Cosmology: confusion (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, June 08, 2014, 16:03 (3822 days ago) @ dhw


> DAvid: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6921
> 
> dhw: The passage you quoted was from a response to the original article, which goes much further in its scepticism concerning inflationary theory itself, -> "He also takes the occasion to note the odd fact that while BICEP2 results have been claimed to be proof of inflation and the multiverse, if they turn out to be wrong, that's fine tooHE) is a skeptic of inflation, Paul Steinhardt, who favors a membrane theory for a cyclical universe. Woit is very skeptical of string theory (has membranes) and adds this in HIS (Woit's) blog:-"Steinhardt was on a panel last Friday night here in New York at the World Science Festival, which can be watched here. The panel included Guth and Linde (who earlier in the week got $1 million for their work on inflation), as well as John Kovac of BICEP, and Amber Miller, Dean of Science here at Columbia. The last part of the video includes an unsuccessful attempt by Steinhardt to pin down Kovac on the significance of the BICEP2 evidence for primordial gravitational waves claim, as well as an exchange with Guth and Linde. They both defend inflation as the best model of the alternatives. -"Multiverse promotion continues apace, with Steinhardt one of a rather small number of physicists publicly objecting. On Monday Alexander Vilenkin will explain to the public at the American Museum of Natural History that "the Big Bang was not a unique event in cosmic history and that other Big Bangs constantly erupt in remote parts of the universe, producing new worlds with a great variety of physical properties" (see here). A recent story on livescience has Brian Greene on the multiverse. Over at Massimo Pigliucci's Scientia Salon Coel Hellier is starting a multipart series arguing against multiverse skeptics with The multiverse as a scientific concept — part I. Nothing in Part I about the problematic issues (untestable claims that fundamental physics is "environmental"), maybe in Part II..."-Considering the idiocy over global warming, consensus in science is a bad word, but most everybody accepts inflation theory because of the accuracy of its predictions. I like to show all sides of the debate. Steinhardt is off in one corner.