Posted on 09/15/2022 12:56:44 PM PDT by OneVike
Physicist Eric J. Lerner comes to the point:
To everyone who sees them, the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images of the cosmos are beautifully awe-inspiring. But to most professional astronomers and cosmologists, they are also extremely surprising—not at all what was predicted by theory. In the flood of technical astronomical papers published online since July 12, the authors report again and again that the images show surprisingly many galaxies, galaxies that are surprisingly smooth, surprisingly small and surprisingly old. Lots of surprises, and not necessarily pleasant ones. One paper’s title begins with the candid exclamation: “Panic!”
Why do the JWST’s images inspire panic among cosmologists? And what theory’s predictions are they contradicting? The papers don’t actually say. The truth that these papers don’t report is that the hypothesis that the JWST’s images are blatantly and repeatedly contradicting is the Big Bang Hypothesis that the universe began 14 billion years ago in an incredibly hot, dense state and has been expanding ever since. Since that hypothesis has been defended for decades as unquestionable truth by the vast majority of cosmological theorists, the new data is causing these theorists to panic. “Right now I find myself lying awake at three in the morning,” says Alison Kirkpatrick, an astronomer at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, “and wondering if everything I’ve done is wrong.” [Update: Kirkpatrick has protested Lerner’s handling of this quotation. See Note below.]Eric J. Lerner, “The Big Bang didn’t happen” at IAI.TV (August 11, 2022)
Although we didn’t usually hear of it, there’s been dissatisfaction with the Standard Model, which begins with the Big Bang, ever since it was first proposed by Georges Lemaitre nearly a century ago. But no one expected the James Webb Space Telescope to contribute to the debate.
Now, Lerner is the author of a book called The Big Bang Never Happened (1992) but — while that makes him an interested party — it doesn’t make him wrong. He will be speaking at the HowTheLightGetsIn festival in London (September 17–18, 2022) sponsored by the Institute for Art and Ideas (IAI), as a participant in the “Cosmology and the Big Bust” debate.
The upcoming debate, which features philosopher of science Bjørn Ekeberg and Yale astrophysicist Priyamvada Natarajan, along with Lerner, is premised as follows:
The Big Bang theory crucially depends on the ‘inflation’ hypothesis that at the outset the universe expanded many orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light. But experiments have failed to prove evidence of cosmic inflation and since the theory’s inception it has been beset by deep puzzles. Now one of its founders, Paul Steinhardt has denounced the theory as mistaken and ‘scientifically meaningless’.
Do we have to give up the theory of cosmic inflation and seek a radical alternative? Might alternative theories like the Big Bounce, or abandoning the speed of light provide a solution? Or are such alternatives merely sticking plasters to avoid the more radical conclusion that it is time to give up on the Big Bang altogether?
Here’s a debate on this general topic from last year’s festival (but without JWST data). It features theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, along with Ekeberg and particle physicist Sam Henry.
So, yes, it’s been a serious topic of discussion for a while. Now, what to make of Eric Lerner’s approach? Experimental physicist Rob Sheldon offered Mind Matters News some thoughts and a potential solution:
The current thinking is that the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis era produced 75% Hydrogen and 25% Helium (by weight) and a smattering of Lithium, but not much else. Then after 300 thousand years, the universe cooled down enough to produce atoms, and gravitational attraction slowly, slowly built up stars. The early ones were big enough to explode, and the shock waves sent through the hydrogen gas caused pockets to form that began star-making in earnest. But it still took 500 million years to get enough stars for a galaxy. Now the earlier a galaxy forms, the further back in time and the further away it is from astronomers today, and the further away it is the faster it is moving away from us. This movement causes the light to be redshifted. So robust is this relationship, that astronomers replace “time” with “red-shift”. But the Hubble Space Telescope could only see visible light, and those early galaxies were so red-shifted they were only “visible” in the infra-red, which is where the James Webb telescope shines. So one of the goals of the James Webb telescope was to see the earliest galaxies, and indeed, they’re seeing a lot.
So what does this mean for the standard model?
Theorists have an answer. Lot’s of clumpy dark matter to get the Hydrogen gas to clump early. Which leads to the question, “why isn’t the dark matter clumpy now?”
I don’t have endurance to run down every rabbit trail cosmologists propose. Instead, I propose that the first stars were not made of Hydrogen, they were made of ice. The Big Bang synthesized abundant C and O which combined with H to form H20, CO2, CH4 etc. These gases freeze relatively early in the universe time frame, so clumping was not gravitational but physico-chemical, the same way snowflakes form. So we didn’t have to wait 500 million years for snowflakes to clump, it happen very quickly once the universe cooled below the freezing point. Hence James Webb sees lots of red-shifted galaxies from the early universe.
The paper on that (and maybe the prediction of what James Webb would find?) is in my open-access paper in Communications of the Blythe Institute in 2021.
That’s one possible solution. We know it’s science when it’s always posing challenges.
This sometimes comes up: Could the universe have always existed? The problem is, if the universe had existed for an infinite amount of time, everything that could possibly happen must already have happened an infinite number of times — including that we don’t exist and never did. But we know we do exist. As Robert J. Marks has pointed out, playing with infinity quickly results in absurdity. To do science, we must accept that some events are real and not mutually contradictory. So we can assume that the universe got started but we are a little less sure just now how that happened.
I am in agreement with you. Me being one with an apologist mindset, I tend to lean towards an accusatory line in dealing with most secularist scientists, because most refuse to ever take into consideration the possibility of a creator, or even look at the evidence that points to One.
However, I will readily admit that I have ran across more than a few secularists who are more than willing to look at the evidence from a Creationist point of view. I have yet to see them admit a Creator exists, and the closest they come is to say, well I know, but there must be a logical explanation for what I did not understand. Yet, they refuse to ridicule or malign creationist scientists.
It is my prayer that their willingness to consider it will lead them to the truth one day. Like Nicodemus, they are at least willing to listen to the other side. This is the first step in coming to Jesus.
“Reference to “after the beginning” in your second sentence appears to contradict your first sentence since it posits a beginning.”
I was using the other poster’s words so came out unclear.
More technically, the BBT implies a “beginning” of the universe but does not address it as part of the theory.
The theory begins with the universe as a high density plasma.
Looking at your bookshelf.....Being in a garage does not make you a car, owning science books doesn’t make you a scientist.
I guess you couldn’t answer the question.
To the contrary. These people have made very grandiose claims about the nature of the universe and how it evolved. It is more clear by the day that they know much less than they claim. In fact, I’d say the entire field is little more than a scam supported by taxpayer dollars. It is this taxpayer support that annoys me, and their claim of being a part of ‘science’, when in fact there is apparently more philosophy involved in their theories than actual science.
Must be a nice gig
You’ll have proof one way or the other when you die and there’s an afterlife or nothing.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Not quite, because if following death there’s nothing then the dead will not be aware of that. Recently a poster pointed out that it’s not the dead who suffer because they don’t know they are dead. Therefore those who experience suffering in relation to death are not the dead but the living.
I think death is most likely the same sensation as billions of years passing before you were born. Or endless general anesthesia. So you are correct, if there’s no afterlife there was no point in ever being alive. The greatest minds of mankind are no more important than the lowliest of flat worms if that’s the case.
The problem with that is that the universe is not perfectly spherical.
Assuming the Big Bang THeory is valid, for the purpose of my point, The matter created would be created unevenly, with some clumps being bigger than other clumps.
Consequently, the universe would be skewed in some direction with the actual origin point not being the current center point of the universe.
I dunno, man.
You’ve been educated in the American public school system.
“The problem with that is that the universe is not perfectly spherical.”
*We don’t know the shape of the universe.
“Assuming the Big Bang THeory is valid, for the purpose of my point, The matter created would be created unevenly, with some clumps being bigger than other clumps.”
*I believe that you describe the theory.
“Consequently, the universe would be skewed in some direction with the actual origin point not being the current center point of the universe”
*The theory does not address a point of origin. The theory begins with the universe as a plasma field. Matter develops at all points.
I don’t know what the shape of the universe is, but to have a spherical shape you would have to have even pulls of gravity at all point.
That’s not likely the case, which is why I can say that it is unlikely the universe is spherical.
I only used the Big Bang Theory to make my point, not state that I believe in it.
Geez, you are something else. I just don’t know what.
“I am in agreement with you. Me being one with an apologist mindset, I tend to lean towards an accusatory line in dealing with most secularist scientists, because most refuse to ever take into consideration the possibility of a creator, or even look at the evidence that points to One.”
Creator? Not God?
Whatever you can’t mix science and faith. Science neither requires a creator or denies a creator.
OTOH, There are a lot of “faithful” that deny science because it conflicts with some obscure passage or what their Sunday School teacher said.
“I don’t know what the shape of the universe is,”
Lets go back to your original statement: “The problem with that is that the universe is not perfectly spherical.”
If you don’t dnow how can you make any claim.
I am not sure what your point is or what the problem is that you see.
“I don’t know what the shape of the universe is, but to have a spherical shape you would have to have even pulls of gravity at all point.”
Who said it was spherical?
We can see objects are receding at speeds exceeding the speed of light.
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If something recedes faster than the speed of light then how does its light get here?
“If something recedes faster than the speed of light then how does its light get here?”
How fast it is receeding has no impact on the speed of light coming to us. Relativity 101.
The Big Bang Theory implies that it is a spherical shape.
I’m only saying that it is not a regular shape of any kind.
“The Big Bang Theory implies that it is a spherical shape.
I’m only saying that it is not a regular shape of any kind.”
It does not.
How fast it is receeding has no impact on the speed of light coming to us. Relativity 101.
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True, but doesn’t apply if the light doesn’t get to us.
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