A colleague of mine, Dr. Qworm, eminent scientist like myself (although it must be said that the "Dr." in front of his second name stands for his first name Dreitos and not for any academic title), seems to have uncovered a stunning oversight that misled and is still misleading astrophysicists since the nineteen-thirties. The story of his discovery is reported here.

When he first discussed the matter with me, I wasn't impressed. Dr. Qworm was, after all, known to pursue experiments like measuring the speed of stone (his latest measurements put this speed at 0.0000 millimeter/second, but he thinks he can still raise the precision level two decimals up) or the length of light (not the wavelength, mind you, just the length of light beams, his opinion being "but it must stop at some point"), so his ideas were usually worth something only if you wanted to have a good laugh. On top of that, he started his explanations by mentioning redshifts, which made the whole theory a sure candidate for the loon department; so I started smiling and nodding empathically, ready to roll on the floor at any moment.

Well, I didn't.

At the end, I was left with the most puzzled state of mind I've been in for years.

In the following paper is what Dr. Qworm told me.

* * *

Seventy years ago, Hubble's discovery that galaxies are receding from each other with a speed proportionate to their distance revolutionised cosmology. He coined the famous equation H = v / D, which gave us the image of a universe expanding faster and faster. He did, however, miss something: because the galaxies he observed were billions of light-years distant, the data he used to set up his law was made of light billions of years old - an age (in years) equal to the distance (in light-years) of the observed galaxies. Hubble didn't actually show that a galaxy 2 billion light-years away recedes twice as fast from us as a galaxy 1 billion light-years away; all he showed was that a galaxy 2 billion light-years away receded (note the emphasis on the past) twice as fast from us 2 billion years ago as a galaxy 1 billion light-years away receded from us 1 billion years ago. As a matter of fact, the receding speed of a galaxy might just as well be proportional to the age of the picture we get from it: the further in the past our image of a galaxy is, the higher its speed.

Simply put, Hubble's observations can lead to the conclusion that galaxies receded twice as fast from us 2 billion years ago as they did 1 billion years ago, no matter where in the universe they are now, showing that the universe's expansion is actually slowing down – the exact opposite of Hubble's conclusions.

Hubble's Law may have been the subject of an unbelievable misrepresentation for over seventy years that led to the image of a universe expanding faster and faster like a balloon being filling with air, a representation that scientists tried to explain with weird concepts like expansion of empty space or dark energy that can and should be questioned as a construction of the mind now that it is confronted to the more sensible image of a universe gently slowing down and ultimately contracting again.

The implications of the inclusion of a time variable in Hubble's Law are best shown with the mathematics involved in Hubble's theory…

The Hubble constant H is defined as the radial speed v of a galaxy divided by its distance from us D:

H = v / D

The speed v is obtained by a galaxy's redshift: the faster a galaxy recedes from us, the more its light will shift into the red part of the spectrum. This is a data obtained by telescopes and spectrometers.

As Hubble used spacetime data and not just space data as commonly admitted until now, Dr. Qworm suggests that the Hubble constant H is dependent on time rather than on distance: the further in the past a galaxy is (i.e. the older its light is), the higher its radial velocity. This would make perfect sense, as the speed of galaxies then goes up as we get closer to the time of the Big Bang – which would mean that they are slowing down, and not accelerating as was believed until now. H should thus be defined as follows:

H = v / ØT

With ØT being the age of the image we get from the observed galaxy (the image of a galaxy distant 1 billion light-years would have an age of one billion years, for example).

Let's see what this changes for the measurement unit of H. The measurement unit of H in the equation H = v / D is:

Kilometre per second / [any distance unit, Mpc (Megaparsec) for instance]

The value of H has been measured approximately as being comprised between:

50 km/s/Mpc < H < 100 km/s/Mpc

In the equation H = v / ØT however, the unit would be:

Kilometre per second / [a time unit]

If we take the second as time unit, H would be measured in km/s/s, thus in km/s2.

...And km/s2 is an acceleration!

...Or rather a deceleration, as ØT is a negative value, since the image of the observed galaxies is younger (i.e. closer to the time of the Big Bang) than we are.

Thus, the Hubble constant would be the Constant of Universal Deceleration.

We can even calculate the value of the "new", time-related Hubble constant. In order to do so, I'll translate the Mpc (Megaparsec) into ly (light-years), which I'll then translate in years of distance from us (since it is light we receive, it will be a 1/1 transformation; this will be easy indeed!), which I'll then turn into seconds:

1 Mpc = 3.08 * 10[exp]22 meter divided by
1 ly = 9.46 * 10[exp]15 meter
= 3.26 * 10[exp]6 ly
=> 3.26 * 10[exp]6 years, which make 1.028 * 10[exp]14 seconds.

Hubble's Universal Deceleration constant H would thus be comprised between 50 and 100 km per 1.028 * 10[exp]14 seconds[exp]2, or, in meter/s[exp]2:

4.864 * 10[exp]-10 m/s[exp]2 < H < 10[exp]-9 m/s[exp]2 (let's be generous).

As we see, the use of time instead of distance for calculating the Hubble constant leads us to diametrically opposite conclusions as to the future of our universe. By using distance only, Hubble had to conclude that the universe was expanding faster and faster, leaving it to other scientists to speculate about the existence of an elusive dark energy that could cause such an accelerated expansion, an expansion that gravity apparently wasn't able to override to make the universe a cyclical event of Big Bangs and Big Crunches. By using the time variable - the age of the light we receive - however, we can conclude that the universe is decelerating in its expansion, which implies that the universe can only be a cyclical event, since a constant deceleration must lead to a Big Crunch (when an object in movement decelerates to a speed of zero and the deceleration goes on, it moves back the way it came from)!

Even more exciting is that knowing the value of Hubble's Universal Deceleration Constant, we can calculate the period of our universe - the time that will elapse between a Big Bang and a Big Crunch.

Let's say that at the time of the Big Bang, everything was going at the speed of light (or it was, at least, a maximum). How much time would be needed for the universe to reach its maximum expansion (that is, to go from a speed of 300'000 km/s to a speed of zero), which would also be half the duration of its existence in a cyclical self-renewing model, if H is comprised between the two values mentioned above?

3 * 10[exp]8 / [4.864 * 10[exp]-10] = 6.168 * 10[exp]17 seconds, which make 1.956 * 10[exp]10 years, thus

19.56 billion years if H = 4.864 * 10[exp]-10 m/s[exp]2.

And if H = 10[exp]-9 m/s[exp]2, it would need only 9.5 billion years. This would make the total lifetime of our universe be somewhere between 19 and (rounded up) 40 billion years. The question of whether the Big Crunch has already started would thus be very relevant – especially since the Andromeda galaxy, only 2 million light-years away, is already getting closer to us, something that should maybe be considered as more than just a local gravitationally-induced exception to the Hubble Law!

As a conclusion, Dr. Qworm asked the question: how is it possible that no one noticed this possible, high-school-level interpretation of Hubble's observations for more than seventy years? Collective unconsciousness? Getting used to the emperor's old clothes? Not daring – or not even thinking about – questioning what everyone takes for granted?

He concluded that we shouldn't laugh at people who believe the earth is flat anymore. Ever. Because that's a mistake we make all the time.

* * *

I sent Dr. Qworm's paper to Nature and Science, but although a crowd of co-authors glued their names to his work like flies sticking to flypaper as it is usual with any breakthrough discovery – along myself, eminent colleagues like Dr. Arpad Arkabaranan, Willy McGilly, renowned cosmologist Daniel Phelan and even Aloysius Shiplap put their prestigious names onto the header – they refused it. I fully understand that these magazines are very busy publishing bogus articles lately (but then one might ask: why not this one?), that it would be absolutely flabbergasting that no scientist would have noticed something that trivial for over 70 years, and that the pathetic Dr. Qworm never seems to have been able to produce any paper of value in his whole career (his work The Speed of Stone at Sea Level was finally published by Science for the Mentally Challenged), but I haven't been able to find out where the author is wrong this time.

If anyone could point out where the flaw is, I would be very grateful. After all, we serious scientists all want to be able to laugh at the Dr. Qworms of this world again!

All Most Sincerely,

Dr. Velikof Vonk, Eminent Scientist

Not as silly as it first sounds.
If the rate of volume of expansion of the universe is constant, then the rate of expansion of the radius will be proportional to the inverse cube, hence, slowing down with time.

__________________
Does earth plug a hole in Heaven or Heaven plug a hole in Earth? -Peter Gabriel

Funny stuff. At least, the first part and the last part.

If Hubble's relationship is valid--that is, the rate of recession is related to distance--and Dr. Quorms relationship is valid, then it would seem that the expansion decreases linearly with distance and time. So, we would have stopped expanding right now, or just a little bit ago.

Maybe that's why gravity is so weak, it's just a small contraction!

Or we never expanded...

<a name="2-10-21.UP"> page 2-10-21.UP aka 2-10-21.UP
On 2002-10-21 08:44, AgoraBasta wrote:
Or we never expanded...

YEAH; yeah:
... I just wish their equation$ $olved in Cm/?
where the question about time itself is exponent{sheateD}
like maybe 10**10 maybe even 10^20 so from start to finish = 1
or maybe 1/2 cycle and then theres PI & Radidans {lemme thin} If in RADs it could be BAD as {um what rymes with BAD as} (hmm?)

Well, we are talking about Dr. Qworm's theories, today.

<Revoked after noting overlooked passage above>

_________________
Never discount a possibility, always charge full price - HB Marketing Philosophy

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Doodler on 2002-10-21 09:52 ]</font>

There's not too much to talk about - solutions based on existing data are not unique.

Well, he does bring up an interestin question that I've been wondering about and tried to ask before, but I think the question got dodged. If we are basing our ideas of the "shape" of the universe and the rate of expansion and all of that from light that is billions of years old, what might those "things" be like or where might they be now?

__________________
"As I lay beneath the Southern Cross, the stars tell more than I could" . . . David Meece

As soon as they emitted the light, they immediately hightailed it for here, at .9999c. They're due to hit, any...minute...now...

I surely expected the board to be much more skeptical of this theory than what I'm seeing now. Perhaps in and of itself that is significant?

I for one have felt continually uncomfortable with the every growing theories of the way it works. "Dark Matter" was just a thorn which kept poking. Talk about a-priori reasoning at it's finest! In communications, Dark Matter is equivalent to the Comm. Cloud, that nebulous place where data magically goes from point-A to point-B without a lot of explanation. And everyone knows that 1)they can't explain whatever is in the comm. cloud, 2) they can't afford whatever is in the comm. cloud, and 3) no one actually owns the comm. cloud.

So how do we test these theories of an already collapsing, or soon-to-be collapsing universe?

DJ

Don't even bother, those theories will collapse well before any real tests become possible.

So, there's no real tests, but you're convinced that they're wrong? Howzat?

Seempul. If current theories are correct, we will never be able to travel cosmological distances. No cosmological theories can be put to experimental test. Theories die with their proponents. Combining, we get - theories and their proponents will die before possibility of experimental test arrives.

That's your whole argument? Haven't you left out the possibility that new proponents could be born? I mean, it does occasionally happen.

Or do you mean, original proponents?

I think the original proponents are already dead, aren't they?

What's the mean lifetime of a theory?

The droppings of my arguments have formed a nice guano layer all over this BB.

Based upon my personal experience, about 435 milliseconds. So, it looks like the Big Bang has staying power. It's right up there with the Orgone Box and Quantum Chromodynamics.

And why the omission of the Flat Earth Theory in this hall of glory?

It's been a round longer.

Ah, and now you know the true nature of this place. The only REAL travel, is in the mind & soul. Might sound like a lot of new-age bull, but man *is* the center of the universe... get it nudge nudge wink wink

Now, as our friend Shakespeare intoned, A Prison, by any other name, is just as escape-proof. There may be a way out, but who can say. Lot of weird freaky books say there's a way out... hmmm...

Oh yes, I almost forgot (where ARE my manners), the following statement is true: the cell cannot know the body.

Cheers!

DJ

Only because (a) it's too silly to take seriously (for a minute I thought I'd hibernated and it was April Fools Day already), and (b) the poster has a silly name, clearly created that account just to post this message, and has not responded to any of the responses. Classic troll behavior. I usually don't feed trolls.
For what it's worth, Big Bang cosmology does take the light travel time into account. The distance in the hubble diagram is not "the distance *now*" (a phrase of dubious meaning in a general relativistic framework), but the distance the light has traveled to get here, which has been expanding the whole time of travel. It's all accounted for, and hence the theor