02-16-2022, 03:23 PM
@Torkelburger - Hubble only found out that the universe was expanding. An expanding universe doesn’t point to a singularity back in time. The Universal Background Radiation is a more convincing argument for a “Big Bang”, but not really. As I mentioned, if Narlikar, who was senior wrangler at Cambridge and is one of the world’s best known astrophysicists, thinks that the steady theory still has legs, there’s something to it.
Newtonian mechanics had 1000’s of points of evidence in its favour until the Michelson Morley experiment and, the strange orbit of Mercury.
It was Einstein’s faith in Galilean relativity, that the laws of nature should hold in all frames of reference, that led to the intellectual leap that was first special, and then general, relativity.
So was Einstein a fool to move away from classical mechanics on a leap of faith?
There were alternative explanations for Michelson Morley
Or take the simpler example of the heliocentric theory.
Why did Copernicus choose it over the geocentric model, “proof” of which was that we couldn’t feel the earth to be moving?
The geocentric theory, with a sufficient number of epicycles, is sufficient to explain retrograde motion.
But Copernicus went for the more elegant solution. The simpler model that explained the movement of the planets. Despite the known “evidence” at the time.
Believing in something with negative evidence is silly
Believing in something with zero evidence is akin to Einstein’s faith in elegance - a most excellent choice
Believing in something with positive evidence is complicated - more than one explanation exists for observed phenomena. Our faith in Occam’s razor tells us what the provisionally “right” model is.
Believing in nothing because there is no evidence either way is being a tax advisor - an utterly boring choice of personality.
Newtonian mechanics had 1000’s of points of evidence in its favour until the Michelson Morley experiment and, the strange orbit of Mercury.
It was Einstein’s faith in Galilean relativity, that the laws of nature should hold in all frames of reference, that led to the intellectual leap that was first special, and then general, relativity.
So was Einstein a fool to move away from classical mechanics on a leap of faith?
There were alternative explanations for Michelson Morley
Or take the simpler example of the heliocentric theory.
Why did Copernicus choose it over the geocentric model, “proof” of which was that we couldn’t feel the earth to be moving?
The geocentric theory, with a sufficient number of epicycles, is sufficient to explain retrograde motion.
But Copernicus went for the more elegant solution. The simpler model that explained the movement of the planets. Despite the known “evidence” at the time.
Believing in something with negative evidence is silly
Believing in something with zero evidence is akin to Einstein’s faith in elegance - a most excellent choice
Believing in something with positive evidence is complicated - more than one explanation exists for observed phenomena. Our faith in Occam’s razor tells us what the provisionally “right” model is.
Believing in nothing because there is no evidence either way is being a tax advisor - an utterly boring choice of personality.