Do We Really Understand?

A recent blog post by a popular astrophysicist stated the following:

We understand that:

•  our Universe is expanding,
•  that it can trace its history back to a hotter, denser, more uniform past,
•  with the earliest phases describable by a hot Big Bang,
•  which itself was preceded by a phase of cosmic inflation,
•  and that all that we see and experience today — stars, galaxies, planets, moons, the cosmic web, and even life itself — having arisen in the aftermath of these impressive events in our shared history.

I would have stated this differently. I would have started that: “According to our best current theory, (the Lambda cold dark matter, or the ΛCDM, model) . . . which states:. . . .”

If we really understand the topic, we should be able to explain all parts of this theory/model: namely “a phase of cosmic inflation,” dark matter, dark energy, expanding space-time, etc. which are all on the list of things we do not understand.

Even the commonly accepted concept such as space-time is iffy at best. Space is not a thing, so how can it expand? One excusigist explained that space-time could expand because it is a field. Okay, add another thing to the list of things not explained in this theory: a field.

The standard definition, which I first learned, is this: “In physics, a field is a region of space where every point is associated with a specific physical quantity, like a value or a vector.” In my day a field was a region in space in which something could be measured. As a consequence completely empty space is disqualified, except in the notion that there must be some mass nearby and the force of attraction to that mass must be able to be felt in that region of empty space, so in effect, all of space is a field of some sort, which gets us nowhere. A region in space in which an effect can be felt describes all space, so saying “space is a field” is nonsense, as the concept of space is needed to define a field. (A running joke in science is that “cows are out standing in their field” usually used to prick the balloon of another scientist who was described as being outstanding in his field.)

So, explaining that space-time could expand because it is a field is sheer nonsense, like cosmic inflation. Cosmic inflation, a period of rapid expansion of the universe . . . before the Big Bang, which is described as a rapid expansion of the universe (WTF?) is caused how? What triggered it? How does it work? For the ΛCDM model to be declared the “standard model” of the universe, you’d think such answers would be available. They are not. Oh, and the expansion occurred at speeds above the speed of light, something we think impossible now.

Physics, specifically astrophysics above, but also particle physics, high energy physics, etc. seem to have gone down rabbit holes. Einstein is partly to blame for this as he insisted that mathematics should be the leader in such endeavors, but mathematics has no bounds. In prior scientific endeavors, conceptualizations using imagination and logic, formed one branch and experimentation formed the other.

So experiments created data that required organization and conceptualizations. The conceptualizing, that is theorizing, created arrangements and structures that made sense of the data. The theories made predictions that lead to experiments being done, and experiments done created data that required theories to explain.

It seems as if physicists spend the vast majority of their time theorizing, usually mathematically, and almost no time in comparing theory and data. That is they have lost contact with reality.

Take the new tool, expected to create oodles of new data, the James Webb Space Telescope. By placing this telescope farther out than Earth orbit, in a Lagrange point, and then shielding it from any radiative heat source, allowed it to take infrared images deeper into space and therefore time than ever before. Note that is not “space-time” it is space and time because the light traveling from far away objects is limited to the speed of light, so the farther away a luminous object is, the longer the light has to travel and the longer it takes to get here and when it does, it was emitted long, long ago so wea re effectively seeing the past.

Since the time period the JWST was supposed to read was close to the time of the BB, the ΛCDM theorists predicted that galaxies would be very small, not evolved, Black holes would be few and far between, and star creation would be at a minimum. So, the JWST looked and saw large, evolved galaxies with Black holes at their centers, some being very, very massive black holes, and therefore “old,” and places in which star creation seemed to be moving at a high clip.

So, if the “current standard model” got things so very, very wrong, some doubt would be cast upon it, especially because of the long list if unexplained ad hoc patches already in place, no?

Well, of course, a small army of excusigists immediately lines up to explained that’s what they expected all along and that claims that the BBT has holes in it are vastly overstated. You see, if you only knew what they knew you would understand. These people seem to have morphed from honest scientists into Priests of the Standard Model.

But what do I know, that’s just what I can see from the cheap seats?

Addendum Regarding “. . . completely empty space is disqualified, except in the notion that there must be some mass nearby and the force of attraction to that mass must be able to be felt in that region of empty space . . .” Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity eliminates the concept of “the force of gravity” substituting curved space-time which means space theoretically could be completely empty and therefore not a field at all, at least with regard to gravity. Of course, there are huge magnetic fields all over the known universe, so maybe they can play the role of turning “empty space” into a “field.”