Jump to content
Goodbye Jesus

Einstein Was Right Again: Dark Energy Confirmed


Neon Genesis

Recommended Posts

http://techie-buzz.com/science/dark-energy-confirmed.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+techiebuzz+%28Techie+buzz%29

The grand old man of Physics is proved right once again. Albert Einstein was vindicated yet again by a survey, which confirmed the presence of Dark Energy in the Universe. The ‘WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey’ was conducted by 26 astronomers from 14 countries using the latest in spectrograph technologies to map out more than 200,000 galaxies, many halfway across the Universe to confirm this startling fact.

What is Dark Energy?

 

Dark Energy is the name given to the unknown entity believed to be behind the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe. It was Edwin Hubble, who in 1932, first noticed that the Universe was actually expanding. This gave a huge boost to the Big Bang theory, which says that the Universe came out of an ultra-dense singularity 14-15 billion years ago. Scientists have been expecting the expansion to slow down as time wears on, as then gravity will eventually dominate. What scientists found, instead, was that the Universe was expanding at an ever-increasing rate. It is believed that some mysterious source of energy was aiding the expansion process, thus named Dark Energy.

 

The WiggleZ survey, conducted by an Australian-based group led by Dr. Michael Drinkwater, used the latest in spectrography, thanks to latest Australian technology to survey galaxies – more than 200000 of them – some 7 billion light years away. Light takes a finite time to travel from one place to another, because of its finite speed. Thus the light from 7 billion light years away took 7 billion years to reach here. This means that we are seeing galaxies in the form they were 7 billion years ago, essentially looking back in time! (Thus, the easiest way to glance into the past is to just see. The farther away the object you see, the farther away in time it is!). The WiggleZ survey can map 392 galaxies in an hour!

 

So, there it is again! Einstein is proved right again, and in spectacular fashion. 96% of the stuff in the Universe is unknown, but at least we know that it’s there. Some consolation and a lot of work to be done!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd take any scientific news with a grain of salt until you look at the actual source of the paper.

Reporters have this uncanny ability to listen/read the most basic concepts and totally screw it up when reporting it to the public.

Its a gift they just seem to have which is evolving with time.

 

Also, I wouldn't limit that to scientific news. The age of quality reporting has long passed us by.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the same story is found here (or in a similar type of story):

http://www.universetoday.com/85927/australian-student-uncovers-the-universes-missing-mass/#more-85927

 

An Australian student is credited with finding the universe's missing mass.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://techie-buzz.c...8Techie+buzz%29

The grand old man of Physics is proved right once again. Albert Einstein was vindicated yet again by a survey, which confirmed the presence of Dark Energy in the Universe. The ‘WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey’ was conducted by 26 astronomers from 14 countries using the latest in spectrograph technologies to map out more than 200,000 galaxies, many halfway across the Universe to confirm this startling fact.

What is Dark Energy?

 

Dark Energy is the name given to the unknown entity believed to be behind the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe. It was Edwin Hubble, who in 1932, first noticed that the Universe was actually expanding. This gave a huge boost to the Big Bang theory, which says that the Universe came out of an ultra-dense singularity 14-15 billion years ago. Scientists have been expecting the expansion to slow down as time wears on, as then gravity will eventually dominate. What scientists found, instead, was that the Universe was expanding at an ever-increasing rate. It is believed that some mysterious source of energy was aiding the expansion process, thus named Dark Energy.

 

The WiggleZ survey, conducted by an Australian-based group led by Dr. Michael Drinkwater, used the latest in spectrography, thanks to latest Australian technology to survey galaxies – more than 200000 of them – some 7 billion light years away. Light takes a finite time to travel from one place to another, because of its finite speed. Thus the light from 7 billion light years away took 7 billion years to reach here. This means that we are seeing galaxies in the form they were 7 billion years ago, essentially looking back in time! (Thus, the easiest way to glance into the past is to just see. The farther away the object you see, the farther away in time it is!). The WiggleZ survey can map 392 galaxies in an hour!

 

So, there it is again! Einstein is proved right again, and in spectacular fashion. 96% of the stuff in the Universe is unknown, but at least we know that it’s there. Some consolation and a lot of work to be done!

 

Once again, a cosmological finding, or -- more precisely -- supposed finding*, attached to which is a wild claim without any reasoning as to why the finding supports the claim. If it's a reference to Einstein's cosmological constant -- well, we all know what happened to that, what with Einstein's final views about it his 'greatest error'.

 

Unfortunately, it has also been found that various kinds of optical condition serve to retard the transit of light, so the full picture has yet to be established.

 

All this really makes you wonder about this pop science crap. What's behind it?

 

* But what's all this -- in the first sentence, about a survey? Are the results of a survey of 26 astronomers the 'vindication'??? The passage doesn't explain.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

* But what's all this -- in the first sentence, about a survey? Are the results of a survey of 26 astronomers the 'vindication'??? The passage doesn't explain.

 

Survey has more than one meaning.

One can do a land survey.

An oceanic survey.

In this case its an astronomical survey.

Basically it means 26 astronomers were involved in compiling a "map" or "survey" of the sky.

e.g. when you go buy land you hire a surveyor to mark out the boundaries of the land and the features on a map.

It is not a poll of the land or the surveyor.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the same story is found here (or in a similar type of story):

http://www.universet...ass/#more-85927

 

An Australian student is credited with finding the universe's missing mass.

 

They are two different stories.

One concerns dark matter the other dark energy.

 

He's the link to the actual study regarding the OP: http://wigglez.swin....te/science.html

 

Here is a direct quote from the scientists:

The second possible outcome is that Einstein's vision of gravity, general relativity, is incorrect on large cosmological scales.

Here is a direct quote from the article in the OP:

So, there it is again! Einstein is proved right again, and in spectacular fashion. 96% of the stuff in the Universe is unknown, but at least we know that it’s there. Some consolation and a lot of work to be done!

Two not only different meanings but they are contradictory.

The concept of the cosmological constant that was proposed by Einstein was to fit his theory into what was at the time thought to be a static Universe.

He abandoned it once there was evidence to support the theory that the Universe was expanding.

Now there appears to be evidence that the Universe is accelerating in its expansion.

To make the current theories match observation they need to add another constant. This time a constant that causes the Universe to be accelerating in its expansion.

The idea of a constant to make equations fit observations is not a new one. Its standard procedure. The value of that constant changes to match observation.

Stating that Einstein was correct because he wanted to use a constant to make his theory match his idea of a static Universe makes him somehow right because they need a different value constant to match the current observations of an accelerating Universe is naive at best and downright misleading.

Rule: never trust reporters. Always go to the source.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Once again, a cosmological finding, or -- more precisely -- supposed finding*, attached to which is a wild claim without any reasoning as to why the finding supports the claim.

 

You mean the 65,000 pages of raw data they have on their website. The 240,000 redshift data points that correspond to an accelerated expansion of the universe.

 

If it's a reference to Einstein's cosmological constant -- well, we all know what happened to that, what with Einstein's final views about it his 'greatest error'.

 

HIs error was how and why he arrived at that conclusion and his explaination of it, not the conclution itself.

 

Unfortunately, it has also been found that various kinds of optical condition serve to retard the transit of light, so the full picture has yet to be established.

 

What do you mean, "retard the transit of light"? Light always travels the same velocity in a vacuum, in any frame of reference. Thats why it red-shifts.

 

All this really makes you wonder about this pop science crap. What's behind it?

 

Conspiracy theory delusions?

 

* But what's all this -- in the first sentence, about a survey? Are the results of a survey of 26 astronomers the 'vindication'??? The passage doesn't explain.

 

Clearly you don't know the meaning of the word survey. It means to map something. A poll, which is what you are thinking of, is a map of peoples opinions. Thats not what they did here. They mapped the redshifts of 240,000 galaxies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You mean the 65,000 pages of raw data they have on their website. The 240,000 redshift data points that correspond to an accelerated expansion of the universe.

 

Read Halton Arp.

 

If it's a reference to Einstein's cosmological constant -- well, we all know what happened to that, what with Einstein's final views about it his 'greatest error'.

 

HIs error was how and why he arrived at that conclusion and his explaination of it, not the conclution itself.

 

Dammit, Einstein has not been vindicated either in method or in formulated values, by any if this.

 

Unfortunately, it has also been found that various kinds of optical condition serve to retard the transit of light, so the full picture has yet to be established.

 

What do you mean, "retard the transit of light"? Light always travels the same velocity in a vacuum, in any frame of reference. Thats why it red-shifts.

 

Amazing... a joke? In the lab, they can bring light to a standstill. We still don't know the full story about the properties of light in transit. And your 'in any frame of reference' looks like you are a little bit cautious about quoting Einstein, who, when he was a pure relativist, would have replaced it with 'with respect to any observer' -- a far more difficult and counter-intuitive concept.

 

All this really makes you wonder about this pop science crap. What's behind it?

 

Conspiracy theory delusions?

 

Yep. My same old conspiracy theory: it's called Money Talks.

 

* But what's all this -- in the first sentence, about a survey? Are the results of a survey of 26 astronomers the 'vindication'??? The passage doesn't explain.

 

Clearly you don't know the meaning of the word survey. It means to map something. A poll, which is what you are thinking of, is a map of peoples opinions. Thats not what they did here. They mapped the redshifts of 240,000 galaxies.

 

I was just saying that it wasn't made clear in the passage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Read Halton Arp.

 

Arp originally proposed his theories in the 1960s; however, telescopes and astronomical instrumentation have advanced greatly since then: the Hubble Space Telescope was launched, multiple 8-10 meter telescopes (such as those at Keck Observatory) have become operational, and detectors such as CCDs are now more widely employed. These new telescopes and new instrumentation have been utilized to examine QSOs further. QSOs are now generally accepted to be very distant galaxies with high redshifts. Moreover, many imaging surveys, most notably the Hubble Deep Field, have found many high-redshift objects that are not QSOs but that appear to be normal galaxies like those found nearby.[5] Moreover, the spectra of the high-redshift galaxies, as seen from X-ray to radio wavelengths, match the spectra of nearby galaxies (particularly galaxies with high levels of star formation activity but also galaxies with normal or extinguished star formation activity) when corrected for redshift effects.[6][7][8] As more recent experiments have expanded the amount of collected data by orders of magnitude, it has become increasingly simple to test Arp's postulates directly. A recent study stated that:

 

"... the publicly available data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and 2dF QSO redshift survey to test the hypothesis that QSOs are ejected from active galaxies with periodic noncosmological redshifts. For two different intrinsic redshift models, [..] and find there is no evidence for a periodicity at the predicted frequency in log(1+z), or at any other frequency."[9]

 

Nonetheless, Arp has not wavered from his stand against the Big Bang and still publishes articles[10] stating his contrary view in both popular and scientific literature, frequently collaborating with Geoffrey Burbidge (until his death in 2010) and Margaret Burbidge.[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halton_Arp#Critics

 

Yep. My same old conspiracy theory: it's called Money Talks.

Who is getting rich from it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dammit, Einstein has not been vindicated either in method or in formulated values, by any if this.

 

So you already analyzed those 65,000 pages of data yourself.

 

What do you mean, "retard the transit of light"? Light always travels the same velocity in a vacuum, in any frame of reference. Thats why it red-shifts.

 

Amazing... a joke? In the lab, they can bring light to a standstill. We still don't know the full story about the properties of light in transit. And your 'in any frame of reference' looks like you are a little bit cautious about quoting Einstein, who, when he was a pure relativist, would have replaced it with 'with respect to any observer' -- a far more difficult and counter-intuitive concept.

 

So you are saying that the scientist who accomplished this feat had no idea what they were doing or how. Thats remarkable considering they set out to do it and did so by....knowing the properties of light in transit. By the way, saying that they stopped light is putting it in lay terms, thats not exactly what they did. They stored a light beam by entangling photons with atoms in a very controlled enviroment. Also, when they collapsed the entanglement and released the beam it still had the same wavelength, so even in the unlikely event this was happening in space it would have absolutely no bearing in the WiggleZ survey. So this is a complete non sequitor.

 

Also, how is the fact that multiple observers can have different frames of reference a difficult concept?

 

Conspiracy theory delusions?

 

Yep. My same old conspiracy theory: it's called Money Talks.

 

Yes, I am sure those scientist are sitting on their private yachts throwing money in the air and bedding super models right now. :rolleyes:

 

Clearly you don't know the meaning of the word survey. It means to map something. A poll, which is what you are thinking of, is a map of peoples opinions. Thats not what they did here. They mapped the redshifts of 240,000 galaxies.

 

I was just saying that it wasn't made clear in the passage.

It was clear to the rest of us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry Paradox, Arp's theory has been discredited more than once.

The "tired light" theory has too.

 

That's not to say the current theories are correct.

It just says that those you are referencing to support your case are incorrect.

 

An incorrect theory that contradicts a theory not yet shown to be incorrect has no merit.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry Paradox, Arp's theory has been discredited more than once.

The "tired light" theory has too.

 

 

Every theory that contradicts orthodoxy has, of course, been 'discredited' many times over.

 

There are other theories such as the one espoused by Marmet, of the emission of low-energy radiation by hydrogen ar 3 degrees K. But I agree that none of this is the last word.

 

Arp was quite prudent when he said that there is an unknown component involved in the bias to the red end of the spectrum; and I myself don't dismiss that there is some component attributable to recession.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So you are saying that the scientist who accomplished this feat had no idea what they were doing or how. Thats remarkable considering they set out to do it and did so by....knowing the properties of light in transit.

 

Nobody knows the properties of light in transit, if indeed it truly does have a transit. The cosmologists just make assumptions and draw (rash) conclusions, then claim the vindications they were looking for.

 

By the way, saying that they stopped light is putting it in lay terms, thats not exactly what they did. They stored a light beam by entangling photons with atoms in a very controlled enviroment. Also, when they collapsed the entanglement and released the beam it still had the same wavelength, so even in the unlikely event this was happening in space it would have absolutely no bearing in the WiggleZ survey. So this is a complete non sequitor.

 

No it's not -- I was just refuting your claim that the speed of light is constant in all reference frames. We simply don't know what other things might affect the transit of light, and its wavelength.

 

Also, how is the fact that multiple observers can have different frames of reference a difficult concept?

 

It makes the claim of the constancy of the speed of light rather difficult to swallow, in the same way that if you shoot a rocket onto a stationary target from a moving fighter jet (firing in the direction of the jet's motion), the rocket reaches that target faster than if you shoot the rocket from a base that is also at rest relative to the target.

 

Conspiracy theory delusions?

 

Yep. My same old conspiracy theory: it's called Money Talks.

 

Yes, I am sure those scientist are sitting on their private yachts throwing money in the air and bedding super models right now. :rolleyes:

 

Some of the popular science authors aren't so far off that. But making wealth is not the only agenda that the flow of money serves; other agenda include keeping the masses interested in space programmes, thereby justifying their huge budget.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, how is the fact that multiple observers can have different frames of reference a difficult concept?

 

It makes the claim of the constancy of the speed of light rather difficult to swallow, in the same way that if you shoot a rocket onto a stationary target from a moving fighter jet (firing in the direction of the jet's motion), the rocket reaches that target faster than if you shoot the rocket from a base that is also at rest relative to the target.

 

Thats a poor analogy because both a jet and a rocket have kinetic energy. A better analogy would be a moving jet and a stationary object making a load sound simultaniously and equal distance from a receiver. Both sounds would reach the receiver at the same time. Even if the jet was moving at 99% the speed of sound the velocities are not additive. Sound can not propagate faster than the speed of sound. As a result the sound wave from the jet is doppler shifted just like a light wave. Now this analogy only works from the receiver's frame of reference.

 

The speed of light is constant in all frames of reference because time dialates with increased velocity. This can be proven empirically by measuring the decay rate of particles in particle accelerators. Particles with very short half-lives can persist much longer when accelerated to relativistic speeds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, how is the fact that multiple observers can have different frames of reference a difficult concept?

 

It makes the claim of the constancy of the speed of light rather difficult to swallow, in the same way that if you shoot a rocket onto a stationary target from a moving fighter jet (firing in the direction of the jet's motion), the rocket reaches that target faster than if you shoot the rocket from a base that is also at rest relative to the target.

 

Thats a poor analogy because both a jet and a rocket have kinetic energy.

 

So does any light source. So does an observer.

 

A better analogy would be a moving jet and a stationary object making a load sound simultaniously and equal distance from a receiver. Both sounds would reach the receiver at the same time. Even if the jet was moving at 99% the speed of sound the velocities are not additive. Sound can not propagate faster than the speed of sound. As a result the sound wave from the jet is doppler shifted just like a light wave. Now this analogy only works from the receiver's frame of reference.

 

That is precisely the point. If you were to have a sensor co-moving with the fighter jet, it would pick up the sound wave according to the speed of sound in the frame of the air molecules -- i.e., in the rest frame, not the rocket's. As an analogy for light, this is quite contrary to your earlier assertion that the speed of light is constant in all reference frames.

 

The speed of light is constant in all frames of reference because time dialates with increased velocity. This can be proven empirically by measuring the decay rate of particles in particle accelerators. Particles with very short half-lives can persist much longer when accelerated to relativistic speeds.

 

The differential rate of decay doesn't prove anything about the passage of time; only about the modification of processes within the atom. Even if it did, it would serve to disprove Einstein because it would show that time differences between reference frames are objectively recordable, in the sense that time, in one frame, is objectively moving faster than it is in the other. According to special relativity, this is not the case: the effect is purely reciprocal; there is relative time dilation but no such thing as relative time contraction.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nobody knows the properties of light in transit, if indeed it truly does have a transit. The cosmologists just make assumptions and draw (rash) conclusions, then claim the vindications they were looking for.

Then why should we trust Arp's assumptions that have been proven wrong over the large community of scientists' assumptions that constantly are proven right? :shrug:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chiming in here, I'm afraid that there's an unresolved issue between Paradox and myself that also applies to this thread, because of it's pro/anti-Einstein subject matter.

 

The issue is simply this.

 

I'm an amateur astronomer and just don't have the mental wherwewithall to work these things out for myself. So, what should I do?

 

Do I take Paradox's word as bona fide or bogus?

He's directed me to sites displaying many scientific papers, none of which appear to be peer-reviewed. Many of these papers critisize and/or contradict General and Special Relativity. So, how's a layman like me supposed tell what's trustworthy what's not? Up to now I've been happy to go with peer-reviewed orthodoxy. Should I change and if I do, how do I know what I can trust?

 

How do I sort the wheat from the chaff, Paradox?

What measure do I use to decide for myself which papers and which scientists are kosher?

Should I take your words on faith that the work of Mamet, Poor and Dingle is ok, but Einstein's isn't?

 

Or, turning things around...

 

Perhaps you could say why I should abandon peer-reviewed orthodoxy in favor of your what you're advocating?

Should I it take on faith from you that there's a global pro-Einstein conspiracy and therefore join you?

What would you have me do here?

 

Please help me out, Paradox?

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chiming in here, I'm afraid that there's an unresolved issue between Paradox and myself that also applies to this thread, because of it's pro/anti-Einstein subject matter.

 

The issue is simply this.

 

I'm an amateur astronomer and just don't have the mental wherwewithall to work these things out for myself. So, what should I do?

 

Do I take Paradox's word as bona fide or bogus?

He's directed me to sites displaying many scientific papers, none of which appear to be peer-reviewed. Many of these papers critisize and/or contradict General and Special Relativity. So, how's a layman like me supposed tell what's trustworthy what's not? Up to now I've been happy to go with peer-reviewed orthodoxy. Should I change and if I do, how do I know what I can trust?

 

How do I sort the wheat from the chaff, Paradox?

What measure do I use to decide for myself which papers and which scientists are kosher?

Should I take your words on faith that the work of Mamet, Poor and Dingle is ok, but Einstein's isn't?

 

Or, turning things around...

 

Perhaps you could say why I should abandon peer-reviewed orthodoxy in favor of your what you're advocating?

Should I it take on faith from you that there's a global pro-Einstein conspiracy and therefore join you?

What would you have me do here?

 

Please help me out, Paradox?

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

 

 

Thankyou, BAA, for being honest, both intellectually to us in the forum and to me personally. It puts you above the vast majority of professional cosmologists, in my estimation.

You say

<<He's directed me to sites displaying many scientific papers, none of which appear to be peer-reviewed>>

-- and I can tell you that, although the sites themselves weren't presenting a selection of work that was itself filtered by peer review, all the papers I referred you to (with the possible exception of Marmet's, who was such a highly respected spectroscopist at the University of Ottawa -- until he got sacked for being critical of relativity -- that I shouldn't worry) were either peer-reviewed or -- as in the case of the classic Burniston Brown piece that everyone here should read

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/academ/whatswrongwithrelativity.html

-- were published in journals whose basic criterion for being a contributor is that they are so highly respected in their profession as to be elected to membership of the physics society of whom the journal was a bulletin.

 

The work by Dingle was an academic text book that is on the shelves of the main university physics library here in Oxford -- I found it there; and Herbert Dingle was such a big name that for decades he was the author of the entry on relativity in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.

 

Anyone, with the possible exception of some of the more tunnel-visioned types, who has been in academe knows what a loathesome, totalitarian, funding-orientated mafia-style setup peer review really is.

 

With Google, BAA, the world of truth is your oyster. Go ahead and use it.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I prefer not to think in terms of doppler shift simply because doppler shift adds another confusing layer of indirection into the issue.

Light, sound is energy. That's it. In the case of light it can behave like a particle with energy or like a wave.

But, its simply energy.

When two objects are moving apart relative to each other then anything of fixed velocity travelling between them simply loses energy.

This loss of energy is shown as a change in frequency. The lower the frequency the lower the energy.

 

What that means is that red shifting is simply a loss of energy.

It can result from two objects moving away from each other but that is not the only way to lose energy between two points.

 

While I have no problem with a theory that says things are moving away from us and that is the cause of all the redshift it also results in a huge amount of problems as well.

We need dark energy to explain some things. To satisfy other problems we need to introduce dark matter. Now we need to introduce a cosmological constant that causes an acceleration in the expansion of the universe. All well and good mind you. It doesn't explain the formation of old galaxies observed by looking at highly redshifted objects that take longer to form than current theory says it takes to form. So this needs to be revised as well.

All this goes back to one basic assumption: That the redshift is purely due to doppler effect and no other possibility.

 

We dismiss the possibility of light losing energy due to an undiscovered phenomena called X.

Then when anyone refers to phenomena X we ask for proof.

All the while building a sand castles from other unproven concepts.

Which is simpler to imagine:

1) That there is an invisible energy source, invisible matter and the universe is accelerating away from itself against gravity due to some unknown phenomena.

or

2) The is something we don't know about the properties of light that may make it lose energy over cosmological distances.

 

Yet, we dismiss the attempts by anyone deciding to base a model of the universe on (2). We only fund research on model (1).

 

My personal opinion is that there is a huge religious push for (1).

God said, let there be light and BIG BANG there was light.

 

Now I'm not saying (1) is wrong. That is crazy as there is no proof of that especially since it keeps getting adapted meet to observations.

What I am saying is that (2) may not be wrong and it needs to be seriously looked at as well.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I prefer not to think in terms of doppler shift simply because doppler shift adds another confusing layer of indirection into the issue.

Light, sound is energy. That's it. In the case of light it can behave like a particle with energy or like a wave.

But, its simply energy.

When two objects are moving apart relative to each other then anything of fixed velocity travelling between them simply loses energy.

This loss of energy is shown as a change in frequency. The lower the frequency the lower the energy.

 

What that means is that red shifting is simply a loss of energy.

It can result from two objects moving away from each other but that is not the only way to lose energy between two points.

 

While I have no problem with a theory that says things are moving away from us and that is the cause of all the redshift it also results in a huge amount of problems as well.

We need dark energy to explain some things. To satisfy other problems we need to introduce dark matter. Now we need to introduce a cosmological constant that causes an acceleration in the expansion of the universe. All well and good mind you. It doesn't explain the formation of old galaxies observed by looking at highly redshifted objects that take longer to form than current theory says it takes to form. So this needs to be revised as well.

All this goes back to one basic assumption: That the redshift is purely due to doppler effect and no other possibility.

 

We dismiss the possibility of light losing energy due to an undiscovered phenomena called X.

Then when anyone refers to phenomena X we ask for proof.

All the while building a sand castles from other unproven concepts.

Which is simpler to imagine:

1) That there is an invisible energy source, invisible matter and the universe is accelerating away from itself against gravity due to some unknown phenomena.

or

2) The is something we don't know about the properties of light that may make it lose energy over cosmological distances.

 

Yet, we dismiss the attempts by anyone deciding to base a model of the universe on (2). We only fund research on model (1).

 

My personal opinion is that there is a huge religious push for (1).

God said, let there be light and BIG BANG there was light.

 

Now I'm not saying (1) is wrong. That is crazy as there is no proof of that especially since it keeps getting adapted meet to observations.

What I am saying is that (2) may not be wrong and it needs to be seriously looked at as well.

 

I think this is about the first reasonably in-depth reply, in I-don't-know-how-long-on-discussion-forums, that I have read on these matters for which I would say I absolutely agree throughout. Doubtless, alphaToOmega and I will clash in due course, though (as is the way of these things).:wicked:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have no problem with disagreement.

Science is based on that very concept.

The theory that provides the most reliable consistent predictions is the one that should be used.

 

My issue is that some alternatives are not being seriously looked at because one theory is supported and investigated more than another which seems to me a case for it being assumed correct thus alternatives must therefore be wrong. This leads to there being no funding for alternative theories which naturally cannot get further developed. Then because they are not as developed they are ridiculed.

 

Currently we are accepting that there is an energy source that magically causes the accelerating expansion of the Universe while the concept of light losing energy in some other manner is discounted. One assumes an unknown energy source that is increasing. The other assumes that there light may lose energy due to an as yet unknown reason.

Both are unknowns. One involves the loss of energy in a system the other assumes energy coming from nowhere.

I'm sure there will now be a theory developed to try and explain where this magical energy is coming from but there will be none to develop a theory for why light may lose energy at cosmological distances.

I have not yet seen any theory that proves that light cannot lose energy at cosmological distances. Which means this is still in the realm of possibility. That being the case, why is it not being taken seriously?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thankyou, BAA, for being honest, both intellectually to us in the forum and to me personally. It puts you above the vast majority of professional cosmologists, in my estimation.

You say, He's directed me to sites displaying many scientific papers, none of which appear to be peer-reviewed>>

-- and I can tell you that, although the sites themselves weren't presenting a selection of work that was itself filtered by peer review, all the papers I referred you to (with the possible exception of Marmet's, who was such a highly respected spectroscopist at the University of Ottawa -- until he got sacked for being critical of relativity -- that I shouldn't worry) were either peer-reviewed or -- as in the case of the classic Burniston Brown piece that everyone here should read

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/academ/whatswrongwithrelativity.html

-- were published in journals whose basic criterion for being a contributor is that they are so highly respected in their profession as to be elected to membership of the physics society of whom the journal was a bulletin.

 

The work by Dingle was an academic text book that is on the shelves of the main university physics library here in Oxford -- I found it there; and Herbert Dingle was such a big name that for decades he was the author of the entry on relativity in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.

 

Anyone, with the possible exception of some of the more tunnel-visioned types, who has been in academe knows what a loathesome, totalitarian, funding-orientated mafia-style setup peer review really is.

 

With Google, BAA, the world of truth is your oyster. Go ahead and use it.

 

Hello Paradox.

 

I appreciate your kind words, but I still don't think you've grasped the nature of the problem I'm stuck with. Perhaps I've conveyed myself inadequately and for that I apologize.

 

Right now, my dilemma is even more acute because you've shown me that both options are peer-reviewed and therefore (on the face of it) equally trustworthy.

I'm not 'in academe', so I have no personal experience of the loathsome, totalitarian, funding-oriented, mafia-style setup you talk about.

 

Please try and see this from my p.o.v., not yours.

 

Here's a worked example.

I can train my 8" Dobsonian telescope on M31, the Andromeda galaxy, which according to 'the establishment' is about 2.5 million lightyears from us. Now let's suppose that one of these peer-reviewed, anti-Einstein papers that I find on Google claims that this is wrong and the true distance is 5.5 million lightyears away. How could I tell which claim is the true one? Both are peer-reviewed and (apparently) equally trustworthy. Even if I hire time on one of the much larger telescopes that are available to amateurs, how do I know that the data that's being fed thru to my home computer is bona fide or bogus? Or if I go to a Star Party and ask someone with a 25" or 32" scope to measure the red shift from M31's light for me, it's almost certain that they'll be toeing the 'establishment' line too - so their input is immediately suspect. I don't think it's too extreme to say that any NASA, ESA or academe site I can check out on the Internet will be giving me the orthodox 'establishment' line too. They hold all the cards.

 

So Paradox, it looks like you're putting me in an impossible situation.

 

There appear to be two competing bodies of information that I have no way of differentiating, pro and anti-Einstein.

Both are peer-reviewed, both come from respected sources and both are equally closed to me, for the reasons I thought I'd explained.

(I do not have the necessary brainpower to chew thru the formulae and the equations. I cannot check for errors or oversights or the 'fudging' of anything. I can't test anything like this for myself. Most of it's gobbledegook to me and so I rely on the trustworthiness of the source.)

 

I have to decide between these two opposing, but equally viable positions.

Whatever peer-reveiwed info I Google, wether it be pro or anti-Einstein is still closed to me.

I have no independent means of testing any of it for myself.

I seem to have no way of checking the veracity of your (conspiracy) claims either.

 

Do you now understand the bind I'm in. Please confirm that I've made myself clear or if I haven't, please say where and what I should clarify.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All I can say, BAA, is that it is for you to decide whether or not relativity is correct. Personally I think it is very simple to show why it is not, and I have demonstrated how. It's a matter of trusting one's intuitions. You might want to put your doubts to people who have been associated with the Natural Philosophy Alliance. Many of them have a very good vantage points from which to view all these these issues in a balanced way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Relativity is correct for non cosmological distances.

For cosmological distances we have no way of actually knowing yet but the camp gets divided between supporters, detractors and those who refuse to make a decision either way until they have enough evidence to decide one way or the other.

Peer reviewed does not mean right btw.

It simply means that qualified professionals in that particular field of study have reviewed the paper submitted and have not found any obvious flaws with its logic, assumptions and calculations.

That's it. It does not claim the paper is right, that its conclusions are right or anything with respect to its validity except that its not using basic flaws or incorrect maths or logic in analysis.

There is also another problem with peer reviewed and that is you are not guaranteed that the data obtained was correct. IOW, its possible to basically fudge or invent data to prove what you want. The reviewers have to accept your data as being valid unless there is some obvious problem. They can check that the paper analysed the data correctly by use of maths and statistics but they cannot verify the integrity of the data itself.

If you rely on one seminal peer reviewed paper then what you are relying on is unverified data.

This is just the basic facts of the process and there is no way around it nor should there be as it would otherwise bog down research.

 

What happens after a peer reviewed paper is published is that someone will repeat the experiment. Then we get independently verifiable results.

When you have a paper that has reached that level then you are getting into the serious stage. Prior that its basically a qualifier to be taken seriously.

 

That particular stage is what I have trouble with. If funding is not made available or alternative theory research is frowned upon then no one will do the follow up.

What you're left with is a peer reviewed paper that has not been independently verified and simply will not be taken seriously.

 

Note that doesn't mean the current mainstream theory is wrong. It doesn't mean alternative theories are wrong. Nor does it mean either is right.

What it means is that the alternatives have little foundation to stand on to be taken seriously.

 

There is no reason for example that relativity is correct even for cosmological distances (my position) yet we live in a stationary Universe.

The two are not mutually exclusive positions.

 

Hope that helps explain the situation in science bornagainathiest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Relativity is correct for non cosmological distances.

 

A-to-O, The only part of your post that I disagree with is the first sentence (above).

 

Relativity is a theory; either the logic works or it doesn't. I have shown, many times over on this forum, why it doesn't.

 

Also I can't decide from your earlier posts whether or not you reject tired light theory (likewise, Halton Arp).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.