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. 

Forbidden Science

 What still belongs to Science and what does not? Who is to decide what is science and what is para-science or pseudo-science? Some kinds of research are welcomed at one university, but not at another. There are respected scientists, some of whom are Nobel Prize winners, who are ostracized, most of the time by gossip, by various covert activities of their colleagues, simply because they dare to ask questions and research phenomena that others consider as “unworthy”. I have already mentioned several such cases, one example being the treatment of the “strange interests” of Alfred Wallace by Encyclopedia Universalis.

Someone - we do not know who it was - decided that a major part of the research of a distinguished scientist should be suppressed – the public should not be told about it, that it is better to tell a lie than to tell an inconvenient truth.

Science in Secret?

A friend of mine, a distinguished French scientist, who is interested in many “esoteric” areas, tells me that one should keep these interests to oneself, otherwise one will be punished; covert actions of others will destroy your scientific career; and that is what he does – he will discuss certain things in private, but will never dare to say them in public. What kind of science forces scientists to work in secret, from fear? What kind of society gives birth to that kind of science?

William Crookes

While reading the remarkable autobiography of Alfred Wallace, Darwin’s colleague, the co-discoverer - if not the original discoverer of the mechanisms of evolution, I found the following interesting paragraph:

During the years 1870-80 I had many opportunities of witnessing interesting phenomena in the houses of various friends, some of which I have not made public. Early in 1874 I was invited by John Morley, then editor of the Fortnightly Review, to write an article on "Spiritualism" for that periodical. Much public interest had been excited by the publication of the Report of the Committee of the Dialectical Society, and especially by Mr. Crookes's experiments with Mr. Home, and the refusal of the Royal Society to see these experiments repeated. (Italics, mine.)

Who is Mr. Crookes? And what were these experiments that the Royal Society did not even want to witness? Remember: curiosity is a condition “sine qua non” of a true scientist! The Royal Society was not curious? Why? Perhaps the experiments of Mr. Crookes were not worthy of the attention of the learned society, because they did not suggest anything new?

To know more about the issues at hand, the first thing to do is to check: who was Mr. Crookes? According to Encyclopedia Universalis Sir William Crookes (1832-1919) was an English chemist, who inherited quite a fortune, so that he could do his research to some extent independently. He discovered thallium, and invented the first radiometer, known today as the “Crookes tube”.

Crookes tube

From Encyclopedia Britannica we learn, additionally, that William Crookes was knighted in 1897. Searching the net we can find, in particular,  an impressive list of awards:

Past President, Chemical Society, Brit. Assoc., Inst. Elect. Eng., Soc. Chem. Industry; Hon. Member, Roy. Phil. Soc. Glasgow, Roy. Soc. NSW, Pharm. Soc., Chem. Metall. and Mining Soc. of South Africa, Amer. Chem. Soc., Amer. Philos. Soc., Roy. Soc. Sci. Upsala, Deutsch. Chem. Gesell. Berlin, Psychol. Soc. Paris, Antonio Alzate Sci. Soc. Mexico, Sci. Soc. Bucharest, Reg. Accad. Zelanti; Foreign Mem. Accad. Lincei, Rome; Corresp. Inst. de France (Acad. Sci.), Corresp. Mem. Bataafsch Genoots., Rotterdam, Soc. Encouragement pour l'Indust. Paris; For. Assoc. National Acad. Sciences, Washington; Foreign Mem., Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. International Exhibition, 1862, medal; Acadèmie des Sciences, 1880, gold medal and prize of 3000 frs; Electrical Exhibitions, Paris, 1881, medal; Society of Arts, 1885, Fergusson Gold Medal; Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1889, medal; Society of Arts, 1899, Albert Gold Medal; Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, 1912, Elliott Cresson Gold Medal; Soc. Chem. Industry, 1912, gold medal. Royal medallist, Davy medallist, Copley medallist, and three times Bakerian Lecturer of the Royal Society.

I feel that I need to explain my reasons for including this long list of Crookes’ awards here. Do awards count? Do titles count? Facts are the only things that count - one may argue. Well, awards are also facts, and, most of the time, awards are given in recognition of someone’s skills and achievements.

Next post: You Shall Know Them by Their Fruits

P.S.1. 01-04-23 A friend, physicist, sent me this morning a link to this video by Rupert Sheldrake: 

Rupert Sheldrake - The Science Delusion BANNED TED TALK

And there, in particular:

00:09:53

But I want to spend a few moments on the constants of nature too. Because these are, again, assumed to be constant. Things like the gravitational constant of the speed of light are called the fundamental constants. Are they really constant? Well, when I got interested in this question, I tried to find out. They're given in physics handbooks. Handbooks of physics list the existing fundamental constants, tell you their value. But I wanted to see if they'd changed, so I got the old volumes of physical handbooks. I went to the patent office library here in London - they're the only place I could find that kept the old volumes. Normally people throw them away when the new values (volumes) come out, they throw away the old ones. When I did this I found that the speed of light dropped between nineteen twenty-eight and nineteen fourty-five by about twenty kilometers per second. It's a huge drop because they're given with errors of any fractions of a second/decimal points of error. And yet, all over the world, it dropped, and they were all getting very similar values to each other with tiny errors. Then in nineteen fourty-eight, it went up again. And then people started getting very similar values again. I was very intrigued by this and I couldn't make sense of it, so I went to see the head of metrology at the National Physical Laboratory in Eddington. Metrology is the science in which people measure constants. And I asked him about this, I said "what do you make of this drop in the speed of light between nineteen twenty-eight and nineteen fourty-five?" And he said "oh dear", he said "you've uncovered the most embarrassing episode in the history of our science."

So I said "well, could the speed of light have actually dropped? And that would have amazing implications if so." He said "no, no, of course it couldn't have actually dropped. It's a constant!" "Oh, well then how do you explain the fact that everyone was finding it going much slower during that period? Is it because they were fudging their results to get what they thought other people should be getting and the whole thing was just produced in the minds of physicists?" "We don't like to use the word 'fudge'."

I said "Well, so what do you prefer?" He said "well, we prefer to call it 'intellectual phase-locking'." So I said "well if it was going on then, how can you be so sure it's not going on today? And the present values produced are by intellectual phase-locking?" And he said "oh we know that's not the case."

And I said "how do we know?" He said "well", he said "we've solved the problem." And I said "well how?"
And he said "well we fixed the speed of light by definition in nineteen seventy-two."

So I said "but it might still change." He said "yes, but we'd never know it, because we've defined the metre in terms of the speed of light, so the units would change with it!"

So he looked very pleased about that, they'd fixed that problem.

But I said "well, then what about big G?" The gravitational constant, known in the trade as "big G", it was written with a capital G. Newton's universal gravitational constant.

"That's varied by more than 1.3% in recent years. And it seems to vary from place to place and from time to time." And he said "oh well, those are just errors. And unfortunately there are quite big errors with big G."

So I said "well, what if it's really changing? I mean, perhaps it is really changing." And then I looked at how they do it, what happens is they measure it in different labs, they get different values on different days, and then they average them. And then other labs around the world do the same, they come out usually with a rather different average. And then the international committee of metrology meets every ten years or so and average the ones from labs all around the world to come up with the value of big G. But what if G were actually fluctuating? What if it changed? There's already evidence actually that it changes throughout the day and throughout the year. What if the earth, as it moves through the galactic environment went through patches of dark matter or other environmental factors that could alter it? Maybe they all change together. What if these errors are going up together and down together? For more than ten years I've been trying to persuade metrologists to look at the raw data. In fact I'm now trying to persuade them to put it up online, on the internet. With the dates, and the actual measurements, and see if they're correlated. To see if they're all up at one time, all down at another. If so, they might be fluctuating together. And what would tell us something very, very interesting. But no-one has done this, they haven't done it because G is a constant. There's no point looking for changes. 

P.S.2.  April 1, 2023 17:22 Quantum Future is getting closer: