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What's up with the latest new cosmogony theory. . . The Big Chill?
Physicists down under have abandoned the HMS Big Bang and signed on the Big Chill. Just as I was beginning to grasp the basics of the BB, the science world adds a new menu item which turns everything upside down. What are we science groupies to do?
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/08/22/big-bang-was-actually-phase-change/
Closing Statement from edward long
Eight intrepid souls joined me in a 53-post total. Here is a synopsis of their expressed thoughts:
1- What we believe has been challenged!
2- It's the same thing as the Big Bang, kind of part of it, probably the beginning part.
3- It's an effect, not a cause.
4- Having no theories is better than having more than one.
5- We need a genius to come along and explain it all.
6- One theory will replace the other.
7- The press distorts science. They don't always stress the tentative nature of discoveries and theories. They should control themselves better. Scientists are exasperated by media methods.
8- Science always deals in uncertainty.
9- This is just one more possible truth.
10- Revisit "Snowball Earth"?
11- Huge amounts of tax sollars will go into it. Better into studying this than into war and religious propaganda.
12- Unfamiliuar terms popping-up: Spatial Dimensions; Temporal Dimensions; Graphity.
13- Several technical observations.
14- Higgs Boson has mass!?
These honest and valuable observations convince me there is no room in the scientific method for kneejerk reactions like revising the Standard Model to replace the Big Bang with the Big Chill. So much for instant gratification. Time will tell. I am going to watch for signs of fitting the data to the model, or sweeping things under the rug. Science ain't sacred!
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Nicole Small
Thanks, Edward Long, for bringing this to my attention. At the time the Higgs was discovered, I was visiting my father (about 1,000 miles from home) for the first time in 16 years. By the time I returned, I'd actually forgotten about it (a lot going on in my life.) When Mr. Long posed this question, I was reminded of the new discovery I'd forgotten to study. Once I started digging around, I realized that it's possible that some of my extreme beliefs (reflected in other conversations) might not be as extreme as they seem on the surface. The possible futures I suggested may not be as far as I thought.....maybe closer, now, than I ever imagined.
edward long 100+
"I am not worried if scientists go and explain everything. This is for a very simple reason: an impala sprinting across the Savannah can be reduced to biomechanics, and Bach can be reduced to counterpoint, yet that does not decrease one iota our ability to shiver as we experience impalas leaping or Bach thundering. We can only gain and grow with each discovery that there is structure underlying the most accessible levels of things that fill us with awe.
But there is an even stronger reason why I am not afraid that scientists will inadvertently go and explain everything — it will never happen. While in certain realms, it may prove to be the case that science can explain anything, it will never explain everything. As should be obvious after all these pages, as part of the scientific process, for every question answered, a dozen newer ones are generated. And they are usually far more puzzling, more challenging than than the prior problems. This was stated wonderfully in a quote by a geneticist named Haldane* earlier in the century: ‘Life is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.’ We will never have our flames extinguished by knowledge. The purpose of science is not to cure us of our sense of mystery and wonder, but to constantly reinvent and reinvigorate it."