question about criticisms of BICEP2

[`hýsøŕ]

I found a video of one of the newer criticisms of the BICEP2 project and they sounded quite.. radical:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC_KkLvG22A#t=855

 

the guy says that both gravitational waves and the CMB simply do not exist... im guessing a quack but im not sure :S

[Mordred]

sounds quacky to me considering all the measurements of the CMB

[Ophiolite]

If a scientist has a string of papers published in significant peer reviewed journals and then chooses to share, in a simplified manner, some of their knowledge with interested laypersons through on-line videos, that is a worthwhile endeavour and one can give considerable credence to what is said.

 

If the principal, or only means by which an idea is delivered is via video, especially when it is opposed to current consensus views, then one can likely ignore it without loss. I doubt it is even worth the effort to look at the video. (If I want a loan, I go to a bank, not the corner shop. [Though these days, I concede, the corner shop might just be a safer bet]).

[`hýsøŕ]

well yeah i guess .. i just don't like the feeling of being misled by frauds (hard to tell if they are or aren't, especially since im not an expert in cmb stuff (at least not yet))

[swansont]

I found a video of one of the newer criticisms of the BICEP2 project and they sounded quite.. radical:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC_KkLvG22A#t=855

 

the guy says that both gravitational waves and the CMB simply do not exist... im guessing a quack but im not sure :S

 

All by its lonesome, a youtube video has pretty good odds of being crackpottery. "omitted from the science press releases are countless foundational problems for the Big Bang theory. Stephen Crothers weighs in on the topic" smells heavily of that; the bar as about as low as the wall 'o text posts we see here from time to time.

[imatfaal]

His work is complete crackpottery in my humble op.

 

http://www.sjcrothers.plasmaresources.com/PhD.html

[`hýsøŕ]

these people scare me because they reinforce this most likely false idea in my head that i can sense when somebody's a crackpot (without being 100% sure) and i did with him and now i see he is one (thanks to you guys) so .. bleh.. sigh lol

 

such a shame whenever i start trusting youtube i remember that there is this vast reservoir of misinformation and foolishness hiding everywhere...

[Mordred]

To be honest I never trust Youtube, nor any individual site that makes claims. There is no replacement to buying textbooks, and using pedagoginal peer reviewed articles from www.arxiv.org as one example. Though nothing is as good as formal education through an institution. When I first started studying cosmology I fell into the trap of looking for the easy ways to relate to cosmology. Ended up with all the wrong misconceptions as a result. Finally I broke down and started buying textbooks. My first was a lucky hit, in that it was well written in an easy to understand format.

 

Introduction to Cosmology by Barbera Ryden

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Cosmology-Barbara-Ryden/dp/0805389121

 

my second was also excellent but a bit harder to at first understand

Modern Cosmology 2nd edition by Scott Dodelson

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Cosmology-Scott-Dodelson/dp/0122191412

 

my collection has grown tremendously from there, in that I currently have 21 various textbooks, not all in Cosmology, though related. Some in QFT, particle physics,physics,QED,QCD,QM,Differential Geometry, etc

 

Another useful avenue and one often overlooked is the read various Dissertations. Sometimes you can get lucky and get Introduction to a particular model from Arxiv.com.

 

this one is an older textbook that Liddle has released, as its now outdated. However its still good for a starter

http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0503203.pdf "Particle Physics and Inflationary Cosmology" by Andrei Linde

 

Here is a few examples

http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-ph/0004188v1.pdf :"ASTROPHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY"- A compilation of cosmology by Juan Garcıa-Bellido
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0409426 An overview of Cosmology Julien Lesgourgues
http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0503203.pdf "Particle Physics and Inflationary Cosmology" by Andrei Linde
http://www.wiese.itp.unibe.ch/lectures/universe.pdf:" Particle Physics of the Early universe" by Uwe-Jens Wiese Thermodynamics, Big bang Nucleosynthesis
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30155/30155-pdf.pdf: "Relativity: The Special and General Theory" by Albert Einstein
http://www.blau.itp.unibe.ch/newlecturesGR.pdf "Lecture Notes on General Relativity" Matthias Blau
http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.4598 "Introduction to Loop Quantum Cosmology by Abhay Ashtekar
http://arxiv.org/abs/hepth/9912205 : "Fields" - A free lengthy technical training manual on classical and quantum fields

 

Forums are handy regardless of what method you use in learning, they help clarify, correct and teach. Keep at it, and always be aware there is lots of misleading information. However forums such as this one do help filter those out.

[`hýsøŕ]

thanks for the textbookslinks, someday i should sit down and get a good list going of all the things to buy in the coming years. (am still in first year of my degree, stuff is still kinda foggy atm xD). and yeah so far i've found formal education to be a lot more productive than all these other types of education on the internet and things. some of them are quite useful i think, like khanacademy, but they seem to be a little rare. on the other hand there's a lotta people who seem like wannabe physicists on the internet, this place luckily seems to have plenty of pro's, if you will.

[Mordred]

agreed, that was the motivation behind constructing my website. That and I find it far easier to answer repetitive questions on the forums lol. The misconceptions section is particularly useful for that. Its also why I wrote the site link articles. Though I made sure to have a couple of professors look them over. One of them being Brian Powell, he is currently working on the degeneracies of inflation. Has around 8 articles on arxiv atm that I'm aware of he also wrote one of the articles in the misconceptions section. My articles are basic information designed for the non cosmologist to understand as best as possible.

 

http://cosmology101.wikidot.com/redshift-and-expansion
http://cosmology101.wikidot.com/universe-geometry

Edited May 24, 2014 by Mordred

[I-try]

Hysor.

Stephen Crothers is a university trained mathematician …

 

snip

[swansont]

Hysor.

Stephen Crothers is a university trained mathematician …

 

snip

 

 

!

Moderator Note

Discussion moved here

 

This thread is for the discussion of the BICEP2 criticism, not Crothers' qualifications and struggles, etc.