Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!REM@MIT-MC From: REM%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Re: big bangs (n) / ultimate problems (2) Message-ID: <12147@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Tue, 10-Apr-84 06:55:00 EST Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12147 Posted: Tue Apr 10 06:55:00 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 15-Apr-84 09:10:38 EST Lines: 28 From: Robert Elton Maas Date: 9-Apr-84 14:17 PST From: Kirk Kelley Fred Hoyle, formerly of Cambridge, has said a sickly pall now hangs over the big-bang theory. I think he's overstating it. As I understand, to a first-order approximation we now understand what has happened since a tiny fraction of a second after the big-bang singularity. It's just that looking close to the singularity things are so different from now that we haven't yet figured out exactly what was going on, maybe inflationary universe, maybe not, ... But the basic theory after three minutes is pretty much undisputed except for parameters like total mass-energy and age to present, right? Jayant Narlikar, a leading Indian theoretical physicist comments "Astrophysicists of today who hold that the `ultimate cosmological problem' has been more or less solved may well be in for a few surprises before this century is out." Well, we still have some stuff to work out, but really I don't think the 'ultimate cosmological problem' of our origin is still totally up in the air. Still, the details of the first microsecond are bound to be new and interesting and perhaps surprising, and parameters that affect our ultimate fate (total mass-energy, lifetime of proton) are important for the other ultimate cosmological problem (our ultimate fate) and have yet to be determined. I'm not sure which of the two "ultimate cosmological problems" he&you were referring to above, origin or fate.