# Dark matter and dark energy: Do they really exist?

From the University of Geneva and the “soon we’ll have ‘dark climate’ as a way of explaining the pause” department comes this bit of science which is fascinating, but like future climate predictions, is only as good as the assumptions and input to the model he created. Still, I trust astronomers more than I trust climate scientists, because they don’t have that “save the planet” paradigm going on.

A University of Geneva researcher has recently shown that the accelerating expansion of the universe and the movement of the stars in the galaxies can be explained without drawing on the concepts of dark matter and dark energy

For close on a century, researchers have hypothesised that the universe contains more matter than can be directly observed, known as “dark matter”. They have also posited the existence of a “dark energy” that is more powerful than gravitational attraction. These two hypotheses, it has been argued, account for the movement of stars in galaxies and for the accelerating expansion of the universe respectively. But – according to a researcher at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland – these concepts may be no longer valid: the phenomena they are supposed to describe can be demonstrated without them. This research, which is published in The Astrophysical Journal, exploits a new theoretical model based on the scale invariance of the empty space, potentially solving two of astronomy’s greatest mysteries.

In 1933, the Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky made a discovery that left the world speechless: there was, claimed Zwicky, substantially more matter in the universe than we can actually see. Astronomers called this unknown matter “dark matter”, a concept that was to take on yet more importance in the 1970s, when the US astronomer Vera Rubin called on this enigmatic matter to explain the movements and speed of the stars. Scientists have subsequently devoted considerable resources to identifying dark matter – in space, on the ground and even at CERN – but without success. In 1998 there was a second thunderclap: a team of Australian and US astrophysicists discovered the acceleration of the expansion of the universe, earning them the Nobel Prize for physics in 2011. However, in spite of the enormous resources that have been implemented, no theory or observation has been able to define this black energy that is allegedly stronger than Newton’s gravitational attraction. In short, black matter and dark energy are two mysteries that have had astronomers stumped for over 80 years and 20 years respectively.

A new model based on the scale invariance of the empty space

The way we represent the universe and its history are described by Einstein’s equations of general relativity, Newton’s universal gravitation and quantum mechanics. The model-consensus at present is that of a big bang followed by an expansion. “In this model, there is a starting hypothesis that hasn’t been taken into account, in my opinion”, says André Maeder, honorary professor in the Department of Astronomy in UNIGE’s Faculty of Science. “By that I mean the scale invariance of the empty space; in other words, the empty space and its properties do not change following a dilatation or contraction.” The empty space plays a primordial role in Einstein’s equations as it operates in a quantity known as a “cosmological constant”, and the resulting universe model depends on it. Based on this hypothesis, Maeder is now re-examining the model of the universe, pointing out that the scale invariance of the empty space is also present in the fundamental theory of electromagnetism.

Do we finally have an explanation for the expansion of the universe and the speed of the galaxies?

When Maeder carried out cosmological tests on his new model, he found that it matched the observations. He also found that the model predicts the accelerated expansion of the universe without having to factor in any particle or dark energy. In short, it appears that dark energy may not actually exist since the acceleration of the expansion is contained in the equations of the physics.

In a second stage, Maeder focused on Newton’s law, a specific instance of the equations of general relativity. The law is also slightly modified when the model incorporates Maeder’s new hypothesis. Indeed, it contains a very small outward acceleration term, which is particularly significant at low densities. This amended law, when applied to clusters of galaxies, leads to masses of clusters in line with that of visible matter (contrary to what Zwicky argued in 1933): this means that no dark matter is needed to explain the high speeds of the galaxies in the clusters. A second test demonstrated that this law also predicts the high speeds reached by the stars in the outer regions of the galaxies (as Rubin had observed), without having to turn to dark matter to describe them. Finally, a third test looked at the dispersion of the speeds of the stars oscillating around the plane of the Milky Way. This dispersion, which increases with the age of the relevant stars, can be explained very well using the invariant empty space hypothesis, while there was before no agreement on the origin of this effect.

Maeder’s discovery paves the way for a new conception of astronomy, one that will raise questions and generate controversy. “The announcement of this model, which at last solves two of astronomy’s greatest mysteries, remains true to the spirit of science: nothing can ever be taken for granted, not in terms of experience, observation or the reasoning of human beings”, conclued André Maeder.

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## 379 thoughts on “Dark matter and dark energy: Do they really exist?”

• Scott says:

Chuck:

You have me beat. I didn’t come up with that one until I read all the malarky about “dark” thus and such.

Congrats.

• george e. smith says:

Well Chasmod, you would certainly get my vote.

I have to chuckle when I read about forces that are much stronger than gravitation.

Do people understand just how pitifully miniscule gravitation is ??

A horseshoe magnet is a simple way to experience a familiar attractive force. But it takes a sphere of density about 5 times that of water, and 8000 miles in diameter to pull on my body with a puny 160 lb weight force.

Amazingly, I get the exact same reading when I invert the bathroom scale and read the weight of the earth.
Well I have to stand on the bottom of the scale to get much of any reading at all, but the earth weighs no more than I do.

That’s how utterly weak gravitation is.

It’s also why we aren’t going to see any fusion power plants in our lifetime, or that of our great grandchildren.

I’m sitting on the fence on dark energy and not at all thrilled by dark matter.

Take that other question: Why is there more matter in the universe than there is anti-matter ??

Well it’s related to the question of why electrons are negative charges, rather than positive, so they travel in the opposite direction to the electric current.

So what ideot other than the Science Guy would be so stupid as to name the surviving species ‘ anti-matter ‘ ??

G

1. A C Osborn says:

The standard model actually has more fudges than Climate Science.
This is not the first guy to question it.

• menicholas says:

Not even the first here at WUWT this week.
I expressed by doubts about these ad hoc made up stuffs a few days ago, for the twelfth or so time.

• menicholas says:

In fact I had my doubts about each of these the first time I heard of them.
It seems they were invented almost as soon as a mystery appeared to have reared it’s head, and no one who tried to talk the science down off the ledge has been given any heed whatsoever.
History has a lot of examples of things that were invented to explain something that was mysterious.
Phlogiston anyone?
Epicycles?
Goes on, and the beat goes on…

• Count to 10 says:

Physicists have been trying to get rid of dark energy and dark matter since the two were theorized. So far, they have passed every test of their existence (though every test of their nature has basically come up null).

• Greg says:

If you need to believe in fairies at the bottom of you garden to make your equations work , you probably need to think again. This is such an obvious frig factor that it is an embarrassment that it has been seriously considered for so long.

This new approach looks promising.

• menicholas says:

Count to 10.
I am not a cosmologist by training, but I now a few things.
I am not even a theoretical physicist, but again, I know a few things.
I suppose I dowsed out that stink in these ideas (i.e. I intuited them) without being able to argue with the people who have spent their lives learning all of the nuances of the cosmological orthodoxy.
Judging by the comments here from people I know are smart, I am not the only one.
But I cannot argue with you at your level of acumen on the subject.
I just know what I see and think.

• Count to 10 says:

Greg, here is the problem: there aren’t any alternatives. Physicists have tried all kinds of changes to the fundamental equations, but the only things that fit all the evidence are some varient of dark matter and dark energy.

• gnomish says:

it was the russians.

• Scott says:

It’s just “because”.

We need “dark” stuff. Like giving a name to ignorance helps?

• Phoenix44 says:

Count to 10, saying there isn’t anything else other than the unknown, unproven thing we need to make it work is a nonsensical statement.

• Robert of Ottawa says:

Yes dark energy and dark matter have always struck me as being the modern equivalent of dark epicycles.

• george e. smith says:

Nothing at all wrong with epi-cycles menicholas.

They work perfectly for an earth centered geometry.

G

2. Curious George says:
• Urederra says:

Thanks

• george e. smith says:

For count to 10 I can suggest one very workable alternative.

How about saying ” We don’t know ! ”

Why do we have to drum up some subterfuge every time.

Now if someone tomorrow proposes some experimental test to “discover” dark matter or dark energy, other than to simply make the observations that were made to first propose DM and DE as the cause. Well then I will sit up and take notice. Until then I like it that I don’t know.

G

PS But I find DM and DE much more palatable than ” string theory ”

Something that wiggles cannot be fundamental, it must be made up of smaller sub-units.

• Zimriel says:

They DID say we-don’t-know. They came up with a model, which worked, but it had some ‘dark’ elements for future research. And some direction on how to test for the nature of the ‘dark’ stuff.

It’s the latter that’s getting constrained to oblivion. But that’s okay! That just needs they need a new model.

• LRShultis says:

As far as I know, no single particle has ever shown any sign of having a wave nature. All examples of waves or wiggles are the result of distributions of particle actions, e.g., water waves, sound waves, waviness of strings, waves in diffraction and interference, etc.

• >>
As far as I know, no single particle has ever shown any sign of having a wave nature.
<<

If not, then it would be hard to explain the double-slit experiment using electrons. Fire one electron at a time from a special electron gun, have it pass through a double slit arrangement, and then let it strike a recording phosphor screen. The electron will light up a dot somewhere on the screen, and it looks completely random. But after dozens of trials, a diffraction pattern appears–those random dots aren’t really random. Each single electron must be acting as a wave–passing through both slits and interfering with itself.

Jim

• LRShultis says:

Jim, The particle passes through the double slits as though it passes through a single slit making a single contact with the receiver. As such, there is no indication that the particle is a wave of any type. All waves are made of ensembles of particles, atoms or molecules or elementary particles or photons or gravitons. There is a lot going on in a slit with from the electrons’ fields as a particle passes through that can cause a wave like distribution of particles passing through. A single slit also can show a diffraction pattern due to interference by the particles making up the slit walls.

• Except when you treat the electrons like particles the diffraction pattern disappears. Rerunning the experiment while trying to determine which slit the electrons are passing through results in two vertical blotches–exactly like electrons are particles. It’s only when you don’t observe how the electrons are passing through the slits that you have a diffraction pattern.

Jim

• LRShultis says:

Jim, then how does a one slit experiment produce a diffraction pattern with the particles passing through a single slit, at least that is what happens with photons? As an example of a slit, take your thumb and first finger and hold before your eye with a lighted surface behind them. Notice that when the gap is large that you will see a diffraction pattern at the edges of the fingers. Bring the fingers closer together and you will see a dark and light patter of interference as the diffractions from the edges interfere with each other. It has only to do with the nature of edges and how the probabilities of where the particles go by the edges and will give different probabilities with different numbers of slits and their spacings and sizes. In all cases, there is a probability of 1 that that the probabilities of where the particles hit add to 1.
The belief that the particles just go straight through a slit without acting with the electric field and the structure of the walls of the slit is just due to believing that the particles must just freely pass through from seeing the individual particles hit a screen. The make up of the slits will determine the pattern and not some wave property of the particles.

• AndyG55 says:

“The make up of the slits will determine the pattern and not some wave property of the particles.”

Well, actually, it is the make up of slits AND the frequency of the wave that form different diffractions patterns

• The last time I did slit experiments was in high school physics class–a long time ago.

You can get a diffraction pattern from a single slit, but it looks different than a two slit diffraction pattern.

Wavelength and slit width/size/shape/number/separation are important parameters in diffraction patterns. You also have to do some geometry and trig.

Jim

3. Ed Zuiderwijk says:

Take it from this astrophysicist that the answer is most likely: no. ‘Dark this or that’ is very much like the old trick of the religious to call what is not understood ‘god’ or the work of similar. To me it’s a clear example of an delusion. Since its postulation nothing has been illucidated about the subjects of the idea. It is like climate models which range of predictions has not changed over the past 4 decades whereas a real development of understanding would have reduced it when models are converging on, forgive me, a consensus.

• Count to 10 says:

In this case, I would say the opposite is true. Any theory lacking dark matter is ruled out by the bullet cluster, and ignoring that is a delusion.
Which, of course doesn’t mean that “WIMPs and cosmological constant” is the right answer, but the entire community is trying to figure out a way to falsify that (notably different than the climatology community).

• Ed Zuiderwijk says:

I appreciate what you say, but am not convinced. As you say a test to falsify is still missing. However, the gist of this paper is that the dark matter hypothesis is not needed as the phenomena it seeks to explain arise from the idea of scale symmetry. Isn’t the task then to investigate if the bullet cluster cannot be explained by this new idea as an attempt to falsify this one? I’m sure there is an interesting paper in it.

• Count to 10 says:

It’s really the authors responsibility to work out any inconsistencies with observations before publishing.

• menicholas says:

Did Einstein work out all of the inconsistencies before he published?

• Count to 10 says:

Yes, that’s how Einstein came to reletivity in the first place—it fit all known observations.

• Warhorse says:

No, the bullet cluster data can be explained very well by Moffat and Toth’s theory of Modified Gravity.

• Not clear to me that shrinkage of space cannot explain the bullet cluster anomaly, but any hypothesis to unseat dark matter certainly must address the bullet cluster, and this one apparently does not. There are also dark matter “halos” to explain…

• Count to 10 says:

The bullet cluster is a clear example of the center of gravity of an object being clearly displaced from the location of most of its luminous matter. You don’t explain that away by tweeting the gravitational equations; the majority of the mass in the object must be non-luminous, and cold baryonic matter can’t be made to work.

• Ray in SC says:

Ed,

I am an engineer with an interest in astrophysics. I have always believed that dark matter and dark energy were false ideas and that it is more likely that there is something wrong with the fundamental way that we reconcile our observations of the universe with the known physics. By this I mean that it seems more likely that we are wrong about the distance, speed, and acceleration of objects on the galactic scale.

You are an astrophysicist and you say that “the gist of this paper is that the dark matter hypothesis is not needed as the phenomena it seeks to explain arise from the idea of scale symmetry.” Also, there is mention in the post and the paper about the ‘scale invariance’ of empty space.

However, the post does not explain what scale invariance/scale symmetry means and why it matters and the paper is admittedly way over my head. Please offer a layman explanation of what the paper is proposing based on your understanding of the subject matter and feel free to comment on your interpretation of it’s veracity.

Thanks.

• Matthew Schilling says:

Oh look, an anti-religious bigot. You hardly ever see them.
Of course, without a creator, you’re left adhering to Forrest Gump Theology: For no particular reason, everything came from nothing. Then, for no particular reason, some of that random meaningless gunk started organizing with greater and greater complexity, till, for no particular reason, intelligent life emerged. Then, for no particular reason, that intelligent life started to make up reasons for everything that happened for no particular reason.

• Greg says:

Replacing the mantra “for no particular reason” with “God’s will” does make it any more meaningful or valid.

There is no philosophical difference between “big bang” and “in the beginning”. Neither explain anything. Take your choice.

• Greg says:

There appears to be something magic,omnipresent force throughout the universe. We can’t see it but we “know” it’s there.

Some call it God, others call it dark energy. Both deride the other for being for having understood nothing.

• Tom in Florida (just returned from Vegas) says:

“For no particular reason, everything came from nothing. Then, for no particular reason, some of that random meaningless gunk started organizing with greater and greater complexity, till, for no particular reason, intelligent life emerged. Then, for no particular reason, that intelligent life started to make up reasons for everything that happened for no particular reason.”

This is exactly what happened except to add that we have no idea how many times the “no particular reason” happenings failed to happen before it just happened in the correct manner so that intelligent life could form and ask questions (and invent answers).

• squiggy9000 says:

Greg on November 25, 2017 at 11:28 am

To believe that everything came from nothing you must believe in an incredible number of fortuitous, lucky accidents, of which if any were even slightly different then life would be impossible. To believe in a creator means you believe in a single “lucky accident”. I submit William of Ockham’s razor into evidence.

• Gabro says:

The Big Bang Theory doesn’t say that something came from nothing. It says that all mass and energy were concentrated in a hot, dense singularity, which then began expanding.

Unlike the God Hypothesis, for which there is no evidence and which can’t explain anything, the Big Bang Theory is supported by actual evidence, ie scientific observations of the universe, and is subject to being tested and found false or confirmed. God, not so much. As in, not at all.

Which of course is the way God wants it.

• jorgekafkazar says:

“Which of course is the way God wants it.”

God doesn’t leave footprints. Looking for them is a waste of time.

• Gabro says:

Jorge,

Correct. For at least Protestant theology to work, God has to remain hidden. IMO to some extent in all Christian belief. The Medieval Catholic Scholastic philosophers tried logically to prove the existence of God (and failed), but Aquinas also saw the need for Him to hide from human ken, to remain the mysterious, nay inscrutable, Wholly Other.

• Mark Stewart says:

Scientologists spend a good deal of time calling anyone who questions their fairy tales “anti-religious bigots” as well to distract from anyone logically examining their dogmas.

• menicholas says:

Some people have said the Mandelbrot Set is the fingerprint of God.
Okay, you asked for a footprint…still working on it:

https://youtu.be/56gzV0od6DU

• menicholas says:

• menicholas says:

Or maybe the Devil’s fingerprint…or Darth’s:

• Crispin in Waterloo says:

Gabro

Bertrand Russel did prove the existence of God logically, then concluded that in spite of his proof, he didn’t believe it. Such is the human condition.

In the slim book “Minimalism, the New Philosophy” a different argument is put forth based on all phenomena being either caused or uncaused. The only event in the universe that is uncaused by a preceding cause is the appearance of the universe itself. That which created it, the author calls God.

Elsewhere it has been proposed that not only is there a large shell of undetectable material around all bodies exhibiting gravity, there is a very much larger shell of what I could call ‘even more undetectable material’ of another type. If true then over time we can expect that the existence of Dark Matter will be complemented by the detection of the effects of Darker Matter that may exist as a sort of medium that can transmit waves and pulses. Keep your options open.

One of the glaring problems in astrophysics is the presence of quasars in galaxies that are supposedly vastly younger and closer. It indicates there is something fundamentally wrong with the method of determining or assigning distance and direction, velocity and expansion. I recall a pretty good piece of work by a lady showing the Hubble constant was about 70 or so. She has been proven pretty close, at least.

Another big problem is the discovery of stars that are 5 billion years older than the universe, (if the Hubble constant is <70). Some jiggery-pokery soon solved that – they have been declared 6 billion years younger than before. Oops. So, when it comes to stars, there is a whole lot that is still up in the air.

• pochas94 says:

“For no particular reason, everything came from nothing.”

Nothing is impossible. That’s the reason.

• ironargonaut says:

Gabro, the big bang cannot be falsified. As evidence I submit the two studies that at approximately the same time said universe was shrinking. Many accepted these studies and said oh look that means we need to rewrite the theory the universe must sometimes contract overall expand but the big bang is still true. When presented with counter evidence they shifted it to be unfalsifiable therefore whether true or not it is no different then the creation theory. And, I know the studies were found to have holes. The point is the reaction proves big bang is now a religion

• Gabro says:

Greg November 25, 2017 at 11:28 am

There is every difference in the world between the Big Bang Theory and “in the beginning”.

The Big Bang is based upon scientific observations and so far explains them well until you try to unify gravity with the other three forces.

“In the beginning” has no basis in observation whatsoever. It’s a made up creation myth, the first of the two irreconcilably contradictory such stories in Genesis 1 and 2.

The Big Band explains a great deal, although not yet perfect, but science usually is never settled. Genesis 1 and 2 explain nothing, and have retarded science, however valuable they might be as allegory.

• noaaprogrammer says:

God is the universe.
The universe is God.

• JohnKnight says:

Ed,

“Take it from this astrophysicist that the answer is most likely: no. ‘Dark this or that’ is very much like the old trick of the religious to call what is not understood ‘god’ or the work of similar.”

Sir, it seems to me that this is a “trick” of the “Naturalism only” clan . . conjuring up unobserved (supernatural) stuff like dark matter, dark energy, Ort clouds, gazillions of other universes, gazillions of other creature lines, mysterious . . forces? that preserved “soft tissue” in skeletons ostensibly two hundred million years old, etc, to avoid facing the potential that it was hasty (and unscientific) to rule out God in advance.

• Gabro says:

John,

Science is necessarily naturalistic. None of the hypothesized phenomena you mention is supernatural. In the case of the Oort Cloud, there is objective evidence in the form of long period and Haley-type comets, plus many centaurs and Jupiter family comets. Dark Energy and Matter were hypothesized to explain observed phenomena, and have so far never been shown false. That doesn’t mean that they are the correct explanation, but science advances by making and testing hypotheses.

The preservation of soft tissue in Mesozoic fossils is likewise a totally natural phenomenon, with a naturalistic explanation, which has been understood since at least 2013.

No one rules out God. It’s just that there is no scientific evidence for such an entity. The God Hypothesis can’t make any falsifiable predictions, hence lies outside science. And, as so often noted, that’s the way it has to be in Protestant theology. If there were physical evidence of God, then of what value would faith be. So He/She/It must remain hidden.

• menicholas says:

I seem to recall it started with the idea of Uniformatarianism, and was kick started by some guys named Hutton and Lyell.
Compelling stuff.
Need a reason to throw it all out the window.
The stuff you mention did not spring out of nowhere, fully formed.
Some of the new stuff did though, that is for sure.

• Gabro says:

menicholas November 25, 2017 at 1:02 pm

Looking only for naturalistic rather than supernatural explanations began at the birth of science c. 600 BC, then was reborn with Copernicus and Vesalius in AD 1543, at the Scientific Revolution against reliance on authority of the ancients and the Church. The whole idea is to try to understand nature on its own terms, without reference to religion or other made up stories.

Geology was both uniformist and catastrophist from its beginning, but catastrophists were out of favor until the latter 20th century. Modern geology is now both.

• jorgekafkazar says:

“If there were physical evidence of God, then of what value would faith be. So He/She/It must remain hidden.” –Gabro

Well said. But Faith is a means, not an end. Why is it generally believed that a postulated God wants everyone to believe in Him/Her/It? Seeing is believing. If there were physical evidence of God, we would lose some part of our free will, and that mustn’t happen.

• Gabro says:

Jorge,

Except I forgot the question mark.

Problem is that a lot of people who claim to have faith really only have unwarranted certainty.

In Calvinist theology, free will is only apparent, not real, since God knows all and ordains all from the outset. At best, outward worldly success and righteousness reflect inward grace, but the believer can never be sure that he or she is predestined to be among the Elect.

BTW, today people who are biblical literalists call themselves “Calvinists”, but they are mistaken. Calvin wasn’t a strict literalist. Even he could see that the “waters above the earth” didn’t really exist. Maybe he didn’t fully understand the hydrological cycle, but he knew that there weren’t actual storehouses of rain, snow, sleet, hail, etc, above the firmament of heaven, with God walking thereupon and personally operating the levers that controlled precipitation, as in the Bible. He thought those stories were included because the simple people of 1000 BC couldn’t understand what he, Calvin, regarded as scientific fact.

• JohnKnight says:

Gabro,

“Science is necessarily naturalistic.”

Why? Because some atheists said so??

It’s just a word game to me, that can also be played with “natural” verses synthetic or manmade. People study non-“natural” things all the time . . since humans are (like God) creators . .

It is an assumption that when we study “natural laws” or “natural forces” and such, they are not the handiwork of God. That’s what they were originally thought to be, otensibly, by the people who “coined” those phrases (and “”created” science ; ) It was not intended to be a statement about God not being involved . . That was just later con-artistry, as I read my language, based on a “new” enhanced meaning of the term natural . .

“In the case of the Oort Cloud, there is objective evidence in the form of long period and Haley-type comets …”

That’s called circular reasoning, in my book, which is to say that; There must be something like that out there, or the consensus “models” of the distant past don’t work. That’s my point . . things are assumed (though not observed) to make the “naturalism only” theory seem more plausible. Same with “dark” this or that . . the consensus “models” don’t “add up” without such “fixes”, so the fixes are assumed without direct observation, because the con worked, it seems to me.

“The preservation of soft tissue in Mesozoic fossils is likewise a totally natural phenomenon, with a naturalistic explanation, which has been understood since at least 2013.”

Oh . . understood by whom? (Or should I say what gods? ; )

• JohnKnight says:

jorgekafkazar,

““If there were physical evidence of God, then of what value would faith be. So He/She/It must remain hidden.” –Gabro”

“Well said . . ”

Demonstrate it, please. I believe this is just more word games . . based on a false interpretation of what ‘faith’ means. No where in the Book, for instance, does it say anything about faith being based on things for which there is no physical evidence, and if you check a dictionary, it ain’t there . . It means without direct observation . . such as we can see in this interaction (from John 20);

But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.

Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

And, none of them truly “believed” without seeing him, and if he isn’t going to present himself openly to us (or give any more blatant “signs” such as He did earlier to a great many people according to Scriptures) then significant faith will necessarily be required to believe in Him. That makes faith pretty darn important, it seems to me . . (but, it does not mean He won’t give more “personal” evidences (such as he did to Saul/Paul for instance, or at the Pentecost gatherings) if one asks for it . .

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

• Gabro says:

JohnKnight November 25, 2017 at 3:18 pm

The whole point of science is to find purely natural explanations for phenomena. If it’s a made up story without physical evidence and cannot make testable predictions, then it’s not science.

Supernatural stories don’t count. Science says so. The whole enterprise has always been founded on excluding supernatural explanations. That’s what science means.

It’s not at all a semantic game. Science deals with the observable, physical world, in which evidence can be gathered and analyzed, hypotheses formed and tested.

Religion and the supernatural don’t. Science is an entirely different activity from simple blind faith in what some ancient text says.

Why is this simple distinction so hard for you to grasp?

You still don’t get it, despite years of instruction here. No one says that natural laws aren’t the handiwork of your version of God. Rather, it’s that no one’s version of God is required to study the natural world. You’re free to attribute the laws of the universe to your God if you want. But your faith-based belief has no sway in the pursuit of science. Only objective reality counts, as discovered by the scientific method.

The belief in God has retarded science, but nowadays, most religious scientists understand that the two realms must remain separate. Some feel that nature reveals God. When the Works of God and His alleged Word clash, nature wins every time. Otherwise, God is deceptive, cruel and incompetent.

• Gabro says:

BTW, besides the 2600 years of the scientific method, in the US who actually does say so is the US Constitution. Please read the relevant case law:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLean_v._Arkansas

The decision defined the essential characteristics of science as:

It is guided by natural law;
It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law;
It is testable against the empirical world;
Its conclusions are tentative, i.e. are not necessarily the final word; and
It is falsifiable.

In each particular, religion differs from science:

It is supernatural;
It tries to explain things based upon stories;
It is not testable against the empirical world;
Its conclusions are the final word for faithful believers; and
It is not falsifiable.

The two realms couldn’t be more different.

But believers are free to read their particular gods, spirits and demons into reality at any or all points. It’s just that doing so isn’t science.

• menicholas says:

Gabro,
Yes, When I was in college getting an official science edumacation, there was much emphasis placed on the history of such.
They did not just tell us what to think back in those days…as I am sure you recall as well.

• JohnKnight says:

“The whole point of science is to find purely natural explanations for phenomena.”

Not the truth? ? . . Dude . .

“If it’s a made up story without physical evidence and cannot make testable predictions, then it’s not science.”

True enough . . And if it’s the Genuine Word of God, it’s not science either . . I don’t believe you’ve given any serious thought to this matter at all . .

“Supernatural stories don’t count. Science says so.”

Science says nothing at all . . Don’t make an idol of if . . I suggest

• JohnKnight says:

PS, Not going to tell us about that “naturalistic” explanation for soft tissue enduring for two hundred million years? Last I heard, it was basically “Iron might have something to do with it . . ” . . Na, I wouldn’t go there either, Gabro. ; )

• JohnKnight says:

PPS, If a court rules that CAGW is a scientific fact, are you going to agree?

• Jeff Alberts says:

“True enough . . And if it’s the Genuine Word of God, it’s not science either . . I don’t believe you’ve given any serious thought to this matter at all . .”

You can’t point to anything as being the “genuine word of god”, because you have no way to prove it. It’s an empty phrase.

• Gabro says:

JohnKnight November 25, 2017 at 3:57 pm

You’ve repeatedly been shown the theological case for the Hidden God. Please read the works upon which Protestant theology is founded before spouting off our of ignorance. Or even just recent papers by living scholars on the subject.

You’ve been repeatedly shown the biblical verses upon which this vital theological precept is based.

• Gabro says:

John,

Soft tissue preservation has been repeatedly explained to you. You just can’t handle the truth.

BTW, as you’ve also been told, Mary Schweitzer is a Christian, just not a blasphemer like you, whose God is cruel, deceptive and incompetent.

https://www.livescience.com/41537-t-rex-soft-tissue.html

How do you know what the Genuine Word of God is? Your version of the Bible? Around six billion or more people disagree with you, including the largest Christian denominations, Roman and Orthodox Catholics and even some Protestants.

The Bible was written, edited, collated, translated and its books selected by fallible humans. It contradicts itself and objective reality on page after page. It has no place in science, except maybe as an aid to archaeology.

• Gabro says:

JohnKnight November 26, 2017 at 12:11 am

A court is not competent to rule on scientific facts, although some tried in the case of EPA findings. A court however is highly qualified to rule on what science is.

• george e. smith says:

The big bang is simply the bottom end of the 1/f noise spectrum. Infinite energy amplitude, but it only has to happen once; not at 1 picoHerz. frequency

G

• Chris Wright says:

Ed,
I’m inclined to agree.
First, it was observed that stars in the outer regions of galaxies appeared to be attracted to the core by a gravitational force larger than that explained by the galaxy’s visible mass. So they invented dark matter to increase the gravitational attraction. Becuse apparently its only observable effect is gravitation, it can’t be directly observed, and it cannot be created or observed in the labarotary. It’s basically 20th century magic.

Then it appeared that the universe was expanding faster than it should, which implied there must be some repulsive force. Again, they invented more darkness, in this case dark energy (the exact opposite of dark matter). More magic. In this case, the discovery of fast expansion was based on the observation of very distant supernovae. It is based on a big assumption: that a certain type of supernova has the same intrinsic brightness, irrespective of whether it’s in our galaxy or at the edge of the observable universe. It may be true, but it’s still an assumption.

So, today we have dark matter and dark energy. As I understand it, the only evidence for these are the original observations that showed the problem, no other observations have given a shred of new evidence. Without extra evidence, it’s speculation piled on speculation. In short, magic.

As an example, I could explain global warming by postulating massive unicorn farts occurring in the troposphere. It would be a fine theory. The problem is, people would demand additional evidence, such as photos of the unicorns. Getting those photos might be a bit tricky, because unicorns don’t actually exist.

Until that additional evidence and proof is forthcoming, then dark matter and dark energy are no more than speculation. Unfortunately many astronomers seem to accept their existence as a fact, when most likely it’s barely even a serious theory. It does actually smack of religion!
Chris

• Mike says:

Chris Wright

“…. many astronomers seem to accept their existence as a fact ….”

I really have no idea, but I wonder how many astronomers would agree with that. I would speculate that the vast majority would consider *dark stuff* as a working hypothesis at best. I think you would be hard pressed to find any astronomer who would claim their existence as a fact, by any common definition of the word.

4. Neo says:

So, how many PhDs/PhD candidates are affected ?

• Count to 10 says:

None. This isn’t anything new or revolutionary, just the same exercise Cosmologists have been doing since Einstein.

• Wharfplank says:

11 Manhattans worth.

• menicholas says:

Yeah, but how many Hiroshimas?

• jorgekafkazar says:

Um, wait. What kind of Manhattan are we talking about? And is this intended to apply to the theory or to its adherents?

5. Count to 10 says:

That’s just re expressing dark energy as part of gravitational physics, not eliminating it. As for dark matter, that’s basically confirmed by physics of galaxy clusters and the observation of baryon oscillations (which only exist in a dark matter dominated universe).

• menicholas says:

Says who?

• Count to 10 says:

Says the math, basically. This isn’t a matter of “authority says so”, its a matter of following the chain of evidence, but it might take you a few years of solid study to understand all of it.

• John "menicholas" Nefastis says:

Golly, that sounds familiar…where have I heard that before…

• John "menicholas" Nefastis says:

Look more closely.
The lighter sphere is 2 MLY.
According to this chart, it appears closer to 3 mly. So, 2 mly to the edge of the gas cloud in the first picture.

• Greg says:

It’s not “the math” , it is the underlying physical model.

“which only exist in a dark matter dominated universe”. ….. according to the current model. There may be other models where baryon oscillation occurs without the dark matter. This is NOT proof or “confirmation” , it is just another thing wrong with the current model that it needs the frig factors to explain baryon oscillation .

• Stephen Richards says:

Dark matter and dark energy are proposed models to explain observations. The proposition is that you need both to explain the rate of expansion of the universe relative to the amount of visible matter. Like Einstein’s cosmic constant and many other mathematical constants they are their to account for those instances when the model does not agree with observations.
Latest idea is that there is a large amount of real dark matter. Dead suns, suns that didn’t form fully, dark planets etc.

• Greg says:

“Like Einstein’s cosmic constant and many other mathematical constants they are their to account for those instances when the model does not agree with observations.”

The technical term is ‘frig factors’.

• Greg says:

didn’t Einstein himself say that the cosmic constant was the biggest mistake he ever made?

• menicholas says:

Do not forget about a whole bunch of neutrinos.
None of them account for it all…dark real matter is not a new idea…it was one of the first.
Toss in some MACHOS and some WIMPS and we are off to the races…

6. masterofcontroversies says:

Anthony: “I trust astronomers more than I trust climate scientists, because they don’t have that ‘save the planet’ paradigm going on.”

But, of course, the save-the-planet bias is not the only observable problem in academic science today. In fact, it’s one of many. And there have been many thoughtful critiques of cosmology, solar physics and astrophysics. Here’s a handful …

Parker, E. N., Reflections on Macrophysics and the Sun, Solar Physics 176: 1997, p.219-247

“It is essential in these exuberant times to pay critical attention to both the observational constraints and to the basic mathematical laws, with a clear sense of what is solid theory and what is only unsupported speculation. This seeming platitude is offered here without jest, because at the present time there are ‘theories’ –- scenarios sometimes quite detailed –- seriously and often passionately held, for almost every exotic astronomical object that is not resolved in the telescope. In contrast, the one star that can be properly resolved –- the pedestrian Sun (cf., Goldberg, 1953; Strömgren, 1953) -– exhibits a variety of phenomena that defy contemporary theoretical understanding.”

Jonathan Tennenbaum, The Crab Nebula and The Complex Domain, Executive Intelligence Review, p.22-23

“Just look at almost any research paper in astronomy, or astrophysics. What are they doing? They are interpreting evidence on the basis of existing knowledge and ‘accepted standards’ of reasoning and argument. They may come up with alternative theories, where one says it’s this, another says it’s that. They may fight over such alternative theories. But all the theories are ultimately based on the same fundamental assumptions. There’s no actual hypothesizing going on.”

Mike Disney, The Case against Cosmology, arXiv:astro-ph/0009020 v1 1 Sep.2000

“Given statements emanating from some cosmologists today one could be forgiven for assuming that the solution to some of the great problems of the subject, even ‘the origin of the Universe’ lie just around the corner. As an example of this triumphalist approach consider the following conclusion from Hu et al. [1] to a preview of the results they expect from spacecraft such as MAP and PLANCK designed to map the Cosmic Background Radiations: ‘… we will establish the cosmological model as securely as the Standard Model of elementary particles. We will then know as much, or even more, about the early Universe and its contents as we do about the fundamental constituents of matter’.

We believe the most charitable thing that can be said of such statements is that they are naive in the extreme and betray a complete lack of understanding of history, of the huge difference between an observational and an experimental science, and of the peculiar limitations of cosmology as a scientific discipline. By building up expectations that cannot be realised, such statements do a disservice not only to astronomy and to particle physics but they could ultimately do harm to the wider respect in which the whole scientific approach is held. As such, they must not go unchallenged.”

Reason in Revolt, Vol. I: Dialectical Philosophy and Modern Science, Ted Grant, Alan Woods

“We see a steadily increasing tendency towards a purely abstract theoretical approach to cosmology, based almost exclusively on mathematical calculations and relativity theory. ‘The annual number of cosmology papers published skyrocketed from 60 in 1965 to over 500 in 1980, yet this growth was almost solely in purely theoretical work: by 1980 roughly 95% of these papers were devoted to various mathematical models, such as the ‘Bianchi type XI universe.’ By the mid-seventies, cosmologists’ confidence was such that they felt able to describe in intimate detail events of the first one-hundredth second of time, several billion years ago. Theory increasingly took on the characteristic of myth-absolute, exact knowledge about events in the distant past but an increasingly hazy understanding of how they led to the cosmos we now see, and an increasing rejection of observation.’”

Halton Arp, Seeing Red, p.257

“The mission of academia should be to explore — not perpetuate myth and superstition … It is embarrassing, and by now a little boring, to constantly read announcements about ever more distant and luminous high redshift objects, blacker holes and higher and higher percentages of undetectable matter (past 90% it begins to make observations irrelevant).”

Halton Arp, What has science come to? Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 14, No. 3, 2000, p.448

“Periodically there arises a messianic need to save the general public from the ignorant belief that humans were created in their present form some short time ago, say, 8,000 years or so. They should blush with shame. Their big bang cosmology, aside from a small quibble about time scales, is the most blatant form of creationism.”

Anthony L. Peratt, ‘Dean of the Plasma Dissidents’, The World & I, May 1988, p.190-197 (quoting Hannes Alfven)

“‘I was there when Abbé Georges Lemaitre first proposed this theory,’ he recalled. Lemaitre was, at the time, both a member of the Catholic hierarchy and an accomplished scientist. He said in private that this theory was a way to reconcile science with St. Thomas Aquinas’ theological dictum of creatio ex nihilo or creation out of nothing.”

The Twilight of the Scientific Age

Martín López Corredoira: Cosmologist / Astrophysicist / Philosopher / Published 50 Academic Papers, Often as Lead

“A superficial view may lead us to think that we live in the golden age of science but the fact is that the present-day results of science are mostly mean, unimportant, or just technical applications of ideas conceived in the past.”

“There are several reasons to write about this topic. First of all, because I feel that things are not as they seem, and the apparent success of scientific research in our societies, announced with a lot of ballyhoo by the mass media, does not reflect the real state of things.”

This is of course just a small sample. There are many thoughtful critiques in this area once a person looks.

• menicholas says:

Yup!
Tell it!

• joelobryan says:

“The difference between observational and experimental science…”

Yes a real problem until fast computers came along to create models and simulations*. That is at least a start. They can find out with those paths (equations) that don’t agree with observation. But there are many solutions that can not be eliminated yet by observation.

*(unlike in today’s climateer science, where competing model outputs are simply compared with each other and none are rejected based on observation – they are merely tweaked on their parameterizations and put in an ensemble to make an even bigger stinkpile, the observation physical sciences compares models to real observation, and rejects it if disagrees.)

• Mickey Reno says:

JoelOBryan wrote: “… competing model outputs are simply compared with each other and none are rejected based on observation – they are merely tweaked on their parameterizations and put in an ensemble to make an even bigger stinkpile”

Thanks for that image, Joel. That’s got to be one of the best critiques of climate science ever seen on WUWT. Not only is the stinkpile bigger, it is given credit for being more correct by way of averaging the little stinks together and obfuscating the error of each individual one.

In the non-fiction book “Seabiscuit” about the famous race horse, there’s a brilliant and hilarious description of a giant manure pile at the Tijuana race track that is carried away one night by a flash flood, bulldozing everything in it’s path on the way to the nearby coastline, which the author likened to a giant “shit Godzilla.” And now I have a new use for that much favored metaphor.

• Greg says:

Their big bang cosmology, aside from a small quibble about time scales, is the most blatant form of creationism.”

Not surprising, since it was invented by a Belgian priest in order reconcile science and theology.

• RAH says:

I trust astronomers and Cosmologists more than climate “scientists” because the bulk of them are willing to form new hypothesis or alter the existing one once observations or experimentation falsifies what they believed to be. Climate “scientists” on the other hand have told their story (hypothesis) and stuck with it even when observations don’t match up with what the hypothesis requires. Instead they alter older data, distort new data, or ignore observations that falsify their hypothesis. Their whole existence for the majority of them seems to be based on keeping a story that has already been proven to be fiction in the nonfiction section. IOW many more Astronomers and Cosmologists actually practice science than climate “scientists” do.

• Count to 10 says:

I’ll add that everyone is also looking to find that one theory or observation that turns everything on its head. The money is actually in rocking the boat, not conforming.

• A C Osborn says:

That may be true for individuals, but the “Establishment” will do all in their power to keep the Standard Model alive, regardless of how many fudges it takes.

• jorgekafkazar says:

Amen!

• meems says:

thanks for those nice quotes.
You need one along the lines of :
‘ most men who fancy themselves knowledgeable sleep their whole lives in a dreamworld where the only field encumbered by myths and an establishment who perpetuate those myths, happens by chance to the field they themselves have chosen.
A man who realizes that most fields of knowledge have the same handicap can awaken to see human society in sharper light. But now he must be reserved with his opinions, else having been dismissed by most establishments he’ll be consider an outcast by all’

I’ve red a quote like this somewhere

7. Louis says:

When it come to science, “nothing can ever be taken for granted…”

Even when there’s a consensus? Maybe someone should let climate alarmists know about this novel, I mean, longstanding idea of how science works. If we did science by consensus, it would get stuck in a rut and never progress beyond our current understanding. Of course, politicians often prefer it that way. They don’t like unpredictability. If you want government funding, then make sure you confirm what they already believe. Don’t upset the apple cart by making their previous public announcements and expenditures on climate change look foolish and wasteful.

• Windchaser says:

In theory, nothing is taken for granted. Anything is open to question.

In reality, a lot is and should be taken for granted. I haven’t seen a lot of researchers pushing for a Classical Elements theory of matter (earth/air/fire/water) over our modern theory (hydrogen, helium, etc.).

Many, many, many things in science are solid enough to be taken for granted.

• menicholas says:

And many are not.
But you know which is which, do you?

• Ellen says:

The classical “earth, water, air, fire” description of matter works quite well as a description of the STATES of matter: solid, liquid, gas, plasma. The periodic table overlays more information to that. Then comes nuclear physics discussing the innards of the atoms, and quark physics discussing the innards of the nucleons. The original description still has its uses, as does Newtonian physics.

• Gabro says:

Some once heretical hypotheses and theories contrary to orthodoxy and consensus have since become, if not orthodox, then been shown to be objectively real. That the earth goes around the sun while turning on its axis was in the 16th and 17th centuries a heretical hypothesis, but in the 18th and 19th centuries was shown objectively to be true. Now it’s simply an observation or reality.

• Gabro says:

• Greg says:

If we did science by consensus, it would get stuck in a rut and never progress beyond our current understanding.

Sadly there is a lot of dogma and consensus in most branches of science, which does get stuck in a rut.

As the saying goes: science advances one funeral at a time.

8. Rich Raff says:

Well, if dark matter does not exist, what other explanation for baryon oscillations is there ?

• menicholas says:

And not having an answer proves what?
That the next Einstein has not explained it to us yet, that is what.

• Greg says:

Well it must be CO2 , what else could it be?

• jorgekafkazar says:

Wicked, wicked boy. 🙂

• joelobryan says:

tiny little Planck length-size strings wiggling in manifold hyperspace.

Don’t forget the glue.

9. Bill Illis says:

Here is the gas cloud surrounding the Andromeda galaxy, our nearest neighbour.

2 million light years across. Andromeda proper is just a tiny sliver in the middle.

Gravity effects only operate at the speed of light. So, the gravitational field experienced by a star in Andromeda is some combination of the gravitational field of all the other stars and dust and gas and blackholes extended out over the last 1 million years. The stars are not going to orbit the central point like the Earth orbits the Sun.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/05/08/18/287838A400000578-3073951-The_gargantuan_halo_is_estimated_to_contain_half_the_mass_of_the-a-9_1431107621936.jpg

• NZ Willy says:

Erm, we (the Milky Way) are just 2 million LY from Andromeda, so your dotted circle subtends about a 25-degree solid angle of sky, a big chunk of sky. So your picture basically shows Local Group gas given that we and Andromeda are the two main galaxies of the group. Thus that gas is likely bound to both our galaxies, not just to Andromeda.

• joelobryan says:

and many dozens and dozens of large and small satellite miniclusters, like the large and Small Magellenic Clouds around the Milk Way. Lots of flotsam.

• joelobryan says:

“…just 2 million LY…”
LOL

• NZ Willy says:

That’s a lovely chart, menicholas. Get back to us when you’ve learned how to read it.

• joelobryan says:

meni,

your Wiki picture does show M31 at roughly 2 Mega-Ly. So why the “no”?

• John "menicholas" Nefastis says:

I know how to read it, do you?
It is well over 2 mly, not “just” 2.

• John "menicholas" Nefastis says:

Look more closely.
The lighter sphere is 2 MLY.
According to this chart, it appears closer to 3 mly. So, 2 mly to the edge of the gas cloud in the first picture.

• menicholas says:

The official number is closer to 2.6 mly, but I think that is to the edge of M31, not center to center.
Closer to 3 than 2.
I know how to read a chart, and I recall that number from my yoot.

• menicholas says:

But the point is, I think Bill has a point, and you did not address his point but spoke around it glibly and using the wrong numbers.

• I’m just saying that the tiny sliver of a galaxy in a large very disperse gravitational field that operates with some type of time-gravity lag is not going to act like a solar system. Over 10 billion years of gradually contracting and while still absorbing more matter toward it, it might turn out to be a spiral galaxy without having to invoke any dark matter at all.

For the solar system, 99.8% of the mass is in the Sun. For a galaxy, 99.8% of the mass is spread out across 2 million light years. They will not have the same orbital scenarios and I think the gravitational models have not properly taken all of that into account.

And the gas cloud around Andromeda extends out 1 million light years toward the Milky Way and the Milky Way galaxy gas cloud extends out about 0.8 million light years toward Andromeda so they are not touching yet given that Andromeda is 2.6 million light years away. I think like in 1 billion years, they will start interacting and starburst regions will then form. Funny again that in 1 billion years, now even the solar system will be impacted by the gravity of Andromeda 2 million light years away with a lag of 2 million years.

• menicholas says:

When Newton gave us his formula for gravity, it fit very well with observations and measurements then on hand.
And still does, but Einstein’s works better in extreme situations.
But once our scale of observations and measurements became galaxy sized and bigger, suddenly the inverse square relationship and Newton’s formula did not fit observations anymore, and so dark matter and then dark energy had to be created to explain the discrepancy.
The headline article is an important one, as, IMO, MOND is, if only for consideration of alternate explanations.

• Count to 10 says:

“Gravity only operates at the speed of light” is essentially correct, but obfuscates some of the finer points of the gravitational field, and really says nothing about how things orbit.

• Stephen Richards says:

Careful. It can be said that gravity is not a field but an effect of the distortion of space time by a mass or a multitude of masses.

• joelobryan says:

Stephen,
you would do well to study up on Scaler Tensor Theory before making such statements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalar%E2%80%93tensor_theory

and Scaler Tensor Vector Gravity (STVG)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalar%E2%80%93tensor%E2%80%93vector_gravity

“STVG has been used successfully to explain galaxy rotation curves,[3] the mass profiles of galaxy clusters,[4] gravitational lensing in the Bullet Cluster,[5] and cosmological observations[6] without the need for dark matter. “

• Mike McMillan says:

Changes in the gravitational field propagate at the speed of light, but once established, the field operates instantly. Can’t find it now, but we had this discussion a while ago.

• Luther Bl't says:

I followed that hypertext jump to Scalar–tensor–vector gravity. When I arrived (at light speed), I was confronted by this:

“Not to be confused with Tensor–vector–scalar gravity or Bi-scalar tensor vector gravity.”

How many Red Queens in this Wonderland?

• Greg says:

“STVG has been used successfully to explain galaxy rotation curves,[3] the mass profiles of galaxy clusters,[4] gravitational lensing in the Bullet Cluster,[5] and cosmological observations[6] without the need for dark matter. “

STVG introduces scalar fields and a magical, repulsive “fifth force” of nature. You may as well stick with the magical “dark energy and dark matter”.

• mschillingxl says:

It seems obvious that gravity effects operate at speeds much greater than the speed of light: It takes light over 4 hours to travel from the sun to Neptune, yet they are each attracted to the other’s current position, not to where each was 4 hours earlier. If gravitational attraction worked at merely the speed of light, Neptune, and all the planets, would be accelerating and receding from the sun.

• Curious George says:

That’s why the General Relativity is a work of a genius.

• RAH says:

When it comes to astronomy I have always thought of gravity not as a force but as a distortion of space and time. It does not travel from one body to another. It is not a tractor beam. It is already there around the existing mass which from which it originates. Thus it’s “effects” do not travel at all unless the mass moves.

• Gabro says:

That gravity works at the speed of light have been confirmed by observations. Thus, if the Sun suddenly disappeared, Earth would keep orbiting its position normally for 8.33 minutes, which is the time light takes to travel from our star to our planet, on average.

• Gabro says:

RAH November 25, 2017 at 1:05 pm

That gravity does operate at the speed of light, as predicted by Einstein, has been shown repeatedly by actual observations, some quite recent, from near space and deep space.

To Newton, gravity was instantaneous, while space and time were absolutes. To Einstein, gravity obeyed the cosmic speed limit, while space-time was relative. The 20th century physicist has been shown correct, that 19th century Maxwell and 17th century Newton cannot both be right. Maxwell won.

• Mike McMillan says:

mschillingxl November 25, 2017 at 11:28 am

…yet they are each attracted to the other’s current position, not to where each was 4 hours earlier. If gravitational attraction worked at merely the speed of light, Neptune, and all the planets, would be accelerating and receding from the sun.

Correct observation. Gravity works instantaneously because it is a field set up up by the presence of matter, not an attractive force that takes time to reach out across distances.

“Action at a distance” is a concept relativity was supposed to dispose of, but some folks here can’t give it up.

• Curious George says:

“The stars are not going to orbit the central point like the Earth orbits the Sun.” Why not? The Sun is not exactly a point. The notion of a “point” depends on scale.

• scraft1 says:

“M31 compared with angular size of Earth’s moon”. Please explain this.

• joelobryan says:

scarft1,
If you go out on a very dark night and look with binoculars to where Andromeda (M31) is, you will see a fuzzy patch, basically only the central bulge where the light from billions of stars makes a fuzzy glow. Through a large optical telescope, that patch expands to reveal an immense structure with spiral arms curling away from the fuzzy patch center. The entire arc subtended by those arms is larger than the subtended arc of the full Moon.

• jorgekafkazar says:

Comparing subtended angles, drawn as if in the same part of the sky.

• menicholas says:

We are gong to have to move it.

• Gabro says:

Me,

Earth, Andromeda or both?

• whiten says:

joelobryan
November 25, 2017 at 2:58 pm

“One day in about 4 billion years, Andromeda will fill the night sky as we close in on each other for a cosmic galactic merger. But by 3.5 billion years our sun will have increased luminosity so much that Earth will be a baked dry dead rock. Nothing to worry about for a while.”
—————————————-

According to the same base for the above statement, let me state another scenario:

“One day in about 4 billion years, Milky Way will fill the night sky at full strength and more illumination as the Milky Way “expansion” completed at that point and it’s full size and volume becomes seen and observable. No more unseen or Dark matter there…All matter there visible and illuminating….Andromeda will be as far away as it is now, more or less, and the Sun not any different from now.”

The universal expansion is not alone, also there is the Milky Way “expansion”, basically the same but the universe will keep expanding even after 4 billion years from now, and there is a difference between the universe and The Universe…….In one of them the term “expansion” holds no meaning.
Hopefully it makes some sense I hope.

cheers

10. NZ Willy says:

Hidden assumptions are (A) that space is flat and (B) that we see it truly. If (A) is wrong, then all the calculations need to encompass cosmological curvature which removes the need for dark matter & energy. If (B) is wrong, that means that there’s a lens effect to cosmological distances which needs to be added to the equations, which once again obviates the need for dark matter & energy. What’s likely is that dark matter & energy are just artifacts of our failure to generalize enough.

• nn says:

The assumptions/assertions of “science” practiced outside of a limited frame of reference in time and space, is the stuff of [social/political] consensus, orthodoxy, and progressive (i.e. monotonic) belief systems. People want to believe and are prone to compromise.

• menicholas says:

It is simpler than that…an assertion was made, and everyone else just said “OK, sounds good…let’s run with it. Case closed!”

• menicholas says:

Of course, not everyone…just the people who decide whose ideas get any attention.

• nn says:

With improved skill, the space gaps (not time which is multidimensional) will approach a lower limit, and we will have greater confidence in our models and the signals which inspire them. Unfortunately, people like to correlate objects with images and have created a menagerie that is observed with, in their own estimation, decreasing accuracy. What should rightly be studied in the philosophical logical domain has been conflated with the scientific logical domain and so we have, among other things, prophecies of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, transsexual human life (as opposed to a gender spectrum and transgender characteristics), human evolution that begins and ends at the age of viability, etc.

• Greg says:

What’s likely is that dark matter & energy are just artifacts of our failure to generalize enough.

Exactly. One day we will laugh about the ignorance of the early 21st century “flat space society”.

DE and DM are such obvious frig factors to get around a fundamental misunderstanding. We need a paradigm shift like the one that took us from epicycles to orbital mechanics.

11. flynn says:

that model doesn’t predict anything wrong about CO2, reject it.

12. nn says:

Perhaps we should moderate our speculation until there is more than inference of processes and systems outside of our solar system. A separation of logical domains: science, philosophy, fantasy, and faith.

13. Joel O'Bryan says:

A second test demonstrated that this law also predicts the high speeds reached by the stars in the outer regions of the galaxies ”

Is it a Law yet? Has it passed enough rigorous tests to go from hypothesis to theory to Law?

14. Alan Robertson says:

We perceived the stars long ago and after untold millennia, invented the telescope to get a better look. Only within the past 100 or so years did we even realize that the stars are mostly organized in galaxy formations and more recently, that those galaxies are then organized in a discernible manner.

Like our early ancestors looking heavenward, we can perceive something out there, but have no instruments to help us understand what we are seeing. It may yet be some time before we have enough understanding to help us build the instrument.

15. MDS says:

This “mystery force” smells a lot like “evil spirits” might have smelled in the witch doctor days of humanity—come to think of it, we’re still in that era. As Einstein would have said, if you can’t test for it it’s not science , it’s philosophy.

The “Dark Force” is supposed to account for the accelerating expansion of the universe—a force to counter gravity, and based on the assumption that we know everything else, which is foolish. Why not simply say “We don’t know”?

Personally, I think it’s all caught up in the over-zealous celebration of “expert” opinion, and human-induced climate change and its consequences are just another manifestation of this reliance on the opinions of questionable “experts”. For me, if an expert can’t explain everything in his or her area, and show (with data) that this explanation and the predictions associated with it are right—every time—then they are not “experts”.

Why does the rate of expansion seem to be accelerating? Well, I don’t know, but if dark matter and dark energy are real then we should see this repulsive force acting in localized areas of the meta-galaxy—galaxies being torn apart, or galaxy clusters moving away from each other. It would not ONLY apply to the universe as a whole. In other words, Prove it! If you can’t prove it then it’s just another sort of religion.

• menicholas says:

“Why does the rate of expansion seem to be accelerating?”

Because of some observations of distant supernovae.
Thin evidence indeed.

• Count to 10 says:

It’s more than that. There is a crossing of a number of observations (CMB, supernova, galaxy clusters) that overlap in a region of parameter space that indicates dark energy.

• John "menicholas" Nefastis says:

‘Kay, got it.
Count you with the orthodoxy.
Noted.

• Louis says:

Yes, type Ia supernova, which they assumed had very stable and predictable brightness variations. Because of that, they are often called ‘standard candles.’ However, more recent evidence indicates that they may not be as stable and predictable as assumed. If that is true, estimates of the expansion rate of the universe could be off. That, in turn, could affect theories about dark energy.

16. whiten says:

What is actually Dark matter?!!

The last time I checked, it still persist in the point of concept as “unseen” matter highly elevated to a very exotic principle of “Dark”, which at this point in time must be dealt and probably abandoned, as it being very confusing and misleading in the astrophysics proper approach in to the understanding and comprehension of what we call universe or Universe.

Simply ,, Dark matter and dark energy do not actually exist, only a propagation of an astronomical error, cosmic one, in the light models…..very weird but actually not easy to ignore anymore.

Forget about any hypothetical explanation, the data and observation at this point have no much room anymore for such as “Dark” things, as maintained by the astrophysics…..

Huge and incredibly immense errors with cosmic distances give “birth” to “Dark” things, put as simply as possible……No any hypothesis can correct that, only a new approach, as it seems to be required at this point in time may do forward with this.

Light models of the universe are in a cosmic, astronomical, mind blowing huge error….. somewhere at the reach of 40KX factor error, where K stands for “thousand” or 1000….

cheers

• menicholas says:

OMG…I think you said something I sort of agree with!
Stop the presses!

• whiten says:

At last we sorta of in some agreement….:)

Sorry for the presses, no much help can there do, I think..

• menicholas says:

A little wordy, but what the hey.

• Count to 10 says:

I’m sure everyone would be rivited to learn what this error of yours is.

17. I have a very hard time believing any cosmological theory that requires as a foundation in its faith belief that we cannot find 85% of the matter in the universe, nor can we find a similar 80% of its energy. And the reason for such a foundation? Sorcery! (er, mathematics) incomprehensible to any but its priesthood! (Bring money.)

• Count to 10 says:

Define “find”. Subatomic particles aren’t directly observed either, just inferred from behavior on larger scales.

• Luther Bl't says:

Unicorns aren’t directly observed either, just inferred from (people’s linguistic) behaviour on larger (social) scales.

18. William Astley says:

“driver who, lost in rural Ireland, asks a passer-by how to get to Dublin. “I wouldn’t start from here,” comes the reply.”

You guys are discussing impossible to solve problems. Inflation, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Cosmic ‘Strings’, and so on are dead science.

We are on a dead path. We made a path decision 40 years ago and choice path A rather than path B.

Science gets its ‘life’ so to speak from solving problems on a live path.

If you are on a dead path, it does not matter how smart you are or how long you work on the problem. It is impossible to make any real progress. I.e. To get the breakthroughs.

Evidence that we are on the wrong path is stinky smelling ‘Ironic’ science.

If you really, really believe your path is correct and think out of the box, creating new ‘physics’ to solve the path’s problems, you will create ‘Ironic’ science.

An example of Ironic Science is changing the laws of physics to make space expand 100,000 times faster than the speed of light shortly after the hypothesized special event that created all matter and light in the universe 13.8 billion years ago.

Inflation was created as observationally the universe for some weird unexplained reason looks like an infinite time universe (it is absolutely flat and the CMB is weirdly too uniform, off by a factor of 30 compared to what the theory predicts).

The observations support the assertion that we live in a forever universe rather than a fixed time 13.8-billion-year universe. Curiously no one was looked at the forever universe problems serious which is surreal.

‘Inflation’
Inflation is the name for ‘the’ hypothesized super, super, super, special event where the hypothesized new field ‘Inflaton’ expands space at 100,000 time the speed of light.

If science is working correctly we should and did determine that there is no way to create an inflaton field to do the super, super, magical expansion.

The top theoretical physicists in the world have determined, after 20 years working away on the impossible to solve problem that:

If there was good inflation then there would also be bad inflation.

Bad inflation is the name for the super, super fast expansion of the universe which happens sometime after the first inflation event which we want to keep the big bang theory alive so there would be no place for life in the real universe where we live.

We can use evidence there is life in the universe and that path A is dead or at least very, very, ill.

http://physics.princeton.edu/~cosmo/sciam/

“What do you mean? Inflation has two major problems: First of all, we have learned that inflation is highly sensitive to initial conditions. This is the opposite of what everyone thought originally. For example, in the 1990s, by considering different initial conditions and parameters, Linde (and others) championed models of inflation that would lead to an open universe rather than a flat universe, because, at the time, observations seemed to point that way.”

“Second, we have also learned that inflation generically produces a multiverse (“multimess”) of outcomes – literally an infinite number of patches with an infinite diversity of possibilities – and there is currently no criterion to prefer one possibility over another. As Guth has put it, “In an eternally inflating universe, anything that can happen will happen; in fact, it will happen an infinite number of times. Thus, the question of what is possible becomes trivial—anything is possible […] The fraction of universes with any particular property is therefore equal to infinity divided by infinity—a meaningless ratio.” See, highlighted text in the Conclusion section of Guth’s paper published in J.Phys. A40, 2007 (LINK). In other words, there is nothing that says that what we observe in our patch is typical or could be predicted a priori on the basis of the theory.”

• joelobryan says:

Nothing you wrote refutes Hubble’s observation or offers an alternate explanation on the Hubble Constant and the increasing red shift (Z) values that comes from ever more distant objects. And Gravitational lensing resulting from GR theory passes every test given it so far.

Poo poo it if you want, but without an alternative, Hubble and Einstein won’t get replaced.

• TB says:

Halton Arp red shift anomalies:

Gravitational Lensing myth:

• joelobryan says:

Thunderbolts… more like Thunderbirds….
http://www.blastr.com/sites/blastr/files/Thunderbirds5_0.jpg

Seriously, to use the refraction argument requires invoking massively denser atmospheres extending well beyond the sun and other objects than is possible. Plus there would be achromatic aberrations for refraction (rainbows).

GR works every day around us in the quite precise geo-location equations used by GPS receivers. Yes there is a refraction effect on pathlength of low angle GPS SVs and corrections for those are made, but there is also a relativity correction in the algorithms to account for time dilation. GR passes every observational test ever given it.

• TB says:

About the myth of GR and GPS:

” Perhaps you’ve already heard that GPS, by the very fact that it WORKS, confirms Einstein’s relativity; also that Black Holes must be real. But these are little more than popular fictions, according to the distinguished GPS expert Ron Hatch. Here Ron describes GPS data that refute fundamental tenets of both the Special and General Relativity theories. The same experimental data, he notes, suggests an absolute frame with only an appearance of relativity. Ron has worked with satellite navigation and positioning for 50 years, having demonstrated the Navy’s TRANSIT System at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. He is well known for innovations in high-accuracy applications of the GPS system including the development of the “Hatch Filter” which is used in most GPS receivers. He has obtained over two dozen patents related to GPS positioning and is currently a member of the U.S National PNT (Positioning Navigation and Timing) Advisory Board. He is employed in advanced engineering at John Deere’s Intelligent Systems Group.”

19. WR says:

Dark matter/dark energy is just something thrown in to the equations to exactly match the error in observations. How convenient, never mind that it still hasn’t been observed. It’s about time for an alternate theory to be tested.

• whiten says:

Actually WR, from my point of view is more about “discoveries” that stand as explanation of discrepancies, more than simply as exacting matches for the errors in observation.

At least that is what NASA claim and position is in principle about Dark matter.

So you at the end may be more correct than NASA about Dark matter…:)

And maybe alternate theories may not be much of any help if alternate analytic approaches not considered…especially when data holds the clue and the meaning at some point.

cheers

20. u.k.(us) says:

Why is the speed of light so slow ?

• Count to 10 says:

Nobody knows.

• Count to 10 says:

Though, maybe what you mean to ask is “why is everything so far apart?”

• Hugs says:

On the contrary, why time passes so slowly that the Moon is only a second away.

Well, second versus light second is not a well-defined measure, is it? We could ask why the dimensionless pure numbers are what they are.

• menicholas says:

It is looking towards the very small that I am struck by the tremendously huge size disparities in the universe.
Why is the Plank length so tiny?
What happens below that?
Nothing, is the conventional idea…you cannot take a step of I/2 the Plank length, if I have that right.
Now that is an interesting concept to grapple with.

• noaaprogrammer says:

Taxi-cab geometry.

• joelobryan says:

Q: Why is the speed of light so slow ?

A: So that everything doesn’t happen all at once.

• u.k.(us) says:

Good answer, good as any 🙂

• jorgekafkazar says:

Conservation of extent.

• menicholas says:

In our own experience we know that perception of time varies tremendously, even the subjective experience of it by a single individual.
Certainly various creatures on earth have widely varying perceptions of the passage of time.
It is not hard to imagine that other creatures in other places constructed of different stuff experience time at a far different pace than anything we are familiar with.
Whole lifetimes in the space of a fraction of a second, or millennia seeming as a fleeting instant.
We are highly biased by our very senses.

21. Eric Barnes says:

Regarding the trust of Climate Science vs. Cosmology, I have to agree with you Anthony in a general way. Though I think that “trusting” anyone with a grant to study anything is problematic and can lead to the larger problem of interest groups using science/scientists/research to impose on all of us for the flimsiest of reasons.
IMO, it’s a problem that has reared it’s ugly head because of interest groups seeking top down control and politicians/bureaucrats/scientists feathering their own nests rather than seeing past their own self-interest.
There will be no resolution to the science funding problem until the federal budgeting process is brought to heel.

• Count to 10 says:

In cosmology, the effect of chasing grant money is that proposals will take an overly optimistic view of what the proposed experiment will settle or what the proposed theory overturns. Unlike climate science, there isn’t the issue of a claimed existential threat driving the money, and no threat that the collapse of the standard ( or consensus) model would turn off the money spigot. Cosmology is kind of boring in that respect: it’s sort of a very high brow form of entertainment without much hope of any real world applications.

• Eric Barnes says:

Thanks and I think that technological spending is probably more appropriate than theoretical work. One of my favorites lately is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot . Hopelessly unfeasible in any real sense, but at least work on technical innovation moves the bar however slightly. It’s better to have a tangible goal and let the theory come along for the ride (Apollo mission) than funding the theory and hoping to have technological breakthrough fall from that.

• Curious George says:

So was the theory of relativity, before the A-bomb.

• Eric Barnes says:

The theory of Relativity was unfunded as far as I know. I assume it picked up funding once it was vetted but it was outside of academia/government funding.

• joelobryan says:

I had a gentleman’s conversation with a liberal researcher in my department once. He was a Kennedy-Kerry Massachusetts liberal know-it-all academic.

He was lamenting the falling funding levels for biomedical research from the NIH after they had risen for 8 years straight. I pointed out that the three big Federal entitlements that are non-discretionary spending were consuming an ever higher portion of Federal Revenue and set to accelerate at a rapid pace in the coming years. So of course discretionary parts of the budget were going to get squeezed, and I asked him which of those big 3 entitlements he was in favor of reforming. None of course was his standard Liberal response.
His response was to drastically cut the military budget. I then pointed out that national defense was a core constitutional responsibility for the federal government whereas funding research was not mentioned in the constitution.
He wasn’t happy with that answer.

22. Bitter&Twisted says:

I, for one, have always been a “skeptic” as far as dark energy and matter are concerned.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof” and for every example supposedly “proving” dark energy or matter there is another which doesn’t.
The fact that alot of resources have been expended and found nothing suggests that whilst dark energy and matter are brilliant theories, they are not backed by observations.

23. lewispbuckingham says:

Around 14 years ago I had some spare time and tried a thought experiment on the accelerated expansion of the universe, looking for a force in Newtonian physics that would illustrate a mechanism.
The first train of thought was.

Looking at the sky, what is the most energetic object visible to me?
The Sun.

Were there asymmetry in the emissions of the sun there would be a first law response.

If the sun could be induced to emit more flares/wind/plasma in one aspect over another,what would be a mechanism?

Tidal force,the tide making the material of the sun rise and redistribute according to the net vectors of gravity on the sun.

What is the gravity that affects all matter, including the sun, in the universe?
[All objects attract each other gravitationally.]

That with net vector of the centre of the universe.

As the sun rotates the side closest to the centre of the universe is proportionately raised in tide, greater than the other side.

The energy emitted from the side closest to the centre of the universe is greater than that from the opposite side.

The net force is away from the centre of the universe.

Therefore all radiative bodies in the universe have a mechanism of acceleration away from the centre of the universe.

Some thoughts.
One would expect that as the early universe fired up and the suns started to burn,the universe would accelerate more quickly.

The variations in height of the surface of the sun and any other body would be small relative to the body, induced by gravity, vectored on the centre of the universe.

Local objects in our cluster would have a greater gravitational, so tidal, effect, but the whole cluster would be affected anyway by the central gravitational force.

Any event, such as a supernova, would be slightly asymmetric to the centre of the universe.

Since the mechanism causing acceleration acts over billions of years its effect is measurable, despite its infinitesmal origin.

• Curious George says:

Carefully avoid any equations, and the Scientific American will publish you.

• If light can “push” a solar sail space vehicle, which seems to have been proven, then all the light produced by all the stars and all the galaxies long ago in the smaller universe will be gradually pushing the galaxies farther apart as more and more light is produced in the inside of the universe.

I feel better about dark energy than dark matter simply because it feels like it might be true. I used the word “feel” on purpose here because there is flaky evidence and I have to resort to a gut instinct rather than facts. This what climate science is really based on as well. Flimsy theory backed up by gut instinct prognostications.

I do remember watching a documentary about 20 years ago where the main astronomer measuring type 1a supernovas was interviewed and she said that the results were very unexpected. This was before dark energy was proposed but she said the data says the universe expansion is accelerating. She was almost embarrassed to point this out given it was brand new. But to this day, the numbers still pan out.

There was, however, a new paper by a young astromer that noted that galaxy clusters and the gravitational lensing that occurs with them might distort the supernova just right to show there is acceleration when it is not really there. She (again) then did a huge number of calculations that showed it was probably due to just the gravitational lensing and that adjusting for it would result in complete 1:1 flatness.

Some day there will be verifiable answers.

• menicholas says:

I thought the largest gravitational anomaly was the Great Attractor at the center of the Laniakea Supercluster.
No?

24. Jeanparisot says:

Is the scale issue related to gravitational lensing issues at extreme distances and time?

• Mark - Helsinki says:

Gravitational lensing is nonsense. Molecular clouds create the same effect, Dark plasma can also have the same effect.

All so called lensing and warping of light can also be calculated using the mathematics to calculate refraction

• joelobryan says:

Mark,
Breath-taking ignorant statements like that are what gives skeptics a bad name.

• Gabro says:

Regrettably, many skeptics do give alarmists ammo by d@nying all science, to include in Mark’s case physics and astronomy (plus I don’t know what else), and in John Knight’s biology, geology and chemistry, plus also physics and astronomy.

• Mark - Helsinki says:

joelobryan
“Mark,
Breath-taking ignorant statements like that are what gives skeptics a bad name.

Moronic comment, you are obviously an idiot, no argument at all put forward so attack character
Gabro

Regrettably, many skeptics do give alarmists ammo by d@nying all science, to include in Mark’s case physics and astronomy (plus I don’t know what else), and in John Knight’s biology, geology and chemistry, plus also physics and astronomy.

Ditto

Bill Illis
All lensing can be calculated as refraction. So it’s interpretation, and seeing as we know about refraction I say this, keep it simple stupid.

• I posted just above that is relevant to the gravitational lensing issue.

25. Peter Morris says:

Kuhn strikes again!

It’ll be interesting to follow this development.

Ive never liked the dark matter/dark energy explanations. It just sounded too much like epicycles to me. Too ungainly and ugly.

• menicholas says:

I agree…it raise more questions and presents more problems than the ones they are intended to explain.

• jorgekafkazar says:

Epicycles were a reasonable second pass that didn’t upset the apple cart at the time. The Copernican system actually had more epicycles than the Ptolemaic. And along came Kepler.

Do you all know what a Keplerian Janitor is?

26. Blair Macdonald says:

Now Maeder can work on the ‘dark gases’: how N2 and O2 – 99% of the dry atmosphere – do not interact with electromagnetic infrared radiation, at any temperature; contradicting QM and thermodynamics.

27. Dullbutbright says:

Always been slightly skeptical of dark energy and mass. I am no physicist but I believe an Italian scientist wondered if time could be speeding up recently (to explain dark matter and dark energy). Anchoring distance and time into a light year seems like an assumption. How would we know if the speed of light or gravity was constant?

28. Space-time expands faster than time, thus the recorded space-time of the Universe that we observe from within it should appear to be in a state of accelerated expansion.

There’s a strong connection between Dark Matter and the super massive black holes at the center of galaxies. Suppose galaxies exist within a tear in ‘flat’ space-time bounded by a central black hole and a complementary space-time distortion which we perceive as Dark Matter.

• Mark - Helsinki says:

“There’s a strong connection between Dark Matter and the super massive black holes at the center of galaxies”

2 things created by mathematics that do not exist lol

Who has ever observed either? Not one person or instrument has ever observed a black hole or a galaxy

Observational science best evidence goes against black holes, 2 cases and some growing evidence.
1. Hydrogen cloud drifts past our alleged SM black hole in the center of the Milky way
2. and bad for relativity space-time, and black holes, stars that orbit the alleged SM black hole in the center of the Milky way do not in any way AT ALL have light distorted when they pass in close orbit, NO light distortion.
3. Growing evidence for condensed matter on our own star and if correct, it can never ever collapse into a black hole, black holes and stars are the exact same theory. (same condensed matter found on Jupiter as it happens, liquid metallic hydrogen.

• Mark - Helsinki says:

*Black hole or dark matter, lol not “galaxy” 😀

• Mark-Helsinki,
The central black hole, while not directly viewable, the gravitational influence of a very strong distortion in space-time has been unambiguously observed in the center of nearly all galaxies, including our own. Whether it’s a black hole singularity or not, it exhibits the theoretical gravitational signature of one. Similarly, another gravitational distortion surrounding galaxies has been detected and attributed to Dark Matter. he relative amount of Dark matter is roughly proportional to the relative size of the central black hole, hence the idea that the two are primordially connected.

Gravitational lensing effects have certainly been observed consequential to black holes and Dark matter. That’s one of the ways we know they are there.

Our star will not collapse into a Black Hole, but other more massive ones can and do, moreover; this has been observed as massive super nova and was predicted by theory long before being detected, as were other non obvious prediction of GR.

• Mark - Helsinki says:

Mark-Helsinki,
The central black hole, while not directly viewable, the gravitational influence of a very strong distortion in space-time has been unambiguously observed in the center of nearly all galaxies, including our own.

**** Its not viewable AT ALL
**** Space time has not unambiguously observed at all, observational evidence FROM NASA fly in the face of 1. this distortion and 2 the massive “gravity” < a force we dont even know what it actually is.

Whether it’s a black hole singularity or not, it exhibits the theoretical gravitational signature of one.
**** No it doesn't, that is nonsense. There is no such thing as a singularity. Lets discuss what a singularity is..
** Infinitely hot, infinitely dense, Infinite space-space time curvature and it's volume is 0
****** physically impossibly by all physical laws we know to be as valid as we can know them to be.

Similarly, another gravitational distortion surrounding galaxies has been detected and attributed to Dark Matter. he relative amount of Dark matter is roughly proportional to the relative size of the central black hole, hence the idea that the two are primordially connected.

** More nonsense. Sorry but you are stating 1. we detect gravitational distortion and 2 making up the link without logic or observation. You are connecting one unobserved and evidenced mathematically created thing to a second unobserved mathematically created and physically impossible thing
**Primordially connected? Did you not know that there are several theories of black holes, so which one are you talking about because some theories claim them as eternal which nullifies your Primordial claim.
** You dont even know which type of black hole you are talking about
** You dont even know which universe theory you are talking about

Gravitational lensing effects have certainly been observed consequential to black holes and Dark matter. That’s one of the ways we know they are there.
*** try reading ffs, all lensing can be calculated by known observed and replicated refraction calculations

Our star will not collapse into a Black Hole, but other more massive ones can and do, moreover; this has been observed as massive super nova and was predicted by theory long before being detected, as were other non obvious prediction of GR.
** There is 0 evidence for this claim outside of equations (which are not evidence) mathematics is not science, but a tool, you cant create purely from mathematics and claim physicality, logical fallacy
***The fact condensed matter may well exist on our star makes star and black hole theory defunct.

• Hugs says:

I’m not sure how to say this politely. You have no clue, so please stop embarrassing us.

• Jim Gorman says:

co2isnotevil:
Can space-time also expand slower than time? What are the measured physical variables that describe space-time? Exactly what do we know about space-time? We now know that we can detect wave variations in space-time but do we know anything else? If it exists, how do we feel it, taste it, measure it, smell it, etc.?

I think of the analogy of two planets sitting on a trampoline generating distortions in space-time (the fabric of the trampoline). Does a solar system cause a like distortion? How about a galaxy? How about the center of the universe? How does all this affect galaxies on the outer edge?

• Jim,
Think of the Universe as a sphere whose radius is time, whose surface is the space where we exist and whose volume contains the past EM history of space stored as the fabric of space-time. Without this stored EM history, space-time would be imperceptible.

We don’t observe photons reflecting off the edge of the Universe, so space-time must be expanding at the speed of light. In fact, technically, we exist at the expanding edge of Universe. As time progresses and radius of space-time increases, space increases as t^2 while the history stored in space-time increases as t^3.

When we look out into space, we observe t=0 in every direction we look, thus our viewport into the Universe is reversed, where the singular starting point in time occupies the outer surface of a viewport enclosing the history of the Universe and owing to the restrictions of our light cone, we can observe only a single point in space and those points in space-time that fit to our light cone.

As t increases, the size of our viewport grows as t^2 while the volume of space-time we can observe grows as t^3 requiring more and more space-time history to be fit into a viewport that’s growing more slowly providing the illusion that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating.

29. Javier says:

That the explanation for the Universe requires something for what evidence of existence has not been found in decades is embarrassing.

André Maeder is a clear candidate for a Nobel prize.

• Resourceguy says:

+10

• joelobryan says:

While laying waste to the career work of quite a few physicists and cosmologists.
So be it.

• Resourceguy says:

If it were politicized science as in global warming, there would be no change just a brush off and demotion or quiet firing of the upstart bomb thrower. Perhaps dark matter did not yet attain the status of the ether.

30. Mark - Helsinki says:

Dark Matter does not exist by the very physics that make the universe and everything in it exist.

Dark Matter does not exchange information with the physical universe around it
*100% reflective apparently (as it absorbs nothing) yet nothing it reflects can be detected
*Cannot be seen in any spectrum
*Does not physically interact with surrounding environment
*has no temperature

Bad science based on illogical mathematics

• Luther Bl't says:

Bad metaphysics, too. Essentially dark matter is a “Substance” without “Causality”.

• Count to 10 says:

Dark matter is not fundamentally different from the neutrino, which is a known particle.

• Mark - Helsinki says:

Dark matter does not exist, if you “believe” it does, it’s on you to evidence it

31. Mark - Helsinki says:

CERN also stated they found nothing in their search for this magical matter

Dark Matter is BUNK, Strange Matter is BUNK.

32. Resourceguy says:

Does this mean we can stop cowering in the face of settled dark this and dark that science?

• u.k.(us) says:

Don’t forget the 50 shades of grey 🙂

33. Mark - Helsinki says:

As for Black holes, lets not deny the origin of a black hole was bad mathematics

This black hole crap just ignored the falsification of it’s original evidence and just moved on as if the foundation of the whole theory is known to be complete bollocks

Both Black holes and Dark Matter were created with mathematics, they have never been observed or detected. From then to now, things have been interpreted in the context of these theories

Refraction of light is claimed to be Einstein rings caused by warped space time
Missing mass (that is not missing, no one has ever shown any matter is missing, it comes from mathematics)
Galaxy rotation \ observable (yet entirely guessed mass) are all results of mathematics, not science.

Mathematics cannot replace everything we cannot technically and logistically examine and observe, yet this is what makes up these nonsense theories.

If your theory does not make sense in plain language, the mathematics will not make sense, if you cant explain your theory in plain language you do not understand your theory

• Mark - Helsinki says:

*as if the foundation of the whole theory is “NOT” known to be complete bollocks

34. Resourceguy says:

Quick, someone tell PBS and BBC to back off the settled dark science presentations.

• Resourceguy says:

….productions

35. Mark - Helsinki says:

The Pulsar theory came from someone who just made a random guess when asked about it, everything from that point on was interpreted in the context of that guess

We now know the theory is nonsense, because they speed up and slow down and switch emission types, two things anathema to the Pulsar theory

Plus, Neutron stars cannot exist by known physics, do they invented strange matter, out of thin air

What did Hawking say, and was it Einstein too? you can’t create energy from nothing

• Mark - Helsinki says:

*so, gawwwd the typos 😀 I suck

• jorgekafkazar says:

Just get rid of the greengrocers’ apostrophes and all will be forgiven.

36. Mark - Helsinki says:

Theoretical astromagimagicians create energy from nothing all of the time, the biggest fallacy being the “creation from nothing” religious bunk, the Big Bang

37. Mark - Helsinki says:

Newton was correct, attraction only exists between 2 masses, even two atoms

Einstein claimed the gravitation field exists with no mass present and is static.
lol

• How does Newton predict the precession of the orbit of Mercury when Einstein does?

• Mike McMillan says:

Newton comes within 43 arc seconds per century of the actual amount, which is probably less than measurement error in his time.

• Mark - Helsinki says:

I love these fallacies, Newton was alive in the 1600s, and Einstein the the mid 1800s, and relativity came along in the 1900s, 200+ years later, and Einstein availed of more understanding and better astronomical observation and research of others to boot, all largely built on Newton[‘ s work(including basically taking Newton’s work and creating a pseudo theory that allowed for finer calculations)

So you’re point is “How come Einstein took Newton’s work and made slight adjustment for finer calculations 2 over 200 years later”

lol

• Mark - Helsinki says:

*your

• How does Newton explain the Michelson-Morely experiment?

• Why aren’t Maxwell’s Laws invariant under Newton?

• Mark - Helsinki says:

Stop these cut and paste questions lol

Basically you explain nothing and throw rocks for me to deflect, you obviously do not understand either theory.

• Gabro says:

You clearly don’t understand Einstein.

• Mark - Helsinki says:

Who is that directed at? If you mean me, then you clearly have no idea what Einstein’s equations resolve to for the universe, if not me, carry on.

• Why does the accuracy of Quantum Electrodynamic predictions (The most accurate of all mathematical models) fair without using Einstein’s Relativity incorporated by Dirac. It’s what Feynman was a specialist in.

• Why do they keep having to adjust the Newtonian predictions for Geopositionig satellites with General Relativity to keep them real?

• Mike McMillan says:

“Why do they keep having to adjust the Newtonian predictions for Geopositionig satellites with General Relativity to keep them real?”

Because the speed of light is not constant in a rotating frame. The satellites are sending signals both co and contra rotational direction.

• Mark - Helsinki says:

In fact geo-positioning can and has been worked out with Newton’s equations, Einstein’s are preferred.

Just as the Coriolis effect is actually a more complicated set of Newtonian calculations that have been reframed into a pseudo calculation, Newtonian forces converted into a pseudo force for ease of calculation, the Coriolis force is a pseudo force.

Your cut and paste rock throwing dogma protecting questions are laughable.

• Mark - Helsinki says:

The same spam rock throwing, of things you dont even understand, lol, I despite cognitively weak cut and pasters who feel affronted by different scientific opinions.

The same logical fallacy and answered the same. Relativity is a slightly more accurate pseudo theory of Newton’s more coarse calculations. Being over 200 years earlier.

case in point, the solar system can exist in Newton’s laws, and Einsteins, but the mathematics become much more complicated once you move past two bodies in a solar system with Newton.

The same thing was done for the Coriolis effect, Newton’s laws explain it perfectly, but it is far more manageable if one uses pseudo calculations that treat the effect as one force.

Einstein’s calculations are easier than Newtons, and in some cases more accurate, NOT different, not alternate, just improved.

I am not that well versed in QED and not a great mathematician, but your cut and paste arguments you dont even understand yourself are funny

• >>
Einstein’s calculations are easier than Newtons, and in some cases more accurate, NOT different, not alternate, just improved.
<<

The ten field equations of General Relativity are second order, nonlinear differential equations that have to be solved simultaneously. By comparison, Newton is orders of magnitude easier to solve and manipulate. This statement is simply wrong.

Jim

• >>
Mike McMillan
November 25, 2017 at 5:56 pm

Because the speed of light is not constant in a rotating frame.
<<

To state that the speed-of-light changes when using relativity is surprising, because one of the principles of Special and General Relativity is that the speed-of-light is a constant. The corrections needed for satellites are due to GR and are because clocks run slower in a gravity field–a clock on the Earh’s surface is slower than one in orbit.

Jim

• >>
Mark – Helsinki
November 26, 2017 at 2:36 am

In fact geo-positioning can and has been worked out with Newton’s equations, Einstein’s are preferred.
<<

In fact, Newton treats time as a absolute, so the GR adjustment to the satellite clocks is not possible with Newton.

Jim

• Mike McMillan says:

Jim Masterson To state that the speed-of-light changes when using relativity is surprising, because one of the principles of Special and General Relativity is that the speed-of-light is a constant.

Special relativity applies only to inertial reference frames, and fails in an accelerating frame, such as one with gravity.

A rotating reference frame is an accelerating frame. Light paths curve, just as they do under gravity. The speed of light varies depending on direction. The speed of light is not a limit, as there is a radius in every rotating frame beyond which matter moves faster than c.

• >>
. . . as there is a radius in every rotating frame beyond which matter moves faster than c.
<<

The reference frame beyond a certain radius may be moving faster than c, but the matter isn’t.

Jim

• Mike McMillan says:

The reference frame beyond a certain radius may be moving faster than c, but the matter isn’t.

In the rotating reference frame of the earth, buildings, islands, and some thinking may remain static, but the stars are indeed moving through it much faster than light.

• >>
. . . but the stars are indeed moving through it much faster than light.
<<

The stars couldn’t care less if the Earth was rotating or not. They are not moving faster than light.

Jim

• Mike McMillan says:

Don’t worry about it. Even Einstein and Planck had trouble understanding rotating frames of reference.

• >>
<<

Thanks, I was just beginning to hyperventilate.

Jim

• Hugs says:

The word I just came up with a word which describes Mark’s behavior pretty well: *pletive. Are you boozing, or why you lol on Einstein?

• Hugs says:

It appears I boozed too much to write. Apologies for that.

38. Mark - Helsinki says:

Why is Einstein’s philosophical theory wrong?
Well physics is why, there can be no physically real static field if there is no matter, no masses, it means there is no physics

Pure bunk

• There can still be a solution to the Einstein equation where the right hand side (Energy Momentum tensor ) is zero. This is a possible end point of the \universe when all matter has become energy.

• Mark - Helsinki says:

The energy momentum tensor IS 0 from the start.

There is your empty universe, (NOT) a universe full of energy, a static gravitational field has 0 energy.

🙂

• Mark - Helsinki says:

Einstein creates an empty universe with a static field and then INSERTS matter with WORDS.

😀

You know nothing about the theory you are defending, but get your panties in a bunch. Einstein justice warrior 😛

• As far as I know the Einstein field equations have exact solutions for two occasions. The first one is for a vanishing Energy Momentum tensor, the solutions are gravitional waves. The second one is for a point mass in a further empty universe. The solutions are found by Karl Schwarzschild.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Schwarzschild

39. Mark - Helsinki says:

but these theories have moved on from the bunk origins and along with dogma and denial have sent us backwards in understanding the universe.

If only Feynman was alive when Einstein was, and told him to ask stupid questions he obviously missed 😀

• Mark - Helsinki says:

Gibberish rabbit down hole mathematics

Newton and Einstein cannot be merged if one actually understands the conclusions of both of the sets of equations.

On Gravity the two theories are diametrically opposed.

The only reason Newton is used and not Einstein is there is no force in Einstein’s theory, none at all.
So Newton is mashed in with Einstein in a patchwork of bollocks.

There is no relativistic gravity, the universe does not consider or work on “Relative” positions or coordinates, it’s philosophical nonsense. The universe does not care (neither does physics) where one component is in relation to the other, the exact same physical outcome is the result, just because it looks different relatively speaking that does not change the physical reality.

In short, your relative position does not change what physically happens, it is a mirage. It cannot be translated into the physical, we merely refactor for relative positions, nothing has changed, we adapt our perception, the physics do not change, we do this mostly by pseudo calculations that combine our perception with physical reality to provide a solution we can work with.

• vukcevic says:

Hi Mark
Both, the Newton’s (when velocity is much smaller than speed of light) and the Einstein’s (when velocity is a significant fraction of the speed of light) equations are accepted to be ‘good’ until such time when some ‘unifying’ hypothesis is proved to work across whole range of velocities.
It is assumed that far distant parts of Universe are ‘moving apart’ at velocities which fall within ‘significant fraction of the speed of light’.
If that is correct then it is reasonable to assume that:
– if gravity force is instantaneous the Newton’s equation is applicable,
– if gravity force propagates with the near or at the speed of light (re. LIGO & gravity wave) the Einstein’s relativity equation might be the more appropriate one.
Mathematics is just a numerical tool applying the known or accepted principles, but on its own it does not prove that a hypothesis is correct.

• Jim Gorman says:

vukcevic:

Your comment on mathematics being a tool to describe the physical world is +10. It applies to all kinds of models, the math proves nothing, at best it only shows that we can make math relate to physical observations (measurements).

• vukcevic,
In the limit of small velocities, Einstein’s Special Relativity converge to classical physics, thus is the relevant unifying set of equations.

The same is true for General Relativity, which converges to Newtonian gravity in the limit as the mass density diverges away from that of a particle and distances, relative to the speed of light, are insignificant. Whether or not GR is a unifying theory depends on whether or not space-time curvature can be considered the fundamental constituent of all existence. At least it seems that everything can otherwise be quantified with a Stress-Energy tensor …

40. I have filed Dark Matter and Dark Energy away in the same drawer as Ptolemy’s Epicycles. In its day the Ptolemaic theory was useful. The Ptolemaic model was not seriously challenged for over 1,300 years and is still used in the construction of Planetarium projectors. However, it was still an error, like Flat Earth Theory.

• joelobryan says:

Finally with fast computers and digital projectors, modern planetariums can now offer night time views of what the heavens look like from Mars or other non-Earth frames. The older elctromechanical projectors of the past are hard coded with carefully-crafted gears and servomotors to mechanically solve the 3 geometrical equation set of Ptolemy’s Earth-centric view.

Ptolemaic representations of the heavens from Earth’s reference are pretty good at showing seasonal and annual variations of the changing night sky. But move away from Earth, or try to move ahead many millennia to show how the relative motions of the stars will change the constellations, well Ptolemy cant handle those long term projections.
Just like climate models. They get it mostly right, because they’ve been tweeking on past observations. And becasue they see some correct features emerge from their models, the modellers believe the underlying assumptions must be correct. But move ahead a significant time, they fall apart. They have the wrong model. They incorporate and dial-in a CO2 centric climate system. Current GCMs are fundamentally flawed, just like Ptolemaic models are. Today’s GCMs and their modeler’s constant tweakings of them are the very definition of Cargo Cult Science.

41. Earl Wood says:

This is an interesting theory, but how does it explain the gravitational lensing around the bullet cluster and others like it (two galaxies that have recently collided)? This seems like another form of MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics), and they have long been able to reproduce galactic rotation better than dark matter models, but have not been able to explain the lensing. Also, I did not hear an explanation of BAO (Baryon Acoustic Oscillation) which Dark Matter can explain.

I’m not saying this theory is wrong, or that Dark Matter and Dark Energy is right (especially since we have no idea what those things are), but this is just another model. Give it a decade and see if it can withstand the attacks coming its way; and there will be many vicious attacks. Then we will see.

42. Yirgach says:

There is an experiment, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), which will run for 10 years, starting in 2020. The goal is to image the entire sky in a 3 day period using a 144 Mpixel camera. This will generate 200 petabytes of data over the 10 year period. From the site:
The LSST will find thousands more gravitational lenses of all sizes and configurations

43. Jones says:

I dunno much about all this astrology stuff but the pictures sure are purty….

44. Maeder is certainly not the first theorist to do away with dark matter, dark energy, and BBT.

Before him there were Hoyle-Narlikar cosmology, Machean cosmology, and, more recently (the most elegant so far), Shu’s 3-sphere cosmology.

All these theories explain and predict the observed phenomenae much better than current textbook-thumpers, and all of them say the same thing in different ways: mass, length, and time are in the process of continuous mutual transformation and change. On very large scales, the Universe is not linear, and it has no end in space or time in 3 dimensions.

Perhaps, the Universe is simpler than modern skullduggery artists can imagine.

45. meems says:

nice to read these comments. last time i was active here 5 years ago opinion was shifting rapidly against dark matter and energy. Now most people here are against it, and even old stalwart Anthony is looking for alternatives. We all know which group are the prime instigators & drivers in this shift away from dark matter & energy.

46. I’ve been posting this since 1990s: look at your car’s rear-view mirror. What does it say? “OBJECTS ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.” We look at the Universe through a curved mirror. (How many times I’ve been called a fool for this by various leifs and willises!)

When we are dealing with galactic distances, the farther from us, the more mass surrounds us, the slower is the pace of time, and characteristics of light change (thus, red shift).

Also, Einstein’s principle of equivalence needs a correction. It works within the human-scale of observation only.

Rocket acceleration and gravitational acceleration are different things, there is no equivalence between them if the observer uses precision plumb lines (pendants) and atomic clocks. If one installs, in the same windowless experimental chamber, three plumb lines on the ceiling (near the left wall, in the middle, near the right wall), and two atomic clocks (on the ceiling and on the floor):

1) Under rocket acceleration of 1g plumb lines will be parallel, and atomic clocks will be synchronous.

2) Under rotational acceleration of 1g (in the toroidal space station), plumb lines will point at the center of rotation (not parallel) but atomic clocks will be synchronous.

3) Under gravitational acceleration of 1g plumb lines will point at the center of the mass (not parallel), and the atomic clock on the ceiling will be ahead of the clock on the floor.

• Count to 10 says:

Cosmology is easy to spitball, but hard to get right, and involves physics that mess with one’s everyday intuition. Those who really study it invariably come to realize that they initially had all kinds of incorrect ideas about the universe.

• Sure, Leif, thump your textbook once more — maybe it will help you to feel omniscient.

• P.S.

If all the people who proposed the ideas I find worth considering and mentioned in my post — Mach, Hoyle, Narlikar, Shu, Sinha, Loeb, and many others, with all their degrees, Nobel prizes, etc. — show “amazing and scary scientific ignorance,” then I hold Dr. Svalgaard’s opinion as a badge of honor.

I am not going to take a bait and engage in a meaningless, time-wasting link-listing competition, especially since Isaac Newton’s views on gravitation are… somewhat outdated?

• Feht: “then I hold Dr. Svalgaard’s opinion as a badge of honor.”
What you are wearing looks more like a dunce hat…

• Svalgaard: all you can do is insult people, whitout understanding their ideas, intentionally misunderstanding them, quoting them out of context, and posting lazy links to painful explanations of the obvious in order to pretend that those you insult don’t know the multiplication table.

Whereas it is you who never presented to me a clear argument in your own words — a neurotic old stick-in-the-mud with zero ideas of your own, a gadget techician posing as a scientist. You are not even a global warming skeptic but a fifth columnist here, as many have already noticed. Vade retro!

• Ah, you could not keep away in spite of your promise of doing so…

• You confuse me with someone else, Leif Svalgaard.
I never promised “to keep away,” and never will.
I said once that I don’t like to read your narcissistic posts, and that’s true, I usually skip them, but not when you are indulging your cantankerous self at my expense.

47. When you use electricity you don’t need any if this complicated nonsense.

48. When things don’t make sense, it’s time to question basic assumptions:
1.) Are the “laws” of physics invariant over space and time?
2.) Do we really know what space and time are?
3.) Is time really a dimension like space, or only something in our minds?
4.) Red-shifted light is red-shifted because of what exactly? Prove it.
5.) Does the universe have to obey mathematical theory? If so, why?

• Gabro says:

The red shift is an observation of physical reality. It just is. It’s not subject to “proof”, which in any case is not a scientific concept.

• Gabro says:

I should have said repeatable observation, ie a scientific fact.

• Ronald’s question #4 was about the cause of the observed red shift, not about its existence.
Don’t prtend to be stupid, it’s an ugly strategy.

• Gabro says:

What is ugly is asserting that an observed physical phenomenon isn’t understood, when it is.

There is no mystery surrounding the cosmological red shift in an expanding universe.

• Gabro,

No matter how often you thump the college textbook, it won’t become the holy thruth.

There are many respected scientists arguing against the conventional explanation of the red shift. Take your arguments to professor Shu, most respected physicist from Taiwan, and to Ari Loeb, dean of the Harward astrophysics department, discoverer of fast radio bursts and winner of mutiple prizes.

Apparent expansion of the Universe also can be explained in many different ways — for example, Narlikar and Sinha think so. Tell Narlikar that you know the whole truth. He’ll teach you a thing or two.

Recall the history of science, “Gabro,” and try to think. At any given moment, “consensus” of the scientists, in any given area, is wrong most of the time.

• Gabro says:

Alexander,

You are taking Avi Loeb’s name (mot Ari) in vain. He doesn’t say what you falsely claim he does regarding the cosmic red shift.

I’m not familiar with professor Shu from Taiwan or with “Narlikar and Sinha”.

You have absolutely nothing.

• So, what is your justification, Gabro? The fact that you know nothing about prominent sceintists named in my post? Or a single typo (there is no editing of posts on this site)?

Professor Loeb does not support the Big Bang theory as a whole. Thus, dogmatic interpretation of redshift as a measure of the Universe’s accelerated expansion doesn’t stand a chance in his view.

• >>
Are the “laws” of physics invariant over space and time?
<<

If they aren’t, then you’ll have to explain why it looks like distant stars are doing the same things our nearby stars are doing. You’ll also have to explain why the speed-of-light appears in Maxwell’s equations. (The ether theory solved this problem nicely, but Michelson-Morley 1887 ruined that idea.)

Jim

49. ““In this model, there is a starting hypothesis that hasn’t been taken into account, in my opinion”, says André Maeder, honorary professor in the Department of Astronomy in UNIGE’s Faculty of Science. ”

I like this guy. When a theory has problems it never hurts to back to ground zero and make sure all the assumptions are valid and that none have been overlooked.

• Ptolemy2 says:

+1

50. Gary Pearse. says:

Oh, there will be hot defence of the cumbersome stealth matter and energy –
Planck’s other famous theory is that “science advances one funeral at a time”. I’ve taken issue with the dark theory because it is one of those “what else could it be” type theories, like the very one that anchors catastrophist climate theory. In both cases “what else could it be” is the lifeboat of a dull pupil.

Next to go (with the requisite funerals) is String Theory. I believe what happened here is all the juicy stuff in physics was discovered in the 350yrs prior to 100yrs ago by physicist’s who numbered far fewer than annual PhD grads from California. So you have a lot of smart people picking up crumbs or going into what I call performance physics, like we have in music. I guess with only 12 notes and 3 or 4 usable octaves all the finest melodic and harmonic work has long been completed. Of course, jazz and Blues added pizzazz to music, but in reaching and stretching for new sounds, we got weirder and weirder.

I sort of see physics at the rap- heavy (dark) metal stage and climate has disintegrated into what Anthony Watts brilliantly calls “Dark Climate”. ‘What else could it be?’ The spaghetti graphs, I suppose are their “Strings” Climate has broken new ground for sure, though. With all their failed predictions, CAGW has shifted to Climate Change, a bullet proof everything theory that can’t be falsified. Also, their finest innovation is, “Observations don’t fit the theory, change the observations”. Hmm… most of these guys call themselves physicists. How long will it be before physicists see the benefits of elastic empirical data? It’s only a small step from having phenomena that aren’t detectable!

• Gabro says:

There has been a lot of good observational, experimental and theoretical physics in the past century, but I see your general point.

Granted, quantum mechanics gradually arose from the necessity of discrete energy values in Max Planck’s solution in 1900 to the black-body radiation problem, and from the necessary correspondence between energy and frequency in Albert Einstein’s 1905 paper, which offered a quantum-based theory to explain the photoelectric effect. However, early quantum theory was profoundly re-conceived in the mid-1920s by Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born and others. From this period stems the modern theory, formulated in various specially developed mathematical formalisms, in one of which a mathematical function, the wave function, provides information about the probability amplitude of position, momentum, and other physical properties of a particle.

Only in 1920 did Rutherford name the H nucleus “proton”, and it was not until 1935 that Chadwick discovered the neutron. Nuclear fission of heavy elements wasn’t discovered until December 1938 by Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann, and explained theoretically in January 1939 by Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch.

I could keep going on physics advancements in the 1940s to 2010s, but you get the idea.

• Gary Pearse. says:

Gabro, I get your point too. Ive become a curmugeonly sort these days. I think it was Dark Climate wot done it and the APS, Royal Society in the hands of moles for the destruction of the Enlightenment spirit.

• Gabro says:

Curmudgeonly is good. You’re entitled after such a long and distinguished career.

The return on investment of science does indeed appear to be decreasing.

• Steven Mosher says:

dark climate.
That would be the “cause” of warming that skeptics cant sem to find.

the rest of us know its GHGs

• Dark matter/energy is to cosmology what water vapour feedbacks are to AGW.

Both will eventually be shown to be nonexistent.

• Gabro says:

How exactly do you “know” this?

Warming from c. 1977 to the late ’90s was no different from the early 20th century warming. Hence, no CO2 “fingerprint”. And earth cooled dramatically from the ’40s to the PDO flip of 1977, despite rising CO2. Again, no CO2 effect.

So please state how you know that warming since the ’40s or whenever is due to GHGs. Thanks.

51. Patrick MJD says:

There is plenty of “dark matter” in climate science which is usually present alongside a pungent odour. Some say it is a good fertiliser too.

52. ironargonaut says:

It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.
Am I describing dark matter/energy or the force?

53. Rik Gheysens says:

Just published by Sabine Hossenfelder: Astrophysicist discovers yet another way to screw yourself over when modifying Einstein’s theory (http://backreaction.blogspot.be/2017/11/astrophysicist-discovers-yet-another.html).
For those of you who merely want to know whether you should pay attention to this new variant of modified gravity, the answer is no. The author does not have a consistent theory. The math is wrong.

• LdB says:

She is correct the maths is garbage.

• JimG1 says:

English is evidently not your first language which leads me to wonder regarding your expertise in the mathmatical language. Note, also, in the paper indicated above by RG that the term “standard model” is used in reference to cosmology, for which you attempted to belittle me for using in a previous comment I made indicating it was a term confined to particle/quantum physics. Not so! There are many on this site who attempt to show their brilliance with multitudes of comments. Quantity does not make up for poor quality.

• Hiro Kawabata says:

Thank you for posting a review by someone, Dr. Hossenfelder, who actually understands the physics and math issues of GR and is qualified to review the paper.

Was waiting for such a review by her.

• Ptolemy2 says:

Sabine Hossenfelder sounds like a cosmo-dominatrix who likes bossing people.

• Hiro Kawabata says:

If that is how you interpret the review of a theoretical physicist who specializes in general relativity,

54. Blair Macdonald says:

Now Maeder can work on the ‘dark gases’: how N2 and O2 – 99% of the atmosphere – do not interact with electromagnetic infrared radiation, at any temperature; contradicting QM and thermodynamics.

• Ptolemy2 says:

+1

55. Mark - Helsinki says:

It is astounding how Einstein proponents on the gravitational aspects of relativity 1. get really bitchy when you mention real problems with the theory and 2. How much they dont actually know about the theory they are defending!!

LOL

56. Mark - Helsinki says:

Anyone who believes the following are insane

There is this exceptionally contorted area of spacetime curvature around their body, different at head compared to feet, different at arse compared to elbow. << if you believe this, you should not be in the internet without adult supervision.

Geometry cannot overlap without there being a cancelling out. It makes no sense geometrically for the earth to have pull on the sun, but it makes sense in terms of two objects pulling on each other WITH FORCE

Newton says FORCE, Einstein says GEOMETRY so combining both is JUNK SCIENCE

I am not saying Einstein was just wrong on everything or even most things, clearly that is not the case, as some complete cut and paste type above throwing spam questions at me seems to imply

• I’m sorry but my list of points were not cut and paste but basic observations that cannot be explained using Newton’s theory but are explained using Einstein’s Theories of Special and General Relativity. That doesn’t make Einstein the end point but at least a step along the road of understanding how the universe works. My style of presentation was simply to mimic your own approach as I thought you might feel comforted by one bite oneliners.

As for my own view, somewhere in the morass of Spin networks, String Theory, Twistor Theory and Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation there is some hope of unifying the Quantum World with General Relativity as the next step in understanding what it all means and how it all fits together and works.

It’s all just steps down the road of logically consistent possibilities which may or may not be the road to follow. Certainly better than the nihilism of many of the comments I’ve read here.

57. Bloke down the pub says:

I’m sure the answer will turn up on the Dark Web.

• Mark - Helsinki says:

😀

• Bloke down the pub says:

The question in the title.

58. Mark - Helsinki says:

My main issue with Einstein is one words used in his work to accompany equations (Empty universe with static field (Static = no energy no mass)

Gravitational waves are decoupled from mass. Einstein would say that is bollocks and even Einstein was having none of this black hole junk science

• Mark - Helsinki says:

My main issue with Einstein is one words used in his work to accompany equations (Empty universe with static field (Static = no energy no mass) and then inserting mass with words.

The others are space time, Space is an area defined by a set of encompassing coordinates, nothing more, time is a human concept to measure procession.

To make these physically real is retardation beyond measure

59. Mark - Helsinki says:

This nonsense is so pervasive that we have people like de Grasse Tyson (uber hack) calling Interstellar the movie, “scientifically accurate” 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

60. Mark - Helsinki says:

The “giving skeptics a bad name” comments for putting forward arguments against mainstream theories, from people who are against mainstream climate theory and suffer insults as a result, is rather ironic and shows the echo chamber affects everywhere.

Mental weakness folks. The lack of arguments to compliment these moronic comments is also noted.
Believers on here too it seems. I dont have belief, I have questions, and those that cannot answer them should just shut up I would suggest, instead of engaging in making it personal. My replies are not personal, they are observations, with reasoning for them laid out as to why the replies were moronic and the posters of said comments, idiots.

61. Mark - Helsinki says:

Essentially @Gabro, you are personally affected by my arguments?, your character is attacked by them as a skeptic? I am giving you a bad name by sharing what I think?

You follow it up by claiming I know nothing about something you know nothing about? that’s too funny. How could you know I am wrong? oh yeah, “consensus”, silly me, I should know better, just I expected more on here, but I guess the cognitively limited (an observation) occupy all spaces online.

You really cannot see how ridiculous such comments are?
I must shut up and not post lest you feel you get a bad name, and all skeptics get a bad name? even though I am merely being skeptical

How funny is it that you need to look up the meaning of “skeptical”:D

62. Mark - Helsinki says:

@Gabro here, for you “having doubts or reservations”
I have doubts and reservations and I put forward arguments for said, right or wrong, the fact you just dismiss and then claim I give all those who having doubts or reservations a bad name, lol.

You are obviously out of your depth, those that are often bring in their emotions.

Pathetic really if I am honest that so called skeptical people sink so low

• Gabro says:

I haven’t brought in any emotions, unlike you. All I’ve brought in is physics, which you really ought to study before presuming to comment upon the subject out of total ignorance. You’re not just out of your depth, but have none at all.

63. TA says:

From the article: “For close on a century, researchers have hypothesised that the universe contains more matter than can be directly observed, known as “dark matter”.”

I think there is no doubt about it, there is more matter in the universe than we can observe. There are comets, and asteriods, all sorts of planets, neutron stars, brown dwarfs, black holes.

The question is how much of this dark matter is out there. How much of a solar system’s material is flung out into interstellar space as the solar system forms? How many black holes are there in the universe?

64. Jacob Frank says:

Can we get rid of the Copenhagen interpretation also? Just because Neils Bohr was a cool dude is not a scientific reason to believe him. No more parallel universe or multiverse, it’s not even good sci fi

• Count to 10 says:

The Copenhagen interpretation is the one where the wave function magically collapses when observed by humans. The many worlds interpretation is the alternative, in which the wave functions just propagate through all scales.

• Jacob Frank says:

Pilot wave, another alternative

• LdB says:

Only you can actually experimentally demonstrate the collapse, which give you a slight problem.

Setup this experiment:
a.) Put a single photon dot in the centre of a room.
b.) Place a series of single photon detectors around the room … you can use humans 🙂

So first up turn on only one random detector, if you have using humans only one faces the dot everyone else turns away. The detector should always see the photon. You have convinced yourself the photon can be seen by any detector at any position around the room.

Now turn on all the detectors … or get all the humans to look at the dot 🙂

Guess what happens … good luck explaining it.

65. Svend Ferdinandsen says:

Would’nt dark matter and dark energy balance each other, so that you can skip both.
Well, dark matter was invented to explain the movements in galaxies, and then dark energy was invented to explain the galaxies relative movements. Nice if we can get rid of these things nobody has observed.

66. Robertvd says:

If gravitational attraction is such a powerful force than how is an accelerating expansion of the universe possible?

• Robertvd says:

“I trust astronomers more than I trust climate scientists, because they don’t have that “save the planet” paradigm going on.”

They have the same “need more funding” paradigm going on. They compete for the same tax dollar. And if you don’t believe in the Dark force religion no university wants you.

• Gabro says:

Gravity is a very weak force.

It’s possible however that the alleged acceleration of expansion is an artifact, caused by observer error.

• whiten says:

Gabro
November 26, 2017 at 11:08 am

“It’s possible however that the alleged acceleration of expansion is an artifact, caused by observer error.”
———————————
Maybe so,,,, no trying a contradict it, but a simple thing as simply put…..A constant radius expansion still can be seen and interpreted as an accelerating volume expansion, in the case or the model of an expanding bubble, especially when physics of the expansion in this case tightly related and aimed at explaining mass and volume change, rather than radius…:)

cheers

• Robertvd says:

If there is expansion is it because it is pushed or because it is pulled. There has to be a force to continue the expansion.

• Gabro says:

Whitten,

Two teams in 1998 independently observed apparent acceleration in the expansion of the universe. Despite confirmatory evidence found in baryon acoustic oscillations and analyses of the clustering of galaxies, the possibility still exists that this at the time surprising result is a big mistake.

• whiten says:

Gabro
November 26, 2017 at 10:30 pm

Gabro, what I was trying a point at is simple, expansion in the term of radius versus expansion in terms of matter and volume…. (even as in case of an accelerating expansion)

Still in principle and concept of the expansion of universe, in terms of radius, it could be rightfully considered as a constant one, regardless of the accelerating expansion view point in terms of mass (matter) and volume considered at some point.

From where I stand, from my point of understanding, this seems to be the most obvious error in astrophysics.

Still the radius expansion of the universe is constant, regardless of the mass volume accelerating expansion contemplated as per the approach at this point.

The means of physics and maths involved, as far as I can tell, still points clearly at this condition.

A further persistence in ignoring it, as far as I can tell, will lead to some thing worse than as in the case of a Run Away Global Warming in climatology.

According to observations and the data thus far, as much as I can tell, ignoring the radius expansion of the universe may lead to really incomprehensible and contradictory conclusions.

Yes this kind of approach is very challenging, in most ways contemplating it, but still observation and data does force it through at some point…..

Ignoring the basic radius expansion of the universe, as per the observations, leads to a fresh clean black board approach, a proper reset, when most of all the observations must be cancelled and ignored, and not really relied upon, and cherry picking rules or will have to rule the day, if I may put it that way..

Still, anyway you try to, or any one else tries to, still the radius expansion still could and will be constant, regardless, of the mass volume accelerating expansion in any case or model that deals with a three dimensional bubble expansion, anywhere any time……..regardless of any ones wishes, or any ones wishful thinking…

Then, as I have to contemplate this kind of thing, “cruelty”, I still got to ask…..
What prevents you to be “cruel” against this position and claim????? 🙂
Just kinda of kidding, if you get the meaning of it! but still this question stands……..

cheers

• whiten says:

Svend Ferdinandsen
November 27, 2017 at 12:36 pm

The question is if it is accelerating.
———————–
Svend.

The actual question in this case is if it is expanding, if the universe is expanding or not,, the acceleration of it,,,, the acceleration of that expansion, holds no much meaning at all at this point…..

That is what I am trying a say, or put forward….

The whole universe of probability, points out clearly that if there is an expansion in a three dimensional medium, regardless of physics or any other hyper science approach explanation,,, in all probable outcomes, the expansion will be seen and considered as an accelerating one by default, in all probable cases, if addressed by and through the point of mass (matter) volume…….a simple undeniable geometry, in concept and principle..

The accelerating expansion of universe can not even count as a discovery or a scientific achievement….it simple stands as a means pointing out that the expansion could and most probably is real….that is all about it…..It always will be unavoidable as a matter of probability, always the same, an accelerating expansion, if the expansion is real…and in the same time simply being addressed through the point of mass (matter) volume clause.,,
no much merit there for the astrophysics from this point of view…thus far.

cheers

• Svend Ferdinandsen says:

The question is if it is accelerating. Distant objects moves faster because, else they would not be distant. They had the speed from the beginning, so to speak.
And concidering that distant objects are seen as they were for millions of years ago, they had really a good speed in the beginning.
Unfortunately you can not in any way see the actual speed now, unless you wait millions of years.

67. Ptolemy2 says:

Mark Helsinki
Why is Einstein’s philosophical theory wrong?
Well physics is why, there can be no physically real static field if there is no matter, no masses, it means there is no physics

Pure bunk

Are you a real climate skeptic or a 5th columnist / plant?

You are making the WUWT community as a whole look very stupid and irrational.

68. Ptolemy2 says:

Cut through all the survivalist “deny every scientific theory just for the hell of it” and read the actual abstract:

Dynamical Effects of the Scale Invariance of the Empty Space: The Fall of Dark Matter?
Andre Maeder
Published 2017 November 10 • © 2017.
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 849, Number 2

Abstract
The hypothesis of the scale invariance of the macroscopic empty space, which intervenes through the cosmological constant, has led to new cosmological models. They show an accelerated cosmic expansion after the initial stages and satisfy several major cosmological tests. No unknown particles are needed. Developing the weak-field approximation, we find that the here-derived equation of motion corresponding to Newton’s equation also contains a small outward acceleration term. Its order of magnitude is about $\sqrt{{\varrho }_{{\rm{c}}}/\varrho }\ \times$ Newton’s gravity (rhov being the mean density of the system and ${\varrho }_{{\rm{c}}}$ the usual critical density). The new term is thus particularly significant for very low density systems. A modified virial theorem is derived and applied to clusters of galaxies. For the Coma Cluster and Abell 2029, the dynamical masses are about a factor of 5–10 smaller than in the standard case. This tends to leave no room for dark matter in these clusters. Then, the two-body problem is studied and an equation corresponding to the Binet equation is obtained. It implies some secular variations of the orbital parameters. The results are applied to the rotation curve of the outer layers of the Milky Way. Starting backward from the present rotation curve, we calculate the past evolution of the Galactic rotation and find that, in the early stages, it was steep and Keplerian. Thus, the flat rotation curves of galaxies appear as an age effect, a result consistent with recent observations of distant galaxies by Genzel et al. and Lang et al. Finally, in an appendix we also study the long-standing problem of the increase with age of the vertical velocity dispersion in the Galaxy. The observed increase appears to result from the new small acceleration term in the equation of the harmonic oscillator describing stellar motions around the Galactic plane. Thus, we tend to conclude that neither dark energy nor dark matter seems to be needed in the proposed theoretical context.

This could well kill dark matter and energy, which would be a good thing. They have always been an ugly artefact of cosmology.

• Ptolemy2 says:

?Ne ponimayu

• Why, exactly, don’t you understand plain English?
How Maeder explains the redshift?
If you know something about it, tell me, If you don’t, say so.

• Robertvd says:
• I know, how Arp explains it, I’ve read three of his books.
What I would like to know is how redshift is explained in terms of Maeder’s theory.

• Robertvd says:

If we live in an expanding universe why is andromeda moving towards the milky way? And why is the milky way not moving away from it? Or are we moving in the same direction but andromeda goes faster?

• >>
If we live in an expanding universe why is andromeda moving towards the milky way?
<<

Galaxies are arranged in clusters. Some clusters, like the Local Group are small. The local group includes the Milky Way, M31 (Andromeda), and a number of dwarf galaxies (maybe 54 total). (In turn, our local cluster may be a member of the Virgo super-cluster.) Other clusters are huge–containing hundreds of members. Within a cluster, galaxies are held together by gravity–they may collide, orbit, etc. It’s the clusters that are moving away from each other.

So M31 (Andromeda) is blue shifted and is moving towards the Milky Way.

Jim

69. anna v says:

There is a lot of dross in this discussion, even people dissing physics.

Physics is not a religion, it is a classification of observations that have been assigned a one to one correspondence with the real numbers , a data base of measurements. It has advanced from Euclidean geometry which was the result of classifying with algebra observations in measuring lands in the valley of the Nile, to quantum mechanics : the result of using sophisticated mathematics to fit the data ( photoelectric, spectra, black body radiation).,

Mathematics are self consistent, they have axioms, theorems derived from axioms which can interchanged with them in alternate mathematical formulations and are subject to “proof” and Quod Est demostrandum. Physics models can either be validated by the new predictions they make, or falsified, never “proven”

A physics framework is a complete system as far as possible, which has a thorough self consistent mathematical and physical description starting with mathematical “axioms” adding “laws”, “principles” , “postulates” , and ending up with differential equations that predict and describe experimental results.

Frameworks in physics are hierarchical, i.e. a type of meta levels, one morphing into the others given certain magnitudes of the basic variables. When the errors in measurements overlay any mathematical predictions, the usefulness of that theoretical model stops at those variable limits.

Here goes :

There is an underlying General Relativity level ( large curvatures) leading to a Special Relativity (flat space) level which at the limit of small velocities becomes classical mechanics ( velocities much smaller than velocity of light)

Classical mechanics is one level which leads to statistical mechanics at the many body formulation which leads to thermodynamics as continuum. .

In parallel there is classical electromagnetic theory

which morphs to quantum electrodynamics the only QED in physics models

and general quantum theory, which some believe may lead to

String formulation in Quantum mechanics ( GR included) leading to Quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory which goes into quantum statistical mechanics which will also go into thermodynamics at the continuum level.

The interface between these levels is smooth and can be shown to be consistent. See for example https://motls.blogspot.gr/2011/11/how-classical-fields-particles-emerge.html .

In the present case a new model in describing the cosmological observations is proposed. As it has been peer reviewed I will accept that the mathematics is consistent. It can either be a radical new proposal which must give predictions that measurements can falsify , or an alternative mathematical structure, which may be easier to progress understanding, or not really useful. It should at least be able to fit all the current observations/measurements that require the existence of dark energy and dark mass.

So we have to wait and see what the future is for this model, and rely on peer reviewed papers and not comments thrown around . ( peer review is still working well for particle and cosmology physics in contrast to climate papers)

• So we have to wait and see… until somebody else comes up whith new ideas, meanwhile quoting mantras from college books and lecturing everybody around about things everybody knows. Yawn.

And no, peer review doesn’t work and never worked in any controversial field of science, cosmology prominently included.

70. There is one observation about the Universe that is often overlooked. We are told that motion is relative, that there is no “preferred” or “zero” frame of reference, but this can plainly be seen to be false.

Rotation is not relative. Rotation of the galaxies appears relative to a common “zero”. This observation yields different predictions for modified gravity versus dark matter/energy.

What is required is a formalized solution to the Mach Principle.

71. I find the notion of faster than light “inflation” to explain the big bang to be on the same level as dark energy and dark matter. fanciful inventions to explain the observations that violate known science.

we have strong evidence that the speed of light is a true limit, yet we have a theory that can only be explained by breaking this limit. what this tells us is that the big bang is wrong. we are missing some information about the true nature of creation.

and now we have dark matter. but it isn’t truly dark, because dark matter does not interact with light or magnetism. it isn’t simply transparent. It is matter that isn’t matter. which is not consistent with any sort of matter.

a better name for dark matter is pseudo matter. At least this would prevent the layman’s confusion in thinking that dark matter is simply dead suns that are not giving off light. Dark matter is incapable of giving off or reflecting light. Better yet, call dark matter false matter or not matter, because that is how it acts.

• Gabro says:

Predictions made on the basis of the inflation model have been confirmed. Thus, so far, the hypothesis hasn’t been shown false. It’s an instance of science at work.

72. “Dark Matter” … “Dark Energy”

Both racist terms. I propose “Light Matter” and “Light Energy” to rebut, … or to counter balance.

High-end physics theories need diversity too.

Towards this end, I also propose “Questioning Matter” and “Questioning Energy”, … “Bi-Matter” and “Bi-Energy”, … or let’s just dispense with words in the first part of the label altogether and use punctuation marks like “?-Matter” and “?-Energy”, … or “!-Matter” and “!-Energy”.

My personal favorite would be “&#%!@?)-Matter” and “&#%!@?)-Energy”, because that pretty much sums up my current feeling about both.

73. Frank DiMeglio says:

Precisely why ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is gravity:

ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is gravity. This is proven by F=ma AND E=mc2. This involves what is possible/potential AND actual in balance. “Mass”/energy involves balanced inertia/inertial resistance consistent with/as what is balanced electromagnetic/gravitational force/energy, as ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is gravity. Inertia/inertial resistance is proportional to (or balanced with/as) gravitational force/energy, as this balances AND unifies ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy and gravity; as this balances gravity AND inertia. (This explains F=ma AND E=mc2, as electromagnetism/energy is gravity.) Accordingly, gravity/acceleration involves balanced inertia/inertial resistance; as electromagnetism/energy is gravity. “Mass”/energy is gravity. “Mass”/energy is electromagnetism/energy. ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is gravity.
Great !!!!

Gravity/acceleration involves balanced inertia/inertial resistance, as gravity is electromagnetism/energy. Accordingly, a given planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times; AND this is then consistent with F=ma, E=mc2, AND what is perpetual motion; as ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is gravity. Balance and completeness go hand in hand. Think about it all very carefully. It all makes perfect sense. Magnificent !!! “Mass”/energy involves balanced inertia/inertial resistance consistent with/as what is balanced electromagnetic/gravitational force/energy, as electromagnetism/energy is gravity. Gravity is ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy. Fantastic !!!!!

Very importantly, outer “space” involves full inertia; AND it is fully invisible AND black.

A photon may be placed at the center of the sun, as the reduction of space is offset by (or balanced with) the speed of light, as ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is gravity.

By Frank DiMeglio

74. paqyfelyc says:

“new theoretical model based on the scale invariance of the empty space”
new ….
Nottale, Laurent., 1993, (World Scientific, 1993), “Fractal Space-Time and Microphysics: Towards a Theory of Scale Relativity.”
Well, I Guess 1/4 century is short enough to be called “new”

75. South River Independent says:

There is much knowledge on display here, but little understanding. The excellent historian John Lukacs points out that history is superior (more important than) to science. There is a history of science, but not a science of history. Many here do not know or remember history. Many also do not know, or more importantly, understand science, or philosophy.

Max Born said that theoretical physics was philosophy, not science. There are philosophical proofs for the existence of a creator. (And for Gabro’s information, they have not been falsified, only not understood or ignored.) Check out Edward Feser for more information. Also check out Mortimer Adler’s Ten Philosophical Mistakes.

Atheists, please do not respond with ridiculous claims about the many preposterous claims made by ignorant “believers.” Instead, try to refute the philosophical arguments of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.

• Gabro says:

When you present what you imagine to be “proofs” of God’s existence, I’ll be happy to refute them for you.

That it’s impossible to “prove” God’s existence is precisely how God wants it. Otherwise faith I’d of no value and justification is by faith alone.

Science seeks only natural explanations of nature. Supernatural stories are of no use for scientific purposes.

• Gabro says:

Please read “faith is” for “faith I’d”. Autofill on the iPhone after typo.

76. Kip Hansen says:

I am just finishing the reading of the second of two books about the history of the science about Dark Matter/Dark Energy.

Only the first, Richard Panek’s “The 4% Universe”, dares to admit that they might possibly not exist at all, but only be, in reality, ad hoc explanations for things not yet understood.

I highly recommend the Panek book. [ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8229029-the-4-percent-universe ]

77. I did not have time to read the discussions, but I think that few of the participants will understand and accept the truth I am giving. Most will say it’s a religion.
The universe is a sphere of infinite diameter and is filled with the substance AETHER, from which the matter is formed and into which the matter returns back in the form of Aether (black hole). Through the high vibrations of Aether, strings are formed in three spatial directions and in their cross sections matter is formed in two aggregate states: the “solid state” of matter (3 kg of particles, 3 quarks and 3 bonds of gluon), and the “liquid state” of matter-free gluons (annihilation of an electron-positron pair).
The “solid state” of matter has a relationship with Aether in the form of GRAVITATION, “liquid state” causes the appearance of MAGNETISM. With this, everything is resolved in the universe.
The sooner you accept this, because all other theories are contrary to the laws of nature and the structure of the universe. (I’m preparing for some Nobel Prizes).
The universe does not expand, there is no BB, there are no theories of general relativity, nor Lorenz’s transformation, there are no collisions of black holes, there are no GVs and everything related to it.
Kepler’s laws are incorrect, the movement of all celestial bodies is a complete opposite attitude that science is trying to overcome both ourselves and our Creator, which no one from science disregards, and that is why we are immensely affected by various nebuloses and fatheads of individuals. And it’s not a miracle; lies and scams.