[Sandwich]

You are specifically trying to interpret Genesis in a way to make it similar to your understanding of reality. However, that is not what Genesis says.

Genesis 1:16

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

It specifically says made, not became visible or whatever.

Don't rely on translations of the original to pick out the meanings of individual words.

The root word in Hebrew for "create" is "ברא" (barah). That is the word used when God creates the "heavens and the earth" (v1), the various advanced forms of life (sea creatures, creepy-crawlies, and flying creatures) in v21, and when creating Man in His (God's) image in v27.

The root word you are referring to is עשה (asah), which means "made" or perhaps more accurately, "bring forth". While very similar to the word for "create", the meaning is different. This word is used as you pointed out, in the apparent "creation" of things like the sun, moon, and stars in v16, but also in v11-12 when talking about fruit trees. The Hebrew term for fruit trees can be translated as "fruit-making trees" (עץ עשה-פרי). Trees do not "create" fruit - they produce it as a natural process that began as a seed.

In the same way, God's "making" or "production" of the sun, moon, and stars was the natural result of a process began far earlier, when, in v3, He created light (the Big Bang).

Which is one of the problems. You don't look at the Bible's account of creation and say "Well, it says this thing and that's how it is regardless of what is our modern understanding." You look at modern understanding and try to interpret the Bible in a way to make it similar to it as we see above.

You've got to be kidding me. If I was one of those Christians who look at the words of the Bible and take them literally, at face value, then I would be derided as closed-minded to the evidences presented by science (fossil records, astronomical observations, etc).

Instead, I read the Bible with the context in mind - it being written from a non-scientific point of view, thousands of years ago. I take into account that languages didn't have the proper terms for the things they were being used to describe, and therefore that we cannot take every part of the Bible literally.

Parts of the Bible make sense and don't demand an explanation beyond the surface account of events - David, before he was king, fighting and killing a lion and a bear as a shepherd boy. Somewhat unlikely, fine, but nothing "miraculous" or supernatural. I don't feel any sort of need to consult scientific theories on how David could have done so. That account makes sense.

Other accounts do not make sense. If God created Adam and Eve as the first and only humans at the time, then who did their children reproduce with? Better yet, when their son Cain killed his brother Abel, God placed a mark on him to protect him from being killed by the inhabitants of the cities. Wait, cities? What cities? The population of the planet was like 4 people at that time?

I cannot take such accounts at face value. I personally believe that the Bible is "truth" and "nothing but the truth", but unlike the testimony of witnesses in a court of law, I do not presume that it provides us with "the whole truth". So when the Biblical account of creation can make a whole lot more sense through scientific examination and postulation of what happened 14 billion years ago, I like that.

it is a better position to take than one who simply says "that is what the bible said so thats what happened." at least there is some recognition of and attempt at reconciliation with reality.

Thank you.

If the rate of expansion (how fast the outer boundaries are travelling outwards from the center) is, say, 100mph, then it would take 1 hour for a 200 mile diameter sphere to double in size to 400 miles. It would then take 2 hours to double in size again, to 800 miles. Next doubling in size would take 4 hours, etc. That's the size increase I thought he was talking about.. is there something wrong with that?

Nope, those conclusions are sound, as I described earlier, but it is not the correct way to model the time dilation from universal expansion (the correct way is to examine the FLRW equations).  I also imagine you meant to say 2 hours for the first doubling and 4 hours for the second doubling, and so forth.  Right?  If the initial radius is 200 miles, then to double the radius to 400 miles a time t=d/v = 200miles/100mph = 2 hours is required.  You can check by plugging those values into the formula I derived.

Nope - I said diameter, not radius. However, I guess it depends which measurement you're looking to see being doubled... radius? Diameter? Surface area? Volume? I was looking at diameter, but I guess perhaps volume would be the best to look at? This is where my non-scientific background doesn't help. We're looking for time dilation, and the changes that would affect that. We know that time dilation occurs due to differences in both velocity and gravity, so... which dimension of measurement would be ebst to use in measuring the changing time dilation after the Big Bang?

It occurs to me there may be an easier way, without getting overly involved in the math, to explain why I don’t find his suggestion to be particularly compelling.

*involved math stuff*

What you can conclude from this is that it is possible to find any value of z that you want, and therefore any time dilation factor that you want, at some moment in the universe’s history.  And because of this relation of z and lookback time, it’s a completely uninteresting result that a factor of 10^12 (the dilation required to expand a 6 day signal to 14 billion years) occurs very shortly after the Big Bang.  You could make the exact same argument if the biblical story was said to have unfolded in 5 days, or 100 years, or 2 seconds.  And since a lot of very interesting stuff happened very early on in the universe, you could attach that moment to something which sounds meaningful.

I removed anything that went over my head. Sorry.

Perhaps you missed the part in the article where Schroeder talks about the 6 days of Genesis being considered "days" as measured according to the "Biblical clock", or 1/100,000 seconds after the Big Bang, when the universe was "about the size of the Solar System". It's from about half-way down, to the end of the article. I think that might have relevance to your point, but I'm not sure. Again - formulas are above my head.

In any case, the point you bring up is extremely interesting, about the 14 billion years able to be equivalent to 5 days or 2 seconds, etc. True, it could. It also doesn't invalidate the Biblical account. It takes it from a impossibility to a possibility, and to me, that's pretty nifty as it is.

I'm not fond of that person's argumentation, but his assertion is absolutely correct.  6 days then = 6 days now.  The reason is because they are co-moving reference frames.  The time dilation effect is only a result of the signal from then being redshifted by the expansion of space during its transit.

Doesn't this contradict what you just wrote above?

Yep, this is what I have to say to Scotty. I don't give a damn what Sandwich believes in. But when he misrepresents the scientific view of the universe in order to make it fit his beliefs, then yes, it needs to be stomped on from a great height. Same as anyone claiming there is a scientific basis for homoeopathy, healing crystals or any other psuedo-scientific bull**** trying to pass itself off as real science. Not stamping that bull**** out allows it to propagate.

Again, scientific theory has "mis-represented" reality innumerable times in the past, and will continue to do so as our instrumentation improves and our understanding grows. So what you consider to be mis-representation now (which was never my intent - IANAS) could end up being proved true tomorrow - we just don't know.

Now obviously we can't proceed on the assumption that everything we think we know about the universe is wrong and will be disproved tomorrow, nor should we. All I'm saying is that this theory of 6 days of creation equalling 14 billion years is a darn sight closer to agreeing with scientific theory's 14 billion years since the Big Bang than "6 days of creation ~6000 years ago" is.

Should we find such evidence that changes the view of science, will we then have to change our interpretation of the bible?

Sure, I don't see why not. After all, the current theory of Schroeder came about because he wanted to see if the Biblical account could be reconciled with modern scientific theories. If those theories change, and yet the written Biblical account can still be reconciled with them, I don't see the problem... scientific theories will have to adapt to the new discoveries... why shouldn't our understanding of the Bible? The Bible itself isn't changing (neither is the "truth" about the universe), only our understanding thereof.

An all too common misrepresentation of the Big Bang theory is that 'it all came from nothing', or 'first there was nothing, and then it exploded', which is just so much BS (even some scientists who should really know better say this, and it drives me nuts).  The Big Bang theory, or the standard model of cosmology as is sometimes preferred, doesn't say anything regarding what if anything happened before that event.

That's fine - I have no problem with that. The Bible doesn't even say there was "nothing" in the beginning - it's called "formless and void" (which IMO are questionable translations of the Hebrew). I honestly have no clue what the origins are of the Hebrew words used to describe what things were like at the beginning, so I have to rely on the translations of others.

However, I just want to highlight something Schroeder pointed out, that the Biblical account of creation is condensed into 31 sentences. 14 billion years in 31 sentences. There are going to be simplifications and omissions no matter how you look at it, but just keep in mind that it's the equivalent of XKCD's "Up-Goer Five" - simplified language used to describe a very complex event.

Hmm. I think the crux here is that sandwich beliefs are based party on a misunderstanding of certain scientific theories. Sandwhich is free to have his beliefs if they are partly based on a correct understanding of certain scientific theories. It's just that misunderstandings of scientific theories is an eyesore for everyone who works in any scientistic field.

Nope, my beliefs are based on the Bible. I just find it immensely neat when there's a correlation between modern science and the Bible. In this case, a handful of forumites have apparently found holes in a professor of 30+ years' lifetime work - fine. I suspect someone somewhere might be wrong, but it's all over my head anyway. The science is neat.

This is what I disagree with.  In the case of things that are actively harmful to other people, like those faith healing incidents with that kid, there's a reasonable justification to "stamping that bull**** out."  That's perfectly alright.

The undermining of science is actively harmful. But more importantly, as I keep saying, Sandwich can believe whatever he wants. What he can't do is misrepresent what other people "believe" and then say it agrees with him. If you feel it is wrong to try to tell Sandwich what he should believe (and I agree it's wrong) isn't it also wrong for him to claim other people believe what he does when they don't?

Were all those pesky "universe ain't infinite, it had a beginning" guys actively harming science? No. Science can stand on its own, based on evidence around us. Scientific theories are merely that - theories. They can be proven if evidence is found that supports them, or disproven if evidence is found that contradicts them. Of course, some are far more likely than others, but they're still as-yet-unproven theories.

So with that in mind... when exactly did I claim that other people believe what I do??

[Bobboau]

Sure, I don't see why not. After all, the current theory of Schroeder came about because he wanted to see if the Biblical account could be reconciled with modern scientific theories. If those theories change, and yet the written Biblical account can still be reconciled with them, I don't see the problem... scientific theories will have to adapt to the new discoveries... why shouldn't our understanding of the Bible? The Bible itself isn't changing (neither is the "truth" about the universe), only our understanding thereof.

it seems pointless to me. and counterproductive. if you try hard enough you can find an interpretation of anything to mean anything, doing so does not prove the source material right, only that you are good at lawyering it to mean whatever it is you want it to mean. by doing this I would say you are destroying what ever value could possibly exist in a hypothetically divinely inspired document. if a document says fact A, but you interpret it to say fact 4 are you not missing out on that valuable fact A? conversely if a document is completely divorced from reality is it not true that preserving an unshakable faith in it by convincing yourself that any obvious flaws in it are in fact not flaws, will permit you to have a seriously flawed model of reality that might lead you to make bad choices that cause mass suffering of people in the world? should you not be concerned with finding out if your belief that this document is in fact accurate, rather than simply trying to find ways to make yourself believe it is?

let me put it a slightly different way, you believe that the Bible is inerrant, it cannot be wrong, and so if it ever conflicts with reality you have to find some interpretation of it that allows what you see in reality. what if the erroneous interpretation you have of the Bible is it's inerrancy?

[AdmiralRalwood]

Scientific theories are merely that - theories. They can be proven if evidence is found that supports them, or disproven if evidence is found that contradicts them. Of course, some are far more likely than others, but they're still as-yet-unproven theories.

*wince*

That word does not mean what you think it means.

[The E]

Scientific theories are merely that - theories. They can be proven if evidence is found that supports them, or disproven if evidence is found that contradicts them. Of course, some are far more likely than others, but they're still as-yet-unproven theories.

*wince*

That word does not mean what you think it means.

Let me clear up the vocabulary here that scientists use and that gets misunderstood all the time:

In scientific parlance, "Theory" is the highest possible form of truth there is. A scientific theory is one that has graduated from being a mere hypothesis by being proven and challenged experimentally. Now, saying that something is "merely" a theory is a sign of severely misunderstanding what the scientific method is and does. It's a cheap rhetoric device most often employed by those who would sweep scientific evidence under the rug if it is inconvenient for their beliefs.

Theories are not unassailable, of course (a famous example would be Newton's theory of gravity, which has been superceded by Relativity), but any hypothesis that runs counter to an established theory has to incorporate the old theory as a subset, or else explain how the observations that led to the old theory were possible.

The word for an unproven theory, by the way, is hypothesis. Sandwich, your assumption that the Bible holds the truth about the universe is a hypothesis until such time as an experiment can be devised that proves it repeatably.

[Lorric]

Yeah, I fell into this little trap as well some months ago, and I'm like 95% sure it was on here and got cleared up here.

The bit about hypothesis though is new to me.

[karajorma]

Sandwich shouldn't be falling for that trap either, it's been explained to him on multiple occasions.

Were all those pesky "universe ain't infinite, it had a beginning" guys actively harming science? No. Science can stand on its own, based on evidence around us. Scientific theories are merely that - theories. They can be proven if evidence is found that supports them, or disproven if evidence is found that contradicts them. Of course, some are far more likely than others, but they're still as-yet-unproven theories.

So with that in mind... when exactly did I claim that other people believe what I do??

You claimed that the bible's events fit with scientific thinking, which they don't. Doing that you make the claim that things in the Bible (like birds appearing before land animals, etc) are actually supported by current scientific thinking, which they aren't. They might fit better than Young Earth Creationism but that's not really a badge of honour since Young Earth Creationists are by and large completely idiotic when it comes to science. But here's the problem, the argument you're making can also be made by them. They simply have to say "Oh the big bang was actually 6000 years ago. Scientists just haven't found the evidence to prove that yet." Basically there is nothing you have said that can't also be said by a YEC. They're just (quite) a few steps further back from science than you are.

Hell, this whole thing about deliberately misunderstanding what a theory is, is yet another example.

The scientists who believed in the steady state when there was no contradictory evidence didn't hurt science, but that's not what you're doing. You're closer to Fred Hoyle, someone who so believes in his theory so strongly that he doesn't want to accept anything contrary to it. Instead coming up with their own explanation.

[Sandwich]

*uproar from AdmiralRalwood, The E, Lorric, and karajorma about scientific theories being called theories*

And yet there are numerous contradictory scientific theories out there. You just pointed out one of them - Fred Hoyle's steady state theory. The E mentions another theory, that of gravity, that was superseded by more up-to-date knowledge. And you've all been going on for pages and pages about how science adapts to new knowledge that proves previous conclusions incorrect.

Now I'll grant that the scientific theory is the highest form of truth that science can discover, but that does not equate to scientific theories being absolute truths. The scientific community is well aware that their conclusions are not and cannot be proven absolute truth. If/when something newly-revealed comes along, everything is candidate for re-examination and re-evaluation - hypotheses and theories alike.

The word for an unproven theory, by the way, is hypothesis. Sandwich, your assumption that the Bible holds the truth about the universe is a hypothesis until such time as an experiment can be devised that proves it repeatably.

Indeed it is.

You claimed that the bible's events fit with scientific thinking, which they don't. Doing that you make the claim that things in the Bible (like birds appearing before land animals, etc) are actually supported by current scientific thinking, which they aren't.

No. I made a claim that Biblical events can be explained better than they could have previously by using scientific methodology (calculations, formulae, and time distortion stuff). I didn't say it fit 100%. I didn't say it explained everything. And I didn't say that my belief about something means other people believe that too.

[The E]

The word for an unproven theory, by the way, is hypothesis. Sandwich, your assumption that the Bible holds the truth about the universe is a hypothesis until such time as an experiment can be devised that proves it repeatably.

Indeed it is.

But here's the problem: Your hypothesis cannot be proven, ever. There is no experiment that can be conceived, no query that can be formulated based on it, since doing so would have to take the form (in a roundabout way) of trying to prove that God exists, which is something the scientific method cannot do.

As such, it is not a scientific hypothesis, but rather an expression of your personal belief. You trying to argue as though it was a scientific hypothesis, by trying to find corroborating evidence and quoting people who seem to have beliefs that run parallel to yours is the problem.

I have no problem with you believing that there is a god and that he/she/it is responsible for our existence.

What I do have a problem with is you trying to prove that your belief is actually, literally true by selective reading of scientific evidence (Selective reading in this instance meaning taking everything that agrees with you for truth, and shrugging off stuff that doesn't fit into your worldview by proclaiming that our knowledge is incomplete).

And yet there are numerous contradictory scientific theories out there. You just pointed out one of them - Fred Hoyle's steady state theory. The E mentions another theory, that of gravity, that was superseded by more up-to-date knowledge. And you've all been going on for pages and pages about how science adapts to new knowledge that proves previous conclusions incorrect.

Again with the misunderstandings! There are no contradictory theories. A theory, by definition, is a hypothesis that has been put to the test experimentally. If two competing theories exist that arrive at the same conclusions (That is, explain the same phenomena and can be used to make equivalent predictions), then those theories are equivalent until such time as more information is available that can be used to decide which is true.
This is pretty much what happens with Newton's Laws and Relativity; At speeds vastly below the speed of light (speeds we experience everyday), both arrive at the same conclusions, so we continue to use Newton's Laws because the math is vastly easier to solve. That does not mean, however, that Newton's Laws are a complete model of gravity.

[AdmiralRalwood]

*uproar from AdmiralRalwood, The E, Lorric, and karajorma about scientific theories being called theories*

And yet there are numerous contradictory scientific theories out there. You just pointed out one of them - Fred Hoyle's steady state theory. The E mentions another theory, that of gravity, that was superseded by more up-to-date knowledge. And you've all been going on for pages and pages about how science adapts to new knowledge that proves previous conclusions incorrect.

Now I'll grant that the scientific theory is the highest form of truth that science can discover, but that does not equate to scientific theories being absolute truths. The scientific community is well aware that their conclusions are not and cannot be proven absolute truth. If/when something newly-revealed comes along, everything is candidate for re-examination and re-evaluation - hypotheses and theories alike.

No no no no no.

A theory is an attempt to explain observed phenomena, which then provides additional predictions. You go out and test these predictions. If observations don't match the predictions, the theory must be wrong; go back to the drawing board and try again. If observations do match the predictions, it doesn't mean the theory is true; it just means it hasn't yet been disproved.

"Gravity" is not a theory; gravity is an observed phenomenon. There are theories of gravity, which attempt to explain the phenomenon we call "gravity", but "gravity" is not a theory.

Ditto evolution and the expansion of the universe. The "Big Bang theory" is an attempt to explain the observed phenomenon that the universe is expanding; it has made predictions, and observations have so far matched those predictions.

[666maslo666]

Let me clear up the vocabulary here that scientists use and that gets misunderstood all the time:

In scientific parlance, "Theory" is the highest possible form of truth there is. A scientific theory is one that has graduated from being a mere hypothesis by being proven and challenged experimentally. Now, saying that something is "merely" a theory is a sign of severely misunderstanding what the scientific method is and does. It's a cheap rhetoric device most often employed by those who would sweep scientific evidence under the rug if it is inconvenient for their beliefs.

Theories are not unassailable, of course (a famous example would be Newton's theory of gravity, which has been superceded by Relativity), but any hypothesis that runs counter to an established theory has to incorporate the old theory as a subset, or else explain how the observations that led to the old theory were possible.

The word for an unproven theory, by the way, is hypothesis. Sandwich, your assumption that the Bible holds the truth about the universe is a hypothesis until such time as an experiment can be devised that proves it repeatably.

That is more like a rule of thumb, tough. In practice, theory is generally used to refer to a comprehensive scientific explanation, or a class of explanations. Even "unproven" ones, contradictory ones, or proposed ones. An example would be string theory. Scientists dont care that much about precise terminology in this regard, and many will happily use the word theory where hypothesis may be more accurate.

But you are certainly correct that just because something is called scientific theory does not imply any uncertainty. Germ theory of disease is an obvious one, it is certainly correct beyond any doubt yet it is a theory, and will remain so forever.

[666maslo666]

And you've all been going on for pages and pages about how science adapts to new knowledge that proves previous conclusions incorrect.

It is important to realise that most scientific advances are either an extension of the old theory, its generalisation or clarification. It is not often that an accepted scientific theory (if there is one) is proven outright wrong by new knowledge. So if there will be some better and ultimate scientific explanation of the origins in the future, it is very likely that big bang theory and evolution will remain a part of it.

[Bobboau]

Now I'll grant that the scientific theory is the highest form of truth that science can discover, but that does not equate to scientific theories being absolute truths. The scientific community is well aware that their conclusions are not and cannot be proven absolute truth.

I'm sorry, did someone make some claim about science and absolute truth that I missed?

[watsisname]

Nope - I said diameter, not radius.

I was wondering if that might have been the source of your confusion...

It works out the same way regardless if you use radius or diameter.  A sphere of radius 200km has a diameter of 400km.  Double the size of that sphere, and the radius is now 400km, and the diameter is 800km.  It's the same thing; they both increase by a factor of 2.  If you instead look at a doubling for volume then you would indeed get a different answer.  However, you should not use volume because that is not how the scale factor of the universe is defined.

We know that time dilation occurs due to differences in both velocity and gravity, so... which dimension of measurement would be ebst to use in measuring the changing time dilation after the Big Bang?

Since Schroeder is looking at cosmological time dilation (the effect of the photons being stretched out by the expansion of space during transit), you look at linear distances as a function of time.  This is simple enough to understand, but what is not simple is how to actually figure out how the distance changes.  You have to use the FLRW metric for an expanding spacetime to get the scale factor as a function of time, from which you can arrive at the redshift as a function of distance.  Then, the time dilation that we are discussing here is related to redshift in the manner I described (1+z).  You can figure out the factor by which events appear time dilated for any moment in the universe's history through the formula I provided.

I understand that this math goes way beyond your understanding, and I'm sorry for that.  But the fact is you simply cannot examine these sorts of things without a rigorous use of physics, and there is high-level math involved in doing that.  This is astrophysics, afterall.

Perhaps you missed the part in the article where Schroeder talks about the 6 days of Genesis being considered "days" as measured according to the "Biblical clock", or 1/100,000 seconds after the Big Bang, when the universe was "about the size of the Solar System".

Okay, let's consider a clock at 1/100,000th of a second after the Big Bang.  Now let's determine the time dilation factor of a signal from that time period.  That is, how far apart will the photons be stretched by the expansion of space during the time it takes for them to reach us?  How do we figure this out?  I'm afraid we have to use math.  Sorry again.  But here we go.

We'll start with the expression of look-back time as a function of z that I posted on the last page.  What this expression tells you is what time, going back from the present, a signal was emitted to have an observed redshift of z.  z in turn is related to the time dilation factor that we're interested in.

Let's rearrange this to solve for z as a function of t_LB.  I'll omit the algebra (it's not very difficult), and we find

We can replace 1-t_LB with "time since the Big Bang" to make life a little easier.
If we plot this we see z is infinite at the Big Bang and drops exponentially to zero for today.  Now we need to convert the time 1/100,000th of a second to the fractional age of the universe:


Let's not care about the exact number; we're only interested in orders of magnitude.  It's about 10^-23.  For that value we find z~10¹⁵, so the signal is time dilated by a factor of a million billion.  That's too long to stretch 6 days to 14 billion years (you need z~10¹², as Schroeder says.  That doesn't matter, you just get a larger value for the age of the universe at that moment.  I estimated it to be about 0.2 seconds. 
N.B. This goes back to the point I made earlier -- you can always find a moment in the history of the universe where a hypothetical signal would be time dilated by any factor you want.  So 6 days being stretched to 14 billion years is not at all interesting.

But hold on, because here's where both you and him are getting confused.  What is the physical significance of this time dilation factor that we found?  There really isn't any -- all it's saying is how much the signal got redshifted.  This is not the same as saying that an event at that moment actually lasted a million billion times longer.  If that were true, then we would not be here!  The whole universe would still be in the era of nucleosynthesis.  Remember, we're looking at co-moving reference frames, so a time interval then equals a time interval now.

Furthermore, if we suppose an event lasts 6 days, starting from 0.2 seconds after the Big Bang, then this does not correspond to a single value of z, and thus not a single value of time dilation.  Go again at that plot, and look how rapidly z is changing with t.  If you start at 0.2 seconds with z~10¹², then 6 days later you are at z~10⁸  That's a ratio of 6 days to about 1 million years.  So to say that a 6 day signal starting after the Big Bang is time dilated to 14 billion years makes no sense; the dilation factor is only true for an instantaneous signal.

"I'm not fond of that person's argumentation, but his assertion is absolutely correct.  6 days then = 6 days now.  The reason is because they are co-moving reference frames.  The time dilation effect is only a result of the signal from then being redshifted by the expansion of space during its transit."

Doesn't this contradict what you just wrote above?

No.  Where exactly do you think I am contradicting myself?


Final note: 
The Steady State Model was the theory that the universe was static and possibly eternal, so it looks much the same now as it did in any other point in time.  As I described earlier this view was popular, until we obtained evidence that the universe was expanding, at which the Big Bang model became popular.  Some cosmologists tried to adopt the Steady State model to an expanding universe, claiming that there might be new matter being produced to keep the overall density of matter constant.  The rate at which new matter must be produced to maintain constant density could be sufficiently low as to be beyond our ability to detect.

The model finally became incompatible with observations when the CMB was discovered-- it is nearly impossible to explain the existence and properties of the CMB in the context of the universe being steady state, but it is a very natural result of the Hot Big Bang model.  Combined with other evidence of the universe's evolution through time, (evolution of structure, galaxies, Quasars, stellar metallicities, etc), and it becomes plainly obvious that the Steady State model just doesn't work. 

The current model is best labelled as the Lambda-CDM model, which means a universe that began with a Big Bang and contains cold dark matter (CDM) and a cosmological constant (Lambda).

[Sandwich]

But here's the problem: Your hypothesis cannot be proven, ever. There is no experiment that can be conceived, no query that can be formulated based on it, since doing so would have to take the form (in a roundabout way) of trying to prove that God exists, which is something the scientific method cannot do.

As such, it is not a scientific hypothesis, but rather an expression of your personal belief. You trying to argue as though it was a scientific hypothesis, by trying to find corroborating evidence and quoting people who seem to have beliefs that run parallel to yours is the problem.

Hey, I'm not the one who said my beliefs were hypotheses - you did:

Sandwich, your assumption that the Bible holds the truth about the universe is a hypothesis until such time as an experiment can be devised that proves it repeatably.

I said, way back in the first post of mine that began this tangent: "...it's stuff like that that I love learning". A curiosity. One more obstacle potentially explained. A roadblock in my understanding the Bible gone from "completely crazy-sounding" to "hey, that might fit!"

I have no problem with you believing that there is a god and that he/she/it is responsible for our existence.

What I do have a problem with is you trying to prove that your belief is actually, literally true by selective reading of scientific evidence (Selective reading in this instance meaning taking everything that agrees with you for truth, and shrugging off stuff that doesn't fit into your worldview by proclaiming that our knowledge is incomplete).

You find issue with certain aspects of this 6 days/14 billion years correlation - that's fine. With a mere 31 lines of primitive vocabulary to work with, I'm not expecting a complete correlation with current scientific theory. There are issues - fine. But it's a darn sight closer than "Oh, scientists are wrong because the Bible says the universe was created in 6 days and that it all happened 6000 years ago and oh look a rainbow."

Again with the misunderstandings! There are no contradictory theories. A theory, by definition, is a hypothesis that has been put to the test experimentally. If two competing theories exist that arrive at the same conclusions (That is, explain the same phenomena and can be used to make equivalent predictions), then those theories are equivalent until such time as more information is available that can be used to decide which is true.
This is pretty much what happens with Newton's Laws and Relativity; At speeds vastly below the speed of light (speeds we experience everyday), both arrive at the same conclusions, so we continue to use Newton's Laws because the math is vastly easier to solve. That does not mean, however, that Newton's Laws are a complete model of gravity.

The Big Bang theory and the "now-obsolete" and "rejected" Steady State theory conflict with each other - indeed that conflict, brought about by new observations that supported the Big Bang theory, is what led to the rejection of Steady State. From the Wikipedia article on Steady State theory:

While the steady state model enjoyed some popularity in the first half of the 20th Century, it is now rejected by the vast majority of professional cosmologists and other scientists, as the observational evidence points to a Big Bang-type cosmology and a finite age of the universe.

...

Problems with the steady-state theory began to emerge in the late 1960s, when observations apparently supported the idea that the universe was in fact changing: quasars and radio galaxies were found only at large distances (therefore existing only in the distant past), not in closer galaxies. Whereas the Big Bang theory predicted as much, the Steady State theory predicted that such objects would be found everywhere, including close to our own galaxy.
For most cosmologists, the refutation of the steady-state theory came with the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965, which was predicted by the Big Bang theory. Stephen Hawking said that the fact that microwave radiation had been found, and that it was thought to be left over from the Big Bang, was "the final nail in the coffin of the steady-state theory".

...

Since [1972], the Big Bang theory has been considered to be the best description of the origin of the universe. In most astrophysical publications, the Big Bang is implicitly accepted and is used as the basis of more complete theories.

Scientific opinion switched from one theory to another theory due to new information. What was it you said earlier? Oh right:

In scientific parlance, "Theory" is the highest possible form of truth there is. A scientific theory is one that has graduated from being a mere hypothesis by being proven and challenged experimentally.  [...]

Theories are not unassailable, of course [...] but any hypothesis that runs counter to an established theory has to incorporate the old theory as a subset, or else explain how the observations that led to the old theory were possible.

Now I'll grant that the scientific theory is the highest form of truth that science can discover, but that does not equate to scientific theories being absolute truths. The scientific community is well aware that their conclusions are not and cannot be proven absolute truth.

I'm sorry, did someone make some claim about science and absolute truth that I missed?

The statements were along the lines of scientific theories not being made of the same weaksauce as the "normal" theories people have because scientific theories have been proven. That's a category reserved for absolute truth. Scientific theories are "merely" the best we can do (which isn't bad for what it is!) with the available information.

Nope - I said diameter, not radius.

I was wondering if that might have been the source of your confusion...

It works out the same way regardless if you use radius or diameter.  A sphere of radius 200km has a diameter of 400km.  Double the size of that sphere, and the radius is now 400km, and the diameter is 800km.  It's the same thing; they both increase by a factor of 2.  If you instead look at a doubling for volume then you would indeed get a different answer.  However, you should not use volume because that is not how the scale factor of the universe is defined.

Sure they increase by a factor of 2 - that's what doubling means. What we got confused on was the time it took for that to happen at a certain rate.

We know that time dilation occurs due to differences in both velocity and gravity, so... which dimension of measurement would be ebst to use in measuring the changing time dilation after the Big Bang?

Since Schroeder is looking at cosmological time dilation (the effect of the photons being stretched out by the expansion of space during transit), you look at linear distances as a function of time.  This is simple enough to understand, but what is not simple is how to actually figure out how the distance changes.  You have to use the FLRW metric for an expanding spacetime to get the scale factor as a function of time, from which you can arrive at the redshift as a function of distance.  Then, the time dilation that we are discussing here is related to redshift in the manner I described (1+z).  You can figure out the factor by which events appear time dilated for any moment in the universe's history through the formula I provided.

I understand that this math goes way beyond your understanding, and I'm sorry for that.  But the fact is you simply cannot examine these sorts of things without a rigorous use of physics, and there is high-level math involved in doing that.  This is astrophysics, afterall.

I feel like O'Neill in SG-1 when Carter would start in with the technobabble. Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying you're babbling... just that I feel the same way.

Perhaps you missed the part in the article where Schroeder talks about the 6 days of Genesis being considered "days" as measured according to the "Biblical clock", or 1/100,000 seconds after the Big Bang, when the universe was "about the size of the Solar System".

Okay, let's consider a clock at 1/100,000th of a second after the Big Bang.  Now let's determine the time dilation factor of a signal from that time period.  That is, how far apart will the photons be stretched by the expansion of space during the time it takes for them to reach us?  How do we figure this out?  I'm afraid we have to use math.  Sorry again.  But here we go.

We'll start with the expression of look-back time as a function of z that I posted on the last page.  What this expression tells you is what time, going back from the present, a signal was emitted to have an observed redshift of z.  z in turn is related to the time dilation factor that we're interested in.

Let's rearrange this to solve for z as a function of t_LB.  I'll omit the algebra (it's not very difficult), and we find

We can replace 1-t_LB with "time since the Big Bang" to make life a little easier.
If we plot this we see z is infinite at the Big Bang and drops exponentially to zero for today.  Now we need to convert the time 1/100,000th of a second to the fractional age of the universe:


Let's not care about the exact number; we're only interested in orders of magnitude.  It's about 10^-23.  For that value we find z~10¹⁵, so the signal is time dilated by a factor of a million billion.  That's too long to stretch 6 days to 14 billion years (you need z~10¹², as Schroeder says.  That doesn't matter, you just get a larger value for the age of the universe at that moment.  I estimated it to be about 0.2 seconds.
N.B. This goes back to the point I made earlier -- you can always find a moment in the history of the universe where a hypothetical signal would be time dilated by any factor you want.  So 6 days being stretched to 14 billion years is not at all interesting.

But hold on, because here's where both you and him are getting confused.  What is the physical significance of this time dilation factor that we found?  There really isn't any -- all it's saying is how much the signal got redshifted.  This is not the same as saying that an event at that moment actually lasted a million billion times longer.  If that were true, then we would not be here!  The whole universe would still be in the era of nucleosynthesis.  Remember, we're looking at co-moving reference frames, so a time interval then equals a time interval now.

I'm taking your word for it regarding the accuracy of the formulae you're presenting - actually, I'm just ignoring them to be perfectly honest. Rorry.

How does your understanding of this situation change if the reference frame is outside of (unaffected by) time, and merely using the beginning of time (1/100,000 seconds / 0.2 seconds - it makes no difference for this purpose) to have common ground on which to communicate concepts to time-bound creatures such as ourselves?

Furthermore, if we suppose an event lasts 6 days, starting from 0.2 seconds after the Big Bang, then this does not correspond to a single value of z, and thus not a single value of time dilation.  Go again at that plot, and look how rapidly z is changing with t.  If you start at 0.2 seconds with z~10¹², then 6 days later you are at z~10⁸  That's a ratio of 6 days to about 1 million years.  So to say that a 6 day signal starting after the Big Bang is time dilated to 14 billion years makes no sense; the dilation factor is only true for an instantaneous signal.

Isn't this covered already by the whole "Day one = ~7 billion years, second day = ~3.5 billion, etc" thing, where the time each day lasts is (very) approximately half of the previous day?

"I'm not fond of that person's argumentation, but his assertion is absolutely correct.  6 days then = 6 days now.  The reason is because they are co-moving reference frames.  The time dilation effect is only a result of the signal from then being redshifted by the expansion of space during its transit."

Doesn't this contradict what you just wrote above?

No.  Where exactly do you think I am contradicting myself?

In one place you said that we could find any time dilation factor we wanted, meaning that the time dilation aspect is plausible, but then you went and said that 6 days then = 6 days now, which to me sounds like you're saying that there is no time dilation.

Actually, in re-reading what you wrote, it seems like you're bringing in redshifting to this time dilation idea. That may compensate or make up or whatever any time dilation due to increasing relative distances between two points in space, but can redshifting also explain the time dilation due to the lowering of gravitational intensity from the moment of the Big Bang onwards?

Final note:
The Steady State Model was the theory that the universe was static and possibly eternal, so it looks much the same now as it did in any other point in time.  As I described earlier this view was popular, until we obtained evidence that the universe was expanding, at which the Big Bang model became popular.  Some cosmologists tried to adopt the Steady State model to an expanding universe, claiming that there might be new matter being produced to keep the overall density of matter constant.  The rate at which new matter must be produced to maintain constant density could be sufficiently low as to be beyond our ability to detect.

The model finally became incompatible with observations when the CMB was discovered-- it is nearly impossible to explain the existence and properties of the CMB in the context of the universe being steady state, but it is a very natural result of the Hot Big Bang model.  Combined with other evidence of the universe's evolution through time, (evolution of structure, galaxies, Quasars, stellar metallicities, etc), and it becomes plainly obvious that the Steady State model just doesn't work.

The current model is best labelled as the Lambda-CDM model, which means a universe that began with a Big Bang and contains cold dark matter (CDM) and a cosmological constant (Lambda).

So one established theory gave way to another in the face of new evidence, right? Are you and I the only ones acknowledging this in this thread?

[watsisname]

The Big Bang theory and the "now-obsolete" and "rejected" Steady State theory conflict with each other - indeed that conflict, brought about by new observations that supported the Big Bang theory, is what led to the rejection of Steady State. From the Wikipedia article on Steady State theory:

He is saying that the Steady State theory is not a competitor to the Big Bang theory now.  We know that the Big Bang theory is the one that agrees with observations.

Sure they increase by a factor of 2 - that's what doubling means. What we got confused on was the time it took for that to happen at a certain rate.

facepalm.jpg.

No offense, but you are the only person who is confused here.  It makes absolutely no difference if you look at this from a perspective of radius or diameter.  I'll go over this one more time with you:

Let's imagine a sphere with radius = 100.  Units don't matter.  Let's say the radius is increasing at a constant rate of 10 units per second.  How long does it take for the sphere to double in size (that is, for the radius to increase to 200)?  That is (200-100)/10 = 10 seconds.

Let's look at the same sphere but from the perspective of diameter.  The diameter is twice the radius, or 200.  How big is the sphere when it has doubled in size?  That's 2*200=400.  How fast is the diameter increasing?  That's twice the rate that the radius is increasing, so 20 per second.  How long does it take for the sphere to double in size?  (400-200)/20 = 10 seconds.

I'll answer the rest of your questions a little later.

[watsisname]

You know what, scratch that last sentence.

I'm taking your word for it regarding the accuracy of the formulae you're presenting - actually, I'm just ignoring them to be perfectly honest. Rorry.

If this is true then I know of absolutely no reason to continue with any of this discussion.  You have been presented with thorough, mathematically rigorous explanations for why your (Schroeder's) claim that time dilation means the 6 days of genesis fits with the 14 billion year history of the universe is nothing more than a severe misunderstanding of cosmology and physics.  But if you're not even going to look at them then what's the point?

[Sandwich]

They're absolutely Greek to me... I'm not ignoring them in the sense of discarding them because I disagree with them. I'm ignoring them in the sense of not trying to figure them out because I can't comprehend them. Thus the part about taking your word for it - which, looking at how that part was written, could have been worded better. My apologies.

As for the sphere thing, you misunderstood my original point, which I'll clarify when I get to my desktop computer (on my phone ATM).

EDIT: Back at computer. Ok, so the initial confusion was over the starting size of the sphere. I began it at a diameter of 100, but it looks like you missed the diameter part and thought I meant radius. In any case, the point of the whole thing to begin with was that the time it took for the sphere to double in size - regardless of which linear measure we use - would double itself each time the sphere reached twice its previous size. So, 1hr, 2, 4, 8, etc. I posted about that in response to your statement:

So no, it does not take longer and longer for the universe to double in size...

Does that clarify things any?

[watsisname]

They're absolutely Greek to me... I'm not ignoring them in the sense of discarding them because I disagree with them. I'm ignoring them in the sense of not trying to figure them out because I can't comprehend them. Thus the part about taking your word for it - which, looking at how that part was written, could have been worded better. My apologies.

I get that, and I'm sorry for my getting frustrated.  I understand the math and the physics is beyond your understanding, but again the fact is that they are necessary when analyzing these sorts of ideas.  You said earlier that you are a visual learner, and that's perfectly fine.  I believe that's probably true for all of us -- it is generally easier to grasp something if you can visualize it.  However, we don't always have that luxury in science.  Consider trying to figure out the details of quantum mechanics by thinking visually.  It cannot be done.

It’s the same idea here.  You've presented a mathematical claim which was developed using cosmology, and to examine the validity of this claim requires the use of high level math and physics.  It's fine that you don't understand those details, I don't really expect you to.  But it does frustrate me that without understanding them, you seem to be okay with accepting what Schroeder presented and at the same time be skeptical of what I have presented, especially as I'm the one who is actually providing the details, while Schroeder is not.  It seems like you chose to believe his claim because you want to, not because you checked and confirmed that it was valid.

For example, w.r.t. this:

I'm taking your word for it regarding the accuracy of the formulae you're presenting

I'm glad you're taking my word for it, though I wish it wasn’t necessary.  If it wasn’t good enough, then what could I do for you?  You told me I could buy Schroeder's books to check the validity and details of his arguments.  Should I reciprocate by suggesting you buy a cosmology textbook?  Rather than doing that, I'll point out that you can find the derivations online, even through wikipedia, and some of the links I have already provided.  Also note that the redshift as a function of lookback time formula I provided is itself a simplification of reality, because the correct formula is a very complicated integral equation which depends on the parameters of the universe, and it in general cannot be solved analytically (particularly for the real cosmological parameters -- you can find those out of the Planck Telescope results).  However, the formula I gave is still a very good approximation for the universe as it is with matter and dark energy, and it is good enough for our purposes here.  You can compare the curve that is plotted through this formula with the more detailed plots of z versus look-back time in the literature.  Another good check, and I did this myself before presenting it, is to use it estimate the value of z for the time the CMB was emitted, or vice versa.  Plug in 379,000 years (divided by the age of the universe =~13.8 billion years), and you get z~1100 as expected.

I began it at a diameter of 100, but it looks like you missed the diameter part and thought I meant radius.

Gah... yes, you are right.  The problem was I misinterpreted the expansion rate you were giving -- you used diameter for the size of the sphere, but the rate of increase in radius ("how fast the outer boundaries are travelling outwards from the center") as the expansion rate.  I'm very sorry for the confusion there, that was my fault after all.

We're straight then on the 'rate of doubling' of the size of a uniformly expanding sphere, and as I've shown that is the correct way to think about an expanding sphere, but it is not the right way to be thinking about the expanding universe for the purposes of figuring out time dilation.  The correct way is through all that techno-babble I've been linking to.

How does your understanding of this situation change if the reference frame is outside of (unaffected by) time, and merely using the beginning of time (1/100,000 seconds / 0.2 seconds - it makes no difference for this purpose) to have common ground on which to communicate concepts to time-bound creatures such as ourselves?

Considering that such a reference frame makes no physical sense, (space and time are inseparable), I would say my understanding of the situation in that case is precisely zero, as it would be for anybody else.  Unless you can develop a metric (a way to measure space-time intervals) in a space 'outside of time', publish it, and have it validated experimentally, then I'm afraid the idea is completely useless here.

Isn't this covered already by the whole "Day one = ~7 billion years, second day = ~3.5 billion, etc" thing, where the time each day lasts is (very) approximately half of the previous day?

I’d really like to know the details by which these numbers were arrived at, (without having to buy his books…).  But no, it does not work that way.

Remember, the redshift, and thus time dilation factor, is only true for an instantaneous signal, because at very high look-back times (low ages of the universe) it changes extremely rapidly.  That means a signal is dilated by a factor of 10¹², which would be the same ratio as 6 days to 14 billion years, only for an instant.

To see how much a signal which spans a whole day, or the whole of the first 6 days, is dilated, then there is no other way to figure it out without more math.  I’ll leave out the details, unless you want them, but what you have to do is integrate the formula of the time dilation factor as a function of the age of the universe between the times you’re interested in.  You’ll get the first 6 days dilated to about 4 million years.  That’s a very far cry from 13.8 billion.

Since the explanation for why that works mathematically requires an understanding of calculus, perhaps the best way I can explain why it works out that way, is because that extremely high dilation factor of 10¹² that is needed to dilate 6 days to 14 billion years only lasts for a fraction of a second, and within the first second after the Big Bang.  And it decreases extremely rapidly from there.

In one place you said that we could find any time dilation factor we wanted, meaning that the time dilation aspect is plausible, but then you went and said that 6 days then = 6 days now, which to me sounds like you're saying that there is no time dilation.

Yes, light from distant events is time dilated.  It’s not only plausible, but a necessary result of the expansion of space, exactly as Schroeder was describing it (though his conclusions based upon it are incorrect).  The redshift, and therefore time dilation as a function of look-back time, spans the interval from zero (present) to infinity (the age of the universe).  So yes, we can find any time dilation factor that we want just by looking at different time periods in the universe.
The 6 days then = 6 days now was meant to tell you that the time dilation is a consequence of the physics going on between the time that the event happened, and the present day (that physics being the expansion).  It is not a consequence of the physics going on then.  So, for example, it means we don't have to factor in time dilation when we talk about how long certain eras in the early universe lasted.

Actually, in re-reading what you wrote, it seems like you're bringing in redshifting to this time dilation idea. That may compensate or make up or whatever any time dilation due to increasing relative distances between two points in space…

I’m not just ‘bringing it in’.  They are literally just different aspects of the same phenomenon.   Both the time dilation of the signal and the redshift of the signal occur because the photons are being stretched out by the expansion of the universe during their transit.  So it doesn’t make sense to ask if redshifting ‘compensates’ time dilation.  They’re the same thing.

…can redshifting also explain the time dilation due to the lowering of gravitational intensity from the moment of the Big Bang onwards?

This also turns out to be pretty much the same thing, but it’s not quite as easy to see why.  There’s no gravitational time dilation in the universe due to the density of matter, in the sense that clocks at earlier times run more slowly, as like clocks at sea level on the Earth run more slowly than clocks at high altitude.  Instead, the combined gravitational field of everything in the universe affects the spatial curvature (do parallel lines remain parallel forever, or do they converge, or diverge?), as well as the rate of change in its expansion, as seen in Einstein’s general relativistic field equations.  That expansion in turn is what redshifts and time dilates signals from the earlier universe.

So one established theory gave way to another in the face of new evidence, right? Are you and I the only ones acknowledging this in this thread?

It seemed as if you were saying that the Steady State model was an alternative to BB cosmology now.  Sorry if I misunderstood you there.

Let me know if you have further questions or if any of the above is still unclear, but I hope that helped at least somewhat.

[redsniper]

I think it's admirable when someone won't let pesky stuff like math and numbers get in the way of what they know is right. I mean what do those scientists know anyways, right? They're always changing their minds on stuff. Ha!

[watsisname]

It turns out that the quality of data on cosmological time dilation is better than I was previously aware, fitting very well with the expected (1+z) relation.  This also provides an observational contradiction to that tiresome 'tired light' explanation of the origin of cosmic redshift that still floats around.  Nice.