Freethought & Rationalism Archive

tgamble · 04-14-2002, 05:58 AM

A creationist said to me

{QUOTE]You want evidence, go to w*w.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/02-star5.htm or w*w.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/01-ma2.htm Here's a quotation from IBM's Phillip Seiden: "The standard big bang model does not give rise to lumpiness. That model assumes the universe started out as a globally smooth, homogenous expanding gas. If you apply the laws of physics to this model, you get a universe that is uniform, a cosmic vastness of evenly distributed atoms with no organization of any kind." [/QUOTE]

I know that the pathlights encyclopedia has all the merit of a Kent Hovind lecture. I'm still wondering if this Phillip Seiden works for the computer company IBM. Is there another one? What does an IBM working know about the BB?

anyway, I was wondering just how accurate the quote given above is. Given their track record I would guess it's not very accurate at all.

missus_gumby · 04-14-2002, 07:39 AM

Seems like it originally came from an article by one Ben Pabusky:

Quote:

"The standard Big Bang model does not give rise to lumpiness. That model assumes the universe started out as a globally smooth, homogeneous expanding gas. If you apply the laws of physics to this model, you get a universe that is uniform, a cosmic vastness of evenly distributed atoms with no organization of any kind. 'No galaxies, no stars, no planets, no nothing'.' Needless to say, the night sky, dazzling in its lumps, clumps, and clusters, says otherwise.

"How then did the lumps get there? No one can say at least not yet and perhaps not ever. The prerequisite for a cosmos with clusters of concentrated matter is inhomogeneity some irregularity, some departure from uniformity, some wrinkle in the smoothness of space-time around which matter, forged in the primordial furnace, could accrete.

"For now, some cosmologists all but ignore this most vexatious conundrum. They opt, instead, to take the inhomogeneity as given, as if some matrix of organization, some preexistent framework for clumping somehow leaked out of the primeval inferno into the newly evolving universe. With lumpiness in place, the laws of physics seem to work fine in explaining the evolution of the cosmos we've come to know." *Ben Pabusky, "Why is the Cosmos Lumpy?" Science 81, 2:96, June 1981.

The above quote can be found <a href="http://www.evolution-facts.org/1evlch01b.htm" target="_blank">here</a>. It's on an anti-evolution site, so we can safely assume that our creationist friends are not even in agreement about the source of the quote. Seems like 'quote mining' to me.

Martin

{{Edited to correct stuff}}

[ April 14, 2002: Message edited by: missus_gumby ]

eh · 04-14-2002, 09:33 AM

That statement is correct, however. The standard big bang model does not explain why the universe is so homogenous, and has other serious problems. However, cosmologists today do not promote the standard model. Inflation fixes all of these problems above.

Tricia · 04-14-2002, 11:33 AM

Does that mean you guys hate Kent Hovind too?!?!

gotta admit, this was pretty funny to me:

Creationists: "In the beginning...God"
Evolutionists: "In the beginning...Dirt"

~Tricia

Daggah · 04-14-2002, 01:10 PM

Tricia, that wasn't even a particularly GOOD straw man. Why don't you spend a little more time actually paying attention in biology class?

RufusAtticus · 04-14-2002, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tricia:

Creationists: "In the beginning...God"
Evolutionists: "In the beginning...Dirt"

Whether you're joking or not, you need to get better acquainted with both biology and theology.

Creationists: "In the beginning . . . clay"
Evolutionists: "In the beginning . . . some other creature"
Abiogenesists: "In the beginning . . . sea water."

-RvFvS

Tricia · 04-14-2002, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Daggah:
Tricia, that wasn't even a particularly GOOD straw man. Why don't you spend a little more time actually paying attention in biology class?

umm...D'oh that was biology class on Friday. We watched a video.

~Tricia

hezekiah jones · 04-14-2002, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tricia:
We watched a video.

Your school shows Kent Hovind videos in biology class??

DNAunion · 04-14-2002, 05:39 PM

Quote:

tgamble: What does an IBM working know about the BB?

DNAunion: I can't really say, but I think there are things about IBM and science that many people are unware of.

IBM has had a pure science division for ages: they don't just make hard drives and computers. Even when their work does relate directly to hardware, IBM has come up with many major technological innovations based on science (there really is a lot of physics involved in improving hard drive designs, etc). They also were the ones who invented the STM (scanning tunneling microscope) which allowed us to "see" and manipulate individual atoms (they even spelled out their acronym - IBM - using individual atoms). There are (or at least there have been) many first-rate pure scientists employed full-time by IBM. Here is a snippet of what they are currently doing (perhaps pure science has been scaled back a bit over the last several years due to a lag in PC sales and IBM's losing its dominance in the market, but they are still making important discoveries, as demonstrated by the quote that follows this one).

Quote:

"Located in Silicon Valley, Almaden Research Center is one of eight IBM Research Division facilities worldwide and a premier industrial research laboratory. At Almaden, some of the finest minds in the industry focus on basic and applied research in computer science, magnetic and optical storage technology, physical and materials science and technology, and scientific and technical application software." (IBM's own site, found using Google search on "IBM" and "Almaden")

DNAunion: Oh yeah, IBM works on quantum mechanics too.

Quote:

Scientists at IBM say they have made a breakthrough which could make it possible to create electronic circuits that can be measured in nanometres - just billionths of a metre across.

The company's research division at San Jose, California, has discovered a way to transport information on the atomic scale that uses the wave nature of electrons instead of conventional wiring.

The new phenomenon, called the "quantum mirage" effect, may enable data transfer within future nanoscale electronic circuits too small to use wires.

"This is a fundamentally new way of guiding information through a solid," said IBM Fellow Donald Eigler, the lead researcher on the project.

"We call it a mirage because we project information about one atom to another spot where there is no atom."

As electronic circuits get smaller and smaller, the behaviour of electrons changes from being particle-like, and described by classical physics, to being wave-like and described by quantum mechanics.

On very small scales, tiny wires do not conduct electrons very well. So quantum equivalents for many traditional functions must be available if nanocircuits are to achieve the desired performance.
But to do this, scientists must learn how to manipulate the strange behaviour of the quantum world.

Quantum corral
To create the quantum mirage, the IBM scientists built a ring of cobalt atoms on a copper surface. The ring of atoms acts as a "quantum corral", reflecting the copper's surface electrons within the ring into a wave pattern predicted by quantum mechanics.

The size and shape of the corral determines the energy states and spatial distribution of the confined electrons. When the IBM scientists placed an atom of magnetic cobalt at one point in the ring, a mirage appeared at another point. The scientists say they detected the same electronic states in the copper electrons surrounding the phantom cobalt atom, even though no magnetic atom was actually there.

The intensity of the mirage was about one-third of the intensity around the "real" cobalt atom.

The operation of the quantum mirage is similar to the way in which light or sound waves are focused to a single spot by optical lenses, mirrors, and parabolic reflectors.

The experiments were imaged using the extraordinary power of the scanning tunneling microscope, the same instrument that enabled researchers to drag individual atoms into the shape of the IBM corporate logo 10 years ago.

Details of the research have been published in the journal Nature

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_635000/635445.stm" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_635000/635445.stm</a>

DNAunion: AT&T is similar: many people don't realize this but they do not just make phones: they too have had a pure science division for some time. They even made innovations in computer programming: if I am not mistaken, C++ was invented by someone named something like Bjorn Strousap from AT&T labs.

PS: I went back and looked it up: I was close.

Quote:

“I (Bjarne Stroustrup) am the designer and original implementor of C++. “
<a href="http://www.research.att.com/~bs/C++.html" target="_blank">http://www.research.att.com/~bs/C++.html</a>

DNAunion: Again, there is a lot of physics/science involved in improving communications technologies and some first-rate scientists have worked for or are working for AT&T.

By the way, what company were the two "radio astronomers" who detected the cosmic microwave background radiation working for? Wasn't it Bell Labs (which was basically AT&T)?

PS: No need to answer: I looked it up. Yes, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were employed at Bell Labs, with the photograph of them and their "radio telescope" showing "AT&T Bell Laboratories" in the book (and in a newer book, "Courtesy of Lucent Technologies")..

[ April 14, 2002: Message edited by: DNAunion ]

KeithHarwood · 04-14-2002, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by hezekiahjones:


Your school shows Kent Hovind videos in biology class??

Tricia. Please tell me it's not true.

If you must watch videos in class, try "Life on Earth" from the BBC. You might not be able to afford to investigate much of the evidence for biology yourself, but the BBC can and does. These videos are 25 years old, but they would still be a decent introduction for someone of your age with an enquiring mind. They are aimed at adults and were originally screened around the world on prime time television.

04-14-2002, 05:58 AM	#1
tgamble Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: St. John's, Nfld. Canada Posts: 1,652	The Big Bang A creationist said to me {QUOTE]You want evidence, go to ww.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/02-star5.htm or ww.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/01-ma2.htm Here's a quotation from IBM's Phillip Seiden: "The standard big bang model does not give rise to lumpiness. That model assumes the universe started out as a globally smooth, homogenous expanding gas. If you apply the laws of physics to this model, you get a universe that is uniform, a cosmic vastness of evenly distributed atoms with no organization of any kind." [/QUOTE] I know that the pathlights encyclopedia has all the merit of a Kent Hovind lecture. I'm still wondering if this Phillip Seiden works for the computer company IBM. Is there another one? What does an IBM working know about the BB? anyway, I was wondering just how accurate the quote given above is. Given their track record I would guess it's not very accurate at all.

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04-14-2002, 09:33 AM	#3
eh Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: Canada Posts: 624	That statement is correct, however. The standard big bang model does not explain why the universe is so homogenous, and has other serious problems. However, cosmologists today do not promote the standard model. Inflation fixes all of these problems above.

04-14-2002, 11:33 AM	#4
Tricia Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: College Station, Tx Posts: 675	Does that mean you guys hate Kent Hovind too?!?! gotta admit, this was pretty funny to me: Creationists: "In the beginning...God" Evolutionists: "In the beginning...Dirt" ~Tricia

04-14-2002, 01:10 PM	#5
Daggah Banned Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Deployed to Kosovo Posts: 4,314	Tricia, that wasn't even a particularly GOOD straw man. Why don't you spend a little more time actually paying attention in biology class?

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