Click on the title of this post and navigate to another forum or blog concerning origins of the universe.
George LeMaitre suggested that the universe should be expanding at a steady rate in the present time, and has been doing so for eons. Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is indeed expanding at a rate that he determined and this rate has been called "the Hubble Constant".
It is now well established that the universe is expanding, but not at a constant rate. I believe that the universe's expansion is slowing down, or decelerating. Other scientists think it is accelerating.
My equations or the MODEL that I have developed, suggests that deceleration is the only way to explain all the facts and that acceleration, the model favored by many cosmologists, is not such a good account of reality.
Acceleration is concluded from a particular interpretation of some observations. It is not necessary to choose this interpretation.
In order to explain this acceleration, ad hoc postulates have been offered. These kinds of off-the-cuff explanations do not explain anything. They complicate matters instead. One of the complications this causes is that there must be some sort of "Dark Energy". DE might stem from Einstein's cosmological constant which he slap-dashedly stuffed into his theory of relativity.
DE is supposed to pervade the universe and is forcing it to expand at an ever increasing rate. Then, if there is such a thing, the total mass & energy inventory of the universe must be so much larger than was thought that this surprise has to be explained too. The trail of ad hoc postulates gets longer and longer as more band-aids are applied to a wound in the logic of the acceleration model.
Very recently it was found that the evolutionary development of galaxy clusters and superclusters is slowing down. This would be expected if the develoment of the whole universe is slowing down (decelerating). But, in order to keep the acceleration idea alive in the face of this fact, more band-aids are needed. More ad hoc fixes are required to make sense of this galactic cluster develpment retardation effect.
It's crazy.
There is no Dark Energy, never was and never will be.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Origin of the Universe in a Nutshell
Click on the title of this post to navigate to the site where this quote originates:
"I have done my own studies on the Origins of the Universe and as far as our Origin is concerned it can only be theorized and not conclusived. Scientific Investigations had lead to some convincing theories but nothing more. As I posted before what we need to find is the ORIGIN OF SPACE which will lead to the ORIGINS OF ALL THINGS. The Oigins of the Universe is NOT THE ORIGIN OF SPACE. The Universe is like a guest of Space -- it occupies it. I believe that somehow science is missing an oversight. I will tried to explain it again --- space is an entity which at one time contain nothing -- it was empty. This means that after so much time, in our sense of time, something came to occupied it. That something was a pollution to the whole of Space. The problem that I'm having is, just how this something came into being --- thats my problem................................"
* * * * *
FluFlu writes that the stuff inside the universe must be separate from the universe itself. The matter and energy within it are of a different sort from the space it occupies. This is the classical view.
But, the Theory of Relativity, under intense scrutiny since 1905, has shown that matter, energy, space and time are all of the same fundamental essence. Space-time includes matter and energy by means of its plasticity and metamorphic talent. It is still called a "theory" only because we have not yet been able to observe the inner workings of other universes that might possess this same thread in their fabric. If we ever do observe other universes and we can discern such a thread, Einstein's theory will be referred to as the "Law of Relativity". It might be subsumed by some greater theory or law, but this has happened before to Newton's Laws, for instance, which were circumscribed by the "Theory" of Relativity. But they are still called laws.
The only theory in science that is more thoroughly confirmed is Quantum Theory. It too is called a theory only because we do not have instances of other universes to study wherein we can find this as a common thread. We should ignore the technicality because it is clear that "Quantum Law" governs the very nature of existence itself.
To be or not to be. That is the quantum question. Theoretically, there cannot be other universes that do not follow quantum law.
According to the current "standard model" of the universe and its origin, the expanding horizon that we can see with our telescopes may be extrapolated back to even earlier times. Due to the smooth nature of the trajectory that the universe seems to follow, this extrapolation can be extended almost to the very beginning. To do this, it helps to postulate an initial exponential "inflationary" expansion.
But, we cannot extrapolate all the way to t = 0, due only to another technicality. This limit is "theoretically" imposed by the idea that when the universe's history is run backward in time to the point when it must have been so very extremely dense and hot, then the basis for our normal intuitive understanding of physical laws breaks down, apparently.
But, I think that, solely for purely aesthetic reasons, physicists do not like to extrapolate the history of the universe to a point when it was smaller than a tiny distance derived from the definition of Planck's constant and younger than a fraction of a second smaller than a "Planck time". Well, O.K. It may not be necessary to go further than this anyway, but still, we do it.
According to the inflationary expansion hypothesis, the universe began when a virtual "point particle" materialized in the false vacuum and it failed to annihilate with its antiparticle, or else such annihilation is unecessary when virtual particles materialize in the vast energy sea of the false vacuum. Another view may be that there are orthogonal timelines to our own and annihilation simply has not and never will occur on our timeline.
The false vacuum acts like a huge quantity of superheated water. And the universe, remember, is a quantum entity: a particle or wave packet that is governed by quantum principles.
Quantum science is statistical in nature. It expresses events and processes in terms of probabilities. The appearance of a virtual particle is far more likely to occur in a very high energy state than in a lower one. This is because there are an infinite number of possible very high energy states while the number of potential lower energy states is limited by the fact that one arm of the infinite progression is cut off at zero. And, remember, the false vacuum is already a vast reservoir of almost infinite energy.
So, when the universe materialized, it instantly acted like a particle of dust in a cauldron of superheated water. This superheated "fluid" began to change phase. The initial catalytic high energy particle and a parcel of the false vacuum began to expand from a point, or from very near a point, to occupy a much larger and larger volume. Energy continuously transferred from the false vacuum to the new true vacuum of space as we know it, helping to fill it with energy in the form of extremely high energy light photons. As the universe expanded further, it began to cool, as expansion normally cools the contents of a system. High energy, intensely dense photons can indeed behave this way, as laser esperiments show.
And, its entropy also began to rise dramatically. When it had cooled far enough, various forms of matter began to condense out of that still small, dense volume of intense light. When it had cooled further, electrons suddenly were able to couple with protons, or with deuterium and helium nuclei, to give a dense neutral gas that was finally transparent to light itself. Previously, the matter/energy soup had been opaque.
The light that was present when this recombination process was complete is now detectable as the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). The light that had not condensed into matter was initially of very high energy, distributed according to a Maxwell distribution. The maximum in this distribution is now red-shifted down into the microwave region. But, because it exists within a very broad distribution, there are still a few remnants of this light that are presently still of an extremely high energy. This may be the source of some of the high energy cosmic rays that have been detected.
The hydrogen, deuterium and helium went on to form stars and galaxies while the universe expanded further. Some of the stars where so enormous that they "burned" their hydrgen/deuterium nuclear fuel very quickly and exploded as supernovae.
The cores of supernovae get so hot during this event and their existence in this state is limited in time so much that heavier elements like boron, nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, sodium, iron and all the rest of the elements of the periodic table were able to form and become isolated. Once they were suddenly exposed to the lower density and temperatures of intertellar space, the heavier elements were "frozen out" and preserved. This residue of heavy elements mixed with leftover hydrogen and deuterium to form new stars. After several cycles like this, the newer stars had enough of these elements to become surrounded by protoplanetary disks of dust. From this dust came the planets, including our Earth and all its life.
Yes, as Carl Sagan mused, we are stardust: from this dust we came and to dust we shall return
"I have done my own studies on the Origins of the Universe and as far as our Origin is concerned it can only be theorized and not conclusived. Scientific Investigations had lead to some convincing theories but nothing more. As I posted before what we need to find is the ORIGIN OF SPACE which will lead to the ORIGINS OF ALL THINGS. The Oigins of the Universe is NOT THE ORIGIN OF SPACE. The Universe is like a guest of Space -- it occupies it. I believe that somehow science is missing an oversight. I will tried to explain it again --- space is an entity which at one time contain nothing -- it was empty. This means that after so much time, in our sense of time, something came to occupied it. That something was a pollution to the whole of Space. The problem that I'm having is, just how this something came into being --- thats my problem................................"
* * * * *
FluFlu writes that the stuff inside the universe must be separate from the universe itself. The matter and energy within it are of a different sort from the space it occupies. This is the classical view.
But, the Theory of Relativity, under intense scrutiny since 1905, has shown that matter, energy, space and time are all of the same fundamental essence. Space-time includes matter and energy by means of its plasticity and metamorphic talent. It is still called a "theory" only because we have not yet been able to observe the inner workings of other universes that might possess this same thread in their fabric. If we ever do observe other universes and we can discern such a thread, Einstein's theory will be referred to as the "Law of Relativity". It might be subsumed by some greater theory or law, but this has happened before to Newton's Laws, for instance, which were circumscribed by the "Theory" of Relativity. But they are still called laws.
The only theory in science that is more thoroughly confirmed is Quantum Theory. It too is called a theory only because we do not have instances of other universes to study wherein we can find this as a common thread. We should ignore the technicality because it is clear that "Quantum Law" governs the very nature of existence itself.
To be or not to be. That is the quantum question. Theoretically, there cannot be other universes that do not follow quantum law.
According to the current "standard model" of the universe and its origin, the expanding horizon that we can see with our telescopes may be extrapolated back to even earlier times. Due to the smooth nature of the trajectory that the universe seems to follow, this extrapolation can be extended almost to the very beginning. To do this, it helps to postulate an initial exponential "inflationary" expansion.
But, we cannot extrapolate all the way to t = 0, due only to another technicality. This limit is "theoretically" imposed by the idea that when the universe's history is run backward in time to the point when it must have been so very extremely dense and hot, then the basis for our normal intuitive understanding of physical laws breaks down, apparently.
But, I think that, solely for purely aesthetic reasons, physicists do not like to extrapolate the history of the universe to a point when it was smaller than a tiny distance derived from the definition of Planck's constant and younger than a fraction of a second smaller than a "Planck time". Well, O.K. It may not be necessary to go further than this anyway, but still, we do it.
According to the inflationary expansion hypothesis, the universe began when a virtual "point particle" materialized in the false vacuum and it failed to annihilate with its antiparticle, or else such annihilation is unecessary when virtual particles materialize in the vast energy sea of the false vacuum. Another view may be that there are orthogonal timelines to our own and annihilation simply has not and never will occur on our timeline.
The false vacuum acts like a huge quantity of superheated water. And the universe, remember, is a quantum entity: a particle or wave packet that is governed by quantum principles.
Quantum science is statistical in nature. It expresses events and processes in terms of probabilities. The appearance of a virtual particle is far more likely to occur in a very high energy state than in a lower one. This is because there are an infinite number of possible very high energy states while the number of potential lower energy states is limited by the fact that one arm of the infinite progression is cut off at zero. And, remember, the false vacuum is already a vast reservoir of almost infinite energy.
So, when the universe materialized, it instantly acted like a particle of dust in a cauldron of superheated water. This superheated "fluid" began to change phase. The initial catalytic high energy particle and a parcel of the false vacuum began to expand from a point, or from very near a point, to occupy a much larger and larger volume. Energy continuously transferred from the false vacuum to the new true vacuum of space as we know it, helping to fill it with energy in the form of extremely high energy light photons. As the universe expanded further, it began to cool, as expansion normally cools the contents of a system. High energy, intensely dense photons can indeed behave this way, as laser esperiments show.
And, its entropy also began to rise dramatically. When it had cooled far enough, various forms of matter began to condense out of that still small, dense volume of intense light. When it had cooled further, electrons suddenly were able to couple with protons, or with deuterium and helium nuclei, to give a dense neutral gas that was finally transparent to light itself. Previously, the matter/energy soup had been opaque.
The light that was present when this recombination process was complete is now detectable as the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). The light that had not condensed into matter was initially of very high energy, distributed according to a Maxwell distribution. The maximum in this distribution is now red-shifted down into the microwave region. But, because it exists within a very broad distribution, there are still a few remnants of this light that are presently still of an extremely high energy. This may be the source of some of the high energy cosmic rays that have been detected.
The hydrogen, deuterium and helium went on to form stars and galaxies while the universe expanded further. Some of the stars where so enormous that they "burned" their hydrgen/deuterium nuclear fuel very quickly and exploded as supernovae.
The cores of supernovae get so hot during this event and their existence in this state is limited in time so much that heavier elements like boron, nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, sodium, iron and all the rest of the elements of the periodic table were able to form and become isolated. Once they were suddenly exposed to the lower density and temperatures of intertellar space, the heavier elements were "frozen out" and preserved. This residue of heavy elements mixed with leftover hydrogen and deuterium to form new stars. After several cycles like this, the newer stars had enough of these elements to become surrounded by protoplanetary disks of dust. From this dust came the planets, including our Earth and all its life.
Yes, as Carl Sagan mused, we are stardust: from this dust we came and to dust we shall return
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Origin of the Universe
Take a peek at http://cs.astronomy.com/asycs/forums/t/32309.aspx and http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cosmologyandcosmogony/ for a spirited debate on the validity of the HBB theory. The Astronomy forum on cosmogony is a discussion of which I have got really tired recently. I am seeking change-over to an exchange about the implications of a quantum dynamical hypothesis for an inflationary initiation of the HBB.
There seems to be no recognition of such implications. If the universe really did begin as a point particle, called an "inflaton", that appeared in a "false vacuum" by virtue of the tendencey of quantum particles to simply materialize out of nothingness along with their antiparticles, then many questions seem to be settled. But, new ones appear, as is usually the case in science.
For instance, virtual quantum particles that appear out of nothing along with their antiparticles annihillate each other almost instantly. They are called virtual because their lifetime is so brief and they cannot be detected directly. The existence of virtual particles can be proven by studies of muon decay in powerful particle accelerators and by other means. For a virtual particle to remain in existence and become detectable in its own right, it must appear at the event horizon of a black whole, as has been shown by Steven Hawking.
The particle and antiparticle fail to mutually annihilate because one falls into the black hole and the other escapes. If the universe began as such a virtual particle, does this imply that it is or was near the event horizon of an ultramassive black hole?
Our universe may still be in the vicinity of our antiparticle, our anti-universe. It may remain close enough for the gravitational fields of both to overlap. There is much evidence that the reason gravity is difficult to incorporate into unified field theories, grand unified theories or "theories of everything" is that it is unlike the other forces. It can "leak" out of our universe and thus appear to be a very weak force when, in fact, it is the strongest of all the forces. There are quantum phenomena that would allow our universe and our anti-universe to remain near each other for a long time, say, 13.7 billion years, without mutual annihilation.
When quantum particles, which are also quantum wave packets, are detected statistically or even individually, they appear as waveforms and as their interference waveforms as well. In the case of whole universes, these may be regarded as humongous collective quantum states of all the matter and energy that they subsume. Then, there are quantum States A and interference State B for our particle, our universe's waveform, and States A' and B' for our antiparticle or anti-universe. Furthermore, these interference states, in order to be mathematically well described, must be able to hybridize. They can thus form the superpositions of states: A+B, A-B, A'+B', A'-B', A+A', B+B', A-A', B-B', B'+A, B'-A, A'+B, A'-B. Now, gravity can leak between all these states, there being 16 in all. So, the quantity of matter and energy in any one state may be only 1/16 th of the total. This is 0.0625 of the whole. Or else, maybe it is only about 0.04 of the total, depending on how you add up the States and the individual components of the States. If one eliminates the null states, those having a (-) sign, as possessing no gravitational field, one arrives at either 1/22 or 1/10 of the whole that any one state would contribute snd this would represent 0.045 or 0.10 of the whole. If one takes only the primary States into account then only A, B, A' and B' would superpose. Any one of them contributes 1/4 or 0.25 of the whole. There might be other reasonable combinations.
From our perspective within, say, State A, for instance, we can detect the existence of the whole by various means but we can account for as much as, say, 0.25 of it through the inventory of matter and energy in our universe. Maybe we can account for only 0.04 of it. Regardless, we are tempted to postulate some form of Dark Energy and Dark Matter to make the balance sheet work out right. We do this because we are not used to thinking in terms of the quantum dynamical metaphor and because we simply cannot see these other States. They are invisible and intangible.
The mystery of the "missing antimatter" is also accounted for in this scheme. There is no antimatter in our universe because it was all gathered into existence within our anti-universe and its interference wave, the States A' and B' and, perhaps, the other superposed States with primed components.But, there is no Dark Energy or Dark Matter. And, because this "missing mass" is all in some other universe, forever seperated from us by all means except through gravity, we will never be able to detect any of it directly.
Dark Matter is accounted for by MOND, modified Newtonian dynamics. The superposition of States requires that a small constant should be added to the right side of Newton's equation for his Law of Gravity. This small constant represents the "missing matter" in galaxies and galactic clusters. It results from leakage of the gravitational field between the superposed States, which may be so similar that they have galaxies and galactic clusters in almost the same positions but in different orientations. In other words, they are not quite congruent. So, the leakage appears as a smeared out, blurry, spherically distributed small but finite contribution to these cosmological objects' gravitational fields.
The matter and energy inventory of our universe does not balance because we have not taken into account the superposition of States. Statistical analysis of the distribution of energy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) shows that it is projected upon the sky as if from a flat surface. This implies that the geometry of the universe is flat, not curved like Einstein thought. For it to be flat, however, means that there is an enormous amount of matter and energy in the universe that is unaccounted for. Dark Energy was postulated as a source of this "missing mass", energy having a mass-equivalence through Einstein's famous equation. This idea gained traction when some supernovae were observed at enormous distances. Their brightness showed that they are further away than their red-shifts might indicate if the Hubble constant is applied. This means they are receding faster than is expected. The interpretation has been that this discrepancy amounts to acceleration of our universe's expansion NOW, in the more modern era, even though the more rapidly receding supernovae are observed to have existed THEN, in the most distant past.
It is a backward interpretation that succeeds only because it is perfectly backward and therefore it works - sort of. But, then it runs into reality. To explain this acceleration, Dark Energy was invoked as an ad hoc bandaid to patch the wound that this "observation" made in the s0-called "standard model" of the universe and its origin. So, Dark Energy fills the universe with its "missing mass". But, its nature is unknown and it appears to be an untestable hypothesis. There are conjectures about it - that it may be a new kind of field called "quintessence" that results in cosmological objects repelling each other when they are placed at great distances or that it may result from Einstein's cosmological constant. Ignored is the possibility that the data are being misinterpreted.
Instead, we are all supposed to be happy with an almost supernatural explanation for what amounts to sloppy hypothesizing.
Why do so many distinguished scientists take Dark Energy seriously? It is because they can see no other way past the conundrum that they have themselves created out of whole cloth. They are all trained in quantum mechanics and dynamics but the implication to cosmogony of this, the most well-tested theory in all of science, is so anti-intuitive that they refuse to consider it. So, they go for a hypothesis that is even more anti-intuitive.
Well Stanley, NOW look at the fine mess that you've got us into!
* * * * *
In a future post I shall explain how the assumption that the Hubble constant is indeed a constant has helped get us all into this mess.
You can see which are the leaders of the herd by watching for the ones who are out front when the stampede changes direction. If we look for the leaders at the time when acceleration became popular and when Dark Energy was first proposed, we can tell who might really be responsible for this joke. Then, we might be able to tell better why this mistake has propagated so far for so long. The Science Citation Index might be useful for this. One of its features is a list of citations by scientists and how often that citation was cited by other scientists in their own papers. It is difficult for me to spend much time in libraries. But, I shall find out if the SCI is available online. In another future post, I shall report on my finding.
There seems to be no recognition of such implications. If the universe really did begin as a point particle, called an "inflaton", that appeared in a "false vacuum" by virtue of the tendencey of quantum particles to simply materialize out of nothingness along with their antiparticles, then many questions seem to be settled. But, new ones appear, as is usually the case in science.
For instance, virtual quantum particles that appear out of nothing along with their antiparticles annihillate each other almost instantly. They are called virtual because their lifetime is so brief and they cannot be detected directly. The existence of virtual particles can be proven by studies of muon decay in powerful particle accelerators and by other means. For a virtual particle to remain in existence and become detectable in its own right, it must appear at the event horizon of a black whole, as has been shown by Steven Hawking.
The particle and antiparticle fail to mutually annihilate because one falls into the black hole and the other escapes. If the universe began as such a virtual particle, does this imply that it is or was near the event horizon of an ultramassive black hole?
Our universe may still be in the vicinity of our antiparticle, our anti-universe. It may remain close enough for the gravitational fields of both to overlap. There is much evidence that the reason gravity is difficult to incorporate into unified field theories, grand unified theories or "theories of everything" is that it is unlike the other forces. It can "leak" out of our universe and thus appear to be a very weak force when, in fact, it is the strongest of all the forces. There are quantum phenomena that would allow our universe and our anti-universe to remain near each other for a long time, say, 13.7 billion years, without mutual annihilation.
When quantum particles, which are also quantum wave packets, are detected statistically or even individually, they appear as waveforms and as their interference waveforms as well. In the case of whole universes, these may be regarded as humongous collective quantum states of all the matter and energy that they subsume. Then, there are quantum States A and interference State B for our particle, our universe's waveform, and States A' and B' for our antiparticle or anti-universe. Furthermore, these interference states, in order to be mathematically well described, must be able to hybridize. They can thus form the superpositions of states: A+B, A-B, A'+B', A'-B', A+A', B+B', A-A', B-B', B'+A, B'-A, A'+B, A'-B. Now, gravity can leak between all these states, there being 16 in all. So, the quantity of matter and energy in any one state may be only 1/16 th of the total. This is 0.0625 of the whole. Or else, maybe it is only about 0.04 of the total, depending on how you add up the States and the individual components of the States. If one eliminates the null states, those having a (-) sign, as possessing no gravitational field, one arrives at either 1/22 or 1/10 of the whole that any one state would contribute snd this would represent 0.045 or 0.10 of the whole. If one takes only the primary States into account then only A, B, A' and B' would superpose. Any one of them contributes 1/4 or 0.25 of the whole. There might be other reasonable combinations.
From our perspective within, say, State A, for instance, we can detect the existence of the whole by various means but we can account for as much as, say, 0.25 of it through the inventory of matter and energy in our universe. Maybe we can account for only 0.04 of it. Regardless, we are tempted to postulate some form of Dark Energy and Dark Matter to make the balance sheet work out right. We do this because we are not used to thinking in terms of the quantum dynamical metaphor and because we simply cannot see these other States. They are invisible and intangible.
The mystery of the "missing antimatter" is also accounted for in this scheme. There is no antimatter in our universe because it was all gathered into existence within our anti-universe and its interference wave, the States A' and B' and, perhaps, the other superposed States with primed components.But, there is no Dark Energy or Dark Matter. And, because this "missing mass" is all in some other universe, forever seperated from us by all means except through gravity, we will never be able to detect any of it directly.
Dark Matter is accounted for by MOND, modified Newtonian dynamics. The superposition of States requires that a small constant should be added to the right side of Newton's equation for his Law of Gravity. This small constant represents the "missing matter" in galaxies and galactic clusters. It results from leakage of the gravitational field between the superposed States, which may be so similar that they have galaxies and galactic clusters in almost the same positions but in different orientations. In other words, they are not quite congruent. So, the leakage appears as a smeared out, blurry, spherically distributed small but finite contribution to these cosmological objects' gravitational fields.
The matter and energy inventory of our universe does not balance because we have not taken into account the superposition of States. Statistical analysis of the distribution of energy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) shows that it is projected upon the sky as if from a flat surface. This implies that the geometry of the universe is flat, not curved like Einstein thought. For it to be flat, however, means that there is an enormous amount of matter and energy in the universe that is unaccounted for. Dark Energy was postulated as a source of this "missing mass", energy having a mass-equivalence through Einstein's famous equation. This idea gained traction when some supernovae were observed at enormous distances. Their brightness showed that they are further away than their red-shifts might indicate if the Hubble constant is applied. This means they are receding faster than is expected. The interpretation has been that this discrepancy amounts to acceleration of our universe's expansion NOW, in the more modern era, even though the more rapidly receding supernovae are observed to have existed THEN, in the most distant past.
It is a backward interpretation that succeeds only because it is perfectly backward and therefore it works - sort of. But, then it runs into reality. To explain this acceleration, Dark Energy was invoked as an ad hoc bandaid to patch the wound that this "observation" made in the s0-called "standard model" of the universe and its origin. So, Dark Energy fills the universe with its "missing mass". But, its nature is unknown and it appears to be an untestable hypothesis. There are conjectures about it - that it may be a new kind of field called "quintessence" that results in cosmological objects repelling each other when they are placed at great distances or that it may result from Einstein's cosmological constant. Ignored is the possibility that the data are being misinterpreted.
Instead, we are all supposed to be happy with an almost supernatural explanation for what amounts to sloppy hypothesizing.
Why do so many distinguished scientists take Dark Energy seriously? It is because they can see no other way past the conundrum that they have themselves created out of whole cloth. They are all trained in quantum mechanics and dynamics but the implication to cosmogony of this, the most well-tested theory in all of science, is so anti-intuitive that they refuse to consider it. So, they go for a hypothesis that is even more anti-intuitive.
Well Stanley, NOW look at the fine mess that you've got us into!
* * * * *
In a future post I shall explain how the assumption that the Hubble constant is indeed a constant has helped get us all into this mess.
You can see which are the leaders of the herd by watching for the ones who are out front when the stampede changes direction. If we look for the leaders at the time when acceleration became popular and when Dark Energy was first proposed, we can tell who might really be responsible for this joke. Then, we might be able to tell better why this mistake has propagated so far for so long. The Science Citation Index might be useful for this. One of its features is a list of citations by scientists and how often that citation was cited by other scientists in their own papers. It is difficult for me to spend much time in libraries. But, I shall find out if the SCI is available online. In another future post, I shall report on my finding.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Hard Evidence for the Hot Big Bang
The existence of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) is solid evidence for the HBB and for the concept that the universe is expanding and has been expanding for 13.7 gigayears. This background radiation has exactly the right distribution of high and low intensities, its power spectrum, and this distribution matches that predicted for not only for the HBB and what is expected from the inflationary version of the HBB.
This is proven evidence. If you don't agree that this is evidence for the HBB, what is it evidence for? Sophistry and hand waving are not allowed.
Hubble expansion is measurable from relatively nearby galaxies as well as from very distant ones. If one takes the midpoints of the ranges of distances to galaxies that were used in these studies and uses this data to compute H naught as a function of these distances, one finds that the Hubble "constant" is not really constant.
These values for H naught follow a straight line relation reaching from about 370,000 years after time = 0 to near the present. The Hubble constant is decreasing with time in a linear regression. The universe's expansion is slowing down, not accelerating. H naught values determined from nearby galaxy recession are very unlikely to be affected by interferences like intergalactic plasma. But, they lend credence to the values that have been determined from very distant galaxies, supernovae and the CMB.
The power spectrum of the CMB will also be affected by the overall geometry of the universe. The spectrum matches what is predicted by a "flat" universe, that is, one which is neither spherical in polydimensional space nor hyperbolic. This means that there is no strange geometric distortions of our measurements because the geometry of the universe is Euclidean.
The upshot is that the measurements are accurate and they are not being misinterpreted. Except that the data regarding acceleration in the present era are being misinterpreted, I think, because astrophysicists got it exactly "backward". Being exactly backward, it works, sort of. But, then it runs into reality. So, I dispute the existence of dark energy.
Not only are there billions of rogue planets in our galaxy, billions of brown dwarfs and billions of rogue stars - they are like roaches - if you find a few, there must be a huge population of them somewhere. There are also "dark galaxies" consisting of uncondensed or unconsolidated clouds of hydrogen/helium, enough to make very large galaxies if only they had had more time to contract enough to form stars. These are another class of cosmic roaches.
The population of brown dwarfs has yet to be determined so they cannot be part of the inventory of matter and energy in the universe. Likewise rogue planets, rogue stars or dark galaxies.When these adjustments are made, the amount of dark matter that may still exist outside of these estimates will be amenable to a quantum treatment of the universe.
The amount of matter and energy that is sufficient to account for the "missing mass" in the universe in order to "flatten" it will derive from the universe's nature as a quantum particle, just as was suggested by Allan Guth when he postulated the "inflaton". If the universe began as a quantum particle or wave then it is still exists as such.
Quantum physics is statistical in nature and it is incorrect to apply statistical probabilities to individual cases like our poor universe. But, we can suppose that there are uncountable numbers of universes more or less like ours. So then, statistical probabilities may apply.
As a group, these universes may exist as quantum particles or wave forms. Quantum waves commonly interefere with themselves so that an interference wave exists for each of these universes. See Wheeler's work.
Call the initial waveform A. Its interference wave form is B. In order to completely describe this system one may suppose that the hybrid sums of these waveforms also exist: A + B and A - B. The hybrid A - B may be just the null state, but it is still a real state. Thus, A and B are antistates. One is matter, the other is antimatter.
This may be where all the antimatter in this statistical ensemble of universes has gone. It exists in separate parallel universes. All these states may be superposed, a common condition among quantum states. This way, gravity, being the only force that might "leak" out of our universe, can be shared between them all.
Here is the missing mass. All the universes in the ensemble will appear to have missing mass until all the states are considered. Since there is a statistical distribution of universes similar to our own, each doing about the same thing, there may be parallel versions of each galaxy superposed upon one another and seperated by some polydimensinal "distance" yet still superposed in 3-D space.
Each would be oriented somewhat differently however, so that the superposition displays gravitational properties consistent with Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND).This is the theoretical tweak of MOND that makes it consistent with relativity, or at least, not contrary to it.
Just who and what qualifies some people to substitute their own wisdom for the judgement of most other scientists? I suppose I could look up each of their profiles somewhere, but that would not really give me the information that I need. What, specifically, annoints them as putative popes of cosmology? Why do they think that they can condemn the work of others, directly or indirectly, while mouthing platitudes like "It's just my opinion."? They do not have open minds, this is clear.
They are evangelists for a particular point of view, not scientists. One can visit their prosylitizing websites.
This is not the place for personal attacks. But, they are attacking the good will and good faith of almost all other scientists who acknowledge the HBB as being the current "standard model" of cosmogony. In effect, they are accusing them of being stupid, incompetent or worse. So, I feel that it is good, right and just for me to stand up in defense of my colleagues right now.
By the way, I made a mistake earlier when I stated that galactic cluster evolution has been observed to be speeding up with time, implying that the universe's expansion rate is accelerating. The development rate of galactic clusters is actually decreasing with time, meaning that, if anything, the expansion rate is decelerating, just as was deduced years ago when the Hubble constant was first elaborated.
That the rate of evolution of galactic clusters may be slowing down is intuitively understandable if the universe as a whole is expanding at a slower and slower rate. It is hard to imagine a force that would speed up the overall evolution of the whole universe while retarding the development of clusters. In fact, it is contradictory. So, the fact of a slowdown in galactic evolution is evidence for a decelerating universe.
This is a new result and it has not yet had a chance to be digested by advocates of acceleration and Dark Energy. No doubt they will invent another ad hoc excuse.
There is no Dark Energy and none is needed. See above.
This is proven evidence. If you don't agree that this is evidence for the HBB, what is it evidence for? Sophistry and hand waving are not allowed.
Hubble expansion is measurable from relatively nearby galaxies as well as from very distant ones. If one takes the midpoints of the ranges of distances to galaxies that were used in these studies and uses this data to compute H naught as a function of these distances, one finds that the Hubble "constant" is not really constant.
These values for H naught follow a straight line relation reaching from about 370,000 years after time = 0 to near the present. The Hubble constant is decreasing with time in a linear regression. The universe's expansion is slowing down, not accelerating. H naught values determined from nearby galaxy recession are very unlikely to be affected by interferences like intergalactic plasma. But, they lend credence to the values that have been determined from very distant galaxies, supernovae and the CMB.
The power spectrum of the CMB will also be affected by the overall geometry of the universe. The spectrum matches what is predicted by a "flat" universe, that is, one which is neither spherical in polydimensional space nor hyperbolic. This means that there is no strange geometric distortions of our measurements because the geometry of the universe is Euclidean.
The upshot is that the measurements are accurate and they are not being misinterpreted. Except that the data regarding acceleration in the present era are being misinterpreted, I think, because astrophysicists got it exactly "backward". Being exactly backward, it works, sort of. But, then it runs into reality. So, I dispute the existence of dark energy.
Not only are there billions of rogue planets in our galaxy, billions of brown dwarfs and billions of rogue stars - they are like roaches - if you find a few, there must be a huge population of them somewhere. There are also "dark galaxies" consisting of uncondensed or unconsolidated clouds of hydrogen/helium, enough to make very large galaxies if only they had had more time to contract enough to form stars. These are another class of cosmic roaches.
The population of brown dwarfs has yet to be determined so they cannot be part of the inventory of matter and energy in the universe. Likewise rogue planets, rogue stars or dark galaxies.When these adjustments are made, the amount of dark matter that may still exist outside of these estimates will be amenable to a quantum treatment of the universe.
The amount of matter and energy that is sufficient to account for the "missing mass" in the universe in order to "flatten" it will derive from the universe's nature as a quantum particle, just as was suggested by Allan Guth when he postulated the "inflaton". If the universe began as a quantum particle or wave then it is still exists as such.
Quantum physics is statistical in nature and it is incorrect to apply statistical probabilities to individual cases like our poor universe. But, we can suppose that there are uncountable numbers of universes more or less like ours. So then, statistical probabilities may apply.
As a group, these universes may exist as quantum particles or wave forms. Quantum waves commonly interefere with themselves so that an interference wave exists for each of these universes. See Wheeler's work.
Call the initial waveform A. Its interference wave form is B. In order to completely describe this system one may suppose that the hybrid sums of these waveforms also exist: A + B and A - B. The hybrid A - B may be just the null state, but it is still a real state. Thus, A and B are antistates. One is matter, the other is antimatter.
This may be where all the antimatter in this statistical ensemble of universes has gone. It exists in separate parallel universes. All these states may be superposed, a common condition among quantum states. This way, gravity, being the only force that might "leak" out of our universe, can be shared between them all.
Here is the missing mass. All the universes in the ensemble will appear to have missing mass until all the states are considered. Since there is a statistical distribution of universes similar to our own, each doing about the same thing, there may be parallel versions of each galaxy superposed upon one another and seperated by some polydimensinal "distance" yet still superposed in 3-D space.
Each would be oriented somewhat differently however, so that the superposition displays gravitational properties consistent with Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND).This is the theoretical tweak of MOND that makes it consistent with relativity, or at least, not contrary to it.
Just who and what qualifies some people to substitute their own wisdom for the judgement of most other scientists? I suppose I could look up each of their profiles somewhere, but that would not really give me the information that I need. What, specifically, annoints them as putative popes of cosmology? Why do they think that they can condemn the work of others, directly or indirectly, while mouthing platitudes like "It's just my opinion."? They do not have open minds, this is clear.
They are evangelists for a particular point of view, not scientists. One can visit their prosylitizing websites.
This is not the place for personal attacks. But, they are attacking the good will and good faith of almost all other scientists who acknowledge the HBB as being the current "standard model" of cosmogony. In effect, they are accusing them of being stupid, incompetent or worse. So, I feel that it is good, right and just for me to stand up in defense of my colleagues right now.
By the way, I made a mistake earlier when I stated that galactic cluster evolution has been observed to be speeding up with time, implying that the universe's expansion rate is accelerating. The development rate of galactic clusters is actually decreasing with time, meaning that, if anything, the expansion rate is decelerating, just as was deduced years ago when the Hubble constant was first elaborated.
That the rate of evolution of galactic clusters may be slowing down is intuitively understandable if the universe as a whole is expanding at a slower and slower rate. It is hard to imagine a force that would speed up the overall evolution of the whole universe while retarding the development of clusters. In fact, it is contradictory. So, the fact of a slowdown in galactic evolution is evidence for a decelerating universe.
This is a new result and it has not yet had a chance to be digested by advocates of acceleration and Dark Energy. No doubt they will invent another ad hoc excuse.
There is no Dark Energy and none is needed. See above.
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