Philosophy Now Forum

I was surprised and disappointed to see some scientists getting an award for "proving the rate of expansion is accelerating" .
What a load of bollocks , before we can even begin to accept the bbt we must assume the Universe is finite , and obviously it isn't . so why are we bothering with this myth called the bbt.?
We can see galaxies around 13 billion light years away .
These galaxies didn't emerge overnight , these things take time and if there is a black hole in that galaxy , then that suggests a long time .
Our sun is over 4 billion years old , so a bigger sun would probably have a longer life cycle . Then it has to collapse into a black hole .
Lets ad 10 billion years to be on the conservative side.
So our 13 billion year old view of the galaxy has to have 10 billion years for the process to get were it is as we see it way back then .
23 billion year old galaxy sitting out there looking at us wank on about a bbt.
and that the rate of expansion of this bbt is accelerating ,???

Godfree wrote:I was surprised and disappointed to see some scientists getting an award for "proving the rate of expansion is accelerating" .
What a load of bollocks , before we can even begin to accept the bbt we must assume the Universe is finite , and obviously it isn't . so why are we bothering with this myth called the bbt.?
We can see galaxies around 13 billion light years away .
These galaxies didn't emerge overnight , these things take time and if there is a black hole in that galaxy , then that suggests a long time .
Our sun is over 4 billion years old , so a bigger sun would probably have a longer life cycle . Then it has to collapse into a black hole .
Lets ad 10 billion years to be on the conservative side.
So our 13 billion year old view of the galaxy has to have 10 billion years for the process to get were it is as we see it way back then .
23 billion year old galaxy sitting out there looking at us wank on about a bbt.
and that the rate of expansion of this bbt is accelerating ,???

I am a layman of physics, but, if the universe is expanding would not time also be expannding, streching? So that perhaps 1 billion years ago a billion years was more like second in which a billion years woth of stuff happened? The universe would not be expanding from the edges like the perimeter of a bubble but would be more like the air inside it, like rolling out pizza dough from the center outward but all at once.

Black holes might then be seen a bubbles within the dough, or thick spots that made it through the roller.

why would time be so connected to physical events , and if the rate of expansion is accelerating time should be speeding up not slowing down??
Surely and hour is an hour regardless of where or when you take it .
I find it hard to grasp this notion of time being connected to the bbt .I liken the bb to a shotgun going off . you could say that in relation to each other the pellets were going relatively slow . See if that saves the person shot by the gun,
In relation to each other , you and I are hardly moving but in relation to the sun we are ripping along , and our sun is moving in relation to rest of the galaxy which is moving against the back-drop of the Universe .
An hour is an hour regardless of how fast or what direction you are moving in.

We could imagine that during the original blast from the bang as everything was hurtling out into space that there may repeat may have been some argument for applying the theory of relativity .
But once the dust had settled and was slowly forming stars and planets , that process will take a long time , time you can't cheat or deny because like any process we can see the time scale from the sheer size of the task at hand .
The massive black hole at the center of galaxies requires the normal speed birth and death of a sun to then collapse into a black hole this takes at least 10 billion years and this has to happen thousands of times to make a massive black hole .
The life cycle of a galaxy with a massive black hole in it seems to be longer than 13.7 billion years . And we can see 13 billion year old images of these galaxies that already have the massive black hole formed .
This bbt is sounding more like big bullshit theory than anything else

Couple of things, just to start.
1. A bigger star has a shorter life span than a smaller star.
2. Material from the big bang doesn't fly out into space; it is the space that expands.
Suggest you check out these two points (after all, I might be wrong) and if after research you accept these two points, then rethink your objections to bbt.
Let's know how you get on!

Godfree wrote:why would time be so connected to physical events , and if the rate of expansion is accelerating time should be speeding up not slowing down??
Surely and hour is an hour regardless of where or when you take it .
I find it hard to grasp this notion of time being connected to the bbt .I liken the bb to a shotgun going off . you could say that in relation to each other the pellets were going relatively slow . See if that saves the person shot by the gun,
In relation to each other , you and I are hardly moving but in relation to the sun we are ripping along , and our sun is moving in relation to rest of the galaxy which is moving against the back-drop of the Universe .
An hour is an hour regardless of how fast or what direction you are moving in.

Hmm.. it is where you are but this is the point of Relativity, as if the only way to measure that two clocks moving depends upon a signal then there is going to be a discrepancy in their times, we know this because we've done it with fast jets and satellites, the faster you go the slower time goes elsewhere so to speak, now if light is the fastest thing then there is a point relative to everything else, if it can go faster than everything else, where time will effectively 'stand-still'? What it all means for what time 'is' I don't know. For myself, philosophically, time is noticeable change in matter, difference so to speak.

Your pellets picture is not how the Physicists describe it, they think more in a 'grid' with fixed matter or 'points', e.g. galaxies, and spacetime expanding, like we are painted in '3-d' upon a balloon. The balloon is expanding, so the 'space' between the points or galaxies is growing and to us it will look like acceleration of the galaxies, all away from each other, literally every one is moving away from each other in the same way! And so far experiments appear to confirm it.

What about Andromeda , that being our nearest galaxy is coming towards us not going away , and some galaxies are in the process of devouring the stars and planets .There are far too many things wrong with the bbt for me to take it seriously anymore .
The red shift has been challenged , John Keirein , has a book and a website I just visited makes for interesting reading , called Why the big bang is wrong.
seems I'm not the only one thinking this is just big spin .
It would be no surprise if the American government was putting the spin on things to make it sound like they want it to ."god created the universe"

Godfree wrote:What about Andromeda , that being our nearest galaxy is coming towards us not going away , and some galaxies are in the process of devouring the stars and planets .There are far too many things wrong with the bbt for me to take it seriously anymore. ...

In what sense? Are you involved in Physics? What I'm asking is what meaning does or did the BBT hold for you?

I'm not a physicist, I'm just expressing ideas I've heard them expound when questioned. So don't look for to many answers from me. What Andromeda could mean is that the galaxies as represented upon this spacetime balloon are also in motion relative to the 'surface'. They could still be expanding away from each other, so the 'collision' will just mean some new entity or entities will be expanding away from everything else. Into what? Nobody knows I guess, but I like cerverny's model in our phil of science, i.e. think not of space and time as a fluid process, or not always, and more a crystallization process, and the image that what we call the universe is the phase boundary between whatever spacetime substance will be before it becomes was, i.e. a process of entropy is acting in a 'substance' that is changing from one state to another and 'we're' where its happening, or some such.

The red shift has been challenged , John Keirein , has a book and a website I just visited makes for interesting reading , called Why the big bang is wrong. ...

Never quite sure what to make of these 'challenges'? As the scientific challenge would be to offer an experiment that if true would show that the theory that the big bang is wrong, is wrong, would be more acceptable. But they could also put forward a prediction about phenomena that is unknown, with some possibility of being tested that we could think about. So what prediction does Keirein propose?

seems I'm not the only one thinking this is just big spin .
It would be no surprise if the American government was putting the spin on things to make it sound like they want it to ."god created the universe"

I think, philosophically, you have it the wrong way around and are worrying needlessly. I'd thought it long decided in philosophy that science or Physics, et al, cannot answer the question of "Who or what created the universe?" or "Is there a purpose or plan?", as a theory of 'god/s' can always say, but 'God' started that! So its not a question that can be resolved other than some kind of compromise, and since science cares not much for this, its generally religion that has to concede and assimilate or become fundamental. So my take on the the idea that the BBT is being accepted by certain religions creation theories means that religion is changing, not science, as not long ago the idea that science could even have a say on creation theories was not looked upon kindly by some religions.

Too Smart to Understand

They admit they’ll never know how much sand
lays on the beach, but they will not depart
from their belief in the secular art
of scientific “fact” which, though quite bland,
much of society can’t understand;
yes, they may be reacting from their heart
yet they are (not good for them) too darn “smart”
and thus closed to the Spirit – God’s own hand.
Though the intellectuals will do naught but brand
the Spirit as “hokus pokus” and start
muttering amongst themselves how quite grand
they are, like a bull’s eye hit by a dart,
and the large grants ready at their command,
and how God’s the donkey pushing the cart.

Frank...,,,call me simple if you like but I failed to extract anything about what you think from your post .
Was it a poem a quote from a "notable"
do me a favour and tell me what you think
your opinion please

OK ,, heres another brain teaser for you ,
if the universe is expanding and accelerating , we are already close to the speed of light because we are about the same distance from the bang site as years past , about 13.7 billion . So soon we will be going faster than the speed of light , if we aren't already .So the image we see coming from the receding galaxies would start to play backwards , as we were now going faster than the image the image would be played backwards .
If this expanding and accelerating theory is correct , surely it must start to play backward .

Godfree wrote:... because we are about the same distance from the bang site as years past , about 13.7 billion . ...

I'll have to think about what you are describing as I can't get a picture just yet. Although I thought an issue with the BBT is that there is no 'big bang site' in any sense we can understand with reference to space and time?

There is no big bang "site" because the universe is the bang and we live within it as the bang (the expansion) continues.

Godfree wrote:OK ,, heres another brain teaser for you ,
if the universe is expanding and accelerating , we are already close to the speed of light because we are about the same distance from the bang site as years past , about 13.7 billion . So soon we will be going faster than the speed of light , if we aren't already .So the image we see coming from the receding galaxies would start to play backwards , as we were now going faster than the image the image would be played backwards .
If this expanding and accelerating theory is correct , surely it must start to play backward .

There is no position where the big bang happened. The entire universe is the site of the big bang because it is uniformly expanding from every point in space simultaneously. This is, of course, impossible. If that were the case then there would be no edge of the universe or limit to its position - which is, of course, evident. This means that the existence of the universe cannot possibly exist. This is, of course, impossible, as there is something rather than nothing. The evidence of the big bang is that the entire universe is red shifted and is taken to mean that the universe is expanding. When another explanation of this phenomenon comes along then the BBT will die along with the geocentric hypothesis, men of mars and the steady state universe.

The red shift will be one of the first to be proven wrong .
Our sun is red shifted ,
One of our most distant galaxies is blue???
Now in regards to the bb site ,
since everything is supposed to have started from a single point,
and expanded in all directions ,
then at the middle of this group of galaxies would be what I call the BB site .
13.2 billion light years is how far we can see now ,
So massive black holes containing up 18 billion suns ,
are already formed just half a billion years after the bang.
To gather that much matter must have taken a massive amount of time .
Unless you are going to tell me the bang spat out ready made black holes that started devouring things .
Just like religion the BBT is a pretty little story to appease the minds of the masses.
And don't try and tell me it's got nothing to do with religion .
I found a website referring to the steady state idea ,
and it claimed in it's promo "Atheists can't handle the concept of no space time ."
So they are seeing this bbt as a win for the religious