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Budimir Zdravkovic

PhD student in biochemistry/cancer biology,

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The Something out of Nothing Paradox is Outdated

In philosophy classes the paradox regarding the beginning of the universe is still debated. how can a universe emerge from nothing? How can there be an initial cause without a prior cause, or how can time come into existence from a timeless moment. Sean Carroll outlines a feasible alternative in his talk on TED, however there is no reason why the big bang cannot be the beginning. The argument against the big bang relies on an archaic scientific notion which has been abandoned since Newtonian physics came into existence. Noam Chomsky in his lecture at Oslo goes into great detail to outline how we abandoned mechanistic explanations of nature with the emergence of Newtonian physics, where unseen forces can exert physical effects on objects. Modern physics, is concerned with mathematically consistent and comprehensive theories which can predict events in reality, it is less concerned with offering mechanistic explanations and defining concepts such as materialism. We are aware that mathematics can accurately predict reality but mathematics itself doesn't exist as a physical substance or material. Physicists like Hawking propose that when time is smaller than the plank length it is unstable and it may not exist as we experience it. However, through physics and mathematics Hawking has demonstrated that from this unstable condition a universe can emerge so something can come of nothing. As far as I'm concerned if the mathematics is valid there is no reason why its predictive power should not be valid as well. Mathematics doesn't require a materialist or a mechanistic explanation, neither does the predictive power of mathematics depend on such explanations.

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    Ken brown 30+

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    Sep 9 2012: And 7 Li?

    It's the one element that's holding back the Big Bang,so far to date what should be there isn't.Was our mathematics wrong?
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      Budimir Zdravkovic 20+

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      Sep 9 2012: What's 7 Li?

      I'm not saying the mathematics have to predict what is actually happening, if they are consistent they could explain one possible theory. My point is there is a explanation for this old philosophical paradox even if the big bang theory turns out to be inaccurate.
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        Ken brown 30+

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        Sep 9 2012: This below.

        "(Phys.org)—Researchers studying the cosmos have been stumped by an observation first made by Monique and François Spite of the Paris Observatory some thirty years ago; they noted that in studying the halos of older stars, that there should be more lithium 7 than there appeared to be in the universe. Since that time many studies have been conducted in trying to explain this apparent anomaly, but thus far no one has been able to come up with a reasonable explanation. And now, new research has deepened the mystery further by finding that the amount of lithium 7 in the path between us and a very young star aligns with would have been expected shortly after the Big Bang, but doesn't take into account the creation of new amounts since that time. In their paper published in the journal Nature, Christopher Howk and colleagues suggest the discrepancy is troubling because it can't be explained with normal astrophysics models."

        It's a cut and paste from this link article

        http://phys.org/news/2012-09-mystery-apparent-dearth-lithium-universe.html

        All it's saying is the numbers are there but there isn't any new amounts found that should be there,which tells me we have to adjust the models to fit the observation or start again or take on the steady state universe model,i don't see anything wrong with the bang but it only takes one observation to bring a theory down.
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        Ken brown 30+

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        Sep 9 2012: I'm with you on you're points but we as humans go after the one all inclusive formula,"It has to be only one"We use mathematics to explain nature and to some point predict nature but that relies on all possible observations to be made that can possibly be made of said object to fully explain it"right now our astronomers are finding more new and exciting things out there that conforms with the basic models but was not predicted to be there which is great,predictions one thing but whether it's there or not is another thing,until it is observed it's virtual.
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          Budimir Zdravkovic 20+

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          Sep 10 2012: It relies a lot on observations and empirical evidence which is hard if not impossible to acquire for something like the big bang. We can come up with many math models, and we cannot say this models are wrong because they are essentially logical models. How can math be wrong? It cannot be wrong or maybe a better word would be valid. Math always has to be valid otherwise it would not be math. But we can ask whether the math is sound, and by that I mean to say whether the math is applicable to physical phenomena. Hawking math might be unsound, because we don't have a way to empirically test his proposition. Plus this new observation that you posted above may discredit the big bang theory. I think Carroll's idea is testable, what if we can creat a baby universe, if we can do that then we have another possible theory and some empirical evidence which I think is much needed in cosmology.
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        Ken brown 30+

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        Sep 10 2012: My friend,you're a scientist or will be but i'm a hitchhiker,not even a layman,i play at understanding and dine upon the blood and sweat of science and well, mathematics is really the only language we have to describe what we see,so i'm with you but there will always be in the back of my mind the mild skeptic saying "But how do we know if it is"?

        Cosmology is a mess,what i posted is really just another mystery that in all earnest will not be properly peer reviewed because there is not enough scientists on the planet that can properly give their time and attention to each others papers,there is too much data coming in,i feel sorry for you guys.It's truly an exciting time for science but we need more of you guys.Cheers!
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          Budimir Zdravkovic 20+

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          Sep 10 2012: Thanks for the encouragement but I am probably just as much in the dark about cosmology as you are. What I'm doing is much different. I dont look at anything smaller than an atom, and even then I prefer to work with formulations rather than mathematics. The mathematics of protein chemistry is very messy, worse than cosmology at least cosmology has working equations and principles. Proteins are mostly collected data with no unifying mathematics. So science is messy on all scales really.

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