[QUOTE=ewmayer;368624]...
Related note: It is standard- in fact required, and for good reasons - practice in science that before presenting what one claims is a novel conjectured scenario, one should demonstrate in-depth understanding of "the literature", that is the history and mechanics of conjectures-long-similar-lines.
...
The OP needs to understand and cogently explain why his pet scenario improves - and I mean in a manner consistent with known data - on the scenarios considered by the above luminaries. In other words, "what makes you think you understand this stuff better than Eintein and Hoyle?"
...
No magical agents (beyond quantum weirdness as understood at the time), no "I just know it is so" quasi-religious hubris - and more plausible-sounding scientific hypothesizing than I have seen from the OP in the entirety of this mega-thread.[/QUOTE]

The monograph acknowledges classical and modern physics, just not
their cosmological viewpoinnts. I barely mentioned these because the
purpose of the monograph is to present a cosmology that is different
at its foundation.

I'm not saying I understand this stuff better than Einstein, Hoyle, et.al.,
I'm saying they all got the Hubble Red Shift wrong. It reflects distance
of the source, not its relative velocity.

I mention no magical agents. The skin is a physical manifestation that
still must be observed. But that's the job of experiment. I never
appeal to "I just know" or anything religious or quasi-religious.

My posting is frequently off the top of my head. The monograph
(which needs to be restructured into a near-axiomatic presentation)
is a better explication of my views.

We've all read "Flatland", so I assumed we all could
implicitly picture a world with a fourth spatial dimension.
I just noticed that various facts get explained with
a certain viewpoint about the fourth spatial
dimension which I termed the "skin". It's this
viewpoint that is new, not all the specific points
the monograph makes.

[QUOTE=davar55;377384]We've all read "Flatland", so I assumed we all could
implicitly picture a world with a fourth spatial dimension.
I just noticed that various facts get explained with
a certain viewpoint about the fourth spatial
dimension which I termed the "skin". It's this
viewpoint that is new, not all the specific points
the monograph makes.[/QUOTE]

We have all read Flatland, haven't we? The positing of a fourth spatial
dimension (and only a fourth) was not new to me, I just used it to
explain the HRS, the CBMR, the BNB, and the NFC. This everywhere
"skin"'s reality obviates the need for an expanding universe explanation
or any big bang.

Was my explanation of the width of the skin unsatisfactory? No one
posted so. Was my challenge to the second law of thermodynamics
unsatisfactory? It's improvable. Any other challlenges? Glad to
try to defend.

The BBT is like a sacred cow; hard to rationalize or believe, but
there it is. The "new cosmology" is more explanatory amd less
arbitrary.

[QUOTE=davar55;380852]Was my explanation of the width of the skin unsatisfactory?[/QUOTE]

Wholly unsatisfactory, yes. It didn't even pass dimensional analysis.

[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;380858]Wholly unsatisfactory, yes. It didn't even pass dimensional analysis.[/QUOTE]This is a solid criticism that should be addressed. Consistency is essential to taking anything seriously. My sacred cowmology never even tried but then it was merely a transparent rhetorical device. Real theories must have reliable foundations. Clearly, it takes attention and effort to address and be honest about this much as it was necessary in defining a limit in calculus and in physics' use of renormalisation.

There were a couple of days on the mystery economic theater thread that I was strongly bemused by this line in Wikipedia's entry on [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensional_analysis#Finance.2C_economics.2C_and_accounting"]dimensional analysis[/URL]: "Critics of mainstream economics, notably including adherents of Austrian economics, have claimed that it lacks dimensional consistency."

[QUOTE=CRGreathouse;380858]Wholly unsatisfactory, yes. It didn't even pass dimensional analysis.[/QUOTE]

Incorrect. I remember your comments to that effect, but they were based
on a mis-comprehension of the conception of the skin.

It is orthogonal to the other three dimensions at every point of 3-space.
It contains the 4th-d extension of the matter of 3-space. It is porous
and traversible, crossing it at a (presumably uniform) width. It has one
dimension itself (the skin's dimension). WHen a small enough particle or
a photon finds a pinhole through it, it crosses into the skin in the direction
of the item's motion. The other two dimensions (normals) simply
"accompany" the item from 3-space, giving the object a 3-d space of
crossing, until it pops out of the skin "somewhere else", maybe far away.

I used the image of an annulus surrounding 3-space to compute
an effective value for the skin's width. But he Universe has no
border or boundary. The image is only a math tool for comprehending
how an added dimension can be viewed for computation.

[QUOTE=only_human;380861]This is a solid criticism that should be addressed. Consistency is essential to taking anything seriously. My sacred cowmology never even tried but then it was merely a transparent rhetorical device. Real theories must have reliable foundations. Clearly, it takes attention and effort to address and be honest about this much as it was necessary in defining a limit in calculus and in physics' use of renormalisation.
...
[/QUOTE]

Agreed. One must be open to reasonable questions and criticisms.
Consistency is the most important quality of a new cosmology.

[QUOTE=kracker;361753]Basically, he means that the Big Bang isn't supposed to explain "what happened before it".[/QUOTE]

... which is why it's not satisfactory as an origin theory.

[QUOTE=davar55;380945]It is orthogonal to the other three dimensions at every point of 3-space.
It contains the 4th-d extension of the matter of 3-space. It is porous
and traversible, crossing it at a (presumably uniform) width. It has one
dimension itself (the skin's dimension). WHen a small enough particle or
a photon finds a pinhole through it, it crosses into the skin in the direction
of the item's motion. The other two dimensions (normals) simply
"accompany" the item from 3-space, giving the object a 3-d space of
crossing, until it pops out of the skin "somewhere else", maybe far away.

I used the image of an annulus surrounding 3-space to compute
an effective value for the skin's width. But he Universe has no
border or boundary. The image is only a math tool for comprehending
how an added dimension can be viewed for computation.[/QUOTE]

I notice that you still haven't explained the discrepancy I pointed out. Not that I expected otherwise, mind you.

[QUOTE=davar55;382726]... which is why it's not satisfactory as an origin theory.[/QUOTE]Why? If nothing happened before, because "before" is a meaningless concept, then by definition the BB is the origin.

[QUOTE=davar55;382726]... which is why it's not satisfactory as an origin theory.[/QUOTE]

I've read a Stephen Hawking book recently I'm guessing you're trying to get away from the no boundary condition that leads Hawking to the conclusion of imaginary time ? I haven't really paid much attention to what you've said so far or the book completely.