Re: Cosmology( Correction)

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

> On Wed, 14 Feb 2001, Leigh Palmer wrote:
> ..................
> >  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.
>
> It _did_ predict a peak in the microwave background correlation function
> near 1 degree in angle at a time when all known matter, ordinary plus
> 'dark', was insufficient by a factor of three to predict this.

The Boomerang data do not confirm inflation. There are wiggles
missing. MAP may have something else to say. I'm willing to wait.

> Put otherwise, inflation said the Universe is "flat", astronomers said it
> must be "open", and _then_ it was discovered there is just enough
> cosmological constant to make it flat.  I know you don't believe in the
> 'accelerating Universe' observations, but they are a yes-or-no
> observational result, completely unexpected, and, in a sense, predicted by
> inflation.

You have a short memory. Astronomers did not say the universe was
open. Observation says there is not enough visible matter to close
it. If we interpret "visible" to mean "detectable" then more matter
is being discovered all the time. I do not accept your contention
that flatness has been conclusively demonstrated.

> Guth was asked "Is there any way to patch up inflation to make it predict
> an open Universe".  He said, "No ... I'm just hanging on to faith that
> observations will show it's flat even in the absence of enough matter to
> make it so".  They did.

He's scarcely unique in making that "prediction". Many before him
have held that the universe is so close to being flat that it must
*be* flat. The "cosmologgical constant" is merely one popular way
to parameterize the results of the high-Z SN Ia observations. It
is not a unique way to do so. It is my guess that the universe is
probably open, but if it is closed, the critical missing mass will
be found to be quite ordinary (well, if things like cluster gas
can be considered to be ordinary).

Leigh