A vast cavern is the stage for tests to find the 'God particle'

The Times ^

[AndrewC]

I think AndrewC is trying to understand the notion that 2 particles are now farther away, but neither of them moved.

...

Inflation is one of those things that seems like happened, because it's consistent with known observations.

To say nothing has moved is clearly ludicrous. Any force calculation that I know of will have changed. And you can't call out the dreaded relativistic corrections, because you have stated the objects are not moving.

Next, I know of no observation of anything traveling faster than the speed of light in vacuo. And the paper openly states that velocities v > c are possible since they cannot be observed(essentially). That statement puts inflation in the category of faith and not science. Thus a person holding to inflation should never complain about any other introduction of faith into science.

[PatrickHenry]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the correct term to characterize those "unreachable" regions of the Universe is that they are "causally disconnected" from ours, and ours from them.

I'm not the one you asked, and I'm probably not the one to answer, but to me the expression "causally disconnected" implies that there was previously a causal connection. Such could be the case for something that has moved beyond our observational horizon. But I'm thinking of a scenario like a universe of multiple big-bang universes, with each one functioning as an oscillating black hole, banging and collapsing, eternally. The light from each would be forever trapped, and each system would be "causally un-connected" from the others. (Not dis-connected.) If the professional physics community makes no such distinction, fine. I'm still not running off to join the TimeCube guy.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

To say nothing has moved is clearly ludicrous.

Actually that was the first reaction that I had along with others in the class. Once you get past the notion that space is nothing and matter fills it up, you get closer to the concept. One way to look at it is that space is something that is everywhere. It can be stretched and pulled. Then matter precipitates out of it when it is sufficinetly distorted.

Unfortunately we're stuck with inflation until somebody finds something new to look at.

[Delbert]

God does not live in a cave, he is not a particle.

BIG BANG?????
YOU'VE GOT TO KIDDING.
GOD

[AndrewC]

Once you get past the notion that space is nothing and matter fills it up, you get closer to the concept.

Then matter precipitates out of it when it is sufficinetly distorted.

Again, 2 != 1.

[Physicist]

Again, 2 != 1.

And again, 1 + (-1) = 0.

[Physicist]

And the paper openly states that velocities v > c are possible since they cannot be observed(essentially). That statement puts inflation in the category of faith and not science.

That's O.J. jury logic. Nobody on the jury saw O.J. do it, so no amount of evidence will ever be sufficient to pronounce a guilty verdict. The glove, the shoes, the CMBR were all planted by "the man" to fool us.

[AndrewC]

And again, 1 + (-1) = 0.

That somehow negates 2 != 1? We are not speaking of something moving then moving back. Something moved. If R has changed the forces associated with R have changed. That is somewhat related to how we can tell that R has changed.

[AndrewC]

Nobody on the jury saw O.J. do it, so no amount of evidence will ever be sufficient to pronounce a guilty verdict.

Yeah right. You would have the jury convict O.J. due to these words.

I know that there is concrete evidence that O.J. murdered Nicole but it became disconnected from causality so you cannot see it. Convict him anyway.

Or have them acquit O.J. due to these words.

O.J. could not have been in the home that night. He was in Europe. His corroborating witnesses have been taken by Martians and will be eternally unavailable. Release O.J.

Great theater, bad science.

[Physicist]

If the gloves, shoes, and CMBR didn't exist, you'd have a point.

[CaptIsaacDavis]

INTERESTED PARTIES MUST READ THIS…
Two questions/issues must give one pause:

1) Stephen Hawking and Higgs have traded words publicly over whether it is even possible to "see"/measure Higgs bosons. Hawking has previously bet – and won -- that we CAN'T with our current technology.

2) Recent studies at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have shown (although errors are always possible in this field), that a Standard Model assumption about the predicted energy/mass of the Higgs Boson is empirically WRONG. Don’t listen to this old physics student, read the articles at the attached URLs (the lbl.gov article is the most important).

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/Phys-lose-lose.html
http://millennium-debate.org/ind3sept023.htm

[AndrewC]

CMBR didn't exist, you'd have a point.

It is no surprise that something that cannot be demonstrated solves something for which it was invoked. The CMBR existed prior to inflation. Inflation was created to explain properties of CMBR, so it is not unexpected that the properties of CMBR are consonant with the explanation. But, matter attaining a velocity of the absolute universal speed limit and then exceeding that limit is not an expected consequence. However, that consequence is hand-waved away.

[Moonman62]

That statement puts inflation in the category of faith and not science. Thus a person holding to inflation should never complain about any other introduction of faith into science.

You're conflating scientific theory with faith, therefore your conclusion is wrong.

[Physicist]

The CMBR existed prior to inflation.

Irrelevant. The CMBR is a general feature of Big Bang models. What did not exist prior to the Inflation model was the incredibly detailed anisotropy power spectrum:

The curve is the theoretical prediction, and the data are from the WMAP probe, which published its results in February. Oh, and the polarization of the background is similarly well-predicted.

Inflation was created to explain properties of CMBR

Any Big Bang model predicts a CMBR of some kind; the properties of the CMBR that Inflation best explains weren't even known at the time (see above). Inflation was proposed to solve the horizon problem (why is the temperature of the universe so uniform), the flatness problem (why do the angles of large triangles sum to 180 degrees) and the homogeneity problem (why are there no--or so few--magnetic monopoles).

[AndrewC]

You're conflating scientific theory with faith, therefore your conclusion is wrong.

No. I'm stating that accepting something without any evidence especially when it is counter to other accepted "facts" is faith.

[Moonman62]

But Inflation doesn't fall into that category.

[AndrewC]

But Inflation doesn't fall into that category.

It does when it invokes a disconnect from causality to explain matter achieving then exceeding the speed of light in vacuum limit.

[Moonman62]

But that isn't what Inflation invokes. It's space that "expands faster than light", not matter. The cosmic speed limit doesn't apply to space. If you'd been sitting on some of that matter, you'd have felt no acceleration whatsoever.

[AndrewC]

It's space that "expands faster than light", not matter.

But space without matter or energy is just space and does not need to be disconnected from causality. The disconnection was needed for a reason.

[Moonman62]

Inflation is now supported by observation. It no longer stands simply on need. And it most certainly doesn't violate Relativity.