Six questions for any GUT theorist

[hyksos]

The internet often has people posting around on the physics of GUTs, or Grand Unified Theories. In particular, there are a few who propose their own home-made GUT. But for any GUT to be taken seriously, it must pass some basic sanity checks. The following questions should act as a check list for determining if a person is writing an actual GUT, or if they are just pondering things amatuerishly.

• Does this person's writing mention the word `boson` anywhere?
• Is the theory consistent with Special Relativity? If not, where does it differ?
• Does the theory explain why the nuclear forces (Strong, Weak) are short-ranged?
• Does the theory make any predictions about black holes?
• Does the theory differentiate between very high temperatures and very low ones?

A failure to answer one of the above six is a deal-breaker. Whatever the person is posting on the internet, it definitely is not a GUT. For those which appear to fulfill these basic sanity checks, there are even more probing questions that work towards fleshing out some problems with their GUT. Just a few plausible ones follow,

• Does the theory predict why there are four fundamental forces (at low temperatures)?
• Does the theory describe , or predict something about, physics in the interior of a black hole?
• Does the theory make any statements about the mass of the Higg's boson?
• Why is gravitation so feeble compared to the other forces?
• What is dark matter?

Other probing questions are likely to come up depending on context.

[hyksos]

There is an error in the above post. I'm a little disappointed that nobody noticed.

[someguy1]

There is an error in the above post. I'm a little disappointed that nobody noticed.

Only one?

[bangstrom]

I didn't notice any serious "error" but I did notice a number of inadequacies and it appears to be more of a test for the comprehensiveness of a GUT rather than a "sanity check." I would prefer to see a GUT consistent with GR rather than SR and it is hard to judge any GUT by what it says about black holes. Black holes are such an area of unsettled science where one wild speculation may be as good as another.

John Baez's "Crank Index" is my favorite screening tool so far.

[Positor]

There is an error in the above post.

one of the above six

Five?

[Faradave]

Re: c-eize the Day

Nice criteria, all addressed by Phyxed (physics-fixed, better than real), along with a few more.

• Why is there a universal speed limit?
• Why are there two kinds of dimension? (i.e. Why is time different than space?)
• What is the most fundamental object? (Wheeler's bit, from which arises it.)
• What is a force?
• What is mass-energy?
• What is electric charge (& why exactly 2 kinds, as opposed to gravitational or color charge).
• What exactly is quantum spin?
• What is the source of quantum indeterminism (absolute randomness)?
• Why is there complete weak symmetry breaking (for parity & charge)?

[hyksos]

I didn't notice any serious "error" but I did notice a number of inadequacies and it appears to be more of a test for the comprehensiveness of a GUT rather than a "sanity check." I would prefer to see a GUT consistent with GR rather than SR and it is hard to judge any GUT by what it says about black holes. Black holes are such an area of unsettled science where one wild speculation may be as good as another.

I would say that because they are so unsettled that a GUT would need to say something about them.

Regarding your preference for GR over SR, I have preferences of my own. Two problems really loom.

(1) Vacuum Catastrophe.

(2) Matter / anti-Matter asymmetry.

Really those two keep me awake at night. A GUT should address both in a tidy way.

John Baez's "Crank Index" is my favorite screening tool so far.

Oh yes. Baez's index is a good measuring stick. "makes no testable predictions" alone will often clear out the room.

[bangstrom]

I have very clearly explained shrinking matter, or matter becoming more massive, or {insert other non-expansion theory here} all share a common attribute. They suppose that the local laws of physics are changing.

Do they?

From your explanations I get the impression that you equate “slow role” with changing the laws of physics but I don’t see the two as the same. I see no difference between Weinrich’s “slow role” that keeps everything proportional in the face of cosmic change and the tendency in most cosmic models to “slow role” the laws of physics from one dimensional frame to another thereby keeping the laws of physics constant. The result is “frame invariance” which is also plays an important role in relativity.

If space is expanding then all of our constants that involve measurements of distance should be changing as space expands but “slow rolling” of all the constants keeps everything proportional. Wetterich considers his model to be "frame invariant." I would qualify that as a 'mostly' so because his gravitational constant changes slightly.

If the above is true, it should strike no one as a coincidence, that any proposed theory that denies expansion of space will have to also "slow roll" a bunch of fundamental constants of our physical world... and "slow roll" them in such a way that they all happily synchronize to make it conveniently appear that local physics is not changing.

Does the Standard Expansion Model NOT also "slow role" the constants to make them appear as unchanging?

[hyksos]

I see no difference between Weinrich’s “slow role” that keeps everything proportional in the face of cosmic change and the tendency in most cosmic models to “slow role” the laws of physics from one dimensional frame to another thereby keeping the laws of physics constant.

The closest academic theory you will ever find to laws of physics changing over time is maybe some multiverse theories of Lee Smolin.

For the benefit of passersby to this thread --> Cristof Wetterich is "inside" academia merely because of tenure. His theories, by themselves, are very much far outside the normal boundaries of academia. That is, Wetterich's ideas are not held by a large contingency of working physicists as valid or tenable. In other words, it is not believed by the "physics community" that Wetterich has made some earth-shattering discovery.

(Dr. Wetterich would admit such if you met him in his office and talked to him face-to-face. In this day-and-age, you might even be able to send him email. )

Does the Standard Expansion Model NOT also "slow role" the constants to make them appear as unchanging?

It absolutely does not. Photons from distant locales in the universe appear redshifted only because that's what we would expect from the principle of conservation-of-energy. When a photon moves through expanding space on intergalactic scales, it must be redshifted on the opposite side, because if it is not it would have gained energy on its journey in some magical way.

More importantly, our existing Lambda CDM theory presumes that a central pillar of physics holds and has held for all time in the past; Conservation of Energy.

One of the assumptions to the canonical theories of cosmology is that General Relativity is the correct theory of the entire universe. Like a universe given as 'one big manifold'. If we are trying to hunt down where the "fairy dust" has been tossed, it is probably in that assumption.

[hyksos]

Re: c-eize the Day

Nice criteria, all addressed by Phyxed (physics-fixed, better than real), along with a few more.

• Why is there a universal speed limit?
• Why are there two kinds of dimension? (i.e. Why is time different than space?)
• What is the most fundamental object? (Wheeler's bit, from which arises it.)
• What is a force?
• What is mass-energy?
• What is electric charge (& why exactly 2 kinds, as opposed to gravitational or color charge).
• What exactly is quantum spin?
• What is the source of quantum indeterminism (absolute randomness)?
• Why is there complete weak symmetry breaking (for parity & charge)?

Hey Faradave. Thanks for joining. I'm going to say a lot about this tidbit

• What is the most fundamental object? (Wheeler's bit, from which arises it.)

Quoting the man of the hour.

"Time, among all concepts in the world of physics, puts up the greatest resistance to being dethroned from ideal continuum to the world of the discrete, of information, of bits. ... Of all obstacles to a thoroughly penetrating account of existence, none looms up more dismayingly than 'time.' Explain time? Not without explaining existence.
-- John Wheeler, 1986.

These days I have become a little more cynical about this situation. In the past I was younger, more excited, and physics dazzled my eyes and sparked fire in my imagination. I imagined that maybe WHeeler's It-from-Bit was so deep and so profound, that my mind was not penetrating its deeper insights.

No longer. I think Wheeler is prone to overweening language and pomposity at higher temperatures and pressures. In my cynicism, I wonder now if Wheeler had really just drawn the conclusion that an isolated patch of spacetime can only contain a finite amount of information.

If it does have a finite amount of information within it, there will be an upper bound. We could refer to a "bucket of information" of some finite size, and realize it could be converted to any other form. Once you have a concept of "limited information" you realize that it could be recoded as bits, and then be a bit string of some given length, S. From that you extrapolate metaphors about files stored in computer RAM or hard drive, and on and on goes the techie analogizing. "A file of size, S kilobytes, read into RAM by a program."

Technology in our daily lives was still predominantly analog in the late 1970s. In 1980, only a few geeks had personal computers in their garages. Today, almost everyone has converted files from one form to another. People know about different "encodings" for video and audio, and have struggled with such. Teenagers daily consider the amount of space left on their mobile device, and people stress about the quotas on their limited download plan on their phones. In 2018 we speak casually of "kilobytes" and "megabytes" like only computer scientists did in 1979.

So while Wheeler's ideas were "really far out there" in the early 1980s, those same ideas are almost pedestrian in 2018.

We have 20 year olds now who grew up as kids around Triple-A videogame titles. They know computers can create strikingly real 3D worlds by only manipulating bits. Adolescents of the 21st century don't need a course in post-graduate physics to drawn these kinds of conclusions. These late-night-over-beer ideas of the universe being "stored like a big simulation" like some ultimate video game with an "algorithm" controlling its laws.

What computers looked like in 1982 :


Little more than glorified typewriters with monochrome screens. They bleeped and blooped. The RAM on the most expensive machines did not exceed 1 megabyte.

Ideas like "The universe may be a giant simulation stored as bits". Well in 1980, that idea really took a flash of learned insight from the educated and well-read. You could not just glance at a bleeping-blooping typewriter device and draw that conclusion.

Consider now walking into a room that houses a Playstation IV and is playing some high frame rate title from Ubisoft on a giant OLED 4K display television. Imagine now having grown up as a child around such things. For such a person (of age 20-ish) "Universe is a giant computer simulation." ---> Heck, the idea practically lands itself in your lap.

[bangstrom]

For the benefit of passersby to this thread --> Cristof Wetterich is "inside" academia merely because of tenure. His theories, by themselves, are very much far outside the normal boundaries of academia. That is, Wetterich's ideas are not held by a large contingency of working physicists as valid or tenable. In other words, it is not believed by the "physics community" that Wetterich has made some earth-shattering discovery.

(Dr. Wetterich would admit such if you met him in his office and talked to him face-to-face. In this day-and-age, you might even be able to send him email. )

I see no claim in Wetterich’s writings that he has made some “earth-shattering discovery.” He claims that we can look at the conventional expansion theory from more than a single point of view and by doing so we can come to a better understanding of the same. His “slow freeze model” is an elaboration of the much older Eddington’s “shrinking atom theory” and it differs from the big bang model in that it involves a change in scale from one of expansion to contraction..

Wetterich’s article explaining his theory and how it contrasts with the big bang theory can be found at this site.
https://www.openaccessrepository.it/rec ... s/main.pdf

This Daily Mail article below is an overly sensationalist pop-sci account of Weinrich’s “slow freeze model” but it concludes with these remarks, “Professor Wetterich claims that he is not trying to overthrow the big bang as both it and his slow freeze model are consistent with current scientific observations.”

“His picture is akin to saying that instead of the universe expanding, the ruler with which we measure it is shrinking.”- Daily Mail.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... reeze.html

Photons from distant locales in the universe appear redshifted only because that's what we would expect from the principle of conservation-of-energy. When a photon moves through expanding space on intergalactic scales, it must be redshifted on the opposite side, because if it is not it would have gained energy on its journey in some magical way.

In the big bang theory, light loses energy as it travels through space and the theory explains how the energy was lost to the expansion of space. In Wetterich’s theory, there is no expansion of space so light arrives in exactly the same condition it had when first emitted so no energy was lost. This is why I call it a “what you see is what you get” theory. It describes the universe directly as we see it more closely than does the big bang. In Wetterich’s theory, atoms in the early universe were larger than at present so they emitted light in longer wavelengths proportional to their size. That is why they appear redshifted relative to modern light. You could say modern light has blueshifted over time.

More importantly, our existing Lambda CDM theory presumes that a central pillar of physics holds and has held for all time in the past; Conservation of Energy.

One of the assumptions to the canonical theories of cosmology is that General Relativity is the correct theory of the entire universe. Like a universe given as 'one big manifold'. If we are trying to hunt down where the "fairy dust" has been tossed, it is probably in that assumption.

The Lambda CDM theory and Wetterich’s “slow freeze” theory both include the same general relativity, the same conservation of energy, and even the same field equations. The only difference is that one theory is the inverse scale of the other.
In one theory, the radius of the universe is expanding relative to the size of atoms and , in the other, the universe remains the same size while atoms grow smaller. The observations and interpretations of both theories should be identical because the two are equivalent but they vary in their interpretations. This does not necessarily mean that one theory is right and the other wrong but more likely there is something wrong with our interpretations.

I have a personal preference for Wetterich’s theory because it best explains the universe as we see it. It is a more “natural” theory.

“Whether researchers adopt Wetterich’s theory may depend on how it fares on a subjective criterion physicists call naturalness, Afshordi says; the term means that a theory does not require strange-seeming explanations of phenomena scientists observe. Wetterich argues that, by eliminating the Big Bang, his model may provide a more natural picture of cosmic evolution.”
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/slo ... -suggested

[hyksos]

Some astrophysicists were unconvinced that the cosmological redshifts are caused by universal cosmological expansion.[15][16] Skepticism and alternative explanations began appearing in the scientific literature in the 1960s. In particular, Geoffrey Burbidge, William Tifft and Halton Arp were all observational astrophysicists who proposed that there were inconsistencies in the redshift observations of galaxies and quasars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-standard_cosmology#Redshift_periodicity_and_intrinsic_redshifts

[bangstrom]

You can add Edwin Hubble to your list of skeptics.

A model of universal expansion can alternatively be plotted as a model of universal contraction without changing any of the physical laws common to both. Changing the scale or perspective of the map does not change the territory. The test for the usefulness of each model is how closely it resembles the cosmos as we observe it and, with more than a single model, we can choose the model that works best for the particular event we wish to examine.

Some maps of the Earth eliminate the polar areas because the lines on the maps go to a singularity at the poles while others drawn from a different perspective have no problems depicting the polar regions.

As Wetterich says, “The freeze picture of the universe has helped to understand the nature of the singularity that occurs in many models of inflation within the big bang picture. This singularity turns out to be the consequence of an inappropriate choice of fields, rather than being a physical singularity. Such “field singularities” can be avoided by a more suitable choice of fields that are used to describe observations.”

One model has distant light redshifting as the universe expands and the other has light from local sources blueshifting as electrons grow smaller. The observations are identical in either case and they only differ in how they are explained. Redshifting alone does not necessarily indicate expansion.

[hyksos]

bangstrom, I would like to flesh out more clearly what is exactly meant by the claim of "eliminating the Big Bang". That could have a number of different meanings, so I wanted to get that part pinned down more legally.

[bangstrom]

bangstrom, I would like to flesh out more clearly what is exactly meant by the claim of "eliminating the Big Bang". That could have a number of different meanings, so I wanted to get that part pinned down more legally.

Eliminating the Big Bang singularity involves translating the scale of our model universe from one of expanding space to one where space is not expanding. This gives us two equivalent models that should be identical in every way provided we have interpreted both correctly. If the two models don’t match (and they don’t) this indicates that something is likely to be wrong in our interpretation of events in one or both of the models and such a comparison involves a long term item by item comparison of the models looking for consensus.

The Big Bang singularity was the origin of my thinking that there is something wrong with the theory and I independently came to the conclusion that there were better ways of considering the origin of the universe. Later I discovered that this was not a new idea and others in the past and present had been thinking along the same lines and coming to the same conclusions. The following is an account of how my own thinking began to evolve.

Long ago I watched an astronomer on TV explain how our entire universe was once no larger than a golf ball but I could never get my head around that idea. A golf ball sized universe seemed impossible since it would make our universe a super massive black hole from which nothing could escape. There had to be some other explanation.

Another understanding came to me after reading a short story by Rudy Rucker. Rucker is a SF writer and mathematician who specializes in higher dimensional space and a writer who tries to get the science right. In Rucker’s story, his protagonist traveled billions of years into the future where he saw an Amazon of a woman swimming in the surf of an ocean with large waves. This future world looked much the same as the one he left except it was proportionally larger. Rucker’s time traveler didn’t have time to explore because the oxygen molecules in his future world were too large to fit the hemoglobin molecules in his blood so he quickly died of asphyxiation.

This got me asking how Rucker’s man who traveled to the future could tell he was in a world that had proportionally expanded beyond his world of the past. One way would be to look at light from the stars that was emitted when atoms were smaller. Smaller atoms should be more energetic and emit light with proportionally shorter wavelengths making distant light appear blueshifted. Perhaps Rucker got it backwards? Light from distant stars is redshifted suggesting that atoms in the distant past were larger than present day atoms- not smaller.

This was another explanation for the galactic redshifts and the answer to my golf ball problem. A universe of contracting matter should look no different from a universe of expanding space, in which case, the universe was never necessarily smaller than what we see today. I find it easier to visualize an enormous universe of constant radius tightly crammed with hydrogen atoms the size of golf balls than try to imagine the whole universe inside a golf ball but the physical conditions for an observer in each scenario should be exactly the same.

Our only view of the universe is how it looks from the inside and we can never travel outside the universe to observe whether it is expanding or not. Our conclusion that the universe is expanding is only valid if we can identify something that we know for certain is not changing in dimensions so we can say, ‘Relative to THIS the universe is expanding.’ but I doubt that any such thing exists.

[Watson]

Moved the comments to a different thread.

[hyksos]

The Big Bang singularity was the origin of my thinking that there is something wrong with the theory and I independently came to the conclusion that there were better ways of considering the origin of the universe. Later I discovered that this was not a new idea and others in the past and present had been thinking along the same lines and coming to the same conclusions. The following is an account of how my own thinking began to evolve.

The removal of a singularity in the history of the universe is a certainly a noble pursuit.

I guess I would say first is that the notion that space has expanded is derived from General Relativity. The theory that derives from it began to make predictions that match (at least some) of the things seen in the sky by telescope.

I find it easier to visualize an enormous universe of constant radius tightly crammed with hydrogen atoms the size of golf balls

The current model of the cosmos does not have matter existing at all times. There was a process, called baryogenesis, that occurred quite far into the universe's age.

[bangstrom]

I guess I would say first is that the notion that space has expanded is derived from General Relativity. The theory that derives from it began to make predictions that match (at least some) of the things seen in the sky by telescope.

Our single bit of evidence that space is expanding is the observation of distant redshifts and there are several possible explanations for cosmological redshifts besides the expansion of space. An early view of Galactic redshifts considered them as straight forward recessional velocities like the ones found in Special Relativity where moving objects redshift with increasing velocity as they recede into preexisting space.

A later view consistent with General Relativity had the expansion of space between the galaxies as the explanation for redshifting and, if c is to remain constant, time must quicken as space expands so this makes the expansion of space more like the the emergence of matter from an enormous gravity well rather than some kind of a 3-D explosion.

This later model had to consider the quickening of time along with the expansion of space and this is accomplished mathematically by the use of co-moving coordinates. One needs to know the correct age and size of the universe to calculate the density value for the use of co-moving coordinates and this value comes from older calculations based on SR recessional velocities which may not be valid.

The cosmologist, Edward Harrison found that by guessing different density values for the universe and crunching the numbers he was able to derive a model that matched the necessary observations better than current model. His model had a universe several times older and larger than the current model.

The current model of the cosmos does not have matter existing at all times. There was a process, called baryogenesis, that occurred quite far into the universe's age.

Wetterich’s model has the same baryogenesis except his model is drawn to a different scale. One model has the universe expanding relative to the matter within and the other has the universe remaining the same size while the matter within grows smaller.

“Indeed, what matters for the physical plasma, that existed before atoms were forming, is the ratio temperature over particle mass. If particle masses increase proportional to the value of a scalar field image091, and temperature only increases at a slower rate, say image092.png, the ratio temperature over mass was higher in the past than at present. The physical properties of the plasma in the freeze picture are the same as for the expanding universe, leading to nucleosynthesis or the emission of the cosmic microwave background.”- Wetterich https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.5313v2

Wetterich’s atomic synthesis is explained in detail in the first page of: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.5313v2.pdf

[hyksos]

a very cold and slowly evolving universe. In the freeze picture the masses of elementary particles increase and the gravitational constant decreases with cosmic time, while the Newtonian attraction remains unchanged.

Your links are only confirming and corroborating everything I have already said. Wetterich has the mass of the particles going up slowly throughout the age of the universe, coupled to a slowly decreasing Big G. These changes all so perfectly synchronized so that Newtonian gravity is perfectly balanced. All coincidentally lined up so that no experiment could be performed on earth which would demonstrate local changes to physics.

Are these kind of like the ghosts which disappear whenever we bring cameras and microphones into the haunted mansion?

That's convenient.

[bangstrom]

Your links are only confirming and corroborating everything I have already said. Wetterich has the mass of the particles going up slowly throughout the age of the universe, coupled to a slowly decreasing Big G. These changes all so perfectly synchronized so that Newtonian gravity is perfectly balanced. All coincidentally lined up so that no experiment could be performed on earth which would demonstrate local changes to physics.

Are these kind of like the ghosts which disappear whenever we bring cameras and microphones into the haunted mansion?

That's convenient.

I don’t understand the nature of your complaint because the perfectly synchronized changes of the sort you mentioned are found in the Standard Big Bang model as well. When one cosmological dimension changes, EVERYTHING changes proportionally. It makes no difference if the considered dimension is the expansion of space or the the contraction of matter. The contraction of matter is sometimes called “inverse expansion” in reference to the way in which expansion and contraction are equivalent and we are free to apply either scale to our model of the universe for the sake of comparisons.

Locally expansion and contraction models are frame invariant over time and the individual dimensions we apply to masses or lengths may vary with time but ratios remain the same. If you examine the current Big Bang model you should find that its changes in the dimensions of distance, time, or masses are synchronized in such a way the the laws of physics appear to remain the same and the constants remain constant.

The properties of space and matter are determined by the local environment so we can’t go back in time and return with samples of primal space or matter to see if they conform to our speculation about their properties in the distant past.

[hyksos]

When one cosmological dimension changes, EVERYTHING changes proportionally. It makes no difference if the considered dimension is the expansion of space or the the contraction of matter.

This is factually wrong and your repeated parroting of it over and over is beginning to sound insane.

You don't just willy-nilly decide that Big G decreases over time. That is utterly ad-hoc, and no respectable or textbook version of physics or cosmology commits these kinds of convenient synch-ups. They just don't. You continue to repeat this lie over and over again in the thread after being corrected over and over again.

All existing textbook and published theories of cosmology (all 'mainstream' cosmology) assumes that the laws of physics remain constant through the age of the universe. From Big Bang moment zero to right now here in the milky way, the laws of physics have been ironclad stable. We have stacks of empirical evidence supporting that. It is also an aspect of the so-called "Copernican Principle" of cosmology.

Definitely we must agree that Wetterich's theory has changes taking place in the local laws of physics. Wetterich is not only bringing Conservation-of-Mass into question, but he is outright claiming that mass increases over time in all particles! But now you are nancing around this forum pretending as if all cosmology theories on the books do this too. They do not.

(Like I said to you already...) the only "mainline" theory of cosmology with these slowly changing physical laws is maybe Lee Smolin (and even then you're pushing it.)

[hyksos]

Unfalsifiability
(also known as: untestability)
Description: Confidently asserting that a theory or hypothesis is true or false even though the theory or hypothesis cannot possibly be contradicted by an observation or the outcome of any physical experiment, usually without strong evidence or good reasons.
Making unfalsifiable claims is a way to leave the realm of rational discourse, since unfalsifiable claims are often faith-based, and not founded on evidence and reason.

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/178/Unfalsifiability

[hyksos]

[Watson]

All existing textbook and published theories of cosmology (all 'mainstream' cosmology) assumes that the laws of physics remain constant through the age of the universe. From Big Bang moment zero to right now here in the milky way, the laws of physics have been ironclad stable. We have stacks of empirical evidence supporting that. It is also an aspect of the so-called "Copernican Principle" of cosmology.

You have this "Earth is flat" mentality, without considering a possibly bigger picture. The point is, if you correctly understand it, uniform Universal changes over time would be indiscernible. What would this mean is the point of discussion.

But I have noticed that about you over the past few years. You don't share and discuss your opinion. You teach it like your's is the only one that matters. This is just the latest lesson, Wetterich according to Hyksos. But it is your thread, so scold and teach away.

[bangstrom]

This is factually wrong and your repeated parroting of it over and over is beginning to sound insane.

I keep repeating myself because you appear to be missing the whole point of Wetterich’s theory so I will try to explain by giving a familiar example of the same idea applied an ordinary event. The theory is the same as the old carpenters adage of, “Measure twice- cut once.” If a carpenter measures a board once and makes a mistake, there is a chance he could make the same mistake a second time if he repeats the same motions so, to be extra careful, he may choose to measure the same board a second time but starting at the other end and make all of his measurements in reverse. Measuring the board from one end should yield the same results as measuring the board from the other end but there is less chance of making the same mistake twice. That is how Wetterich’s theory works. It tests our assumptions about the expansion of space to see if they hold true from the perspective of an equivalent model drawn to a scale of contracting matter.

One theory is based on the idea that, relative to material objects, space is expanding and the other is based on the idea that, relative to non-expanding space, matter is contracting. The two possibilities are equivalent and the later possibility is not a new GUT designed to reinvent the cosmological wheel. It is the Standard Model drawn as a model of contracting matter rather than expanding space.

All existing textbook and published theories of cosmology (all 'mainstream' cosmology) assumes that the laws of physics remain constant through the age of the universe. From Big Bang moment zero to right now here in the milky way, the laws of physics have been ironclad stable. We have stacks of empirical evidence supporting that. It is also an aspect of the so-called "Copernican Principle" of cosmology.

You appear to have a poor understanding of Wetterich’s theory but that’s no big problem because Wetterich’s theory is the Standard Model Big Bang theory drawn to a different scale. The BB theory is a theory of expanding space while Wetterich’s theory is the same theory with contracting matter in place of expanding space.

Whether space expands or matter contracts the outcomes and conclusions should be the same if our interpretations for both are correct. Wetterich’s theory is a test for the correctness of our conclusions drawn from the BB theory. Contraction is the inverse of expansion so, if you understand the BB theory and you understand what an inverse is, then you understand Wetterich’s theory since one is the simple mathematical inverse of the other.

If you have a large fish in a small bowel, you could say the fish is too large for the bowel or the bowel is too small for the fish. One statement is the inverse of the other but they both describe the same condition. The universe may appear to be expanding to us but we are contracting relative to the size of the universe. Why is this so hard to understand?

You appear to be long on opinions but short on support for your opinions. Even if you claim your opinion is absolute fact supported by every authority that ever lived, it is still just your opinion if you don’t explain or support it.

[hyksos]

What the hell is going on in this thread?

Did you even bother reading the article you linked?

[hyksos]

Particles increasing in mass would be a violation of Conservation-of-Mass-energy writ large. We would be able to measure such a violation quickly and easily in a lab set up at a community college.

But Wetterich pulls the "Ghosts-Don't-Like-Cameras" trick here. Otherwise known as the Fallacy of Unfalsifiability.

Wetterich cleverly inserts a stipulation that Big G decreases in perfect synchrony with the increase in mass, so that (conveniently) no differences in changes in local laws of physics could possibly be observed with any experiment. He does this so that Newton's law pops out in unadulterated form. Well then.. How convenient is that?

Wetterich's "earth-shattering" insight makes no testable predictions. Fantastic! We are slingshotted at high speed directly into the crackpot index.

[bangstrom]

What the hell is going on in this thread?

Did you even bother reading the article you linked?

The article says, “… the gravitational constant decreases with cosmic time, while the Newtonian attraction remains unchanged.” The same sort of changes can be found in the Standard Model so this is not unexpected. In the Standard Model, if space expands, this places more distance between the test masses in the determination of G so how does G remain the same?

The individual properties of materials may change in both models but the ratios remain the same.

Particles increasing in mass would be a violation of Conservation-of-Mass-energy writ large. We would be able to measure such a violation quickly and easily in a lab set up at a community college.

Mass and energy are two forms of energy and one form can be converted to the other or back again with no conservation violations. Present day matter can not be interacted with matter from the distant past for the sake of comparison so any changes or non-changes are strictly speculative. No laboratory has a time machine for collecting samples of matter from billions of years ago.

[hyksos]

The same sort of changes can be found in the Standard Model so this is not unexpected.

No. No, no, and no.

You have a reading comprehension problem.

Wetterich is claiming that the mass of all particles increases simultaneously. Then he is claiming we cannot measure it happening BECAUSE Big G decreases in perfect synchrony with the mass SO THAT the Newtonian gravitational attraction remains faithful to its original form.

Yes he is actually claiming this. I told you he said this weeks ago. I have never changed my story.

---> One cannot simply "swap out the length scales" in all of physics and expect the same results to pop out. Only by means of perfectly and conveniently tweaking a bunch of other constants can you produce a theory that matches the data.

You have neither posted text nor linked any materials that debunk, deny, nor question that fact. I have never wavered in this message to you, despite your complete inability to digest it.

[bangstrom]

The same sort of changes can be found in the Standard Model so this is not unexpected.

No. No, no, and no.

You have a reading comprehension problem.

Wetterich is claiming that the mass of all particles increases simultaneously. Then he is claiming we cannot measure it happening BECAUSE Big G decreases in perfect synchrony with the mass SO THAT the Newtonian gravitational attraction remains faithful to its original form.

Yes he is actually claiming this. I told you he said this weeks ago. I have never changed my story.

I never disputed your account of what Wetterich said. I just don’t find his comment remarkable. We live in an isotropic universe that looks the same in all directions. This is a given in the Big Bang theory so it is also a given in Wetterich’s theory which is the same BB theory examined from a different perspective. The changes in both theories (expansion/ contraction) are global and simultaneous so a synchronous change between Newton's G and mass is to be expected. The universe would not be isotropic if the two changed independently.

---> One cannot simply "swap out the length scales" in all of physics and expect the same results to pop out. Only by means of perfectly and conveniently tweaking a bunch of other constants can you produce a theory that matches the data.

You have neither posted text nor linked any materials that debunk, deny, nor question that fact. I have never wavered in this message to you, despite your complete inability to digest it.

Yes, you can swap out length scales and expect the ratios among the constants to remain the same. The Big Bang theory swaps out lengths by the expansion of space. Wetterich swaps out lengths by contracting matter and in both cases the ratios among the constants remain the same even though they may vary from frame to frame. This is frame invariance which by perfectly and conveniently tweaking the constants simultaneously across the universe produces a theory that matches the observation of an isotropic universe. The changes are both global and homogeneous in both the models.

The universe can’t expand (or matter contract) by expanding here but not there or by tweaking constants in a non-simultaneous manner. This would not be consistent with a homogeneous and isotropic universe.