/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12001538
>theory preceded its detection.
I agree its existence was deduced from the BB generating a last scattering surfce when the universe cooled off enough to be become optically transmissive in its bulk but I don't think any of its properties were predicted before the detection: the temp, the angular feature scale, certainly not the multipole moments which remain not-predicted to this day, and other properties with which I'm unfamiliar.

Yes, the blackbody spectrum was certainly predicted. That's true but it's completely trivial. Should a blackbody's thermal spectrum be the blackbody spectrum? Yes, obviously. I do not think the scale of the angular features were predicted by anything other than random happenstance guessing before the measurements were made. When these experiments were first being launched, everyone was saying, "Whose randomly parameterized model is going to support the observations?!?!" There was no "first principles" prediction of the angular scale.

Inflation explains the thermal equilibrium but it just kicks the can down down the road since inflation has a lot of problems.
>What holds up the Earth?
>A turtle!
>What holds up the turtle?
>An elephant!
>What holds up the elephant, etc.
Inflation is not a good idea and I think Steinhart summarized all of my criticisms perfectly here:
>http://physics.princeton.edu/~steinh/0411036.pdf
I prefer not to kick the can down the inflation road and simply ask the direct question about thermal equilibrium. If anyone ever comes up with a working model of inflation, I'll be surprised.

>Also the scales you are quoting are wrong
The scales are wrong depending on when thermal eq. was achieved but my point remains that thermal eq. across the diameter of the universe is always going to have a problem when the age of the universe is proportional to the radius.

Pleasure to speak with someone who actually knows something and can communicate in an ordinary fashion. I don't see many people like you around here