![big-bang-8[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/big-bang-81.jpg?quality=83)
New evidence, based on detailed measurements of the size and brightness of hundreds of galaxies, using The Tolman test for surface brightness, indicates that the Universe is not expanding after all. I’m betting that somewhere, some activist is trying to figure out an angle to blame climate change. (h/t to Roy Spencer)
From Sci-News.com: Universe is Not Expanding After All, Scientists Say
In their study, the scientists tested one of the striking predictions of the Big Bang theory – that ordinary geometry does not work at great distances.
In the space around us, on Earth, in the Solar System and our Milky Way Galaxy, as similar objects get farther away, they look fainter and smaller. Their surface brightness, that is the brightness per unit area, remains constant.
In contrast, the Big Bang theory tells us that in an expanding Universe objects actually should appear fainter but bigger. Thus in this theory, the surface brightness decreases with the distance. In addition, the light is stretched as the Universe expanded, further dimming the light.
So in an expanding Universe the most distant galaxies should have hundreds of times dimmer surface brightness than similar nearby galaxies, making them actually undetectable with present-day telescopes.
But that is not what observations show, as demonstrated by this new study published in the International Journal of Modern Physics D.
The scientists carefully compared the size and brightness of about a thousand nearby and extremely distant galaxies. They chose the most luminous spiral galaxies for comparisons, matching the average luminosity of the near and far samples.
Contrary to the prediction of the Big Bang theory, they found that the surface brightnesses of the near and far galaxies are identical.
Full story: http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-universe-not-expanding-01940.html
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Physicist Luboš Motl isn’t impressed:
It is quite a bold claim but not shocking for those who have the impression based on the experience that these journals published by World Scientific are not exactly prestigious – or credible, for that matter. The sloppy design of the journal website and the absence of any TEX in the paper doesn’t increase its attractiveness. The latter disadvantage strengthens your suspicion that the authors write these things because they don’t want to learn the Riemannian geometry, just like they don’t want to learn TEX or anything that requires their brain to work, for that matter.
…
The point of the paper is that the expanding Universe of modern cosmology should be abandoned because there is a simpler model one may adopt, namely the static, Euclidean universe. Their claim or their argument is that this schookid-friendly assumption is completely compatible with the observations. In particular, it is compatible with the observations of the UV surface brightness of galaxies.
Read more of what he has to say here: http://motls.blogspot.com/2014/05/claims-universe-is-not-expanding.html#more
The cartoon I published Friday might be prescient.
The paper:
UV surface brightness of galaxies from the local universe to z ~ 5
Int. J. Mod. Phys. D DOI: 10.1142/S0218271814500588
Eric J. Lerner, Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc., USA Renato Falomo, INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy Riccardo Scarpa, Instituto de Astrofısica de Canarias, Spain
The Tolman test for surface brightness (SB) dimming was originally proposed as a test for the expansion of the universe. The test, which is independent of the details of the assumed cosmology, is based on comparisons of the SB of identical objects at different cosmological distances. Claims have been made that the Tolman test provides compelling evidence against a static model for the universe. In this paper we reconsider this subject by adopting a static Euclidean universe (SEU) with a linear Hubble relation at all z (which is not the standard Einstein–de Sitter model), resulting in a relation between flux and luminosity that is virtually indistinguishable from the one used for ΛCDM models. Based on the analysis of the UV SB of luminous disk galaxies from HUDF and GALEX datasets, reaching from the local universe to z ~ 5, we show that the SB remains constant as expected in a static universe.
A re-analysis of previously published data used for the Tolman test at lower redshift, when treated within the same framework, confirms the results of the present analysis by extending our claim to elliptical galaxies. We conclude that available observations of galactic SB are consistent with a SEU model.
We do not claim that the consistency of the adopted model with SB data is sufficient by itself to confirm what would be a radical transformation in our understanding of the cosmos. However, we believe this result is more than sufficient reason to examine this combination of hypotheses further.
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woops……..
Excess atmospheric CO2 is warping the minds of scientists – it is settled, and much worse than we thought.
Well… I was told right here that there is no motion between between the stars, rather ONLY space expansion. Based on that assertion of semantics, the Universe is static and only space is growing. pshaww! This is an article sure to get 200 comments. Traffic must be down. I’ll check alexa.
Fred Hoyle went to his grave denying the “expanding universe” theory.
There has been some chatter that the speed of light, which is constant, may have been different during the very early stages of the initial inflation.
The physicists aren’t always right.
I do know that Einstein thought that continents could not move vast distances, that Lord Kelvin thought that the earth could not be older than a few tens of millions of years old, that Alvarez thought that volcanism had little to do with the general demise of the dinosaurs, and that John Cook thinks that 97% of scientists publishing in climate science journals believe that climate sensitivity to c02 is high.
I don’t claim any scientific knowledge on this subject, but I have always thought that the standard model for the “creation” of The Universe is bunkers. First of all you cannot address an object like The Universe as “The Universe” as you cannot define anything you know little about and most of all the extent. We simply do not know “the extent”. In fact The Universe may be limitless. Secondly nobody can convince me that the mass of even what is known of The Universe could come out of a pea size body more or less exactly 13.7 (or whatever it is) billion years ago. Thirdly nobody has been able to point out where the centre is from which The Universe is expanding. If Mother Earth is not the centre then surely everything would not be moving away from us. Some stars and constellations would mover towards us. Maybe we are the centre of The Universe as old religion will have us believe. The “creation of The Universe” idea may also be a remnant of religion. It has to have been created thorough a Big Bang, but who then created the tiny pea shaped body preceeding and being at the centre of the creation process?
Just come back from a cruise & we almost fell off the edge of the Earth. I always knew it was flat but no one would believe me.
So no Big Crunch or Big Freeze or Big Rip. Black Holes ?
The “Red Shift” must have turned into another color!
Despite the questionable nature of this paper it does help show that real science is never settled and real scientists never fear challenges to current dogma.
I don’t understand why this is a big deal. Doesn’t everyone know the world is flat, carried on the back of four elephants that are standing on the back of a turtle swimming through the cosmos?
Sorry to say, but Luboš’ comments, at least those posted here, are shallow substance-free disparagements. Maybe the paper is wrong, maybe it’s right. Maybe the data are inaccurate somehow, or mean something different than what the authors describe. But it looks like an honest effort.
All things being equal I’m going with Luboš Motl. But I don’t think that how a website is designed, has anything at all to do with whether or not the universe is expanding. Lubos just needs to get those snide remarks in.
REPLY: Well what’s funny is that his website (Luboš) crashed my Firefox browser when I visited it this morning. – Anthony
I observe a flat earth with a blue dome over it, at least during the day time. It’s that black dome with twinkling things all over it that throws me – but the earth is still flat no matter what coloured dome it has over it.
It’s turtles all the way down…
“In fact The Universe may be limitless”
See Olbers’ Paradox.
Earl;. no its CO2 which is colourless so the red shift is not happening but as CO2 increases so does the expansion of the universe, because heat causes things to expand. Can I please have £200,000 to investigate this further?
Pat Frank says:
May 25, 2014 at 9:41 am
Sorry to say, but Luboš’ comments, at least those posted here, are shallow substance-free disparagements.;
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Read his whole comment. Once he gets past his ire, he has criticisms that are devastating. His point that their theory doesn’t explain red shift which they shrug off as being caused by “something else” (but they don’t know what) pretty much kills the paper by itself, but so do the other points he makes.
Is this a chance to air the “Flydlbee hypothesis” of the universe?
They say that equal quantities of matter and antimatter were created by the Big Bang, but the anti-matter “disappeared”. No explanation given. There has recently been an experiment to see how anti-matter moves in a gravitational field, but no results have been published as far as I know.
I predict that anti-matter will be repelled by the gravitational field of ordinary matter – it’ll fly upwards.
In that case, immediately after the Big Bang, matter and antimatter would have separated like oil and water, and half of the galaxies we see would be made of antimatter. The total gravitational field of the universe would be nil, and the rate of expansion would be constant since the Big Bang.
Matter and antimatter galaxies would never collide any more than two North poles of a magnet will ever collide. The age of the universe will be rather different from our present calculations.
Just an idea!
the universe is eternal and infinite………..claims of the big bang or any “creation” are just silly……
@ur momisugly John Peter :
“The “creation of The Universe” idea may also be a remnant of religion. It has to have been created thorough a Big Bang, but who then created the tiny pea shaped body preceeding and being at the centre of the creation process?”
——
Here on Planet Earth, we are conditioned from birth to “know” that everything has a beginning and an ending.
But … who’s to say the universe had a beginning and/or will have an ending? Perhaps it has simply always been, and will forever be.
Various scientists tell us there was a beginning, the Big Bang. Although there may be some merit to this belief, the honest reaction is … perhaps so, perhaps no.
Various religions teach of a Creator. Once again, although there may be some merit to this belief, the honest reaction is … perhaps so, perhaps no.
Until such time as either can fully explain the conditions immediately preceding the event that supposedly “began” it all, both are conjectural. Thus, one wonders what all the fuss is about.
If one chooses to take sides, that choice relies upon one’s basic philosophy of life and beliefs flowing therefrom … not at all unlike the debate surrounding the euphemistically labelled “climate change”.
Cheers all.
As I understand from the LHC , the proton and antiproton have exactly the same mass (to about 10 d.p.s) and so experiences the same force from gravity (i.e. attractive) Antimatter only seems to be of the opposite charge, all other things being equal.
Wow. These guys are playing “dunk tank” and they’re sitting in the chairs.
Tom Trevor says:
May 25, 2014 at 9:41 am
All things being equal I’m going with Luboš Motl. But I don’t think that how a website is designed, has anything at all to do with whether or not the universe is expanding. Lubos just needs to get those snide remarks in.
REPLY: Well what’s funny is that his website (Luboš) crashed my Firefox browser when I visited it this morning. – Anthony
My Firefox browser is crashing continuously.
Must be due to the fact that Fire Fox management simply ignores political correctness and submission to any consensus.
This is plain sabotage.
“In this paper we reconsider this subject by adopting a static Euclidean universe (SEU) with a linear Hubble relation at all z…”
That is why the preservation of original, unadjusted data is important. The preservation of raw data allows later scientists (and sometimes even amateurs) to make observations and discoveries not presently entertained within the prevailing paradigm or current theories.
Thank you for bringing this abstract about the static Euclidean universe. WUWT is such a pistol, I never know what I will find. (:
The Big Bang theory already has anomalies. Even though astronomers don’t put it like that. This would just be another. Even if true, I am pretty sure that by itself this would not refute the theory.
They will find an explanation.
Off the top of my head, from memory, here are other anomalies, explanations for which have been given
– Cosmic Background Radiation is too uniform that it should be
– some quasars have red-shifts > 1; they aren’t randomly distributed; they are just weird
– gravity waves not discovered (recent study was retracted, basically)
– not enough time since the BB to form a galaxy, much less galactic super-clusters
– superficial spectroscopy of early stars does not show different composition than later stars
– temperature of inter-galactic space had to be down-graded
– a few quasars sort of appear to be connected to galaxies which have a different red-shift than the galaxies
-sun produces too few neutrinos
btw ASFAIK astronomers have skills that take many years to acquire. They respond to their critics. Their job is incredibly difficult and pain-staking.
in contrast to you know who…
btw, I am totally agnostic on the Big Bang