olegt
Posts: 1405
Joined: Dec. 2006
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The Clownhall column is written by Sheldon hisself. It is a misunderstanding, but on a deeper level.
The column is pretty silly. It includes this assessment of the Nobelists' work:
| Quote | Have supernovae been observed before? Oh sure, all the way back to the Chinese astronomers in 1054. Some would even say that the Christmas star was a supernova. How about 50, is that a special number? Not really, the era of robotic telescopic observations permit thousands of such objects to be observed simultaneously from both ground and space-based telescopes 24/7. So if it wasn't the observation that was so special, was it the technique? Nope, they used other peoples instruments and data sets. So if it isn't the observation and the technique, is it lifetime achievement? Absolutely not, these are rather youngish astronomers.
[snip]
We've eliminated novel observations, novel techniques, lifetime achievements, which leaves only bold theories that change the paradigm. What theory did these 50 supernovae prove?
[snip]
So when three rather youngish astronomers say, "Look at that, these supernova are dimmer than we expected, could this be evidence of dark energy? Could this be proof that maybe the Big Bang wasn't necessarily the beginning?" You can just imagine the electric jolt that went through the materialist community.
For the first time since Einstein's greatest blunder and since Penzias' and Wilson's discovery, there was data for Democritus and materialism. Now let's be clear, the "dark energy" cabal isn't yet ready to dismiss the Big Bang, but they are well on track for finding solutions to Einstein's equations that make it less and less necessary. First we demonstrate anti-gravity, next we start finding proof of "inflation" and "baby universes" and the "multiverse" is just around the corner. |
Oh, where to begin? The observations of Perlmutter, Brian, and Riess do nothing to disprove the Big Bang. The expansion of the Universe is well established and is not going anywhere. These astronomers showed that the Universe is expanding with a positive acceleration. That's the big deal.
Why is it a big deal? Because Einstein's general relativity in its simplest form (no cosmological constant) predicts that the acceleration ought to be slowing down because of gravitational attraction pulling the Universe together. A positive acceleration indicates that something is pushing the Universe apart. What exactly is causing the acceleration is not known, but the very fact of it is quite astonishing is deserving of the Nobel prize.
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