Tag Archives: Ethan Siegel

Space Cadet

I have to give Ethan Siegel credit for having fully absorbed the catechism of orthodox cosmology in all its illogical, not to mention, unscientific, glory. Here, for example is a recent Forbes post entitled How Does The Fabric Of Spacetime Expand Faster Than The Speed Of Light? It provides a good illustration of Siegel’s inability to distinguish between the factual, and the unfounded theoretical aspects, of the standard model of cosmology. But then, that’s the nature of the orthodox belief system known, somewhat sarcastically, as the Big Bang.

For instance, the article mentions the maximum light speed in a vacuum but fails to note that the maximum can only be achieved in an inertial frame. Inertial frames are only approximated in physical reality. That little qualification completely unravels this bit of received wisdom:

But light didn’t work that way; it always moves at the same speed through the vacuum of empty space, from every perspective imaginable.

That, in fact, represents a rather monumental failure of the modern cosmological imagination, forsaking as it does, both Einstein’s understanding of Relativity Theory and the observational evidence. Not to mention the fact that there is no such thing as “empty space“. But then, facts are optional in the post-empirical realm of theoretical cosmology.