Does everything need a cause or do some things not have a cause?

Greetings OnlyMe,

Your demand for evidence is the right response, viz.

On stars being estimated at 17 billion years old.

The reference is from Donald Clayton and concerns thorium decay rates - though I guess one could argue to the contrary in applying earthly decay-rates to stars:
http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/ESSAYS/Clayton/clayton.html

However, your next paragraph is merely applying Einstein's relativity theory which I exclude from consideration since it claims that everything is reduced to one thing (i.e. space-time-matter), excluding all difference, hence its notorious and unresolvable logical paradoxes etc.

You finally resort to agnosticism (i.e. "too many unknowns") - legitimately - so I can legitimately express my agnosticism towards the claims of Einstein's relativity in view of its absurd implications.

Galaxies seem to be 'exploding' away from an original point but we are not compelled to claim that matter (as well as space and time) was once concentrated at one point. Even paddoboy's reference above distinguishes between a visible universe (squeezed into a point) and an invisible one beyond it (never squeezed into one point). Hence inferences based on Einstein's relativity have no explanatory capacity whatsoever.

FOLZONI

 

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All the data supposedly proving the Big Bang has been 'processed' and 'massaged' in such a way to prove the BB presumption.

The best example is the CBR data of Penzias & Wilson which was their original measurement of the microwave background radiation, nowadays wrongly thought to be a leftover radiation from the Big Bang.

That the present view is wrong is clear from Penzias & Wilson's own initial observations. The microwave radiation reached a crescendo once a day - this crescendo being when the Milky Way moved into the target area of the 'horn antenna'. IOW the Milky Way emits microwave radiation. Other galaxies do too - hence what we see with the CBR is a 'soup' of radiation from galaxies, including redshifted infrared radiation from the most distant visible galaxies!

When you realize this fact, you realize that the BB stands on shaky grounds indeed!

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FOLZONI

 

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You have made many incorrect assumptions and like all that have an agenda, avoid answering the real issues.
It's called grasping at straws.
Firstly and most obvious, since the BB was a creation of space and time as opposed to happening in space and time, there is definitley no exploding away from any center, as there is no center or edge to speak of.
We are though logically the center of our observable Universe, the same as any being anywhere within the Universe, is also the center of his/her observable Universe.

And again, as much as you chose to ignore it, if you have anything of substance invalidating the BB, or anything supporting any other scenario, then get it peer reviewed.....

Any future QGT, will almost certainly contain within itself, the BB, while extending beyond the BB's parameters to encompass the quantum/Planck realm.

 

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Claims??? What claims?...Time dilation?, length contraction? Consistency of the speed of light? Space/time curvature in the presence of mass/energy??
All are observed phenomena...all happen within different FoR's with each FoR being as legitimate as any other.
These theories, [SR/GR] have stood and past every test for a 100 years.
They are among the top echelon of scientific theories, along with the BB, Evolution and Abiogenesis, are near certain.

Worth noting also, your use of the terminology "agnosticism" is Interesting to say the least, and if someone were of a suspicious nature, would see that as sort of reflecting a creationistic/God botherering agenda.
But at this early stage, I'm only speculating.

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Words, claims and misinterpretations are cheap.
Please back up your assertions with evidence, or take your alternative quackery to the Alternative section.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>http://www.armaghplanet.com/blog/the-star-older-than-the-universe.html

A seventh magnitude star in the constellation Libra, HD 140283 has always been seen as unusual. For more than a century astronomers have been ware of its fast motion across the sky. It is speeding through our galactic neighbourhood at a staggering 800 000 miles per hour (1 280 000 km/h). This rapid motion shows us that the star is just passing through our region of space. Currently about 190 light years from the Sun, it is endlessly circling the Galactic Core in an orbit, vast in size and duration, which carries it down through the plane of our galaxy to the halo of ancient stars that encircle the Milky Way. Halo stars are old, dating back to the formation of the Milky Way some 12.6 billion years ago. This suggests HD 140283 is an elderly star but when astronomers used their tested techniques to calculate its age they got a shocking result. HD 140283 appeared to be 16 billion years old, more than two billion years older than the rest of the cosmos (measured to be 13.78 ± 0.037 billion years old)!

A star older than the Universe is an absurdity, enough to give cosmologists a few grey hairs, how could this be true? The star’s age was assessed by two independent techniques. Knowing a star’s intrinsic brightness is essential for estimating its age, to know its intrinsic brightness you must know its distance from Earth. Unfortunately the distance to HD 140283 was not known as precisely as astronomers would have liked. Alternatively the chemical composition of stars should change at a known rate enabling their ages to be calculated by observing the relative proportions of the their constituent elements. However astronomers are refining their models of exactly how stars work all the time. The estimated age of 16 billion years had an uncertainty of two billion years from the inaccuracy of its measured distance alone, if any of the predicted details of the star’s interior processes were off this uncertainty could be larger still. Astronomers revisited the matter of HD 140283′s age.

The most recent estimates using both improved theories of stellar structure and more accurate distance data from the Hubble Space Telescope give a more reasonable estimate of 14.5 billion years (with an uncertainty of plus or minus 800 million years). This makes HD 140283 the oldest known star with a well-determined age. It has been called the “Methuselah Star”, and although it looks quite normal at first, looking closely we see what a strange star it is. Its diameter is almost half as a large again as our own Sun, but its surface temperature is roughly the same as the Sun’s. This combination of size and temperature means HD 140283 is almost four times as bright as our Sun. None of these statistics are unusual, but the star’s composition has been known to be anomalous since the 1950s. Compared to other relatively nearby stars HD 140283 is “metal-poor”, in astronomical jargon this means it is lacking in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. This may not seem particularly odd but is a vital clue in determining the star’s age.

As far as we know only hydrogen and helium formed in the seething chaos of the Big Bang. Every other naturally occurring element came later, formed by nuclear fusion in the giant atom crushing machines that are the cores of stars or even in the titanic stellar detonations called supernovae. The process in which stars turn light elements like hydrogen into heavier elements is called nucleosynthesis. For billions of years, new stars have formed from hydrogen and helium salted with traces of heavier elements forged inside previous generations of stars. A star rich in hydrogen and helium but deficient in all the heavier elements must be a very old star, dating back to an early phase of the Universe’s life before heavy elements were common. HD 140283 fits this description perfectly having only 1/250th of the heavier element content of our Sun and other stars in our part of the Galaxy.

Metal-poor stars like our subject are said to belong to Population II, today’s stars with a richer mix of elements are Population I, while Population III are theoretical stars composed of hydrogen and helium only. Population III represents the very first generation of gigantic stars dating from only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. No Population III stars are believed to exist in the present era, as such large stars would live short fiery lives a few million years long before exploding as supernovae. Any later generation of stars had to be built from the hot gases of these ancient detonations but could not form until the debris had cooled down enough. Theorists expected there to have been a distinct gap between these two generations of stars. HD 140283 ‘s great age suggests that the gap between Population III and II stars was shorter than anyone had though. HD 140283 and its stellar generation may have arose only millions of years after the explosive deaths of their predecessors.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...lder-universe-hubble-telescope_n_2833994.html

'Methuselah' Star' Not Older Than Universe After All, New Hubble Telescope Data Show:
Posted: 03/08/2013 8:19 am EST

The oldest known star appears to be older than the universe itself, but a new study is helping to clear up this seeming paradox.

Previous research had estimated that the Milky Way galaxy's so-called "Methuselah star" is up to 16 billion years old. That's a problem, since most researchers agree that the Big Bang that created the universe occurred about 13.8 billion years ago.

Now a team of astronomers has derived a new, less nonsensical age for the Methuselah star, incorporating information about its distance, brightness, composition and structure.

"Put all of those ingredients together, and you get an age of 14.5 billion years, with a residual uncertainty that makes the star's age compatible with the age of the universe," study lead author Howard Bond, of Pennsylvania State University and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said in a statement. [Gallery: The Methuselah Star Revealed]

The uncertainty Bond refers to is plus or minus 800 million years, which means the star could actually be 13.7 billion years old — younger than the universe as it's currently understood, though just barely.


Distance makes the difference

Hubble's measurements allowed the astronomers to refine the distance to HD 140283 using the principle of parallax, in which a change in an observers' position — in this case, Hubble's varying position in Earth orbit — translates into a shift in the apparent position of an object.

They found that Methuselah lies 190.1 light-years away. With the star's distance known more precisely, the team was able to work out Methuselah's intrinsic brightness, a necessity for determining its age.

The scientists also applied current theory to learn more about the Methuselah star's burn rate, composition and internal structure, which also shed light on its likely age. For example, HD 140283 has a relatively high oxygen-to-iron ratio, which brings the star's age down from some of the earlier predictions, researchers said.

In the end, the astronomers estimated that HD 140283 was born 14.5 billion years ago, plus or minus 800 million years. Further observations should help bring the Methuselah star's age down even further, making it unequivocally younger than the universe, researchers said.

more at.....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...lder-universe-hubble-telescope_n_2833994.html
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Now that highlighted statement is remarkable paddoboy...

...since in post #37 you had earlier written:

It would thus appear that you consider 'creation' and 'evolution' one and the same thing (a difficult definition problem indeed).

The underlying issue though - as I indicate in the philosophy section under 'Non-Monist Materialism' is that space and time cannot be reduced to matter in the manner of Einstein & Minkowski. By such reductionism, everything is reduced to abstract absurdity.

Getting back to the original question in the thread, a cause, as a material cause, has to be one within space & time (not of course outside space & time like certain religious conceptions). However, to tie up space & time in the causal network by claiming that they are 'really' matter or that space, time and matter are reducible to some fundamental 'stuff' (Stoffwahn in Philipp Lenard's terminology i.e. the 'stuff delusion') as Einstein, and later Sir Karl Popper suggest (Open Society I pp. 204-5 note 2 paragraph 4), is merely to wreck science in rationalistic speculation - each piece of nonsense logically & mathematically 100% correct but physically absurd. Causality needs a vessel, an arena in which to occur, and this arena comprises space and time. Matter moves within it.

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FOLZONI

PS: But at least you admit that the BB is fundamentally a form of CREATIONISM, so for that I thank you heartily!

 

The claims of Einstein's relativity include all those you highlight in bold...

...and all of them are due to the misinterpretation of data to fit a preconceived notion (though the observed speed of light in a vacuum is indeed constant as you say!). I have highlighted your word 'past' with my own interpretation in red since what you meant I'm sure is the participle - not the abverb 'past' as in the phrase: "Einstein's relativity tests have slipped past honest scientific scrutiny in order to be established etc..."

The BB is largely derivative of Einstein's relativity. Darwinian evolution however is the diametric opposite of Einstein's relativity - as Einstein himself teaches us:

An anti-Darwinian position has hardly been better expressed than that - i.e. Darwinian evolution & Einstein's relativity are mutually incompatible. The modern confusion consists in muddling them together e.g. confusing & co-identifying 'creation' and 'evolution'.

FOLZONI

 

Your post #46 is very interesting, paddoboy - and illustrates how little we know about elderly i.e. white dwarf stars. Many are highly magnetic - magnetars - and move fast thru the background of the galaxy. They are also dim and hard to analyse spectroscopically - hence their age may very well be much older than 14 billion years. Plasma cosmology explains why galaxies are aligned to their magnetic poles, so presumably the high iron content of 'degenerate' white dwarfs subjects them to severe magnetic forces and hence high relative speeds. There is no proof for SR here.

Pure Population III stars - gigantic stars comprising entirely H & He - supposedly arising soon after the BB, are merely conjectural since if plasma condenses into pre-existing structures, some 'doping' of metals (i.e. C and heavier Periodic Table elements) is to be expected. At present, the largest brightest stars known are Classical Cepheids - which is how Hubble discovered the distance to Andromeda!

FOLZONI

 

Thank you for post #47 paddoboy! I was still looking under the old "17 billion" & couldn't come up with any decent evidence. The dinosaurs died out 65,000,000 years ago - so our dinosaur here will be happy to know he's still safe from the Big Bang BS for another 735,000,000 years - or at least until they concoct another equation to try to shrink the credibility gap further!

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FOLZONI

 

So you think relativity is wrong? You think that the data was somehow misinterpreted? How about some evidence to back up this claim.

Do you have any evidence to back up that claim. GR does indeed support a an expanding or contracting universe but the big bang is certainly not 'derived' from relativity.

Since Darwinian evolution is about species evolving, it is trivially obvious that it is not related to relativity!

 

I suppose if you had a valid point you wouldn't feel the need to misrepresent paddoboy wrote.

 

You think the stars are older than the universe?

You have it backwards, the ionize plasma in the galaxy explain why the magnetic poles are aligned to the galaxy.

The iron content will have much less effect than the ionzed material in the star. This has nothing to do with relativity.

Incorrect.

 

First, I never made any comment about the BB.... And yet you used the false pedestal in your reply as a spring board back to your stance on an issue unrelated to my point.

You also ignored the real point that was hidden in my comment, which centers on the use of radioactive decay rates to accurately date anything. Yes, decay rates have some place in dating items here on earth, but there is a significant margin of error, which makes the process when applied to "stars" and ages you are pointing to ridiculously inaccurate, or for clarity of no value at all.

The point you ignored was what drives the decay rate you refer to.., and what affects that decay rate! Even setting aside the extreme conditions within a star that do affect the decay rates of all radio active materials, there has been for some time evidence that solar activity affects decay rates right here on earth. I did not take the time to pull up either of two research papers, I have seen in the past, but a quick Google search returned, http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/august/sun-082310.html.

Even where radioactive decay rates continue to be of use in dating terrestrial objects (with significant margins of error), there is no real logic in any assumption that the limited use they have here on earth, can be extended to the depths of the universe and stars. Really, what is the decay rate of a critical mass of plutonium? Yes, a bomb is not a good example of what one would expect in an archeological dig or even a meteorite, but it would not be dissimilar to the conditions a radioactive element would be exposed to within a star, where many types of radioactive processes, are not even close to those we expect here on earth...

And none of that even begins to address the issues associated with the time frames you are speaking of. If a carbon 14 dating process here on earth has an accuracy range sometimes in the hundreds of years, how could any dating associated with billions of years, not involve a give or take, approaching a billion years or more? And that assume conditions you would expect here on earth not in the bowels of a star.

Again, I am saying nothing on the topic of the BB. I am only pointing out that your introduction of radioactive decay rates as a method of dating stars is bogus! There are too many assumptions and unknowns, for it to be even marginally believable.

 

Nice 30 year old reference.

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Donald Clayton has estimated the age of 13 to 15 billion years for the oldest galactic nuclei, which is right in line with the the current estimated age of the universe.

 

Nvm

 

I'll reciprocate on the claim of error.

I'm relatively well-schooled in Physics (compared to everyone else on earth).

I wouldn't consider nuclear decay truly random (setting aside for the moment that I don't believe in real randomness) in the common sense as indicated by the concept of nuclear half-lives.

With enough overall advancement in science and technology, we could eliminate all uncertainty.

"If you believe that there are no random processes, you are forced to accept the notion that the history of the last hundred years would repeat with no change in any detail if it were possible to start over again as of 100 years ago."

No need to be forced to believe that, since it is apparently true to me so long as there has been no variance in details, in all of reality, between the initial conditions of the first and second go-around.

With predicting dice throws, even the paint or divots on the surface that represent the number on each side would have to be accounted for somehow, at some level.

 

Question? Are you saying you are relatively well-schooled in physics, when compared to the average everyone else on earth.., or when compared to all other individuals on earth?

Though there maybe a few exceptions, it would be a safe bet to say that everyone posting on this forum, or at least the science sections of this forum, is relatively well-schooled when comparred to the majority of other individuals alive today... But then that in itself does not say anything, since most of those others, are just trying to survive and know little or nothing about physics in the since discussed here!

Your arguement seems more a philosophical perspective than an understanding of the science. Don't get me wrong, I am one of those who still believes there is a place for a little philosophy in science. It is just a good idea to know when you are discussing philosophy and when you are discussing the science behind it.

We would be nowhere were it not for our imagination.., but that does not make what we imagine real.., until it has been experienced in more than our dreams.

 

As opposed to the pseudoquackery you have posted, most probably yes, but really, just accepted mainstream cosmology

I will apologize for misleading you with the word creation. Space and time, [spacetime] [ as we know it] more correctly evolved from the BB.
In general parlance, "creation is inferred incorrectly as similar to magic....
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cre·a·tion noun \krē-ˈā-shən\
: the act of making or producing something that did not exist before : the act of creating something

: something new that is made or produced : something that has been created
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/creation
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evo·lu·tion noun \ˌe-və-ˈlü-shən, ˌē-və-\
biology : a theory that the differences between modern plants and animals are because of changes that happened by a natural process over a very long time

: the process by which changes in plants and animals happen over time

: a process of slow change and development
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Although there is a subtle difference in general parlance, I certainly don't accept any magical pixie in the sky as a scientific explanation, for the cause of the Universe as you creationists do.
As detailed in the previous speculative link I gave previously, it is quite within the known laws of physics and GR, that our Universe/space/time may just actually be the "Ultimate free lunch"

See previous explanation.

Agreed:
Matter/energy though can be reduced to spacetime.
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Experiments continue to show that there is no 'space' that stands apart from space-time itself...no arena in which matter, energy and gravity operate which is not affected by matter, energy and gravity. General relativity tells us that what we call space is just another feature of the gravitational field of the universe, so space and space-time can and do not exist apart from the matter and energy that creates the gravitational field. This is not speculation, but sound observation.
https://einstein.stanford.edu/content/relativity/a11332.html
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Note:
Science is what we know: Philosophy is what we dont know:

No, as already explained.