
An “expert voice” astrophysicist explains that the Big Bang is now the “vanilla Big Bang,” which is unpopular because it doesn’t explain all observations:
The Big Bang model is our most successful explanation for the history of the universe that we live in, and it’s ridiculously easy to encapsulate its core framework in a single, T-shirtable sentence…
But
But there’s no reason for our universe to be flat. At large scales it could’ve had any old curvature it wanted. Our cosmos could’ve been shaped like a giant, multidimensional beach ball, or a horse-riding saddle. But, no, it picked flat. And not just a little bit flat. For us to measure no curvature to a precision of a few percent in the present-day universe, the young cosmos must’ve been flat to one part in a million.
Why? Of all the possible choices for curvature, doesn’t nearly perfectly flat seem a little suspicious?
The best solution we have to these conundrums is a process called inflation. The idea was first proposed — and coined! — by physicist Alan Guth in 1980 when he suggested that the same exotic process that flooded the universe with magnetic monopoles could have sent the cosmos into a period of staggeringly rapid expansion.Paul Sutter, “Why We Need Cosmic Inflation” at Space.com
Well, that’s fine but Sutter admits that the hypothesized inflation mechanisms are “poorly understood” and that a cosmology theory must not only explain observations but make successful predictions. We are waiting.
Currently, cosmic inflation is being promoted with some pretty wild theorizing. Faster than light travel is just the beginning.
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See also: Does the beginning of the universe require a cause? Alexander Vilenkin says no. William Lane Craig says yes.
The Big Bang: Put simply, the facts are wrong.
At Science: Hawking’s last work attempted to stick a pin in eternal inflation of the cosmos
and
Cosmic inflation theory loses hangups about the scientific method
My stomach was flat once, but now it is inflating.
The author claims that we need inflation to explain why the universe is so flat:
Paul J. Steinhardt, one of the originators of the inflation model but who is now scathing of it, disagrees and holds that flatness remains a conundrum for inflation.
Specifically he states, “there has to be a patch of space where the quantum fluctuations of spacetime have died down and the space is well described by Einstein’s classical equations of general relativity; second, the patch of space must be flat enough and have a smooth enough distribution of energy that the inflation energy can grow to dominate all other forms of energy.,,, if it were easy to find a patch emerging from the big bang that is flat and smooth enough to start inflation, then inflation would not be needed in the first place.”
The author in the OP also states that,,,
The author is off by, err, 10^51 magnitudes,,, as the following author comments, the universe must have been flat to 1 part within 1×10^57 parts over its entire 13.8 billion year history which, “seems like an insane coincidence”.
Besides failing to explain the initial ‘flatness’ of the universe, physicists are also baffled as to how the universe can possibly maintain exceptional flatness throughout its entire 13.8 billion year history
The author in the OP also states that,,
The author should be grateful that the universe is ‘ever-so-boringly flat’. If the universe were not so ‘ever-so-boringly flat’ science and technology would not be possible for humans.
It is important to point out that the reason why Euclidean (3 Dimensional) geometry is even applicable in our science and engineering in the first place is because the 4-Dimensional space-time of our universe (General Relativity) is exceptionally, and unexpectedly “flat”. As Fraser Cain stated in the following article, which was referenced previously, “We say that the universe is flat, and this means that parallel lines will always remain parallel. 90-degree turns behave as true 90-degree turns, and everything makes sense.,,,’
Simply put, without some remarkable degree of exceptional, and stable, flatness for the universe, (as well as exceptional stability for all the other constants), Euclidean (3-Dimensional) geometry would not be applicable to our world. or to the universe at large, and this would make science and engineering for humans, for all practical purposes, all but impossible.
This ‘insane coincidence’ of flatness adds considerable weight to both Einstein’s and Wigner’s claim that the applicability of math to the universe is, by all rights, a miracle:
The author in the OP also wants inflation to ‘explain away’ why the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) is so round and smooth:
Yet, besides failing to explain why the the Cosmic Background Radiation is so smooth and round, inflation also fails to explain the ‘anomalies’ in the CBR.
Moreover, some of these anomalies in the CBR, which the inflation model simply cannot explain, ‘strangely’ line up with the earth and solar system:
At the 13:55 minute mark of this following video, Max Tegmark, an atheist who specializes in this area of study, finally admits, post Planck 2013, that the CMBR anomalies do indeed line up with the earth and solar system
Here is an excellent clip from “The Principle” that explains all of these ‘anomalies’ in an easy to understand manner.
Of additional note:
And whereas physicists, with there inflation model, have no clue why the universe should be as round and flat as it is, (much less why the CBR anomalies should line up with the earth and solar system) Christian Theists have no problem finding an answer for why the universe is as such.
The Bible ‘predicted’ thousands of years before it was discovered by modern science, that the universe would be ‘exceptionally’ round and flat:
Mung:
Have you consulted a good gastroenterologist?
gpuccio at 4 😉 😉 If Mung were a cosmos, he should rather consult a gastro-entire-ologist. 😉 😉
lol
Mung is certainly a cosmos! 🙂
Mung:
How long was your ‘inflationary period’?
As to ‘flatness,’ Roger Penrose points out that to account for the entropy of today’s cosmos, the initial Big Bang material would have to have been ‘ordered’ to the (10)^(10)^123 degree, or some such number. How about that for ‘fine-tuning’!