Olber's Paradox

[scotman]

Hi all

I have just watched TV prog 'Everything and Nothing' on BBC 4. An explanation has been given for Olber's Paradox and I understood it. Assuming that the universe is infinite with an effectively infinite number of stars has anyone calculated how long it would take before the night sky is no longer dark.

[Old_Geezer]

Whatever came into existence as predicted by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

I'm under the impression it is the dominant theory at present.

[Davethedog]

Doesn't that relate to particle physics though? As I said i'm not well versed.

[venator]

In the history of scientific thought, most generally accepted theories tend to be discredited in the long run.

We look back at the phlogiston theory, and can see now that it was utter implausible rubbish.

Even Einstein has had his day, pretty well...

So, let's look at the Big Bang and such.

There was this big explosion.
We don't know what was there previously.
We can't account for the red shift etc without it.

Most of the mass of the universe is dark matter.
We don't know what it is, but our sums don't add up without it.

I suspect that children will laugh their heads off in the future at what a lot of plonkers we were.

[Old_Geezer]

Aye, but both theories of the very large and very small have to describe the actual universe, or be flawed. So the fact that the uncertainty principle comes from quantum theory doesn't stop it "explaining" the first thing in existence. (Up to a point.)

[jomifl]

Sandy.. I've just had a quick look, the sky is dark so the universe is expanding thus all those scientist are right ..and there is no god.

[Old_Geezer]

Bit of a leap in the logic there wasn't there ?
You'll have to take me through that in small steps.