Time Before Time [speculative cosmology]

Seed Magazine ^ | August 28, 2006 | Sean Carroll

[TXnMA]

If the parent universe were made of dark matter, it wouldn't be observed anyway.

Not necessarily. See "The Matter of the Bullet Cluster". According to these observers, gravitational lensing may make it possible for us to observe the effects of the mass of concentrations of dark matter on the light from distant galaxies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Right Whale: " Less than a century ago there were no galaxies. Everything was inside the Milky Way. Sometime between 1922 and 1960 the universe acquired galaxies..."

Not quite: from the northern hemisphere, there have always been two galaxies visible to the unaided eye: M31, the "Great Andromeda Galaxy" and our own galaxy -- visible from the inside-out as the "Milky Way". However, I agree that it wasn't until suitable telescopes were developed that we realized what they were -- and that there are lots of other galaxies.

BTW, & FWIW, in the photo at the above link, there are only a handful of nearby stars visible; all the rest of those white "spots" are galaxies...

In another comment, you bemoaned the lack of "C/E debaters" on this thread. Along those lines, I'll add that I can't comprehend how the "YEC" folks can "stick to their guns" after having seen photos like the one above -- or the Hubble Ultra Deep Field images... To me, those images make it impossible for me to accept Earth as the center of everything -- or the proposition that everything is only a few millenia old...

[PatrickHenry]

gravitational lensing may make it possible for us to observe the effects of the mass of concentrations of dark matter on the light from distant galaxies.

Right. We had a thread on that last week. NASA Finds Direct Proof of Dark Matter.

[TXnMA]

That's a great thread! I'm bummed out that I missed it "in real time"...

[Salamander]

I came back and the thread was still extant so I have to assume your time-jump was either unsuccessful or incomplete....;]

[or maybe you're just still in the bathroom?]

[Salamander]

"I like Bananarama."

I remember Wonderama.


[has anbody here seen an aardvark?]

[grey_whiskers]

Sounds almost logical until one realizes that, while they may have a theory for old universes spitting out new universes, they ignore the real question: Where/when/how did the original one start?

Heh heh heh. They were hoping you'd be so dazzled by their extreme brilliance, you'd forget to ask.

In fact, the answer is "Turtles all the way down..."

Cheers!

[AndrewC]

Speculative cosmology -- the "scientific" term for "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"(or point of a very fine needle depending on your source.)

P.S. Did they misspell the name of the magazine, "Seed"? (Of course, both spellings relate to plants.)

[grey_whiskers]

When I read the first couple of sentences about frost on the leaves, I *knew* who it was who was posting.

There is nothing, not even in the infamous thermodynamics that gives a preference to the direction of time.

Do you mean "intrinsic" or "overwhelmingly probable" preferenc...?

Details, please...?

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

or in a political system where everyone thinks the same.

Leave DU out of this! :-)

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

What do you know and how do you know you know it?

What did Bush know, and when did he know it?

Or to quote Feynman...

I wonder why
I wonder why
I wonder why I wonder
I wonder why I wonder why I wonder why I wonder...

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Stars and galaxies are seen as exaptations – structures that have found a use other than that for which they were originally developed by evolution.

This sentence just puzzles me.

[grey_whiskers]

Time Is
Time Was
Time Is Past

I saw that quote in a Dorothy Sayers novel, but don't know the original source--what is it, please?

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Nonetheless, you both looked at your watches at the same instant in Time.

I thought relativity said that there is no preferred inertial reference frame.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

That plays havoc with isotropy, which even Relativity has to assume in order to have a starting point.

Need the isotropy be "absolute" or just "as well as we can measure"...?

Thinking here of string theories and collapsed dimensions which seem to argue against isotropy.

(Reaching vainly for straws)--has anyone done an analogy to Minkowski space-time, using collapsed dimensions in addition to the convention Cartesian (or spherical polar, I don't mind) coordinates?

...or am I just re-inventing the square wheel?

Cheers!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the ping and for sharing your insights and the links!

[betty boop]

These are not two compatible ideas.

Perhaps they are complementarities in the sense intended by Niels Bohr, who said that two mutually exclusive principles are both necessary to the "complete description" of the system of which they are the "mutually exclusive" parts.

In short, seeming incompatibilities or even outright mutually exclusive principles may find logical resolution at a higher level of understanding -- of Truth that harmoniously integrates both into a more comprehensive description of reality.

But then, people today tend to expect that Einstein's remark is the correct one: If you have two mutually exclusive principles, then at least one of them must be wrong....

I love Einstein. But I don't agree with this statement. Aristotle's law of the excluded middle is crushing human intelligence these days, leading to a digital style of thinking that does not accord with direct human experience of the real world.

Well, FWIW. That and a buck-twenty-five (plus tax) might get you a cup of coffee....

Good night, dear Right Whale!

[Doctor Stochastic]

Supposedly, Roger Bacon built a human head out of clay (or wood or something); he was going to ask the head a question but the head just said, "Time is. Time was. Time is past." Then a lightening bolt came through a window and destroyed the head.

Zeus (or Thor) must have not been amused.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Google yields (without more ado): this link. Now adieu.

[taxed2death]

I agree, thus my contention that time is more a measurement of location.

[snarks_when_bored]

Something I've always wondered: If a universe spontaneously forms & inflates inside a parent universe, what would happen to anything or anyone who's already inside the parent universe, say within 100 million light years away? Seems to me that would be quite destructive, as in pretty much completely destroying the whole parent universe.

The following paragraph from page 3 of Anthony Aguirre & Steve Gratton, "Inflation Without a Beginning: a null boundary proposal" (2003, PDF format) is somewhat relevant, I think (my red fonting):

"An observer within a bubble can never leave, but will eventually be encountered by an encroaching bubble wall after a typical time τ_coll, where τ_coll^-1 is related to the r-integral of Eq. (5) by some transformation between the bubble observer's proper time τ and cosmic time t. Since this rate depends on t−t₀, a patient and very sturdy oberver could in principle discover the global time at which it formed by counting the frequency of incoming bubbles."

"A patient and very sturdy observer"...nice turn of phrase...