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Misconceptions about the Big Bang
Baffled by the expansion of the universe? You're not alone. Even astronomers frequently get it wrong
By Charles H. Lineweaver and Tamara M. Davis | February 21, 2005 |
What does mark the edge of observable space? Here again there has been confusion. If space were not expanding, the most distant object we could see would now be about 14 billion light-years away from us, the distance light could have traveled in the 14 billion years since the big bang. But because the universe is expanding, the space traversed by a photon expands behind it during the voyage. Consequently, the current distance to the most distant object we can see is about three times farther, or 46 billion light-years.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
CHARLES H. LINEWEAVER and TAMARA M. DAVIS are astronomers at Mount Stromlo Observatory near Canberra, Australia. They work on a wide range of questions, from cosmology to life in the universe. Lineweaver, while at the University of California, Berkeley, in the early 1990s, was part of the Cosmic Background Explorer team, which discovered fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation. He has degrees not just in astrophysics but also in history and English literature, used to play soccer semiprofessionally, and is the father of two young soccer stars, Colleen and Deirdre. Davis works on the Supernova/Acceleration Probe, a space observatory now being designed. She represents Australia in the sport of Ultimate Frisbee and has competed in two world championships.
Cosmology: The Science of the Universe. Edward R. Harrison. Cambridge University Press, 2000. 
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27 Comments
Add CommentThis article was thorough, in its own right of 'single plane' thinking. BUT, the "Big Bang Theory" has holes in it, literally. What is commonly known as "Black Holes," vacuums the prior theory dry. Black Holes actually create the visible galaxies as opposed to what was formally thought to engulf such masses. When you can tell me where the Black Holes come from, is the day I will consider the Big Bang Theory to be anything but primitive thoughts. Even a Kindergarten student can theorize the concepts of coming from a unity. In this case, the unity would be everything exploding into bits & pieces of matter & debris......which I find to be rather reflective to most people's inability to 'think outside the box'...and so forth. To honestly believe, as complex as existence seems to be, that we're only limited to one current 'plane of existence' is un-fathomable to me. The funnels that create, don't procreate in the same dimension. We'll never find the wholeness, but only the pattern...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry for my poor english.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the part"Running to stay still" you make a mistake when you believe the light cannot reach us when the receding is faster than the speed of light. I have made the computation and surprisingly it's always possible. So great can be the difference between the two speeds, it's always possible, it's simply longer.
If I might have misconceptions about this Big Bang Theory is this where I should post it? Would the Admin or Members be willing to help me?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is difficult to share this knowing how many brilliant people have come before and stand even now, concluding in agreement or acceptance of something I am about to disagree with. But I would feel guilty in not sharing long developed personal observations that scientifically addresses the evidence. And worse yet feel foolish for going another decade not having shared it, should my perceptions later be proven correct in their conclusions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease understand. Before sharing this I was careful in reading through multiple explanations and watching multiple videos on Big Bang theory. Having considered the reasons for the reasoning process as they were explained, the logical jumps are astounding. This theory hits a road block, so we used another theoretically based theory, which also defies the physical sciences as a means of support, and when it happened again, we did the same thing once more.
In learning about the Big Bang, it was endlessly frustrating to read. How a theory could could be substantially supported, and be almost exclusively supported by additional theoretical theories, not grounded in physical science. And even while good science always admits it is just a theory, the author is always careful to say, but it is substantially supported.
In trying to distill the theory, it appears to come down to just two physical observations in support of it: Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation and dominating amounts of Accelerating Red-Shift. That are then reversely explained using the very theoretical models, they are intended to explain. Rather than drawing on physical science for an understanding.
These brilliant individuals hold advanced degrees and have studied longer and harder than most of us can imagine. So for this I apologize. Because as an outsider to this world I must seem a simple kid with a beach ball and back yard science who has read too much media science. As I am sure there are subtleties in truly understand these theories that can only be understood by doing it in math.
But as a person of reasonably sound thought I must share this.
Hoping that in asking my possible misconceptions might be corrected.
The Principle of Complex Compound Lensing in a Radiant Universe
Every time light passes through a gravitational field it is bent.
And quite probably the red-shift marker is moved further out in the spectrum.
As the light passes each additional gravitational field, this marker's position is further increased.
Additional all matter in the universe inherently possesses an amount of attractive force.
Even if that individual amount is too small to individually measure, it still exists.
Such a principle CCLRU theory would account for evidentiary expansion fallacies,
Such as suggesting the further out we travel the faster the universe is expanding.
Not only is this a solidly presentable point of research,
But if my admittedly modest formal education in the sciences is correct,
then there is even a real world means of confirming it.
[Some knowledgeable people might find it easier to think of this as: Compound Gravitational Red-shift. But I've also made some separate observations about the nature of light. And feel it would be much better to say "Lensing" and not directly name gravity in titling this principle. Also, the world indeed is a very bright a beautiful place so try not to cut that part off, even if CCL is easier to type, CCLRU is preferable.]
We have somehow incorrectly been reading red-shift since before Hubble Law.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble's_law
I hope you like this idea,
But then when thinking of light yelling past other matter & galaxies I had another idea.
Radiant Ponds of Astronomically Expanding Wavelength
The cooling/red-shift of lights wavelength doesnt have to be Expansion.
Im referring to the fact that energy normally dissipates over distance.
As anyone who has ever played with a rope shaking it real fast or yelled can see.
Over distance the energy and wavelength due to other factors flatten out.
We dont need Expansion to explain a naturally occurring phenomenon in science.
Over great enough distances in space there is no reason for light to be exempt.
Right now it seems that science has assumed the wavelength of light is constant.
Despite the fact that in the natural world all energy/wavelength dissipates as it radiates.
A rock in the galactic ponds, whose light waves radiate out and elongate as they expand.
Not because the pond is expanding.
CMBR.
My hypothesis was again based on natural science.
Rather than hypothetical, theoretical, quantum mechanical, particle physics, of big bang theory.
The conclusion was: CMBR is produced by an atoms fusion clap .
During the moment of collapse they are near perfect undetectable black bodies.
Upon impact they cancel out each others momentum and movement,
According to angle of impact and atomic weight of the type of fusion taking place.
Resulting in the 2.75 Kelvin range being observed.
Shortly after the stinging vibration (CMBR) of the clap is ended,
by diffusion they return to the same temp as they area within the star.
This is why you will not observer CMBR radiation from empty space.
There is more than one energy process and wavelength coming from all stars.
Double Posted Reply - Deleted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNeed the option to fully delete posts not yet replied to, Thanks!
--
Edited by Neil_Polymathes at 01/10/2008 9:03 PM
Dear danielb,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the universe were decelerating I would agree with you that it is always possible for light to reach us, even from regions of the universe that are receding faster than the speed of light.
However, when the universe accelerates this is no longer true. Indeed, when the acceleration is just right to cause the universe to expand exponentially the distance at which things recede at the speed of light is exactly our event horizon. In that case we can not see anything from the superluminally receding region.
Interestingly, if the acceleration is so extreme as to cause faster-than-exponential expansion then light can't even reach us from some regions that are receding less than the speed of light.
If you would like to see the path light follows through our universe (i.e. one that is accelerating, but not quite exponentially yet) then see the spacetime diagrams at
http://dark.dark-cosmology.dk/~tamarad/astro/scienceimages/Spacetime_diagrams.pdf
All the best,
Tamara
please dont kill us
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisplease please please dont set it off what is the point .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Big Bang is a recurring event. I do not know the period of it. The universe is NOT expanding. Just the stuff that makes up our little part of it. It is a culmination of many black holes getting bigger and bigger and sucking up each other until there is so much pent up energy it blows apart. The same thing happens in other locations, also, trillions or gazillions of light-years away. Eventually, some 'other universe' stuff will reach 'our universe' and interact, and the black holes will have a full belly until they eat each other, and it all starts over again. The 'other universe' is merely another area where many blacks holes got together and sucked in everything, just like happened here 13 billion-ish years ago. Oh, and there are at best 4 dimensions, X, Y, Z, and I'll concede time as one. Things are really a lot more simple than Ph.D. idiots realize. I don't have, want, or need a Ph.D. because I do not want to be that dumb.x
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, and, um, Neil, red-shift is a change in frequency, nothing to do with what you think. As the wave disapates over time and distance, the amplitude falls, but the frequency stays the same.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The totality of space could be infinite. Shrink an infinite space by an arbitrary amount, and it is still infinite" - well, it is true, but does it apply to our non-Eucledian world?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thought that our world is positively curved, so that it can be viewed as a 3d hypersphere...but then it may have a finite volume. This volume could be small at zero time.
The authors believe that a questionable mathematical model is the reality. That is a silly thought.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe expansion of the Universe and the expansion of the space are different questions.
The first one is a consequence of observational data (Hubbles Law), while the other is a conjecture without experimental confirmation.
Besides, the authors say that the big bang model is better than any other model we have...
It seems that they do not have knowledge about other modern theories, such as the theory of gravitation by A. Logunov.
Charles and Tamara, this kind of article has nothing to do with science.
Neil, gravital damping would reach equilibrium with as many bodies toward as froward the liht. Nobody's reported a redshift dependent on the bodies' weiht or amount rather than their farness. There'd be the same redshift astride a void or a supercluster.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTony, you're already dumb. There are http://google.com/groups?q=Autymn+%2214-dimensions%22 and there are no black holes: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/01/05/black-hole-doesnt-eat-baby-stars-and-milky-way-more-weighty/ (last post).
Where did the original stuff come from?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr how did God make hisself?
So
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo the galaxies recede from one another because the space between them is expanding. But isn't that also what we observe with common objects that recede from one another - the space between them is expanding? It seems to me the very definition of something "moving" away from something else - the space between them expands.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am reminded of Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" where he presents as an example the experience of gravity. Aristotle believed that there was a force in the stone that impelled it towards the ground. Newton saw it as a force that originated in the ground and pulled the stone to itself. In both cases the same is observed, but the explanation is different. The theory of gravity is more fruitful for further research than Aristotle's ideas so it became the new scientific paradigm.
Is it a similar case with the expansion of space? Is it more fruitful for science to see space as expanding instead of objects "flying" away from one another, while the same type of receding motion is observed?
Richard, I think that is has been measured that most stuff is moving away from us. As in away from earth. If the measured expansion of space was just the measuring of the distance to objects that appeared to be moving away from us, then when you rewind it all you find that everything comes crashing back at us here on Earth. I.e. we are the centre of the universe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt has been 150+ years (to the month) since people started to truely accept that this would be quite an arrogant point of view.
Apologies for my tone, lol, the irony suddenly dawns on me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUntil very recently I too had a similar point of view as yours until I *got* what expansion and inflation was about.
I read the article and the comments. I have four problems: Space, Time, Velocity of Light and Dark Energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpace: Expansion/Contraction
Time: Foward/Backward
Dark Energy: any evidence?
Velocity of Light: at that velocity nothing can exist except light, so how come galaxies are moving at that velocity without being disintegrated?
Would someone clarify.
I have 4 problems: Space, Time, Velocity of Light and Dark Energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpace: Expansion/Contraction
Time: Forward/Backward
Velocity of Light: At that velocity nothing can exist except light. How come galaxies are rushing at that velocity without being disintegrated?
Dark Energy: Any evidence?
Are you the same Tamara who wrote:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe theory of gravitation by A. Logunov. Charles and Tamara
If yes, may I read it? Thanks.
Tamara, I have got your dissertation. Thanks. Congratualtions. I am reading it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe expansion od space is contradicted by simple Newtonian calculation that reveals that the observed now Hubble constant of about 70 km/s/Mpc happens also in non expanding space of density od our universe for the reason of "dynamical friction of photons". If the space were expanding the Hubble constant had to be greater than 70 km/s/Mpc by the additional number due to expansion. It is as if we lost 2 lb of meat and suspected that a cat ate it. If cat weights 2 lb it can't be a proof of its guilt since then, the weight of meat might be there but where is the cat?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMath error, "about three times farther, or 46 billion light-years." 14 times 3 is 42, not 46. Using the current best measurement of the age of the universe, 13.7 billion light years, gives an estimated distance of 41.1 billion light years to the edge of the universe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisElert, is it something about my math error? What is the edge? The universe doesn't have any since according to Einstein it is a 3-sphere with no edges. If you want write to me directly the address is jim_jastrzebski@yahoo.com.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf I'm not mistaken, the conservation of mass states that matter can neither be created or destroyed. If so, why do scientists support a theory in which matter is created? The Big Bang seems to contradict itself. My same question applies to the cell theory. If cells can only come from other cells, then how could the first cell possibly exist?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the answer to these questions somehow defy physics, isn't that a contradiction to physics itself? Physics is the study of matter and energy and how they interact. If physics cannot explain these things, then the laws and theories must be changed to support the evidence.
Otherwise, it's the same as admitting these phenomena are miracles that can never be explained by science.
I am a Christian who firmly believes in a creator; however, I wish to seek out your answers to these puzzling conundrums. I believe that the truth is like a book. Just because you get mad and stop reading the book, doesn't mean the book will change. If anyone has any links, sources, or comments to further my education, please respond. Also, book recommendations are highly appreciated. Thank you.
Hi Tamara, how do you explain the fact that in stationary space of density 6x10^{-27}kg/m^3 the simple Newtonian math gives the value of Hubble constant Ho=70km/s/Mpc and the value of dH/dt=-Ho^2/2 as a second term of Taylor serires of H(t)-Hu(t) at t=0 where Hu(t) is a Hubble "constant" of uniform expansion, making it "accelerated expansion". Aren't they the numbers seen in the sky? So where do you see any expansion of space?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this