BBC: Inflation (multiverse) theories only work if supplemented by “exotic physics”

_{Denyse O'Leary

February 6, 2015

Cosmology, News}

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It was hoped that Planck might find direct evidence in the CMB’s polarisation for inflation – the super-rapid expansion of space thought to have occurred just fractions of a second after the Big Bang. This has not been possible. But all the Planck data – temperature and polarisation information – is consistent with that theory, and the precision measurements mean new, tighter constraints have been put on the likely scale of the inflation signal, which other experiments continue to chase.

What is clear from the Planck investigation is that the simplest models for how the super-rapid expansion might have worked are probably no longer tenable, suggesting some exotic physics will eventually be needed to explain it.

“We’re now being pushed into a parameter space we didn’t expect to be in,” said collaboration scientist Dr Andrew Jaffe from Imperial College, UK. “That’s OK. We like interesting physics; that’s why we’re physicists, so there’s no problem with that. It’s just we had this naïve expectation that the simplest answer would be right, and sometimes it just isn’t.”

If we stopped looking for the multiverse, we wouldn’t find it, but then we won’t find it anyway.

By the way, try this out next time you are disputingdefending a traffic ticket: “Some exotic physics will eventually be needed to explain it.” Maybe later, but not just now.

See also: Why we pay people to have all these silly theories but have not been to the moon in forty years.

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Comments

tjguy:
2. The hand of God to explain what science cannot explain. (feels like a God of the gappish type of argument to me) 3. A falsification of the Big Bang hypothesis. (Pending scientific solutions for the many problems and theory saving devices such as inflation attached to the hypothesis, my vote lies here.)
Out of curiosity, in what way do you see (3) as being different from (2)? Can we every really get totally away from (2) when talking about first causes?Phinehas_{February 9, 2015
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Inflation [& multiverse] theories only work if supplemented by “exotic physics”
But all the Planck data – temperature and polarisation information – is consistent with that theory, and the precision measurements mean new, tighter constraints have been put on the likely scale of the inflation signal, which other experiments continue to chase.

What is clear from the Planck investigation is that the simplest models for how the super-rapid expansion MIGHT HAVE worked are probably no longer tenable, suggesting some exotic physics will eventually be needed to explain it. .... “We’re now being pushed into a parameter space we didn’t expect to be in,” said collaboration scientist Dr Andrew Jaffe from Imperial College, UK.
In other words, the data does not support the hypothesis! But they will keep trying to find supportive data. I've been told that scientists do not try and prove their hypothesis true, but actually try to falsify it. Seems like they have done a good job of that here and yet, it remains a beloved hypothesis by all. So, they still hope to save the HYPOTHESIS by maybe resorting to some kind of exotic physics? How scientific is that? I guess they ave no problem with exotic physics as long as nothing supernatural is involved. No bias there, right? What are the chances that their "exotic physics" will hold any relationship to reality?
“That’s OK. We like interesting physics; that’s why we’re physicists, so there’s no problem with that. It’s just we had this naïve expectation that the simplest answer would be right, and sometimes it just isn’t.”
I'm afraid scientists have a lot of naive expectations - Something from nothing, CSI, codes, machines, software, irreducibly complex organs, etc. from blind random chemicals, etc.
It’s just we had this naïve expectation that the simplest answer would be right, and sometimes it just isn’t.”
So, where does Occam's razor fit in here? Is it disproved? Or is the hypothesis falsified? If the simplest answer is not right here, where else might the same thing hold true? Where else might we be believing in the "simplest answer"? It doesn't seem like the evidence for the Big Bang is getting stronger. Actually it seems more like it is weakening! It seems like it is getting harder to explain. Here is a quote from Dr. Danny Faulkner:
One of the problems that the big bang model suffers from is the horizon problem. For three decades the solution to this problem has been cosmic inflation, a hypothetical far-faster-than-light expansion in the very early universe (perhaps as early as 10-34 seconds after the big bang). Because cosmic inflation is so needed to solve the horizon and other problems with the big bang model, most cosmologists and astronomers long ago accepted it. This was despite that fact that there was no evidence for cosmic inflation. That situation supposedly changed last March 17 with the much-celebrated announcement that a group of researchers had discovered the first evidence of cosmic inflation. The BICEP2 (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) team revealed that they had measured feeble B-mode polarization in the CMB (cosmic microwave background). According to the theory, inflation ought to have imprinted B-mode polarization onto the CMB.
But, some Christians were/are really really anxious for inflation to be verified so they could/can claim more evidence for their old earth views and decisively trump YECers once and for all. For instance, last spring
Jeff Zweerink of the Reasons to Believe ministry wrote an article “A Response to Four Young-Earth Objections to Inflation” in April 2014 using this BICEP2 data as support of cosmic inflation and hence as some sort of confirmation of the biblical account of creation that he and Hugh Ross promote, in their strange ‘science-first’ form of apologetics. Anyway, Zweerink’s claim was that science supported their particular apologetics and the BICEP2 result was evidence that biblical creationists were wrong.
Hmm. So anxious was he to give scientific reasons for disregarding creationist views that he couldn't even wait for scientific confirmation of these results to write this article! This is a good example of why we should not be too anxious to jump on the scientific bandwagon and hail new "discoveries" as evidence against God's Word. I think it shows that the biblical interpretations of Reasons to Believe are a bit too tied to a certain view of cosmology. I believe a retraction is due here which will hopefully result in a bit clearer thinking in the future. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the inflation problem still is a major headache for standard model proponents, right? There is no real scientific answer for it as far as I know. What are the possible answers? 1. As of yet unknown exotic physics. (doesn't sound promising) 2. The hand of God to explain what science cannot explain. (feels like a God of the gappish type of argument to me) 3. A falsification of the Big Bang hypothesis. (Pending scientific solutions for the many problems and theory saving devices such as inflation attached to the hypothesis, my vote lies here.)tjguy_{February 8, 2015
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Can't all those theoretical astronomers and astrophysicists get a more productive job? Maybe they could learn some biology or bioinformatics and try to help with figuring out how to interpret all the overwhelming pile of data coming out of biology research labs? Wouldn't it be better to work on things that could lead us to better medical treatments and better health maintenance programs for everyone? Or maybe in the food industry, agriculture, education, transport, construction? What do we gain from knowing that this universe is just one of gazillion multiverses? Would that cure any disease or prevent some viral epidemic crisis or increase the productivity in agriculture? Are they being paid with taxpayers' funds? I would assume they aren't, right?Dionisio_{February 6, 2015
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Off Topic: Since the crusades are all over the headlines, here is a much more sober, and scholarly, look at the Crusades than you will get from soundbites on TV Inventing the Crusades by Thomas F. Madden Excerpt: It is generally thought that Christians attacked Muslims without provocation to seize their lands and forcibly convert them. The Crusaders were Europe’s lacklands and ne’er-do-wells, who marched against the infidels out of blind zealotry and a desire for booty and land. As such, the Crusades betrayed Christianity itself. They transformed “turn the other cheek” into “kill them all; God will know his own.” Every word of this is wrong. Historians of the Crusades have long known that it is wrong, but they find it extraordinarily difficult to be heard across a chasm of entrenched preconceptions. For on the other side is, as Riley-Smith puts it “nearly everyone else, from leading churchmen and scholars in other fields to the general public.” http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/06/inventing-the-crusadesbornagain77_{February 6, 2015
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Doesn't the multiverse theory imply that an easter bunny, flying spaghetti monster, tooth fairy etc...is entirely possible? Isn't this "theory" the one that atheists back-peddle to when they cannot explain certain design attributes?computerist_{February 6, 2015
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Bohemian Gravity – Rob Sheldon – September 19, 2013 Excerpt: there’s a large contingent of physicists who believe that string theory is the heroin of theoretical physics. It has absorbed not just millions of dollars, but hundreds if not thousands of grad student lifetimes without delivering what it promised–a unified theory of the universe and life. It is hard, in fact, to find a single contribution from string theory despite 25 years of intense effort by thousands of the very brightest and best minds our society can find. http://rbsp.info/PROCRUSTES/bohemian-gravity/
Reflecting on that difficulty, I consider the preceding ‘quantum’ nuance on the Shroud of Turin to be a subtle, but powerful, evidence substantiating Christ’s primary claim as to being our Savior from sin, death, and hell:
John 8:23-24 But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins. G.O.S.P.E.L. – (the grace of propitiation) – poetry slam – video https://vimeo.com/20960385 Matthew 10:28 “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Amy Grant - If These Walls Could Speak - music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2eKB_fZryY
Supplemental notes:
Two very different ‘eternities’: Special Relativity, General Relativity, Heaven and Hell https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_4cQ7MXq8bLkoFLYW0kq3Xq-Hkc3c7r-gTk0DYJQFSg/edit
bornagain77_{February 6, 2015
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Godel proved, if numbers are included, that there cannot be a 'complete' mathematical theory of everything. Even Hawking himself at one time admitted, and apparently subsequently forgot, that there cannot be a 'complete' mathematical theory of everything,
The nature and significance of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems - Princeton - 2006 Excerpt: ,,Stephen Hawking and Freeman Dyson, among others, have come to the conclusion that Gödel’s theorem implies that there can’t be a (mathematical) Theory of Everything.,, http://math.stanford.edu/~feferman/papers/Godel-IAS.pdf
Godel also stated:
The God of the Mathematicians – Goldman Excerpt: As Gödel told Hao Wang, “Einstein’s religion [was] more abstract, like Spinoza and Indian philosophy. Spinoza’s god is less than a person; mine is more than a person; because God can play the role of a person.” Kurt Gödel – (Gödel is considered one of the greatest logicians who ever existed) http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians
And when one allows God into mathematics so as to bring 'completeness' to mathematics, and so as to 'breathe fire into the equations', i.e. agent causality, then a solution to the most profound enigma in modern physics readily pops out for us. Namely, the resurrection of Christ from death provides a empirically backed reconciliation of Quantum Mechanics/Special Relativity, (i.e. Quantum Electrodynamics), and General Relativity into the much sought after 'theory of everything':
The Center Of The Universe Is Life (Jesus) - General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Entropy and The Shroud Of Turin - video http://vimeo.com/34084462
And as would be somewhat expected if Gravity was truly unified with Quantum Mechanics in the resurrection of Christ from death, Gravity was overcome in the resurrection event of Christ:
Particle Radiation from the Body – July 2012 – M. Antonacci, A. C. Lind Excerpt: The Shroud’s frontal and dorsal body images are encoded with the same amount of intensity, independent of any pressure or weight from the body. The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image. Radiation coming from the body would not only explain this feature, but also the left/right and light/dark reversals found on the cloth’s frontal and dorsal body images. https://docs.google.com/document/d/19tGkwrdg6cu5mH-RmlKxHv5KPMOL49qEU8MLGL6ojHU/edit A Quantum Hologram of Christ’s Resurrection? by Chuck Missler Excerpt: “You can read the science of the Shroud, such as total lack of gravity, lack of entropy (without gravitational collapse), no time, no space—it conforms to no known law of physics.” The phenomenon of the image brings us to a true event horizon, a moment when all of the laws of physics change drastically. Dame Piczek created a one-fourth size sculpture of the man in the Shroud. When viewed from the side, it appears as if the man is suspended in mid air (see graphic, below), indicating that the image defies previously accepted science. The phenomenon of the image brings us to a true event horizon, a moment when all of the laws of physics change drastically. http://www.khouse.org/articles/2008/847 THE EVENT HORIZON (Space-Time Singularity) OF THE SHROUD OF TURIN. – Isabel Piczek – Particle Physicist Excerpt: We have stated before that the images on the Shroud firmly indicate the total absence of Gravity. Yet they also firmly indicate the presence of the Event Horizon. These two seemingly contradict each other and they necessitate the past presence of something more powerful than Gravity that had the capacity to solve the above paradox. http://shroud3d.com/findings/isabel-piczek-image-formation
Moreover, as would be expected if General Relativity (Gravity), and Quantum Mechanics/Special Relativity (QED), were truly unified in the resurrection of Christ from death, the image on the shroud is found to be formed by a quantum process. The image was not formed by a ‘classical’ process:
The absorbed energy in the Shroud body image formation appears as contributed by discrete values – Giovanni Fazio, Giuseppe Mandaglio – 2008 Excerpt: This result means that the optical density distribution,, can not be attributed at the absorbed energy described in the framework of the classical physics model. It is, in fact, necessary to hypothesize a absorption by discrete values of the energy where the ‘quantum’ is equal to the one necessary to yellow one fibril. http://cab.unime.it/journals/index.php/AAPP/article/view/C1A0802004/271 “It is not a continuum or spherical-front radiation that made the image, as visible or UV light. It is not the X-ray radiation that obeys the one over R squared law that we are so accustomed to in medicine. It is more unique. It is suggested that the image was formed when a high-energy particle struck the fiber and released radiation within the fiber at a speed greater that the local speed of light. Since the fiber acts as a light pipe, this energy moved out through the fiber until it encountered an optical discontinuity, then it slowed to the local speed of light and dispersed. The fact that the pixels don’t fluoresce suggests that the conversion to their now brittle dehydrated state occurred instantly and completely so no partial products remain to be activated by the ultraviolet light. This suggests a quantum event where a finite amount of energy transferred abruptly. The fact that there are images front and back suggests the radiating particles were released along the gravity vector. The radiation pressure may also help explain why the blood was “lifted cleanly” from the body as it transformed to a resurrected state.” Kevin Moran – optical engineer Scientists say Turin Shroud is supernatural – December 2011 Excerpt: After years of work trying to replicate the colouring on the shroud, a similar image has been created by the scientists. However, they only managed the effect by scorching equivalent linen material with high-intensity ultra violet lasers, undermining the arguments of other research, they say, which claims the Turin Shroud is a medieval hoax. Such technology, say researchers from the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (Enea), was far beyond the capability of medieval forgers, whom most experts have credited with making the famous relic. “The results show that a short and intense burst of UV directional radiation can colour a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin,” they said. And in case there was any doubt about the preternatural degree of energy needed to make such distinct marks, the Enea report spells it out: “This degree of power cannot be reproduced by any normal UV source built to date.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-say-turin-shroud-is-supernatural-6279512.html
Personally, considering the extreme difficulty that many brilliant minds have had in trying to reconcile Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity(QED), with Gravity (General Relativity),,,
A Capella Science – Bohemian Gravity! – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rjbtsX7twc
bornagain77_{February 6, 2015
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as to:
“We’re now being pushed into a parameter space we didn’t expect to be in,” said collaboration scientist Dr Andrew Jaffe from Imperial College, UK. “That’s OK. We like interesting physics; that’s why we’re physicists, so there’s no problem with that. It’s just we had this naïve expectation that the simplest answer would be right, and sometimes it just isn’t.”
But will he, and other physicists, like the 'interesting physics' he is being pushed into when that 'exotic physics' is shown to require God? The most profound confusion in modern physics is the fallacious belief that mathematical description equals agent causality.
"to say that a stone falls to earth because it's obeying a law, makes it a man and even a citizen" - CS Lewis “In the whole history of the universe the laws of nature have never produced, (i.e. caused), a single event.” C.S. Lewis - doodle video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_20yiBQAIlk A Professor's Journey out of Nihilism: Why I am not an Atheist - University of Wyoming - J. Budziszewski Excerpt page12: "There were two great holes in the argument about the irrelevance of God. The first is that in order to attack free will, I supposed that I understood cause and effect; I supposed causation to be less mysterious than volition. If anything, it is the other way around. I can perceive a logical connection between premises and valid conclusions. I can perceive at least a rational connection between my willing to do something and my doing it. But between the apple and the earth, I can perceive no connection at all. Why does the apple fall? We don't know. "But there is gravity," you say. No, "gravity" is merely the name of the phenomenon, not its explanation. "But there are laws of gravity," you say. No, the "laws" are not its explanation either; they are merely a more precise description of the thing to be explained, which remains as mysterious as before. For just this reason, philosophers of science are shy of the term "laws"; they prefer "lawlike regularities." To call the equations of gravity "laws" and speak of the apple as "obeying" them is to speak as though, like the traffic laws, the "laws" of gravity are addressed to rational agents capable of conforming their wills to the command. This is cheating, because it makes mechanical causality (the more opaque of the two phenomena) seem like volition (the less). In my own way of thinking the cheating was even graver, because I attacked the less opaque in the name of the more. The other hole in my reasoning was cruder. If my imprisonment in a blind causality made my reasoning so unreliable that I couldn't trust my beliefs, then by the same token I shouldn't have trusted my beliefs about imprisonment in a blind causality. But in that case I had no business denying free will in the first place." http://www.undergroundthomist.org/sites/default/files/WhyIAmNotAnAtheist.pdf A Professor's Journey out of Nihilism: Why I am not an Atheist - 2012 talk University of Wyoming J. Budziszewski http://veritas.org/talks/professors-journey-out-nihilism-why-i-am-not-atheist/?view=presenters&speaker_id=2231
The Christian founders of modern science understood the distinction between a mathematical description of a law and lawgiver quite well.
"God is not a “God of the gaps”, he is God of the whole show.,,, C. S. Lewis put it this way: “Men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver.” John Lennox - Not the God of the Gaps, But the Whole Show – 2012 http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-god-particle-not-the-god-of-the-gaps-but-the-whole-show-80307/
Perhaps the most famous confusion of a mathematical description of a law and the causal agency behind the law is Stephen Hawking’s following statement:
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.The universe didn’t need a God to begin; it was quite capable of launching its existence on its own,” Stephen Hawking http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/09/the-universe-exists-because-of-spontaneous-creation-stephen-hawking.html
Here is an excerpt of an article, (that is well worth reading in full), in which Dr. Gordon exposes Stephen Hawking’s delusion for thinking that mathematical description and agent causality are the same thing.
BRUCE GORDON: Hawking’s irrational arguments – October 2010 Excerpt: ,,,The physical universe is causally incomplete and therefore neither self-originating nor self-sustaining. The world of space, time, matter and energy is dependent on a reality that transcends space, time, matter and energy. This transcendent reality cannot merely be a Platonic realm of mathematical descriptions, for such things are causally inert abstract entities that do not affect the material world,,, Rather, the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency – a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.” Anything else invokes random miracles as an explanatory principle and spells the end of scientific rationality.,,, Universes do not “spontaneously create” on the basis of abstract mathematical descriptions, nor does the fantasy of a limitless multiverse trump the explanatory power of transcendent intelligent design. What Mr. Hawking’s contrary assertions show is that mathematical savants can sometimes be metaphysical simpletons. Caveat emptor. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/
Moreover, Godel's incompleteness theorem has proven that there will never be a 'complete' mathematical description of everything that is sufficient within itself so as to be a 'theory of everything'.
Kurt Gödel - Incompleteness Theorem – video https://vimeo.com/92387853 THE GOD OF THE MATHEMATICIANS - DAVID P. GOLDMAN - August 2010 Excerpt: we cannot construct an ontology that makes God dispensable. Secularists can dismiss this as a mere exercise within predefined rules of the game of mathematical logic, but that is sour grapes, for it was the secular side that hoped to substitute logic for God in the first place. Gödel's critique of the continuum hypothesis has the same implication as his incompleteness theorems: Mathematics never will create the sort of closed system that sorts reality into neat boxes. http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians Godel and Physics - John D. Barrow Excerpt (page 5-6): "Clearly then no scientific cosmology, which of necessity must be highly mathematical, can have its proof of consistency within itself as far as mathematics go. In absence of such consistency, all mathematical models, all theories of elementary particles, including the theory of quarks and gluons...fall inherently short of being that theory which shows in virtue of its a priori truth that the world can only be what it is and nothing else. This is true even if the theory happened to account for perfect accuracy for all phenomena of the physical world known at a particular time." Stanley Jaki - Cosmos and Creator - 1980, pg. 49 http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0612253.pdf
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