James Webb launch imminent ....let's talk

[justoffal]

It's hard to believe I posted this over a year ago.
The upcoming launch of the James Webb Deep space Observatory October 31, 2020

So I say once again this is arguably the most important event in human history.
What are the implications of being able to see back to the beginning? With the recent changes in position on the Big bang theory and new indications that there is no such thing as dark matter.. what would we be looking for with James Webb's new 100 times more powerful gaze into the vast reaches of the past?

Jo

Jo

 

[Otis Mayfield]

Doesn't the Hubble do all that? Just not as well?

 

[justoffal]

Doesn't the Hubble do all that? Just not as well?

Actually no .,. James Webb the specifically tuned to the infrared.
Hubble has a broader application and actually has more capabilities than the new telescope does for closer examinations. However most astrophysicists are left with the haunting feeling the secrets of our origins are some what outside the scope of what Hubble can examine and so we are waiting with bated breath discovery of new and more intricate secrets that help us fill in the missing puzzle pieces of that mystery.

Implications of this are hard to overemphasize....

Jo

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

It's hard to believe I posted this over a year ago.
The upcoming launch of the James Webb Deep space Observatory October 31, 2020

So I say once again this is arguably the most important event in human history.
What are the implications of being able to see back to the beginning? With the recent changes in position on the Big bang theory and new indications that there is no such thing as dark matter.. what would we be looking for with James Webb's new 100 times more powerful gaze into the vast reaches of the past?

Jo

Jo

We are going to see further back. Maybe see the very first galaxies. But we can keep upgrading, and all we will see is further and further back, until we are looking at barely perceptible dust, redshirfted to the extreme. From our theoretical work, it seems likely that our spacetime is boundless, to observers within it. So there is no "beginning" for us to see.

 

[justoffal]

We are going to see further back. Maybe see the very first galaxies. But we can keep upgrading, and all we will see is further and further back, until we are looking at barely perceptible dust, redshirfted to the extreme. From our theoretical work, it seems likely that our spacetime is boundless, to observers within it. So there is no "beginning" for us to see.

Ahh! Just what I actually wanted to talk about! What do you make of the new controversies surrounding the challenge to the cosmic egg concept?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Ahh! Just what I actually wanted to talk about! What do you make of the new controversies surrounding the challenge to the cosmic egg concept?

Could you be more specific? specific?

 

[justoffal]

Could you be more specific? specific?

Yes of course.

Some of the articles I've been reading of late are calling into question what up till now has been a broadly accepted definition of origins via the so-called Big bang. More recent calculations derived from a broader scope of observations seem to be providing information that contradicts the current understanding of exactly how the universe expanded from an infinitesimally small singularity. According to this new information the current velocity of the expanding components cannot mathematically be traced back to that single point.... Something about missing mass and velocity.... I would like to understand more about that. Is this what they are hoping to investigate?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Yes of course.

Some of the articles I've been reading of late are calling into question what up till now has been a broadly accepted definition of origins via the so-called Big bang. More recent calculations derived from a broader scope of observations seem to be providing information that contradicts the current understanding of exactly how the universe expanded from an infinitesimally small singularity. According to this new information the current velocity of the expanding components cannot mathematically be traced back to that single point.... Something about missing mass and velocity.... I would like to understand more about that. Is this what they are hoping to investigate?

A good question. But as I understand it, singularity or no, a boundless universe would mean spacetime is boundless. This was Hawking's perennial assumption.

You have probably heard about watching a friend falling into a black hole. You never actually see him enter. He appears to decelerate and redshift...forever. You never see him cross the event horizon.

Same for moving backward in time. You would never reach a beginning.

So the scientific community still seems to assume a boundless spacetime. And also, that we should not be able to see past about 1E-33s before the big bang.

How to resolve these ideas? Hawking used the unfurling of time from a state with only imaginary time.

We could never look back and see that ultra dense state (which prevents it from looking more than 1E-33s into its past), because we were inside of it. Also, it was opaque. It's demise was the big bang. The result of its demise is the CMB.

So I believe the idea is that we will just keep seeing and older structures. We will be looking for early galaxies, because we are dying to figure out how galaxies really form. What we do not expect to see are structures older than the big bang.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

justoffal the scientific community seems to be losing taste for singularities. They don't like that the physics breaks down.

 

[justoffal]

A good question. But as I understand it, singularity or no, a boundless universe would mean spacetime is boundless. This was Hawking's perennial assumption.

You have probably heard about watching a friend falling into a black hole. You never actually see him enter. He appears to decelerate and redshift...forever. You never see him cross the event horizon.

Same for moving backward in time. You would never reach a beginning.

So the scientific community still seems to assume a boundless spacetime. And also, that we should not be able to see past about 1E-33s before the big bang.

How to resolve these ideas? Hawking used the unfurling of time from a state with only imaginary time.

We could never look back and see that ultra dense state (which prevents it from looking more than 1E-33s into its past), because we were inside of it. Also, it was opaque. It's demise was the big bang. The result of its demise is the CMB.

So I believe the idea is that we will just keep seeing and older structures. We will be looking for early galaxies, because we are dying to figure out how galaxies really form. What we do not expect to see are structures older than the big bang.

So it's the chicken and the egg cycle.
If there was indeed a grand cosmic forebear ( singularity) .... Our question now inescapably becomes....where did it come from? Do you see this as a departure from what the former and generally accepted idea was... that it came from nowhere and nothing to be come somewhere and everything? Not quite sure how else to phrase that question...

 

[justoffal]

justoffal the scientific community seems to be losing taste for singularities. They don't like that the physics breaks down.

Hah! Yes indeed. I am delighted that we are about to get a closer and more detailed Looksee... What has me absolutely terrified is that...as you have previously mentioned...we may only be seeing more of the same.

 

[justoffal]

A good question. But as I understand it, singularity or no, a boundless universe would mean spacetime is boundless. This was Hawking's perennial assumption.

You have probably heard about watching a friend falling into a black hole. You never actually see him enter. He appears to decelerate and redshift...forever. You never see him cross the event horizon.

Same for moving backward in time. You would never reach a beginning.

So the scientific community still seems to assume a boundless spacetime. And also, that we should not be able to see past about 1E-33s before the big bang.

How to resolve these ideas? Hawking used the unfurling of time from a state with only imaginary time.

We could never look back and see that ultra dense state (which prevents it from looking more than 1E-33s into its past), because we were inside of it. Also, it was opaque. It's demise was the big bang. The result of its demise is the CMB.

So I believe the idea is that we will just keep seeing and older structures. We will be looking for early galaxies, because we are dying to figure out how galaxies really form. What we do not expect to see are structures older than the big bang.

My God.... Have we reached our
Mosquito moment as a community?
If all this new research deconstructs the status quo of our current doctrine .... where the hell do we go from here?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

So it's the chicken and the egg cycle.
If there was indeed a grand cosmic forebear ( singularity) .... Our question now inescapably becomes....where did it come from? Do you see this as a departure from what the former and generally accepted idea was... that it came from nowhere and nothing to be come somewhere and everything? Not quite sure how else to phrase that question...

I think it is a departure from the the idea of a singularity. I think scientists believe we are basically blocked from ever knowing. That we could not communicate in any way with the past beyond a certain point.

If a singularity, then "before" has no meaning". It is like asking what is north of the North Pole. From our perspective, anyway.

 

[Wuwei]

I think it is a departure from the the idea of a singularity. I think scientists believe we are basically blocked from ever knowing. That we could not communicate in any way with the past beyond a certain point.

If a singularity, then "before" has no meaning". It is like asking what is north of the North Pole. From our perspective, anyway.

The ekpyrotic theory of the universe involves higher dimensional membranes simply called branes. It doesn't require a big bang. I read a simple explanation in Science News some time ago.

When Branes Collide

A controversial new theory proposes that our universe existed as a cold, featureless void for eons, until a parallel universe floating through a hidden fifth dimension crashed into it, igniting the Big Bang.

www.sciencenews.org

Wikipedia has a more detailed article, "brane cosmology"

Our universe was created when two branes in 11-D space collided. It's as simple as that. But seriously folks it is steeped in string theory and really can't be tested, but it does show that there are other possibilities than a big bang.

.

 

[justoffal]

I think it is a departure from the the idea of a singularity. I think scientists believe we are basically blocked from ever knowing. That we could not communicate in any way with the past beyond a certain point.

If a singularity, then "before" has no meaning". It is like asking what is north of the North Pole. From our perspective, anyway.

When you refer to 1e-33.... Are you referring to the large number of years spanning between the present and the past or are you referring to distance or perhaps a combination of both? Space-time apparently eludes a description based on either unit individually? Oh wait...one E to the negative 33?....ok I get it now.

Jo

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

The ekpyrotic theory of the universe involves higher dimensional membranes simply called branes. It doesn't require a big bang. I read a simple explanation in Science News some time ago.

When Branes Collide

A controversial new theory proposes that our universe existed as a cold, featureless void for eons, until a parallel universe floating through a hidden fifth dimension crashed into it, igniting the Big Bang.

www.sciencenews.org

Wikipedia has a more detailed article, "brane cosmology"

Our universe was created when two branes in 11-D space collided. It's as simple as that. But seriously folks it is steeped in string theory and really can't be tested, but it does show that there are other possibilities than a big bang.

.

But isn't there still a rapid expansionary period? I get confused a little, when these scientific articles refer to the "big bang". Sometimes they seem to be implying the whole package, including a singularity. But Big bang theory in reality has pretty much been reduced to a description of the rapid inflation. So brane theory would not totally undermine the big bang science we have.

No?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

When you refer to 1e-33.... Are you referring to the large number of years spanning between the present and the past or are you referring to distance or perhaps a combination of both? Space-time apparently eludes a description based on either unit individually? Oh wait...one E to the negative 33?....ok I get it now.

Jo

1E-33 seconds. An unimaginably SHORT period of time. Basically, Planck time.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

The ekpyrotic theory of the universe involves higher dimensional membranes simply called branes. It doesn't require a big bang. I read a simple explanation in Science News some time ago.

When Branes Collide

A controversial new theory proposes that our universe existed as a cold, featureless void for eons, until a parallel universe floating through a hidden fifth dimension crashed into it, igniting the Big Bang.

www.sciencenews.org

Wikipedia has a more detailed article, "brane cosmology"

Our universe was created when two branes in 11-D space collided. It's as simple as that. But seriously folks it is steeped in string theory and really can't be tested, but it does show that there are other possibilities than a big bang.

.

String theory is fun. But it is kind of kooky, can't be tested, and still has some serious contradictions to work out. Brian Greene for example has eased up on the gas pedal a bit. String Theory has enriched him through speaking gigs, but it has yet to produce any useful science. And the more it is studied, the more problems arise.

 

[justoffal]

1E-33 seconds. An unimaginably SHORT period of time. Basically, Planck time.

Ahhh....thanks...
Screw politics...THIS IS FUN!

Jo

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Ahhh....thanks...
Screw politics...THIS IS FUN!

Jo

As I understand it, scientists currently believe that, given the properties of the universe prior to the decodupling event (when the inflation began, and the first light was able to travel through a formerly opaque universe), we cannot see anything that happened more than 1E-33 seconds before this event. All prior information would be forever hidden from us.