Vodka! Cosmologists Say Last Week’s Announcement About Inflation May Be Wrong — now my turn!

Perhaps, we could shoot probes into space in opposite directions to extend the accuracy of triangulation. I’m curious how much more further we could measure with the two Voyagers – if they would have been equipped – since they were launched in opposite directions.

That is partly what GAIA will do, but if GAIA uses quasars as distant point to do relative parallax, oh well, the results could be toast! Alternatively there is space based Very Long Baseline Interferometry that supposedly can look very far at radio emitters. There are a few problems but conceptually it is promising. I'm now considering setting up Varshni's quasar triangle CCD experiment. See: http://laserstars.org/amateur/quasars.html scordova

Indeed I was very serious that RodW made a good objection. Many times I post speculative ideas that need to be criticized but still have to be aired because there is an anomaly. I studied Astrophysics, and RodW's objection had teeth to it because the "core collapse" theory of Super Nova (SN) was extremely impressive and it gave extraordinary respect for the discipline after I studied the detection of neutrinos of 1987A: http://www.nature.com/physics/looking-back/bahcall/index.html Upon thinking about it, because SN seem like real phenomenon, the only alternative is that SN don't necessarily happen inside a galaxy. Many times we can't tell whether an object is in front behind or inside a galaxy just like the photo above, can you tell what really is in front, behind, or inside Andromeda? If Katirai's hypothesis will stand, a testable prediction is SN will explode in intergalactic space. That is, SN aren't necessarily part of galaxies! And I googled a few minutes ago and found, lo and behold: Strange Isolated Supernova that Detonate Out in the Dark of Intergalactic Space. :grin:

Astronomers have long puzzled over the appearance of supernovae that detonate out in the dark space – rather than within a host galaxy.

scordova

RodW, My bet was that Sal was completely serious, and after doing a refresh before posting (always a good idea), it looks like I was right. There's so much that's unknown or poorly understood in astronomy-related fields, and there are lots of paradoxical observations and complexities to try to explain. In some cases, being able to get a plausible result within a few orders of magnitude is considered "good." It's also amazing what we have been able to determine. Compared to fights over Darwinian mythologies, there are different kinds of controversies in these fields. To look at one, check out Halton Arps' book Seeing Red. http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Red-Redshifts-Cosmology-Academic/dp/0968368905 Halton Arp noticed interactions between galaxies with different red shifts. This threatened to overturn a lot of what we think we know about the cosmos, so he was ostracized as a result---a typical human reaction. However, also know that there are a lot of pseudo-scientific cranks running around in cosmology. From a historical perspective, it's likely that a very few of them are correct, and that's the rub. Some of the mysteries include - The speed of gravitational attraction being instantaneous - The reason for perihelion precession in orbits (I believe it's due to non-linear space deformation) - True distances to stars that can't be determined using parallax, Cephid variables - The components of the red shift: velocity, inflation, "tired" light? - The source and rate of cosmic inflation over time - The speed of light as a constant over time - The existence and origin of comets (after billions of years, there shouldn't be any more comets, so the "Oort Cloud," a giant "gum ball machine" in space, is hypothesized but never observed) - Plasma cosmology - The source of virtual particles, the Casimir effect - The density of stars in the night sky and why it's not greater - The different values for the age of the universe

Today, we look back in time and we see approximately 15 billion years of history. Looking forward from when the universe is very small - billions of times smaller - the Torah says six days. In truth, they both may be correct. What's exciting about the last few years in cosmology is we now have quantified the data to know the relationship of the "view of time" from the beginning of stable matter, the threshold energy of protons and neutrons (their nucleosynthesis), relative to the "view of time" today. It's not science fiction any longer. - Gerald Schroeder, MIT Physicist

-Q Querius

Varshni says: http://laserstars.org/news/3C345.html

. The redshift has often been used to identify objects as galaxies when no other valid criterion exited, since redshift is meaningless, this classification scheme is obsolete; many galactic objects are mistaken for galaxies in this way, such as Cygnus-A. One mistake in distance estimation such as this or in the case of the very first quasars (Schmidt, 1965) creates paradoxical properties, that multiply in number as observational techniques improve over the years.

scordova

http://laserstars.org/news/M87.html

In the last decade (Biretta, 1990) astronomers have been estimating the speed of various parts of the M 87 jet at ever increasing multiples of the speed of light. Since nothing can travel faster than the speed of light this object is much closer than previously estimated. M 87 is not a galaxy but a star in our own galaxy. Many quasar jets have paradoxical jet speeds; this fact is a clear indication that quasars have been misidentified as galaxies. In the context of the laser star theory, quasars are stars and these ridiculous superluminal velocities naturally disappear.

Galaxy M87 is spewing out material, and if we accept the far distances as an explanation, then the material is spewing out at 6 times the speed of light! A solution is the galaxy (dare I say "spiral nebula") is near. So here we have evidence a single star has been mis identified as a galaxy containing billions and billions of stars. scordova

Here is Very Long Baseline Interferometry showing the quasar is spewing out material, and the material is visible as proper motion: http://laserstars.org/news/3C345.html The problem is that that motion and at that redshift would mean violation of the speed of light by a factor of 7. scordova

No, I'm being serious. I don't want to mislead the readers that this speculation isn't on the fringe (hence the Vodka designation), but neither are the anomalies that inspired the speculation easily dismissed. I said:

7. “Vokda!” designation indicates a speculative idea (likely wrong), but worth at least thinking about.

Your objection is a good one, and I recall SN 1987A had 27 neutrino detections to boot, so mainstream Supernova interpretation as an exploding star is hard to dismiss. Sorry if I sounded sarcastic, I wasn't. The readers have to know where the flaws in the speculation are, and they are quite serious, but on the other hand the anomalies that inspired the speculation can't be dismissed so easily. When I read the absence of Lorentz time-dilation in the quasar blinking at all red shifts, that is a gigantic red flag.

Quasars, the massive, enigmatic and energetic centers of distant galaxies, have long fascinated us with their bizarre behaviors. Why do they pump out so much energy? Why do they produce the radiation that they do? How did they affect the early universe? A recent publication, however, finds the a lack of bizarre activity of quasars that is, well, bizarre. Mike Hawkins from the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh searched for, and did not find evidence for, so-called time dilation in distant quasars. Time dilation is a counter-intuitive, yet actual, feature of Einstein's special relativity in which time slows down for an object that is in motion relative to another. Since the universe is expanding — and the distant quasars are racing away from us — a clock placed in one of these distant galaxies should be running more slowly than a clock we have on Earth. Therefore, the effects of time dilation for distant objects can be measured if we can observe the ticking clock in the distant galaxy. HowStuffWorks: Does time change speed? Time dilation explained. Hawkins took advantage of the fact that quasars blink. This blinking, or variability, can be viewed as the "ticking clock." He used data from quasar monitoring programs stored on photographic plates to measure the timescale of of the blinking. Looking at the timescales for two groups of quasars, one distant and the other even farther away, there was no measurable difference. That meant no time dilation: meaning that for both groups of quasars, the clocks were the same. This could mean several things. It could be a sign that the universe is not expanding. Or, it could indicate that quasars are not really what we think they are. However, for either of these scenarios to be true, you'd have to explain away or disprove mountains of evidence in favor of these models. The possibility that a quasar's blinking isn't actually caused by the galaxy cores at all, but rather to mini-black holes that are distorting or interrupting in our view of it, is intriguing. But more evidence is needed to support that. The most straightforward scenario, according to Hawkins, is that we just don't understand how quasars evolve. After all, as the supermassive black holes powering these beasts gobble up matter and grow, the blinking may change. Since this explanation has its problems as well, further study is certainly needed to determine why such a theoretically simple experiment gives a not-so-simple-to-explain result. As cool as it would be to see a major scientific model overturned, I wouldn't rewrite the textbooks just yet. But I will stay tuned to see what other secrets we can unravel from distant quasars. http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/no-time-dilation-for-distant-quasars.htm

I posted this because I needed to get feedback and find out how credible an idea is. Some have written me through private channels with good criticisms that I need to hear. scordova

Sal Are you being sarcastic? RW RodW

RodW, Great objection. I can't counter that. Sal scordova

If Andromeda is just a star wouldn't that imply that all galaxies are also stars? How then would you explain that we can view supernovae within galaxies? In the last hundred years there has probably been at least one within Andromeda. I don't think there is any plausible phenomena that would give the equivalent observation within a nebula RodW

I like this tidbit about inflation from crev.info:

Has Cosmic Inflation Been Discovered? - March 17, 2014 Excerpt: Harvard cosmologist Avi Loeb gives this admission (about inflation) at the end of the Space.com article: "Still, there is much more to learn about our universe’s first few moments. For example, astronomers still have no idea what the substance that propelled inflation — dubbed the “inflaton” — actually is," Loeb said. “It’s not yet a victory of theoretical physics that we see evidence for a process that took place early on,” he said. “We really need to understand what this substance — this inflaton — is. And until we do that, it’s just like dark matter or dark energy — we give it a name, but we don’t know what it is.” http://crev.info/2014/03/has-cosmic-inflation-been-discovered/

I have a suggestion as to what, or more precisely Whom, 'propelled inflation':

Job 9:8 "He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea."

Here is a cool picture that gets the point across

The Truman Show – Truman walking on water – screenshot picture http://gaowsh.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/screen-shot-2011-03-29-at-5-09-50-pm-2.jpg

Some, especially atheists, may say that I am just trying to use a 'God of the gaps' explanation for inflation, but apparently I'm in good company. In this following video,,,

Hugh Ross PhD. - Scientific Evidence For Cosmological Constant (Expansion Of The Universe) http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4347218/

,,,Dr Hugh Ross points out that the following atheistic scientists stated the following in regards to the 1 in 10^120 finely tuned expansion of the universe,,,

Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological Constant (Expansion of the Universe) - Dyson, Kleban, Susskind - 2002 Excerpt: "Arranging the universe as we think it is arranged would have required a miracle.,,," "A external agent [external to time and space] intervened in cosmic history for reasons of its own.,,," http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0208013.pdf

Of course the atheists went on later in their paper to say that we don't live in a universe with a 'true cosmological constant'

Page 21 "The only reasonable conclusion is that we don't live in a universe with a true cosmological constant".

Yet, as is usual with atheistic predictions in science, it turns out to be a wrong prediction. This following paper clearly indicates that we do live in universe with a ‘true cosmological constant’. i.e. A cosmological constant that is not reducible to a materialistic basis. Thus, the atheistic astrophysicists are, once again, at a complete loss to explain why the universe expands in such a finely tuned way, whereas Theists are vindicated once again in their beliefs that the universal constants are Intelligent Designed by God!

Dark energy alternatives to Einstein are running out of room – January 9, 2013 Excerpt: Last month, a group of European astronomers, using a massive radio telescope in Germany, made the most accurate measurement of the proton-to-electron mass ratio ever accomplished and found that there has been no change in the ratio to one part in 10 million at a time when the universe was about half its current age, around 7 billion years ago. When Thompson put this new measurement into his calculations, he found that it excluded almost all of the dark energy models using the commonly expected values or parameters. If the parameter space or range of values is equated to a football field, then almost the whole field is out of bounds except for a single 2-inch by 2-inch patch at one corner of the field. In fact, most of the allowed values are not even on the field. “In effect, the dark energy theories have been playing on the wrong field,” Thompson said. “The 2-inch square does contain the area that corresponds to no change in the fundamental constants, (i.e. a 'true cosmological constant'), and that is exactly where Einstein stands.” http://phys.org/news/2013-01-dark-energy-alternatives-einstein-room.html

bornagain77

Perhaps, we could shoot probes into space in opposite directions to extend the accuracy of triangulation. I'm curious how much more further we could measure with the two Voyagers - if they would have been equipped - since they were launched in opposite directions. JGuy

It might be instructive to consider what it means if Varshni and Luyten are right that quasars are nearby (hundreds of light years). What this means is that for decades astronomers were saying quasars were billions of light years away, and because they were billions of light years away and very luminous they had to be pouring out more energy than entire galaxies composed of billions of stars! Well, I could be in front of my car headlights and they will look brighter than Andromeda merely because I'm close to the light source. It could well be quasars weren't particularly more powerful than any other star, they're just 10 million times closer than previously thought. Now think if galaxies are 10 million times closer than previously thought. Is there any need to suppose they have billions of stars to make them so luminous? They could be just like "planetary" nebula, illumed by a central light source, or maybe a few sources. We presume and expanding universe because we presume redshifts are due to relative motion, and with other assumption we take red shifts to indicate distance. Unfortunately for the big bang it is justified by interpretations of measurements, and the interpretations of measurements are justified by the Big Bang. Circular reasoning. The way to break the circular reasoning is with basic trigonometric measurements using angles. The problem with that is that it is short range, but maybe it might be good enough especially now that we have better equipment like Very Long Baseline Interferometry and CCD cameras, etc. It is surely romantic and glamorous to think the "spiral nebula" are collections of billions and billions of stars and that there are incredible worlds inside. What a let down if it turns out they are mere nebula powered by may 1 or a few stars. scordova

JGuy, There is no question there are point sources of light in Andromeda, and the mainstream opinion is these are individual stars, Katirai argues the points sources are debris. Van Maanen a while back argued the rotational periods are on the order of 100,000 years, if so, and given the supposed size of galaxies, outer parts would have to be travelling at speeds comparable to light if not faster. But that can't be. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriaan_van_Maanen

Another possible explanation is that van Maanen simply saw what he had been trained to see for years. The belief that the "spiral nebulae" were relatively nearby and therefore ought to have a quite detectable rotation was quite widespread in the early 1900s and therefore very hard to ignore. This does not, however, explain supposedly corroborating findings from Mount Wilson, Lowell Observatory, Russia, and the Netherlands.[1]

So you see, when they studied the galaxies as "spiral nebula", several astronomers saw what they believed was behavior consistent with nearby nebula! Katirai's arguments is galaxies are centrally lit objects. That conclusion is understandable when we look at galaxies like : sombero galaxy or http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130728.html Recall these galaxies were once called "spiral nebula" and thought to be nearby. Compare "spiral nebula" to centrally illuminated "planetary" nebula: http://stardate.org/astro-guide/gallery/stellar-twister More illuminated "planetary" nebula: http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/nebula/planetary/ Considering galaxies were called "spiral nebula" is it outrageous to think galaxies aren't just another kind of nebula! Because "spiral nebula" have redshifts, the mainstream jumped to the conclusion they were moving, and hence because of millions of years, they had to be very far away, and thus the only way they could be so luminous is to have billions and billions of stars. What if the fact "spiral nebula" are a special kind of nebula that may create a redshift, then it's a brand new ballgame, because then they are near and might similar to "planetary nebula". I suggested above that there are other mechanisms than relative motion that can create galactic redshifts like the Wolf Effect (which was for quasars, but who knows, why not for galaxies). PS By way of comparing orbital periods, Sedna is a planet orbiting the Sun. It looks a bit like a star but it is a planet and would take 11,000 years to complete its orbit. Maybe our solar system looks like a galaxy from far away. Who knows? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90377_Sedna Katirai argues quite well that we may not really know the structure of the milkyway if we don't really know the distances of objects (and hence don't know if they are stars or just reflectors like Sedna). Too early to tell. scordova

Recent graphics of quasar clouds surrounding the centre of the known universe remind me of the very similar graphics purportedly showing the Oort Cloud that allegedly surrounds our solar system. I suspect this congruence says soemthing unwelcome about our present science culture ... ScuzzaMan

That picture is awful purdy :) CentralScrutinizer

What is the observed motion of these hypothetical planets? Detectable orbital periods measured in a few years (like our solar system) or far longer? JGuy

HT JoeCoder for news on inflation

For the record I do think Andromeda has far more than one star. JoeCoder