Carl Sagan, expert in
Astronomy
Astrophysics
Cosmology
Astrobiology
Space science
Planetary science

at 2 minutes 50 seconds "The big bang, our modern scientific creation myth. "

Myth is not a preloaded conclusion. Myth ... idealized conception of ... thing.

Big Bang is an idealized conception of the start of existence of everything.

@Word I always believed in big bands. Mantovani is one of my favorites.

@Holysocks ever been deep sea fishing? I hear the red herring are easy to catch this time of year.

@Word Red Skelton has a better sense of humor.

File this under pet "peevs". The misuse of the the term "theory". Theory comes to us out of mathematics.

A theorem is a statement that can be demonstrated to be true by accepted mathematical operations and arguments. In general, a theorem is an embodiment of some general principle that makes it part of a larger theory. The process of showing a theorem to be correct is called a proof.
[mathworld.wolfram.com]

Origin

late 16th century (denoting a mental scheme of something to be done): via late Latin from Greek theōria ‘contemplation, speculation’, from theōros ‘spectator’.
[google.com]

In scientific reasoning, a hypothesis is an assumption made before any research has been completed for the sake of testing. A theory on the other hand is a principle set to explain phenomena already supported by data. Theories will pull together experimental results to provide full explanations such as "The Big Bang Theory."

In scientific reasoning, a hypothesis is constructed before any applicable research has been done. A theory, on the other hand, is supported by evidence: it's a principle formed as an attempt to explain things that have already been substantiated by data.

The distinction has come to the forefront particularly on occasions when the content of science curricula in schools has been challenged—notably, when a school board in Georgia put stickers on textbooks stating that evolution was "a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things." As Kenneth R. Miller, a cell biologist at Brown University, has said, a theory "doesn’t mean a hunch or a guess. A theory is a system of explanations that ties together a whole bunch of facts. It not only explains those facts, but predicts what you ought to find from other observations and experiments.”

While theories are never completely infallible, they form the basis of scientific reasoning because, as Miller said "to the best of our ability, we’ve tested them, and they’ve held up."

[merriam-webster.com]

@Word In my book a myth is a doubtful tale whose chance of verification is slim. It is hearsay.

`If you put myth into both options then you give no chance for those who do not want to believe in Myths to express their views . You could have said.... A Believe in myths B Don' believe in myths.
That might have told you something .

@Omnedon So no, you don't know what you're talking about. Google it.
It never ceases to amaze me that with the most powerful computer ever created at your finger tips, people just keep saying stupid things.
I don't pretend to understand the physics behind it, but there is plenty of research being done by physicists on new, updated theoretical models.

The nature and form of mass and energy are interchangeable. Is this a better expression of their real nature and could explain why sometimes things appear to come as from nothing?

I'm sticking with the Great Green Arklesiezure theory.

@Omnedon No, I'm NOT entirely mistaken. In fact, they've found material left over from prior universe(s), they think, which adds support to their theories. Why don't you do some reading before you shoot your mouth off? I no physicist, but I know what I read, and the Big Bounce is a very real theoretical possibility.

@Omnedon I don't know...why don't you look into it YOURSELF?!?
It's only a tap-tap-tap away!
You know, in that little place at the bottom of your screen?
B-I-G B-O-U-N-C-E!!! It's easy!

@Omnedon Fine. DON'T look it up. That makes you deliberately uninformed.
Being so, like I said, stop talking.

@Omnedon I already said I'm not a theoretical physicist. But the Big Bouce concept is gaining increasing favor as new mathematical models are developed within that community.
Just for fun: as the universe dissipates into pure light, it regains gravitational force, regathers, and begins to implode and contract, until it reaches a point where it explodes outward again.
Okay?
The POINT is, energy is not lost or gained. It remains the same.
The point is, it's theoretically possible there WAS no creation, no beginning of time and space, but instead an eternal cycle.
If true, the universe has always been here, and thus IS 'god.' Whatever that means.
Note, it doesn't 'solve' anything, true or false. The mysteries will remain.

@Omnedon I'm done.
You need to talk to theoretical physicists with the genius of Einstein to figure it out.
Google it.

@Omnedon It wasn't a statement of fact. It's a THEORY. I don't make statements of fact. If you read back to the beginning, I never said it was fact, only that the Big Bounce in some circles was gaining new respect because some theoretical physicists had solved a mathematical problem which gave the entire hypothesis more credibility. How much credibility? I don't know.
The Big Bang is ridiculous and makes no sense unless you presuppose a Creator.
With the Big Bounce, no Creator necessary because the universe has always existed.
Since we don't know one way or the other, according to the laws we know governing light, energy, mass, and common sense, the Big Bounce is intrguing and, to me, more resonant.
That's all I'm saying.
It's supposed in advance the universe had to have a beginning created by 'god.' But why? Isn't it just as likely it didn't?

@Omnedon Fine.
Good bye on this subject.
I don't care. It was just a thought.
Please drop it

Did you mean cosmetologist?

@Holysocks that would seem more likely, but I wouldn't dare berate any profession.

Carl Sagan at 2 minutes 50 seconds "The big bang, our modern scientific creation myth. "

@Word he's reading from his book Cosmos, you are quoting Sagan making an analogy of a MODERN SCIENTIFIC myth with the myth of creation. Sagan can say that, he was a cosmologist making a comparison point of beliefs versus scientifically proven hypothesis. You are not Sagan, nor will you ever aspire to be. He died in 1996, but you fail to mention the rest of the program where he expands on the big bang, black holes and something from nothing, causology and other concepts which you know nothing about nor ever pretend to comprehend.

That being said, it could be turtles all the way down.

Carl Sagan at 2 minutes 50 seconds "The big bang, our modern scientific creation myth. "

@Word so the Hindu mythology made a lucky guess - like to see their data. As the old saying goes "Even a broken clock is right twice a day"

Belief means accept as true.

"Believe in" means 1 : to have ... confidence in the existence of (something) ... 2 : to have trust in the goodness or value of (something) She believes in (the value of) regular exercise. ... 3 : to have trust in the goodness or ability of (someone) Despite his problems, his parents still believe in him.

Do you accept big bang myth as true?

Do you see value, have confidence in or trust the big bang myth?

Belief is very relevant to science. There are many things science accepts and holds as true.

@Word Yes but that is the point of science as a philosophy, that it is wrong to have confidence in the existence of anything. You may accept that the big bang as scientifically proven, but scientific proof is not the same thing as true. There is no place for absolute truth in science. Outside of science it is possible to accept some things proven by science, as in practice true, but doing so is not part of science.

And for the record, I do not make any claims to having enough knowledge of cosmology to know if the big bang is true or not. I just take it that most cosmologists seem to go with that. Though there are a considerable number who still think there may be value in the constant state hypothesis, and several other models. So that I have to remain open minded.

@Word but it is a loaded question. you have to accept that the big bang theory is a myth in order to answer. that is like asking "do you believe this bullshit or not?" not an unbiased question and you have to accept that it's bullshit even if you answer yes, and then you are condemning yourself to having admitted you believe in bullshit. i don't believe it is bullshit, or a myth. it may or may not be accurate. i wasn't there. it is neither bullshit nor a myth. it is a theory and it is the best one i've seen so far. i am not proselytizing it, legislating it, adjudicating it or bullying it upon anyone, nor supporting anyone who does, nor do i KNOW of anyone who does.

g

@Green_Soldier71 I perhaps think better of the last three, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and Harry Potter, than the first three. Since they are what I would describe as honest fictions. In other words, not pretending to be anything but fiction, like the difference between conjuring tricks and so called paranormal performances.

@Green_Soldier71 Carl Sagan at 2 minutes 50 seconds "The big bang, our modern scientific creation myth. "

@genessa Carl Sagan at 2 minutes 50 seconds "The big bang, our modern scientific creation myth. "

@Word i love sagan. brilliant man. sometimes speaks literally, sometimes speaks otherwise.

g

@genessa Good to see you about again, being missing you for a while.

@Fernapple thank you, my dear! there was a big bang in this household recently: richard fell off his chair and fractured some ribs! so i am stuck with his chores, which are wearing, and my own of course too. note to self: cook and THEN change cat boxes.

g

Carl Sagan at 2 minutes 50 seconds "The big bang, our modern scientific creation myth. "

Myth is - ... idealized conception of ... a thing.

Big bang is an idealized conception of the beginning of every THING.

Carl Sagan at 2 minutes 50 seconds "The big bang, our modern scientific creation myth. "

Carl Sagan at 2 minutes 50 seconds "The big bang, our modern scientific creation myth. "

The model can always be more complex.
even the standard model that we have today is know to have some holes, but no alternative model can explain so much and with such precision.

We tend to think that science explains everything because most of our day-to day explanations are given. But in this limits of science, ppl know that modern theories are "good enough" or "best available" and not definitive explanations.

Just a guess that verifies itself wrong?

S.W.A.G Scientific Wild Ass Guess

@Word
Do you have a better answer?

It realistically verfied that it didn't happen.

@Omnedon as the article says as quoted in original post "The universal origin story known as the Big Bang postulates that, 13.7 billion years ago, our universe emerged from a singularity — a point of infinite density and gravity — and that before this event, space and time did not exist (which means the Big Bang took place at no place and no time)."

@Word It makes more sense than religions though doesn’t it?

@Omnedon ...space and time did not exist (which means the Big Bang took place at no place and no time)."

@Omnedon space and time did not exist (which means the Big Bang took place at no place and no time)."

@Omnedon if we have theory that says "place" space has always been and "time" , something has always occurred, would that not cancel or at least opposes the big bang myth?

@Word The Big Bang created space and time, so what if space and time did not exist before the bang.

@starwatcher-al the theory says it created space and time.
Space (distance) and time (occurence) has always existed.

@Omnedon Everything about the big bang points to singularity. 1 divided 0. 1/0 = does not exist. Big bang evidence points to final answer 1/0. It did not happen anywhere at anytime.

@Omnedon if "nothing " does not exist, what do we call non-existent space? Anti-space?

@Omnedon In mathematics, a singularity is in general a point at which a given mathematical object is not defined, or a point where the mathematical object ceases to be well-behaved in some particular way, such as the lack of differentiability or analyticity.[1][2][3][4]

For example, the real function

{\displaystyle f={\frac {1}{x}}}f={\frac {1}{x}}
has a singularity at {\displaystyle x=0}x=0, where it seems to "explode" to {\displaystyle \pm \infty }\pm \infty and is hence not defined. The absolute value function {\displaystyle g=|x|}{\displaystyle g=|x|} also has a singularity at x = 0, since it is not differentiable there. wikipedia

@Omnedon from your wikipedia link under interpretation...Some theories, such as the theory of loop quantum gravity, suggest that singularities may not exist.

Myth is - ... idealized conception of ... a thing.

Big bang is an idealized conception of the beginning of every THING.

Carl Sagan, scientist, astronomer, at 2 minutes 50 seconds "The big bang, our modern scientific creation myth. "

Might work!

Belief means accept as true.

"Believe in" means 1 : to have ... confidence in the existence of (something) ... 2 : to have trust in the goodness or value of (something) She believes in (the value of) regular exercise. ... 3 : to have trust in the goodness or ability of (someone) Despite his problems, his parents still believe in him.

Do you accept big bang myth as true?

Do you see value, have confidence in or trust the big bang myth?

@Word you are still calling it a myth.

you are asking 'do you love that bitch of a wife of yours?" 'you can't say no because you love your wife and you can't say yes because you would then be agreeing that she's a bitch. that is called a LOADED QUESTION. it deserves NO answer.

g

Myth is - ... idealized conception of ... a thing.

Big bang is an idealized conception of the beginning of every THING.

Carl Sagan, scientist, astronomer, at 2 minutes 50 seconds "The big bang, our modern scientific creation myth. "

@Word you quoting carl sagan, the same guy who popularized the cosmic calendar in his book, that begins with "big bang". And this is just to show his real opinions, as an opinion outside of an scientific article means nothing for science.

You are taking a poetic view from cosmos that only uses a religion to explain a concept (and he clearly states that some stuff in the religion COINCIDES BY ACCIDENT) and treating as a scientific statement.
If you really kew cosmos, you would know that in all episodes he uses common culture stuff to explain some concepts of science, this does not mean that those stuff are related, they are just allegories, and he keeps the language (coincidence, by chance, similar etc).

And his video is so old that the cosmological constant was not even calculated yet so the oscillating universe was still a possibility. But now we know (with some degree of approximation) that the constant is positive and the universe is not oscillating.

Show me ARTICLES and not an episode of Cosmos. If you can't grasp the difference between those the discussion ends here.

Are you the troll here that rejects even relativity?

Lol, you try to use a big video to stop discussion, nice and classic troll tatic, But I am really a fan and I know Sagan stuff.

[space.com]

— and that before this event, space and time did not exist (which means the Big Bang took place at no place and no time)

The big bang evidence points to final answer that it did not happen because it happened at no place and at no time.

@Word
The model not being perfect don't discard it. Science works with, "close enough", "best available" not "definitive and perfect".
If you are looking for final immutable answers, go to religion, they work with this stuff. But I can warn you, they don't get many advanced things done.

Stop reading about those models, go to the calculations, show me scientific articles and not blogs.
Show me the calculus that discard big bang.

Astrophysics is not done on blogs with metaphors and analogies. It is done with differential equations and precise measurements. Stop discussing the analogies, they are there only to try to explain, not as the model itself. Show me the mistake in the equations, show me an alternative model that is more precise.

Science knows that the model is not perfect, we know the limitations of the standard model, we know that time as we define makes no sense inside a singularity.
Do we need to redefine time? To what? How to define time inside a singularity if we can't extract information from there (back holes have no hair discussion). We need to work with the info we got, and the definition of time we have can generate very precise results in the parts of the universe we can measure.

Makes no sense talking about time inside a singularity. Maybe because time does not exist? Maybe because our definition of time is not good enough? It is not possible to know.
Well, we have other definitions of time and space, but they cannot be tested yet, thus they are just hypothesis. If we can confirm those definitions, maybe then we would be able to expand how close to the singularity we can get (in space and time) information from.

Your line of reasoning is the same of religion that states just because we can't find every link in the evolution chain, thus evolution is a lie...

Unless you come with a better model for a bird that walks like a duck, flies like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, this bird will be considered a duck.

@Pedrohbds Time is a measurement. Occurances happen. Time is a measurement of duration. Stuff happens, events with measurement of time occurs. Time is the measurement of the thing. Not the thing itself.

@Pedrohbds Some theories, such as the theory of loop quantum gravity, suggest that singularities may not exist. ] Rodolfo Gambini; Javier Olmedo; Jorge Pullin (2014). "Quantum black holes in Loop Quantum Gravity". Classical and Quantum Gravity. 31 (9): 095009. arXiv:1310.5996. BibcodCQGra..31i5009G. doi:10.1088/0264-9381/31/9/095009.

@Word Time is a dimension, measurement of time is different from time itself, the same way that definition of space is different from the definition of meter

@Word Yep, all those articles are expansions of general relativity as far as I could read (no time to read all).
Anyway it will get to the white hole stuff. Yes this is an amazing theoretical work and can solve a lot of stuff IF and only IF...
We find a white hole or we can see the hair in the black holes.

The math makes sense, but as we can't extract info from black holes (yet), we can't confirm or disprove this.

Plus, those stuff does not discard the big bang, it just gives an origin to it. and maybe add a "before the big bang". But yet, we have the "moment" of big bang that by our definition and understand of time, is still unreachable.

At event horizon, time is stretched by something that looks like a division by zero, thus it stops making sense. You can reach as close as you want (with "some" quantum shenanigans liming it to the planck era), but at the exact point it becomes infinite.

Do you see how many " " I need to use when talking about it? It is because I am summarizing very ugly equations in limited english words.
We are way out of the league of a forum discussion. We don't discuss or claim to know the error in scientific consensus if we are not in a specialist conference.

@Pedrohbds dimension a measurable extent of some kind, such as length, breadth, depth, or height.

Saying time is a measurement or time is a dimension is saying the same thing

We test the big bang by gathering every thing and putting it back into a singularity so everyone can see the repeatable singularity?

@Word Apologies. I should have written "and/or observation".

@Word common, background radiation, cosmological expansion, red shift, general relativity. Your claim to "recreate" the original singularity as the only way only shows your scientific illiteracy.

Myth is - ... idealized conception of ... a thing.

Big bang is an idealized conception of the beginning of every THING.

Carl Sagan at 2 minutes 50 seconds "The big bang, our modern scientific creation myth. "

Time itself (as we define time in therms of a dimension of the universe) cannot be defined inside a singularity.
So it makes no sense (unless you can redefine time) to say "before" the big bang.

The big bang is not filling an empty space, it s creating the space itself...

@Pedrohbds I don't believe there is such a thing as creation.