Could technology disprove the BB?

[tommac]

Could technology disprove the BB by observing light much further away than the age of the universe would allow?

[bebe7]

Could technology disprove the BB by observing light much further away than the age of the universe would allow?

First part - what else could

Second part - Ludicrous idea

regards

[George]

Could technology disprove the BB by observing light much further away than the age of the universe would allow?

With such new evidence gained from new technology (if at all possible to begin with), I would guess that BBT would be tweaked and not dismantled. This has already happened, btw.

[bebe7]

Could technology disprove the BB by observing light much further away than the age of the universe would allow?

Given that the Universe is the Universe we can see and observe...

[Caillyn]

Given that the Universe is the Universe we can see and observe...

I think you meant the "Observable Universe"...since it *seems* the observable universe is smaller than the entire universe ( e.g. dark flow etc )

Anyways, back to the OP...i dont think that it would disprove BB Theory, it would only modify it. Hypothetically speaking, observing light that was determined to be emitted before the age of the universe itself would simply show that the estimated age of the universe is wrong, or that the calculated distance of the light's source is wrong.

But to actually disprove BB Theory, that would take some exceptional evidence indeed, considering the body of evidence we have so far that supports BB Theory.

[bebe7]

I think you meant the "Observable Universe"...since it *seems* the observable universe is smaller than the entire universe ( e.g. dark flow etc )

Anyways, back to the OP...i dont think that it would disprove BB Theory, it would only modify it. Hypothetically speaking, observing light that was determined to be emitted before the age of the universe itself would simply show that the estimated age of the universe is wrong, or that the calculated distance of the light's source is wrong.

But to actually disprove BB Theory, that would take some exceptional evidence indeed, considering the body of evidence we have so far that supports BB Theory.

Yes but wouldnt that void outside the OU be part of the U?

[WayneFrancis]

Well how do we know how far away photons have come from. We measure the spectrum of many photons from a given source and use emission lines to detect the red shift and from there can get an estimation of the time that the light was emitted.

Now if we had a source that had some ridiculous red shift of 16 would this disprove BB? No.
What does it do? Well it spurs science on to finding out what could cause a red shift like this.

Just like finding a single fossil of a rabbit in the Cambrian strata wouldn't disprove Evolution. It would raise some interesting questions but you don't throw out a great predictive theory because one or a few data points.

Now the base question of can technology disprove the BB. Well we would use tools to collect data that could disprove the BB. What exactly that would be? Well if we found that light does get tired that would add weight against the BB. If we also could explain the light curves of distant super novas that would be another piece against the big bang. Etc etc....you have to knock down a few of the pillars that the BB model is built upon to "disprove" it. Now I imagine if this did happen that a newer model of the universe would start to emerge that was a better description then the BB model and naturally it would then be disproved.

This is all basic philosophy of science stuff here.

[Jens]

Could technology disprove the BB by observing light much further away than the age of the universe would allow?

One problem is that as far as I understand, there is an actual limit on how far you can see things, whether the BB is correct or not, regardless of technology. The light stops reaching us coherently beyond a certain point, so it's actually a physical barrier rather than something that can be overcome with better telescopes. So the answer might be no. You can look it up in wikipedia, it's called the "surface of last scattering." It would exist whether the universe is expanding or static.

[DrRocket]

One problem is that as far as I understand, there is an actual limit on how far you can see things, whether the BB is correct or not, regardless of technology. The light stops reaching us coherently beyond a certain point, so it's actually a physical barrier rather than something that can be overcome with better telescopes. So the answer might be no. You can look it up in wikipedia, it's called the "surface of last scattering." It would exist whether the universe is expanding or static.

The surface of last scattering is a direct result of the big bang, which it intimately tied to the fact that the universe is expanding.

[mugaliens]

The surface of last scattering is a direct result of the big bang, which it intimately tied to the fact that the universe is expanding.

I kind of like this question I found at your link: "How come the photons of the CMBR are still traveling through space, even 13.4 billion years after the event of "last scattering"? Why didn't they disappear in the endless space by now?"

For that matter, if the actual universe is considerably larger than the observable universe, why are we seeing CMBR at all?

[Jens]

The surface of last scattering is a direct result of the big bang, which it intimately tied to the fact that the universe is expanding.

But according to this site, which seems like a very reputable site, "Similarly, in a non-expanding universe, the surface of last scattering would recede from us at the speed of light."

[DrRocket]

For that matter, if the actual universe is considerably larger than the observable universe, why are we seeing CMBR at all?

Because the big bang started right here (it started pretty much everywhere) and because those photons are also pretty much everywhere, just whizzing around.

The surface of last scattering is not really a surface. It is a hypersurface in space-time. All of sudden the universe went from opaque to transparent and the photons that were whizzing around then are still whizzing around now. So we get to detect a few of them and that is the CMBR. It is coming from everwhere, almost uniformly in all directions.