![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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The Big Bang Theory as it was originally proposed by Lemaitre and developed by Einstein, Hawking and others purported to explain the origin of the universe including all time and space. However, that theory contained certain logical absurdities which I have already described and which constitute the “issue” to which I was referring. I have not invented it; it is present in the original theory.
Your argument that the Big Bang Theory does not have to explain the origin of the universe including all time and space may be true but it narrows the scope of the theory arbitrarily to the time after the universe has already come into existence. Thereby it sidesteps the “issue” without addressing it.
I do not wish to argue that there is no universe and I cannot see any reason for your suggesting that I might.
PS: My previous post was a reply to Gamecock
milodonharlani said @ur momisugly May 25, 2014 at 7:43 pm
I was told by a BBT cosmologist that the only explanation for red shift was expansion of the universe. If that is so, then I don’t see how BBT can be “based upon the well supported physics of Einstein”. Gravitational red-shift identified in the spectral lines of Sirius B by Adams in 1925 and definitively verified by the experiments of Pound, Rebka and Snider between 1959 and 1965 (usually taken to be confirmation of GR) can not then be a part of the BBT. Thus BBT is inconsistent with GR.
The Pompous Git says:
May 26, 2014 at 4:49 pm
You’re right that the only explanation that makes sense for the red shift is expansion.
The BBT is consistent with GR, indeed derivable from it. A problem however arises with accelerating expansion. Like John Kerry, Einstein was for accelerating expansion before he was against it. Remains to be seen if he were right the first time, IMO.
http://www.space.com/9593-einstein-biggest-blunder-turns.html
milodonharlani said @ur momisugly May 26, 2014 at 5:11 pm
As an empiricist, I was rather more impressed by Adams observations and Pound, Rebka and Snider’s experiments. Not to mention Vessot et al’s later even more accurate corroboration of gravitational redshift:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1980PhRvL..45.2081V
The worst kind: a big bang denier. I could hardly bare to read it.
Magic Turtle says:
May 26, 2014 at 4:20 pm
Your argument that the Big Bang Theory does not have to explain the origin of the universe including all time and space may be true but it narrows the scope of the theory arbitrarily to the time after the universe has already come into existence. Thereby it sidesteps the “issue” without addressing it.
I do not wish to argue that there is no universe and I cannot see any reason for your suggesting that I might.
===============
There is a universe. It appears to be expanding. A Big Bang explains the universe as we see it.
“it narrows the scope of the theory arbitrarily to the time after the universe has already come into existence.”
There’s nothing arbitrary about it! That’s what the Big Bang Theory does! As I said, it has no need to explain anything other than what it explains. Do you demand that it also explain gingivitis?
The Pompous Git says:
May 26, 2014 at 5:33 pm
I’m impressed, too. Please draw these results to the attention of commenters here who “deny” the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics upon which the BBT-supporting interpretation of the CMB rests, ie the only possible plausible interpretation, unless, as I commented, you assume that the three K background just happened to be born that way.
It would be good if some of you checked out the actual observational evidence against expansion. For a scientist, that weighs a lot more than theory. Visit us at http://www.lppfusion.com, especially the page on “The growing case against the Big Bang”. That has lots of references–to the observations. I’m one of the authors of the paper that started this thread. You can read the paper itself there too.
V. Uil says:
May 26, 2014 at 5:39 pm
There appear to be quite a few BBT d*n**rs on this blog. Which I guess is OK, as it’s a platform for skeptics of all stripes. My only concern is that, as with the creationists who comment here, CACA advocates can use our host’s toleration as a brush with which to tar all CACA skeptics as anti-science kooks.
Which they have no shame in doing, trying to equate opposition to CACA with opposition to evolution.
Gamecock says:
May 26, 2014 at 5:41 pm
This is akin to opponents of evolution who expect scientific explanations for the origin of species to explain the origin of life as well.
elernerigc says:
May 26, 2014 at 6:15 pm
Please, by all means, present here your evidence against an expanding universe. If you can show false the hypothesis that the universe is expanding, I’m all eyes. Thanks.
Just follow the link, friend. I can’t present the evidence in sound bites–but it is all there if you read it–just a click away.
@Patrick Guinness Frank May 25, 2014 at 9:41 am:
“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.”
Good comment. We sometimes need to be reminded that science is NOT the accumulation of data and evidence, but it is rather the INTERPRETATION of those pieces of evidence, in the collective effort to understand the overall meaning of the evidence.
Specific to your comment:
Astronomer Halton Arp has been saying since the 1960s that the Red Shift has nothing to do with the Doppler effect. He has asserted from the beginning of that interpretation for Red Shift that “the data mean something different than what the authors” of the Big Bang “describe.”
It all hinged greatly on quasars back then, because their Red Shifts indicated great distance, while the energy that was reaching Earth was X amount. The interpretation of Red Shift as Doppler effect meant that a quasar galaxy these size of “ONLY” the Solar system was putting out the energy of an entire galaxy of billions of stars.
The alternate interpretation was that the Red Shift was NOT Doppler and that the quasars were actually much, much closer and putting out normal amounts of energy. The astronomers chose Doppler. Arp disagreed, and he has been persona non grata ever since. He was THE expert on unusual objects in the universe – but actually lost his position because he didn’t go along with the consensus.
Arp, in effect, was one of the original “deniers.”
And he is STILL at it.
“””””…..policycritic says:
May 26, 2014 at 4:20 pm
I know they’ve measured the speed of light on the surface of the earth, but has anyone measured the speed of light in space (within the heliosphere)? Just curious……”””””
Yes; in fact one of the earliest estimations was space based. The exact details, I don’t have at my fingertips, but you can find it in various physics texts.
Try gurgling the name Roemer, and see, what you can come up with.
elernerigc says:
May 26, 2014 at 6:33 pm
My view is that if you can’t make a simple declarative statement, then either support it in your own brief words or at least link to that specific point, then it’s not worth my wading through the swamps & thickets without at least a sign post.
Please at least finish this sentence: “I am convinced that the hypothesis of an expanding universe is false because….” Then if need be link to sources supporting each of your reasons for believing this, if you can’t state the reasons in simple declarative sentences yourself.
I could complete the sentence, “I am convinced that the hypothesis of an expanding universe is valid because….” without too much trouble.
Sure” ..because all its predictions are contradicted by observation.” If you want your physics in sound bites–there you are. But if you actually are not too lazy to learn something, just click the link. If you need help finding something in front of your nose, this is on the home page: http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/new-evidence-that-the-universe-is-not-expanding/
elernerigc says:
May 26, 2014 at 7:23 pm
What I find lazy or cowardly is not being able to state your case in a single, simple declarative sentence. Or two or three.
I click on your links, but all I find is drivel. Why are you afraid to state here the basis of your belief instead of falling back on links each of which is easily shown false or at best questionable?
Make your own case, or kindly STFU.
Well I invite others to read what you are indeed too lazy to read. If science consisted of sound bites, what need for published peer-reviewed papers and data to back them up? Did you even read the summary at the start of this thread or was that too long for you?
RACookPE1978 on May 26, 2014 at 1:09 pm
phlogiston says:May 26, 2014 at 12:21 pm
According to superstring theory, all 11 dimensions of the universe were originally internal so that the universe was the size of the Plank length, 10e-33mm (nothing can be smaller than this). Then at the big bang three of the eleven dimensions leaked out and becme spatially extended. So ab initio wasn’t ex nihilo. The universe just needed some elbow-room.
Pardon me, but that is just elegant gibberish that exactly repeats the original comment: The universe started from nothing, if nothing can be smaller be smaller than a Plank’s length. Now, where was ‘everything” before it became “nothing” at 10-34 seconds? If they were “internal” then what were they “internal” of? Because the “11 invisible (invincible ?) dimensions of invisible mathematics” say so is no more valid than “Because the Priest/Warlocks/Inquisition says so”
And less convincing actually than “Let there be light.”
Superstring theory is not intended to solve the metaphysical problem of existence. It’s really just a thought experiment that shows that some of the thorniest problems of physics become dramatically more solvable when you bring in multi-dimensional geometry. Reconciling gravity and quantum mechanics for starters.
“Internal” in string theory means only becoming manifest at around the Plank length. Plenty of things can be internal in that sense when you admit Calabi-Yau multi dimensional manifolds, not to mention the new “non commutative geometry” which does not even require any space.
elernerigc says:
May 26, 2014 at 7:42 pm
I did. My take away was, as I commented, that the hypothesis of Euclidean geometry being useful at both large & ordinary scales didn’t mean that curved spacetime wasn’t valid. I guess I was wrong & that you at least among other authors actually believe that spacetime is indeed Euclidean at all scales.
Now would you kindly state in simple declarative sentences why you think that the universe is not expanding? I have learned from trying to teach that if you can’t do this, then you either don’t understand your subject or don’t really believe what you’re professing.
If you even read the summary you would know that this paper showed that observed surface brightness is constant, as is predicted in a non-expanding universe. In an expanding universe, surface brightness declines sharply with redshift. But that is only one of MANY, MANY contradictions between Big Bang theory and observations. The idea that all science can be reduced to a single sentence is so absurd as to be mind-blowing. Put the evidence for Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism into a single simple declarative sentence.
elernerigc says:
May 26, 2014 at 8:17 pm
The least likely explanation for your observation is that the theory of the expanding universe is false. A series of sentences would be OK. Doesn’t have to be just one. Please state as many as you feel are necessary to show the hypothesis of an expanding universe false. Not to be able to do so is not just lazy but indicates a weak counter-hypothesis.
But Maxwell is easy in one sentence, because JCM did so himself:
“We can scarcely avoid the conclusion that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.”
“The agreement of the results seems to show that light and magnetism are affections of the same substance, and that light is an electromagnetic disturbance propagated through the field according to electromagnetic laws.”
He also summarized his results on a postcard to a colleague.
You can read a series of sentences at this link that I already posted http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/cosmic-connection/plasma-cosmology/the-growing-case-against-the-big-bang/ I understand you may be unfamiliar with this technology, but the link leads to the sentences you are asking for—it just take up less room in this message. People who think that learning can be reduced to sound bites never learn anything. Maxwell’s equations describe a great deal more than the sentences you quoted and he described his discovery and the evidence for it in a many-page publication. But it would take you too long for you to read it, I know. So better rely on a quote form wiki and think you have learned something.
What, by the way, are the “more likely“ explanations that you have arrived at for the observation that surface brightness is constant, as predicted by the non-expanding model?
milodonharlani said: May 26, 2014 at 8:26 pm
Bugger! You beat me to it 🙂
I spent most of the morning noodling around the Interwebs trying to refind a dispassionate overview of various cosmological theories that was a segment of a series of physics lectures. With no success. However, the thrust of the comparison was that no single theory explains all the phenomena. Each theory has shortcomings. Indeed, there is no single BBT, but a series of them, each designed to overcome the shortcomings of the previous theory.
Example: Copernican theory was no better at predicting future states of the solar system than Ptolemaic. It needed the addition of Kepler’s discovery to make it useful. Similarly, BBT has fallen well short until quite recently, but additional ad hoc explanations for such phenomena as large-scale structure, the Great Attractor and CMB Cold Spot appear to save the appearances.
The Git can remember when the CMB was predicted by George Gamow to be 50K rather than the 3K predicted by Sir Arthur Eddington from his measurements of starlight.
elernerigc said @ur momisugly May 26, 2014 at 9:05 pm
I did, albeit with some difficulty. Not as bad as Luboš Motl’s dogs’ breakfast, but far from easy for tired old eyes to read. However, it appears to be a list of problems with BBT rather than a summary of your own theory which is what milodonharlani is asking for and some of us would like to read.
And while I’m at it, milodonharlani has yet to explain how gravitational redshift either doesn’t exist in interplanetary space, although it has been detected both in stars and here on Earth, or if it does exist, how does one distinguish between that and the Doppler redshift caused by expansion?
What’s next?
An iron-rich star having a high redshift?
Redshift is not linear. Well, it is up to a certain distance then it starts to curve. Another tough one for BBT and Einsteinian enthusiasts to get over.
Andyj said @ur momisugly May 26, 2014 at 10:28 pm
You might be better off reading some cosmology before making such a silly comment:
http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/282/3/767.full.pdf
lol@pompous. Prof. Brian Cox on Cosmology showed the world, this famous graph on telly the other week. You can quote any OLD (1996) paper that has no idea what it’s talking about then but we now have empirical data that has now come to light proves otherwise.