The Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time Sean Carroll part 4/4

Sean Carroll gave a similar talk at Perimeter Institute Quantum to Cosmos Science Festival:

http://q2cfestival.com/play.php?lecture_id=7731

Speaking at the University of Sydney, acclaimed physicist and cosmologist Sean Carroll gives an entertaining and thought-provoking talk about the nature of time, the origin of entropy and how what happened before the Big Bang might be responsible for the arrow of time we observe today. Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in 1993 from Harvard University and has previously worked at MIT. He is the author several acclaimed books. CHAST 2009 Templeton Lecture, University of Sydney

Source:

University of Sydney

Category:

Education

Tags:

• distant
• future
• of
• the
• universe
• big
• bang
• god
• physics
• cosmology
• general
• relativity
• entropy
• cosmos
• ludwig
• boltzmann
• second
• law
• thermodynamics
• singularity
• last
• question
• evolution

[genogeno1234]

I warned you about name calling Jacnas, and you did it again. Then you gave me a 2000 character response resonating with fear and anger. Keep focused, Jacnas, focus! Control your temper, and learn tolerance.  Whether you are right or wrong on this issue is not the point. Accept the fact that CERN scientists have likely excluded an important missing piece of the Big Bang puzzle, and move on. Keep your responses to the 500 character maximum, and I am warning you to refrain from name calling.

[Jacnas]

@genogeno1234 If you read some pop-sci articles on the net, most physicists are not surprised that the Higgs boson has not yet been found and/or are witholding judgment until the end of 2012. Particularly because the LHC seems to have ruled out Higgs boson with mass in the range of 150-450 GeV and the Tevatron seems to be closing the low mass gap; but there is a window at around 120 GeV (which is close to the most likely predicted value) where it may yet reside; stay tuned for the next year!

[genogeno1234]

@Jacnas Actually, most physicists are surprised that they haven't found it yet because the odds of it existing at those levels are very slim, hence the 95% confidence level.

[Jacnas]

@genogeno1234 Therefore the general understanding that the universe has originated in a hot dense state and has been expanding and cooling ever since is wrong? How so? Maybe some details and finer points are wrong but if Higgs is not found, how does that invalidate this empirical observation corroborated through decades of observation and experimentation?

[genogeno1234]

@Jacnas I stated that we are at least 100 years from knowing the real truth. It was my opinion. These are exciting times we live in, and the work being done by physicists is astounding and I applaud their work. What I cannot (and will never accept) is that something came from nothing as implied by the current model. It reeks of creationism. Perhaps the Big Bang was merely one of an infinite number of "mini" big bangs. It makes more sense to me, I just don't know how it could be proven or not.

[Jacnas]

@genogeno1234 Have you even watched the video? We now understand that 'nothing' is really a boiling soup of virtual particles that pop in and out of existence on extremely short time scales. Believe it or not, on these small scales things DO come from nothing all the time. Quantum physics allows things to appear from nothing and this isn't controversial.

[Jacnas]

@genogeno1234 In the case of the universe this doesn't even have to violate the conservation of energy because the current observations (NOT theories, observations) strongly suggest that the universe is flat; it has no net curvature which means it's energy content is exactly zero; the negative gravitational potential exactly balances it's positive energy content.

[genogeno1234]

@Jacnas the problem is that there currently doesn't exist one unified model. Hence the "100 year in the future" comment. Don't take it so personally that I don't agree on the Big Bang (as it has been taught) model. I am intrigued by the "multiverse" model which makes more common sense to me since it basically proposes that the big bang wasn't really a big bang, but rather one of an infinite number of sudden expansions.

[TwinSteel]

How unfortunate that this brilliant theory gets to be shot at by people who don't know what they're talking about.

[Jacnas]

@genogeno1234 You want to be a dissenter and believe that the BB theory is wrong? Fine, then ask questions. The more inconvenient the better! But have some humility and realize that you bear a burden of proof. And you're up against some very competent, smart people.