Did you(or anyone else)watch "After the Big Bang" on the History Ch last night

mufcdiver.

I didn't muf. I'll try to see this and get back to you.

Best regards, suricat.

mufcdiver.

I can't 'download' this programme. Is there another time that I can watch a repeat of this?

If not I'll have to discuss this 'blind'. Though, that's OK!

Best regards, suricat.

Sorry suricat I mis-named it, it's called "Beyond the Big Bang".

This is the blub:

"In this stunning documentary, we pose one of history's greatest questions: where do we begin? The greatest paradox perhaps of all time, is that of the entire universe. It is that the order and tranquillity with which we live, has sprung from the chaos of the ‘Big Bang’. Throughout history, great minds have peered into the unknown in search of order, logic, and the answers to where we began.

We have steadily learned to decipher the cosmic clues of how we came to be; we have stepped from revelation to revelation, and from epiphany to epiphany. Aristotle demonstrated that the world was round. Ptolemy conceived of a system of planets, stars and sun. Copernicus placed the sun at the centre of this system, and Galileo confirmed it.

Newton explained what held it all together. Einstein offered insight into what fuelled it. Hubble proposed it started with a ‘Big Bang’. Our infinite quest for the answers has undoubtedly helped our evolution as thinking creatures, and the ‘Big Bang’ is elementary to this quest.

This extraordinary programme charts the history of why and how we think about who and what we are. We will contemplate how various cultures believe the world began and how it will all end. For the first time, we'll be able to see what it might have all looked like, sitting in God's front row seats. Using unprecedented cutting edge animation, we recreate the amazing moment when everything started.

With interviews from the world's leading physicists, engineers, and historians, we explain complex and confusing ideas in a clear and accessible manner. Recreations, visual metaphors and first-person accounts will explain concepts such as the formation of galaxies, the existence of other dimensions and the idea of a parallel universe."(off the H.C. website)

mufcdiver.

Beyond the 'Big Bang' could be 'now', unless you are using a time reversed logic (progressing backwards in time). However, why should there have been a 'Big Bang' at all? What of 'Steady State' theory? Both theories have stood the ravages of many debaters, with the exception that Big Bang expansion invokes problems as does Steady State's red shift.

Best regards, suricat.

Steady State has a happier ending though don't you think?And I think Fred Hoyle is a more entertaining character than anyone Big Bang has to offer

mufcdiver.

quote:

Steady State has a happier ending though don't you think?

No. I think they both have the same 'unending' result.

Big Bang purports that the 'Ylem' explodes for some reason, then expands with all the required cosmological formations as it does so. This 'expansion' continues until the 'weak' force of gravity overcomes the expansion and the cosmos begins to 'implode'. The 'implosion' can have only one consequence and that is to finally re-form the original 'Ylem' (or its twin). When we get to this stage of a re-formed Ylem we then have to wait for another 'outside influence' to cause another 'Big Bang'. I think this scenario is unlikely!

Steady State purports that matter and energy are being transposed on a continual basis and re-creates matter and energy both in varying quantity and varying spatial placement within the cosmos. This 'renewal' principal is one that I find more accommodating to thermodynamic laws. However, a 'nearly static' cosmos presents anomalies to the relativity aspect of 'Doppler shift'. I believe that these anomalies can be easily accounted for.

quote:

I think Fred Hoyle is a more entertaining character than anyone Big Bang has to offer

With regard to 'entertainment'. Sir Frederick Hoyle is demised. I don't think that anyone can see an 'entertainment' value in this respect (80 year 'caveat' and all that [living memory]). It becomes 'a historical view'.

Best regards, suricat.

Hey suricat!
Watch This last night, and to honest it was fantastic, thought you may be interested!
The link takes you to the age verification page so I hope you are over 16
The prog is about Mark Everett(Eels) trying to learn more about his father, Hugh Everett III the quantum physicist who dared to go against the current consensus in the 50's.
I recommend this to any-one interested in the subject though I must stress some strong language is used!!!!

C4 webmaster, I have no affiliation with the BBC and would not normally recommend that anyone bother with them [scientifically], but this is genuinely interesting and thoroughly cool prog

sorry about all the "typos", I was in a rush!!!

mufcdiver.

Oh to be 16 again (with my current knowledge, of course), but this doesn't help matters does it. I'm downloading this programme as I post, so I'll let you know what I think of it when I've seen it.

BTW. I like your 'disclaimer'.

Best regards, suricat.

Cheers Suricat, You're a true Gent!(typos inte
ended)

mufcdiver.

OK. I've watched this and I'm not sure if this should be categorised as 'scientific interest', or 'human interest'. I need to watch this again!

I'll post you again later.

Best regards, suricat.

mufcdiver.

Think it's both human interest and science, but that 'double slit' experiment. Well! And the 'parallel universes'. What! I didn't get past the 'double slit' experiment on the second viewing and I fell asleep the first time I watched it (it was late).

What did you see in it that seemed so interesting?

BTW. A word about BBC iPlayer. Watch your Internet usage with it. The peer to peer configuration is set to continue uploads even when the manager is closed (it's a good idea to alter this).

Best regards, suricat.

Well suricat, this was a prog with many layers and the top one was the human interest story, of a Son trying to acquaint himself with his late Father. Then there was the next layer of the Father beaten down by the dogma of physical scientific consensus, who just threw his hands in the air and walked away from it(the irony of which makes me think that physics is more akin to religion than it likes to believe it is)!
Of course theres the double slit experiment, which I can only assume by the scientists inability to explain to a layman can only mean that he doesn't fully understand it himself(which I find incredulous)
Also Niels Bohr didn't come out very well in this prog, and a little debunking can't be a bad thing, can it?

mufcdiver.

I do wish you'd be more 'up front' with things muf. Been browsing the threads and this is to do with the Steven Hawking thread isn't it. OK, here goes. The 'double slit experiment' explained the best way I know how to.


First of all, some principles.

High energy always falls/flows to lower energy of the same form of energy and never the other way around. When converted into another energy form, this always occurs without loss and is the equivalent of its prior form of energy (any losses are due to unobserved paths of escape).

Wave energy can only manifest within a large group of particles that are bound to the same region by an 'extraneous' (coming from 'without', or 'outside of the observed system') force without disruption of the medium provided by the particles, as this would eventually lead to the non-propogation of a wave. Needless to say, if the wave energy is greater than the 'extraneous' energy, the 'system' incurs loss until it is depleted (think of water on the boil as a macroscopic example).

Wave energy, by definition, can only be described as a 'continuing monotonous compression and expansion' of a medium that carries a 'forward momentum' through the medium in which it manifests.

If you understand and accept this the rest should be fairly easy.


Secondly, the human interest side of the programme tends to 'blur' the science aspect.

We're taken into a scenario where a guy is looking for, almost, a 'reconnection' with a father that he couldn't 'get close to' when his dad was still alive. This immediately 'connects' with many viewers and makes them more susceptible to 'suggestion'.

From here, the audience is lead to a hypothesis. The possibility of 'multiple universes'. This hypothesis belongs to the realm of fantasy because it only 'philosophically' reflects on the thought of 'if only I'd done something else' with the 'hindsight' knowledge of 'making a mistake'.

Though it may be of interest to 'turf accountants' and 'policy makers' for the determination of situations that require an 'unalterable' decision within an overall plan ('action' not 'spin').

Let's get real. An action provides an outcome. There are no 'alternatives' to what we did because we 'didn't do them'! All that 'could' be considered is 'damage limitation' for an 'in hindsight' 'bad choice'.


The 'double slit' 'thingymabob'.

I don't know why they used a laser in this instance because it only 'levels the playing field' with the 'original' experiment.

The 'slit' used in both experiments is effectively a 'lens' and they would have been more honest if they'd used a 'pin hole' that everyone could have associated more with a lens (pinhole camera). The thing about a lens is that it adds 'coherence' to 'incoherent wave-forms' and detracts 'coherence' from 'coherent wave-forms'. All that you see are 'standing waves'. If they used 'pinholes' instead of 'slits' you'd see a 'lattice' instead of a 'line' of standing waves, though this would take a lot longer to give a result as there is less light passed.

Better still, two crossed slits. That would effectively allow more light to pass for a quicker result, but it may 'mess up' the definition of the 'picture' if the crosses are too big.


Do I really need to say more? Perhaps I do, but on the side of light propagation.

For a long time many physicists have tried to determine the medium by which light propagates (electromagnetic radiation, or EMR) (the particles that 'vibrate' to cause, what we know as, electromagnetic radiation [or to limit this, 'light']).

The best vacuum that we can achieve doesn't deplete the medium that permits EMR, so this 'begs the question' what is the medium that propagates EMR. Well, it can't be an atom because we can remove atoms and molecules to generate a vacuum (though hydrogen poses a small problem), but EMR propagation 'improves' under 'vacuum' conditions. It seems that atoms 'damp' EMR by their very 'presence', so the medium that propagates EMR must be of a 'much smaller mass' than an atom. Otherwise EMR would not be 'damped' by atoms.

If we are searching for matter that is smaller than an atom we are 'spoilt for choice'. You can take your pick from anything as large as a proton/neutron to as small as a neutrino. Perhaps a 'sterile' neutrino!

I'd like 'feedback' on this.

Best regards, suricat.

suricat, You're taking the wrong stance over this prog.
Its late and I've just lost the original post I was going to send but not withstanding the actual scientific nit picking, as a whole, IMO this was a very good programme so I'll go into it deeper with tomorrow, because you have raised valid points that need sorting out

Champion day

Muf, this is a science forum, so I try to keep my posts on a science basis. As a whole, the BBC documentary wasn't too bad (yes, I've watched it all now), but I just wish the producers wouldn't try to include so many aspects of 'genre' into one programme for the sake of 'public interest' (or is this only what the public make of it) and call it a 'documentary' on only one subject (it's categorised under 'life stories', but 'who's life story' and 'why bring in the science'?)!

This isn't a 'rant', it's my preference!

BTW. 'Champion day' has 'English Northern Borders' overtones! Does this explain your 'typos'?

Best regards, suricat.

How important would you say the double slit experiment is then suricat? I can't even start to imagine what the world would be like today without it! I guess we owe Thomas Young for this one!

"Champion Day": football reference(clues in my name )

mufcdiver.

quote:

How important would you say the double slit experiment is then suricat?

It isn't the importance of the experiment, it's the way that it was described as being something that it isn't. It was being used as a method of verification for a hypothesis that it didn't represent. If you can describe otherwise, please do so.

quote:

I guess we owe Thomas Young for this one!

Perhaps it's my engineering background, but if this is the same guy, then I remember him more for his 'Young's Modulus'. He gave me a lot of headaches with that! It wasn't the 'modulus' per se, it was calculation of the 'stress' to the materials in the first place.

quote:

"Champion Day": football reference(clues in my name)

Doh! You got me on that one.

It just goes to show how wrong perceptions can be. Although I was born and grew up in London, my parents and 'older' relatives all 'hail' from the Durham region of the UK. Guess that's why I'm sensitive towards the 'lingo', but you can't imagine my confusion with this when I was a kid. I'm not a 'sports' type either (unless it's rugby) so this one also escaped me. Sorry.

LOL, suricat.