Re: [Phys-l] Big Bang density

[David Craig <craigda@lemoyne.edu>]

> That seemed like a reasonable take. My take is more extreme - that the
> pointillist Big Bang theory for astrophysics represents something of  
> the same level
> of theoretical development as Biology's  spontaneous generation of
> (macro-scale, complex structured) life  as portrayed in the 18th  
> Century
> at least.

Be careful not to get carried away.   Known physics takes us back to  
what has always seemed to me to be such an absurdly small universe  
that a reasonable person might ask why anyone cares about the  
difference between 10^{-43} s and 0?   In other words, we have  
excellent evidence from a range of independent sources that points  
back to a (very) small, (very) hot elementary field stew.   This is  
quite a remarkable story in and of itself, enough to stretch the  
imagination and/or credulity of anyone who's paying attention,  
whatever may connect on to that.

Apart from our general curiosity about the world,  one reason to  
pursue the question further is that we also need to know how this  
works in order to properly understand the end state of gravitational  
collapse generally e.g.  what exactly it is that's at the center of  
our galaxy.

David Craig


<http://web.lemoyne.edu/~craigda/>