The Big Bang is going down

Just for a moment then it clicked.

The information processing universe prefers that moment be expressed in Epoch time 1427846400 < t < 1427932799

Hmmā€¦ 42 - 30 = 12ā€¦

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If some professional physicists believe it than itā€™s definitely plausible.

But as for being a ā€œrogue lunaticā€ Iā€™m not sure this is a particularly viable place in which to succeed. To be a successful rogue lunatic you need to attack an unsolved (or improperly solved) problem where you donā€™t need a ton of deep knowledge.

I feel like the problem youā€™re talking about here relies on some very deep knowledge. The age of all these different things, how we know their age, the implications of that age, what we understand about the early universe and big bang, etc.

I mean you could be right, but Iā€™d definitely be presenting your arguments to serious physicists and getting their feedback. If they donā€™t agree then they may have a very good reason.

But itā€™s 30/3/2015, not 1/4/2015.

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I must be much thicker than I thought. I donā€™t get the joke.

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What if itā€™s not a joke? Much more on an alternate theory of the universe and a bunch of other stuff (including how I sued Who Wants to Be a Millionaire) here.

Itā€™s ironic that boing boing ran a story (all of three days ago) comparing the backgrounds of reporters for Fox and NPR. Between this and the click-bait title, I guess this article puts them on the side of Fox.

Iā€™m a particle physicist who deals with cosmology and can safely say Rosnerā€™s article is nonsense. Iā€™d like to give BB the benefit of the doubt and think this is an early April Fools Day joke.

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Nailed it. Thank you.

[Edit: My original comment above was mostly a smirk towards the parallel in accreditations. However, Mr. Rosner as well as a couple commenters (Cowicide, Aelfscine) have since argued a fair point: unlike the gasbags credited as ā€˜expertsā€™ on Fox News, Rosner offers his thoughts with the intent of rectifying cosmological theory rather than simply discrediting its current models and walking away. Mere falsification is a punditā€™s game; Mr. Rosner seems to be searching for something much more productive. I can respect that. Whether his thoughts deserve BBā€™s spotlight, Iā€™ll leave that discussion to those who actually understand this stuff.]

Does this mean it is totally void as a theory or that we simply need to re-imagine the timeline?

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ā€¦then donā€™t be like them.

Itā€™s a joke, but the sad thing is, the original author doesnā€™t realize itā€™s a jokeā€¦

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Hey cdspitzer - give BB a break. Foxā€™s science experts are hacks and obfuscators supporting creepy political agendas. Iā€™m just a guy with a clearly stated lack of advanced academic credentials who is noting a surprisingly high degree of development of some structures in the early universe and claiming that the early universe may not be so young after all. Iā€™m not denying climate change or evolution or quantum mechanics or relativity.

People who arenā€™t professional scientists can think about science and come up with their own questions and ideas. Most of these ideas wonā€™t move science forward because, well, dumb. But thereā€™s nothing wrong with asking, ā€œWhat if everything didnā€™t blow up all at once from nothing 13.8 billion years ago? What if thereā€™s a frozen framework of old, collapsed matter, informationally and relativistically isolated from us, out of which the current iteration of the active universe erupted?ā€

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Hey avunculoid -
Just a small quibble - the bio comes from Wikipedia, so itā€™s douchiness one step removed. If youā€™d like to experience my douchiness unmediated by Wikipedia, check out my Twitter feed.

And hereā€™s a nice article (with lots of links at the end) featuring people with better credentials than mine talking about the universe as information.

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So there was many smaller big bangs? That make some sense, but the problem is there still has to be a start of time / reason for all the energy in the universe. Iā€™m more inclined to believe that there was a big bang that started most of our current observable universe and that it may or not be THE big bang.

Maybe so. Yet itā€™s also true that the Big Bang was originally opposed by precisely because it smacked of creatio ex nihilo (remember, LemaĆ®tre was a Catholic priest). Bohm, Eddington, Hoyle and Einstein all hated it for this reason.

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I think the problem people are having is with how you framed it. The actual content is ā€˜Hereā€™s an interesting set of correlations that make for a neat thought experiment,ā€™ but the headline and tone are more ā€˜Teh Big Bang is PWNED.ā€™ Maybe the mismatch is part of some planned goal, but it does make the story feel like really, really unsubstantiated clickbait.

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Right. My main filter for when someone is a ā€œrogue lunaticā€ is when they make all kinds of assertions as though they are absolute fact.

The sane approach is to say, ā€œI have a theory. I am interested in determining how it could be tested and/or refuted.ā€

Realistically, we all believe lots of things before we can test them. Many things we believe but donā€™t have time to test. However, if we really want other people to believe those things, then we need to do the hard work. At the very least, we should engage people with the admission that what we believe may not be true.

No, there certainly isnā€™t. But misrepresenting some interesting new findings as meaning the big bang theory is coming apart, or pointing to scientists looking at information as fundamental as if it means youā€™re mainstream in your interpretation of that, is less ideal.

Everything is made of information. In the beginning was the word, and the word is God, which processes itself. Nothing new here. Move along.

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Uhh, this is not an aprilā€™s fools joke post. Just saying. I mean itā€™s not even tomorrow and the post doesnā€™t even sound funny if you are aware with the problems of the big bang theory. This ā€œinformation processorā€ sounds like pseudoscience though. The author has criticized the big bang theory before and frankly I think he is right. The fact that anyone would think this post is a joke illustrates by itself what a dogma the big bang theory has became.

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