Saturday, June 15, 2024

The Goldilocks Enigma – Part Six

 by Laura Knight-Jadczyk

In the previous post, we learned how scientists have been able to use the ‘hot big bang’ theory to extrapolate how the chemicals for life came into being.  I noted that the theory includes the idea that the initial ‘searing hot plasma’ was composed of ‘freely moving atomic components’ such as protons, neutrons and electrons’ which came from where?  No clue. 

We learned that the universe is composed of mostly hydrogen and helium in a 3 to 1 ratio, and the theorized processes of the big bang have been confirmed (at least in part, I guess) in atom colliders. We also learned that, at the initial stages of the theory, the universe was allegedly “squeezed into a volume of space no larger the solar system, with temperature almost a million times hotter than the center of the sun.”  In passing, I noted Weizsäcker’s ‘information-theoretic” idea. 


Created by A.J. using AI software Kandinsky 3.1 with the following  command:
 'a drawing of an inflating universe at the instant of initial inflation

One important thing learned was that the rate of expansion vs deceleration played a very important role in the physical processes taking place at a given time, i.e. the creation of the different materials and conditions necessary for life. 

Then, there was Alan Guth and his ‘inflation’ as opposed to ‘expansion’.  In this theory the universe jumps from something the size of a single proton to the size of a grapefruit virtually instantaneously, i.e. almost like creation by fiat!  According to Guth, this is all thanks to a scalar field that has a pressure comparable to its energy and produces anti-gravity though this process had to stop pretty quick or everything would go kaflooey.  So, conveniently, Guth’s scalar field is ‘inherently unstable’ and just peters out after a bit. That is, instead of an explosion, there’s just this instant inflation and the energy stored in the inflation field turns into heat and this heat created all the 1050 tons of matter in the universe.  Nobody has yet observed a scalar field, according to Davies.

I thought about all of that for a while and the thing that bothered me is this: The initial Standard model, according to Davies, proposes that the primal universe was “squeezed into a volume of space no larger the solar system, with temperature almost a million times hotter than the center of the sun.”  The solar system is more than 28 billion miles in diameter.  Then Davies said: "the universe doubled in size between 1 and 2 microseconds (a millionth of a second)".  That means that the outer edges traveled 2x28 billion miles in a microsecond.  That means that this expansion took place waaay faster than the speed of light.  Now, I’m not a mathematician, so I mentioned this to Ark who noted that the solution to this problem usually given is that ‘the speed of light does not apply to the edge of the universe.’ He then pointed me to this page: The Universe Could Be Eternal, According to This Controversial Theory  There we read:

·       Controversial research suggests the Big Bang may be a myth due to its reliance on the Doppler effect theory.

·       This idea says the universe is neither expanding, nor contracting; instead it is steady, and has no beginning and no end.

The author of this theory thinks that the redshift on which all we have been looking at so far has been based, is a red herring. We read there:

“The Doppler’s effect is a 180-year old theory nobody has backed up with experimental evidence,” Wilenchik tells Popular Mechanics. To look at different planets and moons in the solar system, Wilenchik, who is a lawyer by trade and an amateur astronomer, borrowed a simple spectroscopy test English astronomer William Huggins had first used in 1868. Spectroscopy is the study and measurement of spectra, or the charts or graphs that depict the intensity of light from an astronomical body like a star. Wilenchik also used data from the Hawaii-based Keck Observatory’s spectrometers—available online—and had a professional astrophysicist process it for him. The results of his study align with a different, incompatible idea about the universe: the tired light model.

The 1929 brainchild of Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky, the tired light hypothesis attributes the universe’s redshift to the fact that photons, the tiny packets of electromagnetic energy that make up light, lose energy as they pass through the great cosmos. Therefore, a decrease or increase in energy doesn’t necessarily mean movement, so no stretching universe can exist. This model indicates that light simply loses energy over time—and so the universe must be static.


Read the article for the pros and cons as well as another article about the same: Quasi Steady-State theory: the Big Bang alternative explained.   There we read: 

"To his death, Hoyle would never submit to the Big Bang theory. A small subset of cosmologists still work on resurrecting a steady state model; but, on the whole, the community overwhelmingly supports the Big Bang theory."

Ark further pointed me to this discussion  where he says “Here is the discussion that shows how it is all confusing. It is like arguing lawyers. Whatever arguments one lawyer would have, another lawyer will always be able to find arguments to the contrary.”

It is here that we notice that apparently Guth’s model proposes that the primal universe, before inflation, was ‘the size of a coin’.  Obviously, that’s a lot smaller than a solar system sized primal atom and far more satisfactory to those who don’t want to have to explain where all that primal mass came from.  And here we see my question: ‘Can space expand with unlimited speed?’ The first answer says ‘yes’, more or less:

The expansion hasn't got a speed. It is a misnomer to say that it is a speed. It should be called expansion rate. It is not like two points having a relative speed, it is more like a scaling rate of the unit distance. If there were no masses in the universe we would not sense any expansion at all. – Oktay Doğangün, Commented Apr 15, 2018

Then, there is a long, complicated answer with equations and graphs.  Go check it out at the link. The bottom line is the following:

·       The current (co-moving) distance of the edge of the observable universe is 46.2 billion ly. Of course, the total universe can be much bigger, and is possibly infinite. The observable universe will keep expanding to a finite maximum co-moving distance at cosmic time t=∞, which is 62.9 billion ly. We will never observe any source located beyond that distance.

·       The edge of the observable universe is receding from us with a recession velocity of more than 3 times the speed of light. 3.18c, to be exact. In other words, we can observe sources that are moving away from us faster than the speed of light. Sources at co-moving distances of 10, 20, 30 and 40 Gly are receding from us at 0.69, 1.38, 2.06 and 2.75 times the speed of light, respectively.

·       Sources outside our particle horizon are moving away even faster. There is no a priori limit to the maximum recession velocity: it is proportional to the size of the total universe, which could be infinite.

A third answer to the question:

Yes, the expansion of space itself is allowed to exceed the speed-of-light limit because the speed-of-light limit only applies to regions where special relativity – a description of the spacetime as a flat geometry – applies. In the context of cosmology, especially a very fast expansion, special relativity doesn't apply because the curvature of the spacetime is large and essential.

So, apparently, the inflation/expansion of the universe at faster than the speed of light, does not violate relativity because it is space that is expanding not the objects themselves moving within that space.  And, by fiat, there is no limit to the expansion rate of space.

Finally, the very day Ark and I were discussing this, I found this article:   'Physics itself disappears': How theoretical physicist Thomas Hertog helped Stephen Hawking produce his final, most radical theory of everything

So, yet another lawyer arguing his case.

When Davies wrote “The Goldilocks Enigma” in about 2006, it was as up-to-date as he could make it.  But it is clear that the ‘science is not settled’ at all.  In the next post, we’ll pick up with Davies again and see where he was going.  I just thought an interlude showing where things are today would be useful. 

P.S. 15-06-24 17:12 (A.J.) That reminds me the two poems by  Friedrich Schiller: "TH Words of Faith", and "The Words of Delusion". The first one is optimistic. The second one brings us closer to reality. " While the first formulates his Kantian belief in the triad of Freedom, Virtue and Divinity, the other warns against the delusions of the age, the belief in the progress of mankind, in the justice of life and the possibility of ever discovering truth."

Words of Faith

I’ll name you three content-laden words;
From mouth to mouth they are chasing,
But not from outside of us do they emerge—
’Tis words from the heart we are facing.
Mankind is of all his value bereft
If in these three words no faith is left.

Man was created free—is free
E’en though he were born in shackles.
Do not be deceived by the rabble’s bray
Or idiots’ abusive cackles.
Before the slave, when his chains he doth break,
Before the man who’s free, O do not quake!

And virtue—this is no meaningless sound—
Can be practiced each day if we trouble;
And much as we tend to go stumbling around,
Toward paradise, too, can we struggle.
And what no logician’s logic can see
The child-like mind sees obviously.

And one God there is, a Will divine,
However man’s own will may waver;
Supremely above all space and all time
The living Idea moves forever.
And though all’s e’er-changing in form and in scene,
Within that change rests a spirit serene.

Keep these three content-laden words;
From mouth to mouth implant them.
And if from without they do not emerge,
Then your innermost soul must grant them.
Mankind is never of value bereft
As long as his faith in these three words is left.

translated by John Sigerson

Words of Delusion

Three words doth man hear, with meaning full
In good and in best mouths extolling,
They sound off but idly, their ring is null,
They can not give any consoling.
And mankind doth forfeit this life’s own fruit,
As long as mere shadows are his pursuit.

As long as he trusts in the Golden Age,
Where the righteous, the good conquer evil—
The righteous, the good in battle e’er rage,
Ne’er will he vanquish the Devil,
And thou strangle him not in the air that’s blue,
E’er grows in him strength from the earth anew.

As long as he trusts, that a coquettish chance
Is with nobleness bound up in spiri—
The evil she trails with loving glance,
Not the earth, will the good man inherit.
He is a stranger, he goes to roam
And seeks an everlasting home.

As long as he trusts, that mere logic can grasp
The truth that is ever shining,
Then her veil lifts not any mere mortal clasp,
We’re left but supposing, divining.
Thou’d ’prison the soul in an empty sound,
But it wanders off in the storm unbound.

So, noble soul, from delusion tear thee,
And to heavenly trust be most faithful!
What no ear doth hear, what the eyes do not see,
It is this that’s the beaut’ous, the truthful!
It is not outside, there fools do implore,
It is in you, you bring it forth evermore.

translated by Marianna Wertz

For more of Schiller check here.

P.S. 16-04-24 12:52 (A.J.)

This episode is the fifth of a six part series where Jay and Hunter interview Laura Knight-Jadczyk

P.S. 19-06-24 From today on I am also a member of the Editorial Board of Transactions in Optics and Photonics.


Studying the Properties of Light seems to be a deep part of my nature. 



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