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Robert A Wilson's blog, hidden assumptions, has been arguing there are also problems with general relativity and the conservation of mass. His work, consistent

Robert A Wilson's blog, hidden assumptions, has been arguing there are also problems with general relativity and the conservation of mass. His work, consistently rejected despite respect for his mathematical expertise, has recently been published in peer review. He has also questioned whether the Big bang doesn't raise more questions than it answers, alongside dark matter.

colechristensen 4y ago
Lots of people do this. Come up with a theory with testable set of predictions that isn’t just a patchwork of models glued together to explain data and then you’ll convince people.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  >Come up with a theory with testable set of predictions that isn’t just a patchwork of models glued together to explain data and then you’ll convince people. The dark matter crowd was able to convince quite a few people without hurdling such a high bar, not to mention stuff like string-theory..
  - starwind 4y ago
    Our current understanding of gravitational lensing and the speed of galaxy rotations would both suggest that we're between 80-90% of the mass in the universe. It's important to note the missing mass calculated via lensing and the missing mass calculated via the speed of galatic rotations matches pretty well. Whatever this stuff is, we don't see it directly, and we don't know what it is. Dark matter is the result of observations...of something
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > The dark matter crowd was able to convince quite a few people without hurdling such a high bar I don't know where you're getting this from. Dark matter models make lots of testable predictions, and they currently match the overall data set (which includes many different observations, not just the galaxy rotation curves that are most often mentioned) better than any other models. > not to mention stuff like string-theory Here I agree: string theory has not made a single testable prediction.
    - starwind 4y ago
      Not true, string theory made numerous testable predictions of what particles LHC should detect at different energy levels. AFAIK none of the predictions unique to string theory and it's different branches have panned out. At this point I see string theory as more of a mathematical framework than physics
      - pdonis 4y ago
        > string theory made numerous testable predictions of what particles LHC should detect at different energy levels No, it didn't. Particular supersymmetric extensions to the Standard Model made testable predictions of what particles the LHC should detect at different energy levels, none of which have panned out. String theorists like to take credit for those predictions (or at least they did until the predictions became notorious for their wrongness) because they claim that string theory is what justifies those particular supersymmetric extensions to the Standard Model. That doesn't mean we should let them get away with it.
- cwp 4y ago
  Agreed, this his how things work in practice, but man, I wish we could do better. The question of whether new observations falsify the current theory is completely separate from the creation of a better theory. If the Big Bang theory is wrong, then it's wrong, and we just don't know how the universe began.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    The posted article does neither though. Nowhere is any observation that actually contradicts existing theory. The author is taking advantage of the fact that new measurements are allowing for refined models and pretending that this surprise is the same as contradiction for an already existing bias against mainstream theories. Nothing I saw demonstrated in any way that the Big Bang didn’t happen.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > The question of whether new observations falsify the current theory is completely separate from the creation of a better theory. No, it isn't. Theories don't get "falsified" except in rare cases and in the idealized fanciful histories of some philosophers of science. The idea that you can run one critical experiment that, if the results come out a certain way, will falsify a theory, is a myth. Scientific models like our current hot Big Bang model make thousands of predictions about observed data. No model ever matches all the data with 100% accuracy. But if there is no other competing model that matches the data better, we do the best with what we have. Saying the Big Bang model is "falsified" if the error in some prediction vs. data is over some threshold is useless if we don't have a better model to replace it with.
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      It happens a lot. A theory getting ruled out by new observation. Examples: (these aren't old philosophers, crackpots, or fringe theories) * https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/cosmic-expansion.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/cosmic-exp... * https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2020/03/22/astronomers-rule-out-a-theory-of-everything/?sh=7fc5dccc4f6a https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2020/03/22/astro... * https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03678-x https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03678-x * https://news.fnal.gov/2015/12/holometer-rules-out-first-theory-of-space-time-correlations/ https://news.fnal.gov/2015/12/holometer-rules-out-first-theo...

colechristensen 4y ago

Lots of people do this. Come up with a theory with testable set of predictions that isn’t just a patchwork of models glued together to explain data and then you’ll convince people.

StanislavPetrov 4y ago
>Come up with a theory with testable set of predictions that isn’t just a patchwork of models glued together to explain data and then you’ll convince people. The dark matter crowd was able to convince quite a few people without hurdling such a high bar, not to mention stuff like string-theory..
- starwind 4y ago
  Our current understanding of gravitational lensing and the speed of galaxy rotations would both suggest that we're between 80-90% of the mass in the universe. It's important to note the missing mass calculated via lensing and the missing mass calculated via the speed of galatic rotations matches pretty well. Whatever this stuff is, we don't see it directly, and we don't know what it is. Dark matter is the result of observations...of something
- pdonis 4y ago
  > The dark matter crowd was able to convince quite a few people without hurdling such a high bar I don't know where you're getting this from. Dark matter models make lots of testable predictions, and they currently match the overall data set (which includes many different observations, not just the galaxy rotation curves that are most often mentioned) better than any other models. > not to mention stuff like string-theory Here I agree: string theory has not made a single testable prediction.
  - starwind 4y ago
    Not true, string theory made numerous testable predictions of what particles LHC should detect at different energy levels. AFAIK none of the predictions unique to string theory and it's different branches have panned out. At this point I see string theory as more of a mathematical framework than physics
    - pdonis 4y ago
      > string theory made numerous testable predictions of what particles LHC should detect at different energy levels No, it didn't. Particular supersymmetric extensions to the Standard Model made testable predictions of what particles the LHC should detect at different energy levels, none of which have panned out. String theorists like to take credit for those predictions (or at least they did until the predictions became notorious for their wrongness) because they claim that string theory is what justifies those particular supersymmetric extensions to the Standard Model. That doesn't mean we should let them get away with it.
cwp 4y ago
Agreed, this his how things work in practice, but man, I wish we could do better. The question of whether new observations falsify the current theory is completely separate from the creation of a better theory. If the Big Bang theory is wrong, then it's wrong, and we just don't know how the universe began.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  The posted article does neither though. Nowhere is any observation that actually contradicts existing theory. The author is taking advantage of the fact that new measurements are allowing for refined models and pretending that this surprise is the same as contradiction for an already existing bias against mainstream theories. Nothing I saw demonstrated in any way that the Big Bang didn’t happen.
- pdonis 4y ago
  > The question of whether new observations falsify the current theory is completely separate from the creation of a better theory. No, it isn't. Theories don't get "falsified" except in rare cases and in the idealized fanciful histories of some philosophers of science. The idea that you can run one critical experiment that, if the results come out a certain way, will falsify a theory, is a myth. Scientific models like our current hot Big Bang model make thousands of predictions about observed data. No model ever matches all the data with 100% accuracy. But if there is no other competing model that matches the data better, we do the best with what we have. Saying the Big Bang model is "falsified" if the error in some prediction vs. data is over some threshold is useless if we don't have a better model to replace it with.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    It happens a lot. A theory getting ruled out by new observation. Examples: (these aren't old philosophers, crackpots, or fringe theories) * https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/cosmic-expansion.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/cosmic-exp... * https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2020/03/22/astronomers-rule-out-a-theory-of-everything/?sh=7fc5dccc4f6a https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2020/03/22/astro... * https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03678-x https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03678-x * https://news.fnal.gov/2015/12/holometer-rules-out-first-theory-of-space-time-correlations/ https://news.fnal.gov/2015/12/holometer-rules-out-first-theo...