Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Big Bang

Big Bang

self-nomination -- I believe this page deserves consideration because it provides a thorough and straightforward introduction to the Big Bang. Joshuaschroeder 17:03, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Comment: "See also" contains many duplicate links from the text, while the section is meant to link articles not linked in the text. Maybe you can add a footer to include the articles most important to the big bang on a central spot, but right now this section is too big. The rest of it looks good, but I'll have to read before I vote. :) Mgm|^(talk) 18:00, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

Should we eliminate the entire section? I'm not sure what to do with it.

Looks like User:Fredrik has cleaned up the section. Joshuaschroeder 17:45, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Support. With thanks to User:Fredrik for cleaning up the see also. Mgm|^(talk) 19:23, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

• Support Object for now - I'd like to see a bit more of religious interpretation and quotes from more religious leaders, and also creation scientists - how many of them think the big bang happened? Anybody from the ICR think so? As Mgm mentioned, the See also is too big. And finally, I think it might be better to standardize the external links/references section by splitting it up. Other than that, a great article, not too technical, and very informative. --Spangineer ∞ 23:15, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

External links/references is split up now. 67.172.158.8 04:34, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I would say, in defense, that I think that the religious implication section is handled really well. There really aren't that many comments made on the Big Bang by the major religions (they generally worry about other things). It's not exatly clear how one would go about adding what creationists think about the Big Bang. There are a large group of them (Old Earth creationism, for example, Hugh Ross) who believe it occurred. The objections to it, if there are any at all, are usually for literal Genesis reasons (especially the age issue) and most of the time the YECers don't focus their critiques on the Big Bang because there are only about three or four people that claim to understand that physics of the situation that are involved in creationist enterprises (in other words, it seems to suffer from the non-notable problem). The two people I know who have worked against the Big Bang from a creationist perspective are Russel Humphreys and Barry Setterfield, and both have suffered from creationists attacking them. According to Ungtss, the Answers in Genesis and ICR folks (staunch YECers, both) believe in something called "white hole cosmology" for which there is a single piece of documentation and no attempt to be thorough (it's more of a "what if" paper than a real proposed alternative). I think that most of the creationist stuff can be handled on the non-standard cosmology page if you think it needs to be added for encyclopedic purposes, but let's leave the Big Bang about the Big Bang and not about POV on non-standard cosmologies. The rest of your comments are good, but I'm not sure how to edit the See Also section. I would love to hear if someone has an idea in this regard. Joshuaschroeder 04:00, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I guess I've revealed my ignorance on the subject - I've read a few different works by creationists/intelligent design proponents, and I haven't seen much related to the big bang, except from the non-scientific types who really have no clue about any perspective other than the literal Genesis accounts. I had figured that some of the actual scientists had attacked the theory somewhere (especially the YEC folks), but if it's true that they haven't produced anything particularly notable, then it doesn't need to be mentioned. And now that I think about it, I suppose quoting Genesis or other religious leaders would be more difficult than quoting the Koran, since there is nothing there that could be seen to strongly support or oppose the theory. As for the See also section, I like the new layout better, though I'm still not sure why Einstein is listed there when he could just as easily be linked to in the second paragraph of the history section. And even though my other concern about the references/external links formatting hasn't been addressed, I'm not too concerned about that, so I'm changing my vote. --Spangineer ∞ 20:13, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

Good Job. I disagree that See Also is too big: this subject is huge; it would be asking a bit much to ask that it fit on a bumper sticker. (There is a student-level explanation of the Big Bang in the observation article.) As a nit, the temperatures ~10^32 K - ~10^27 K during the Planck Epoch are not mentioned; the estimated epoch of Cosmic Inflation is incompletely mentioned (~10^-35sec to ~10^-27 sec). As a Gamow fan, I would have liked to have seen him mentioned more prominently, and Einstein actually believed in a static universe, so why should he get prior mention. My understanding is that Einstein didn't revise his GR equation until after he visited Hubble. I think that the Dicke's role (The Flatness Problem) in stimulating Guth's idea for Cosmic Inflation could have been more prominently mentioned. I like how the Dark Matter information is integrated, but I think we could mention how we don't even know what Dark Matter is (as I understand it, it's non-baryonic). I like how the acceleration of the expansion of the universe was integrated into the text. (Does anyone know how this is fitting into an Inflationary universe.) All in all, I vote

• Support Ancheta Wis 03:28, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As a nit, the temperatures ~10^32 K - ~10^27 K... well, that's true, but I'm not sure that they should be included necessarily. If someone wanted to know the temperatures, they could look up that part themselves. After all, it's not clear whether the temperatures during the Planck Epoch really were that high since we don't know if the physics is consistent then. Joshuaschroeder 04:00, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

the estimated epoch of Cosmic Inflation is incompletely mentioned (~10^-35sec to ~10^-27 sec) Indeed it is, but the middle value is mentioned. This is akin to quoting an age without error bars, but the error bars in question here are due to model uncertainties rather than point of fact completeness. I'm not sure exactly how to handle this.Joshuaschroeder 04:00, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As a Gamow fan, I would have liked to have seen him mentioned more prominently, and Einstein actually believed in a static universe, so why should he get prior mention. I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you talking about the history section? Joshuaschroeder 04:00, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think that the Dicke's role (The Flatness Problem) in stimulating Guth's idea for Cosmic Inflation could have been more prominently mentioned. Maybe a bit too technical for this summary article. Would it fit better in the cosmic inflation article? Joshuaschroeder 04:00, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

but I think we could mention how we don't even know what Dark Matter is (as I understand it, it's non-baryonic).I think that's mentioned in the missing matter section, isn't it? Joshuaschroeder 04:00, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I checked, and indeed it is: "Dark matter particles have not been directly observed in laboratories, but the required interaction cross sections are well below the detectability threshhold."

(Does anyone know how this is fitting into an Inflationary universe.) there are superficial similarities. In particular, both of them are dependent on something like a scalar field (especially if w=-1). I think that is a bit too technical for this article, though. Joshuaschroeder 04:00, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Support. The article now has a good balance between detail and brevity. JHG 16:13, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Excellent written and well balanced article on a difficult topic. Deserves to become a featured article. JoJan 23:15, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Looks fairly comprehensive to me. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:29, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Support--ZayZayEM 03:03, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)