Not conceding defeat. There is no "reason" or initial cause for all that is. It is, and always has been, just "there". We just aren't used to thinking that way. We are used to cause and effect, creation and destruction. We have an observational bias. We are not comfortable with the idea of permanence and timelessness.
Interesting.....Permanence is not the issue here, although its a deeper level to understand before one can even consider what it is or not. It must be explainable to a certain level at least rather than assuming which the thinkers appear to do so. Time isn't an issue either because there is no time.
prior to the discovery of the big bang... this idea that it was just there was, was more accepted. now its mostly the idea of eastern religions... The point is that if there is a creation... there could very well be a creator... not a unicorn. Note.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_cosmic_microwave_background_radiation The accidental discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation is a major development in modern physical cosmology. Although predicted by earlier theories, it was first found accidentally by Arno Penzias andRobert Woodrow Wilson as they experimented with the Holmdel Horn Antenna. The discovery was evidence for an expanding universe, (big bang theory) and was evidence against the steady state model. In 1978, Penzias and Wilson were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for their joint discovery. Bell Labs' Horn Antenna in Crawford Hill, NJ - In 1964 while using the Horn Antenna, Penzias and Wilson stumbled on the microwave background radiation that permeates the universe. Further information: Timeline of cosmic microwave background astronomy By the middle of the 20th century, cosmologists had developed two different theories to explain the creation of the universe. Some supported the steady-state theory, which states that the universe has always existed and will continue to survive without noticeable change. Others believed in the Big Bang theory, which states that the universe was created in a massive explosion-like event billions of years ago (later to be determined as 13.72 billion)(13 720 million). The first published recognition of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation as a detectable phenomenon appeared in a brief paper by Soviet astrophysicists A. G. Doroshkevichand Igor Novikov, entitled "Mean Density of Radiation in the Metagalaxy and Certain Problems in Relativistic Cosmology", in the spring of 1964.[1] Working at Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey, in 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were experimenting with a supersensitive, 6 meter (20 ft) horn antenna originally built to detect radio waves bounced off Echo balloon satellites. To measure these faint radio waves, they had to eliminate all recognizable interference from their receiver. They removed the effects of radar andradio broadcasting, and suppressed interference from the heat in the receiver itself by cooling it with liquid helium to −269 °C, only 4 K above absolute zero. Timeline of the discovery of the CMB Important dates and persons 1946 George Gamow estimates a temperature of 50K 1946 Robert Dicke predicts a microwave background radiation temperature of "less than 20K" (ref: Helge Kragh), but later revised to 45K (ref: Stephen G. Brush) 1948 Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman re-estimate Gamow's estimate at 5K. 1949 Alpher and Herman re-re-estimate Gamow's estimate at 28K. 1960s Robert Dicke re-estimates an MBR (microwave background radiation) temperature of 40K (ref: Helge Kragh) 1964 A. G. Doroshkevich and Igor Novikov publish a brief paper, where they name the MBR phenomenon as detectable. 1960s Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson measure the temperature to be approximately 3 K. When Penzias and Wilson reduced their data they found a low, steady, mysterious noise that persisted in their receiver. This residual noise was 100 times more intense than they had expected, was evenly spread over the sky, and was present day and night. They were certain that the radiation they detected on a wavelength of 7.35 centimeters did not come from the Earth, the Sun, or our galaxy. After thoroughly checking their equipment, removing some pigeons nesting in the antenna and cleaning out the accumulated droppings, the noise remained. Both concluded that this noise was coming from outside our own galaxy—although they were not aware of any radio source that would account for it. At that same time, Robert H. Dicke, Jim Peebles, and David Wilkinson, astrophysicists at Princeton University just 60 km (37 mi) away, were preparing to search for microwave radiation in this region of the spectrum. Dicke and his colleagues reasoned that the Big Bang must have scattered not only the matter that condensed into galaxies but also must have released a tremendous blast of radiation. With the proper instrumentation, this radiation should be detectable, albeit as microwaves, due to a massive redshift. When a friend (Bernard F. Burke, Prof. of Physics at MIT) told Penzias about a preprint paper he had seen by Jim Peebles on the possibility of finding radiation left over from an explosion that filled the universe at the beginning of its existence, Penzias and Wilson began to realize the significance of their discovery. The characteristics of the radiation detected by Penzias and Wilson fit exactly the radiation predicted by Robert H. Dicke and his colleagues at Princeton University. Penzias called Dicke at Princeton, who immediately sent him a copy of the still-unpublished Peebles paper. Penzias read the paper and called Dicke again and invited him to Bell Labs to look at the Horn Antenna and listen to the background noise. Robert Dicke, P. J. E. Peebles, P. G. Roll and D. T. Wilkinson interpreted this radiation as a signature of the Big Bang. To avoid potential conflict, they decided to publish their results jointly. Two notes were rushed to the Astrophysical Journal Letters. In the first, Dicke and his associates outlined the importance of cosmic background radiation as substantiation of the Big Bang Theory. In a second note, jointly signed by Penzias and Wilson titled, "A Measurement of Excess Antenna Temperature at 4080 Megacycles per Second," they noted the existence of the residual background noise and attributed a possible explanation to that given by Dicke in his companion letter. In 1978, Penzias and Wilson were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for their joint discovery. They shared the prize with Pyotr Kapitsa, who won it for unrelated work.
here is more on the subject from the real scientists at NASA... not the agw nutters at the jet propulsion office here in California. http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests_cmb.html Tests of Big Bang: The CMB The Big Bang theory predicts that the early universe was a very hot place and that as it expands, the gas within it cools. Thus the universe should be filled with radiation that is literally the remnant heat left over from the Big Bang, called the “cosmic microwave background", or CMB. DISCOVERY OF THE COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND The existence of the CMB radiation was first predicted by Ralph Alpherin 1948 in connection with his research on Big Bang Nucleosynthesis undertaken together with Robert Herman and George Gamow. It was first observed inadvertently in 1965 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. The radiation was acting as a source of excess noise in a radio receiver they were building. Coincidentally, researchers at nearby Princeton University, led by Robert Dicke and including Dave Wilkinson of the WMAP science team, were devising an experiment to find the CMB. When they heard about the Bell Labs result they immediately realized that the CMB had been found. The result was a pair of papers in the Astrophysical Journal (vol. 142 of 1965): one by Penzias and Wilson detailing the observations, and one by Dicke, Peebles, Roll, and Wilkinson giving the cosmological interpretation. Penzias and Wilson shared the 1978 Nobel prize in physics for their discovery. Today, the CMB radiation is very cold, only 2.725° above absolute zero, thus this radiation shines primarily in the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, and is invisible to the naked eye. However, it fills the universe and can be detected everywhere we look. In fact, if we could see microwaves, the entire sky would glow with a brightness that was astonishingly uniform in every direction. The picture at left shows a false color depiction of the temperature (brightness) of the CMB over the full sky (projected onto an oval, similar to a map of the Earth). The temperature is uniform to better than one part in a thousand! This uniformity is one compelling reason to interpret the radiation as remnant heat from the Big Bang; it would be very difficult to imagine a local source of radiation that was this uniform. In fact, many scientists have tried to devise alternative explanations for the source of this radiation, but none have succeeded. WHY STUDY THE COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND? Since light travels at a finite speed, astronomers observing distant objects are looking into the past. Most of the stars that are visible to the naked eye in the night sky are 10 to 100 light years away. Thus, we see them as they were 10 to 100 years ago. We observe Andromeda, the nearest big galaxy, as it was about 2.5 million years ago. Astronomers observing distant galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope can see them as they were only a few billion years after the Big Bang. The CMB radiation was emitted 13.7 billion years ago, only a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang, long before stars or galaxies ever existed. Thus, by studying the detailed physical properties of the radiation, we can learn about conditions in the universe on very large scales at very early times, since the radiation we see today has traveled over such a large distance. THE ORIGIN OF THE COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND One of the profound observations of the 20th century is that the universe is expanding. This expansion implies the universe was smaller, denser and hotter in the distant past. When the visible universe was half its present size, the density of matter was eight times higher and the cosmic microwave background was twice as hot. When the visible universe was one hundredth of its present size, the cosmic microwave background was a hundred times hotter (273 degrees above absolute zero or 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature at which water freezes to form ice on the Earth's surface). In addition to this cosmic microwave background radiation, the early universe was filled with hot hydrogen gas with a density of about 1000 atoms per cubic centimeter. When the visible universe was only one hundred millionth its present size, its temperature was 273 million degrees above absolute zero and the density of matter was comparable to the density of air at the Earth's surface. At these high temperatures, the hydrogen was completely ionized into free protons and electrons. Since the universe was so very hot through most of its early history, there were no atoms in the early universe, only free electrons and nuclei. (Nuclei are made of neutrons and protons). The cosmic microwave background photons easily scatter off of electrons. Thus, photons wandered through the early universe, just as optical light wanders through a dense fog. This process of multiple scattering produces what is called a “thermal” or “blackbody” spectrum of photons. According to the Big Bang theory, the frequency spectrum of the CMB should have this blackbody form. This was indeed measured with tremendous accuracy by the FIRAS experiment on NASA's COBE satellite. This figure shows the prediction of the Big Bang theory for the energy spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation compared to the observed energy spectrum. The FIRAS experiment measured the spectrum at 34 equally spaced points along the blackbody curve. The error bars on the data points are so small that they can not be seen under the predicted curve in the figure! There is no alternative theory yet proposed that predicts this energy spectrum. The accurate measurement of its shape was another important test of the Big Bang theory. “SURFACE OF LAST SCATTERING” Eventually, the universe cooled sufficiently that protons and electrons could combine to form neutral hydrogen. This occured roughly 400,000 years after the Big Bang when the universe was about one eleven hundredth its present size. Cosmic microwave background photons interact very weakly with neutral hydrogen, allowing them to travel in a straight lines. The behavior of CMB photons moving through the early universe is analogous to the propagation of optical light through the Earth's atmosphere. Water droplets in a cloud are very effective at scattering light, while optical light moves freely through clear air. Thus, on a cloudy day, we can look through the air out towards the clouds, but can not see through the opaque clouds. Cosmologists studying the cosmic microwave background radiation can look through much of the universe back to when it was opaque: a view back to 380,000 years after the Big Bang. This “wall of light“ is called the surface of last scattering since it was the last time most of the CMB photons directly scattered off of matter. When we make maps of the temperature of the CMB, we are mapping this surface of last scattering. As shown above, one of the most striking features about the cosmic microwave background is its uniformity. Only with very sensitive instruments, such as COBE and WMAP, can cosmologists detect fluctuationsin the cosmic microwave background temperature. By studying these fluctuations, cosmologists can learn about the origin of galaxies and large scale structures of galaxies and they can measure the basicparameters of the Big Bang theory.
Amazing that FC and Stu signed up at ET within 10 days of each other back in 2002. And they are always posting in the same threads with the same thinking. What a coincidence! :eek:
Depends on definition of "end". It most likely just cycles through different energy/matter states. Like the seasons, winter is not the end of time. Perhaps as this universe grows far apart and cold, and all energy has gone from it and dimension loses meaning, it folds in on itself into an infinitely dense singularity and a new big bang. Also, we can't know if this is the only universe.