Starship Asterisk*

makc wrote:to annoy you? I annoyed people on the forum you linked to. they eventually banned me, but I do not even remember the story (maybe it was my fault).

I thought you said you were banned on PF, makc, not TGL ... I can't begin to imagine what you posted on TGL that would have got you banned (other than, perhaps, a great many very rude and things insulting of other TGL members).

geckzilla wrote:To annoy you and play moral high ground at the same time. It's an internet thing.

Well, if so, then I should record a failure of such an intent ... I am neither annoyed nor feel morally inferior, simply sad that some key parts of what has given us all the ability to write posts on The Asterisk have been so poorly understood (or, perhaps, worse: willfully ignored) - unbiassed application of core parts of the scientific method.

It's not about how you feel but how he feels. As long as his perception is that his opinion is better because he didn't follow what he understands as a herd of lemmings, whether or not he is correct or incorrect doesn't matter. That's why he'll stick to topics that can neither be proven nor disproven hovering in a big gray area as a professional internet arguer. Well, that's how I see it, anyhow.

geckzilla wrote:It's not about how you feel but how he feels.

Interesting insight; I wonder if harry will comment on it?

As long as his perception is that his opinion is better because he didn't follow what he understands as a herd of lemmings, whether or not he is correct or incorrect doesn't matter.

That part rings true ... however it kinda begs the question of what he regards are the touchstones of 'correct' are. By now I'd say it's pretty clear that whatever such touchstone (or touchstones) harry uses, it sure doesn't come from the standard toolkit of modern science!

That's why he'll stick to topics that can neither be proven nor disproven hovering in a big gray area as a professional internet arguer. Well, that's how I see it, anyhow.

Hmm .... except that harry has, persistently, consistently, and unabashedly refused/turned away from/declined/{insert your chosen word here} any attempt at making the case of any of the assertions he so boldly makes, at least using the framework of modern astronomy (etc), as a science.

Or, saying this less indirectly, there's nothing at all grey about the topics he puts on the table (they're fair square in the middle of modern cosmology), nor much room for reasonable dissent or disagreement (within the framework of the science that underlies his ability to post to this The Asterisk forum in the first place) - as far as I can tell it's nearly all fringe science at best (and pseudo-science, or just plain nonsense, at worst), and so very easy to show as inconsistent with good observational results. Perhaps he regards my invitation to make the case he baldly asserts as some kind of cover for lack of familiarity with those observational results?

Nereid wrote:I thought you said you were banned on PF, makc, not TGL

Both. PF for crackpottery, TGL for sending their admin this link.

E.U.

Dare I???

Not to spurn on heretical ideas but:

Isn't the observable universe made up of 2 main things?
Barionic matter and Electro Magnetic wavelengths?

Dark Matter/Energy currently isn't directly observable and can only be construed as existing due to what we presume is it's affect on barionic matter.
(Don't get me wrong though, I like the big bang?/ dark matter hypothesis)

But if we observe barionic matter via it's EM wavelength, doesn"t this mean that there is something to the EU theory?

Nereid wrote:From this, it seemed to me that you did not understand how an object could be receeding from us at a speed > c. The Lineweaver and Davis article explains how (box on page 40; the section 'Receeding Faster Than Light'), using General Relativity (GR).

Perhaps you did not understand the explantion? Perhaps you find GR hard to understand?

In any case, it is quite OK to say so, and to ask for help in trying to understand. After all, GR is well understood, and has been rather thoroughly tested

I beg to differ.

Perhaps if you take some professor who done XX articles on subject, but 99.9+% of people do not understand it. This % includes, unfortunately, many people explaining GR to others. The whole phrase "receeding from us at a speed > c" does not make sense, and if you get to the point when it start making it (by reading some good article), you begin to see that it mean something very different from what it says.

With GR, there are less confused people confusing more confused people.

Ok. Few more paragraphs, and I will receive crackpottery ban here

BMAONE23 wrote:E.U.

Dare I???

Not to spurn on heretical ideas but:

Isn't the observable universe made up of 2 main things?
Barionic matter and Electro Magnetic wavelengths?

Dark Matter/Energy currently isn't directly observable and can only be construed as existing due to what we presume is it's affect on barionic matter.
(Don't get me wrong though, I like the big bang?/ dark matter hypothesis)

But if we observe barionic matter via it's EM wavelength, doesn"t this mean that there is something to the EU theory?

I guess it depends on your definition ... but the only thing that has been observed, beyond the solar system, is photons*.

Using standard physics, we infer there is lots of baryonic matter; using the same physics, we infer there is even more dark matter; using the same physics, we infer there is something that we give the name 'dark energy', and, to date, we cannot distinguish it from Einstein's cosmological constant (which is, itself, an obvious extension to a highly successful theory, General Relativity).

EU ideas (they can hardly be called a theory, for starters, there's so little that's quantitative), to the extent that there's anything beyond mere grandstanding and handwaving, are easily tested, and can (just as easily) be seen to be lacking in observational support.

Take the Alfven ambiplasma, for example. Separating us from the equally common anti-matter parts of the universe is a whole lot of double layers (according to this, Alfven, part of the universe of EU ideas). Fine, easily tested; where the two meet, in the double layers, there should be a great deal of matter-antimatter annihilation going on, producing prodigous quantities of easily detected (and characterised) gamma rays**. There isn't; universe 1, EU 0.

Which brings us back to science - by all means put up new ideas; however, if you want your new ideas to be treated seriously, you have to do some hard work, like developing them to the point where they can be tested, and then actually testing them.

*Well, there's the isotropic rain of cosmic rays, ~20 neutrinos, a few picograms of ISM dust, and a few atoms of neutral He.
**To be fair to Alfven, gamma ray astronomy was hardly developed at all in his working lifetime.

Haha Ner, I guess we can make a science project out of harry then. You've already found the constant, now introduce some more variables and document it. Surely you'll unravel the mysteries of harry then.

Mak, you crack me up. If that were my forum and you sent me that link you'd just get a new custom title.

geck, these people are serious.

Hello All

What you say maybe right.

I still come back to simple observations not backing the Big Bang Theory.

Now if your blind to these observations. I cannot help you with that.

I'm not emotional over any theory.

What bugs me is this.

People will use words and read words out of context to win a point.

My aim is not to win a point at all.

But to understand.

At this moment and the last few days I have been reading many papers from Charles H. Lineweaver , Tamara M. Davis. as refered to by Neried.

I have been sent many emails of people refusing to post to this forum becasue of the attitude that some have.

I think the Asterisk has great potential.

harry wrote:Hello All

What you say maybe right.

I still come back to simple observations not backing the Big Bang Theory.

Now if your blind to these observations. I cannot help you with that.

I'm not emotional over any theory.

But harry, we've been over every one of these that you've put on the table!

Not only have various people here pointed out the errors in either your posts, the observations, or their interpretations (or some combination), but you have been offered - many times - the opportunity to rebut what's in their posts.

I don't think I'm mistaken in saying that a) you have *never* taken the opportunity offered to you to write a rebuttal, and b) you have not once acknowledged that your bald assertions cannot be substantiated!

So, one last time: if you have any such 'simple observations', which have not been already discussed and addressed, please present them. If you do not, please, please stop making assertions such as these (that you are unwilling or unable to substantiate).

What bugs me is this.

People will use words and read words out of context to win a point.

My aim is not to win a point at all.

But to understand.

I'm sorry harry, but this just will not do.

The first, second, or even third time you made such assertions, I think you could be forgiven.

That you are still making them, after such a long time, and after being given every opportunity to substantiate, support, defend, (etc) these is, I think, coming very close to what is called trolling^.

Are you behaving like a troll harry?

At this moment and the last few days I have been reading many papers from Charles H. Lineweaver , Tamara M. Davis. as refered to by Neried.

Do you expect to avail yourself of the opportunity offered, to present a rebuttal? If so, when?

I have been sent many emails of people refusing to post to this forum becasue of the attitude that some have.

I think the Asterisk has great potential.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry harry ... are you saying that we should not adhere to the same scientific method which thousands of engineers and scientists used to bring you your computer and your internet?

That science should be done by a democratic vote, with self-confessed luddites getting the same vote as Nobel Prize winners?

That this site lacks popularity because it seeks to maintain objectivity, and is avowedly science-based?

Perhaps you could say a little more of what you mean.

^If you had taken the opportunity offered you, to address the responses to your bald assertions, it might be different; as I said earlier, I don't think you ever have.

The prisoners are running the prison & the insane are running the asylum.

harry wrote:

As for the Big Bang.

Its funny how they assume it to be a fact and than add ad hoc ideas to make it fit the model.

Eg. Lets make everything move faster than the speed of light to make it work and if we need more speed just ask the captain. "Just have not got the power captain".

The BB is just that, A THEORY, even if it is true, we have no idea where this bang took place.

The Cosmos definately creates more questions than it does have answers for us, currently.

Wow! I was actually joking when I brought up EU theory but... well what can I say....

But if we observe barionic matter via it's EM wavelength, doesn"t this mean that there is something to the EU theory?

I even got excited when I first heard of the EU theory, then I went a checked some of the websites that are devoted to it. The first thing that you notice is that 30% of the material is repetitious anti-establishment, anti-BB rhetoric which immediately discredits the authors and the rest of the content in general. The next thing you see is; it is junk science. For every reasonable point they make there are four others that are ridiculous and often turn out to be straight lies.

It is such a waste of time and those who perpetuate it obviously do so out of a deep seated and irrational love for their precious theory and for the sake of being different.

Vision wrote:

harry wrote:

As for the Big Bang.

Its funny how they assume it to be a fact and than add ad hoc ideas to make it fit the model.

Eg. Lets make everything move faster than the speed of light to make it work and if we need more speed just ask the captain. "Just have not got the power captain".

The BB is just that, A THEORY, even if it is true, we have no idea where this bang took place.

The Cosmos definately creates more questions than it does have answers for us, currently.

It's worth looking at this a little more closely, and trying to untangle the various meanings ...

In everyday English, 'theory' has, as one meaning, 'guess' or 'opinion' or 'speculation'. However, in science, 'theory' has a quite different meaning; let's use Newton's theory of universal gravitation as an example*. This (scientific) theory is very concise and precise. It is also extremely powerful, in that it can be used to explain a very large number of observations (including why people who jump from high buildings, without a parachute, nearly always die when they hit the footpath below; why apples fall the way they do, and why the Moon moves across the sky the way it does). But this theory has its limits ... one of which is that it cannot explain how Mercury moves across the sky, even though the difference between what the theory predicts and what is observed is extremely small (a handful of arc-seconds per century!). The theory of General Relativity (GR) is, in this sense, a better theory: it can explain more than Newton's theory (and is just as concise and precise), including the way Mercury moves across the sky.

The 'Big Bang theory' is not really a theory, in the way GR is a theory. What is it? It's a collection of applications of two quite separate theories - GR and the Standard Model of particle physics (confusingly called a 'model'!). These applications are usually wrapped up into 'models', such as the LCDM (or Lambda CDM) model.

So, what astronomers test is one or more cosmological models. These days almost all such models incorporate both GR and the Standard Model, and most also incorporate 'CDM' (cold dark matter) and 'Lambda' (a.k.a. 'dark energy'). The idea of the tests is to see if the models are consistent with good observations, such as those made by the Hubble Space Telescope, or FUSE, or WMAP, or the SDSS project.

Another source of confusion is the 'bang' part: as GR and the Standard Model are mutually incompatible, any cosmological models based on them make sense only in regimes where this mutual incompatibility has no significant consequences. That means such models should be 'good' from the time the universe had a temperature of billions (trillions?) of degrees K, but will certainly not work in the Planck regime. Or, if you prefer, to explain the origin of the universe, in a scientific way, you need to use a theory that addresses the mutual incompatibility of GR and the Standard Model. There are such - LQG is one - but there is, as yet, no consensus among the scientists working on these theories as to which is better at explaining what we see.

*Confusingly, back then, it was called a 'law'!

Hello Neried


You write just like my wife.

You and her must work out together.

Maybe that is the reason why I'm against the BIg Bang.

Without joking. Neried what you write is said by the main stream cosmologists and most probably right.

I could just say, yep

End of discussion,,,,,,,,,,,,that would be very boring.


================================
I'm stilll reading through some papers directed by you.

if so, lock the thread, perhaps/

Hello MakC


How easy it is.

It's a shame you can't write like Nereid, harry. I can't understand most of what you are getting at because you leave your posts with so many voids and seem to have only a basic grasp on literacy.

Hello deckzilla

I'm sorry for you pain.

I do suffer from dyslexia. But I do try my best.

Neried writes very well and has the ability for lateral thinking and multiple tasks.

Points and voids are part of the game. Most people do that regardless.

But! tell me geckzilla.

What are your points and thoughts?

harry wrote:Hello MakC


How easy it is.

you were the one saying "end of discussion"

This topic is out of my realm of expertise so I don't have many comments on it. I do love reading the posts here because they interest me. You're always in the middle of the discussion trying to say something without actually saying anything though so it's always taking me off track which can be kind of irritating. At the same time it's a little amusing too, I suppose. My aggression towards you stems from this. I probably would just be lurking here otherwise.

Hello MakC

You read it out of context mate.

Does not matter,,,,,,,,,,,keep smiling


Hello geckzilla

Give us your opinion. Right or wrong does not matter.

Ok harry, my opinion is that my opinion doesn't matter in a discussion in which I have not enough knowledge to form any kind of intelligent response to. Maybe this is the fundamental difference between you and I.