Contrabang #2

For the second round of Counterbang, we'll just a pick out a couple of particularly interesting posts from the week.

How Can We Still See The Disappearing Universe? (link)

Addresses the apparent paradox that the standard theories present. Because light travels at a finite speed, when we look at distant galaxies, we are effectively looking back in time. If we observe a galaxy that is a billion light years away, then we are viewing it as it was a billion years ago. But, they also say that cosmic inflation is pushing those galaxies away at increasing speeds, which for far away objects already exceeds the speed of light. Thus, the galaxy was a billion light years away, a billion years ago. Now it is much farther. So far, in fact, that the light it is emitting today might never reach Earth.

When we start at the beginning and come forward in time, we get a single, consistent conclusion. Our Universe has been around for 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang, is made up of 68% dark energy, 27% dark matter, 4.9% normal matter...

They say these things so often that the insanity of it no longer phases them. "Scientists have reached a single, consistent conclusion, that precisely 68% of the universe is a hypothetical form of elusive energy that has never been observed either in nature or the lab. They are also mathematically certain that 27% of the universe is a hypothetical form of mystery matter that has never been observed either in nature in the lab. In fact, normal matter is a mere 4.9% of the universe, making it far from normal."

Remember as kids trying to keep track of astronomy versus astrology? Astronomy, we were told, is a respectable pursuit of study, while astrology is a bunch of gobbledygook with numbers and mystical forces. As adults, it's becoming obvious that they were the ones who had the descriptions flipped the whole time. 😄

The most distant object we can see, 13.8 billion years after the Big Bang, is presently 46 billion light-years away from us. But any object that’s presently within 61 billion light-years of us will someday have that light eventually reach us.

At this point we should consider cosmic inflation and big bang theory to be unfalsifiable theories. There's no amount of absurdity, contradictory evidence, or appeals to decency that will persuade these madmen from their ravings. Cosmic inflation is just too sweet a temptation to resist. It allows them to resolve all the internecine contradictions of their various theories by suspending basic laws of physics. Universal constants like the speed of light, and fundamental principles like the laws of thermodynamics, can be placed aside in favor of dark energy.

No, Physicists Still Don’t Know Why Matter (And Not Antimatter) Dominates Our Universe (link)

Another unsolved detail from the Big Bang Theory is that they provide no reason for there to be any matter at all. The Big Bang posits that everything in the universe was created in an instance from a single point of pure energy. (Just don't say it was created! No, God didn't say "let their be light." That was done by the immutable laws of physics...which incidentally did not apply at the beginning of the Big Bang.) Their models predict that the Big Bang should have produced equal parts matter and anti-matter, which would annihilate each other and leave nothing. Yet, when we look around, we see lots of something. Why?

The Universe was thought to be born matter-antimatter symmetric, as the laws of physics dictate. But something must have happened during that first fraction of a second to preferentially create matter and/or destroy antimatter, leaving an overall imbalance. By the time we get to today, only the matter survives.

The number one rule of all modern science is that contradictory evidence does not challenge standard models or basic assumptions. No, it always means that there is simply some complexity to add somewhere in the model. Today's contradictions are not tomorrow's contradictions. They will surely be explained by then, so there's no need to be overly concerned about them.

Examples of this abound. One is that the standard gravitational model of planetary motion is inherently unstable for many bodied systems. How do they explain that our own solar system seems orderly? They don't. It hasn't been proven that our solar system actually is stable over the long run, therefore there is no contradiction.

The same is true with the matter / anti-matter issue. No, it doesn't invalidate the Big Bang Theory, it just means we don't yet know the full BBT yet. Only taxpayer funding can tell us more. As to what the extra complexity may be, he admits that they haven't got a clue. (A rare admission of honesty from these people.)