With statements like these, it becomes clear just how much you don't know what you're talking about.

It is a shame the cosmological team has not catered their graphical representation to your personal engineering limitations so you might understand it, but then again, why should they? The astronomical community understands the representation just fine, so why cater to someone schooled in one branch of engineering who also has a severe Messiah Complex?

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

I'm not sure if this has any bearing on the discussion

Link: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99995007

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Don't wrestle with a pig; you'll both get muddy and the pig enjoys it.
- JayUtah

Never try to reason with a pig. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
- tsig
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Law of Logical Argument: Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about

Well, gee, here's the error in your logic. Galaxies are not moving in the sense you mean. So your argument is absurd.

I'm taking bets that you will not accept the fact that you have erred.

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Ha! Good one, Q Raider! A timely finding! Now there are three independent verifications of the existence of dark energy. This Chandra site might have the story written up a bit more accurately than the New Science guy, who has a small error here and there. But what news!

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Don't let them beat you to death on this one SnowFlake, dig in. Whether you view the universe as a rising loaf of bread, or look at the differential rates between the motion of the galaxies, or visualize expansion as a doppler shift, most of the time conceptually it does not make any difference. You do understand, the local or current rate of expansion does appear to be less than the rate in the Perlmutter graphs. And all this malarky about cosmology being beyond the grasp of a scientific mind dedicated to other fields is just that. Perlmutter does not use conventional terms and methods because if the same rules we are used to are applied, the whole big bang scenario collapses in a pile of meaningless handwaving.

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

I agree. It's not beyond anyone's grasp. But if someone's sight is so fixed on some delusion of their own making, they often can't see what's clearly in front of their face, and they don't even try to grab ahold of it.

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Thanks for the welcome, guys! I'm studying to become an astrophysicist (2nd year at the mo'), so this discussion is particularly interesting.

Now that we are on the same page, Cougar, let's look at one of the applicable phenomena, staring us right in the face: Narrow Line Seyfert galaxies: The emission line width observed in these galaxies, contrary to ALL KNOWN EMF & thermaldynamic laws - appears to get narrower with increasing magnitude and redshift. The obvious solution to this paradox is that the redshift is intrinsic, rather than GR expansion, so that the GR K corrections used to convert the spectrum of these not-so-distant galaxies artificially narrow these lines. The hotter the galaxy, the greater the intrinsic redshift, the more inappropriate width compensation and the narrower the lines. Is there a better explanation?

Let me take this one step further, if bluer galaxies, like the Seyferts, are intrinsically redshifted, they cannot be found locally and they are not. The smallest of these galaxies appear to be the closest. This is also true.

If the redshift is proportional to magnitude and the magnitudes randomly distributed, "blue" galaxies should not appear to be in the centers of local galaxies, and they are not. But with increasing distance, as the intrinsic portion of the red shift becomes small relative to the cosmic redshift, they should statistically start populating the centers of clusters, and they do. There should also apparently be missing mass in local clusters relative the in-fall rate. There is, and the missing blue galaxies are replaced with dark matter - this is one case where MOND does not properly predict cluster rotational behavior, and it shouldn't - unless you plug the blue galaxies back in where they belong.

The latest "Proof" the acceleration of expansion is increasing is that, according to interpretations of the CHANDRA X-ray data, cluster density increases with increasing distance (Allen). However this is based on the assumption that the dark matter/light matter ratio has not just changed. Plugging blue galaxies into local clusters, eliminates the need for intergalactic dark matter locally. Without the dark matter pasted into distant clusters, where blue galaxies already properly populate the cluster centers, also eliminates this proof of accelerating expansion.

Why would blue galaxies populate the centers of clusters in the past, then suddenly go flying out into isolated space in the current epic??? When and if this line of reasoning breaks down, I will abandon it. It doesn't. I cannot.

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

Alright, Jerry, I'll bite. How does the the ratio of light to dark matter change? Do you have proof that it has? We have observations of it both now and at high z (the CMB data). How much of a change do you need for your idea to be true? I'm sure we can put a limit on it now.

As for the blue galaxies, they did not have to leave the centers of clusters as you imply. For a galaxy to no longer be blue, all it has to do is run out of gas (literally) and cease star formation. A 'free-floating" galaxy may still be undergoing star formation, while those in the centers of clusters may not.


Hendy, ooc, are you an undergrad?

No. This is a prediction.

But there is tantilizing supportive evidence in the kinetic distribution of galaxies, with 'bluer' galaxies having much higher velocity distributions at higher redshift and lower average velocities in close proximity - this is consistent with the fact the most local sample excludes the 'obvious' outliers as field galaxies. If blue galaxies did not have higher velocity distributions, once again my hypothesis fails. The BB has no explanation for this observation.

The CMB - when I look at the amount of contamination in the CMB in the galactic plane, then look at the depth and structure in the Sloan Digital survey I say, "Assuming the CMB survived this gauntlet since the BB unscathed is like finding a turd in the bottom of a swimming pool and assuming it squirted through one of the water jets".

True, but the real question here is do blue galaxies appear to be more cluster-oriented in the past than in the present, and do blue galaxies appear to "funnel back" behind local red dominated clusters? There IS evidence of these behaviors (Drinkwater & many others 2004).

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

Hi Bad Astronomer.

I was hoping you would have responded to my earlier post that asserted you were wrong. I set a hook, dangled it out, and you did not bite. I thought I was being so clever by slightly misquoting you and then giving you the opportunity to use my own excuse right back at me. I figured being a “little” wrong was worth the chance to really engage you in the topic. In actuality, your post was supportive. (Guess you are still playing with your chimney (I had the same problem but what I did was to place a steel liner down the chimney since the “holes” in the mortar were small and the chimney was still structurally sound).

One thing surprised me, despite all your Fans here at the site, no one saw the flaw in my posting. (Tobin was close, again I have to give him credit).

Snowflake

Hi Jerry Jensen

Thanks for the moral encouragement. It is truly appreciated.

Snowflake

Hi Cougar

Regarding the Z issue the following was said by me

"Z physically is a measure of velocity in this graph... " Snowflake

To which you responded with

"With statements like these, it becomes clear just how much you don't know what you're talking about. " Cougar

So if I am right, does it become clear that you do not know what you are talking about?

Snowflake

Wow. That's a lot of words.

Put simply, it is my understanding red shift can be used to measure distance is because the further away it is, the earlier in time you're looking at it, and the fast it was going back then. This is based on the premise, of course, that the closer to the big bang one got, the faster things were flying away from ground zero. In short, that the universe was decelerating.

Now they're saying things are accelerating.

If what they're saying is that things are still decelerating their outward expansion, but that the rate of deceleration is decreasing, perhaps even exponentially, then it's understandable as to why they might use the term "accelerating," even though it sounds misplaced, to me.

To date, I've yet to hear of a reasonable explanation as to how matter in free-fall can accelerate away from the gravitational center. Even if the gravitational constant wasn't as constant as we thought, that it varied over time, or over distance, the pull (and gravity is an acceleration) would still be towards the center of the Universe, not away from it.

Thus, I believe their use of the term "accelerating" is misplaced. They should have said, "the rate of deceleration is decreasing."

On the other hand, if the gravimetric constant does vary over distance, it might very well distort the appearance of distant objects, making them appear significantly more distant, or creating a greater or lesser red shift.

One way to test for this would be to measure a nearby star that's about 30 degrees above the plane of the ecliptic (to avoid the sun's glare yet providing the greatest difference in distance). Take the first set of measurements when the Earth is closest, a second set when the Earth is farthest away, and a third set when the Earth is again at closest approach. Average the first and the third sets to cancel out any effects of relative velocity between our solar system and the star.

Since you KNOW, exactly, how much the distance changed, you can calibrate the measurements and determine whether or not the gravitational constant is indeed constant, or whether some other factor is producing bad readings.

If there is an error that's being introduced, repeate the measurements on stars that are 10 times distant, 100 times more distant, 1000 times more distant, and 1,000,000 times more distant.

Now you have both the error as well as it's curve - how that error varies with respect to distance.

And you can correct the model and find out what's REALLY happening!

Instead of merely guessing...

Ok, here's one for you:

"Supernova Albinoni serves as the most distant point yet on the Supernova Cosmology Project's graph. Its redshift indicates that the universe is now at least 2.2 times bigger than when Albinoni exploded. By the Supernova Cosmology Project's best current model, Albinoni is almost 10 billion years in age and 18 billion light-years distant."

Source: http://www.lbl.gov/supernova/albinoni.html

How could any star be further away in light-years than it is old? I can grasp the the fact that something might be 10 billion years old and 7 billion light-years distant, but...

No, this is pretty mixed up. The astronomical community is near unanimous in understanding that redshift results from light traveling through expanding space. The farther the light travels, the more space it traverses, and the more the spectral lines are shifted toward the red end of the spectrum.

Nope, that's not what they're saying. They used to think the expansion must be decelerating due to the gravitational effect of all the mass in the universe. But now three independent findings - using different methods - all confirm that the expansion is not decelerating; it's not even a constant expansion; it's actually expanding faster today than it was yesterday. That's what the observations indicate. HOW this could be happening is largely unknown at present.

Well, there is no center of the Universe (or alternatively, every point was at the center at the big bang and remains at the "center." As I said, the acceleration is concluded from observations. HOW expanding space manages to accelerate its expansion is unknown. But then, we're not exactly sure HOW the effect of gravity is transferred from one body to another. We know precisely WHAT the effect is - what the result is - but knowing exactly how it works, that's another question.

But that would be wrong. The rate of expansion is accelerating.
There's no evidence that the effect of gravity has varied over the history of the universe. Some investigations have shown that it couldn't have.

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Since space is expanding, the star is a lot further away NOW than it was when it emitted the light that is just arriving on Earth.

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

genebujold wrote:
...it is my understanding red shift can be used to measure distance is because the further away it is, the earlier in time you're looking at it, and the fast it was going back then.


Cougar responded with the following reply.

"No, this is pretty mixed up. The astronomical community is near unanimous in understanding that redshift results from light traveling through expanding space. The farther the light travels, the more space it traverses, and the more the spectral lines are shifted toward the red end of the spectrum."


One thing obvious from Cougars answer to genebujold is that he does not have a physical understanding of the consequences of an expanding space. Yes the expansion causes the red shift but it also causes motion. Galaxies are represented as fixed objects in an expanding medium. Look at your texts on astronomy which represents the “near unanimous” understanding of the expansion of space-time. You will see pennies taped to expanding balloons and raisins in rising dough. These objects (raisins or galaxies) are in “real “ motion.

When the universe was smaller, the motion of these galaxies had to be much faster than present in order to resist gravitational collapse of the universe.

An object moving faster in the past than the present is decelerating, the universe is decelerating.

Snowflake

Snowflake, will you please derive for me the mathematical relationships you are using to relate magnitude to time and redshift to velocity? I'm curious to see how you are doing that. Knowing this would help me to better understand exactly what you are saying here. Thanks.

I posted an excact same quetsion on a Dutch forum.

The way we measure the expansion of the universe is by looking at the Doppler effect of light of stars, so called redshift, but my problem is. The light measured from stars 10 Billion light years away is also 10 Billion Years old when we measure it. That tells us, the universe was expanding 10 Billion Years ago, but how do we know its still expanding? Or better, how do we know its expanding faster?

Also I read that, when we look further in the universe, the expansion is more then when we look closer, I would say, if we look closer, we look less far in the past, so can we say the universe was expanding faster in the past then in the present?

I know, Astronomers are still looking for more “Mass” for a big crunch, it looks like there isn’t enough material for this to happen, but is there any other proof, the universe is still expanding?

I never found anything about this problem until now. The only answer I got on the dutch forum( http://forum.fok.nl/topic/544134/1/50#19294479 ) is that Astronomers know what they say, I just want to know why the say it.

As anticipated, the nature of the “arguments” against my assertion that the expansion of space-time is decelerative in nature have been to repeat the opinions of the “Establishment”. No successful argument has yet been posted to counter my logical argument. (An object moving faster in the past than the present is decelerating). In the interests of speeding things up a little I thought I would post the following exchange between “Flake” representing me, and “Drip” representing the “Establishment”. Drip is smart and actually posses a real argument against the idea that the expansion of space-time is a description of real motion, maintaining the idea that it is only the expansion of space-time.

Drip
“Flake you have it all messed up. First, you must accept the idea that the expansion of spacetime is a fairly well established theoretical concept. The red shift is caused by the expansion of space time, and there is no real motion. Photons increase their wavelength while traveling though an expanding spacetime field. There is no real motion.”

Flake
“I am not arguing against the concept of an expanding space time, it is just that in addition to that effect there is real motion that comes from the expansion of space time”

Drip
"It make no physical sense to argue that the expansion of space time results in motion. Such an argument results in an impossible ambiguous description of the motion of a galaxy."

Flake
'Oh yeah. How so?'

Drip
'First I must have you agree that it is fairly unlikely that we are exactly in the middle of many billions of galaxies all receding from us. '

Flake
'The odds of that are virtually impossible, so yes I will agree with you on that point. '

Drip
'Now lets extend your argument that the further in the past an object is observed the faster it is in motion. Lets say that Observers on distant galaxies are looking at our Milky way Galaxy. An observer that is to the left of us will say that we are moving to the right, while an observer on our right will say we are moving to the left. How can we be moving two different directions at the same time? It is physically impossible. '

Flake
'That is not quite right…'

Drip
'Oh come on, it is physically impossible to be moving two different directions at the same time. The problem is even more physically impossible for our galaxy to be in real motion when you look at the historical ambiguity your thinking creates. A consequence of your statement is that the further in the past our galaxy is observed the faster it is moving away. Where are we going? How could we be going somewhere faster in the past than the present when there is nowhere physically we can go? It makes no sense, so you have to be wrong.'

Flake
'I have a solution to this ambiguity.'

Drip
'Yeah I bet you do. It will probably resort to your cockamamie theory that no one in established science accepts. Because of that I will not hold much credence to your arguments. It is only when a theory becomes part of the established doctrine will I have any faith in it.'

Flake
'Can I at least explain it?'

Drip
'I’ll give you a couple of minutes, but I am very busy refuting other crazy theories. Somebody has to put these loonies in their place and I have to do it. It makes me feel better about myself.'

Flake
'Are you familiar with the book “Flatland” by Lord Abbott? '

Drip
'Yes. It described a universe that was two dimensions with two-dimensional beings. '

Flake
'Good. Lets say that Flatland was in motion perpendicular to it’s two dimensions at some velocity. This perpendicular dimension would be “unobservable”. Lets also say that the motion of flatland along this unobserved dimension was dimensionally related to the speed of light measured in flat land. Specifically the speed of light in Flatland is square root of 2 divided by two times the speed of light.'

Drip
'You are getting way off the topic and sounding like a loony.'

Flake
'Please give me a chance. In this flatland universe the speed of light is dimensionally described by the motion of the flatland universe along this unobserved dimension. Now, besides the motion of flatland along this unobserved dimension, the motion of Flatland along this unobserved dimension is slowing down. This means that an observer in Flat land that looks at an object in the past will “see” the object as it was moving along this unobserved dimension at the velocity it was moving in the past. Since it was moving faster in the past then the present, there would be an observable Doppler effect.

Extending this idea of motion along an unobserved dimension to our three dimensional space would also result in a Doppler effect. Three-dimensional space is moving along an unobserved dimension and the rate of motion along this unobserved dimension is slowing down.

This hypothetical model resolves the motion ambiguity problem and maintains the expansion of space time. The red shift indicates the motion of three dimensional space along an unobserved "absolute" dimensional measure of the Universe. It is the overall motion of the Universe itself that is moving faster in the past than the present.

Drip
'You are definitely a loony. You cannot “make” up your own universe with “unobserved” dimensions. Is this how “big foot” alludes capture, he jumps in and out of this “unobserved dimension” to escape detection?'

Flake
'You can make fun of me but the introduction of extra dimensional relationships with three-dimensional space has to conform to specific rules. For example, the perseverance of the expansion of three dimensional space, which is a part of standard cosmology, has to still be right, since is it theoretically valid. This means that not only is three-dimensional space in motion in an unobserved dimensional measure, three-dimensional space is expanding.

In order to preserve stable structures found in atoms and celestial systems, there is only one very specifically defined set of “rules” or fundamental geometric expressions that can be used to describe the expansion. '

Drip
'You can espouse your crazy theory to someone else. You do not represent the accepted Science. I will not look over your formulas or your model. You are a loony. '

Flake
'But I resolved your motion ambiguity problem. Not only that, there are so many loose ends regarding the description of nature that now fall into place I need to share the ideas with others. The universe is conforming to an amazing dimensional structure defined by three dimensions of space and two dimensions of time. It is all based on the simple idea that the expansion of space time is Uniform. All….'

Drip
'I have had enough, You can talk but I will not listen. “I must look at 40 of these crazy theories a year and I have made up my mind not to look at them”. It appears to be “to simple to be true”. “Many highly educated scholars have dedicated a lifetime in their field, it is not likely that someone like you is going to figure it out”.

Flake
But...


Snowflake

There is No Supportive Evidence, (assuming you accept the accelerating expansion theory), in the supernova Ia data that acceleration continues to this day. This conclusion is driven only by revised cosmic theory.

Since there is such poor agreement between Cepheid, surface brightness, and Tully-Fisher distance indicators, and no evidence of where the Hubble flow begins, this evidence is not immediately forthcoming. The current data does indicate at least a slowing of the acceleration rate from what it was in the past, but since supernova researchers have also concluded that there was an unexplained 'jerk' in the past, there is no way to disqualify an assumption another 'jerk' has not occurred quite recently. (Personally, when a researcher tells me there is a jerk in what should be a fixed, smooth parameter, I usually assume the jerk is presenting the data.)

This is another reason using the CHANDRA X-ray galaxy cluster data to 'verify' acceleration is occurring is flaky at best: They are extrapolating backward from the current epoch, where the SN Ia data is meaningless, but if you can accept this stretch, you could say the CHANDRA X-ray data is confirmational, even though a reasonable interpretation of the Tolman surface brightness test would conclude just the opposite. Sorry, but cosmologists are really pulling these assertions out of a dark oriface.

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

I' am sorry, I'am Dutch and I have difficulties with what you are trying to say, could you ellabirate on your answer. Just a little bit simpler. I hope this isn't a problem?

Oh, I think I have a pretty good understanding, whereas you, in your neglect of studying current cosmological findings and your total reliance on your insipient intuition, you are promoting flawed ideas and spreading false assertions.
You're dissembling. Is the redshift caused by the motion of galaxies through space? No.
How much smaller? There were actually a couple of phases that your simplistic, unsupported assertion fails to recognize. For roughly the first half of the history of the universe, gravity did dominate the cosmological constant (CC), and the expansion slowed. But then, according to observations, as the universe expanded and the volume of space increased, the CC got the upper hand, and the expansion began to accelerate, as it continues to do today. If you could read the graph correctly, you would see that this is the necessary conclusion.

Simplistic... and wrong.

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Interpreting emission line widths in active galactic nuclei is not exactly straightforward, as evidenced in the treatment, THE EMISSION LINE SPECTRUM OF ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI AND THE UNIFYING SCHEME by M.P. Véron-Cetty and P. Véron of Observatoire de Haute Provence, CNRS, F-04870 Saint-Michel l'Observatoire, France. This is certainly not a field I am up on, but I seriously doubt that your proposed solution is quite so obvious, not to mention realistic, accurate, or internally consistent.

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Well, that depends on what you mean by successful. Arguments showing the flaws in your reasoning were posted to the board last year (look here and here and here, and at the rest of the thread, which should seem quite familiar). However, you refused to admit these errors, so, while I still maintain that the arguments presented are correct and that your reasoning is flawed, the fact that you remain unconvinced might be construed by some to mean that the arguments were unsuccessful.

Maybe this has been here before but....

If the universe is expanding faster and faster, tel me this, when we see a galaxy on the edge of our observable universe say 15 Billion light years away, we see it 15 Billion Years ago, so it would be much furter away now. This would be proof that the unverse is expanding faster than light, isn't it? or maybe its older than 15 Billion Years, we just can't tell, can we?

You know Couger, they tell me the same thing about supernova rise times when I try to look at them empirically: If Time dilation is factored in, they get smaller, statistically, with red shift, without time dilation they get slightly longer, consistent with normal observational bias of brighter distant events. Usually the simplier solution is correct. There are gross inconsistancies in the observed radio and luminosity sizes of AGN [Gopal-Krishna, Kulkarni, 96]. These evaporate if intrinsic redshifting is allowed. In both AGN and supernova observations, little or no time dilation provides the simpliest solution.

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

Right, except: The galaxies aren't moving faster in the past.

here's how it works.

We look at nearby galaxies, those that represent whats going on "now" or at least more recent than those further away. From those we get a hubble's constant, that seems to be linear. We extrapolate this out to distant galaxies, and use it for distance measurements.

Our more direct methods (those that don't use redshifts) improve, allowing us to directly measure the hubble constant based on the more distant galaxies.

If the expansion is constant, the hubbles constant should be the same, if it isn't, we'll get a different value. (this change, wether to the faster or slower, is acceleration)

Not only did we get a different value, we get one lower than the expected one (the "current" value). This lower value indicate acceleration, and that it was slower then, than now (thus a positive net acceleration, the universe is expanding faster).

Now, sure, those galaxies are receeding faster, okay, no biggie. Why? Because their recession is cumulative with the recession of galaxies near us. Expansion near us adds to the expansion they have, so they better be further.

Remember hubble expansion isn't directly coupled only to the velocity (remember, there's a distance component at work here).

Hawkins has already shown that time dilation is not observed in quasars as is expected if they are local.