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this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
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Science Memes
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The hot big bang is basically just "let there be light" wrapped up in science words and don't get me started on the period of rapid inflation. It's incredible to me that the bedrock of modern physics is hand-waved away to get grad students focused back on either bigger nuclear plants and bombs or more qubits.
Please start on the period of rapid inflation. I'm curious to find out what you think
There are a ton of competing models for how the early universe formed. In order to explain why the universe is so smooth and flat though, they all invoke the idea of a short (10e-37 seconds) period of time immediately following "the singularity" that is presumed to have been literally the first point. During inflation the universe blows up 100000 times in size (and correspondingly drops in temperature by the same factor) then immediately slows down to roughly the rate of expansion we see today.
There are a lot of simulations and theories about this could have worked. And I'm sure they all have lots of grounding and math and believers. But none of thr explanations I've ever heard amount to more than "when I do this funny thing, the math works and none of of us know why" and that has been the state of quantum physics for 70 years: a series of "we don't know but the math works."
In software, we call that tech debt and I feel like our current model of profit-driven science isn't capable of actually finding or reporting the answers that underly the debt-riddled results out of modern labs.
I'm glad there's someone else out there with the same concerns.
I'd be more glad if unknowns and inconsistencies were frankly acknowledged. Even though in some senses Feynman contributed to the metaphorical tech debt, one of the things I love about his lectures is his frankness in regard to the (then) current state of knowledge, and about how much was simply unknown. Much of that is still unknown, and there are major glaring inconsistencies that are handwaved into oblivion.
To be clear, this is not an "anti-science" comment, but rather a desire to see the institution of science become more consistent, and to address unknowns honestly.