Problems with the Big Bang theory

Hi Divine,You asked for a concrete example of something coming from nothing, and the Casimir Effect is a concrete example of something coming from nothing. If you're looking for more than just the term "Casimir Effect", if you're looking for a detailed description of it, then I think that was the point of Fabric's response: why don't you look it up? Wikipedia covers it pretty well: Casimir effect - Wikipedia. And JonF in his Message 91 provided links as well.For most of the people on this thread, terms like "quantum fluctuation" and "Casimir Effect" are very familiar. We're not using the terms because they're "high-falutin' words showin' we's a bunch of rite book-lerned peeple". We're using them because they are necessary to providing the answers to the questions you asked.--Percy

This is a good point. The way the question under consideration usually gets posed is as a declaration, for example, "The Big Bang is impossible because something can't come from nothing." I think that's the way the issue is being addressed in this thread. It isn't being said that the matter in the universe came from quantum fluctuations. It is more like, "If the Big Bang is impossible, it isn't because something can't come from nothing, because something most certainly can from nothing, and the Casimir effect is an example."Read on before replying, I think you'll like what comes next much more than the above.I don't think anyone is trying to say that current theory includes an explanation for the origin of matter in the Big Bang. I know you disagree with the layperson-level explanation of the Casimir effect in terms of virtual particles, and Wikipedia is now pretty clear on this point (has this article been revised recently), describing it as just one of the interpretations of the Casimir effect that derives from the implications of a particular mathematical approach.What you're pointing out is that we can speak with more accuracy and certainty if we describe the Casimir effect in terms of the all-pervading energy field of the universe, which means that what we've been describing as nothing, namely the vacuum between two closely positioned plates, isn't really nothing. The tiny space between the two plates is still filled with this energy, and so it isn't nothing. And so saying that the Casimir effect is an example of something coming from nothing is not accurate, because there isn't nothing between the plates.While this level of detail is not representative of or consistent with the level of understanding of the original question concerning the origin of matter, perhaps it is nonetheless time to change what has become our stock answer to this stock question. The danger is that providing more detail about quantum issues could be even more confusing to someone who in another thread might well be arguing that you can't get a cat from a dog. Perhaps we should say that we don't know where the matter came from, but that we certainly don't know that there was really nothing before there was matter.--Percy

Hi Cavediver,While part of the problems you identified in my descriptions derive from my own misunderstandings, another portion of it is due to trying to stay true to the way the question was originally posed by DivineBeginning. But I think you're very clear explanations indicate that perhaps it is safe to point out that "Where did matter come from?" is the wrong question. The difficulty in responding to the question in this way is that without your expertise I think people like me are quite capable of bolloxing up the whole explanation and confusing everyone involved.Would my descriptions have appeared more correct if I had used the term "energy field" more consistently instead of occasionally saying just "energy"? Or is my error more fundamental than that? In answer to your question, yes, I understood the Wiki article where it characterized the force in terms of resonances of energy fields.Today isn't the day for me to be asking detailed questions about the rest of your post, and you sound short of time, too, but I was able to follow and understand what you're saying. But it will take further discussion and clarification before I'm able to incorporate this into any of my own thinking, hope you don't mind. I guess my biggest puzzlement is related to when you said in your just previous message that there really isn't an origins problem because the universe is either infinite in time or not. Maybe if you could say a bit more about that when you have time we could start there.--Percy

The name Big Bang was provided by Fred Hoyle, who as an advocate of steady state theory was seeking the most derisive name possible.--Percy

I agree that it isn't cool to attack someone's faith, unless someone is using faith-based arguments in support of scientific positions. After tracking back a few messages I don't think that's the case here. You didn't appear to be saying that something can't come from nothing because of some faith-based belief.I think the questioning of faith started because it *is* seemingly contradictory to believe that something can't come from nothing on the one hand, but to believe that God can make something come from nothing on the other. And there are, of course, a large number of related arguments. But this particular line of discussion doesn't seem on-topic to me.--Percy

This erroneous claim has already drawn two responses, so I'll approach it from a different angle.Anyone unfamiliar with physics will hear your explanation and say, "Oh, I see. So that's why the Big Bang is impossible."Anyone familiar with physics will recognize the basic physics errors, as did Chiroptera (using observation) and Cavediver (using theory).So what you're offering us is an explanation that is clearly wrong to both scientists and those familiar with physics, indicating that it has been crafted to convince those not too familiar with physics. In other words, it is something that Kent Hovind might say to an audience of devout Christians at a Bible college where you won't find many serious science majors.So what you've identified isn't a problem with the Big Bang, but a problem with your source of information, which has either a poor grasp of physics or of basic honesty. Take your pick.--Percy

What I said was, "This erroneous claim has already drawn two responses, so I'll approach it from a different angle." As I pointed out, Chiroptera had already rebutted your claim from an experimental perspective, and Cavediver from a theoretical perspective. Since your errors had already been clearly identified by previous messages I just moved on to what I felt was an important meta-point.The meta-point concerned your source of information, which seems to either not understand basic physics, or to be misrepresenting it. As I said before, it sounds like something Kent Hovind might saw to an audience of devout Christians at a Bible college where you won't find many serious science majors.If you'd like references to the correct information, give Wikipedia a try. Notice in the 3rd paragraph where it talks about angular momentum being a conserved quantity, just as Cavediver told you: This video of a delta rocket explosion at Cape Canaveral might be helpful: Here's another video, an above water view of an underwater explosion: Here's a water balloon explosion in slow motion. Notice some jets spinning one way, some another: Here's a great video of a smoke ring machine showing spinning smoke eddies in all directions: The above comment concerning Hovind was not a reference to you. I don't know whether you're in college or not, but I've seen videos of Hovind presentations to college audiences where he makes the precise argument you're making. Is that where your argument comes from? From Hovind?--Percy

Hi Scottness,I'm going to respond to several of your messages in a single post, beginning with your Message 257: You're walking by a pond and hear a "plop". You look out onto the pond and see circular ripples spreading away from a center. You conclude that the ripples began at that center point, perhaps when a pebble, fish or frog disturbed the surface.Now you look out into the universe. Every galactic group is retreating from every other galactic group, the faster with increasing distance, just like raisins separating in dough as bread rises. You conclude that these galactic groups must once have been much closer together, and as better data accumulates finally conclude they were once long ago in the past all at the precise same place.In other words, building scientific theories isn't just a matter of looking at pieces and thinking they look like a Big Bang. Before we had the data no one even imagined that there had been a Big Bang. The Big Bang is an ancient event that unexpectedly fell out of the data. Science is not the search for meaning. Finding meaning is the domain of religion. Science is only how we understand the material universe. It has nothing to do with meaning and other spiritual matters. Some things are simple and open to analysis, like the Big Bang, and other things are complicated and chaotic, like the weather. I'll give you a better example than the weather. Take a look at the swirls in cooking soup, preferably in a glass pot. Now calculate what the swirls looked like 10 seconds ago. Pretty complicated, and not something we can do at the current time.But compared to boiling soup the universe is simple. Of course, complexity depends upon the questions you're asking, as the answer to your next statement will make clear. If you're only asking if the universe if expanding, contracting or static, that's simple. But if you pick up a rock in your yard and ask, "Precisely when, where and how in the universe were the elements in this rock formed," then that's a question we're unlikely to ever be able to answer. All we can say is that the higher elements above lithium were cooked in the centers of stars, and the elements above iron were created during supernova explosions. But which stars and when? We'll likely never know. What you're expressing here is your belief that analyzing the weather is simpler than figuring out where all the matter in the universe was 13.7 million years ago. As I've tried to make clear, weather is the more complicated of the two. Accurate weather predictions require incredibly detailed knowledge and incredibly powerful analysis techniques that are lacking at present, at least if you're goal is to be able to tell whether it will be raining in Duluth a week from today. General trends are much easier.And that's why analyzing where all the matter in the universe was billions of years ago is so easy. We don't need to know the exact position of every star in every galaxy and every molecule in every gas cloud throughout time. We only need to make observations that allow us to calculate the velocity of entire galaxies and groups of galaxies. This is a much easier problem than the weather.And amazingly, and fortunately for Big Bang theory, the general theory of relativity yields the same results as observations, an amazing confirmation. One of the predictions of theory is that the universe should be filled with background radiation at a certain frequency, and Penzias and Wilson won the Nobel prize for being the first to detect this radiation back in the 1960's. Many other confirmations followed, and it is the harmony between just such observations and theory that makes our confidence in Big Bang theory so strong. When astronomers look out into space and calculate a couple years in advance just where Mars and an approaching space probe will be so that the space probe can land safely on the planet's surface, is that way ahead of themselves and "a tiny little tad bit arrogant." Or when Halley looked at old observations of comets and deduced that a certain set of observations were actually of the same comet returning every 76 years, was he way ahead of himself and "a tiny little tad bit arrogant." When Copernicus took observations of the planets and deduced a sun-centered solar system, was he way ahead of himself and "a tiny little tad bit arrogant." When you get in your car and calculate that if you drive 60 miles/hour for 5 hours that you'll travel 300 miles, are you way ahead of himself and "a tiny little tad bit arrogant." All any of these people are doing is taking observations and plugging them into equations. If you're careful in your measurements and calculations you can do this.I think your characterization has more to do with you not liking the theory than with any arrogance of cosmologists. There is no meaning in the Big Bang. It is an event that simply fell out of the data.Now, moving on to your comments about science in your Message 260: On the contrary, this is precisely what science is. The biases of individuals are cancelled out by requiring that science be very much a consensus activity. Only when lots of scientists repeat the same experiments, obtain the same results, and reach the same conclusions, can consensus ever be reached. The current consensus of the major fields of science is what is taught in public school science classrooms. Once again, science is not the search for meaning. That is the province of religion. Yes, precisely right. The Big Bang has no meaning. Neither does gravity, the aurora borealis or a dinosaur fossil.I wonder if you're confusing different definitions of the word "mean". When a scientist says, "Our discovery of the red shift *means* that distant galaxies are retreating from us," he's not saying that the red shift has meaning. This is just one of the many ways people can describe how a conclusion was reached from data. He could as easily have said it another way, e.g., "Our discovery of the red shift helped us understand that distant galaxies are retreating from us." Science is as atheistic as plumbing and automobile repair. When you find your plumber or your mechanic seeking answers to your plumbing or automobile problems in the Bible, my advice would be to take your business elsewhere.Concerning the people who actually do the science, while many scientists reject a personal God, around 60%, just as many express a belief in some sort of God, also around 60%. So while it would be accurate to characterize science as non-theistic, just like most other secular activities, scientists themselves are a diverse group composed of theists, atheists and agnostics to varying degrees and with diverse perspectives. If you're projecting religious or spiritual meaning onto evidence then you're not thinking scientifically. What you want to bring to science is the same analytic approach you'd use when trying to figure out that funny sound your car is making. If you hear that funny sound and think, "What is God trying to tell me?" instead of "I'd better get to a repair shop," it doesn't take any genius to figure out that your next call will likely be to a tow truck. Religion is not the answer to all problems.Moving on to your Message 262: Not in the science forums we don't. Anyone who while looking at tables of recession velocities of galaxies is analyzing them in terms of ethics and morality can only be described as very confused.--Percy

Science deals only with the natural. I think the issues for you are less the Big Bang and more the nature of science itself. Science can only tell us about the observable universe. If there's more to the universe than we can observe, then the unobservable portion is not accessible to science and is the domain of religion.One of the significant issues for certain approaches to the controversy by people of faith is that the interpretations of God's word written in the Bible contradict interpretations of God's word written into the universe. Some have decided that God's word in the Bible trumps God's word in nature, and therein lies the problem.--Percy

Sure, but don't thank me. I'm only telling you what anyone here would tell you about science.We can get even more specific. Science can only study that which is apparent to our five senses. This includes phenomena which can only be made apparent to our five senses through instrumentation, such as telescopes and thermometers. But science does study morality. Psychology is one of the soft sciences, but it is still science. This might sound like an example of something that science cannot study, but it isn't. In fact, this is actually saying what I just said. Much of new science today involves indirect observation. In other words, we don't directly observe the phenomena, but rather infer the phenomena from its effect on things that we *can* observe. A simple example is a thermometer. We can't actually see the temperature of anything, but we infer temperature from its effect upon a thermometer.So when you describe an unobservable universe that affects the natural, this is precisely the same type of thing as measuring temperature, which means it isn't unobservable at all. It only means it isn't directly observable.An example of something not amenable to study by science is God as he is part of the supernatural world and beyond the reach of science.Because your recent posts do not focus on the topic of this thread I'm going to repeat something I said earlier: your concerns seem to have little to do with the Big Bang and more to do with the nature of science. This thread is nearing the 300 message limit, and the remaining bandwidth should be used to focus on the topic. If you want to discuss the nature of science then there are plenty of threads for that in the [forum=-11] forum, or you can propose a new thread over at [forum=-25].--Percy

Excellent post. Thank you for trying to help Apolo (I hope that's a typo) along.--Percy

Hi Apolo,First, if your "Apolo" alias was actually intended to be the Greek God Apollo, you can create a new alias with the proper spelling on your profile page. The profile link is near the upper left on most pages.Second, I think we are unanimous in our agreement with you that it makes no sense to claim the exquisite human hand was created by an explosion from a universe. Scientists believe the earth and the rest of the solar system condensed from matter scattered about the universe billions of years after the Big Bang, and so what happened on earth after the Big Bang isn't really relevant in this thread. In other words, the evolution of the human hand is not the topic of this thread.This thread is discussing problems with Big Bang theory, but threads here at EvC Forum have a 300 message limit, and we're extremely close to that limit now, so there's really no time to begin a discussion with you about it. But if you're interested I suggest you read up a little on the Big Bang (see Big Bang - Wikipedia for a start), and then you can propose a new thread over at [forum=-25] to discuss the Big Bang.--Percy