static space have been explained several times in this thread. There are many unanswered questions about what causes it, and the spatial extent of the expanding domain, and how rates of expansion change with time; but that it expands is no longer in any rational doubt.That space is not simply empty nothingness is known by such things as the Casimir effect, which several people have discussed here before. Photons don’t cause expansion.Reasons why it cannot simply be motion have been explained here several times. The nature of expansion is such that objects at a sufficient separation will be driven apart by expansion at arbitrarily high rates. If the rate of separation of distant objects is more than twice the speed of light (and it is, for some very distant visible galaxies), then no matter how fast those objects move, they continue to get further apart. (As noted in this thread, however, as objects move locally towards each other, the rate of separation due to expansion reduces; and this permits photons to reach us even if starting out by receding.)That is a simple consequence of the how general relativity works, and relativity is one of the best tested scientific models there is for describing the geometry of space. The idea that we are simply observing things move in a static space does not fit the evidence, and it is not used by any scientist involved in analysis of objects in deep space. No, expansion does not require an into by definition. Think of an infinite large flat sheet of rubber. Now let all the rubber in that sheet stretch a bit. You now have an infinitely large flat sheet of stretched rubber. It does not expand into anything, and the problem you are sweeping under the carpet is justifying your assertion that into is required by definition. It isn’t; and insisting on that term just makes it harder to understand real physics.Your definitions are wrong; they don’t fit the real world. I explained this previously. You don’t accept this; and I understand your right to reject the definitions used in science. But you don't have a right to be correct or sensible on this. You insist, as is your right, to use definitions that are not used in physics, and for which you have given no argument beyond your own personal intuitions. That is not a good way to learn about how the universe works. No.Cheers -- Sylas

I can see how you infinity can be added to by adding dimension didgets within it such as adding fractional lines to a ruler, but to stretch infinity, as per your rubber model would be to add overall length or whatever to infinity which is quite a logical problem.I see some things like "we don't know" here and there in your post which leads me to wonder if you were to add some logic to some of these math derived assumptions, answers might be realized. My warehouse thing, for example: Why am I not observing expanding space in it?Thanks very much for responding. I'm not trying to be a smart alek I just don't see how the logic of things we observe here on earth can somehow become irrevelant to the explanation of things we admittedly don't really know about way out in space.You posted a lot else for me to ponder. Much appreciated! This message has been edited by buzsaw, 01-25-2005 01:55 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

Hi Buz,I'm going to suggest that "the logic of things we observe" has some weaknesses. There are things about the universe that don't make sense to me and yet I can prove that they must be the case.I still have trouble with something that was supposed to have troubled Pythagorus and that was the discovery of incommensurability. Now it still seems to me that if we have two distances we should be able to find some tiny length that would be able to evenly measure each distance such that one distance might have say 113 and the other distance have 4821 of these units and if that didn't work try and even smaller length. But I know that is not possible.If we take a square each side is one and draw a diagonal from one corner to the next no matter how small a unit we pick we can't find a unit that will go evenly into the side and the diagonal. That doesn't make logical sense to me and yet I accept it because of the proof that the square root of 2 is irrational.I offer this because this was my first experience as a student of math of something that I could comphrehend had to be so and yet went against what I intuitively thought should be the case.Later I had the same experience with the notion that the speed of light is independent of the speed of it's source and nothing can go faster than it. Intuitively that doesn't make sense and yet that is what the data repeatedly shows.It just turns out that our everyday sense of things is not sufficient to understand everything about the universe. What you observe in the space of your warehouse isn't what is being observed happening over intergalatic distances. And it turns out the universe doesn't conform to our ideas of how it should be.The observations on what is happening with space are based on knowledge, that is to say on a large number of observations, data and at present this is the best model to explain that data. The model you propose has not been advanced by the people doing this study and the reason must be because it can't model their observations, it can't account for the data.I'm simply trying to demonstrate here that science doesn't necessarily confirm our everyday logic. Sometimes it contradicts it because our everyday logic only goes so far and then when it goes beyound everydayness that we observe here on earth the extrapolations it makes are wrong. We know they are wrong because we can predict what we think is happening and then when we check our predictions with what we observe they don't pan out. So it's back to the drawing board to find a model or explanation that gives the same numbers we observe.It takes a lot of work and I'm in awe that Sylas has done the hard work of understanding it. Not something I care to do because it's hours and hours of painstakingly hard study. It can't be conveyed in just thinking about it in everyday terms. One has to go over the numbers, the math, and the models. That is the work of science and it's not easy and the data often requires us to accept a viewpoint that doesn't make a lot of sense based on our experience with the everyday objects and activities of our lives.lfen

The problem is not logic; logic is a disciplined way of figuring out the implications of your starting assumptions. The only reason you have give for rejecting the expansion of infinite space is assertion; and there is no logical reason to prevent you dropping it. (Formal logic is technically my area; trying to understand science is just a hobby.)You aren't thinking right through the examples, as far as I can tell. Go back to the infinite rubber sheet. It expands, without adding length to infinity (whatever you mean by that!) and without expanding into anything. Therefore there is no logical problem. QED. I explained this in Message 228 of the thread, in a response to JustinC; and in more detail in Message 102. Here I will put it in the concrete terms of your warehouse. The rate of expansion of space is 71 km/sec/MPsec.Let us assume you have a big warehouse, about 100 meters long. One MegaParsec is about 3.08 * 10²² meters. Thus your warehouse is 3.24 * 10^-21 MegaParsecs long. This means that every second, you get 2.3 * 10^-16 more meters of space.For comparison, that is just a bit smaller than the diameter of a proton; and much smaller than an atom. So there is the first reason why you don't observe your warehouse expanding. Your eyes aren’t that good.The second reason, explained in my other post, is that even if you were able to observe that accurately, the forces holding your warehouse together are plenty strong enough to overcome that kind of expansion. So even as space expands, your warehouse holds together and does not expand along with it.We are only able to observe expanding space when we look much longer distances. It was when we were able to look that far, and make measurements of what we are seeing, that expansion became visible. Interestingly, expansion was almost predicted in advance by Einstein. His theory of general relativity predicted that space is not static, but expands or shrinks. But instead of making a prediction from his theory, he added a fudge factor (the cosmological constant) to keep things static. After observations later showed space really was expanding, he called his constant His greatest mistake. No problem. I appreciate that it is difficult and very much in conflict with normal experience, and I don’t think you are a smart alek. I’m trying to give straight answers without pulling any punches, but also without being too hard on you for finding it hard to accept.We really do know about what is way out in space. There are plenty of questions for which we still don’t have answers, but there is a lot of stuff we actually see and know as well. It should be no surprise to you that things over scales millions and billions of times larger than our normal experience have some features we don’t notice in normal experience. Simply saying that we don’t really know about them is wrong.We learned many things in conflict with normal experience. A falling body can fall right around the Earth. (An orbit.) The Sun is much bigger than the Earth. Even stars are bigger than the Earth, and are so far away that light takes years to get here. These things conflict with logic, and were considered nonsense in past centuries, yet we know these things with complete confidence.Another thing we know is that space expands. It takes a bit of time to learn about such things. It conflicts with expectations, but that just means intuition is inadequate as a guide for understanding the universe.Cheers -- Sylas

Sylas,I am appreciating the clarity with which you present your ideas. Have your written any books?But my aside refers to this: Are you familiar with the writing of Jorges Luis Borges, the Argentine writer? I have loved his metaphysical fiction for decades and he loves to play with the implication of ideas such as this. I don't know if his stories would be to your taste or not but reading that passage I was reminded of several of his stories dealing with the implications of infinity.lfen

I wondered for years if the infinte gold in his writing might be understood better with the Banach Tarski paradox

Sylas, I was just lurking, but one little quick question. Are you saying space is expanding but not "into" nothingness but into the infinities of space which is not nothingness. I'm not sure if the universe's light is not but what your seeing as something.In another thread they talked of gold, water turning to a vapor in a vacuum, but said at absolute zero it would turn back to a solid. So too me it would seem that the universe is moving into nothingness, and what you see expanding into nothingness is like a lamp lighting the universes path into this darkness.When riding on a big boat we're all moving about say representing the universe, but is the movement of the universe expanding from say the big bang separate from the universe moving thru this darkness.I'm leaning this nothingness is the darkness mentioned in Job 38:19. I just find it interesting if I'm reading you right. It just seems your saying the universe is expanding into something, and not into nothing. It maybe something, or nothing but the universe appears to you is moving into it.Does it appear our expansion is due to a possible big bang or are you saying is the universe moving thru (expanding thru) this darkness at a separate speed . That your deducting all this from how the universe is expanding moving thru this darkness.kjv Job 38:18 Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all.
kjv Job 38:19 Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,

Tom and Sylas,It seems it would be helpful if we had explicit definitions for the words: space, empty, nothing, nothingness. I think some confusion may be arising because people have differing concepts they apply these words to?lfen

Brad,I googled the paradox and read about it and I feel an excitement of eureka! I think I actually understand what you are saying and see how it applies to Borges' stories. And I think you have a good point there. I've only understood your most mundane comments before like when you said you weren't a computer program. I'm amazed and pleased to have for the first time felt I've experienced communication with you. Thanks!lfen

I've never written any books; but I love reading. I have a collection of Borges' stories, which is good fun. They are (quick suggestion off the top of my head) a good way to get used to thinking about weird counter intuitive notions; but a poor way of thinking about the particular counter intuitive notions that apply for the universe ... which is okay because I don't think that is their intent.I'm not a post-modernist (if I understand that term correctly). I don't think that reality is subjective, or that all views are valid if we just look from different perspectives. Although we can never be sure that our models for the universe are correct, I do think we can collectively approach improved understanding of the universe. And along the way, there are models which are definitely wrong.The universe ... like a Borges story ... is very counter-intuitive. So perhaps reading Borges can help shake up ones assumptions and open the mind to bizarre possibilities. But the stories are fiction; and so they don't particularly help your mind converge onto the actual weirdness of the real universe, except maybe sometimes by accident.Developing an understanding of the real universe requires both letting go of some intuitions we might have from normal small scale experience, and also dealing with observations of the universe. That strongly constrains what ideas can be accurate.There are still lots of mysteries in cosmology and new discoveries to be made. We can't resolve the mysteries by reflection and logic. We need to get out and let the universe inform us of the particular solutions it adopts. That is essentially what science tries to do.Cheers -- Sylas

Sorry Tom, but I don't really understand your questions. lfen is right; we need to define terms. I'll add a rider to that; we don't need to define a term if we don't use it.Hence I don't use the term "nothingness". I don't know what you really mean by it. Since space is filled with virtual particles, and background radiation, and apparently has some kind of mysterious intrinsic vacuum energy density, perhaps the word "nothingness" is just not a useful term. I suspect it gives entirely the wrong idea about things. The term "space" is less loaded with misleading connotations.I don't use the term "into". Space expands, which means objects "at rest" have increasing distance between them. Don't add to that a notion of expanding "into" something. It is not necessary, and is almost certainly misleading.Some folks object to the notion that objects at rest could have increasing separation distance. It is not "logical", or it fails "by definition". There are various reasons I reject that criticism; the proper application of "logic" is to follow implications of certain assumptions, and what it shows is that the assumption of definitions for which "at rest => constant separation distance" is a poor assumption.One empirical reason for revising assumptions is the cosmic background radiation. It is comes to us from every corner of the sky. By measuring its wavelength, we can infer that the radiation is extremely uniform, but that we are moving through it at about 368 km/sec. Hence there is a kind of absolute rest frame defined by this radiation. And objects at rest with respect to this frame have increasing separation distance (as far as we can tell; but the conclusion in this case is a definite statement which is either right or wrong; and our confidence in this claim is very strong indeed).Trying to retain the notion of "at rest => constant separation" ends up with really dreadful problems, with the radiation "moving" in bizarre ways, and at extreme distances it even means that there is no possibility of objects actually being at rest, due to the local speed limit of 300,000 km/sec (speed of light). At far distances, separation of objects is greater than twice the speed of light, and no motion can keep up with it. Hence a more useful model is expanding space.I don't say the universe is "moving" at all. Individual objects have local motions within the universe, and on top of that distances on large scales are increasing due to the expansion of space. The phrase "universe is expanding moving thru this darkness" does not even seem to be good grammar. It might be poetry ("moving through darkness" is an evocative phrase) but I don't think it really means anything useful as a concrete description of physical reality.Poetry, or Borges stories, or the bible, can be good ways to express the wonder at the strangeness of the universe (amongst other things). But almost never do they make a good empirical match with the strangeness of the universe; except in the rare occasions that you have a poet who is thoroughly aware of the constraints imposed by empirical observations.We can't get past this just by being more and more poetic. The attempt eventually just becomes incoherent. Meaning no offense by this! I enjoy reading Borges, and the bible, and poetry, and much else. I don't read them as being empirical descriptions; and I suspect trying to do so misses their real value.Cheers -- Sylas

Yes! Banach Tarski paradox is a mathematical theorem, using the controvertial axiom of choice to prove a very very weird counter intuitive result. That theorem is gold in the same style as Borges' wonderful stories.This message has been edited by Sylas, 01-25-2005 18:53 AM

Sylas,I didn't mean Borges would explicate cosmology but when you wrote of an infinite universe in which you would appear infinite times... that theme is so Borgesian I flashed on what he would do with it. I read his fiction as metaphysical fiction not science fiction and that was why I labeled my comments as Off Topic. However I still contemplate the infinite universe you mentioned in a Borgesian fashion. I think what he could do that a scientific approach couldn't do it bring a sense of what how infinite selves might be meaningful. I had never heard of the implicaton of an infinite universe implying infinite selves before.Although Buz hasn't accepted what you have written it appears that I am not the only one who is getting a lot out of your explanations to him. Thanks for those they are fascinating.lfen