Big Bang "proved" wrong??

[SkepticalScience]

Just read these 2 articles this morning. . .

Is it legit?? (I suspect this might be due to reporters hastiness, but wanted to pass it by you all first)

http://www.newstarget.com/003643.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050111115201.htm

[The Don]

IANLAA (I Am No Longer An Astrophysicist) but,

The scientific discovery may be legit but the conclusion that this "disproves" big bang is not consistent with the longer article.

All the longer article says is that they think that theyve found quasars close by, whose red shift is not due to the expansion of the universe. Instead, it would be due to the motion of the quasar relative to the general expansion of the universe.

[wollery]

No, it's a rather intruiging problem with one specific type of object.

Quasars, which are assumed to be extremely distant objects because of their highly redshifted spectra, have been found to be aligned with relatively nearby galaxies more often than you would expect by chance. This may mean that they are actually associated with those galaxies, in which case someone needs to work out what the hell is going on with their spectra. Alternatively, the calculations of how frequently they should be aligned with nearby galaxies are wrong, or our detection techniques aren't as good as we thought, or (unlikely, but possible) they really are very distant objects that tend to be aligned with nearby galaxies more often than you would expect by chance.

This doesn't affect the Big Bang model, because there are plenty of other distance indicators which are reliable. Also, to the best of my knowledge, quasars have never been used to determine a distance to anything used to calibrate the Hubble constant, which is the core of the Big Bang model.

The only thing this news suggests is that we may be wrong about the nature of quasars.

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Come on guys, since when is the big bang confirmed?? It is not "right" nor "wrong", it is just the current theory.

[steenkh]

Originally posted by Bodhi Dharma Zen
Come on guys, since when is the big bang confirmed?? It is not "right" nor "wrong", it is just the current theory.
Who said it was "confirmed"? It may be the current theory, but it has reigned alone for a long time, it has massive supporting evidence, and all attempts to topple it have come come to naught. In your sense, no theory will ever be "right" or "wrong".

[RussDill]

I think the issue is, that religious people view science in a different way. If we, say, suddenly discovered proof that jesus never turned water into wine, it would threaten the ENTIRE religion. Or if we discovered that god has a special place in his heart for homosexuals, and the bible just misspoke.

Whereas science, if an observation or a theory about something is wrong, big deal, you don't need to throw out everything. The knowledge about electron orbits and energy levels constantly changed over the past century.

I really don't think our understanding of quasars is complete in the first place. It is assumed that they are stars that are just really far away, but that assumption gives them the brightness of 10 trillion suns. If their redshift was due to another reason (maybe something cool, like its a forming black hole), then that would bring the predicted brightness down considerably. Or it could be something as simple as what they are observing is a new, unknown object, and not a quasar.

There are also other problems currently in quasar theory, like that they burn elements heavier than helium, which shouldn't exist yet. The wikipedia article mentions a few alternate theories for quasars.

[SGT]

Originally posted by RussDill
I think the issue is, that religious people view science in a different way. If we, say, suddenly discovered proof that jesus never turned water into wine, it would threaten the ENTIRE religion. Or if we discovered that god has a special place in his heart for homosexuals, and the bible just misspoke.


This has nothing to do with the OP but, since you mentioned it, I would like to make a comment.
Even if someone could prove those things, it would not threaten the ENTIRE religion. It would only threaten the literalist view of religion.
I am not religious, but I have several friends that are and they view the bible as a source of enlightenment, but not as a historical document. Most of them believe that miracles as the transformation of water into wine is something that the croniclers made up as examples of the power of the son of god and not as facts.

[wollery]

Originally posted by RussDill
snip...

I really don't think our understanding of quasars is complete in the first place. It is assumed that they are stars that are just really far away, but that assumption gives them the brightness of 10 trillion suns. :confused:
Sorry RussDill, while it's true that no-one knows exactly what quasars are, they certainly are not stars! They just look like it in the optical part of the spectrum.
If their redshift was due to another reason (maybe something cool, like its a forming black hole), then that would bring the predicted brightness down considerably. Or it could be something as simple as what they are observing is a new, unknown object, and not a quasar.

There are also other problems currently in quasar theory, like that they burn elements heavier than helium, which shouldn't exist yet. The wikipedia article mentions a few alternate theories for quasars.I assume you mean this article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar)?

The heavy elements objection comes from the fact that no-one has observed any population III stars. But these stars would have formed at such an early epoch (i.e. they'd be very far away) and be so short lived, that they would be virtually impossible to observe anyway!

[Soapy Sam]

Gosh. You mean there are still things we don't know about cosmology? Wow. There's a surprise.
And there was me thinking it was all sewn up.

Is it second generation stars that stop at irony , or did I get that wrong too?
:p

[RussDill]

Originally posted by wollery
:confused:
Sorry RussDill, while it's true that no-one knows exactly what quasars are, they certainly are not stars! They just look like it in the optical part of the spectrum.
I assume you mean this article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar)?

The heavy elements objection comes from the fact that no-one has observed any population III stars. But these stars would have formed at such an early epoch (i.e. they'd be very far away) and be so short lived, that they would be virtually impossible to observe anyway!

thanks for the corrections

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Originally posted by steenkh
In your sense, no theory will ever be "right" or "wrong".

Well of course. Being right or wrong implies subjective acceptance, I would say that it is more important if a theory makes accurate predictions or not. Being married with a theory (any theory) is not very bright, imo.