User talk:Tommysun/Archive 1

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Thatcher131 11:32, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

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The article is about Plasma cosmology. The primary editors are big bang supporters. They have methodically reduced the Plasma Cosmology article to meaningless nonsense.

"SA, in my view, you are obviously anti-plasma" : User:Tommysun,

"in my view you are obviously an incompetent editor who knows very little about the subjects on which you are trying to inject a POV based not on verifiable fact or Wikipedia style guide or policies but on your own prejudices. No one here is "anti-plasma". No one here denies plasma exists. You seem to have some warped view over what exactly the controversy is, but I welcome you to explain your edits rather than heading off on such tangents. By the way, you should keep your paranoid conspiracies regarding the Big Bang gang to yourself. It makes you sound a bit fanatical." --ScienceApologist 13:15, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

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I wrote that before I found your statement which shows you to be a big bang advocate, and the rest the support for your position. Did my "warped view" turn out to be true? Disruptive, but not warped. My complaint concerns the honesty of the article. A reader expects the article to be about what the title infers. If he is reading an article "plasma cosmology" that is what he expects. If that article would contain a section titled "We disagree and here is why a,b and c That would be doing it honestly. At least the reader would know who is doing the agreeing and disagreeing. To intermix two categories such as big bang and plasma cosmology in the plasma cosmology article is not being honest about it.

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Evidence that Plasma Cosmology is not fringe science

Plasma cosmology is often regarded as a "fringe" science by commentators of the Standard theory. But "fringe" is not an accurate protrayal of what is happening, and may even be misleading. The Standard theory is based on Einstein's General Relativity. Thus the considerations of General Relativity are the considerations of the big bang theory. However, General Relativity is gravity based. Indeed, everything in the Standard theory is explained by means of gravity.

Plasma Cosmology has been championed here by its editors as a fringe science, merely a discredited alternative theory to the Standard theory. But that is not the case according to the literature. In J.N.N. Sullivan's book, (Sullivan was touted as one of the four or five greatest interpreters of physics in his time,) The Limitations of Science" Sullivan writes about Einstein's theory. (Notice how a great writer writes about a great theory. Compare his prose with that of Interpreters of the big bang theory today. )

These examples suffice to show that the experimental evidence for Einstein's theory is very good indeed. Another consideration, which appeals greatly to mathematicians, is the extraordinary inner harmony and elegance of the theory. The results follow so naturally from the premises, and the premises are in themselves so acceptable, that it seems most unlikely that so coherant an argument could be wrong. The later developments of the theory, however, are not so convincing. The ground covered by Einstein's generalized theory is very considerable. It does not. however, account for everything. In particular, electric and magnetic phenomena are left outside his scheme."

Plasma effects are not fringe science, they are just left out of it.

The big bang is a theory which holds as its world view the forces of gravity. But the forces of gravity do not account for much of what we observe. For example, we observe great outpourings of matter/energy from the center of galaxies, but gravity would have the matter moving inward toward the center. That is how gravity formed the glaxies to start with, according to the standard theory. So a mechanism was needed to create these outflows out of inflows, and the one idea they came up with was the accretion disk of a black hole that "reflects" my word, excess incoming matter back out. It can do this even when there is no incoming matter.

It is taught in the classroom by Proga that the black hole is something they came up with, a hypothesis. But by the time it gets down to the Daily News, the speculation becomes hypothesis becomes theory, becomes only theory, becomes fact, becomes truth.

What part does Wikipedia play in this representation?

Is the big bagn theory out of our reach? It is not fair/balanced/equitable to state that "content" is out of reach of the members of this committee, and that it is not the purpose of the committe to pass judgement on content, and then assume that the theory is a correct/accepted theory,and then evaluate the relationship with other theories that do not accept the same conclusions, as if the big bang content is the only correct theory. If content is not the issue here, then neither is the correctness of the content. And without correctness, debate about undue weight is meaningless.

I can't for the life of me, figure out why plasma cosmology is supposed to be about the big bang, except that it is the big bang group that is editing it. Does the article on rock n roll include the significant views of classical music? Why isn't Plasma cosmology about plasma cosmology? Why should it be written in relation to big bang? By the big bang professors none the less...Now there is vested interest, does a professor who teaches big bang theory and explains the opposing theory here have a conflict of interest? Does he have a vested interest in maintaing the status quo? Kuhn would say so I think.

The big bang is another theory altogether. Perhaps there are areas of overlap, for example Gribbins says that the equations for steady state and big bang are almost identical the difference is one term. (Didn't learn that from Wikipedia...so what happens to the fringe claim?)

""But except for content overlap, plasma cosmology should be about plasma cosmology and big bang should be about big bang. Black should be about black and white should be about white. NPOV is not, IMO, taking black and white and representing them as grey. Or, believing that white is better than black, eliminate the black altogether with justifications such as "Irrelevant"

""The problem here is NPOV, or rather the lack of NPOV accomplished by circumvention of NPOV. Here's how it works with them --"We won't criticize it in every sentence, we will just include a criticism in every sentence. Look, we have done a wonderful job of presenting the concept. Of course, we are experts." That dosn't make sense to me either, but that is what they do.

Is that how it is here?

Following is a statement by an anonymous editor found on the history page of the cosmology article.

(Redundant. Current physical cosmology does not *argue* for the big bang, it presupposes it.)

Is this how wikipedia works? What the involved scientists call a theory, and they concede, yet to be proven, somehow has become a not only fact, but presupposed fact. And, therefore, it is not necessary to mention the presupposed has beens. (When in fact, the big bang theory borrows from steady state, calls it fringe science, formulates a new physics which hasn't been verified yet,)

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My day at WP NPOV talk

Greetings and salutations

Might I say, Sir, that I thought your edits to WP:NPOV were brilliant and useful. And Mr. Bauder asked you what I thought was a good question. Did you see it? In any case in edit mode for this page, here

[1]

probably is the technical code for the "diffs." Maybe you were thinking of something else. But, in any case, I am looking forward to see what you have to say in response to Mr. Bauder's request for diffs. Yours truly, Rednblu 03:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I stil don't know about diffs. I can do a page, but how do I do a sentence in a page?Tommy Mandel

Does that mean you have forgotten this? Art LaPella 16:17, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

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Nice answer, Sir. Very insightful, in my opinion. Let's cool it for 24 hours, in any case--no more edits for 24 hours--whatever happens next, what do you say? In situations like this we should take responsibility for how the "owners" of the page must feel. Know what I mean? The murky and self-contradictory text of the WP:NPOV page must be fixed. But we will all have to learn our way there slowly. Does that make sense? --Rednblu 05:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Warning

Your recent edits to our core policy Wikipedia:Neutral point of view consitute disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. You should not make changes to core policy without first achieving consensus on the Talk page. Such disruption is strongly discouraged and can lead to your being blocked from editing Wikipedia. Guy 11:23, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

You are kidding of course...Of course you can provide be with the policy statement which backs up your accusation, otherwise I might think you are trying to bully me. You wouldn't do that would you?Besides, I did have an agreement.

If you want to get technical, my edit was a correction, I merely added a detail which was already in the body of the text. I think you are being unfair and not acting in accordance with the free encyclopedia concept of Wikipedia. Are you an owner of the page?

Tommy Mandel 15:47, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Please see WP:POINT. Also there is long-standing ArbCom consensus that editors with a vested interest in the content of an article should not edit it directly. You have a vested interest in this due to current disputes. Feel free to comment on Talk but please leave the article alone. Guy 17:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but all I did was read the NPOV article and made two key statements say the same thing - a typo. The text said "all views" while the nutshell said "views". I merely added all to views in the nutshell. Therefore I did not disrupt anything because I did not change anything. Does that vested interest go for everyone?

RednBlu

RednBlu, Perhaps that "reading into" is the problem with NPOV, because it has several aspects to it, such as undue weight, verification, neutrality, and different readers of the policy will pay more attention to (read into) this or that aspect. I think that is what is going on, in part, at plasma cosmology, one editor sees "present all views" while other editors see " no undue weight" and in the process of correcting that aspect violates the other aspect. However I think SA knows what he is doing.Tommy Mandel 16:26, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I wrote this to Art, but really should be sent to RednBlu

NPOV states that ALL SIGNIFICANT VIEWS should be included WITHOUT ADDING UNDUE WEIGHT. I can see one side of this dispute trying to add all significant views in compliance with NPOV, while the other side of the dispute are trying to remove undue weight in compliance with NPOV.

The article is about Plasma cosmology. By definition the material should be about plasma cosmology, correct? So does undue weight apply ALSO to comparisons to subject matter outside the plasma cosmology domain? Are we supposed to take into consideration something outside the field when determining undue weight? Seems to me that in the plasma cosmology article undue weight would apply to those aspects of plasma which differ in significance. And big bang considerations, a different article, ought not be considered in the comparison. So exactly where are the boundries of inclusion of determinants of undue weight? And what about accuracy? As in Attribution, Accuracy, NPOV. Maybe turn it around NPOV, Accuracy Attribution or NAA, Tommy Mandel

Question" Why is it that we all can beat down Plasma science to the status of fringe theory, but we are admonished not to point out the flaws in the big bang theory because we are amateurs? ----

Perhaps for the same reason that we all can beat down rap music if we don't like it: because one doesn't ordinarily need a PhD to promote rap music. Art LaPella 20:45, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Art, Rap music is art, and art is subjective Art. Science is objective. Don't need a PhD to see objective evidence. Turns out that the big bang is not even a theory yet, since the operating theory is Inflation, and Inflation has 21 varieties, none of which has become mainstream, I would classify big bang and plasma and a couple others as alternatives. Would you like to discuss flaws?

Tommy Mandel 22:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC) My evidence in a nutshell:

21 flavors

What are the 21 flavors of inflation? Where is your reference for that? You provided a link to Andrei Linde's website, [2], but I couldn't find anything about 21 flavors there. –Joke 15:43, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it is in one of his papers. You do know about the 21 different inflation theories, don't you? Maybe the "flavors" was my original research.

I tried to find it, but can't. Maybe it is one of those arxiv pdfs... It was a paper written by one of those involved. He went through the 21, or maybe a few of them. One of them has singularities all over the place. I don't get the sense that they have a favorite one that has been tested and confirmed...but if one reads secondary sources, inflation is a fact. Tommy Mandel

Found something

JOHN GRIBBINInflation for Beginners [[3]]

INFLATION has become a cosmological buzzword in the 1990s. No self-respecting theory of the Universe is complete without a reference to inflation -- and at the same time there is now a bewildering variety of different versions of inflation to choose from.

Why Hubble's opinion should or shouldn't be mentioned

Regarding your note to me, are you contending that the mere fact that Hubble held the POV that redshift "represents a hitherto unrecognized principle of nature" makes it significant (in the wiki sense)? --Art Carlson 20:13, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

It depends if you are using WikiTalk or WikiWalk. The essence of NPOV is to not introduce a writers bias. In other words there should be no Wiki angle on the story. The article should be transparent.

What is of great significance about Hubble's beliefs is the mainstream view that Hubble proved expansion. That belief is false. Hubble's equation, which he added velocity to, is not a proof, it is an assumption, assumed to be true without proof - like one is one. A tautology actually. And it is that addition/interpretation that Hubble did not like.

Hubbles discovery was that the farther away a star is, the greater the redshift. This is what was observed. That the redshift was a Doppler effect, created by adding velocity to the equation, was assumed by others, and not by Hubble himself.

The significance of this can be traced to an anomaly recently found in cosmology - quantized redshift. If quantized redshift is confirmed, and that has been done several times, then there is no Doppler/expansion/Inflation, and no need for all that black stuff. And no more controversy and Plasma cosmology will be the only theory in town. So, yes, it is significant. It will become what Hubble will always be known for, like a real artist, he knew when to stop.Tommy Mandel 00:21, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

This sound a little different from your note, so I'm not sure I understand yet which argument you're making. Are you arguing that Hubble's opinion should be included in Big Bang and Plasma cosmology because it is true, in contrast to the opinion held by the majority of scientists and the general public? --Art Carlson 07:29, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Certainly it is true that Hubble concluded no expansion. It is not true, contrary to what the majority of scientists and the general public believe, that Hubble proved expansion. What has been proved is the relationship between distance and redsift, that this redshift is also an indicator of velocity has not been proved, it remains a hypothesis.

Hubble's "opinion" was based on his observations, so his opinion is really his conclusion. Hubble concluded that redshift did not show expansion. Has his conclusion been refuted? My guess is that if it had been, then we all would know about it as it would constitute observational evidence of Doppler redshift.

I think the fact that

"Hubble concluded redshift did not mean Doppler/expansion"

should be mentioned anywhere Hubble and redshift/Doppler are mentioned together. To pull it out based on perceived relevance or truth is a technical violation of NPOV. You can circumvent NPOV here by finding someone who specifically refuted Hubbles specific views and published it in a peer reviewed paper and then restate his counter-conclusion.

And if there were such a paper, maybe you could even argue then that Hubbles incorrect view is not relevant. Until then, Hubbles conclusion is a hypothesis yet to be falsified. That is what makes it relevant.

205.188.116.5 03:42, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm still having some trouble with this. As I understand you, you believe the following (please correct me if I am wrong):

• That Hubble was the first to observe the (roughly linear) relationship between redshift and distance, and that this observation is important, verifiable, and uncontroversial and should thus be reported in Wikipedia. --Art Carlson 08:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe that is true.

• That the majority of scientists and the general public believe that Hubble proved expansion, and that this majority opinion should be reported as such in Wikipedia. (I would hope that scientists express this with a little more nuance.) --Art Carlson 08:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I do not believe that is true.

Pardon me if I am still having trouble fitting all your statements together. Since you wrote above, "It is not true, contrary to what the majority of scientists and the general public believe, that Hubble proved expansion.", but you don't believe the bulleted statement here, I can only conclude that you believe "that this majority opinion should not be reported as such in Wikipedia". Is this correct? --Art Carlson 08:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting logic you use. First of all, can you point me to the paper which reports that expansion has been proved and at least one paper confirming that? As far as I know, there is evidence of expansion, but there is also evidence of no expansion. Evidience, as you know, is not proof. If you mention the SN-1a (sic) proof, that is only an observaton of the relationship between redshift and distance. It is only when the assumption that redshift is a Doppler effect, and therefore we are also seeing a velocity, that a hypothesis, not a proof, is formulated. The hypothesis is that the Universe is expanding at an accelerated pace.

Realistically, mainstream science can only state they they accept the hypothesis that redshift is a Doppler effect. They cannot, and I guarantee you, that they do not, state that redshift Doppler has been proved. To start with they are not the experts and the real experts are not making that claim.

As far as the general public is concerned, do you really believe that the opinion of someone who has no idea of what is going on matters in the scientific way? Are you telling me that scientists listen to public polls about details of their favored subject?

But to answer your question, I don't know. The belief, "that Hubble proved expansion" is incorrect, Certainly you agrre with that much. I don't believe that the majority of scientists will state that Hubble proved expansion, but let's say they do believe it. How do you report a belief in a falsehood? Well, original research doesn't count here. So, do you have a verifiable source from a reputable publisher that states that "Hubble proved expansion"? (Hmmm, I wonder if I was the one to first say Hubble proved expansion, no, I read it stated just like that somewhere.)

(Emphasis added by Art Carlson.)

So far so good.

• The first thing that disturbs me is that you seem to equate observations with conclusions. Is that true, or was that perhaps an unfortunate formulation? --Art Carlson 08:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

If you mean that I said Hubble based his conclusion on his observations, I believe that is true. If so, his opinion is not an opinion but a hypothesis.

I still find your writing style confusing ("his opinion is really his conclusion" and "his opinion is not an opinion"), but I think I've caught your drift. --Art Carlson 08:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

• Second, you seem to think that there are no conclusions in the scientific literature based on Hubble's data other than his own. This would certainly be a valid reason to report Hubble's opinion in Wikipedia. Do you believe this to be true? --Art Carlson 08:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

That is not what I think at all. ScienceApologist had dismissed Hubble's conclusion as irrelevant. I say that until it has been falsified it remains a hypothesis. We could call it Hubble's hypothesis.

So we agree that there are a number of interpretations of Hubble's data in the verifiable scientific literature. (Of course, Hubble's data itself is woefully outdated and has been supplanted by newer measurements, but I think that is not an issue here.) So we have gotten to the central question, What criteria should an encyclopedia use to decide which of many published interpretations to report? Can we agree that the principles in WP:NPOV#Undue_weight are relevant here? Do you know of any other wiki policies that are directly relevant? (I am - brashly - assuming that we can agree on which facts are verifiable and which sources are reliable. I also realize that there is still plenty of room to disagree about how to apply the policy on undue weight.) --Art Carlson 08:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

What you are asking for is very important. To start, the Principle of NPOV is primary. Subsequent principles cannot be used to circumvent it. Do you agree with that? If so, then the NPOV principle is

WIKIPOLICY The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting views. The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being the truth, and all significant published points of view are to be presented, not just the most popular one. It should also not be asserted that the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different views is the correct one. Readers are left to form their own opinions.

So wouldn't you agree that publishing a statement such as "mainstream science and the majority of the public believe Hubble proved expansion." is giving undue weight to "a popular view of some sort."?

If so then it is a violation of NPOV, correct?

Now, if you can come up with a scientific paper which proves Hubble proved expansion, and a second source which confirms the proof, then I suppose you could circumvent NPOV by publishing that proof. Same with a survey of public opinion.

Assuming that you cannot do this, do you agree that the statement "mainstream science and the majority of the public believe that Hubble proved expansion" is an assertion of "the most popular view" and thereby violates NPOV?

64.12.117.5 23:16, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

There is a crucial difference between asserting that "Hubble proved expansion" is the most popular view and asserting "that the most popular view ... is the correct one". Only the latter is forbidden by NPOV policy. Can we agree to maintain this distinction? I am puzzled because I thought we would be discussing which other views to include. Of all views on this issue, you seem to want to exclude the most popular one. Have I misunderstood you, or can you somehow reconcile that exclusion with WP:NPOV#Undue_weight? --Art Carlson 08:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Art you wrote; "There is a crucial difference between asserting that "Hubble proved expansion" is the most popular view and asserting "that the most popular view ... is the correct one".

Seems to me that while "truth" is not our goal at Wikipedia, wouldn't you agree that is because Wikipedians are not qualified to determine truth? Therefore, editors can only rely on authoritaive sources to ascertain truth, correct? So the quest for truth remains, albeit in a secondary way. My question then is: Do we sacrifice truth for procedure? Do we sacrifice truth for the populat view? The point I am wanting to make is that our reliance on secondary sources is to keep in touch with the truth, and when the secondary source tells us an untruth, it no longer qualifies as a verifiable and reputable source. Therefore, if we know for a fact that Hubble did not prove/discover/observe/believe in expansion, then we know that any reference to "Hubble expansion" is not a truth, and if we continue to assert Hubble expansion based only on the most popular/accepted/revered/ view is telling a lie.

Three umpires were talking shop over a beer. The first one said, "I just calls 'em as they are." The second was not quite so confident in his own abilities and said, "I calls 'em as I sees 'em." There ensued a heated discussion about how reliably the truth can be discovered. Noticing the silence from across the table, they turn to the third umpire for his opinion. Refusing to be drawn into their dispute, he answered, "They ain't nuthin' until I calls 'em."

If you "know something for a fact", then you should (a) publish it in a verifiable, reliable source, and (b) be so convincing that your publication becomes notable. Until you do, your opinion, truth or not, does not belong in Wikipedia. This is an essential and non-negotiable ground rule. If you don't want to play by it, this is not the place for you. --Art Carlson 08:57, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Does that go for You and SA and Art L and Joke was well? I agree that my opinion should not appear in the article, nor should it appear on their talk page as evidence. Does that go you youse guys too? I have no plans on staying here long, as I said I am a reader, not an editor, simply trying to correct some mistakes I found.

Of course the ground rules apply to everybody. --Art Carlson 08:54, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, Art, I requested a verifiable reputable source for the opinion that the big bang is the most widely acecepted theory in science and thus can be said to be the mainstream view... I keep asking but I don't see the citation supporting, what do you call it, opinion?. Could it be that there isn't a verifiable reputable source that says that? And while you are at it, what about the verifiable reputable scientific source stating that plasma cosmology is discredited and ignored by mainstream cosmology? The source you do cite is our source complaining that we are being ignored. Neat trick you play on them.

Try looking through several textbooks on cosmology. If you find even one that does not commit over 90% of its space to Big Bang theory, I will be shocked and grateful and go straight to the library. I will be surprised if you find one that even mentions plasma cosmology. --Art Carlson 09:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

the sweet breath of intelligence

Are you telling me to go to the library and look in all the theory of gravitation books and I will discover that only ten per cent of the space is devoted to elecromagnetism? What does that tell us? Does the standard particle theory, in it's quest for a unification of the forces of nature, attempt to unify those forces by making the gravitational force the dominant force and ignoring the electroweak force? Physical cosmology, without EMF, is not the compete theory. Tommy Mandel 03:39, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

That's right. The mainstream view is that gravitation is gravitation and E&M is E&M, notwithstanding the fact that both are necessary to understand some phenomena. If you have a theory of gravity based on E&M, then that is a fringe theory, and you can tell that by looking in textbooks on gravitation. --Art Carlson 18:16, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, a theory of gravitation based on EMF would be a fringe theory. I have seen some of those. But no one knows what gravity is, so one cannot say that a e&m theory of gravity is fringe or not? Einstein's theory of gravitation is, I think, a theory of equivalance, a metaphor.

Maybe you think that I am trying to explain everything in terms of plasma. I can understand your perception, it is not uncommon for a theory to be regarded as the one theory. That might be a flaw in theory construction - assuming the theory has to explain it all. Or in this case, assuming that the standard theory explains it all.

I do not think that everything is to be explained in terms of plasma. I am reminded of gravity all the time. I think that a complete cosmology will include gravity, but I also think it will include electromagnetic effects, and the subsequent products. You see, EMF can create new things, gravity can only hold things down. In other words, if the Universe evolves, it does so because of predomanently eletromagnetic fields. Life for example.

My ontological objection (a point of view) is that the big bang theory is based on gravity, subsequently it tries to explain everything in terms of gravity and that has resulted in a whole collection of imagined invisible stuff. (This used to be a hunch I had, and did not find any corroborating evidence until I read Sullivan who informs us that EM is not a part og General Relativity - purposely. Obviously because GR is Einstein's theory of gravity. And the big bang is based on Einstein's General Relativity/gravity which has a beginning singularity requirement. It is this singularity that is causing all the problems. BUT, as someone said, the theory does not tell us how big this singularity is, or how small it is. So again we have an assumption - the assumption that the singularity was small. Assume, on the other hand, that the singularity was/is big. Now the question becomes exactly how does the physical Universe emerge from this everywhere singularity? Did it do it once? Or is it doing it all the time? Did this phase reversal occur at sometime in the past? Or is it occuring now? If energy were being produced now, and to be consistent, it would have have been produced all along, why isn't everything just energy by now?

Enter the second law - over to you.

Back to Wikiland. Obviously electromagetism plays a significant role, witness Proga's incorporation of MHD modeling into his astrophysical research. No longer can you say plasma research is discredited/ignored/disputed/fringe. And your friends, now, can only argue that plasma research is not an integral part of Plasma cosmology. Tommy Mandel 03:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

As for the signers of the Open Letter, are you trying to say they are (a) not verifiable, (b) not reputable, or (c) not scientific? --Art Carlson 11:26, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm not. Is a link to that letter in the big bang article? What I am saying is that the comment was taken out of context and used as if it were some sort of evidence that ignorance of plasma is the fault of plasma.

Good, so the Open Letter is, in general, a verifiable, reputable, and scientific source. Then you feel when the Open Letter says

An open exchange of ideas is lacking in most mainstream conferences.

Today, virtually all financial and experimental resources in cosmology are devoted to big bang studies.

that it is not valid to conclude from that

... advocates for these ideas are mostly ignored by the professional cosmology community.

No it is not valid the way it was presented in the article. First of all it is the editors synthesis/conclusion/twist. You are assuming only one of two possibilities is true, an alternative explanation is that the professional cosmology community is ignorant of plasma effects. 152.163.100.67 19:26, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't quite follow you. What difference do you see between "the professional cosmology community ignores these ideas" and "the professional cosmology community is ignorant of these ideas"? Perhaps our ideas are close enough that we can compromise on a wording. Do you have a suggestion? --Art Carlson 20:05, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

It is called honesty. The impression given by the letter is not the same impression given by the article. There was no evidence presented in the quoted statement as to why no funding has been forthcoming, the twist is to imply that that lack of funding is because scientists are ignoring plasma. Tommy Mandel 04:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

? --Art Carlson 09:27, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Let me explain it this way. Intent. There are two aspects of a criminal act mens reus and actus reus. The act and the intent. Noth are necessary for a criminal act to have been committed. Woman walks into store puts her purse down, then picks up other ladies purse and walks out. Did she steal it? If her intent was to take her own purse, then it was a mistake and not theft. The difference beteen ignores these ideas and is ignorant of these ideas is the implied intent. Tommy Mandel 03:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I still can't figure out where you see a problem. It would help if you would suggest an alternate wording. Are you saying that Tom Van Flandern is wrong, dishonest, or putting the blame on plasma when he writes that plasma cosmology is "ignored by astronomers"? Would you be happy if the article said "The professional cosmology community is not aware of the ideas of plasma cosmology." or "The professional cosmology community does not pay any attention to the ideas of plasma cosmology." or maybe explicitly "Research in plasma cosmology receives no funding and its ideas are not discussed at scientific conferences."? --Art Carlson 09:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

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It is not my opinion that Hubble didn't believe in expansion. It is not my opinion that redshift can be explained in various ways (Creil). It is not my opinion that what happened before and leading up to Inflation is not known. It is not my opinion that the mechanism of Inflation is not known. It is not my opinion that there are very many different versions of the Inflation theory. It is not my opinion that none of them has yet to be widely accepted as the most popular theory. It is not my opinion that cosmologists research with recently found hybrid MHD modelings. It is not my opinion that MHD ignores electric effects, I think, because of a lack of understanding of electrostatics they said...(?)It is not my opinion that galaxies are spirialing outward and not inward. It is not my opinion that the quasars are local. It is not my opinion that a black hole is actually a while hole.

What is my opinion is that the source of energy/matter is at the center af a AGN, and it is perfectly normal for such a source to be spewing out all kinds of stuff. (gases and plasma's)Tommy Mandel 02:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I've been wondering how you reconcile a static universe with the second law of thermodynamics. Now I see you solve half the problem by postulating objects that violate conservation of mass/energy. I must say, if postulating forms of matter (dark matter, dark energy, inflaton) that have never been observed on Earth is manslaughter, then postulating violation of the conservation of mass/energy is murder in the first degree, but, hey, you're welcome to your private opinion. The other half of your problem is finding a sink so that the density of the universe stays constant. May I suggest two solutions? (1) Black holes, although they would have to not only swallow matter but annihilate it, or (2) an expanding universe (à la steady state theory). --Art Carlson 09:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a deje vu for me, just before I looked up plasma in Wikipedia, a colleague and I were at the tail end of a long detailed discussion about the second law. One of his concluding comments was that he needed the big bang to create the second law. (conceptually) As far as the law of conservation, Inflation derives the energy from the scalar field, so why not my Inside dimension which is the same thing? Now, the sink. Thanks for pointing out the other half of the question/solution. Do you know anything about Tommy Gold's recycling cosmology? I read one sentence of his, enough for me to adopt his name, but strangely never got around to looking into his model. Anyway, are you saying that as much energy must disappear as that which appears?

Tommy Mandel 03:39, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Still thinking about it. Tommy Mandel 03:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

You tell me. This is your fantasy of cosmology. But if you believe the universe was always like it is now and always will be, then you can't allow energy to build up over time. --Art Carlson 09:14, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Let's start with this, I am not the only one --

"How can anything that small be conscious?", David Bohm says in "The Undivided Universe", 1994, p. 37:

"The fact that the particle is moving under its own energy, but being guided by the information in the quantum field, suggests that an electron or any other elementary particle has a complex and subtle inner structure .... To make this suggestion yet more plausible, we note that between the shortest distances now measurable in physics (of the order of 10^-16 cm) and the shortest distances in which current notions of space-time have any meaning which is of the order of 10^-33 cm, there is a vast range of scale ... comparable to that which exists between our own size and that of the elementary particle. Moreover, since the vacuum is generally regarded as full ... it may further be suggested that ultimately the energy of this particle comes from this source."

This "source" was identified by Hal Puthoff in his 1987 paper in which he shows that the radiational energies of an atomic particle are balanced by an energy input from what he called the ZPF. In short, atomic particles move, and some of them have magnetic moment, and they do this moving forecer. You talk about the law of conservation, so how can a particle do it's thing forever without running out of energy? Eventually we come to the conclusion that a particle gets it's energy from inside, and when you put a quantity of particles together such as in a star, you have a lot of energy being supplied by what to us is the center of the star. This explains why we do in fact observe energy flowing out from a star and from the center of a galaxy and from what is called a black hole, which Arp calls a white hole.

What the hell are you talking about? If you don't have any notion what the sink of energy is, just say so. --Art Carlson 17:59, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, what is the sink of energy? Tommy Mandel 03:33, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Are you asking me where the sink of energy is in your cosmology? --Art Carlson 09:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

time to answer these questions

Do you agree that: A) The original big bang theory as an explosion of matter has been falsified and discarded? B) The replacement theory of Inflation has not been "proved" C) Inflation is based on a physics which is unknown to us. D) After Inflation, the Universe is in a plasma state. E) the big bang theory is based on gravity and does not take plasma into account. !!!!

Those are questions we can perhaps discuss at some point, but I would really like to first settle these questions (or at least understand your position on them):

1) Is it required, or at least always allowed, to report what the majority believes on an issue (right or wrong)?

2) Should Hubble's opinion be reported as one of the notable minority opinions on the interpretation of the redshift-distance relation?

--Art Carlson 20:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

How come, after thirty years of reading science books, I cannot recall even one which talked about majority and minority views? Except, of course, Thomas Kuhn's "Strucure of Scientific Revolutions which goes into some detail how the mainstream protects their favored theory until finally a revolution takes place, a.k.a. paradigm shift, is a notable exception. Have you read it?

To answer your question, it is allowed to report opinions as long as they are from verifiable and reputable sources. And of course Hubble should be mentioned in regards to redshift/distance. But that does not allow one to misrepresent Hubble's view on redshift/expansion.

We are emphatically not doing science here (WP:NOR), we are writing an encyclopedia. And we are not assuming (in the sense of taking on) the majority view, we are reporting it. If it's all right with you, I would like to declare this point settled: An article on any topic is required to report, in one form or another, what most people think about it. --Art Carlson 08:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

(Does this mean we can include what four hundred people think about the big bang? Tommy Mandel

First, the plasma cosmology article is not about the big bang theory. There is no valid comparison of majority and minority here except in terms of Plasma cosmology. This is not a general article about cosmology where majority and minority positions are represented. This is a dedicated article about plasma cosmology. As far as mentioning what people think of it, I would say that it is the plasma people who should dominat that mentioning, and of course what the big bang thinks of plasma should be mentioned. I do not argue that mention of the big bang is not appropriate, I argue that here in the plasma cosmology article the dominant theory is plasma cosmology theory. Can you understand that? Tommy Mandel

So at least you now acknowledge that your insertion of Hubble's view into the big bang article was out of place? --Art Carlson 20:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes and no. Yes in the sense that big bang is about big bang and is not required to present opposing views per se...(?) No, in the sense that whenever redshift, Doppler, and Hubble are mentioned together, it would be more accurate to include Hubble's position.

Have I got this straight? Your position is that the article about plasma cosmology should not report, in any form, what most people think about it. --Art Carlson 08:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Now getting back to the point, you seem to think that Hubble was right concerning the nature of redshift, and you seem to think that that is an argument for including his POV in some science articles (as opposed to his biography). Are you aware that, according to Wikipedia policy (with which you may disagree),

• Your opinion doesn't matter in Wikipedia. (WP:NOR)
• It doesn't matter whether Hubble really was right or not. (WP:V)

--Art Carlson 08:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Nor does your opinion. Nor does Scienceapologist's opinion. What matters are the facts. And the fact is that Hubble did not agree with expansion. The fact is that it cannot be said that Hubble proved expansion. Why are you arguing about leaving information out of the articles? I thought you said you try to improve them? Is leaving out valuable information improving the article?

Tommy Mandel 23:07, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

And it is also a fact that Tommy Mandel does not agree with expansion. The question is, whose views are notable enough that they should be reported? I submit that Mandel has a better claim than Hubble, because Mandel has had the opportunity to review half a century of intensive observations and theoretical development that was not available to Hubble. --Art Carlson 20:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Trying to find an answer to your question...I am not the only one who doesn't accept expansion as an explanation. That list of 30 has grown to four hundred signers. Even so what I think shouldn't influence my editing here. However, I can report what is being reported in the field. And by selective editing accomplish the same thing - a circumvention of NPOV.

But here is my point about Hubble. I once read somewhere, that "Hubble proved the Universe is expanding" Now, if one studies the history of cosmology, one finds that not only did Hubble not prove expansion, he didn't even believe it. So the statement "Hubble proved expansion" is false. And when it appears in a place that is purported to be scientific, then that statement is pseudoscience or as a scientist would put it, it is not science. It is a falsehood. I have no desire to edit the big bang article.

Hubble's conclusion/doubts should be in the big bang article at least as a note. If you go to the article "redshift" I would say that Hubble's belief should be in the article proper. If you go to intrinsic redshift, it should be in the lead paragraph. If you go to the redshift section of plasma cosmology, it should be mentioned because plasma cosmology does not have a Doppler redshift. PC assumes an intrinsic (non-Doppler)cause for redshift, and that is what Hubble wanted to say.

Tommy Mandel

I don't care that you 'once read somewhere, that "Hubble proved the Universe is expanding"'. You didn't read it in Wikipedia (check out the links in your last section, as well as Hubble's law and Big bang), so there is nothing to correct. --Art Carlson 08:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I care that "someone" is telling us that Hubble proved expansion because that is not true. What is an encyclopedia for anyhow? I'll take your word for it that it is not being said in Wikipedia. My thought was that because it has been mentioned "somewhere" that "Hubble proved expansion" it would be a courtesy to keep the reader well informed. Tommy Mandel 01:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Is cosmology the big bang theory?

(Blocked)::Exactly what is this "mainstream view" in science" If it is a belief system among the scientists, then their beliefs do not constitute evidence that their belief is true. And is this "mainstream view" reporting a verifiable and reputable source? Or is is the opinion of the editor, expertise notwithstanding? Obviously editorial opinions violate NPOV. So it is important to determine where "mainstream view" comes from. Is there a scientific paper stating that there is a mainstream view and what that view is?

ArtC, I went to the article called cosmology. It states in part --

In recent times, physics and astrophysics have come to play a central role in shaping what is now known as physical cosmology, i.e. the understanding of the Universe through scientific observation and experiment. This discipline, which focuses on the Universe as it exists on the largest scales and at the earliest times, begins with the big bang, an expansion of space from which the Universe itself is said to have erupted ~13.7 ± 0.2 billion (109) years ago

According to the article, "This discipline (physical cosmology) begins with the big bang..." do you agree with that?

Tommy Mandel 23:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I do have to admit that the discipline of physical cosmology did not begin with the big bang, but rather some 13.7 ± 0.2 billion years later. ;-) --Art Carlson 08:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying that the only theory explaing physical cosmology is the big bang theory? Do you have a source which proves the big bang is the only correct theory? Or is "Inflation" still an unproven hypothesis? And then guess what I found in the history? It was a revert by an editor and this is his explanation for the revert.

(Redundant. Current physical cosmology does not *argue* for the big bang, it presupposes it.)

Perhaps you could explain this to me please...

Tommy Mandel

I realize that a Wiki editor here must take into consideration the weightyness of what he is writing about. But at the same time, I question that NPOV allows the editor to interject weightyness. My understanding is that NPOV is circumvented by merely citing a verifiable and rreputable source stating weightyness.

So a statement that such and such cosmology is the most popular among scientists should read like this "as reported by a poll taken of the scientists and reported in this publication. And not, "XYZ cosmology, the most popular theory among scientists, is ..."

My judgements are based on observations, and I pay little attention to public opinion as well as imaginary science polls. "Wisdom is not an attribute of a majority"

My observations are A. The big bang theory is based on Einstein's General Relativity theory. B. Einstein's General Relativity theory is based on gravitational forces. C. Einstein's General Relativity leaves out electric and magnetic forces.

I have a reputable and verifiable source from a book written by a great interpreter of physics which states that.J.W.N. Sullivan. The Limitation of Science. Mentor books (1949)

Therefore, the Standard Cosmological big bagn theory which is derived from General Relativity and has its basis the garvitational forces, ALSO leaves out the electric and magnetic forces. (Remember we (ArtL and me)talked about this, you said Plasma is considered at cool down?)

Therefore, Plasma, insofar as cosmology is concerned, strictly speaking, scientifically, is a missing piece of the puzzle, yet to recognized by the classical cosmologists, and is not, in this scientific way, a "fringe" science in the sense that it is being portrayed here, as a discredited theory. It is not discredited, it uncredited.

Cosmological singularity

Without wanting to get into long discussions, I think some of your objections to the big bang might be based on an understanding of the term that I and many others do not share. For example, you wrote today "The big bang necessarily assumes that the beginning occured at point." This is not the current thinking.

Permit me to explain briefly how I think of the big bang. First, I accept (tentatively) the Doppler nature of the redshift as the most obvious interpretation given our current understanding of physics. Given that, the universe was once denser and hotter than it is now. The question is how far the extrapolation is valid. For many phenomena in physics, an extrapolation over one, two, or three orders of magnitude is already a great success and nobody is surprised if different physics comes into play after that. In the case of the big bang, after extrapolating a factor of 3000 in size, we come to a transition between plasma and neutral atoms, which results in the prediction of a CMB. That's nice, but not great because we cannot directly predict the temperature it should have. If we keep going, we can go another factor of a million before anything really interesting happens, namely BBN. If we examine the consequences of the hypothesis of an expansion extending back to this era, we can now make a quantitative prediction of the temperature of the CMB. That is what I see as the real success of the big bang hypothesis, and I would call it the big bang, even if the story stopped there. After all, a theory that makes successful predictions by extrapolating over 10 orders of magnitude is nothing to sneeze at. Encouraged by this success, we can continue to extrapolate backward. We find that we can describe the universe at earlier times, but we can't really make any robust observational predictions. At 10^-35 seconds, there seems to be a need to introduce some new physics - inflation - in order to go farther. I, and many cosmologists, agree with you that inflation, although very attractive, is still very speculative. Even if we can jump that hurdle, at the latest (earliest) we know that our extrapolation has to introduce something new at the Planck scale, 10^-43 seconds.

The point is, I think it is not necessary, and probably not even possible, to extrapolate back to a singularity in order to talk about a big bang. For me, the big bang is the physics of the universe up to the present day but starting at some time between 10^-43 seconds and 1 second. This is also the way it is described in the article:

Mysteries appear as one looks closer to the beginning, when particle energies were higher than can yet be studied by experiment. There is no compelling physical model for the first 10−33 seconds of the universe, before the phase transition that grand unification theory predicts. At the "first instant", Einstein's theory of gravitation predicts a gravitational singularity where densities become infinite. To resolve this paradox, a theory of quantum gravitation is needed. Understanding this period of the history of the universe is one of the greatest unsolved problems in physics.

I don't expect to bring you over to the big bang side, but I hope you can see some common ground in what I have described, so that the discussion can proceed with a bit less heat and more clarity. Do you see a possibility of finding a common definition of the big bang that does not necessarily extrapolate all the way back to a singularity?

--Art Carlson 08:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Welllll, thank you for discussing this intelligently and honestly. If we are to move forward, then we can only do so honestly, otherwise it is a game. In return I will be honest with you and try to explain why I think as I do. Doing so will be stepping into uncharted territories for me, and I trust you will help me rather than trip me.

I think the significant aspect of the big bang is not the singularity, I will return to that later, but gravity. When I look up into the night sky, or look at a photograph of a galaxy, I can't see gravity pulling all of it together. It just doesn't look to me like gravity at work. Sure, a spiral galaxy could be looked at as if gravity were sucking all those stars inward, but what about a globular cluster? How could they exist like that? They say that at galactic distances, the gravity of a galaxy drops significantly. Yeah, but still...

At some point it occured to me that perhaps the spiral galaxy is not spiraling inward, like water vortexing it's way down a drain, perhaps it is spiraling outward, like those fireworks spinners the kids love to play with. Indeed, the same conclusion was reached by an astronomer, the president of a Royal astonomical society nonetheless, (I tried to put that into the article, but...)he said that the more he looked at the plates, the more it looked like the galaxy is spiraling outward. Isaac Asimov wrote about that in one of his books, and how Oort measured an outflowing matter from a/the galaxy, and to him this suggested a cycling going on becauce Oort's calculated rate of out flow was about one stellar mass per year, and by this time the galaxy would be empty.

BUT, and this is a big but, if matter is spiraling outward, where is it coming from? What is the mechanism that is producing the matter that is flowing outward?

That's a good question. But let me digress here for a moment. Can we ask the same question of the big bang theory? Why not? What is the mechanism that created the scalar field? And even if a mechanism is hypothesized, it is possible to test it? One of the answers I have heard, and it is frankly totally unsatisfying to me, is that we don't know what happened before T = 0 because nothing existed before that time (or something along those lines). Duhhhh...That rates along side of the explanaton for the forever orbiting movement of electrons around the nucleus "because they can't fall in".

Back to the question, "What would produce matter/energy inside a galaxy?

Before I get into my explanation, let me point out that there is observable evidence, objective evidence, of matter/energy flowing outward from a AGN, and other sources too. And here is where the big bang and plasma theory are supposed to be saying the same thing. If gravity were the dominant force, and if matter were being pulled/pushed inward toward the center of a galaxy/star, why would matter be seen moving outward? Sometimes faster than light! In plumes, jets, sprays, geysers, you name it. It is, Proga said, to provide the mechanism to do just that that the black hole was conceived of. Not the black hole, because it is out of this universe so to speak, but the accretion disk around the black hole. The story as I understand it is that as matter is pulled inward toward the black hole, radiation from the black hole counteracts the inward flow, and at some point this radiation pushes some matter back out. And that is how we see matter flowing outward. Problem is, there are supossed black holes without a surrounding matter supply.

Remember, all we need is one counterinstance and the entire theoretical structure fails. We don't need a scientific concensus to falsify, just one (confirmed) instance does the job.

Let's talk about that singularity now. I don't know anything about General relativity, or his gravitational theory, in spite of the six books I have written by Einstein. I have read that a singularity is required in the mathematics. BUT I have also read that nothing in the theory defines a size for this singularity. How big is a single?

Let's jump to another subject - non-locality. Bell's theorem and Aspect's confirmation shows us experimentally that a photon pair ejected from a common source maintain a relationship even when separated. Non-locality is regarded as scientific fact. I have a source. There are, I read, two possible explanations for the observations which led to non-locality. (I think there are always two possible explanations for anything) One explanation is that there is faster than light transmission. The hundreds of verifications testing led to the development of fast as light switches. The alternative explanation is that the two photons are a single entity even while separated.

I reject the former faster than light explanation, because it would mean arriving before leaving. The second alternative, that the photons are of a single entity, makes much more sense to me. In that case, there is no here and there.

And now we can go back to a singularity. We know for a fact that the scalar field is non-local. As far as the scalar field is concerned there is no such thing as a point or even point like. The singularity happened everywhere, and not in a few nanoseconds, but instaneously.

It wasn't a big inflation, it was more like a phase transition, like when water freezes.

Interestingly, one of those Bewildering array" of Inflation theories has many many singularities happening. They are described as Universes. But why couldn't they be galaxies? AGN?

Back to the present. What mechanism would create energy in the center of a star/galaxy? Well, if a tiny plasmoid can do it is some guy's basement, surely a star could do it too?

Thank you for your description, but you are asking me to accept Doppler redshift as a given. I agree that if it were a given, then all that you talk about could be for real. But Doppler redshift is not a given, it was not derived from observation, it hasn't been proved, there is evidence which contradicts the Doppler redshift interpretation, and, I am told, redhift is well known to those working with optics. The CREIL effect creates redshift without scattering. There is some evidence that redshift/expansion does not exist. Logically, it would result in galaxies moving at the speed of light.

Let's stop here for a second. Some might interject at this point, and state that it is the space that is expanding. As if the moving apart is some kind of illusion. So how does this illusion not affect relative velocities on the one hand and yet affect redshift velocities on the other hand? Keep in mind that this so called "space" is really the non-local scalar field. (I'm using scalar field as a catch all word for the dozen other names of physicists have come up with.) If Einsten ca say that acceleration and gravity cannot be told apart in sertain situations, then I can say that expansion and gravity cannot be told apart either. What I mean is that inertia is not negated by the expansion of the scalar field. And then if the process were carried even further toward it's logical end, at sme point there is a galaxxy moving away from us faster than the speed of light.

The theory is not consistent, beautiful or elegant ad it does not lead to natural conclusions and observations. It certainly isn't simple.

Let's pause for a moment.

Beep! Overload! Can we try to be terse and focussed and stick to one (or no more than three) question at a time? Can we agree that it is reasonable and commmon to use the term big bang without refering to a singularity? --Art Carlson 09:27, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Can we...

Objection. The original "big Bang" as conceived by it's authors, has been falsified/discredited/forgotten, Inflation is an ontologically different theory. The name "Big Bang" was retained in a contest. It is, regardless of popular opinion, stating a falsehood. Ask anybody what big bang means?

To answer your question, it doesn't seem like big bang and singularities can be separated so in one sense they are the same. I would think that anyone would assume that big bang meant singularity, whether or not he knew what that meant.

Can we agree that it is reasonable and commmon to use the term big bang without refering to a singularity?

I don't know...certainly you think that way because you know something, but those that don't know that something would most likely assume the natural thing. Which in my case is a point. Can you tell me what a singularity is, I know it is a mathematical concept, can you show me the notation?Tommy Mandel

This is just stuff going on inside my head, I read once that General Relativity has a singularity, but the size of the singularity is not defined. Doesn't this mean that there is nothing in the theory saying that singularity has to be say Planck's length? Maybe there isn't any smaller and bigger singularity. Maybe the size of a singularity is an artifact of our conceptual construction. Is infinity big or small?

Excuse me, but just because stuff is going on in your head doesn't mean I want to know about it. I am more concerned with what you do. In the case of discussions in Wikipedia, I would like you to use language in a way that is consistent with the way other people use it. It reduces the frictional losses. In particular, your statement "The big bang necessarily assumes that the beginning occured at point." (my emphasis), is not consistent with current thought and usage.

Actually, I would expect you to be very interested at least in the eternal inflation versions of the big bang. One of your major objections is your aversion (more philosophical than observational) to the idea of a beginning of the universe. Eternal inflation, currently a serious contender among theories of cosmic inflation, has no singularity and (at least in some versions) no beginning.

--Art Carlson 11:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Fine with me. As far as being clear, I wonder how come members of your group use words that I have never before seen in my entire lifetime, and they use words I have seen but in ways I have seen them used before in my life time, and the logic is not understandable by me? How come you ask me to be exact and precise with my wording when your group succeeds at deriving a presupposed fact from what you admittedly call a speculation. What you have going on is not the most correct theory of the beginning of the Universe, but a theory of possible theories, one of which is a serious contender among other theories of cosmic inflation. In other words the big bang theoyur is only one of many alternative theories. That is to say, there is no big bang theory that can be presupposed.

My aversion to a sized beginning derived from the redshift Doppler interepretation is based on my observation that Doppler redshift does not exist. And without that Doppler assumption, I do not have to deal with beginnings or size. What I then can deal with is what is happening right now, and not some supposed past which can only exist in my mind.

My complaint here is that the editors here act as if the big bang has been proven a fact, the correct theory, and all the rest are fringe theories long ago discredited by most cosmologists. And the insistence to criticize the alternatives explanation without accepting criticism themselves.

If this is "fine with you", then how about amending accordingly the parts of your evidence that build on the statement "The big bang necessarily assumes that the beginning occured at point."? --Art Carlson 16:50, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

It's fine with me if you don't want to hear my thoughts. What if I substitute "spot" for "point." Tommy Mandel 18:57, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

What difference does that make??? --Art Carlson 19:16, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

And also point A ("the big bang theory ... postulates a beginning from nothing") of this evidence? --Art Carlson 16:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying that what we think of as nothing is really something?Tommy Mandel 18:57, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

No. The eternal inflation scenario says there has really always been something. --Art Carlson 19:16, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

No. The eternal inflation scenario says there has really always been something. --Art Carlson 19:16, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

(Back to margin) Eternal is a good start. ERWIN SCHROEDINGER had something to say about eternal,

"Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is, in a certain sense, the WHOLE; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in the sacred, mystic formula which is yet so simple and so clear: "Tat Tvam asi". this is you...And not merely "someday"; now, today, every day she is bringing you forth, not once, but thousands upon thousands of times, just as every day she engulfs you a thousand times over. For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end.

Is that what they mean by "eternal?" The present Now? And the task is to describe what's happening? Tommy Mandel 23:30, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Whatever. Are you going to change your evidence to make it consistent with what you have said here? --Art Carlson 06:38, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Not on the basis of what you told me Art, On of many theories do not start at a minimum size, that does not mean the minimum size can be ignored. Tommy Mandel 16:37, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

You state that "On[e] of many theories do[es] not start at a minimum size". Do I properly understand that to mean you admit "There is at least one version of big bang theory that does not assume that the beginning occurred at a point?" If so, that is in contradiction to your evidence. --Art Carlson 17:51, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Not so fast. I want to understand what it is that you want me to understand because my understanding of what you are saying I think is quite different. Because if I understand you rightly, you are saying that the Universe always was, and you are asking me to remove my point as if it were me that made the mistake. Seems to me that I heard this same stuff but coming from the fringes, you know, those discredited nonsensical disruptions. So you found one of the 21 variations of Inflation Theory that postulates an eternal scalar wave. Do you know what eternal means to me?

Only God knows whether the universe always was. I don't. But I do know that at least one version of big bang theory (call it Inflation Variation Number 21), postulates just that. Either you don't believe that such a theory exists, or you believe that it does, or you don't know. In any case except the first, you cannot consistently state that the big bang necessarily postulates a beginning from nothing. --Art Carlson 07:48, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure what you mean by God, my understanding in the more scientific sense is the Whole. So the Whole creating something from itself makes more sense to me. The "eternal" that which has no beginning, is the present moment, a.k.a. Now. What happened tens of billions years ago is what is happening now. Is that what your Eternal Inflation theory assumes? 205.188.116.5 16:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

If so, then I would have to say that "Mainstream big bang theory widely supports creation from nothing" and your good idea becomes one of those fringe theories with only minor support and acceptance. So, how does it feel?205.188.116.5 17:10, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how much popularity eternal inflation currently enjoys, and I don't care right now. The question (which you seem to be trying to avoid) is which of these (mutually exclusive) statements do you believe (or neither, or both):

• "Eternal inflation is a big bang theory that does not postulate a beginning in time."
• "Any big bang theory must necessarily postulate a beginning in time."

--Art Carlson 19:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

(A) False. Eternal Inflation is not a big bang theory, big bang is part of Inflation theory, according to one of the authors of Inflation theory. So while it can be argued that there is one version of Inflation family which does not postulate a beginning in time, the big bang aspect of it does.

Thanks. That narrows the playing field a bit. You seem to admit that eternal inflation (as the name suggests) does not postulate a beginning in time. So you believe that eternal inflation is not a big bang theory. That's a new one on me. Would you care to elaborate? --Art Carlson 23:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Not me, but Linde said that big bang is part of Inflation theory. I can see why, FIrst Inflation, then big bang. What derives from what? Does big bang derive from Inflation? Does Inflation derive from big bang? If the former then big bang is part of Inflation, but if the latter then Inflation must necessarily have a beginning.

You have a real knack for expressing yourself unintelligibly. Do you believe (a) inflation necessarily implies a Big Bang, or (b) a Big Bang necessarily implies inflation? --Art Carlson 08:25, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to have to ask you to define Big Bang in terms of "modern big bang" sans Inflation, please.205.188.116.5 15:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I already told you how I use the term. What I'm trying to figure out is how you intended to use the term when you said a Big Bang necessarily implies a beginning in time. --Art Carlson 17:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

(B) True. Looking at the primary evidence of the big bang, the cmbr, expansion, heavy atoms, fluctuations, aren't they all derived from a beginning? Tommy Mandel 23:08, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Interwesting how this plawas out.

I seem to be avoiding the answer? Yes I am. I am being cautious because I don't want to admit that your theory is the same as ours at some point. Because if I do admit that, then if you follow historical precedent, after the opposing theory has been ridiculed, then they say they are saying the same thing and after that then they say they thought of it first.

I solemnly swear that I will not steal your Nobel prize. --Art Carlson 08:20, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

So let me ask a question: do you agree that the central notion/claim among all the fringe theories taken as a whole, in some form, emerges as a description of the Universe as (A)a continuous process, today, and; (B) always was a continuous process?

I don't think it makes any sense to take "fringe theories as a whole" and I'm not sure what you mean by "continuous process". Since the central idea of the dominant cosmological paradigm is the Big Bang, the fringiest theories will generally deny that and suggest some sort of steady state universe. Eternal inflation (which I would not describe as fringe) is an interesting case that accepts Big Bang evolution on "cosmological" scales (billions of years and God knows how many Gigaparsecs), while postulating the perfect cosmological principle on still larger scales. One of the many problems that steady state cosmologies have is explaining the variation of various properties, e.g. metallicity, densities of quasars, and large scale structure, with redshift. In the Big Bang, that is a natural consequence of the evolution of the universe. --Art Carlson 08:20, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I really do not believe that dominance is any kind of evidence in the scientifc sense. Thales of Melitus first conceived of science to break away from the dominant view, remember? So in the scientific sense it is not a case of the dominant and the fringe, they are all candidates here. It is not true that plasma cosmology has been discredited, because the big bang does not consider EMF, plasma is uncredited. Unknown, not ignored. And in the end the cosmological theory will consist of both gravity and EMF, not unlike the standard theory of particle physics.

Having said that, I'd like to answer your concerns specifically. It will take some time But the quasar density is easy - Hmmmm I really am confused about what the big bang really is? I know it was not the explosion of matter, that was falsified long ago. I understand that Inflation was proposed as a means of getting to the right "flat" size from the start, so let's start after the Universe is the right size, what is the first physical process in your words?Tommy Mandel

Maybe it would be a good idea to refrain from making catagorical statements about a concept before you have an idea what it really is?

Would you like to see a Graphical timeline of the Big Bang? After inflation, in the standard view, comes a quark-gluon plasma. Doesn't that thrill your heart?

--Art Carlson 09:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

What I would like to see is the big bang explanation for redshift.

My understanding was that the Doppler interpretation was adopted by cosmologists and popularizers as an indecation of expansion, and that it was this expansion that indicated the logical beginning and that to get from this beginning whateveritwas to the size of the Universe the only explanation offered was an inflation, they don't know how, but the Univese went from tiny to huge, AND THEN standard physics kicks in. Now you call it quark/gluon plasma, I wonder where I heard that word before. Let's see, Art L called it discredited, fringe stuff, and here we are with a title called by Wikipedia "Pseudoscience." Do you se something wrong with this scenario?

The big bang explanation for the cosmological redshift is the expansion of space. Although apparently not 100% correct, it doesn't matter for present purposes if you think of it as a Doppler shift. Either way you arrive at the important conclusion that there was a lot less elbow room in the universe a few billion years ago. That is the great divide between mainstream and fringe cosmology, not what happened way back in the first second or the first 10^-35 sec. And since when did Art L or anybody else call quark-gluon plasma "discredited" or "fringe"? --Art Carlson 20:43, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I think he's misquoting this. Art LaPella 23:08, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

---

Expansion and the equivalence principle

I'm glad that you acknowledge that plasma has not been discredited or even that it should be considered a fringe science. So do you agree that because plasma is in fact the major component of the Universe, the scientific study of the major component of the Universe cannot be said in any sense to be a "fringe" science? Do you also agree that there are many instances where plasma plays a significant role, and that these specific applications require a specialized science and therefore the entire field of plasma science could encompass a great variety of theories? And do you agree that because there is a great variety of different theories for different applications that this variety should not be taken to mean that plasma science is merely a hodgepot of different ideasTommy Mandel

Hey, I'm a plasma physicist, for chrissake. However, I'm sorry to inform you, in the mainstream view (which I share), only 4% of the universe the plasma. The rest is dark matter and dark energy. But still, 4% of the whole universe is not exactly peanuts. I smell a trap, but still I can agree with everything you say here. --Art Carlson 13:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

If you are a plasma physicist, why don't you say it correctly, Dark matter and Dark Energy are hypothesized solutions to problems caused by the expansion theory and the gravitational theory. They are products of the big bang theory necessary to make it work. If there is no expansion then there is no need for Dark Energy. And if a galaxy is not wholly gravity driven, Dark matter would not be required. Tommy Mandel 13:37, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Did I say something incorrectly? Is it not the mainstream view that the combined hypotheses of expansion, general relativity, dark matter and dark energy best explain the sum of all observations? And I don't see how any other explanation (j×B forces, or what?) can simultaneously explain the velocities of stars in galaxies and galaxies in clusters, the pressure balance of hot plasmas in galaxies and in clusters, gravitational lensing, and formation of large scale structure. --Art Carlson 15:02, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

You tell me that the redshift is caused by the expansion of space. But when I look it up in Wikipedia it says this

From Wikipedia Redshift--"Redshift occurs when a light source moves away from an observer, corresponding to the Doppler shift that changes the frequency of sound waves. Although such redshifts have several terrestrial uses (e.g. Doppler radar and radar guns),[1] they are essential in spectroscopic astrophysics to determine the movement of distant astronomical objects.[2]

So, who do I believe?

Tommy Mandel 00:47, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

In case of doubt, always believe me! ;-)

You have made another of your small but important misquotes that would make me hot under the collar if this were a public page: The correct quote is "A redshift can occur when a light source moves away from an observer" (emphasis mine). The next paragraph is the one you were looking for :"Another redshift mechanism accounts for the famous observation that the spectral redshifts of distant galaxies, quasars, and intergalactic gas clouds are observed to increase proportionally with their distance to the observer. This relation is accounted for by models that predict the the universe is expanding, seen in, for example, the Big Bang model.".

There's a whole lot of unanswered questions on both sides which I want to get to, so I hesitate asking yet another. But it bothers me, this expansion of "space". Sure, it is the scalar field that is really expanding, (why not use the proper terminology? It is not space that is expanding, space is a measurable physical thing, what would be expanding, if expansion were happening, would be the inside of space - the hyperdimension.) But, I ask again, what about non-locality? What I am trying to say is that the properties of the scalar field are such that the physical property of expansion would not take place. What would take place is a phase transition. This phase transition would be non-local, meaning, in our terms, it is a single entity and has no here nor there to it.

I have a problem with an expansion of the scalar field. First of all why do we need expansion? Because we observe a redshift? Tommy Mandel 02:17, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what you're trying to ask about the (non-)locality of the expansion. I believe the standard picture is that expansion occurs a bit faster here and there, and that that is actually one of the reasons we see fluctuations in the CMB. But I'll take a stab at the question of why we need expansion. First, to explain the redshift, of course. Second, to be consistent with general relativity. Third to explain why nothing in the universe seems to be over 13 billion years old. Fourth, to explain why all the hydrogen has not yet been burnt to helium in stars, and why galaxies and galaxy clusters have not yet completely collapsed. That's a pretty good start. After that we get into details like BBN and CMB fluctuations. --Art Carlson 13:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me Art C

There's something I have to get off my chest, want you to know that you did not have anything to do with I am going to say.

I am NOT a wikieditor, nor do I aspire to become one. I have enough writing of my own to keep me busy. Part of my job is to do research and I have done quite a lot of that. I have read enough of the literature, both Western and Eastern, to be able to tell the good from the bad, the great from the small. The good doesn't have to belittle the bad and the great wants to lift everyone else up, not drag them down to their level. Your editors may think themselve as being clever with their sly remarks in the interest of mainstream NPOV, but it is obvious to almost any reader when the story starts to read one way or the other. Editors have to twist the story to twist the story. Duhhhh Unfortunately, the "reader" is hardly if ever mentioned. I am a reader and the quality of your literature does not impress me. It is tainted and It makes me wonder what isn't. In my estimation, Wikipedia is useless to the serious researcher. The presentation of the most popular view is already known to every researcher, it is the small out of the way so called fringe information that we are interested in. That Hubble never believed in expansion. That Inflation Theory replaced the original big bang. That the big bang does not include electromeagneticsm the stuff that makes life, and instead tries to explain everything in terms of gravitational forces and to do that it was necessary to invent all kinds of black stuff so far invisible and unconfirmed. That no one actually knows what gravity is. That all of this is just a theory, a hypothesis, an educated guess. And it is absurd from my point of view that you promote it in the guize of some imaginary Mainstream science as if science were a religion. Science is a verb, Google it.

For one thing, you're a wikieditor because you edit the wiki. Art LaPella 06:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Art L, I managed to edit out your last edit here I think by accident. something you said, can't find it anymore. Tommy Mandel

This is another of your misconceptions about the mainstream theory that I wish would would stop repeating. Electromagnetism does plays a very important role in Big Bang theory. From the quark-gluon plasma, through the acoustic fluctuations that explain the CMB fluctuations, through the recombination that produced the CMB itself, and later through reionization and processes in the formation of large scale structure. How on earth did you ever get the idea that electromagnetism or plasmas are ignored by mainstream cosmologists? --Art Carlson 10:01, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Probably when the mainstream cosmologist's secondary reporters talk about "gas" Probably because GR is about gravity and not EMF.

Probably because mainstream cosmologist's reporters try to describe plasma effects in terms of gravity like the outpourings of AGN. Probably because mainstream cosmology reporters do not believe that magnetic and electric effects affect large scale structure. Tommy Mandel 16:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow you. It sounds like you might be willing to entertain the hypothesis that the problem is not in mainstream cosmology itself, but in the way mainstream cosmology gets reported by the time it gets to you. Remember, too, that while general relativity is essential to Big Bang cosmology, a lot of other things (like plasmas) are important, too. --Art Carlson 17:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I do not believe that the beliefs of mainstream science is scientific and therefore the so called mainstream view cannot be considered a part of science. Of course "facts" are a different story.

I do believe that when this imaginary mainstream view filters down through secondary sources it does become a belief system, contrary to the purpose of empirical science. If this filtering were accurate, then I would agree that the simplificaton/synthesis would be a good thing. But I have, over the years, found that this reporting is not accurate, and can be twisted around to support a belief when that support is only hypothetical.

As an example, consider black holes. I have pasted below two statements from D. Proga, one of the principle investigators of black holes. Proga wrote in a paper I cannot find again, that the black hole's accretion disk was a mechanism they had devised to explain the OUTFLOW of matter/energy. Basically, inflowing matter creates a radiation which opposes the inflow, the outflow being that portion which is in effect reflected back out or away from the black hole. Notice in the following how Proga is tentative "most likely" "natural to suppose" "often fails"

In Proga http://www.physics.unlv.edu/~dproga/

Some of the most dramatic phenomena of astrophysics, such as quasars and powerful radio galaxies, are most likely powered by accretion onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Nevertheless, SMBHs appear to spend most of their time in a remarkably quiescent state. SMBHs are embedded in the relatively dense environments of galactic nuclei and it is natural to suppose that the gravity due to an SMBH will draw in matter at high rates, leading to a high system luminosity. However, this simple prediction often fails as many systems are much dimmer than one would expect.

(farther down ---)

Recently, I considered a new generation of disk wind models: a hybrid of line-driven and MHD driven wind model. I used ideal MHD to compute numerically the evolution of Keplerian disks, varying the magnetic field strengths and the luminosity of the disk, the central accreting object or both. I find that the magnetic fields very quickly start deviating from purely axial due to the magnetorotational instability. This leads to fast growth of the toroidal magnetic field as field lines wind up due to the disk rotation. As a result the toroidal field dominates over the poloidal field above the disk and the gradient of the former drives a slow and dense disk outflow, which conserves specific angular momentum. Depending on the strength of the magnetic field relative to the system luminosity the disk wind can be radiation- or MHD driven.

Notice the word "recently" "new generation" "hybrid line driven and MHD driven"

What do you suppose he is referring to when he uses the word MHD?

So can you tell me what happened to the MHD section in plasma cosmology? Tommy Mandel 16:22, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I have to pass on black holes. I know even less about them than I do about cosmology. I do happen to know something about MHD, but I don't get your point. If you want to know what happened to any particular content in plasma cosmology, check out the history. --Art Carlson 09:06, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

It is the wise man who says he does not know when he does not know. Apparently not much is known about Black holes lots of conjectures tho.. But what they are really talking about is a compact object that they surmise is a black hole. HOWEVER, it would seem that the black hole would suck all matter that is close by inward. HOWEVER, what astomomers see is matter flowing OUTWARD. Proga is sayig that the only mechanism they can think of which might spew matter outward is an accretion disk. The point where outward radiation meets inward matter,the excess matter is radiated back outward. Problem is that there are compact objects spewing out matter but no matter can be seen infalling. Tommy Mandel 02:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Back to the real world

OK, I think we are getting somewhere. I want to collect all the points you make for BBT. Then I want to define the terms/state the situation. Then I want to see how gravity explains it and how plasma explains it. So let's start with the below. Please add concepts when appropriate.

1)redshift

velocity

unknown

2)general relativity

theory of gravitation

not discussed

3)age limit

old galaxies at high redshift

4)hydrogen supply

from a time in the past

from plasma

5)galaxy collaspe

Galaxy expansion

6)large scale structures

just notes

Blocked going into evidence

The argument is over the merits of what is said, not how long they have managed to keep it in the article. This section "future" is about the future of plasma but if you red it above, it is all negative. So negative that it seems like a waste of time to consider plasma anymore. They are very subtle in their editing. Calling plasma fringe science because it is new and just beginning to develop is pseudoscientific Is it wise to ignore content on the one hand but cite "correctness" on the other? If content cannot be considered here, then by all rights the big bang and plasma cosmology are equals just like gravity and electromagnetism are equally valid.Tommy Mandel 16:37, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Evidence that there is no big bang theory

If one were to research the subject deeply, one finds that the big bang theory is actually Inflation theory, and Inflation theory is not one theory but several different versions none of which have risen to the status as the correct version. It cannot be said or even implied that the big bang is the most correct theory. It cannot even be said that the big bang is a correct theory. In reality the big bang is a potential proposal, and has yet to attain the big bang theory status, let alone be proven a scientific fact. If the editors here are competant in this field, then I also question why these facts have been left out, and why the subject has been treated as if it is widely accepted. There is no theory to be accepted yet. Something is very wrong here.Tommy Mandel

Cosmological redshifts are a ubiquitous phenomenon that is summarized by Hubble's law in which more distant galaxies have greater redshifts. This redshift has been taken by some astronomers to indicate a Doppler effect. One of the key assumptions of plasma cosmology is that this observation does not indicate an expanding universe.

Hubble's Law shows that the farther away a galaxy is, the greater its redshift. This observation by itself does not indicate expansion. Expansion is indicated when it is assumed that the redshift id Doppler related, and therefore is indicative of velocity and thus expansion.

Plasma Universe and plasma cosmology. Hannes Alfvén urged the application of laboratory and magnetospheric data, and Anthony Peratt of large-scale particle-in-cell simulations, to non-in-situ space regions. Together with direct observation of interstellar and intergalactic plasma phenomenon, this leads them to predict a knowledge expansion about the universe, and a backflow of information about laboratory plasmas. (Click image to enlarge)

From Wikipedia Redshift--"Redshift occurs when a light source moves away from an observer, corresponding to the Doppler shift that changes the frequency of sound waves. Although such redshifts have several terrestrial uses (e.g. Doppler radar and radar guns),[1] they are essential in spectroscopic astrophysics to determine the movement of distant astronomical objects.[2] This redshift phenomenon was first predicted and observed in the nineteenth century as scientists began to consider the dynamical implications of the wave-nature of light. Most famously, the spectral redshifts of distant galaxies, quasars, and intergalactic gas clouds are observed to increase proportionally with their distance to the observer. This is generally considered to be significant evidence that the universe is expanding, as predicted by the Big Bang model.[3]

---

I am a Professor in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University, with a joint appointment in the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics (PACM). My research group studies gas dynamics in a wide variety of astrophysical systems: from protostars to clusters of galaxies, mostly using numerical methods. As part of this effort, we develop, test, and apply numerical algorithms for astrophysical gas dynamics on high-performance computers. Use the links below to find out more about my group and what we do.

Research Group To find out more about members of the group and what they are working on, follow the link to their personal home pages.

Ian Parrish (Graduate Student) Studying anisotropic heat conduction in astrophysical plasmas.

Nicole Lemaster (Graduate Student) Studying the properties of supersonic MHD turbulence in molecular clouds.

Mike Sekora (Graduate Student) Developing numerical algorithms for radiation hydrodynamics based on higher-order Godunov methods.

citation - erroneous source!

Hi Tommy, did the following citation originate with you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Big_Bang&diff=prev&oldid=80752891

Regretfully the source doesn't match the citation! Please comment on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Edwin_Hubble#Hubble.27s_opinion_about_redshift

Thanks in advance,

Harald88 17:12, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

-> What could have been the correct source of the citations above that answered Sandage's questions?

Harald88 17:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Following I have copied the correct test from Sandage's Hubble celebration paper here. Around 32 paragraphs in.

Copied from http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/diamond_jubilee/1996/sandage_hubble.html

Hubble concluded that his observed log N(m) distribution showed a large departure from Euclidean geometry, provided that the effect of redshifts on the apparent magnitudes was calculated as if the redshifts were due to a real expansion. A different correction is required if no motion exists, the redshifts then being due to an unknown cause. Hubble believed that his count data gave a more reasonable result concerning spatial curvature if the redshift correction was made assuming no recession. To the very end of his writings he maintained this position, favouring (or at the very least keeping open) the model where no true expansion exists, and therefore that the redshift "represents a hitherto unrecognized principle of nature". This viewpoint is emphasized (a) in The Realm of the Nebulae, (b) in his reply (Hubble 1937a) to the criticisms of the 1936 papers by Eddington and by McVittie, and (c) in his 1937 Rhodes Lectures published as The Observational Approach to Cosmology (Hubble 1937b). It also persists in his last published scientific paper which is an account of his Darwin Lecture (Hubble 1953).

Very interesting, seems that in the Hubble article, it was Einstein's opinion that was stated. I wonder who did that?

Tommy Mandel

Please consider meeting me

You know, Tommy, we live in the same city, so if you want to talk to me directly that is possible. If this is something that intrigues you, you can contact me on my talkpage or you can send me an e-mail and we can chat face-to-face. --ScienceApologist 13:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

On formal systems

I'm putting this here rather than on the ArbCom case page:

The formulations (and support) for the general direction you're headed with the above exist in the literature, but I shan't get into it in any depth here, as this isn't the place for specifics or clarifications of that kind of depth. That said, formal systems are abstractions, entirely symbolic. (The form and the operations on those forms might be done in some kind set-space, for instance.) One often speaks of "Some set of class $\mathbb {C}$ is closed under operator $\oplus$." (where $\oplus$ is a placeholder for some operation such as union, intersection, addition, subtraction, or whatever operations are mappable in that formal system) for instance, which means "If set $A$ is of class $\mathbb {C}$ and set $B$ is of class $\mathbb {C}$, then the resulting set after application of $\oplus$ on those sets is also of class $\mathbb {C}$." It's entirely possible to prove, using such a formal system, such things as power sets, et cetera, without the need for a single observed instantiation (i.e., 3², 4², or 5²). However, whether or not such pure maths map back to an observable phenomenon is not really the issue. There are more transcendental numbers than algebraic numbers, for instance, such that all of the myriad of transcendentals will never be observed to have the kind of empirical utility one finds with $\pi$ or $e$.

It's a fascinating field. :-) (Or I hope it is or I've wasted a lot of my adult life!)

All best. -- QTJ^(Talk) 22:10, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Ahem and should the above statement "I hope it is or I've wasted a lot of my adult life!" ever become the subject of an RfC around this place -- I plead the fifth!!!! -- QTJ^(Talk) 22:14, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

One of the problems is finding a way to express emergence mathematically. How can R(1+1)=11 be mathematically? Mathematics for some reason is very difficult for me, and talking about sets doesn't help me much, and then there are symbols for symbols. I would love to hear all your explanations, maybe I could learn it. My notation can be used in all conceptual fields because it starts out as a general archetypal form, the simplest form to be precise. Using this simplest form, a diagram can be derived. This diagram is also general. Particulars are added from any field, the resultant expression is specific to the particulars that were chosen. I haven't told you what it is yet, altho you could figure it out given what I did say. Two reasons, can't draw diagrams here, and ain't supposed to talk about it prior to publication. Do you know about theorems? I would like to learn how to state my notation as a theorem. I got as far as IF A, then B If (A,B), then R If (A,B)R, then C

Ah, sets. Believe me -- you're not the only person out there who finds sets and symbols that way. With me, it's numbers. Can't stand numbers, personally. ;-) Give me $L=\{a^{n}|n\in \mathbb {N} \}$ over $1,2,3,4,...$ any day of the week.

Theorem: There shall always exist some article $\mathbb {A}$ on ideal Wikipedia such that two arbitrary editors $E_{1}$ and $E_{2}$ can never agree that $\mathbb {A}$ is perfect where "perfect" is here defined as "accepted by both as containing no contradiction to what is known by $E_{i}$ to be absolutely true".

Proof: By arriving at a joke. Let $\mathbb {W}$ be the set of all possible articles on Wikipedia. Let $a\in \mathbb {W}$ be an article such that it contains some form of the text $T$:

If at least two people agree that this article is true, it is a lie.

If both $E_{1}$ and $E_{2}$ agree that the article is true, it is a lie, and thus not true, and thus not perfect.

If both $E_{1}$ and $E_{2}$ agree that the article is false, it is not perfect.

If either $E_{1}$ or $E_{2}$ state that the article is false, there is no agreement as to the article's truth, and thus the claim of the theorem still holds. Since the ideal state of $\mathbb {W}$ is to contain a representation of all notable human knowledge, and since such an article must exist and be notable, in that this is simply an extension of a well known paradoxical statement, $\mathbb {W}$ must contain some article that is, in essence $T$. QED

-- QTJ^(Talk) 08:53, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I hope I am not supposed to understand that..:-)

Tommy Mandel

I think in the Queen's English it reads: "Ya can never get two editors at Wikipedia who agree on every article, and even if you could, there'd still be at least one article that was hot air, so why bother." ;-) -- QTJ^(Talk) 04:10, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Please Unblock Me

All autoblocks triggered by that one seem already to have been lifted, please try it out, you ought to be already able to edit again. Sorry for the inconvenience! Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:58, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

ScienceApologist is doing it again

See Edwin Hubble ... Harald88 17:47, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I guess there is nothing we can do about it. The man owns that articles, and what he says goes. On the other hand he has given me good reason to dedicate the rest of my life to compiling the evidence against his favored theory. Obviously the issue is not to be decided here at Wikipedia, but it is coming. The only problem is that they are adept at turning evidence around such that they appear to have discovered it first. Tommy Mandel 05:30, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Getting closure

My dear Tommy, I am only willing to carry on discussions with you if they eventually come to a conclusion. Looking over this page, I am reminded of college bull sessions that wander all over creation without getting anywhere. That's all right for college freshman, but I don't have time for that any more. I would like to distill here what I think are the most important and unassailable points of these discussions. I would appreciate it if you could take a clear stand on them. I hope we can at least come to partial agreement. After that we can decide if there is any point in continuing this conversation. --Art Carlson 15:04, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

* The majority of astronomers believe that the experimental observation of Hubble's law essentially proved that the universe is expanding (whether or not that is actually so).

I don't think you can use Hubble's law as proof for expansion without proving FIRST that Hubble's law actually measures Expansion. But I accept the wording and intent you wrote.

* If the majority of scientists in a particular field verifiably have an opinion on the probable explanation of a phenomenon in that field, Wikipedia has an obligation to report at least that view (without asserting its truth).

Right away, only by citing a source asserting that. No editorial synthesis is allowed regardless of truth.

* Therefore the statement in the Hubble's Law article is appropriate, that Hubble's Law "today serves as one of the most often cited pieces of evidence in support of the Big Bang." (or similar wording).

I certainly can't argue with that, but there is a really big difference between Hubble's law provides evidence for expansion, and Hubble proved expansion

* Some prominent proponents of plasma cosmology assert that that theory is in practice ignored (in terms of funding and critical discussions) by the mainstream community (leaving open the question of why the mainstream does that, and whether it is by active intent or through ignorance or sociological factors).

When I first read this I thought "good job." But rereading it tells me there are several loaded statements in there

* Some popular university and graduate level textbooks on cosmology make no mention of plasma cosmology, and in this discussion not a single textbook has been cited that even mentions plasma cosmology.

The lack of evidence is not evidence of the lack...Do you take that lack of mention as a sign of enlightened intelligence? Could be that plasma cosmology is unknown and too new to be in the texts.

* Therefore it is appropriate that the article on plasma cosmology report that it is "mostly ignored by the professional cosmology community" (or similar wording).

ONLY IF you can support that assertion with a peer reviewed reputable journal article. Regardless of how you arrived at that conclusion, ultimately you must find and provide a source. Even if it is clearly obvious to you, your own convictions must not appear in the article.

* Eternal inflation is a cosmological theory that postulates that there was no beginning in time.

I can understand this only in terms of Now. Now, it has been said by Schroedinger, is the only thing that has no beginning and no ending, hence "eternal." Therefore it follows, correct me if I am wrong, if it didn't happen now, it never happened. To turn that around, if it happened, it can happen now. I don't know whose theory this belongs to, but it is a structural fact of nature that what is happening is happening now. And that all that ever happened, happened now. So my postualate is that if it ever happened, it is happening now. And there is the difference betweeen the big bang theory and all the rest -- the big bang does not have a place to create new matter, hence, if they are right, matter is not created Now.

* Eternal inflation may reasonably be described as a big bang theory because it is a cosmological theory that postulates that some 13 billion years ago, the universe was dense enough and hot enough that nucleosynthesis occured and has been expanding ever since.

Realistically it is one of many Inflation theories, none of which has risen to the favorite accepted view. And while I have no problem with the postulation, I have a problem with the postulate becoming the standard theory and then the most widely accepted theory, then the correct theory. I question, however, why does nucleosynthesis have to have occured in the past? Aren't you then saying that all the matter that will be produced has been produced? If so, would the creation of matter falsify that hypothesis?

* Therefore it is not entirely accurate to assert without additional qualification that "Any big bang theory must necessarily postulate a beginning in time."

I'm working my way up the list, it says big bang not necessarily a beginning. I know you are saying this regarding eternal inflation. But Why in the &&&& did they keep the same name which is a picture of what most people have experienced when something goes bang? I would venture to bet that most of the world believes that the big bang theoy meant the Universe started from a point and went bang - the original idea which has been falsified hence inflation theory whioch somehow creates a Universe without the bang.

* No one in this discussion has asserted that plasma physics or plasma astrophysics (as opposed to plasma cosmology) is in any way unimportant, ignored, or discredited.

True, BUT what is being asserted by SA is that plasma astrophysics and plasma cosmology are somehow so different that plasma cosmology does not use the information from plasma astrophysics, and therefore what can be said about plasma astrophysics cannot be said of plasma cosmology. Wittgentstein said that meaning of a word is set by from the context it is used in, a game. When the article demeans the subject, this demeaning is obvious to a knowledgeable reader. What SA did is remove the connection between the study of astrophysical electromagnetic plasma's and the study of Cosmological electromagnetic plasmas. He very carefully removes evidence that makes a difference for one reason or the other. He removed the graphic on plasma scalability a very important observation of plasma behavoir from the article because it wasn't attributed correctly, but scientific graphs are not works of art, they are like a word in picture form, what matters is what the graphic is saying. ScienceApologist eliminated yet another. In it's place SA et al, inserted the suggestion that plasma cosmology is an old idea not worthy of scientific consideration. Is it perhaps because SA and friends realize the significant of EMF and are in the provess of claiming it as their owm? Let us mark where plasma is mentioned in the big bang theory.

Well, that's a little bit of agreement.

• We more or less agree that it's OK to say that most scientists believe in the Big Bang because of Hubble's law.
• Although you admit that proponents of PC say they are ignored, and that PC is not even mentioned in textbooks and review articles, you think that is not enough evidence to say that PC is ignored. You bring a wonderful Catch 22: To say that PC is ignored requires a peer-reviewed reference; but if there is a peer reviewed reference to PC, then it is not ignored; therefore it is never possible to say that PC is ignored.

Let's forget the symbolics which can mean anything we want it to mean, plasma cosmology is about plasma from the perspective of evolution of the Universe. SA wants to make PC a cult science, something of the past and long falsified, THEN he intends, and you are in on this too, to incorporate all the plasma research calling it plasma astrophysics. Don't play games with me.

• On eternal inflation you completely give up answering the question, which doesn't stop you from writing many lines of incomprehensible irrelevance.

It is Inflation that is incomprehensible, metaphysical, impossible to verify and derived from what abounts to multiple hypothesis e.g., cosmological redshift means expansion and expansion mean Inflation. What about now is incomprehensible to you?

• You agree that the issue is the status of plasma cosmology, not that of plasma physics or plasma astrophysics, but you do it so reluctantly that I suspect you will forget it as soon as you turn around.

I think this whole semantical thing about plasma cosmology is crap. The idea is to broaden it encompassing the varied perspectives from different scales. Instead you and your friends have raped it of all the subtle nuances which make it more than interesting. I am not the only one questioning the big bang theory. I read a report that the majority of those who are not astronomers do not believe in the big bang. No wonder when one constructs a theory out of invisible stuff. So when the big bang fails, something will have to be there to take it's place. Plasma is already in place. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where this is headed.

My personal summary is that the cost-benefit ratio of this discussion is miserable and not likely to improve. After spending an awful lot of time, I have hardly convinced you of anything and you have convinced me of nothing. I'm afraid I have to cut my loses and bow out now. I wish it could have been otherwise. Is there anything else I can do for you on my way to the door? --Art Carlson 22:08, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

You are the only editor during my short experience with Wikipedia to actually dialogue with me. You have unconvinced me of the notion that the editors are all the same. I don't know what that is worth to you, but it was a great relief for me. As long as there is one, there is hope. Tommy Mandel 04:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Have you considered whether Wikipedia is the right place for you? You have said yourself that you do not aspire to become a wikieditor. The way you determine and defend the truth is partly at odds with the principles of Wikipedia. You have a point of view that you feel called to express and defend, but much of the mechanism of Wikipedia is deliberately designed to suppress individual points of view. You have been unsuccessful in changing the views of other editors, and you have managed to make only minor edits stick. I can't imagine that it is very satisfying for you to hang around here, or that you feel very productive in trying to edit Wikipedia. --Art Carlson 08:52, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

We certainly agree now. Wikipedia is not like home to me, and it obvious from the start that I am not welcomed. I must say I have learned a lot, Most of my prior experience was with scientists and professors, we don't talk like they do here. I have inter-met fools, both educated and uneducated, and many misguided editors, but I also have inter-met highly intelligent and respectful people here too. The problem is probably because the wise ones work in the background while the fools want to take center stage. I fully agree with the principles of Wikipedia, but there are too many ways to circumvent policy. I am not a follower, I have no interest in the mainstream view. I do not believe there is such a thing in real science, instead I strive to find the horizons of knowledge where the real knowledge takes the form of questioning. I have learned a lot about the big bang theory here, I hardly paid much attention to it before. I am not at all impressed, it is as if the whole scenario is made up. If I read the original authors, I am told they have formulated a hypothesis but if I read the version being promoted by the popularizers, the big bang is a fact. And that is what is being promoted here, what is caled the mainstream view. I think the effort to eliminate most of the research in plasma cosmology borders on evil intent, and what is scary is that those who are evil have a large following. I would like to say this, I have raised many questions in hopes of creating a dialogue, there's a list of them in the archives and I have asked many questions here. I don't think any of them have been answered Tommy Mandel 22:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

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Look what I found, Art, from the talk page at astrophysical plasma article --

When I squint at them, Plasma Universe and plasma cosmology look pretty similar. I'm beginning to think that plasma cosmology should be merged with Plasma Universe, and both kept out of standard cosmology and astrophysical plasmas (except for a link). --Art Carlson 08:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Cosmology is to astronomy, what Plasma Cosmology is to the Plasma Universe. The latter includes those theories/ideas that do not fall into Plasma cosmolgy. --Iantresman 11:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Not exactly. In the standard view, the distinction between cosmology and astrophysics is relatively clear. Cosmology is stuff that happened in the beginning - primordial fluctuations laying the seeds for large scale structure, inflation, nucleosynthesis, decoupling of the radiation which we now see as CMB. Astrophysics covers processes that are happening now, although possibly with some secular variations (changes in metallicity, changes in the number of AGNs). In the plasma religion, there is no beginning, so there is no temporal transition, and plasma phenomena are scaled from the laboratory up to the largest dimensions, so there is no spatial transition. It is practically a tenet of the "plasma universe" that there is no distiction between astrophysics and cosmology. --Art Carlson 13:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Unless, of course, matter can be created now. And if it is true that extra energy can be gotten from plasmoids, imagine what a star can do. A very much simpler theory comes from the theory that matter is produced today in contrast to the complicated theory that all matter was created at one time in the past. Tommy Mandel 22:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)