![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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OK, maybe Fred Hoyle was right after all, but whether there was a Big Bang or not, the answer won’t have us putting up silly wind turbines and solar panels all over the place to try and make it stop. Let the cosmologists have their harmless fun.
Comment on Mr Peter’s comment above, Hello. Mr Peter wrote “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.” Convincing Individuals does not render a claim true or false. In this case skepticism reveals a lack of effort on the commenter’s part to keep abreast of 20th and 21 century developments in cosmology and the mind-bending geometries and tough non-intuitive maths . There are plenty of interesting and well written layman’s reviews out there that explain the fallacy in Mr Peter’s next objection: “Thirdly nobody has been able to point out where the center is from which The Universe is expanding”. He here is doubtful of an assertion that has not been made, on the quite logical assumption that if something is growing, expanding outward in all directions there must be a central focus which can be calculated, like a spherical balloon will have a radius, say 2 inches then 4 inches from some point in the middle of the balloon. The usual metaphor to get over this misunderstanding is to imagine our 3-d spherical (which does by the way “go on forever” that is space is not curved or doughnut or saddle-shaped) universe is embedded in a n-dimensional hyperspace or a 4-d sphere and imagine the 3-d universe is now a 2d surface of that balloon. Where is the center of the expansion to a 2-d global warming skeptic living on a blue planet on the surface of said balloon? Though it would appear to the 2-d denizen that each object is receding equally therefore, she concludes, we are the central point – all that exists emanates outward from here.. So it is for all points in the sky. There is not center, and nothing that the universe is “expanding into”.
Here are a couple of good books:
Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality by Max Tegmark
A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing by Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins
Warped Passages by Lisa Randall
Edge of the Universe: A Voyage to the Cosmic Horizon and Beyond by Paul Halpern
The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origins of the Universe
The Shape of Inner Space: String Theory and the Geometry of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions by Shing-Tung Yau
Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality by Edward Frenkel
A Most Incomprehensible Thing: Notes Towards a Very Gentle Introduction to the Mathematics of Relativity by Peter Collier
Ok more than a couple, sorry, I can’t get enough of this stuff myself. Also if you can get your hands on the audio tapes of The Great Courses (formerly ttc the teaching company) intro to Einstein* it’s a super fantastic listen for those long lonely commutes.
*Einstein’s Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non-Scientists, 2nd Edition
Professor Richard Wolfson
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=153
“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.”
No, of course not. This is as it should be. And yet, if you want proof (I should say more proof) that there’s something rotten in the state of climate science, simply consider the jubilant alacrity with which M. Mann’s LIA and MWP overturning hockey stick was embraced.
I don’t know much about a lot but one thing i do know is doppler redshift. And I can observe it. I know it’s happening, as do far better qualified men than me. So it is with extreme confidence that i call this utter hogwash.
As for what’s at the edge of space? Currently I’m firmly on the brane cosmology bandwagon for no other reason than I like it and it will make for some super special sci-fi novels.
This paper appears to be deeply flawed. Moreover, BICP2 provided the first direct evidence of gravitational waves rippling through the earliest space-time indicating the very early universe underwent a period of faster then light expansion now known as inflation. Inflation by it’s very nature is indeed an expanding universe.
A universe that cannot change cannot happen. Without change, the universe could not have come about and evolved. There would be no stars or planets; therefore no Earth, no climate to change, no IPCC, no Michael Mann and no WUWT!!
“In fact The Universe may be limitless”
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if it isn’t, what do we call that thing that lies between the universe and infinity?
our local universe may of course be finite. formed by the collapse of a star in our parent universe, our universe is the remnant of that star. what we perceive as a black hole is the birth of a child universe. due to acceleration and time dilation the child universe exists near infinitely far in the future of the parent universe, as do all other child universes.
it is time dilation that solves the problem of Olbers’ paradox. the entire process is a fractal, such that each new generation differs from the previous in scale, but not in complexity. like looking a Mandelbrot set, it makes no different how far you zoom in, the complexity remains unchanged. In absolute terms the child is smaller than the parent, but this has no meaning for the child. It cannot be measured.
over time this process leads to a near infinite number of universe, increasing exponentially, where all possibilities are played out. we see this as quantum mechanics.
There has been some doubt for some time as to whether the red shift phenomenon has been interpreted correctly.
If the shift can be accounted for by any mechanism other than expansion of the universe then the big bang theory is under threat.
One possibility is that light travelling through the universe loses some of its speed via interaction with the medium through which it passes.
Unfortunately we cannot detect any such interaction in our restricted locality and so cannot determine whether it exists or not.
As time passes our physicists have noted increasing discrepancies between observations and the basic principle of a universe that is constantly accelerating its expansion. That is the reason for the need to speculate as to the existence of dark matter and antimatter.
Unfortunately there has been no verifiable observation of dark matter or antimatter.
The parallel with so called CO2 induced warming of the Earth is interesting.
Perhaps both established paradigms are wrong ?
zootcadillac says:
May 25, 2014 at 10:44 am
I don’t know much about a lot but one thing i do know is doppler redshift. And I can observe it. I know it’s happening, as do far better qualified men than me. So it is with extreme confidence that i call this utter hogwash.
As for what’s at the edge of space? Currently I’m firmly on the brane cosmology bandwagon for no other reason than I like it and it will make for some super special sci-fi novels.
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http://electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm
Inherent Redshift
Arp believes that the observed redshift value of any object is made up of two components: the inherent component and the velocity component. The velocity component is the only one recognized by mainstream astronomers. The inherent redshift is a property of the matter in the object. It apparently changes over time in discrete steps. He suggests that quasars are typically emitted from their parent galaxies with inherentiredshift values of up to z = 2. They continue to move away, with stepwise decreasing inherent redshift. Often, when the inherent redshift value gets down to around z = 0.3, the quasar starts to look like a small galaxy or BL Lac object and begins to fall back, with still decreasing redshift values, toward its parent. He has photos and diagrams of many such family groupings. Any additional redshift (over and above its inherent value) is indeed indicative of the object’s velocity. But the inherent part is an indication of the object’s youth and usually makes up the larger fraction of a quasar’s total redshift.
In addition, these inherent redshift z values of quasars seem to be quantized! Unusually tight groupings of those calculated values occur centered around values of
z = 0.061, 0.3, 0.6, 0.96, 1.41, 1.96, etc… such that (1+z2) = 1.23(1+z1). [For example, 1.23(1+0.3) = 1.60].
The very existence of this quantization alone, is sufficient proof of the failure of the idea that redshift is only an indicator of recessional speed (and therefore distance). This quantization means (under the redshift equals distance interpretation) that quasars all must lie in a series of concentric shells with Earth at the center of the entire arrangement. Copernicus found out a long time ago that Earth isn’t at the center of anything!
Do you know everything ZootCadillac?
and the universe is infinite. It has to be or you would have something existing in non existence. Draw that on a Venn diagram.
dark matter and dark energy are better described as “we don’t know”.
The universe is not expanding, we are shrinking.
CO2 causes Global Shrinking! We’re dooooomed!!!!!
PS and that means the red shift is due to light loosing a minute amount of energy over vast amounts of time.
I have been watching this group of scientists (http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/) for several years and have been very impressed with their advances in fusion that have real promise to provide cheap , clean power in the near future. Dr. Lerner seems well informed and grounded in sound science.
The missing pieces of the puzzle are “dark matter” and “dark energy”, which both strike me as band-aid hypotheses proposed to preserve the Big Bang theory, in spite of pretty clear conflicting evidence (eg. non-Newtonian rotation of galaxies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_rotation_curve). The real test will be if this new paper’s hypothesized non-expanding universe can lead to a consistent explanation for 1) red shift with distance and 2) a changing physical laws (like gravitational attraction) at great distance, both of which are needed to square the theory with observations. There is also the small issue of the microwave background which needs to be explained absent a big bang.
Static? That does not make sense. It is either expanding, contracting, or getting ready to contract. I think the current thinking is the universe is open and will continue to expand. The alternative is it is closed and will eventually reverse and contract – possibly into another big bang.
Steady state just does not work.
There are interesting questions about weather 14 billion years is long enough for the big bang to have evolved into the universe we see. I frankly don;t have a clue.
Our Universe exploded into a pre-existing Universe. The stars we see at the fringes of our universe are in fact remnants of the pre-existing universe that had almost reached a point of contraction. I thought everyone knew this?
😉
Steve Fitzpatrick says:
May 25, 2014 at 11:23 am
“(eg. non-Newtonian rotation of galaxies: ”
A possible non-Dark-Matter explanation for that could be turbulences in the galactic magnetic field.
Transfer of angular momentum; magnethydrodynamics simulations.
The idea comes from the question of why accretion disks can form under densities that rule out collisions.
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~jstone/disks.html
From the article:
“ In addition, the light is stretched as the Universe expanded, further dimming the light.”
This “stretch”, is this not Doppler shift?
Doppler shift affects the frequency(color) of the light.
How does it “dim” the light?
@John Peter
Physicists ,and in this case astrophysicists, know a lot more about the observable universe than people pontificating and philosophizing in their armchairs. The Big Bang model did not spring out from a science fiction imagination, but it accommodates the great number of observations of the observable universe, with hard numbers not hand-wavings. You sound horrified , like the church, who could not accept the heliocentric system, which was the most economic mathematical mode of those times.
This model they are proposing has serious difficulties with special relativity, which the link to Lubos Motl’s blog above explains, and with cloudy logic : they have nothing that can explain the redshift of the atomic spectra which is used to estimate distances in the general relativity model , but they do use the distances for their euclidean model.
>If Mother Earth is not the centre then surely everything would not be moving away from us.
You are thinking in three dimensional space. We have very good experimental evidence that space is four dimensional, with innumerable experiments and hard numbers. 3 space dimensions and one time dimension are needed to describe the observable universe. It is the theory of special relativity which is continuously validated in our lab experiments.
We each of us are sitting at the center of the universe that started 13.7 billion years ago, the model fits the data. Every point of the observable universe was at the 0 point of the beginning of the Bang. A good analogue is a bread with raisins rising in the oven. The elastic dough expands and blows up, each raisin distancing from each other raisin.. Sitting on a raisin you would see all the others running away from you. A better analogue is a balloon, a soap bubble that starts expanding from a (0,0,0) point. All points on the balloon are expanding away from each other, and all points were at the center of the beginning of the expansion at (0,0,0).
Now we think we have evidence from the first 10^-34 seconds from the beginning, to 10^-32 seconds where the model expects gravitational waves to dominate. At 10^-34 the diameter of the observable universe was 1 meter, not a pea. A lot of physicists are working hard for the quantization of gravity, which, like the quantization of other forces, we expect will give us answers for the (0,0,0,0) .The reason we talk of an explosion is the classical expectation of extrapolating the model to the origin. After 10^-34 seconds “it walks like a [duck], and it quacks like a duck, so we expect it is a duck”.
anna v says:
May 25, 2014 at 11:44 am
“We have very good experimental evidence that space is four dimensional, with innumerable experiments and hard numbers.”
Ok, then please cite one experiment that shows that space is four dimensional.
Anthony – try this URL for Lubos’s website:
http://motls.blogspot.com/?m=1
It removes some clutter from that award winning blog.
Stephen Wilde, I like this:
“One possibility is that light travelling through the universe loses some of its speed via interaction with the medium through which it passes.”
I have thought of this as well,( an ever-expanding universe being untenable to my mind.)
The speed of light, C would be slightly different for red than for blue. The difference being in-detectable except at huge distances.
Though, Einstein I’m not.
1. Since an IE automatic update, WUWT format is fried, but Firefox works for me as expected.
2. Assume Big Bang is OK, with a repulsive force enough to separate all that mass at high(!) speed. As distance grows, the repulsive force may no longer be able to keep all that mass from flying farther apart. Eventually, the Universe reaches an apparent steady state (or shrinks!). That may be where we’re at.
3. Assume energy & matter wave nature of light is correct. On light’s travels for billions of years, it will hit/graze many tiny specs/other light waves and lose some energy. But light keeps traveling t the same speed, so maybe the diminished energy shows up as a red shift. Does red light have the same (or higher/lower) energy as blue light?
Davidmhoffer wrote (May 25, 2014 at 9:53 am):
‘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…’
I don’t think it does. The paper was empirical and did not set out to propose a new theory to explain the authors’ new observations. It cannot be faulted for not doing what it didn’t set out to do.
As the Abstract says, these observations do not refute the expanding universe hypothesis by themselves. Nevertheless if they are valid then they do call it into question.