I think it is important to understand that the whole scenario before the era of the cosmic background radiation is not based on any theories that we can actually test to see if we have it right. Up to about 17 minutes after the postulated beginning of our universe, the BBT is not even dealing with matter as we know it. The theory about what happened before then is based on atom smasher experiments, which produce a lot of observations of particle tracks in magnetic and electrostatic fields. Quantum physicists have developed theories about what those tracks mean, resulting in a (mostly) coherent theory of smaller and smaller sub-atomic particles that are theorized to combine in specific ways to produce observable effects. But we really do not have the experimental capabilities to produce and combine those theoretical particles to verify that they actually behave as theorized.
Modelers have a biased tendency to believe their models are "true" because they have thought about them as best they can, and they really don't want to have to throw out the "fruits" of their efforts. So, they don't do that until somebody proves that they are wrong. But, that is backwards logic for science. Proper logic requires that models be tested thoroughly before they are considered "laws" instead of "theories". And, theories are hypotheses that have been able to pass testing that is not as rigorous as needed to accept them as laws of nature, but are at least consistent with what tests were done.
So, I cannot stress enough, the "Big Bang Theory" is still just a theory. Popular media articles to the contrary, we really cannot say "This is what happened", and should be saying "If the Big Bang Theory has it right, this is what happened." That is a huge "if". I can understand that media moguls who produce stories for the general public want to skip that "if". But, the problem with actual scientists skipping the "if" is that it tends to shut down efforts to think about things in different ways and maybe find different conceptualizations that actually advance the state of understanding of fundamental principles.
With the current problems of understanding what we call the "duality" of subatomic "particles" having wave and particle characteristics, plus the problem of understanding cause and effect mechanisms for "spooky action at a distance" that we currently call "entanglement", it occurs to me, and others, that there could be a watershed change in our understanding of subatomic physics that would be as substantial as our ancestors realizing that the sun was not really a flaming chariot being driven across our sky by a fictional "god".
So, I strongly suggest that the "true believers" in the Big Bang Theory" keep asking themselves how they think they know what their models say happened is actually verifiable. I think they will find that, so far, 95% of their theory for times since the era of the cosmological background radiation has not yet been verified, and before that time, nothing has been verified. What I see most of them saying is that "It all fits together, so it must be correct," without acknowledging that it only fits together because multiple unverified assumptions have been made specifically to make it fit together. Instead, they tend to stress that their model is "accepted" all the way back to a postulated time when the whole universe was so tiny that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says it is not possible to independently separate physical parameters such as location, energy level, etc. At that point, they claim protection by that principle for having to explain why the model breaks down into "something from nothing" with that something postulated to have a finely tuned set of initial conditions needed to make the model work as the universe is postulated to get bigger at stupendous rates to become what we actually see today.
If a modeler strips away the assumptions that we cannot verify for the BBT model, I expect that there are a lot of other assumptions that can be made to add similar amounts of unverifiable parameters to our actual observations so as to produce other conceptual models of universes (or parts of a universe) that go though oscillations, rather than once-and-done, nothing-to-something "bangs" followed by faster than light "inflation" back to nothingness.
If somebody disagrees with that expectation, then please show me why it cannot be true. Just remember, such a showing would need to be based solely on actual observations and experimental results.
Modelers have a biased tendency to believe their models are "true" because they have thought about them as best they can, and they really don't want to have to throw out the "fruits" of their efforts. So, they don't do that until somebody proves that they are wrong. But, that is backwards logic for science. Proper logic requires that models be tested thoroughly before they are considered "laws" instead of "theories". And, theories are hypotheses that have been able to pass testing that is not as rigorous as needed to accept them as laws of nature, but are at least consistent with what tests were done.
So, I cannot stress enough, the "Big Bang Theory" is still just a theory. Popular media articles to the contrary, we really cannot say "This is what happened", and should be saying "If the Big Bang Theory has it right, this is what happened." That is a huge "if". I can understand that media moguls who produce stories for the general public want to skip that "if". But, the problem with actual scientists skipping the "if" is that it tends to shut down efforts to think about things in different ways and maybe find different conceptualizations that actually advance the state of understanding of fundamental principles.
With the current problems of understanding what we call the "duality" of subatomic "particles" having wave and particle characteristics, plus the problem of understanding cause and effect mechanisms for "spooky action at a distance" that we currently call "entanglement", it occurs to me, and others, that there could be a watershed change in our understanding of subatomic physics that would be as substantial as our ancestors realizing that the sun was not really a flaming chariot being driven across our sky by a fictional "god".
So, I strongly suggest that the "true believers" in the Big Bang Theory" keep asking themselves how they think they know what their models say happened is actually verifiable. I think they will find that, so far, 95% of their theory for times since the era of the cosmological background radiation has not yet been verified, and before that time, nothing has been verified. What I see most of them saying is that "It all fits together, so it must be correct," without acknowledging that it only fits together because multiple unverified assumptions have been made specifically to make it fit together. Instead, they tend to stress that their model is "accepted" all the way back to a postulated time when the whole universe was so tiny that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says it is not possible to independently separate physical parameters such as location, energy level, etc. At that point, they claim protection by that principle for having to explain why the model breaks down into "something from nothing" with that something postulated to have a finely tuned set of initial conditions needed to make the model work as the universe is postulated to get bigger at stupendous rates to become what we actually see today.
If a modeler strips away the assumptions that we cannot verify for the BBT model, I expect that there are a lot of other assumptions that can be made to add similar amounts of unverifiable parameters to our actual observations so as to produce other conceptual models of universes (or parts of a universe) that go though oscillations, rather than once-and-done, nothing-to-something "bangs" followed by faster than light "inflation" back to nothingness.
If somebody disagrees with that expectation, then please show me why it cannot be true. Just remember, such a showing would need to be based solely on actual observations and experimental results.
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