I have been busy teaching cosmology this semester. When I started on the faculty of the University of Maryland in 1998, there was no advanced course on the subject. This seemed like an obvious hole to fill, so I developed one. I remember with fond bemusement the senior faculty, many of them planetary scientists, sending Mike A’Hearn as a stately ambassador to politely inquire if cosmology had evolved beyond a dodgy subject and was now rigorous enough to be worthy of a 3 credit graduate course.
Back then, we used transparencies or wrote on the board. It was novel to have a course web page. I still have those notes, and marvel at the breadth and depth of work performed by my younger self. Now that I’m teaching it for the first time in a decade, I find it challenging to keep up. Everything has to be adapted to an electronic format, and be delivered remotely during this damnable pandemic. It is a less satisfactory experience, and it has precluded posting much here.
Another thing I notice is that attitudes have evolved along with the subject. The baseline cosmology, LCDM, has not changed much. We’ve tilted the power spectrum and spiked it with extra baryons, but the basic picture is that which emerged from the application of classical observational cosmology – measurements of the Hubble constant, the mass density, the ages of the oldest stars, the abundances of the light elements, number counts of faint galaxies, and a wealth of other observational constraints built up over decades of effort. Here is an example of combining such constraints, and exercise I have students do every time I teach the course:
These things were known by the mid-90s. Nowadays, people seem to think Type Ia SN discovered Lambda, when really they were just icing on a cake that was already baked. The location of the first peak in the acoustic power spectrum of the microwave background was corroborative of the flat geometry required by the picture that had developed, but trailed the development of LCDM rather than informing its construction. But students entering the field now seem to have been given the impression that these were the only observations that mattered.
Worse, they seem to think these things are Known, as if there’s never been a time that we cosmologists have been sure about something only to find later that we had it quite wrong. This attitude is deleterious to the progress of science, as it precludes us from seeing important clues when they fail to conform to our preconceptions. To give one recent example, everyone seems to have decided that the EDGES observation of 21 cm absorption during the dark ages is wrong. The reason? Because it is impossible in LCDM. There are technical reasons why it might be wrong, but these are subsidiary to Attitude: we can’t believe it’s true, so we don’t. But that’s what makes a result important: something that makes us reexamine how we perceive the universe. If we’re unwilling to do that, we’re no longer doing science.
Triton Station 
Hi Tritonstation. I’m commenting here now with very great caution, and respect to you, and appreciation for allowing my Hubble (Astrogeometry) posts to remain on your blog for interest. I can’t help feeling that cosmology has now come to a dead end, not because there is nothing left to discover ‘out there’, but due to the total unwillingness of the scientific community to abandon models and concepts that are obviously wrong, and by clinging to these, for whatever reasons, have killed any further understanding of the Universe. You cannot build a true house of knowledge on a shifting false foundation of sand, I think it’s now time to go back to ‘square one’, right back to the Maxwell era, and rethink all things ‘cosmology’, using the Aether based background on which Maxwell built his equations.. Then, real progress in cosmology will result. With very best regards, David Hine.
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I sometimes feel the same way. There is a lot of cosmology that I think is fundamentally sounds that should be preserved in any model going forward. But we’ve also given ourselves these unfalsifiable epicycles of dark matter and dark energy… if these are mere proxies for some deeper truth, how would we ever recognize it?
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I’m another who has followed the subject since the 70’s and am still scratching my head. If I was to select the most illogical assumption incorporated into the model, it was when they realized that as redshift increases proportional to distance in all directions, the effect is that we appear to be at the center of this expansion. So it was changed from an expansion in space, to an expansion of space, because Spacetime!
Which would seem to totally ignore the central premise of GR, that the speed of light is measured as a constant in any frame. If intergalactic light is being redshifted due to recession, obviously it isn’t constant to intergalactic space. More lightyears, not stretched lightyears.
Classic Doppler effect isn’t space expanding, but increasing/decreasing distance in stable space. The train moving away doesn’t stretch the tracks and in this case, the speed of light is the tracks. The universe is presumably expanding relative to the speed of light. That’s why it’s supposed to be redshifted.
Remembering the evidence for this expansion is the redshift of the same light, assuming the speed and spectrum of the same light reference entirely different metrics of space is illogical, to say the least.
Now if you want to model light as a wavy line and you stretch it out, the effect would model redshift, but that’s not how light works.
We are at the center of our point of view, so an optical effect would be worth looking into. Some years I came across this paper;
[[[FULL PAPER PDF DELETED]]]
It points out that multi-spectrum light “packets” do redshift over distance, as the higher frequencies dissipate faster. Yet that would mean we are sampling a wave front, not observing individual photons traveling billions of lightyears. Which raises the even more problematic question of whether photons are point particles of light, or simply the smallest measurable units of light.
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You seem more interested in the method of delivery than the message. Perhaps it is time to learn a few things yourself before attempting to teach. The math behind the LCDM model is defective, as was shown 14 years ago DOI: 10.1007/s10773-006-9082-7 and the concept of Lambda does not hold up to scrutiny DOI: 10.1093/mnras/sty221 The analytical technique used to claim a real Lambda would fail a first year physics course for the several reasons presented here DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.91266 This abject failure of cosmologists to properly analyze the SNe Ia data is summarized in two videos [[[EXCESSIVE VIDEO LINKS DELETED]]] I will bet that you are a typical cosmologist/physicist and would rather follow the leaders than think. Comments to my harsh judgement are very welcome.
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I do believe one should understand something before criticizing it. You might try that yourself. I invite any reader to peruse this blog then judge for yourself the degree to which I would rather follow than think.
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Hi Tritonstation and All. I will try to word this very carefully, so as not to cause a ‘rodeo’, or be banned as a troll. What has happened today in cosmology are deeply entrenched mindsets dating back to to ‘Big Bang’ concept that are not allowed to be challenged with new evidence. When a ‘theory’ is not in agreement with new observations and ideas, that ‘theory’ should be doubted as much as the new observations and ideas. ALL should be scrutinized scientifically, and the ones found false then put into a ‘suspect’ box. The biggest problem cosmology has now the ‘closed shop mentality’ under which the science establishment operates. This ‘kills’ the chance of progress and weeding out the ‘duff’ concepts, no matter how ‘traditional or sacrosanct’ they may appear. A classic case was Einstien’s direct challenge of Newton. So, there are two major things now that reveal problems will the ‘Big Bang’ and most other ‘modern’ theories, and these are Hubble’s Constant and gravitation. I strongly suggest there is a return to the philosophy of Maxwell, who based his equations totally on the relativistic Aether concept. The Michleson Morlley ‘Aether’ experiment showed the Aether is ‘relatavistic’, and is not a fixed entity’ in time and space. Einstein mentioned this in one of his autobiographies from the 1930’s. I have that book somewhere in one of my lockup units, and I may find it one day. This could be a turning point in Cosmology, and my little contribution is in ‘The Principle of Astrogeometry’. The maths in that are in alignment with Maxwell and Einstein. I hope you let this post stand for interest, and unless directly asked for a comment, I won’t ‘troll’ this blog. With kind regards to all, David Hine.
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General rule for commentary: no excessive links. If you want to cite a paper, fine. But cite it, don’t post it. This is not a platform for providing links to youtube videos, nor the full texts of papers. I have edited those out of a couple of the comments above rather than block the comment entirely. Please don’t make it necessary to block posts outright.
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Sorry about that. I meant to add a space, but posted without doing so;
h ttps://fqxi.org/data/forum-attachments/2008CChristov_WaveMotion_45_154_EvolutionWavePackets.pdf
Hopefully that works, otherwise I’ll leave it go.
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I have to thank Tritostation for running this blog in a Professional way, and so preventing ‘rodeos’, or an advertising bill board for other purposes. It’s a very fine line to tread to enable a free sensible debate on Cosmology. Cosmology, by its very nature, can provoke the most unreasonable ’emotional’ behaviour from many in the scientific establishment, turning science into a playground fight (rodeo) between the closed shop establishment brigade, and the ‘outsiders’. Remember, Einstein was an ‘outsider’, but had the good fortune of the support of Arthur Eddington, who advised Einstein to ‘subdue’ his real support for the Aether concept of <Maxwell, in order to get his Relativity works published in establishment journals. I feel we are now entering a similar phase in Cosmology. Regards to all, David Hine.
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I feel a little dismayed that you put all this effort into talking about MOND and lately it seems most of the responses you get are from people who want to peddle their pet theories. We all have our own theories, I know I do, but there is a time and place for these things, and I don’t think someone else’s blog (especially if your idea attacks theirs) is really the place for it unless they outright solicit it. The proper place in my opinion, if you have a novel idea, is to publish it in a proper scientific journal, the same standard MOND is able to meet, and then perhaps you may briefly (you don’t want to get off topic or just spam your idea around! That’s rude.) cite said paper and mention in a sentence or two what it is about.
There is a vast difference between not being really accepted by the wider scientific establishment and seen as very unlikely, and being viewed as outright psuedoscience because you can’t even get your act together enough to publish coherent mathematics with predictions and a genuine understanding of the theories that you are trying to support or contradict. (For example, one should have understanding that a closed, curved universe does not have a spatial center at all – think the surface of a balloon – or that the guess that spacetime is expanding in order to mesh with this is hardly illogical if it explains a large number of data-points before many years later meeting some sort of apparent failure, even if it is counter-intuitive.) The language of the universe is mathematics, and one should approach more ‘mathematics/logic’ first if possible rather than ‘vague idea’ first; this is one of the things that appeals to me about MOND, is that it is very clearly mathematically driven by simple empirical fact by people who have full respect for just as how well other models that aren’t their own do and did historically, rather than immediately descending into being, well, condescending.
I realize this may sound strange to some people used to an us. vs. them vision of history, but one really must come to the table with a deep respect for the scientific establishment that you wish to upturn by their own rules. It is only in that way that you can really be sure that you paid full attention to the merits and flaws of their position rather than scorned it too soon. Hate has a way of closing one’s mind off to understanding, and leaping to ‘there is no way this is logical’ (before one has actually posted a proof that meets a journal’s standards) closes one off to the notion that the idea is merely improbable and un-intuitive and in need of a few tweaks, not inherently contradictory. The concept ‘Open mindedness means the establishment must pay attention to me even though I cannot be bothered to publish to the standards of less accepted but still respected hypotheses, I am right and they are fools’ is not, in fact, open mindedness on your part.
I apologize for the long rant. This just bothers me.
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Spot on.
The internet age has enabled communication, but it also seems to have fostered an attitude of entitlement among those with lots to say but little value to add.
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Triton,
I guess I fall in the category of those with opinions and no knowledge, so maybe I shouldn’t have posted the link to someone else’s paper, but you had commented on the certitude of some in the field and my own point is a basic question, which anyone with any knowledge of math should be able to easily answer;
How is it that the speed of light is not the metric, the “ruler,” against which this expansion is measured, given the redshift of intergalactic light is the evidence of expansion? If so, than wouldn’t that make light speed the denominator and the expansion the numerator?
This is not a theory. It is a question.
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Brodix. This is getting interesting as you are asking a very valid question. This will surely test the ‘experts’ who think they know everything because they have been to school longer than the average interested layman. Let see how the ‘educated brains’ deal with this Hubble Constant related question? Regards, David Hine.
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In that case, I’ll refer it to the big brains: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmoall.htm
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Tritonstation, Unfortunately that treatise means nothing tangible to the layman. We all know that dark matter and dark energy are pure guesswork, and it’s likely they don’t exist. Similarly, the ‘big bang’ is also more guesswork, and also in doubt. It’s safer (in my opinion) to return to the solid ground of Maxwell and Einstein. If dark matter exists, there is a far better chance of understanding this from the Maxwell angle. This is also heavily tied in with Hubble’s Constant, due to the speed of light, which is at the centre of all this. It strongly appears we are really talking relativistic Aether, and not acknowledging that will prevent any sensible advancement. This has been the position ever since Maxwell and Einstein, dating back over 100 years. This is why we have the ongoing Hubble tension disputes, on which no one will ever agree. That will wreck cosmology if not sorted soon, and the layman will then become ever more disenchanted with the ‘experts’. It’s the laymen financiers who will become totally irritated with the whole thing and pull the funding. Regards, David Hine.
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Triton,
Thank you for the paper. It quite quickly gets to the issue;
“Since we actually see the same redshift-distance law in all directions, either the redshift-distance law is linear or else we are at the center which is anti-Copernican.”
Yet then goes off to explain the consequences of the various models of curvature.
If there is a section of this paper addressing how it is that the speed of light is not to be the “ruler,” as Einstein put it, I seemed to have missed it. As it is, the sense I get it that space is assumed to be a geometric concept, distinct from the light.
If I may use the simple analogy of the inchworm crawling across the expanding balloon, with the inchworm as light and the balloon as expanding space, it still seems we are measuring this expansion in terms of the inchworm/speed of light. That as space expands, it takes light longer to cross, thus is redshifted.
Given the content of the paper, I will offer up an idea that popped into my own ten watt brain, when I first read about these issues, some decades ago;
If Omega=1 and space is flat, wouldn’t that mean gravity and the expansion basically balance out, with no over-all expansion? Basically that what expands between galaxies is matched by what falls into them.
To use the ball on a rubber sheet analogy of gravity, say the sheet is over water, such that when the ball pushes down, it is matched by the sheet being pushed up equally, where there are no balls. Then what Hubble actually discovered would be evidence of Einstein’s original Cosmological Constant. The balance to gravity.
I happened to propose this to someone, back on the old Mysteries of the Universe section of the original NYTimes forums, in the late 90’s. He commented something along the lines that actually it doesn’t have to be a curvature of space, as what is being measured with gravity is the actions of mass and what is being measured with expansion/redshift, is the light, so if what mass is pulling inward, is balanced by what light is pushing out, they would be the actual explanatory physics, not just the descriptive math. He also said he’s studied cosmology at the University of Chicago and had suggested it as a thesis paper to his advisor, but the advisor gave a pretty negative response, so he’d dropped it and eventually went other directions in life.
Consider that epicycles really were pretty good and predictively accurate math, for their day, as a description of our view of the cosmos. While the crystalline spheres were lousy physics, as explanation. Map versus territory.
Not too get long winded, but it is an interesting topic. Wanting on the Jame Webb.
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Brodix. I like your way of open minded thinking, and as you get nearer the truth, you will come back to Maxwell, whom Einstein based his Relativity theories. Of course, the ‘experts’ will poo poo all this, and prefer to go down their yellow brick road of pure fantasy, and end up chatting to the Mad Hatter, who will nod approvingly in deepest appreciation, and hand you a Nobel. Sadly, this is the Cosmology of today, and unless we return to Maxwell / Einstein ASAP, we will all end up chatting to the Mad Hatter about the endless and latest aliens and gremlins speculations of NASA. Time for me to retreat now, and enjoy the show!! Any more ‘experts’ out there? Regards, David Hine.
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David,
Thank you for the encouragement. Having grown up raising race horses, I have to admit my appreciation for physics comes from trying not to get too hurt, too often.
Though I also admit to having problems with the whole spacetime thingy.
We are mobile organisms, necessitating a sequential process of perception, in order to navigate, not to mention a narrative based culture, so we think of time as the point of the present, moving past to future, which physics codifies as measures of duration. Yet the reality is that change turns future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns.
There can be no literal “dimension” of time, because the past is consumed by the present, to inform and drive it. Causality and conservation of energy. Cause becomes effect.
Time is asymmetric because it is a measure of action and action is inertial. That at a microcosmic level, there is no distinction between cause and effect doesn’t mean it is symmetric, since actually reversing the dynamic requires more energy. The earth only turns one direction.
Different clocks can run at different rates simply because they are separate actions. Think metabolism. That we have societies built around playing by the same rules and using the same measures might create the impression there is some universal, Newtonian time, but there is rabbit time, turtle time, tree time, etc. Multi-cultures, not monoculture.
That different events are seen in different order from different locations is no more consequential than seeing the moon as it was a moment ago, simultaneous with seeing stars as they were years ago. It’s the energy that’s conserved, not the information/forms. That these forms change is what creates the effect of time.
As an effect and measure of activity, time is similar to temperature, pressure, color, sound. All frequencies and amplitudes.
Ideal gas laws correlate volume with temperature and pressure, but we don’t refer to them as the 5th and 6th dimensions of space, because they are only foundational to our emotions, bodily functions and environment, not the sequence of thought.
I could go on, but I suspect I’m really pushing triton’s patience….
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Hi Brodix. First I have to thank Tritonstation for letting my previous post for debate. Everything at this stage is mere hypothesis, and it does irritate me the ‘big bang’ is taught to the unwary and naïve as if it were fact, and not the guess it really is. Triton seems very tolerant of other viewpoints, whether he agrees or not. That is the mark of a true open minded scientist. Today’s ‘crackpot’ idea could become recognized as a truth, if they stands up to severe scrutiny over the years. Einstein, again, was initially regarded as an uneducated no qualification ‘crackpot’, as was his inspiration, Maxwell, who was nicknamed by his contemporaries as ‘Dafty’!!!!!! Equations are particularly interesting, as they can predict things in this maths driven Universe. As you have noticed, time is a big stumbling block, and is at the root of most misunderstandings of the Universe. Everything ‘dynamic’ has a built in time aspect, notably as the speed of light and Hubble’s Constant has. Einstein based Relativity on the Jewish concept that the speed of light NEVER changes, but the Aether that transports it is relativistic, and so time is changed by the local environment, relative to an outside observer.. That is the heart of Jewish understanding of the Universe, which is firmly based in Torah.. In any ‘local’ situation, time is ‘linear’, and goes only in one direction. It cannot stand still or go into reverse in any local environment. Outside local environments, time will ‘appear’ to change relative to an outside observer. That is the true essence of Relativity and the Universe. Anything that does not fit into that Relativity concept is likely to be false. Kind regards, David Hine.
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David,
I also thank Tritonstation for his open mindedness and patience.
Consider the basic premise of Relativity, that in an accelerated frame, the clock slows and the ruler shrinks, until you get to the speed of light, where both are at zero. Now consider the implications of the other direction, where the clock runs fastest and the ruler is the longest. That is the equilibrium state of space. The unmoving void of absolute zero. That, rather than the aether, is the centralizing function.
Now if space isn’t bound, then it is infinite.
So space is the absolute and the infinite. Like the number line, it goes from zero to infinity.
Three dimensions are a mapping device, like longitude, latitude and altitude.
What occupies space is energy and the forms it manifests. Being dynamic, the energy is constantly changing form, thus time. So the energy, as process, goes past to future, while the patterns generated go future to past. As with a wave, the energy drives it, while the fluctuations rise and fall.
In our scale and complexity, products go start to finish, while the production line goes the other way, consuming material and expelling product. As lives go birth to death, while life moves onto the next generation, shedding the old. Also consciousness goes past to future, while the perceptions, emotions and thoughts it manifests go future to past, but that’s getting into another topic.
So consider that while energy radiates toward infinity, the forms coalesce toward equilibrium. Both entropic. Which is manifest in galaxies, as cosmic convection cycles.
Which suggests that if one might be looking for an explanation for the additional gravitational effect, pulling everything together, it wouldn’t be as some missing mass, but that mass is an effect of this attraction/consolidation rather then gravity as a property of mass. So the contraction starts all the way out where light first starts to form/coalesce into photons, the bending of light. Then the additional contraction would be all that goes on to create patterns beyond the more dense end of the spectrum, associated with mass. Though this process points toward the equilibrium at the center. By which time, all energy is either radiated back out previously, or shot out the poles. Black holes as the eye of the storm.
Better leave it at this.
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Tritonstation is the best site on astrophysics I have ever come across. Had I never found it I never would have known just how good MOND is at matching the astrophysical data. It’s just plain fun reading and accessible to the non-scientist layperson, like myself, but yet digs deep into analysis of the data to satisfy professionals. Thank you, Stacy, for providing such a wonderful educational resource to the public.
Like probably a gazillion other armchair thinkers I have my own theory-model that I hope to post at viXra.org in a few weeks. It posits an underlying physical mechanism linking the quantity/intensity of ionization of baryonic matter (stars, gas clouds) in a galaxy/galaxy cluster to the flat, asymptotic rotation curves and overall degree of gravitational lensing. But, alas, it’s totally amateur and far enough out on a speculative limb that a flea might bring it crashing down. However, the more one learns of the science, the more one can refine such models, or just plain discard them as untenable.
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Hi David. It sounds interesting, but do not condemn ‘Amateurs’, or whether a treatise is too ‘amateur’.. Amateurs are the pioneers of new ideas and methods, and are not restricted or fearful of paymasters that control establishment science. Many a Professor has had to ‘drop’ an investigation, after being warned of being labelled a ‘heretic’ and dismissed from his job. One was Professor Eric Laithwaite of Imperial College, London, who was ‘dumped’, and written out of establishment history, with his Christmas lecture censored out as void. Fortunately, they can be enjoyed on YouTube The other, also at Imperial, is still lecturing there, so his name cannot be revealed. I knew both of these guys, but Eric had a special place in my heart. Marconi was an Amateur, and so was Patrick Moore, and neither needed the ‘stuffy snobby’ UK scientific establishment. I believe Patrick was condemned at one time for daring to present Astronomy to the public without the ‘control’ of the Royal Society!!! Patrick was very proud of his amateur status and his BBC Sky at Night slot!!! Regards, David Hine.
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Hi Brodix. This is interesting, and Relativity is always at the heart of the issue. It is a golden ‘rule’ that light speed cannot change in the Aether, which determines it’s speed. If the Aether becomes ‘contaminated’ by water, or any other transparent substance, then light speed will be lowered accordingly. In radio science, this is known as permittivity, which slows the radio wave / charge. With different space regions, the local conditions will change the speed of light, which is the same thing as time / size dilation. This effect is only noticeable to an outside observer, and not to an observer within the same space region. To try to dispense with the relativistic Aether would remove the spacetime that interconnects all things. Light cannot exist (travel) without the Aether, neither can magnetism and gravitation. In this physical Aether ‘aspect’ in which we live, there is no such thing as a true void. A true vacuum only contains the Aether, so is NOT void, permitting light to travel in accordance with the laws of the Aether. Gravity also requires the Aether, and experiments have shown that gravity, inertia, magnetism and light are not instant. If light could travel in a void, it’s speed would be infinite, as Newton so wrongly assumed. Newton was put right by Maxwell’s electric equations of the Aether.. Einstein then went on to show that the Aether is also relativistic!! Michleson & Morley also showed the Aether is not fixed as a stationary entity, but is relativistic. The Aether has 21 interlinking / interdependent ‘Aspects’, or ‘mansions’ and this is what we collectively know as ‘spacetime’. Dark matter / energy are a rather bungled studies of a small part of the relativistic Aether of Einstein. Hubble’s Constant is determined by the Aether, Regards to all, David Hine.
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David,
I’m not saying the aether/quantum fluctuation/what fills space doesn’t exist, I’m just trying to define its logical parameters.
Energy pushes out, structure/form/order coalesce in. Any effort to measure the energy manifests form. The “wave” collapses/becomes one with the measuring device. So the energy is like a ghost we run around, trying to pin down.
It’s just that as our minds are a function of distinguishing form, as opposed to the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy, that we tend to focus on the forms and structure delineating the process, rather than the dynamic driving it.
So when the entire system of knowledge is based on extracting and refining the information, we get a world view that sees “it from bit.” Then plays whack a mole with the fuzziness the energy involves.
So I’m trying to make the argument we have to understand both sides of the coin, in order to understand the whole coin.
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Hi Brodix. It could be thought of ‘is light a wave or particle?’. It is both, depending on how it’s being studied. There is a very wise quotation in the Hebrew Book of Solomon’s Proverbs that says:- “Rely not upon thine own understanding”. This is very wise Jewish philosophy that’s saying you can only go so deep. This applies especially to Cosmology. The human brain is not equipped to go much deeper than Maxwell / Einstein’s works, and to try to understand the relativistic Aether, and all of its its 21 Aspects will be far beyond what we can ever deal with. In Cosmology, we are very close to that limit of knowledge. This is showing itself today as the endless phantasy Universe theories appearing in the scientific journals (comics) that have become just plain stupid!!! Marcus Chown’s ‘New Scientist’ is now a layman’s Cosmic comic science mag filled with 50 pages such crap. It’s of no greater value than ‘The Beano’ in its ‘new’ sensible science content. The snobby ‘Nature’ mag is simply the adult comic version. Take a browse of these ‘comics’ and you can see they are chasing their own tails, desperate for something new that is actually a Cosmic truth. Observe NASA’s vain search for aliens lurking in every dingy alley of space, and their desperate frustration of the Cosmology dead end of human understanding.. Hubble’s Constant frustration is rapidly bringing this to a head. There is not much more left to say, but have a browse of that Astrogeometry Hubble equation. University lecturers in the cosmology area must be cringing at the Universe lies they are inflicting on innocent naïve students!! Best regards, David Hine.
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David,
Keep in mind both waves and particles are descriptive. Of what? When we think of a wave, we think of the fluctuating surface, the ups and downs, the crests and troughs. My question would be, what powers the wave? The energy coursing through the medium, driving up and against it, building up and breaking down, creating that pattern our minds perceive, because our minds are designed to sense patterns, relationships, distinctions.
What is a particle, but a node that is distinct from its context. Is the node primary to the context, the network, or are they two sides of a larger dynamic? While there are some particles that never seem to decay, most do emerge from and fade back into their respective fields/networks. Nodes are an equilibrium state in the flux, while networks ultimately extend to infinity.
Science does seem to have fragmented into multitudes of disciplines, each increasingly distinct and guarded, which is also natural. Institutions like stability, so they do gravitate inward, towards core premises and axioms, but it’s also a necessary stage of trial and error. If the core proves unstable, or becomes immersed back into the field, they break down. Likely leaving useful building blocks for future endeavors. Modern cosmology couldn’t exist, if it hadn’t gone through previous cycles of propositions and testing, from Apollo’s Chariot to epicycles. Look how much epicycles contributed to geometry, not to mention the principles and mechanics of early watch making.
As Philip K. Dick put it, “Reality is what doesn’t go away, when you stop believing in it.”
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Hi Brodix. It looks like we must go back to basics. The pillars of modern cosmology are collapsing because they are resting on the shifting sand of false theories, such as big bang and the highly suspect Friedmann equations that contain a basic flaw. This flaw has not been noticed by the establishment. Without labouring this too much, I put before you again this little equation that tells you Hubble’s Constant, based only on the speed of light in relativistic Aether, the standard size of a parsec, and the number of Aspects (Mansions) in the Relative Aether. Pi is the geometric description of space time in the Aether. The equation is:- 2 X a mega parsec X C, divided by Pi to the power of 21 = 70.98047 K / S / Mpc. Basically this is 71, and the Imperial equivalent is 42 M / S / Mpc. 42 seems to have a big interest for many scientists, including UK’s Brian Cox. For this equation, use the standard parsec unit of 3.26 light years. As you can see, IF the speed of light does change, Hubble’s Constant changes with it in direct proportion !!!! This may be significant, IF Einstein has this wrong. I don’t think that’s the case, but it gives ‘wiggle room’ for a varying observed Hubble Constant !!! If the speed of light goes up, so will Hubble’s Constant. At present, the reciprocal of 71 is 13.778 billion light years, which is the Hubble Horizon distance, BUT NOT the age of the Universe !!!!! Have a look at this, using a calculator, and let me know what you think. I invite others here to do the same. With kind regards, David Hine.
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David,
I’m afraid I tend to be more conceptual, than mathematical, so I wouldn’t much use there.
Though I would offer up an idea about the expansion rate and Dark Energy;
It was first assumed that the rate of redshift declined at a steady rate, since the Big Bang/Inflation stage. Yet what Perlmutter et al discovered was the rate drops off fairly rapidly for the first 7 billon years, then flattens out to a steadier rate of decline. To use a ballistics analogy, it was as if the universe were shot out of a cannon and after slowing considerably, a rocket motor kicked in.
Yet consider what we actually see, from our point of view outward, rather than what is projected, from the edge of the visible universe inward. Which is that the rate of redshift starts off slowly and builds gradually, eventually going parabolic, up to the rate sources appear to be flying away at the speed of light, creating a horizon line/edge of universe effect. Which is what would be expected, if redshift is an optical effect, that is compounding on itself. Then the cosmic background radiation would actually be ever further sources, shifted off the visible spectrum, into the radiological. Which would explain why it is such an even black body radiation, with very minor features, as these galactic sources. Basically the solution to Olber’s paradox. The light of infinite sources.
I’m thinking the James Webb might find evidence the background radiation is not easily explained by an initial event, as the features become more clear.
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Hi Brodix. Leaving the maths out, conceptual thinking is actually more important, because that leads directly to the equations of Cosmology, Maxwell and Einstein used that method, which give the quantities and relationships between the different factors. Maths is the thing that quantifies the different constituents, such as light speed and Hubble’s Constant, and defines their relationship numerically. If I have any doubt, I turn to the Torah to see if that mentions the subject in question. In the case of Hubble’s Constant, Isaiah 40 states “The Lord stretches the Heavens as a tent ti live in”. This ‘stretching’ is Hubble’s Constant. So Hubble’s Constant, or ‘sky stretching’ is valid, and was known long before Edwin Hubble !!!! This greatly simplifies what we need to know, and what we should not attempt because they are beyond our understanding (Proverbs)!! This is very important, because venturing in too deep results in theories and man made guesses that muddy the waters of truth, and lead to false notions, such as ‘big bang’, space aliens, and the myriad of ridiculous theories and guesses that make the closed shop scientific establishment lose credibility, and become regarded as a very weird collection of nerdy bods by the general public. So, for me, if something cosmology goes against the Torah, that thing has to be rejected. Einstein was a devout Torah follower, and rejected any aspect of his work that opposed Torah. Einstein’s theories of Relativity are supported in Torah, and that left Einstein feeling free to publish them. For over 100 years, Relativity has stood the test of endless scrutiny, because it’s true. So, by all means, keep the ideas flowing, but always refer to Torah to check whether they are in the realms of fantasy, or whether they could be a truth. Very best regards, David Hine.
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David,
A little basic clarity is necessary. I would refer back to Emerson; “We are but thickened light.”
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Hi Brodix. It’s nice not to be attacked over the little Astrogeometry Hubble Constant equation, because its message goes strongly against establishment mindsets. Out of the many thousands of insults, not one has been constructive, lifting it from being a mere insult!!! The academics are infinitely worse in bad behavior than the layman, who is normally quite tolerant and open minded. I’m not understanding your reply fully, but I guess you mean we are all created from dust? I would not disagree with that, but I’m uncertain what you mean by clarity? Best regards, David Hine.
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You are right on, Davis Hine, about astrogeometry of physical photogrammetry and geodesy when expanded by the unified and extended math of matrix and tensor calculus called multi-linear array algebra in my 1970 invention of extended Einstein’s summation convention for tensor contraction. Its main application has been in general ‘fast’ Theory Of Estimation (TOE) in math statistics and Gaussian least squares foundations of surveying math since ancient times.
The ‘fast’ expansion of linear Fast Transform technologies (such as Fast Fourier/Discrete Cosine/Karhunen-Loeve etc transforms to general nonlinear estimation problems of applied mathematics) in digital photogrammetry and geometric & physical geodesy allowed me to escape the academic fields to industrial applications of modern pioneering system concepts of satellite image and range (GPS, laser/radar/Lidar) sensing of digital space mapping used eg in navigation systems of cell phones and airspace industry. My life-long career in R&D field of this industry is documented in convention and trade-show papers until my retirement in 2004. That’s when it all started – rethinking of astrogeometry and related ‘multi-nonlinear’ array calculus far beyond Einstein’s math and physics concepts.
But wait this is a long story documented in some farewell convention papers and especially in shorter than 1k bytes of comments in open physics discussion sites like this. Of course, resisted by GR based cosmology ‘schools’ like religion based rulers 400-500 years ago when Galileo & Co attempted to argue about Sun vs Earth centered world view. I am not risking to get burned at today’s Internet stakes (to get my tongue nailed in my skull). Let’s pause further discussions about the ‘real’ proofs of solving the DE/DM/ H0 and still brewing mistakes of GW sensing. Hint: search with the key word “Suntola Dynamic Universe” if I pass the troll test of this tritonstation to continue the encouraging and frank discussions of David Hine and Brodix…
Kippis from Urho Rauhala – Mr Array Algebra/Calculus & Loop Inverse TOE
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David,
Created from light. The spark within. It gets slowed and reflected through the complexities of life, but when the light fades, we die.
As for the Torah, I come from a not particularly observant, but fairly close knit bunch of Episcopalians. My name is John Brodix Merryman Jr. Merryman really does go pretty far back in English history, as the old Goddess pagan religions took on Mary as their representation. Robin Hood’s Merry men. Merry Olde England, etc. Though my mother was a Warfield, as in cousin of Wallis Warfield Simpson, so the family is not particularly welcome in England, according to some members over the years.
I did marry a German Catholic though and used to tell my daughter she is intertribal, Anglo and Saxon. Now her significant other is Jewish/Panamanian, so it’s all gone multicultural.
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Hi Brodix and U A Rauhala. Firstly, I agree we must thank Tritonstation for letting these posts stand. I try to keep things as simple as possible, and dislike the Bull S*** pomp of the scientific establishment, designed to make anyone who is ‘amateur’ feel’ out of place and a low life ‘alien’ intruder. Covid seems to be breaking these barriers down, and transferring all formal cosmology learning online. The buildings can then be put to better use, such as housing the homeless, and providing affordable flats. I stop that here, as I don’t want to go down a political route in a respected cosmology forum. I became disillusioned with the scientific establishment over their treatment of Professor Eric Laithwaite, who I visited often at Imperial, and later their ‘clipping of the wings of a lecturer’ there regarding Astrogeometry. Rant over. I am now involved with the UK Military, and into radio transmitting antennas for the frequency bands from 30MHz down to ELF. Aether background is essential for that area of research. I predict that true cosmology and Torah will become regarded as inter related. Both are the story of the universe, its origin, and how it ‘ticks’. I think the Astronomers, both Amateur and Professional do a great job in supplying the measured data on which to base equations. The two areas run hand in hand. The problems arise when theories become too entrenched, (and professional ‘pride’ kicks’ in), and are not put in a ‘suspect box’ when new observations that don’t fit them come along. The ‘big bang’ hypothesis is the prime example of that !!!! Hubble’s Constant seems to be at the centre of all this, and that’s why the measured results on Wikipedia are so important. It looks as though they will pan out to be + or – a bit of the calculated central value of 71. I think this post is too long now, and I don’t want to push my luck too far here. Best regards to all. David Hine.
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David,
Keeping mind this is how the process works. Without Ptolomy, there would be no Galileo. Without Newton, there would be no Einstein.
I agree the Big Bang Theory certainly should be treated with a good deal more skepticism than it is. Obviously it can’t be falsified, as whenever observations don’t meet predictions, some enormous new force of nature is assumed. Epicycles on steroids. Yes, the math works, but the math worked for epicycles as well, because we really are the center of our point of view and that was what was being modeled.
How many assumptions are built into the axioms being used? I keep trying to point out that while spacetime models time as a dimension, that it really is an effect, like temperature. While most people seem shocked by the idea, as it goes to the essence of our process of perception, quite a few start thinking it through, but the more educated they are, the more of a monkey wrench it is to their conceptual gear works.
Yet these processes take time. Eventually some generation will come along and rebel against spending their careers chasing down untestable theories, from multiworlds, too multiverses. Then new ideas will have an opportunity. I suspect they will have to cut fairly deep to get solid ground, yet that is likely one of the reasons the current models are constantly being patched together.
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Hi Brodix. Interesting stuff. When you said we are at the centre of your point of view, the Hubble expansion goes outward from any observer, no matter where he happens to be located. So an observer on the earth can rightly say he is at the Hubble expansion centre, and another observer on the other side of the Milky Way can also rightly say HE is at the centre of the Hubble expansion !!! Which one is correct? They both are!!! Both observers monitor they are each at the centre of the expanding Universe!!! This is what I mean by Relativistic Aether. The Astrogeometry treatise attempts to explain this concept with space maps, or diagrams. The main Hubble equation will ALWAYS give 71, as Hubble’s Constant and is the same for any observer, whether stationary or not. Time is intertwined with all events and things, and the simple Karpen everlasting cell also shows time is a form of energy !!!!! The Universe is infinitely more complex than secular science imagines, and the Relativistic Aether is made up of 21 interdependent Aspects (Mansions), as mentioned by Disciple John). This is why cosmology is way beyond our limited understanding (Proverbs). We must never become arrogant and puffed up proud when glimpsing a very small part of Creation!!! We must be fearful, and realise how puny our intellect really is when looking at Creation !!! Have a look at the Wilipedia Hubble Chart, and see that 71 is the central value right in the centre of the measured values. This is not by chance, but a proof the Hubble equation is correct. It obeys the ‘sky stretching law’ as reported by Isaiah. 71 gives a linear expanding Universe, neither curving inward or outward. With very kind regards, David Hine.
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David,
Then there’s Occam’s razor, which suggests if we are all the center, it’s optical. It gets back to my original point. Even the current theory assumes this expansion is relative to an otherwise distinct, effectively stable speed of light. More lightyears as the universe presumably expands, not stretched lightyears.
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Hi Brodix. I think we will have to wait for more measured Hubble Constant results to come in on the Wikipedia Hubble Chart. Then we can be absolutely certain of whether 71 is the true Hubble Constant, or whether the Hubble rate is increasing as Reiss of NASA is saying. Reiss desperately wants it to be accelerating (increasing) in value because he got a Nobel for that, but I have no axe to grind on that. I think Hubble’s Constant will always hover around 71, but we need to wait for more Wikipedia Chart results. Once we know whether Hubble is fixed, or whether the rate is increasing in value, we cannot safely say whether lightyears stretch or not. Or if the speed of light changes or not? The Hubble Constant changing or not will answer this for sure. We must be patient and see what new results come in. I thank Tritonstation for letting these post stand as reference to the possibilities. Cosmology requires patience to see if Hubble’s Constant changes, or whether it’s a true ‘constant’ at 71 !! Reiss wants it to increase, and I would prefer it to remain at 71. Let’s see what happens? If it stays at 71, I bags Reiss’s Nobel !!!!! Best regards, David Hine.
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David,
The issue isn’t whether the speed of light changes, or what the Hubble Constant is, but the presumption redshift is being caused by a variance between space and the speed of light. Using the popular analogy of the inchworm crawling on an expanding balloon, the redshift is still assumed to be due to one being the denominator and one being the numerator. If space was the denominator, then the speed of light would be the numerator and it would be a “tired light” model.
So my question is, how can measurements drawn from the spectrum and the speed of the very same light reference totally separate metrics of space. Occam’s razor has been totally thrown out the window.
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The presumption is not that “redshift is being caused by a variance between space and the speed of light.” The speed of light is constant and does not enter into it. The observation is that the amount of redshift correlates with distance. I simply do not understand what you mean about one being in the denominator and the other in the numerator, as this is not a good place to do math. To zeroth order, Hubble’s Law is cz = HD. So I do you mean the redshif z ~ D/c ? c is not changing. D is different for different galaxies. More distant galaxies exhibit larger z. That’s natural if the entire space is stretching – the amount of redshift is proportional tot he separation.
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Hi Tritonstation. I take your point, and I think we should now sit back and see what the new measured incoming Hubble Constant will produce. Perhaps I am wrong, but real measured data will decide the truth. Hubble’s Constant is central to this. With very kind regard to you and the other posters here, David Hine
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The most recent credible measurement is H0 = 75.1 +/- 0.2 (arxiv:2009.00733). I’m sure this will be accepted with all the grace and humility that is always displayed in the field of cosmology.
Taking the mean between that and H0=67 from CMB fits is completely meaningless. The methods are unrelated. If they agreed, we could take some hope that they might be right. That’s exactly what we did in the the early ‘00s when both CMB and traditional distance-scale measurements agreed. That’s no longer true, as the CMB value has shifted. At most one can be correct. The only “out” for the standard models is if there is a discontinuity between the “local” and larger scale flow. Until now there has been no evidence for that, and a lot against. There may be a hint of it in the work cited above, but it isn’t enough to reconcile the two.
I have been polite in refraining from saying this, but your arguments for astrogeowhatevertheheck are complete and obvious bunk. There is no there there. Saying it over and over again does not make it so. This seems like an unhealthy obsession.
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Hi Tritonstation. It seems strange that you accept some Hubble findings erring on the high side, and rejecting those that measure Hubble at around 67. How do you know who is right??? Perhaps they are all right, the exact result depending on the measuring method? This can be interpreted by the Scriptural quotation, “Seeing through a glass darkly”. Depending on the ‘glass’, you will get slightly differing results. That’s why I’m suggesting we all wait for further Hubble results which will appear on Wikipedia. Then we will really know if there are legitimate separate high and low readings. To poo poo what I say is not ‘science’, UNLESS you can support that with a genuine maths reason. The reputation risk for you getting this wrong is infinitely higher than me. I’m a broadcast radio engineer, and Cosmology is just a ‘hobby’ interest, like football, but for you, professional reputations will be lost if Hubble turns out to be 71, or even much lower around 65, if you have stated it as fact to be much higher at 75. This is why I urge caution, especially as you are placing your professional credibility on observers you probably have never met, let alone trust!!! I hope you take this advice in the kindly way in which it is intended. Please do not take this wrong, and hide behind banning posts and closing doors. That’s how the cosmology scientific establishment behaves, and that will see the demise of those obsolete closed shops, as they totally lose touch with reality and the public. Kind regards, David Hine
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Hi, I just joined Tritonstation to comment on David Triton discussion on Hubble ‘crisis’ and its solution I stumbled on during past few years in terms of the unified relativity and quantum system concept of Suntola Dynamic Universe using related math sciences of my field in digital image mapping and range sensing of GPS.
But first, I would like to have a word of yesterday’s BH Nobel news. I started my array algebra and loop inverse theory of estimation since 1970 from Penrose, Bjerhammar and Rao papers on general singularity and inverse theory in math statistics. Lets try to see if my commenting works today as it failed yesterday…
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Hi Tritonstation. I’ve just had a quick look at the Wikipedia Hubble chart, and see the latest entry states a Hubble Constant of 67.6, plus or minus 4. At highest, this brings Hubble up to a bit below 72. So, is that latest entry rubbish??? If so, on who’s authority??? This suggests extreme caution, as Hubble’s Constant is as important as light speed. You cannot get this wrong, because if you do, you are ‘done’ professionally. So again, I urge extreme caution with Hubble’s Constant, and just because Reiss says something, that does not make it true!!! Reiss will not support you when your chips are down. With kind regards, David Hine
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The paper I cited is a scholarly source. Wikipedia is not. The running tally there is just whatever someone posted last. It is no more scientific meaning than a social media post.
There is a much debated tension between 67 and 74-ish. These numbers come from completely different methods – as I said. You can’t just average them – as I said. If you average an apple and an orange, you do not get the right fruit. So – as I said – one or the other is wrong, perhaps both, or they don’t map smoothly onto each other (a discontinuity in the local flow so that the locally measured value differs from the global value), or the underlying assumptions are wrong (a lot of assumptions go into the 67. A lot of traditional systematic uncertainties, like the calibration of the Cepheid and TRGB scales, apply to the 74).
Maybe something fundamental is the cause of this tension. Maybe it is something more mundane, like a calibration error. This is normal in science.
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