Re: Cosmology( Correction)

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

> In a message dated 2/11/01 2:28:22 AM Eastern Standard Time, palmer@SFU.CA
> writes:
>
> <<
>  There is a crazy belief in something called "inflation". Particle
>  physicists often believe in it, but they change their religions
>  more often than the Vicar of Bray.
>   >>
> Hi Leigh Well just a wild guess but your not a big fan of the inflationary
> theory. I believe it would be correct to say that this idea has become fairly
> mainstream in Cosmology as well as particle physics. However there remains
> quite a few skeptics. Of course if you don't "believe" our Universe has an
> inflationary epoch than you must deal with some additional questions.

This is very much like claiming there is only one true religion.
Just because the established faith is the only well articulated
faith I don't have to embrace it. I believe that it is the case
that inflation is *not* a theory which has been validated by
predicting a significant result which was unknown before the
theory was propounded. I'll look at it again after that happens.

The hot big bang theory, by contrast, makes two remarkable
predictions which turned out to be pretty damn good, the cosmic
microwave background and the primordial isotope distribution.
When inflation gets that good I'll accept it. I also understand
the nature of the hot big bang and the physics behind the
predictions. None of that physics is new physics. Inflation, on
the other hand, has both new physics and ad hoc special physics
which no longer applies in the universe.

>   Accepting as a given that our Universe never underwent an inflationary
> period than what mechanism could account for the fact that our Universe is
> isotropic and homogenous over distances too large for information to have
> traversed since the big bang. Also, under the same assumption, then omega,
> the ratio of the actual mass in our Universe to the critical mass needed to
> produce a closed Universe, would have to fine tuned to within 1E-15 of 1
> DURING THE FIRST SECOND to allow our current omega to be between .1 to 2.
> Such fine tuning seems problematic to me.

Get to work on it. Could be a simpler explanation. I'm not
advocating it, but the idea of a big crunch preceding the big
bang is not excluded by observation, and it has the virtue that
it requires no new physics. There are still questions, but it
answers all those you propose here. Since time didn't "start"
in that picture the problems don't arise. It does suffer from
the same problem that plagues inflation: it doesn't predict any
new result, but at least it doesn't need new physics.

I will point out that the CNuBR - the cosmic neutrino background
radiation spectrum - is probably present, and it is not likely
to be measured soon. It won't go back to the era of inflation,
but it is another observable to be calculated, and it may have
discriminatory power as well.

Leigh