So. the Big Bang looks to not be a fact. Now what?

It just had to be true... right? Turns out, facts matter. There are a lot of these religious faith mantras in science...

 

No takers? This seems to be the biggest story in science in a decade. The fundamental story of physics in our day. And suddenly, it isn't actually true, and large galactic structures predate the predicted creation dates of them. It seems that suddenly, the world around us isn't what we thought it was.

 

Yes, I heard about that. That the big bang didn't happen.

What this means is that all of our calculations which were made with the big bang in mind, are now totally miscalculated. And now we have to readjust our theories to fit the new Webb measurements with new models to fit the data.

And readjusting our models means we have to remeasure all of our previous measurements. That means we will have to make new values for things like the age of the universe, the rate of expansion (or lack thereof), and the size of the universe.

Since these things will alter our understanding of astronomy, things like supernova measurements, which help us measure distance in the universe, will need to be calibrated. And also things in physics like normal matter, dark matter, and dark energy concentrations in the universe are also miscalculated and need to be adjusted.

 

Actually, the headline is grossly misleading. Watch this video for more

 

Well I'm neither an astronomer nor a physicist, but based on the presentation of the video, the Bing Bang isn't 'disproven' to have happened, we just know less about it than we thought. For example, it could've happened longer ago than currently theorized and galaxy formation is more complicated than we theorized ...which frankly, I always thought both were likely anyway.

...its also possible it never happened and we're completely wrong. That's always a possibility with anything if one is being scientific.

 

Scientists love to disprove other so-called established science. The science is never settled. No religious beliefs in science.

The religious use feelings to re interpret the Bible to mean whatever they want it to mean.

Scientists use other methods, like facts, data, math, etc. No feelings allowed in scientific understanding.

 

That's the problem with assuming anything on youtube must be science.

 

Did you have a specific complaint, or did you have a rebuttal that this set of analysis was somehow wrong? You could start by providing your own version if you have one. And if you aren't up for it, why did you make the comment?

 

Thanks for that. That makes sense. The lack of an initial singularity (call it what you will, "Big Bang" or not) doesn't. I believe even Einstein wrestled with that in developing his theory of Relativity. The initial draft added a constant because he was uncomfortable with the idea that the universe had a beginning and sprang from nothing.

Anyways, as long as it doesn't impact Newton, it's interesting but not life changing.

 

Not sure if we're talking about the same thing or not, but I figure if 'everything' was condensed into a single mass, that would have some pretty unpredictable effects on space-time. Such an object 'exploding' might happen over a millisecond or a hundred bazillion years, or both depending on the perspective of the 'viewer'. We could simply be using the wrong algorythm to determine what 'time' actually means or does as mass and gravity transitions from being focussed at a single point to being immeasurably spread out.

 

I'm referring to your assessment that the article doesn't really "disprove" the Big Bang, it just kinda messes up some of the follow on conclusions. The actual details are a bit beyond me (I only passed Quantum Physics in college because the prof lost everyone's final exam and decided to just give everyone a "C") but you seem to know what you're talking about and that keeps me from having to listen to the video.

The constant atheist yammer about those damn religious (again, doesn't really bother me much. We Catholics haven't had a problem with science for a couple hundred years now) just disguises the point. The Big Bang as I understand it dictates there was nothing and then there was something. Without the Big Bang there just always was in final form and to me that should really upset the atheists more than the Big Bang and it seems to me would require rethinking Newton, which is terrifying to contemplate. "You mean we got the calculations behind that 85 story building wrong somehow?"

Anyways, I believe on a forum like this that we should avoid choosing sides and appreciate the thoughts of folks who appear to actually get something. So thanks.

 

Matter still existed before the big bang, so the big bang doesnt explain things existing, its just an explanation of how things were dispersed. Where the 'superparticle' that 'banged' came from is another question entirely, one that I havnt seen explored much (prolly because we're still exploring how it banged). As far as atheists go, mostly they dont seem to try to claim the big bang somehow invalidates religion. The minority of them that argue that I like to call 'anti-theists' because they seem to have a 'religious' sort of belief that god cant exist. It seems to me spirituality and science dont need to be mutually exclusive. At least not until we've figured everything out. We're a long way from doing that.

 

Today, we have highly limited ability to obtain evidence of the environment that hosted the singularity that became our universe.

For example, there is no evidence that there was "nothing".

The notion that there was nothing and then there was something is a purely religious construct.

 

I think there has been a bunch of jumping to conclusions going on.

I don't believe you should be asking people like me for "my" view of cosmology. You know I'm not an astrophysicists or cosmologist.

 

Good comment.

I'd add that there are plenty of scientists who are serious believers in various religions and who are capable of separating their science and their religion.

 

Every time science proves itself wrong, we learn something.

That is how science works.

 

Interesting. The awesome sauce here is you chose to actually opine originally.

 

Agreed. This is how we learn. The new question is how quickly we learn it.

 

The next thing we discover will probably be wrong too.

 

Is that your opinion as a scientist again?

 

You implied that the singularity that was the start of our universe came from nothing.

So, cite some evidence or some theoretical physicist or some cosmologist.

 

Suggesting that improvement means that prior knowledge was "wrong" is a ridiculous exaggeration.

 

Why? It's clearly my opinion as someone who almost failed quantum mechanics in college. Disagree or not, I was speaking to specifically to someone else.

 

I think you are overreacting to semantics.

 

imagine scientists being wrong. And here we’ve been told endlessly not to question the experts.