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The Higgs boson is delightfully stirring the mud puddle in the astrophysics community even after found! Instead of clearing everything up, now more questions have to be asked.
British cosmologists are puzzled: they predict that the universe should not have lasted for more than a second. This startling conclusion is the result of combining the latest observations of the sky with the recent discovery of the Higgs boson. Robert Hogan of King's College London (KCL) presents the new research on June 24 at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Portsmouth.
The controversy seems to be about one of the predictions of BICEP2 allegedly being observed, and if so, Robert Hogan seems to think that if they did see this effect, then the universe would not exist today, it would have went straight to 'Big Crunch' right after the 'Big Bang'.
Pop the corn, this may be a good one!
(Score: 1) by Freeman on Tuesday June 24 2014, @11:08PM
According to the theory of evolution we came about from a Big Bang. Why is the assumption that the Universe started here? Considering the vastness of the Universe, it would be a Huge assumption to say that everything began with Earth. In that regard believing there is an all powerful being (God) that created Earth is a lot less hard to swallow.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday June 24 2014, @11:41PM
The big bang idea is every bit as infantile as creation, in fact, it's creation repackaged by scientists. It must have been difficult for primitive Western man to wrap their heads around the idea that matter/energy has always existed in some form or interaction.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Wednesday June 25 2014, @01:09AM
How long is "always exists"? Because according to current observation, "always existed" seems to have a shelf-life of roughly 13.7 billion years.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Wednesday June 25 2014, @02:55PM
If time is an artifact of the physical universe, I would think it's possible that time itself didn't really exist before the hypothesized Big Bang, in which case you could argue that it was in fact always there.
IANAP
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by khallow on Wednesday June 25 2014, @04:26PM
You can argue the Moon is made of green cheese. But that doesn't make it a fact.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Wednesday June 25 2014, @05:31AM
the energy may have existed, but the universe didn't. the "big bang" is when our universe came into existence, not the energy within it; where that came from is still an open question.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday June 25 2014, @05:36AM
I'm not so sure about that.
I'm not an astrophysicist or quantum field theorist, so I can't speak from authority either. I do hear about it a lot, and one of things I've noticed is that there is a heck of a lot math involved. It's all tied to observations and whether or not they fit a model.
Part of what I've been sold on by people is that the Big Bang theory is supported by observations, and is not in the same ballpark as creationism. Creationism operates solely on circular reasoning because God can be neither proved or disproved. It begins with the assumption that God exists, he sent Jesus, and the Bible is 100% fact. It's also the rejection of any kind of observations and theories that can prove the "Bible Model" not being perfect.
If gravity was denied in the Bible, they would deny gravity just like Bugs Bunny, and that's looney tunes.
The Big Bang has, at minimum, some observations and actual data. That's already infinitely more than Creationism.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 25 2014, @12:33PM
Actually it was the other way round. Cosmologists for a long time assumed the universe was eternal. Einstein even introduced the cosmological constant as a fudge factor to allow an eternally stable universe. But then, the expansion of the universe was discovered, and just extrapolating into the past showed that everything had to been concentrated in a very tiny area at some time. Thus the big bang theory was born.
Also note that some quantum gravitation theory candidates predict that the big bang was actually a big bounce, at which an earlier universe collapsed, but not to a point but only to a very small minimal size, at which it bounced and expanded again.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Horse With Stripes on Wednesday June 25 2014, @12:04AM
Um, according to the Big Bang Theory the universe started with a big bang. According to Darwin's Theory of Evolution people started as something other than humans cast upon Earth via divine intervention. The two aren't necessarily linked, though many who believe one believe the other.
You can chose to believe one, both or neither ... or even make up one of your own. If you come up with something good please submit it to Soylent News [soylentnews.org] as they are shameless in their addiction to new stories to post.
(Score: 5, Informative) by MrGuy on Wednesday June 25 2014, @12:14AM
Evolution by natural selection in no way posits or requires a big bang. Which is lucky for evolution, because the theory of evolution (1859) pre-dates the big bang theory (1949) by nearly a century.
What it does posit was that there was a time in the past when different forms of life existed than exist today, and over time species rose and fell in response to the conditions they found. The concept of evolution is not incompatible with the idea that at some point in the past, the earth (and potentially everything else in the universe) was created by an intelligent being, or sprung into being spontaneously due to a phenominally unlikely quantum mechanical event, or was created by a flying spaghetti monster. Evolution doesn't care about WHERE the earth came from. Just that it's old, and life evolved over time.
The only universe creation theory that evolution is INcompatible with is the belief that the earth is of (cosmologically) recent origin AND the various species on earth today (notably human beings) have existed in their current form (and ONLY in their current form) since the moment of that creation.
Don't conflate one theory that's incompatible with a strict reading of the Bible as a historical text (evolution by natural selection) with a completely different and independent theory that's also incompatible with a strict reading of the Bible as a historical text (the big bang as the origin of the universe).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 25 2014, @12:46PM
Actually big bang theory isn't incompatible with a truly strict reading of the bible as historical text: If you look closely at the beginning of Genesis, you'll find that all of the stuff described there happened after the creation of the earth, which is mentioned just in the first sentence, without giving any details: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Yes, that's all the bible says about it. It doesn't say how God created them (through a big bang, or by instantaneously popping it into existence, or however else), or even how long it took to make them.
(Score: 1) by cykros on Wednesday June 25 2014, @03:12PM
Well yea; the Big Bang Theory was in large part theorized by Belgian Catholic Priest Georges Lemaitre [wikipedia.org] with his 1931 work "Hypothese de l'Atome Primitif" (hypothesis of the primeval atom). It's hardly some primarily atheist theory to overthrow religion, regardless of what you learned in Sunday School.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday June 25 2014, @09:44PM
I've heard some god-botherers claim that Genesis I is actually an expression of both the big bang theory (on the first days) and of evolution (days 3, 5, and 6). Their sources predate yours by about a stone age.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 25 2014, @05:39AM
Everything you wrote is wrong.
And take it from an AC, we know wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 25 2014, @01:36PM
Hee hee that's funny.
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Wednesday June 25 2014, @09:57AM
What does the Theory of Evolution have to do with the Big Bang???
And which scientist said everything began on Earth? It's precisely the opposite, scientists have been burned at the stake because they dared to claim that the Earth is not the centre of the Universe.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday June 25 2014, @04:03PM
Uh... no. Just no.
What? I mean, just... what?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk