Big Bang Really a Big Hum

benna writes "The New Scientist reports, 'The Big Bang sounded more like a deep hum than a bang, according to an analysis of the radiation left over from the cataclysm. Physicist John Cramer of the University of Washington in Seattle has created audio files of the event which can be played on a PC. "The sound is rather like a large jet plane flying 100 feet above your house in the middle of the night," he says.' Apparently the idea for the project came from an 11 year old."

Comments

The sound of one hand clapping.

[DShard]

And how do you verify what it sounded like. This seems like the jumped a few steps in the scientific method.

Re:The sound of one hand clapping.

[Tyreth]

The theory of "evolution" encompasses more than what they study. As talkorigins.org puts it, evolution is "Biological evolution is a change in the genetic characteristics of a population over time." That is probably what your thousands of biologists study. Of course, creationists also agree with that definition of evolution. What we reject is that all life has a common ancestor, and that given enough time living things will increase in complexity and the gene pool will become more diverse.

I'm curious to know when exactly you think that these thousands of scientists are daily studying evolution - because I'm betting they're only studying those portions of evolutionary theory that also are a part of the creationist model.

Of course, there are examples of false evolutionary predictions that have had dangerous medical effects. Take for example the philosophy that humans and other creatures would have many vestigial organs. That has turned out to be ~0. And there's the example of back treatment based on the false assumption that our ancestors walked like apes. That cause more problems until a creationist started treating patients on the assumption that the back is designed perfectly as it is. Read more here.

My recommendation is that you explore the whole of that theory of evolution that creationists reject, and see whether the pieces really do fit together.

Bear in mind, if you don't understand how a creationist can accept natural selection (which is a part of the creationist model) and still consider themselves sane/credible, then you have a lot to learn about our position. As I've said many times, I am yet to find an evolutionist who understands our position. And to me, that speaks volumes of people who are so quick to condemn something they haven't even taken the time to understand and evaluate.

Re:The sound of one hand clapping.

[Tyreth]

Let him who puts on his armour not boast as one who takes it off. You pretend you have already won the discussion before I've responded. This is indicative to me that you will not listen, even if you are proven wrong.

There's just so much wrong about what you say, but I've argued with others before - when their back has been against the wall (as you like to call it), the argument gets irrational very quickly. I don't much enjoy the sensation of banging my head against a brick wall - so I've taken the liberty of only arguing/debating with those who have the wisdom not to act arrogantly.

Your "theological" arguments are flawed on a fundamental level and are incredibly simple to dispel. I will answer that because it is the simplest - and also as a test. If I see you are willing to be corrected on the small things, then I'll know if it's worth my time replying to your other "points". But I must re-emphasise, I despise your arrogance that assumes that anything I can offer is wrong, and that all your arguments are perfect and flawless. I have no need to admit I lied if I did no such thing. I will not plead guilty when I am innocent. This makes me extremely unwilling to grace you with a response. Nevertheless, on with the easy one...

Your original claim: "Elementary theology all by itself shows that this must be wrong: if there is proof there cannot be faith."
Elementary theology teaches no such thing, at least not from any institutes I know of, or in any churches I visit. Faith has two definitions:
1. Believing in something without proof. "I've never seen fairies but I have faith that they exist"
2. Having proof of something, and so putting your trust in them. "I've seen my friend shoot and never miss the target, so I have faith he'll hit the apple on my head and not me"

See the difference? The second is the correct definition of the faith that Christ calls us to have. We already have adequate proof and assurance of His existence, and His faithfullness in fulfilling His promises. Given that, when He tells us to have faith in Him, He is telling us to trust in Him to fulfill what He promised.
So your claim that proof invalidates faith is absurd and based on an incorrect definition of Biblical faith. Proof goes hand in hand with true Biblical faith, not opposed to it.

This is a common misconception, even amongst Christians, who believe that proof will destroy their faith. I always correct them and tell them that faith has nothing to do with believing without proof, and everything to do with trusting in someone who has already proven Himself.

Re:The sound of one hand clapping.

[Tyreth]

My goodness...do you want to actually provide any evidence of your definition of faith, or pretend you are a theologian?

Look up "faith" in the dictionary. It also means trust. I trust one friend because he has proven himself trustworthy. I distrust another because he has proven himself untrustworthy. It's a simple concept. Your verses do not contradict anything about my position.

But I'm not going to debate with you any more. I despise the way you pretend you have already won an argument before taking the time to discuss. Your very first post arrogantly assumed that I would not be able to stand up against you.

There are, according to Wiedersheim, no less than 180 vestigal [sic] structures in the human body, sufficient to make of a man a veritable walking museum of antiquities. Among these [is] the vermiform appendix . These and numerous other structures of the same sort can be reasonably interpreted as evidence that man has descended from ancestors in which these organs were functional. Man has never completely lost these characters; he continues to inherit them though he no longer has any use for them.

The World?s Most Famous Court Trial, Tennessee Evolution Case (A word-for-word report), Bryan College, p. 268, 1990 (reprinted from the original 1925 edition).

Re:The sound of one hand clapping.

[Tyreth]

Your claim: if there is proof there cannot be faith

You stated that this was elementary theology. I contend that elementary theology teaches no such thing - at least not within the reformed tradition, of which I am a member.

I did. Repeatedly. All those passages in the Bible support my position and refute yours.

Very well, I'll examine the Hebrews verse where you appear to get your definition of faith from:
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen - Hebrews 11:1. The word faith here is in the greek "pistis". This means "conviction of the truth of anything, belief" Take also the second definition, "fidelity, faithfulness, i. e. the character of one who can be relied on" (Thayer's Greek English Lexicon). It says nothing about conviction of the truth of anything without proof. In fact, in order to be convicted of the truth of something, it must be proven in one's mind (no matter how poor the evidence is). This word means trusting in someone who has proven themselves. We know that God's word is good and true, because He has proven His testimony many times throughout history. Therefore, we have faith in Him. So, just as vs 3 says, by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. Not because we have seen them formed personally, but because He is faithful and His word is worthy of trust - and if it's worthy of trust, then we know from His word how the world was formed.

First remotely accurate thing you've said on the matter. Faith is not about, is never about proof or empirical evidence. This is irrefutable as I have provided ample quotes form the Bible illustrating this.

You should not assume your logic to be so flawless. You are right that faith is not directly about proof or empirical evidence. It is about trusting someone who has proven themselves in the past. I reacted to your claim that faith is the antitheses of proof. Faith is founded on someone's proven faithfulness - their demonstration that they are worthy of being trusted. So when we have faith in them, we don't have proof that they will perform a certain thing in the future, but we do have faith that they will perform this thing, because they have proven themselves faithful. That is what faith means.

Only if you admit to being a pawn of the Devil. Or is the Gospel according to Matthew not in your Bible? You do own a copy, don't you?

You should not act so arrogantly self assured. It will make you look like a bigger fool if you are proven wrong.

The creation movement does not seek to test God. We already know by faith that His word is true. He has proven Himself faithful to us already. We believe that if God's testimony is true, then the earth must be young. This means two things:
1. That if the earth is proven old, then God is not worthy of faith
2. If our faith in God is proven misplaced, then we have no reason to hold on to the idea of a young earth (aside from the great deal of evidence that has been found)

Basically, I don't see how creationists are testing God. They already trust His testimony that the earth is young. They are now trying to demonstrate to you and others how flawed the old earth evolutionary model is. They do so using scientific and philosophical (logical) evidences. After all, if He is worthy of our faith, then His word must be true.

Re:Sounds like what?

[Anonymous Coward]

You and the other guys who posted the same really deserve to be slapped in the face for being such real-life Wesley Crushers pointing out the obvious.

Electron clouds around nuclei do not have a color, but it is useful to visualize the charge density using colors. Electromagnetic fields do not have field vectors, but they're useful in visualizing the fields.

Visualization is a very useful tool in science. Why not use sound as another way of interpreting complex information? I was intrigued by the sound of a DNA (DNA interpreted as sound) a while ago.

Sound

[Hythlodaeus]

AFAIK, the density of matter approached infinity as you went back to the moment of the big bang (since the volume approached 0.) I don't know how long it lasted, but for at least awhile there would have been enough density for sound to propagate.

Listen to the Big Bang

[rpiquepa]

What is amazing is that Prof. Cramer used only a 16 line Mathematica notebook to produce his simulation of the "sound of the Big Bang. This summary gives you more details on his work and his writings. You also can read his column, "BOOMERanG and the Sound of the Big Bang," It has been published in January 2001 and amended in September 2003.

Something wrong in the article?

[carnivore302]

From the article:

From these variations, he could calculate the frequencies of the sound waves propagating through the Universe during its first 760,000 years, when it was just 18 million light years across. At that time the sound waves were too low in frequency to be audible. To hear them, Cramer had to scale the frequencies 100,000 billion billion times.

I don't get this (but then, this isn't my cup of tea either). If the universe started out as a small dot how can it be 18 million light years wide after only 780.000 years? Did it expand at a rate greater than the speed of light? I thought that was impossible...

Re:Something wrong in the article?

[DShard]

They haven't quite worked it out. There are some competing theories about but nothing that results from some fundemental mechanism (think relativity+quantum physics). Below are the two I have heard talked about.

1) Inflationary model.

The universe went through a period of extreme expansion from about a trillionth of a second to a billionth of a second where it expanded much faster than light through some unknown mechanism.

2) Variable light speed.

Light itself has changed it speed during the evolution of the universe.

Also you have to keep in mind that we are talking about the surface of the universe which does not necissarily have to follow the same rules as what is inside of it.

Big bang didn't do "bang"

[MSBob]

Big bang was not really an explosion per se. In fact all the matter in the universe has not changed its position since the beginning of the universe. Instead it's space itself that got "stretched" ie. the time for light to reach two distinct points in the universe has increased over the last fifteen billion years. The escape of galaxies works the same way.

There was no big cluster of mass that exploded like a bomb. It is simply that space itself expanded, meaning that the shift to the red has increased for the light travelling between two disctinct points in the universe.

For all those space is a vacuum commenters

[onyxruby]

The soundwaves that were found are an impression of quantum scale energy fluctuations carried to earth by cosmic microwave background radiation. Scientists were able to measure the waves by looking at cosmic microwave background (CMB). These early soundwaves are thought to have created super and giant clusters of galaxies with their travel. The soundwaves are actually contained in primordial plasma. They are effectively overtones or harmonics of the big bang explosion that is said to have created the universe.

I did a story that posted on Kuro5hin some time back about this that goes into just a touch more detail about ramifications for this sound.

Re:Big Bang?

[dido]

But the early universe at the moments they're talking about was crammed into a space less than a quarter the size of a proton. Any vibrations in the primordial soup would have to have a wavelength even smaller than this, and hence a frequency whose value in Hertz would boggle the mind. If it had a wavelength bigger than the size of the universe at the time, then the "sound wave" would destructively interfere with itself.

Re:Big Bang?

[pegr__]

But, as an observer, you either had to be a part of that "singularity" to "hear" it (certainly couldn't exist as a human in those circumstances) or you had to be separate from the singularity. (Not even sure you could exist outside... Wouldn't you need SPACE and/or TIME for that?) Within the event horizon? Not going to exist for long! Outside of the event horizon? All vacuum, no sound. DURING the event? You just became some of the matter flung all directions.

The point of this mental drivel? The idea of the Big Bang having any sort of sound is absurd. Kinda like downloading ice cream...

Faster than the speed of light?

[D-Cypell]

From these variations, he could calculate the frequencies of the sound waves propagating through the Universe during its first 760,000 years, when it was just 18 million light years across.

Can this be correct? If the universe was 760'000 years old and 18 million light years across that would mean that the matter was traveling over 10 times the speed of light. If it travelled at the speed of light surely it would only reach 760'000 light years in each direction. That doesnt add up to 18 million to me. Did i miss something?

Re:sound?

[JabberWokky]

So, tell me again how jet planes sound different in the middle of the night as opposed to, say, at 10 am?

Well, I wasn't the first one to tell you, but commercial jet planes landing past certain hours modulate the landing to produce less noise. I'm sure that somebody with more knowledge can elaborate, but due to regulations around airports, night passes have the much tighter rein on engine power and/or "shuttering" (I have no idea the technical term). In addition, they are fined at most airports for coming in after a deadline.

I lived right next to PBI (and thus one of America's two numbers stations) for a couple years. The deadline there was 10pm. Right at 9:45, you had a flurry of planes coming in, and if you listened to the whine, you could tell if it was after 10pm.

--
Evan