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Formalising The Heavens (Part 4) Before the Big Bang
| SERIES: Formalising The Heavens AUTHOR: Jim Schofield |
STRANDS: PHYSICS |
ABSTRACT: This series was elicited by an article in New Scientist (2682) in which the author was putting forward a new explanation for the finding of supernovae “beyond” the extent of the Big Bang Universe. The previous “fix” for such anomalies had been the idea that the expansion of the Universe was increasing in speed the further out it extended. Obviously, such acceleration was the opposite of what had been expected, for the only possible and known force was gravity. But if the opposite was true it needed a force to propel it, and so the idea of a Dark Energy or Force had been “revealed”. Clearly, an unknown force from an unknown source, which does not diminish with the vast extension of the Universe, is an obvious frig. But, when you are totally wedded to equations, an alternative would be hard to come by. The author suggest a “lens” of greater gravitation around our piece of Space, which distorts the seeming position of these supernovae, and makes them seem much further away or earlier in time, or indeed whatever will paper over the cracks. This paper, in response, spends little time on the frig, but a great deal of time on the authors' philosophical and methodological standpoints, explaining their exit from a materialist scientific standpoint and method, and their entry into one that sees everything driven by formulae alone. And of course such a switch puts them into an entirely different category. Indeed, it positions them squarely into an idealist standpoint, in which as long as you can find the mathematical scaffold, you have explained everything. I’m afraid not! |
SYNOPSIS: 1. As an alternative to Dark Energy and increasing acceleration of the outer-most parts of the Universe, to explain the discovered supernovae, the new authors instead postulated a bubble surrounding our area of Space (of higher than normal gravitation), which “gave the impression” that these were further away than they actually were. 2. But there is another very simple alternative! The Big Bang could have occurred within a previously existing Universe. But, such a simple explanations begets such a torrent of questioning about other aspects of the now Standard Model that it is not even mentioned. 3. We would then have to explain the cause of the Big Bang, and discuss the former Universe. Yet most of the anomalies of that Model could be addressed by such an assumption. (It just could NOT be done solely in a mathematical way 0 it would require physical causes!) 4. Several muses on the significance of such an assumption are then considered – from Unevenness to the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, and even colliding galaxies, and finally Galaxies of seemingly different ages. 5. Indeed, the new alternative seems to fit in well with Novae and Supernovae, but of some stupendously higher order. |
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