Big Bang Blasted

Mike C · October 2, 2007

CraigD

I am not interested in dicussing star evolution that is besides the subject of cosmology.

But I decided to post an article on the 'regeneration of galaxies' that is relative to codmology.

See my new post.

Mike C

CraigD · October 2, 2007

The Sun is too young to have yet manufactured elements heavier than helium. It's too small to every manufacture elements heavier than carbon, or to explode in a supernova, so will never create new iron, or contribute to the formation of a future proto-stellar nebula that will form a future star. In about 6 billion years, it will settle into a white dwarfhood, gradually cooling and becoming dimmer until, 20 billion years or so from now, it'll be so dim it won't be visually detectable, a “black dwarf”.
I disagree, where did you get the info that our sun is too young to make Fe.

I suppose I first learned of conventional theories of stellar evolution from any of a number of popular science books and articles, and eventually from a high school astronomy textbook. Brief summaries of these theories conclusions concerning the future of the Sun can be found in the links in section of my post quoted (forum use hint: use the QUOTE button to quote text rather than manual copying and pasting, as it retains any links, and adds original poster name and a link to the post). A brief but slightly more comprehensive explanation can be found in the wikipedia articles “Formation and evolution of the Solar System” and ”Stellar fusion”, and in many other introductory astronomy and astrophysics websites, articles, and textbooks.

Note that I actually stated that the Sun will never create iron, or any element heavier (with a greater atomic number) than carbon. At present, the Sun is fusing hydrogen into helium. It has not yet, but will, in about 6 billion years, begin fusing helium into carbon. During this period, the sun will be a form of star know as a red dwarf.

My statement was slightly inaccurate – during its red dwarf phase, while the Sun will mostly fuse He into C, if will fuse He into much smaller (but still, by ordinary human standards, vast) amounts of oxygen, neon, and magnesium. See the above “stellar fusion” link for more information about this process, known as the “alpha process”.

If the Sun was left on its own without merging or what ever you maybe right. That possibilty is not probable.

Pluto’s assertion agrees with many of the most accepted present-day theories, which predict that eventually, after out current ”stelliferous era” and a future “degenerate era” some, most, or all of the stellar “junk yard” of black dwarfs and other non-fusing stellar remnants will be “swept up” into super-massive black holes for a “black hole era”, after which still more interesting things happen. However, the time scale of such theories are staggering: [math]10^{14}[/math] years for the degenerate era, [math]10^{40}[/math] for the black hole era, and [math]10^{100}[/math] for eras after that, vs the universe’s current age of about [math]10^{10}[/math] years. On such time scales, the physics, though intriguing, is so speculative it’s arguably no longer normal science.

As for the workings within stars I would advice for people to read

Oliver Manuel

Yes it is papers that do not agree with the standard model.

I agree that Manuel’s and other “big iron-core supernova remnant Sun” theories are a good read, but would caution against reading them without first gaining a good understanding of the conventional stellar physics upon which they build.

Also, it’s important IMHO to note that while these theories are indeed radical and far from the mainstream consensus, they agree with conventional theories on stellar fusion processes. They depart from the mainstream in their explanation of how stars of our Sun’s generation form. In the conventional model, they condense from fairly homogenous, low-density clouds of primordial and supernova remnant matter (possibly that of multiple supernovas). In BICSR models, the condensation of these clouds is strongly “seeded” by the presence of a massive supernova remnant core. These BICSR stars, while still fusing H to He, etc. as in the conventional model, generate more energy due to their massive cores than to fusion. A table comparing conventional and BICSR models can be found at this (somewhat strange) site.

It’s also important, I think, to consider why theorists have proposed BICSR and other “alternative solar model” theories. The main reason appears to be the solar neutrino problem, which involves the number of neutrinos experimentally detected being fewer (from 30-50%) than predicted by early theories. When this discrepancy was discovered in the 1960s, many theorists pursued explanations through variations in the standard solar model. However, particle physics theories featuring neutrino oscillation emerging in the 1980s eventually became more popular than alternative solar models, as spacecraft and Earth observations matched these theories’ predictions, not the solar models’.

I strongly encourage people who have not already done so to review the decades of theory of research surrounding the solar neutrino problem and its relationship to the physics of stars before accepting either the mainstream consensus or a particular fringe stellar physics theory.

Pluto · October 4, 2007

Hello CraigD

What do you think of the BIG Bang Theory?

Darn

Sorry I will come back to your above post.

I have to go,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Kids need to be picked up.

CraigD · October 6, 2007

What do you think of the BIG Bang Theory?

That’s a really tough question!

First, I’m humbled by it. It invention, modification, testing, and even just adequate understanding requires great technical depth and understanding in multiple scientific disciplines. Like all but an elite few, I’m not, IMHO, truly able to understand it or competing theories well enough to have an authoritative opinion, but must rely on the opinions of others, ie: scientific authorities.

Second, I think it’s important to begin with a precise definition of what I mean by the Big Bang. As I’m using the term now, it refers to a family of similar models of the history of the universe that have in common a “hot, dense” starting condition. As a model, it’s not a true scientific theory, but an organizing framework for other basic theories, primarily particle physics and astrophysics.

This distinction requires a brief review of the conventional meaning of the terms scientific model and theory:

Theories are models.
Theories, however, have a couple of key features models do not:
- A formalism, that is a standard nomenclature for writing statements, and reader/writer-independent rules for proving a new statement true of false given a collection of given true statements.
- The ability to generate falsifiable predictions that can be experimentally tested.

Unless one has the ability to create a universe – not altogether inconceivable, but far from current human experimental capability – one can’t design and conduct falsifying tests of the Big Bang itself. One can, and whole communities of people constantly do, for the theories that underlie it, but the successes, failures, and changes to these underlying theories only indirectly influence the Big Bang model itself. In principle, one might entirely invalidate and replace one of its underlying theories, without substantially changing the Big Bang model.

(This wikipedia article section presents, I believe, a concise statement of the consensus distinction between models and theories)

This said, I think it’s most effective to approach this very wide model by dividing it into distinct (though related and interacting) domains, and address each separately. With no particular authority, and based on no previous, extensively reviewed work, here are my divisions:

Nucleosynthesis – an explanation of the numbers of the chemical elements found in the universe
Macroastronomy (unconventional term) – an explanation of the large-scale arrangement and motion of observed (and, in many members of the family of models, unobserved) matter and EM radiation.
Cosmology – pre- and post-diction of the distant past and future of the universe

Conventionally, “macroastronomy” is included under cosmology. I find it useful to make a division between its current and past/future foci.

After all this preamble,I can state what I think of the Big Bang, according to these domains:

Nucleosynthesis – I’m most impressed with this, particularly with the narrow range of possible abundances of He for the various possible “tunings” of initial conditions, and its agreement the observed rarity of elements heavier than lithium and formal explanations of stellar nucleosythesis.

Another important part of this domain involves the symmetry breaking required to explain the observed absence of primordial antimatter. My grasp of the formalism of particle physics necessary to understand this area is inadequate, leaving me personally agnostic and tending to rely on the opinions of better educated people.
Macroastronomy – IMHO, most of this domain isn’t of much importance to the Big Bang model. Orthodox and most radical theories explaining the presently observed large scale structure of the universe don’t much impact the overarching model of the Big Bang.
Cosmology – IMHO, the major single attribute of any cosmology is its prediction of the gravitational “open or closedness” of the observed universe (eg: [math]\Omega[/math], the Friedmann density factor). Big Bang models can be open or closed ([math]\Omega[/math] \le 1) or closed ([math]\Omega[/math] > 1), so, IMHO, are robust in their ability to include nearly any cosmological model or theory. Big Bang models do not exclude the Big Crunch hypothesis.

Another important part of this domain involves cosmic expansion, a very different phenomena that the Hubble expansion described by [math]\Omega[/math]. Although much work has gone into fitting expansion into match observed data and resolve cosmological paradoxes, I consider it still a very ad-hoc and unsatisfying family of hypotheses, with only the most tentative beginnings of deep explanative theories and experiments to offer at present. This is not to say I object to or reject it, only consider it immature as a scientific theory.

Pluto · October 6, 2007

Hello CraigD

Your response was very humble.

Its just that I cannot accept the universe being 14 Gyrs when we see super clusters of clusters of clusters of galaxies deep field 13.2 Gyrs having high Iron content and only taking a few hundred million years to form. It does not matter how many ad hoc ideas they give us. Something is cooking in the pot.

Reading many posts I find people not understanding the theory behind the Big Bang.

I do not agree with the BBT, but! that does not make me right. I'm not emotionally attached to any theory.

Here are some links in support of the Big Bang, later I will post against. For now maybe discuss the supporting issues.

Tango at your speed.

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis

A Glimpse of the Young Milky Way

http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/p.../pr-19-02.html

Evidence for the Big Bang

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astr....html#firstlaw

Frequently Asked Questions in Cosmology

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/co...y_faq.html#XIN

History of the Big Bang Theory