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The Big Bang didn't happen: What do the James Webb images show?

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Re: The Big Bang didn't happen: What do the James Webb images show?

#81
post #40
post #10

Author's Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Lerner I get the impression he's regarded as something of a crank in astrophysics communities.

The end of the article really feels like he is trying to sell me something. > We at LPPFusion have been applying that knowledge concretely to the development of a cheap, clean and unlimited source of energy that can entirely replace fossil fuels starting in this decade. And I doubt that the website (iai.tv), that I have never head of, is a source that can be trusted.

They've been on WeFunder for a while trying to crowdfund operations.

I did not invest.

Re: The Big Bang didn't happen: What do the James Webb images show?

#82
post #23

https://youtu.be/U3Ak-SmyHHQ Anyone know why this took so long to discover, if true? Is the James Webb that much more powerful than the Hubble? I'd love if this turned out to be an epicycle moment. It reinforces my belief that being paradigm-flexible is valuable.

James web can see in the infra-red. Light from long ago is shifted into this band.

Hubble could not see as far into the infra-red.

Re: The Big Bang didn't happen: What do the James Webb images show?

#84
post #77
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, this his how things work in practice, but man, I wish we could do better. The question of whether new observations falsify the current theory is completely separate from the creation of a better theory. If the Big Bang theory is wrong, then it's wrong, and we just don't know how the universe began.

> The question of whether new observations falsify the current theory is completely separate from the creation of a better theory. No, it isn't. Theories don't get "falsified" except in rare cases and in the idealized fanciful histories of some philosophers of science. The idea that you can run one critical experiment that, if the results come out a certain way, will falsify a theory, is a myth. Scientific models lik…

It happens a lot. A theory getting ruled out by new observation.

Examples: (these aren't old philosophers, crackpots, or fringe theories)

* https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/cosmic-exp...

* https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2020/03/22/astro...

* https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03678-x

* https://news.fnal.gov/2015/12/holometer-rules-out-first-theo...

Re: The Big Bang didn't happen: What do the James Webb images show?

#85
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question of whether new observations falsify the current theory is completely separate from the creation of a better theory. No, it isn't. Theories don't get "falsified" except in rare cases and in the idealized fanciful histories of some philosophers of science. The idea that you can run one critical experiment that, if the results come out a certain way, will falsify a theory, is a myth. Scientific models lik…

It happens a lot. A theory getting ruled out by new observation. Examples: (these aren't old philosophers, crackpots, or fringe theories) * https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/cosmic-exp... * https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2020/03/22/astro... * https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03678-x * https://news.fnal.gov/2015/12/holometer-rules-out-first-theo...

None of these examples are of theories like our current hot Big Bang model getting ruled out by observation, with no better theory replacing them, which is what the post I was responding to claimed can happen.

The first, in fact, is not even finalized yet, because there are still unresolved issues about the actual value of the Hubble constant: different sets of observations point at different values and the discrepancy is not fully understood. (Google "Hubble Tension" for much more.) But this whole general line of research is not about "ruling out" a theory, and it's certainly not about putting some better theory in its place; it's about refining our existing theoretical model by adding more and more reasonably confirmed detail about the actual distribution of matter and energy in the universe and its actual expansion history.

The second is a particular kind of hypothetical particle that has never been observed, still never having been observed. That doesn't "rule out" the existence of that kind of particle with 100% certainty. It just means we still haven't observed it. (Even the article you reference notes that there are still axion models that have not been ruled out.) And it doesn't change our best current model of the universe at all.

The third "rules out" a class of models that nobody has ever used. Similarly, the fourth "rules out" a model that was not even built to be used, but was expected to be ruled out, at least at the level of accuracy of these particular measurements. (That accuracy, as I understand it, is still well short of the Planck scale, which is where most physicists expect any "quantization" of spacetime itself to show up.) These results are useful in that they narrow the space of possible models that scientists might consider trying to use in the future; but they bear no resemblance whatever to what Eric Lerner claims (incorrectly, in my view) is shown by the James Webb telescope observations, which he claims "rule out" the entire Big Bang model.

Re: The Big Bang didn't happen: What do the James Webb images show?

#86
post #80

So the linked article is the work of a crank, but it does raise a fair question: is the density of small distant galaxy smudges on the Webb image consistent with Big Bang theory?

Yes, this is the crux of the matter. Forget the ad-hominem "he's a known crank" arguments. He raises valid questions in his article, if he's a crank, then refute his facts or conclusions.

I'm all for scientific community entertaining the valid questions of even the cranks. Specially when it should pretty quick answer or actually an interesting one that might be worth to spend bit of time on.

Not entirety of their production is bad. And they can offer some different perspectives.

Re: The Big Bang didn't happen: What do the James Webb images show?

#87
post #2

Summary by a commenter in the link: Radio astronomy observations of Pulsars indicate that the Hubble Red Shift is caused by “Tired Light” rather than the expansion of the universe. When Hubble published his observations of red shifted light from distant objects there were two possible explanations that came to the fore. One, originated by Georges Lemaitre, was that the Universe was expanding. The other, from Fritz Zw…

Inter galactic space not being empty makes lot of sense. After all everything that is matter(stars etc.) had to come from somewhere.

If universe is expanding is it getting thinner? That is same amount of matter is spreading over larger space. Thus wouldn't the refraction index be higher on average when observing the path from really old objects?

Re: The Big Bang didn't happen: What do the James Webb images show?

#88
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is cherry-picking. Your interlocutors have already stipulated that on occasion , the scientific establishment has been wrong, and the cranks have been right. Their point is that this is almost never the case. There are and have been cranks who dispute the scientific consensus on almost every point since the scientific method was first developed. Are you also suggesting we should believe the anti-vaxxers who stil…

im not suggesting any of that. the burden of proof should be on the presenter sure. but calling this guy a crank is stretching the definition of a crank a fair bit. hes been funded by nasa and was published (once ?) in an astronomy journal personally i dont think big bang theory deserves to be held up to same regard as classical and quantum mechanics, electro and thermodynamics, and relativity. and i dont think quest…

The Big Bang is indeed a form of Creationism. It was first conceived by a priest, Georges Lemaître, in an attempt to reconcile scripture and astronomical observations.

So…

Re: The Big Bang didn't happen: What do the James Webb images show?

#89
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't be the first time something like that happened. We used to think mars had civilization and canals until not too long ago (kinda funny that the drawings of those canals ended up looking a lot like the veins in a human eye). Also, the idea of radio waves going through the ether, on which a lot of science was based got disproved at some point.

Indeed, nowadays everyone knows that radio waves propagate through quantum fields which pervade the entire universe including vacuums. Definitely not ether, those foolish old scientists got the name wrong :D

I don’t think anyone thinks fields exist, physically at least. They’re mathematical constructs that model certain operations but there’s no EM field or G field by itself, independently of a physical particle expressing these forces

Re: The Big Bang didn't happen: What do the James Webb images show?

#90
post #35
post #16

I have no idea if this is true or not. But for a moment I was just imagining a world where scientists agreed that the Big Bang never happened. How many physicists' work would be thrown in the trash? How many high school science books would have to be updated? How would the general public's trust in science change? Would be such an interesting thing to observe.

This probably belies my ignorance, but I'm guessing not much would change. All the research on galaxy ages and star formation would have to be reinterpreted, but I bet most of it would be salvagable, just with a different first mover. Like refactoring a codebase to replace a dependency. If the work is good, it's reasonably independent of the story being told.

Well, one of the most interesting and exiting outcomes would be renewed interest in the study of Electromagnetic interactions at cosmological level (not just signals to observe other processes).

One of the features of Big Bang is how it’s sufficient to explain the structure of the universe via Gravity alone, yet there’s a ton of data indicating that pervading Plasma and Electromagnetic interactions within are at play.

But since they have no place in the BB model they’re discounted as marginal phenomena.

But, if the paradigm shifted - to put it in Popper terms - a whole new box of interesting goodies would pop open!

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