![big-bang-8[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/big-bang-81.jpg)
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.
P Wilson says:
May 25, 2014 at 7:33 pm
That’s simply not true. We have plenty of observations of the universe, the burden of which, if not in fact all of which, support the BBT. Again, please show the observations which you imagine falsify the BBT or confirm an alternative hypothesis, such as the Steady State. Thanks.
Dire Wolf says:
May 25, 2014 at 5:49 pm
“Time is relative only to the present. It is absolute to the past. The paradox remains.”
Time is relative on all possible frames of reference, including scale. at the scale and reference frame we are preceptive of, the speed of light governs mass and energy.
“The universe can be cyclical only if there is sufficient mass to cause the Big Crunch. That is dependent on the addition of unverifiable (at this time) dark energy and dark matter. Otherwise the universe is headed for the Big Chill (entropic destruction). “
The Universe is not a place in time and space without reference, and our perception of the universe is not a mutual two-way communication. The reality of the universe being observed overrules any paradox.
“But that begs the question of how the universe began.”
The universe began the exact moment the observer was born into a universe of infinite possibilities.
D Johnson said :
“I’d prefer to leave this matter to the physicists. Let’s not weaken the case against CAGW by relating it to unrelated (possibly crackpot) theories by analogy. At least that’s my mindset as an engineer.”
Bingo.
It is redshifted photons that has no traceable source, and to assume that gives evidence of the origin of the universe is like saying that the world began when you were born
P Wilson says:
May 25, 2014 at 7:36 pm
That is a complete & total lie. The BBT was formulated based upon observations by scientists of a wide variety of religious backgrounds & none.
Why would you assert such a blatant falsehood?
ok.. If the universe is not infinite, and is expanding then it has to be expanding into something, so those who say the universe is expanding must know where the state borders are – the frontier, so to speak. Yet there is not border that is known, other than the arbitrary observable universe that cosmologists declare. What do they or we know what is beyond the observables universe?
Regarding the beginning of time: As a mind experiment – try and conceive of a moment that DID NOT precede another moment
P Wilson says:
May 25, 2014 at 7:38 pm
The “source” is traceable both experimentally & theoretically, based upon the well supported physics of Einstein.
Please suggest a better explanation for the observed red shift. Thanks.
@Pete
“Until such time as either can fully explain the conditions immediately preceding the event that supposedly “began” it all, both are conjectural.”
The standard story is that there is no “before” the BB. One version is that that time was somehow wrapped up and then stretched out as the bang started.
Unfortunately, I cannot grasp the idea of a moment of time which does not have a preceding moment.
Nor can I grasp the idea of infinite time, whether past or future. It simply does not fit into my mind.
I can grasp the idea of circular time (which is totally crazy) but I can’t see it just throwing out a tangent to infinity.
But, alas, there does not seem to be a law of nature that the universe should be comprehensible to RoHa. Or vice versa.
P Wilson says:
May 25, 2014 at 7:41 pm
That we can at present only dimly if at all view beyond the event horizon doesn’t mean that the event horizon or whatever might lie beyond it doesn’t exist. The language of science is math & the math for M String Theory works.
Just saying that we don’t “know” something doesn’t mean it does not or cannot exist. We have to go with evidence & theory not yet falsified. Baseless conjecture is at present all that opponents of the BBT have.
That we measure time since the BB doesn’t mean that time in general began then. Why are these concepts so hard to grasp?
P. Wilson. I like your reasoning. Go to the edge of the universe to see the beginning of the big bang before it “exploded”. So, it the universe expanding or are we contracting?
Andyj says:
May 25, 2014 at 7:45 pm
Can you really not understand that dark matter includes both ordinary matter that we previously could not detect & other forms of matter which physics predicts but are hard to detect?
You are making no sense & apparently trying to ignore all the actual science I’m trying to teach you.
Not that it’s relevant, but no, my considered opinion is that catastrophic anthropogenic climate alarmism is at best unjustified. How can you possibly imagine that my viewing the BBT as a well supported theory in any way would predict my opinion on catastrophic man-made global warming, which I consider not just unscientific but actively anti-scientific?
it also means that there might not have been a sudden big bang that saw the beginning of the universe, and that the smoking gun of Big Bang – background cosmic microwave radiation, was an ever present factor. It could be that our part of the universe experienced some major even, but preceded by a deflation in our part of the universe billions of light years earlier, whilst elsewhere in the universe, other things could have been happening
WE simply don’t know
Milo.. So, you have an object of infinite mass. How much faster than light does it need to explode because time will be essentially static. The BB does not make any sense.
It’s a self propagating Oxymoron.
Andyj says:
May 25, 2014 at 7:48 pm
I assert that it is infinite in time and space, and has no centre of dimension therefore. If it is infinite in space that it had no origin and was simply always there
RoHa says:
May 25, 2014 at 7:46 pm
It’s not true that there is no “before” the Big Bang. That state is difficult to study or even theorize about, but quantum physics proceeds where relativity dares not to tread.
milo you cannot teach me what you have no comprehension of. I wish you stop parroting those daft theories and just enjoy the thought processes.
Milo. What rate of time for an near infinite mass? Answer:
Infinitely slow. So time is speeding up now.
and if time is speeding up, what happens to “old” light?
What I’d give to make this be the case. Just to watch those who are “in the know” do back flips to make the new scientific reality fit their ideology; so they can go back to being smug and mock those who don’t accept it.
P Wilson says:
May 25, 2014 at 7:51 pm
WE simply didn’t “know” a lot of things before science started looking for explanations.
P Wilson says:
May 25, 2014 at 7:53 pm
Please offer your evidence for this faith-based belief. All the actual evidence observed in nature says you’re wrong.
Now it could be that the existence of spacetime itself is eternal & infinite, but that too would be entirely conjectural at this point. The bits & pieces thereof which we can actually observe however do seem to begin in an expansion. Your “explanation” explains none of these observations or their coincidence with the equations of relativity & quantum mechanics.
Modern physics is math gone mad. There is no sense, only logic. When logic fails, then it is both a wave and a particle, existing an infinite states, that disappears when you open the box.
For those with problems understanding the expansion, I’m pretty sure Carl Sagan’s old balloon analogy is the simplest way to look at it. It might be an overly simplistic model, but it helps to conceptualize things. Picture a closed two-dimensional universe as a balloon, where the surface of the balloon is “space” and the radius of the balloon is time. As the balloon inflates, it expands in the direction of time. Expansion of our universe would be identical, but with one additional dimension. As the universe expands, it isn’t expanding into some previously unoccupied “space” – the expansion is time.
Andyj says:
May 25, 2014 at 7:54 pm
What you call daft theories are actually the best explanation for observations of the actual universe. IMO daft is rejecting the evidence. Not daft would be trying to come up with a better explanation, which you can’t.
Why would you suppose that I have not thought about the observations made by scientists? Agreeing with the best explanations isn’t parroting but participating in the conversation by which understanding is advanced.
You OTOH have nothing but blind faith easily shown false by observations of reality.
You are parroting and peddling other peoples theories. Little on the theories of the BB make any sense when scrutinised. Each time they come across a problem with the existing theory they invent another theory to leap over the hurdles of reality. It’s getting daft and boring. Like this thread.
One lad here has put this in a nutshell. I’ll modify it a little:-
My religion is holier than thou.
P.Wilson. I’ve little (nothing) to say against what you say here.
here we go calling scepticism faith, when I’ve already pointed out that the consensus creates notions and theories to support it’s conjectures.
we do not know that CMR infers big bang. we use it to do so. It could be that the infinite universe has this infinite uniform heat, for an infinite period of time, (in our observable universe) and always has way before any such biblical origin as a Big Bang.