![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.
I really love wuwt on most thread people are just yelling at each other but here they are well thought out and a pleasure to read.
For a full explanation of our new results and background on the many other observational problems with the ever-popular “concordance cosmology” I invite readers to visit http://www.lppfusion.com. You’ll find there access to the full text of our peer-reviewed paper with all the data and math. You’ll also find the links between research in astrophysics and cosmology and our effort to develop fusion as a source of cheap, clean energy on earth.
I would note that Motl does not critique our surface brightness data that indicate that the universe is not expanding. He only is interested in stating that general relativity “proves” that the universe must expand. But the scientific method does not work that way. You can refute theory with observation—but you can’t refute observations with theory unless you want to throw out the scientific revolution and go back to Ptolemy and Aristotle. Maybe Motl does.
davidmhoffer says:
May 25, 2014 at 9:53 am
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.
Sorry David, this does not sound reasonable to me.
To my understanding they tried to cross-check the the theory based on its prediction.
And it looks to me that its predictions were not confirmed.
There are other contradictions too – cosmos at least 250 times bigger than visible universe:
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/422579/cosmos-at-least-250x-bigger-than-visible-universe-say-cosmologists/
and for red shift there might be an explanation, as per the below paper, not sure if there have been any further developments on this?
http://vixra.org/pdf/1105.0010v1.pdf
Um, I’ve talked to extraterrestrials (don’t start!) and, indeed, the dimness of the galaxies furthest out, is indeed (stop repeating, Tom), yes, global warming. You see, the galaxies farthest away are the oldest; obviously because they’ve had time to travel farther. Therefore, those intelligent beings on those planets in those galaxies are also older; much older and wiser than us. And, millenniums ago they discovered that their own CO2 emissions (from their own SUVs, suburban homes, and AC) were going to destroy their own planets. So, millenniums ago, they instituted their own versions of our Earth Day. Naturally, of course, their languages are different so their planets have names other than Earth. So, some of their Earth Days are actually called: Meiorstupideeopoly Twit; Imbeciliousimore Twiddly; Moronimax Dee; Minibraincellem Twiddly; Jupiter Dum (ok, I’ll stop, and yes, they actually do have a planet called Jupiter – what a coincidence).
Anyway, just like us, they decided to turn their electric lights off (see where I’m going with this?) on their own versions of Earth Day. (P.S. I wonder if there’s a reason Earth Day is never called Earth Night?) Anyway, with time, they realized the incredible, mind-blowing, wisdom of this action, and decided to keep their lights off permanently. And that, is why the farthest away galaxies are actually dimmer.
Ok, changing the meme: Wouldn’t a static universe actually be a dead one? Ah, but it would be sustainable. Perhaps science has fashions too.
Universe is Not Expanding After All
But to say this makes absolutely no sense. The very nature of space requires that it either be expanding or contracting. It cannot remain static while matter is flying all about. So whatever they found it is almost certainly not evidence for a static universe.
MarkG says:
See Olbers’ Paradox.
OP does not preclude an infinite U.
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Stephen Wilde says:
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.
c travels at different speeds depending on the medium. Recently photons have been slowed down to inches per second. Max c only applies in a vacuum.
A few thoughts – All should be critiqued or improved as future readers see fit.
1. I have great reservations about any “Theory” that requires 90% of the material in the universe, and 80% of the forces controlling that invisible and visible material to be both “invisible and undetectable” simply because the “mathematics’ (itself undecipherable and invisible and invoking many undetectable dimensions!) requires it. Today’s culture requires (demands!) that we trust the High Priests, regardless of whether we understand them or if they have any proof of anything, with everything. At least in all past religions, the high priests were honest enough to admit who they served. Further, they admitted each “god” they served was their superior and was worthy of their morals and their adoration.
Today? We see today’s priests of total government and Gaea adoring far different things, far different ideals. And no morals at all.
Rather, it is far easier to believe “The Universe was created in the Big Bang (by Something we do not yet understand), and then evolved into what we actually detect and measure now.”
2. A static universe requires very, very little matter to be created constantly. Something, as I recall, on the order of 1 particle per year per cubic kilometer of ’empty” space has to appear from “nothing” (or from “somewhere” else) for the balances to work out.
Hawkings may have worked it out when he points out that the center of black holes may emit particles randomly. If anything can leave a block hole quantumly with ANY probability greater than 0.0, then clearly that particle cannot predict where “it” come out. Nor “when” it will come out and become a “visible” and mass-containing (or mass-measurable) physical object. Regrettably, we are personalizing single particles, but that is a limit of the language we share.
If you must claim “The mathematics doesn’t let anything leave a black hole” then is it not far simpler to “jump” a particle from within a black hole into space than to miraculously create every particle in the universe into a meter-diameter sphere in 10-34 seconds?
Thus, all that is needed is one particle per year per cubic kilometer to show up. If, as claimed, there are block holes several times the weight of the galaxy at the center of every galaxy, and there are billions of galaxies containing trillions of star masses, then one merely needs to determine how particles are required to “jump” from any black hole anywhere into a “real space” …..
Arp must be smiling. This will surely drive Dr. Suzuki into an insane fit. Gore will probably join an ashram in Rishikesh and give up his blotto lifestyle. This also might please Einstein……Such a big universe, so many surprises, we know so little.
Perhaps its because their strings got stretched to the max and these babies don’t break. Also, how long could an expanding universe continue against the molasses-like dark matter! We had a discussion earlier about hard and soft sciences – it seems the hard sciences have been softening over the past half century or more. Surely eventually we will hear a critique by sociologists and post modernist philosophers on this as it would seem to be a subject of the behavior of heavenly bodies.
Of all the theories I’ve heard about the universe, this is the first one I’ve seen that makes such a claim.
Now it could be possible the paper could be full of bologna, but then again you see theories updated and changed all the time.
Now if this study turned out to be accurate, I could imagine the scientific world trying their best to run around the data and come up with new exotic terminology to explain everything like they do now because the other option is to conclude that the universe and everything in it has a creator (at least it doesn’t involve the coining of increasingly exotic quantum-level machinations that tries to fill holes poked in existing origin theories 🙂 ).
Oh and they haven’t mentioned the ‘red shift’ which is clearly evident in climate science and policy. They may be hiding the shift.
The universe doesn’t have to be infinite. If it is big enough, everything in it will begin to be replicated, even our entire observable universe.
I reckon that scientists should always keep the possibility that, based on history at least, all current theories about anything could be wrong or at the very least need modifying – the progression of technology adds a dimension that allows for new measurements that can lead to new ideas …..as humans we seem to find comfort in ideas and if we identify with them then, surprise, our identity changes ….
There are a number of people on here who seems to willing to dismiss this theory without having the data to check it and one who dismisses it because someone they respect has dismissed it ! Seems like what a lot of people on here complain about with climate “science”
Some science may never be settled. Other science is, more or less, but only after a long time.
Copernicus proposed that the earth moves in the 16th century. Galileo, Kepler, Newton, et al provided support for the hypothesis in the 17th century. Telescopic observation of light seemed to confirm the theory in the 18th century, but it was not demonstrated objectively true by direct observation of our planet until the 19th century. In the 20th instruments in space can watch its motions in real time.
Here is another set of experimental data the big bang theory has problems to explain:
Mystery over apparent dearth of lithium 7 in universe deepens
(Phys.org)—Researchers studying the cosmos have been stumped by an observation first made by Monique and François Spite of the Paris Observatory some thirty years ago; they noted that in studying the halos of older stars, that there should be more lithium 7 than there appeared to be in the universe. Since that time many studies have been conducted in trying to explain this apparent anomaly, but thus far no one has been able to come up with a reasonable explanation. And now, new research has deepened the mystery further by finding that the amount of lithium 7 in the path between us and a very young star aligns with would have been expected shortly after the Big Bang, but doesn’t take into account the creation of new amounts since that time. In their paper published in the journal Nature, Christopher Howk and colleagues suggest the discrepancy is troubling because it can’t be explained with normal astrophysics models.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-09-mystery-apparent-dearth-lithium-universe.html#jCp
anna v says:
May 25, 2014 at 11:44 am
@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.”
How pleasant for the rest of us that you have posted again. I haven’t seen your posts in years.
Rather than behaving like the medieval church, I think some of us are just celebrating the fact that there is more of a give and take in physics than in climate science. Freeman Dyson has said as much. Do not expect us to swarm in mass away from the Big Bang Theory.
Lerner has been fighting the Big Bang Theory for years. I ran his book back in the 90’s.
http://bigbangneverhappened.org/
My thoughts on the bigbang theory (for amusement) is simple, the whole universe is E=mc2. Basically, all galaxies tend to form in pairs, so a pair or pairs of galaxies far off in the distance would be moving away from each other as they are much older, and the older they are the further apart they are which gives the impression of an expansion, galaxies nearer to us which have formed more recently such as our milky way and the Andromeda galaxy would give an impression that the universe is static, depending on how you count this difference the outcome will change.
Galaxies are formed from two or more giant black holes (Dark matter) when two giant black holes are attracted to each other they begin to destroy each other, the closer they move toward each other until they collide and whats left eventually begins moving away again.
Therefor the universe is both constantly expanding or static AND contracting, although we can’t see the contraction due to this part of the process being done by massive black holes or ‘Dark Matter’ and we can not see them until they have collided or are in the process of colliding. (c) Sparks~
(P.S no steeling my theories 🙂 )
I don’t at all get the assertion that “the Big Bang theory tells us that in an expanding Universe objects actually should appear fainter but bigger.” The article seems to imply that because space is expanding that objects in space will expand or stretch out as well. As far as I’m aware, that has never been thought to be the case since gravity easily defeats any expansion of objects at the smaller scales. For example, according to my quick calculations, the Hubble constant should cause matter on opposite sides of the Sun to move apart at 0.26 millimeters per day. That would have no influence on the size of the Sun, since such a tiny rate is canceled out by gravity.
The comments at Sci-news are fun. In one, Astro-82 is outraged that someone has claimed dark energy, black holes, and neutron stars don’t exist. I’ll grant that dark energy may not exist, he splutters, but black holes and neutron stars have been ALL BUT directly observed.
That’s just super…
Bit like the Higgs boson then.
And quarks.
And gluons.
And strings.
And so on.
@ur momisugly Bill Taylor, @ur momisugly ferdberple, @ur momisugly Kelvin Vaughn, @ur momisugly dbstealey,
Regarding the infinity/eternity of the universe, there are logical problems. If the universe is eternal (that is, has always existed) then there is an infinite number of moments back in time. This leads to the paradox that today can never exist, because no matter how many moments in time pass, there will always be an infinite amount yet to pass before right “now”.
If the universe is infinite in extent (as well as time) then it cannot actually expand. There is nothing for it to expand into. If the universe is finite, then we face the difficulty that there is something beyond the universe that limits it. In either case, the expansion of the universe is contingent on realities beyond our comprehension.
I have always had a hard time with the expanding universe theory. Primarily because of the requirement for dark matter. If dark matter is so prevalent then why don’t we have any here?
Bill Taylor says:
May 25, 2014 at 10:06 am
the universe is eternal and infinite………..claims of the big bang or any “creation” are just silly……
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So why is any hydrogen left? Wouldn’t stars burn it all in an infinite time?
Mencken said that he expected that in a century the reigning scientific paradigms would be as obsolete as the paradigms of a century past.
albertalad says:
May 25, 2014 at 10:50 am
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.
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This is a result that definitely needs confirmation. The signal found was much, much stronger than expected and might well be due to dust scattered by supernovae in our own galaxy. IMHO it’s way to soon to be a believer.