Help Us Stay Informed on Mainstream Cosmology

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by danshawen, Nov 18, 2015.

  1. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    I find it hard to accept that, because, [1] we are able to determine cosmological red shift. By my reckoning of the Universe was starting to contract, the blue shift would be easier to discertain.
    The blue shift would not be emanating from any dense region. The dense phase would be just before what he describes as the big bounce and the density would be totally inhospitable to life.
    I didn't say that. Quoting the link, he said himself, that any verification of gravity waves would invalidate the cyclic model.
    http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/physicist-slams-cosmic-theory-he-helped-conceive/
    All I said was that we already have reasonably considered indirect evidence for gravity waves.
    I don't believe that the BB will be surpassed any time soon.
     
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  3. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    But "the Superforce" is simply some extravagant name for what is usually named a GUT, or a supersymmetric variant of it. While popular, these theories are nothing but speculation.

    So, all this speculation containing your "superforce", inclusive this "phase transition" stuff, has nothing to do with "logical deduction", but is speculation, based on some particular hypothetical GUT. So, no "logical deduction" can tell us anything going back to Planck time, when quantum gravity becomes important. What we more or less know, with the SM of particle physics, becomes applicable only later.

    So, what you can consider to be based on well-tested theory starts, at best, with "Electroweak symmetry breaking and the quark epoch" \(10^{-12}\)s
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chron...troweak_symmetry_breaking_and_the_quark_epoch explicitly names the period before (Supersymmetry breaking) speculative. I would classify even this period as speculative, and start only with the "Hadron epoch" which is \(10^{-6}\)s as more or less established by what we know about the SM.

    So, what is between \(10^{-43}\)s and \(10^{-12}\)s is without doubt speculative.

    Hm, what are you talking about? If the universe is cyclic, and we are in an expanding phase now, we will not yet see anything about the future contracting phase. What we could, in principle, see, would be light from the last contracting phase, which was before the Big Bounce. Which is invisible, because at the moment of the bounce the whole universe was too dense for light going through. And the moment of the bounce is, of course, the moment with the highest density, thus, is part of the dense phase, which was nor before nor after, but at the same time. So, by construction, the universe at the moment of bounce was so dense that light did not go through, destroying any information which light would have carried about the contraction phase.
    The source says "The cyclic theory makes one generic model-independent prediction: no detectable primordial gravitational waves." This is obviously different to "no gravity waves at all".

    By the way, I doubt that such a prediction can be made.
     
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  5. Farsight

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    That's was the BICEP2 claim. Only there's an issue, in that the early universe was a "seething maelstrom". The gravitational waves would have to have survived 380,000 years until the CMBR surface of last scattering. IMHO this is akin to tapping a jelly with a spoon to make it wobble, then sticking it in a blender for an hour, and then claiming you can still see the wobbles.
     
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  7. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    I did say they were speculative. But speculative with scientific reasoning behind it and the results of other scientific results.
    Of course it has to do with logical deductive reasoning.
    Now if I were to speculate some spaghetti monster or magic dragon, then yes, that is not logically derived deductions or reasonings.
    And please do not start playing your semantic games with me again.


    OK, I accept that reasoning, still though we have absolutely no evidence directly or indirectly of any cyclic cycle or big bounce.
    We have no reason whatsoever to yet doubt the validity of the BB.
    How can anyone say with any certainty that if something does exist, but it will forever be undetectable?
    A few decades ago, any detection of extra solar planets was also thought of as impossible. Who thought we could ever detect the Higgs...Probably many more examples which at this time I'm too lazy to list.
     
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  8. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    In the sense that it would be preferable if it would not be in contradiction with elementary logic. Which is correct for almost everything we say, with poetry and so as an exception. But if one makes a claim that something is the result of logical deduction, this implies or at least suggests that nothing else is used, and certainly not quite speculative theories. So, I would simply suggest you not to use this phrase at all. It is almost certainly wrong.
    What we have evidence for is shared by above theories. It is almost all starting from 1 s after the singularity in the BB model.

    We have also evidence for an early regime with a''(tau) > 0, which anyway requires that the expansion rate a'(tau) is much lower before than after the end of this period. Inflation assumes that nonetheless a'(tau) > 0 even before inflation, the bounce needs that a'(tau) < 0 before.
    First of all, this is a quite common thing in everyday life. There was an apple, there in no apple now. Somebody has eaten it. Nobody admits it. After a few days, it will become undetectable who has eaten it, probably it is already now.
    Then, this was not the point. Gravitational waves exist, and may be detected. But those primordial gravitational waves, which have influenced a little bit the universe at that time, will be simply too small to remain observable now.
     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2015
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  9. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Semantics aside Schmelzer, really, you need to stop trying to get out from under. Some speculative scenarios, by learned unbiased and credentialed professionals, are absolutely desired and achieved within proper scientific circles. That is part and parcel of the scientific discipline.
    If you are saying we have as much evidence for this cyclic hypothesis as we do for the BB theory, then all I can say is that you are wrong and really only fooling yourself.


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    Really schmelzer, that in no way invalidates what I said, and is just more of your semantics, and way with words which in this case is a rather silly comparison.
     
  10. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    Given that you have no idea how to evaluate the evidence, and even don't know the evidence, your claim is quite irrelevant.
     
  11. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    I do know the evidence and you are wrong, and if it was any other way [evidence for the cyclic model] mainstream cosmology would be considering it [your conspiracy theories not with standing

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  12. tashja Registered Senior Member

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  13. rpenner Fully Wired Valued Senior Member

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    2013-03-15: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/god-particle-why-the-higgs-boson-matters/ with apparently embedded video of Michio Kaku that doesn't work for me.
    2013-03-15: This does work for me: http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/god-particle-scientists-claim-building-block-of-universe-found/

    Reaction from an educated someone I generally trust: http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2013/03/18/what-the-god-particle-hath-wrought/
    Likewise: http://profmattstrassler.com/2013/03/19/why-professor-kaku-why/
    Reaction from an educated someone I don't trust to give a mainstream view: http://motls.blogspot.com/2013/03/michio-kakus-confusing-higgs-remarks.html
    But listening to Kaku directly (which as you mentioned was hard) he does talk about a "family of bosons" (by which he means, I guess, speculative quantum fields which we don't see evidence of in low energy physics except in extrapolated phenomena like electroweak symmetry breaking resulting in massive weak bosons and a model of inflation) that includes the Higgs boson and inflaton. That's a weird way to define a family, like a detective putting cold case murderers and burglars in the same book, so I don't know what Kaku was thinking.

    Inflation is mainstream cosmology, but I don't know that any mechanisms for inflation are because of the paucity of data. Of course those with quantum field theory backgrounds like Michio Kaku are going to gravitate (pun intentional) to QFT models for gravity, inflation and the big bang itself. But one should be open to the idea that at such high energies the character of the physical theories required might diverge substantially from conventional QFT against a background of flat, continuous space-time.

    1) his explanation of standard deviations doesn't explain the very noisy background and that LHC researchers were looking for a particular signal to emerge from the noise
    2) because LHC is a multi-national cooperation, it has a structure of professional scientists speaking to professional scientists and so they are prone to careful and modest press releases even when the news is really news. They don't just say "We found it" because they base announcements on data, not just on personal convictions.
    3) Kaku is elliptically correct to say the Higgs boson gives us mass, but the details are it's the non-zero expectation value of the Higgs field (of which the boson is just an excitation that carries energy and momentum) that gives mass in the Standard Model to fundamental fermions (quarks, neutrinos, electrons, muons, tau particles) and the weak bosons (and the Higgs boson itself), and these masses are important to fundamental physics, but the mass of atoms is concentrated in the nucleons which get their mass almost entirely from the QCD force holding color singlets of quarks together. The small percentage of mass due to the Higgs mechanism is a detail.
    4) "A Higgs-like boson" is again that weird concept Kaku has of lumping together the Higgs boson and inflaton.
    5) There is no evidence of more than one Higgs boson. There are models of supersymmetry which require more than one, but that's a different kettle of fish.
    6) His metaphor for the Higgs and Higgs-like fields being like an initiation point for the Big Band seems very wrong. Not a fuse, but a pile of dynamite, for the analogy to be apt.

    More likely regional broadcasting agreements brokered by corporations.

    A possibility, however remote, given his relation with CBS. There is also the possibility that the video record was mangled leaving only the still frame.

    Reagan's Star Wars dreams were engineering dreams, not theoretical physics dreams.
    Heh, as if that would be a reason to censor anything. Common Core is a list of proposed standards for K-12 education for what students should learn in math and English, and does not have a curriculum let alone a science curriculum. They are typically adopted at the state level. The equivalent for science standards is "Next Generation Science Standards" which comes from different people.

    If he's not singing Happy (belated) Birthday to Einstein, I would tend to say "That's not how copyright works". You can't copyright an idea.

    Since the Higgs field is a scalar field, it falls into Wigner's 1939 classification of Poincaré symmetry and is spin-0 which means it carries no intrinsic angular momentum.

    Source? I mean, mass is admittedly hard because they are making a finite approximation to a continuous solution, but spin would seem to be simpler.
    You know the graviton has to be massless for gravity to be close to Newtonian, right? And since angular momentum is conserved, spins don't just magically accumulate the way you appear to be thinking about it.
     
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  14. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    The Higgs is a special case not anticipated by Poincare symmetry. For Higgs interaction with EVERY electron, every quark, every W and Z boson of the electroweak, the Higgs field itself derives additional angular momentum. Surely you really don't expect EVERY symmetry to just drop out of a Lagrangian that doesn't even have enough terms to characterize or specify these kinds of interactions yet? We only just discovered Higgs less than a zeptosecond ago in the grand sweep of time, relative to this rest frame at least.

    For every particle of bound matter that is accelerated in linear / special relativistic fashion, Higgs derives inertia as well. This is how both time and time dilation likely derive. "Slowing down" bound energy relative to the speed of light (or accelerating particles from rest) IS time dilation.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2015
  15. rpenner Fully Wired Valued Senior Member

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    Citation required.
    That's not what the LHC data says. The fact that the Higgs has a measured Lorentz-invariant rest mass is strong evidence that it obeys Poincaré symmetry. That it is identified by its decay products matching the predictions of the standard model is strong evidence that it obeys Poincaré symmetry.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson#Preliminary_confirmation_of_existence_and_current_status

    Citation required.

    Your point is unclear because the (low-energy) electroweak Lagrangian has terms to characterize Higgs couplings with 1) electrons, \(\mathcal{L}_Y\); 2) quarks, \(\mathcal{L}_Y\) (again); 3) W and Z bosons, \(\mathcal{L}_{HV}\); and 4) other Higgs Bosons, \(\mathcal{L}_H\). What you are talking about is not "another" symmetry since you are saying Poincaré symmetry is broken in some manner not supported by evidence or mainstream theory.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroweak_interaction#After_electroweak_symmetry_breaking

    Misuse of technical language. We are reading about something 2.69 years ago. \(2.69 \, {a} \; : \; 14.7 \, \textrm{Ga} \; : : \; 10^{-21} \, \textrm{s} \; : \; 5.46 \, \textrm{ps}\) which makes your "grand sweep of time" not even enough for light to travel 2 mm. There's also a fallacious argument from ignorance here.

    That's one way of describing the interaction with the non-zero expectation value of the scalar Higgs field. Another is to simply say the Higgs field gives quarks and leptons mass.
    No. The theory of the Higgs field was developed in a relativistic framework which already assumes the phenomenon you are trying to account for, so cannot explain it in terms of the Higgs field.
     
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  16. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    A Lorentz INVARIANT rest mass for a Higgs boson? You mean its energy is independent of the state of motion of the observer? What sort of energy would that be? Rpenner, you TAUGHT me the missing physics unit on relativistic Doppler shifts, right here.

    Even a massless photon has an energy that is dependent on the relative motion of an observer. Your brain is tired. Have a rest.

    The speed of light in a vacuum is 'Lorentz Invariant' with respect to the state of motion of the observer. Energy, whether bound or unbound, is not, and more to the point, inertial MASS, even 'at rest', is not. Furthermore, particles of bound energy really aren't 'at rest' even when standing still. Not that the LHC would 'see' anything that was.

    You should start putting together a notebook of original citations from here if you want them, because I'm not. I care not one whit about academic discipline nor the flawed physics it taught me, nor am I bound by any non-disclosure agreements.

    The Higgs mechanism, by its very nature, is NEVER 'at rest' with respect to electrons, quarks, electroweak bosons, or their antiparticles.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2015
  17. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    No, I saw that one. There's a big hole in Kaku's blog where that video (Higgs and Inflation) used to reside.

    In all fairness, I'm certain that he has publicists, publishers, agents, and G-d knows how many other contractual and other commitments which I'm certain explains very well why he self-censored it.

    I have no such encumbrances or obligations. I've only published one co-written academic paper my entire life, on a topic unrelated to any of this. I don't plan to publish anything else, on this subject or any other.

    There are plenty of ITU telephone voice quality test reports with my name on them, and I authored a single ISO-9000 certification calibration laboratory quality manual that no one ever used. I like to write, but I've never done it for profit, and don't plan to.

    I came here to learn some physics, and I was not disappointed.
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2015
  18. brucep Valued Senior Member

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    That's probably all the crap that makes danshawen think there's support for his dumb idea. It's great to get the opportunity to read Carroll and Strassler.
     
  19. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    Rest masses are always Lorentz invariant, because they are simply constants and do not transform in any nontrivial way at all. You have a wave equation, say, \(\partial_t^2 \varphi - \nabla^2 \varphi + m^2 \varphi = 0\). "Rest mass" is the name for the parameter m in the equation, that's all.
     
  20. rpenner Fully Wired Valued Senior Member

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    Important Lorentz invariants:
    1a) Space-time dot product: \(c^2 \, \Delta t_{AB} \, \Delta t_{CD} \; - \; \vec{x}_{AB} \, \cdot \, \vec{x}_{CD}\)
    1b) Space-time interval: \(c^2 \left( \Delta t_{AB} \right)^2 \; - \; \left( \vec{x}_{AB} \right)^2\), which is zero when light can move between events A and B.
    2) Elapsed proper time: \(\tau_{AB} = \int_A^B \sqrt{1 - \left(\frac{\vec{v}(t)}{c} \right)^2} dt\), when this is positive, the particle is moving slower than light.
    3) Invariant mass: \( m = \sqrt{ \left( \frac{E}{c^2} \right)^2 - \left( {\vec{p}}{c} \right)^2 }\), when this is zero, \(E = c |\vec{p}|\) and the particle moves at the speed of light. When is it not zero, the particle is massive and has a corresponding rest reference frame.
    4) Electromagnetic invariant #1: \(c^2 \vec{B}^2 - \vec{E}^2\); When this is zero, there exists a reference frame where \(\vec{E} \propto \vec{B}\).
    5) Electromagnetic invariant #2: \( c \vec{E} \cdot \vec{B}\); When this is zero, there exists a reference frame where either \(\vec{E}\) or \(\vec{B}\) vanishes.

    I didn't say energy, I said “Lorentz-invariant rest mass” which is a term of art in relativistic physics. It's the "m" in \(E = \gamma mc^2\)

    But it's mass is zero. This pair of kinematic equations \(E = \sqrt{ \left( mc^2 \right)^2 + \left( c \vec{p} \right)^2}, \; E \vec{v} = c^2 \vec{p}\) applies both to massless light and massive particles like electrons and Higgs bosons.

    I didn't say energy. I didn't say "inertial mass" because that's confusing. If you define inertial mass the M in as Newton's \(\frac{d \vec{p}}{d t} = M \frac{d^2 \vec{x}}{d t^2}\) then M is direction dependent. (i.e. in the direction of motion \(M_{\parallel} = \gamma^3 m\), while in the direction perpendicular to motion \(M_{\perp} = \gamma m\)). I said invariant mass because physics works best if you don't try to pigeonhole physics into the assumptions made 350 years ago.
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2015
  21. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    The interval is specifically rejected as an invariant due to inconsistent geometry. If it is "invariant" in any measure, it is BECAUSE it includes the speed of light, which does not demonstrate that it is an invariant ON ITS OWN. I have several working thought experiments to prove this. Euclid and Pythgorous work on solids at rest, not relativistic space, which is where everyone but mathematicians live. Physics needs to find its way out of Ancient Greece. Too many millennia have passed, in case you didn't notice.

    I will stipulate that all of the other invariants are probably valid unless they are based on the invariance of the interval, in which case the speed of light is the only thing that is invariant in them.

    Minkowski's determination not to be upstaged by one of his 'average' students motivated the obfuscation of the single invariant assumed as the basis of Special Relativity.

    Don't make the same mistake, rpenner. I have no axes to grind. You are awesome.

    I'm doing this to dig physics back out of the hole it has fallen into.
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2015
  22. The God Valued Senior Member

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    ...

    But he failed.

    That is investigative stuff, you are taking out Physics from the big hole in which it has fallen in and remained there for more than 100 years ??

    It has acquired lot of inertia,

    I agree with the 'hole' part but disagree on the cause.
     
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  23. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Physics/cosmology is not in any big hole......Reputable professional scientists and their state of the art equipment are learning and progressing all the time, for the benefit of science in general, our knowledge, and lay people like yourself.
    SR/GR/The BB/Particle physics are totally well supported by observational evidence and experimental results and also compliment each other.
     

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