[General Battuta]

P.S. Whatsisname, are you serious??  That article was written by two gentlemen, one whose first name is "Jihad," and the other whose last name is "Wisdom."  And your forum handle is whatsisname.  Oh the freakin irony.

What are you even talking about

ed: oh, THAT article. I'm going to guess you think that Jihad means 'holy war against the unbelievers' (you are wrong)

[watsisname]

I'm guessing he doesn't want to accept the data, or possibly to even look at it, so the best he can do is make a primitive joke regarding the names of the investigators.

I could be wrong though, and if so I'd be very impressed.

[G0atmaster]

Actually, I know Jihad means to struggle or to strive, usually in a religious context. And I barely had time to glance at the article.

[watsisname]

Honestly I am more interested in your thoughts on the second article, since it is the one with more powerful data regarding the history of the earth-moon system (as it is based on geological data rather than numerical models).

So the first source could be considered a form of supporting data in that regard.  I had linked to it because jr2 said the evolution of the moon's orbit would be interesting to see.

[jr2]

A Second Look at Supernova Remnants

By Jon A. Covey, B.A., MT(ASCP)
Edited by Anita K. Millen, M.D., M.P.H., M.A.

Let’s start with learning what a nova is and go from there. According to one idea, a nova is a star that suddenly ejects some of its matter, flares up and emits a tremendous amount of light that is about 10,000 times brighter than a normal star. This lasts for a few days or weeks and then fades away. The expanding shell of ejected gas may be visible telescopically for several years. Another idea is that novae are white dwarfs belonging to two-star (binary) systems. The companion star is a red giant which loses some of its matter to the dwarf. This influx of matter is heated up and flashes away as an expanding shell. [Abell]

What are Supernovae and Remnants?

A white dwarf star that acquires too much matter (possibly from a companion red giant) becomes unstable and explodes is a supernova. When the star’s mass exceeds that of the sun by 1.2 - 1.4 times, the star begins to degenerate and collapses. The star explosively releases the enormous gravitational energy the collapse generated. [Abell, p. 393-394] Alternatively, a supernova occurs when a star uses up all its fuel and cannot produce enough heat and pressure to maintain the weight of the star’s envelope, the star collapses and then explodes. The explosion propels the outer shell of the star into a rapidly expanding gas mass, leaving behind a pulsating star (a pulsar) such as the Crab Nebula of 1054 A.D. [Abell, p. 393-394] Davies says that the term "supernova remnant" refers to the huge cloud of expanding stellar debris that hurtles outwards from the origin at an initial velocity of upwards from 7,000 km/sec.

We can observe new supernovae visually. They are extremely bright, but after a short while, they can be seen only by radio wave telescopes. George Abell says that supernovae may occur in our galaxy at an average rate of between 30-50 years and that they are commonly observed in other galaxies. From this, one can calculate the number of supernova remnants that should be observable.

Craig Bracy mentioned that one could argue that possibly after 6,000 years supernova remnants (SNRs) are no longer observable. I was faced with this objection by some evolutionists on a CompuServe forum. I was about to reply to this objection when an astronomy buff chimed in saying, "And there are nebula that are significantly older than 6,500 years (modern detectors can detect a nebula that is about 150-200,00 years old. After that it has become too dim and diffuse)." Of course, I wanted to know which nebula were significantly older than 6,500 years and he replied that his Astronomy and Scientific American magazines were still packed and he would give me a reply when he unpacked them. He still hasn’t unpacked them, but he agrees that we should be able to observe SNRs well beyond 6,500 years. Initially, he thought I was referring to SNRs in the visible light range only, but when I explained to him that radio telescopes can observe them far longer, he agreed.

There are two things I would like to mention about supernova remnants (SNRs), contrary to what Hugh Ross said on Greg Koukl’s Stand To Reason program on KBRT AM 740 in March 1996. Hugh said that SNRs would be too dim to observe after 6,500 years. First, if there are any SNRs older than 6,500 years we would be able to observe them, and second, if stellar theory is correct, the number of first, second, and third stage SNRs we observe are consistent with a universe only 7,000 years and not with an older universe. Second, Hugh browbeat the caller’s source for this information, Keith Davies. The caller remarked that Davies had also reported that there weren’t enough detectable SNRs in our galaxy if it really was 10-15 billion years old. Hugh decided Davies didn’t have a very good grasp on big bang theory, missing Davies’ point altogether (perhaps because Hugh wants to push his big bang idea). The following comes from Keith Davies’ report in the Proceedings of the Third International Conference On Creationism 1994.

Time Limits for Observing SNRs

Supernova remnants go through three stages. In stage one, SNRs release prodigious quantities of energy. For a short while, a supernova can outshine an entire galaxy and releases enough neutrinos to power all the stars in a galaxy for several years (about 100 billion stars). The total radiative energy expended per second for second stage SNRs is about 1037 ergs. [Cioffi ] This computes to over 3 million years before a SNR radiates half its initial energy. Radio telescopes can easily detect SNRs during this stage. If we could see radio waves, we would see hundreds of luminous objects several times the diameter of the moon. The actual diameters of SNRs can be very big with older ones perhaps 300 light years across. If that doesn’t impress you, think about this. We could take every star in the our galaxy, about 200 billion, and fit them within a volume having as a radius out to the Pluto’s orbit without them touching. [Van Flandern] You could easily place every star in the known universe within the remnants boundary of one older supernova.

When supernovas enter the third stage they begin to thermally radiate, and they continue expanding to about 650 light years.

Expected Number of SNRs

How many supernova remnants should we expect to see based on t = 25 years (the shorter time span between supernova mentioned by Abell)? If the universe is only 7,000 years old, the number of supernova remnants actually seen for each stage is near the theoretical number that should be seen. Which universe (old or young) do these facts supports? Examine the table below and come to your own conclusion.

SNR Stage First Second Third

Number expected Old Universe ~2 2,256 5,033

Number expected Young Universe ~2 258 0

Actual # Seen 5 200 0

These results have raised some problems for astronomers. Cox remarked:

"The final example is the SNR population of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The observations have caused considerable surprise and loss of confidence...." [Cox]

Such a finding, that the number of SNRs is much less than they should be should cause loss of confidence in the belief that the universe is billions of years old, but for most astronomers a younger universe is an astrophysical heresy, inadmissible and unthinkable. They would have to redevelop the entire science of stellar evolution. However, Clark and Caswell still want to know:

"Why have the large number of expected remnants not been detected?" [Clark]

Over 10 years ago, the National Research Council suggested:

"Major questions about these objects that should be addressed in the coming decade are: Where have all the remnants gone?" [National Research Council]

They aren’t there yet. The universe isn’t old enough to have the expected number.


References

Abell, George O., 1984, Realm of the Universe, Saunders College Publishing, New York, pp. 389-390.

Cioffi and McKee, 1988, Supernova Remnants and the Interstellar Medium, Colloquium Proceedings, eds. Roger and Landeck, CUP, p. 437.

Clark and Caswell, 1979, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 174:267.

Cox, D., 1986, Astrophysical Journal, 304:771-779.

National Research Council, 1983, Challenges to Astronomy and Astrophysics working documents of the Astronomy Survey Committee, p. 166, National Academy Press.

Van Flandern, T., 1993, Dark Matter, Missing Planets & New Comets, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, p. 181.

[Shivan Hunter]

in this study we extend trends until they hit one of the axes

[Nuclear1]

Actually, I know Jihad means to struggle or to strive, usually in a religious context. And I barely had time to glance at the article.

Jihad as a concept mostly means internal struggle against sin and unholy thoughts. 

The media likes to have people believe that jihad = terrorism or war against infidels.  The military aspect of jihad is only a small part of the concept as a whole.  The military aspect, like most aspects of any religion, is exploited periodically by demagogues to achieve their own political or social ends.  Saracens did it during the Crusades, Islamic extremists do it now. 

[jr2]

Fixed the table in the quote.  Mixed up tr and td. 

[General Battuta]

jr2, are you here to participate in this thread or to avoid participating in the thread? Points have been addressed to you.

[watsisname]

jr2, a lot of the arguments on supernova remnants brought up in your source were already refuted by my first response to you.

Your source argues that we don't find old supernova remnants (more than ~6500 years).  You may recall I had mentioned that the Vela remnant is ~11,000 years old and the expanding shell is still visible.  Pulsar PSR J0108-1431 is ~200 million years old.  I hope I don't need to mention that pulsars are only formed by supernovae explosions.

Your source argues that the universe is very young.  This is profoundly wrong.

Any observed object that is X light years away is, by definition, at least X years old, because of the very fact that the light from that object, which travels one light year of distance in one year of time, has had the time to reach us.

Our own galaxy is ~100,000 light years in diameter.

We observe quasars that are billions of light years away.

The data from the WMAP mission indicate that the universe is ~13.7 billion years old.

[jr2]

So.  Can you read (and please not fall over and die at the parts where God is mentioned, just... ignore it and get the jist of the article) this and explain how light traveled farther than your model of the universe allows?  I'm not saying I'm right, (although I of course think so), I'm saying there is waaaay too much uncertainty on that date you quoted.

Light-travel time: a problem for the big bang
by Jason Lisle, Ph.D.

The ‘distant starlight problem’ is sometimes used as an argument against biblical creation. People who believe in billions of years often claim that light from the most distant galaxies could not possibly reach earth in only 6,000 years. However, the light-travel–time argument cannot be used to reject the Bible in favour of the big bang, with its billions of years. This is because the big bang model also has a light-travel–time problem.

The background

In 1964/5, Penzias and Wilson discovered that the earth was bathed in a faint microwave radiation, apparently coming from the most distant observable regions of the universe, and this earned them the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1978.1 This Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) comes from all directions in space and has a characteristic temperature.2,3 While the discovery of the CMB has been called a successful prediction of the big bang model,4 it is actually a problem for the big bang. This is because the precisely uniform temperature of the CMB creates a light-travel–time problem for big bang models of the origin of the universe.

The problem

The temperature of the CMB is essentially the same everywhere5—in all directions (to a precision of 1 part in 100,000). 6 However (according to big bang theorists), in the early universe, the temperature of the CMB7 would have been very different at different places in space due to the random nature of the initial conditions. These different regions could come to the same temperature if they were in close contact. More distant regions would come to equilibrium by exchanging radiation (i.e. light8). The radiation would carry energy from warmer regions to cooler ones until they had the same temperature.
The problem is this: even assuming the big bang timescale, there has not been enough time for light to travel between widely separated regions of space. So, how can the different regions of the current CMB have such precisely uniform temperatures if they have never communicated with each other?9 This is a light-travel–time problem.  10




The big bang model assumes that the universe is many billions of years old. While this timescale is sufficient for light to travel from distant galaxies to earth, it does not provide enough time for light to travel from one side of the visible universe to the other. At the time the light was emitted, supposedly 300,000 years after the big bang, space already had a uniform temperature over a range at least ten times larger than the distance that light could have travelled (called the ‘horizon’)11 So, how can these regions look the same, i.e. have the same temperature? How can one side of the visible universe ‘know’ about the other side if there has not been enough time for the information to be exchanged? This is called the ‘horizon problem’.12 Secular astronomers have proposed many possible solutions to it, but no satisfactory one has emerged to date (see Attempts to overcome the big bang’s ‘light-travel–time problem’ below).

Summing up

The big bang requires that opposite regions of the visible universe must have exchanged energy by radiation, since these regions of space look the same in CMB maps. But there has not been enough time for light to travel this distance. Both biblical creationists and big bang supporters have proposed a variety of possible solutions to light-travel–time difficulties in their respective models. So big-bangers should not criticize creationists for hypothesizing potential solutions, since they do the same thing with their own model. The horizon problem remains a serious difficulty for big bang supporters, as evidenced by their many competing conjectures that attempt to solve it. Therefore, it is inconsistent for supporters of the big bang model to use light-travel time as an argument against biblical creation, since their own notion has an equivalent problem.
(1) Early in the alleged big bang, points A and B start out with different temperatures.
(2) Today, points A and B have the same temperature, yet there has not been enough time for them to exchange light.

Attempts to overcome the big bang’s ‘light-travel–time problem’

Currently, the most popular idea is called ‘inflation’—a conjecture invented by Alan Guth in 1981. In this scenario, the expansion rate of the universe (i.e. space itself) was vastly accelerated in an ‘inflation phase’ early in the big bang. The different regions of the universe were in very close contact before this inflation took place. Thus, they were able to come to the same temperature by exchanging radiation before they were rapidly (faster than the speed of light1) pushed apart. According to inflation, even though distant regions of the universe are not in contact today, they were in contact before the inflation phase when the universe was small. However, the inflation scenario is far from certain. There are many different inflation models, each with its set of difficulties. Moreover, there is no consensus on which (if any) inflation model is correct. A physical mechanism that could cause the inflation is not known, though there are many speculations. There are also difficulties on how to turn off the inflation once it starts—the ‘graceful exit’ problem.2 Many inflation models are known to be wrong—making predictions that are not consistent with  observations,3 such as Guth’s original model.4 Also, many aspects of inflation models are currently unable to be tested. Some astronomers do not accept inflationary models and have proposed other possible solutions to the horizon problem. These include: scenarios in which the gravitational constant varies with time,5 the ‘ekpyrotic model’ which involves a cyclic universe, 6 scenarios in which light takes ‘shortcuts’ through extra (hypothetical) dimensions,7 ‘null-singularity’ models,8 and models in which the speed of light was much greater in the past.9,10 (Creationists have also pointed out that a changing speed of light may solve light-travel–time difficulties for biblical creation.11) In light of this disagreement, it is safe to say that the horizon problem has not been decisively solved.

References and notes
1. This notion does not violate relativity, which merely prevents objects travelling faster than c through space, whereas in the inflation proposal it is space itself that expands and carries the objects with it. Return to text.
2. Kraniotis, G.V., String cosmology, International Journal of Modern Physics A 15(12):1707–1756, 2000. Return to text.
3. Wang, Y., Spergel, D. and Strauss, M., Cosmology in the next millennium: Combining microwave anisotropy probe and Sloan digital sky survey data to constrain
inflationary models, The Astrophysical Journal 510:20–31, 1999. Return to text.
4. Coles, P. and Lucchin, F., Cosmology: The Origin and Evolution of Cosmic Structure, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester, p. 151, 1996. Return to text.
5. Levin, J. and Freese, K., Possible solution to the horizon problem: Modified aging in massless scalar theories of gravity, Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation, and Cosmology) 47(10):4282–4291, 1993. Return to text.
6. Steinhardt, P. and Turok, N., A cyclic model of the universe, Science296(5572):1436–1439, 2002. Return to text.
7. Chung, D. and Freese, K., Can geodesics in extra dimensions solve the cosmological horizon problem? Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation, and Cosmology)
62(6):063513-1–063513-7, 2000. Return to text.
8. Célérier, M. and Szekeres, P., Timelike and null focusing singularities in spherical symmetry: A solution to the cosmological horizon problem and a challenge to the cosmic censorship hypothesis, Physical Review D65:123516-1–123516-9, 2002. Return to text.
9. Albrecht, A. and Magueijo, J., Time varying speed of light as a solution to cosmological puzzles, Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation, and Cosmology)
59(4):043516-1–043516-13, 1999. Return to text.
10. Clayton, M. and Moffat, J., Dynamical mechanism for varying light velocity as a solution to cosmological problems, Physics Letters B460(3–4):263–270, 1999. Return to text.
11. For a summary of the c-decay implications, see: Wieland, C., Speed of light slowing down after all? Famous physicist makes headlines, TJ 16(3):7–10, 2002. Return to text.

References and notes
1. Coles, P. and Lucchin, F., Cosmology: The Origin and Evolution of Cosmic Structure, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester, p. 91, 1996. Return to text.
2. 2.728 K (-270.422°C). Return to text.
3. Peacock, J.A., Cosmological Physics, Cambridge University Press, p. 288, 1999. Return to text.
4. However, the existence of CMB was actually deduced before big bang cosmology from the spectra of certain molecules in outer space. Return to text.
5. Excluding sources in our galaxy. Return to text.
6. Peebles, P.J.E., Principles of Physical Cosmology, Princeton University Press, p. 404, 1993. Return to text.
7. For convenience, the commonly understood term CMB will be used without implying that the radiation peaked at the same wavelength in all epochs of the
model. Return to text.
8. Infrared radiation is part of the spectrum of light. Return to text.
9. This is an internal inconsistency for the big bang model. It is not a problem for a creation model; God may have created the distant regions of the
universe with the same temperature from the beginning. Return to text.
10. Misner, C., Mixmaster Universe, Physical Review Letters 22(20):1071–1074, 1969. Return to text.
11. Ref. 1, p. 136. Return to text.
12. Lightman, A., Ancient Light, Harvard University Press, London, p. 58, 1991. Return to text.

[watsisname]

Since you haven't responded to the prior issues, I will give you the correct answer as Inflation and leave it as so.

Respond to the prior arguments if you want to continue the discussion in a serious manner.

edit:  lol, disambiguation

[Nuclear1]

Yeah, the hit-and-run paste walls are getting a little old.

[General Battuta]

Participate in the argument, show some evidence you want a dialogue.

[Mustang19]

I'm not really convinced. If light from the farthest edge of the universe was reaching us the sky would be completely covered in starlight. Edgar Allan Poe knew that. And the paper you didn't prove where the CMB came from nor did it even mention that inflation predicts his observations.

Cosmic background radiation is well explained as radiation left over from an early stage in the development of the universe, and its discovery is considered a landmark test of the Big Bang model of the universe. When the universe was young, before the formation of stars and planets, it was smaller, much hotter, and filled with a uniform glow from its white-hot fog of hydrogen plasma. As the universe expanded, both the plasma and the radiation filling it grew cooler. When the universe cooled enough, stable atoms could form. These atoms could no longer absorb the thermal radiation, and the universe became transparent instead of being an opaque fog. The photons that existed at that time have been propagating ever since, though growing fainter and less energetic, since exactly the same photons fill a larger and larger universe. This is the source for the alternate term relic radiation.

...

In the Big Bang model for the formation of the universe, Inflationary Cosmology predicts that after about 10−37 seconds[5] the nascent universe underwent exponential growth that smoothed out nearly all inhomogeneities. The remaining inhomogeneities were caused by quantum fluctuations in the inflaton field that caused the inflation event.[6] After 10−6 seconds, the early universe was made up of a hot, interacting plasma of photons, electrons, and baryons. As the universe expanded, adiabatic cooling caused the plasma to lose energy until it became favorable for electrons to combine with protons, forming hydrogen atoms. This recombination event happened when the temperature was around 3000 K or when the universe was approximately 379,000 years old.[7] At this point, the photons no longer interacted with the now electrically neutral atoms and began to travel freely through space, resulting in the decoupling of matter and radiation.[8]

Where did you get that paper? Was it published in a scientific journal or peer reviewed? Oh wait.

We haven’t yet seen Jason’s “Distant Starlight” paper, of course. All we had when we wrote our post was Jason’s claim that his paper was nearly finished, that it would be “peer reviewed” by “qualified scientists with a correct biblical worldview,” and that if it passed that hurdle it would be posted at the AIG website — at something called the Answers Research Journal. That journal, like the Creation Museum, is part of the creationism conglomerate run by Ken Ham.

There are numerous problems with the big bang theory that you could have looked up on wikipedia or google in about five seconds and posted a legit scientific paper on. Cosmology is to Dr. Jason's Answers in Genesis paper as Seventeen Magazine is to relationship advice.

[G0atmaster]

Holy crap.  3 pages have appeared since my last active debate posting...  I better get started!

[newman]

I'm not really convinced. If light from the farthest edge of the universe was reaching us the sky would be completely covered in starlight. Edgar Allan Poe knew that. And the paper you didn't prove where the CMB came from nor did it even mention that inflation predicts his observations.

Take a flashlight and point it at something 2m away. You'll see it brightly illuminated. Now point it at as someone who's 2 km away. You won't see him illuminated but that person will see the light source. The reason being the fact the light spreads starting from the source. The closer to the source the more light something will catch. After a certain distance the amount of light something catches will be unnoticeable but the source itself will still be visible from much larger distances. Same thing on a (much) larger scale with the Earth and the stars. Once you get into thousands of lightyears ranges (on the cosmic scale, it's barely our close neighborhood) the amount of light the Earth catches from those stars is pretty small. You still see them up on the night sky. Now, at extreme ranges the amount of light reaching you will drop so much you'll stop seeing the source. You'll still be receiving miniscule amounts of it but not enough to be visible. How many stars show up on the night sky depends on a lot of factors, from simple atmospheric conditions to astronomical ranges/time it takes for a star's light to reach us depending on that range, obstructions by other closer stellar bodies, gravitational lensing, and a myriad of other factors I'm not nearly qualified to discuss. Also take into account that while it's true that there are billions and billions of stars out there, a galaxy's worth of a billion stars is so far away it'll all merge into a single faint dot to the naked eye. Also, never underestimate just how much empty space between stars/galaxies there is.
If the light/em radiation from the very distant stars didn't reach us at all we couldn't observe them using radio telescopes at all. They don't make things up from scratch, merely enhance what does come. The more sensitive a telescope is, the less radiation from a distant star it needs to receive to be effective.
Knowing all this I have no trouble believing some background radiation from the beginnings of the universe can still reach us. It's merely a signal that's traveled long enough. Besides, some very, very smart people who devoted their entire lives to this think so, I don't think a bunch of random people on a forum about a sci fi game are going to refute them.

[watsisname]

I'm not really convinced. If light from the farthest edge of the universe was reaching us the sky would be completely covered in starlight.

The universe is finitely old.  Problem Solved.

Next?

[Mustang19]

The redshift hypothesised in the Big Bang model would by itself explain the darkness of the night sky, even if the universe were infinitely old.

Well I just learned something.

[watsisname]

Yes, if the universe were both infinitely old and expanding, the sky would be mostly dark. 

In fact, it'd be completely dark, because star formation would have ceased an infinite time ago, and all starlight that ever existed would have been infinitely redshifted to blackness.

We would also not exist.

The only way around this would be from the continual generation of new matter to fill up the expanding space and replenish star formation (essentially, this is the steady state theory), and not only do we not observe this, but it is directly refuted by the existence of the CMB.  You'd also have the difficulty of explaining the observed evolution of structure in the universe.  (Why are AGN and globular clusters primarily very old?)