[Maryann Corbett]

Duncan, you might also try searching the archives of Astropoetica. Go to astropoetica.com, click on "archives" and use the search feature to search "big bang." I got quite a few hits.

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

Thanks, Maryann! And thank you, John! That's just marvellous!

Duncan

[Wintaka]

Explanation: "Cosmos" was inspired by a documentary stating that 13 billion years after the Big Bang we have suns dated at 17 billion years old.

Cosmos

Sun stars burn
before the Big Bang.

Leaves scatter
slower than the wind.

-o-

[John Whitworth]

How does that work, Wintaka?

[Martin Elster]

Here is one I didn't think of earlier.

http://www.mindflights.com/item.php?sub_id=7011

[Wintaka]

John:

John Whitworth asked:

How does that work, Wintaka?

The age of the suns was measured by their colour, which changed depending on their speed of expansion. The implication was that these suns did exist before the Big Bang, such that their slower speed could be seen as similar to a body pushed by an explosion as opposed to the speed of its shrapnel.

The scientific community's "solution" was to change the method of measurement, such that these suns were subsequently regarded as the same age as everything else.

Incidentally and FWIW, like this one, a line from another verse, "time is just motion", also caught the attention of an Oxford undergraduate student, who promised to "do the math" but, as far as I know, never followed up.

Best regards,

Colin

[Roger Slater]

This isn't really "about" the Big Bang, but it mentions it. I wrote it about six years ago, but it appeared fairly recently in Light:


AFFIDAVIT
for Lincoln's second birthday

In all sincerity, in truth, in fact,
without equivocation, doubt or guile,
with honest cards (the deck has not been stacked),
forevermore, and not just for a while,
I'll say, until the universe has ended,
and possibly beyond the death of space,
long after what the Big Bang broke is mended,
above all sights I love my Lincoln's face.

And furthermore, I hereby do avow,
that after time itself has proven mortal,
when there's no longer anything called Now,
this oath will be delivered through a portal
in Nothing's void so Emptiness can thrill,
despite the lack of time and lack of place,
to know Existence died and yet know still,
above all sights I love my Lincoln's face.

[Uche Ogbuji]

Originally Posted by Wintaka

John:

The age of the suns was measured by their colour, which changed depending on their speed of expansion. The implication was that these suns did exist before the Big Bang, such that their slower speed could be seen as similar to a body pushed by an explosion as opposed to the speed of its shrapnel.

The scientific community's "solution" was to change the method of measurement, such that these suns were subsequently regarded as the same age as everything else.

Sorry, I can't really make heads or tails of the first paragraph. I'm certainly an avid amateur of astrophysics, and I'd expect to have heard of a serious discrepancy of the sort you mention. Perhaps you can set me right with a reliable citation.

Anyway the color of a star tells you its temperature, not its age. There are several factors that can vary the color independently of age, including mass.

Also, scientists admit that they do not know for sure the age of the universe. What they do have is a standard model that works in key observation points, the known physical constants, and basic assumptions such as a linear time axis. They then speculate the starting point (they posit a primordial singularity). What any careful scientists will say is that from this model the age of the universe is computed at about 13.75 years. No one can yet tell you whether the model is accurate. It's just accepted as the best we have.

And finally your second para unfairly characterizes physicists. If physicists were so eager to conspire to cover up discrepancies in their work, the longest discussion in modern times would not be of the utter mathematical incompatibility of quantum mechanics and general relativity. If they were really so nefarious, why would they, after discovering the apparent energy of empty space, completely revise their model of the universe to include dark energy (having already revised it to include dark matter), and why would they in effect go back to Einstein's cosmological constant which physicists had for decades dismissed as a "fudge"?

I think any physicist would tell you that a finding that a star was older than the most accepted model's age of the universe is not a matter for dismay, but for excitement. Such discrepancies point to more interesting work. Just ask all the folks feverishly following up on the faster-than-light neutrinos possibility.