A simple message to educated physicists 15-Dec-2002 sci.physics On Sat, 14 Dec 2002 21:51:06 -0600, "Old Man" wrote: >It is typical of crackpot behavior to deny increasingly >larger chunks of modern physics in order to maintain >their pet-theories in the face of valid criticism. OK then, here is a simple point. What does the failure of hundreds of physicists working over tens of years to unify GR and QM tell you? What, you don't know? Take a lesson from the search to prove Euclid's fifth postulate from the first four postulates. Many people wasted their lives trying to achieve this. The search went on for hundreds of years. The problem was that: They - had - got - it - wrong. There were in fact valid geometries in which Euclid's fifth postulate was false. So what is the lesson, honorable educated physicists? It is: You - have - got - something - wrong. See my recent posting "On uniting GR with QM" for a bone simple attempt at a fix of this problem. Try it. Try something! Let's not have a replay of Euclid's fifth; we don't have hundreds of years to spare. Eric -------------------------------------------------------------- Hyperbolic space and current observations 05-Aug-2004 sci.astro.research I've seen no presentations of what hyperbolic space would look like to an Earth-based observer. Hyperbolic space models an additional large dimension which causes the "shells of space" to have larger volumes per del-radius than would flat 3D space. Since we don't see this large extra dimension locally, it follows that (in this model) our 3D space is embedded in a 4D space such that the 4th dimension manifests only over large scales; the Randall-Sundrum model is like this. An extension of this is that the 4D space is itself bounded within a 5D sphere, as a boundary point of 4D space can be thought of as an asymptote to the hyperbola, i.e. the line in the cone x(0)^2-x(1)^2-x(2)^2-x(3)^2-x(4)^2-x(5)^2 = phi. It follows that the boundary del-H(5) is a sphere, being just the 5D case of a general rule across n dimensions. In the absence of redshift we wouldn't be able to visually distinguish between such a space and flat space, as e.g. if the shell of space at radius R were twice the volume expected in flat space and thus contains twice the objects, we would see those objects at just half their expected angular size and so would conclude that they were further away than they really are, using a perceptual correction which mapped it into flat space. However, if we now model that redshift is linear to distance, then we have a ruler against which to measure the visible shells of space. Objects at e.g. z=0.5 would be seen to be smaller in size and more numerous than provided by flat space. This is in fact observed, see e.g. astro-ph/0407216 where Sne II (core collapse stars) are found to be 3x as numerous at z=0.3 as the local rate. Some cosmologists would explain this with "evolution", but hyperbolic space explains both the higher rate and the lower apparent magnitude, as the smaller angular size naturally leads to lower flux received. Bye-bye accelerating universe. An additional refinement comes when redshift is modelled not just as linear with distance, but as a function of distance modified by the cosmological model. We know that the BB model is characterized by the Hubble constant H(0) which however seems to manifest as different values depending on how far out we are measuring. In a static model we can model redshift as polarization in the large extra dimension, i.e. z=tan^2(A) where A is the angle on the 5D sphere, and so redshift goes to infinity at theta(5D)=pi/2; thus we can see half the universe in such a model. Combining such a redshift dependency on distance with hyperbolic space makes a volumetric map which accomodates current observations nicely. Of course, then there is the CMB which altho tractable is a topic for another day. -------------------------------------------------------------- On the classical reality of particle physics 09-Oct-2005 sci.physics.research Bohr modelled that classical physical law formed the underlying reality of our physical world and that quantum physics provided the mathematical desription of its behavior -- something like that. I think Bohr's view isn't widely held today, and that most physicists think of quantum physics as describing a true reality underlying classical reality. It seems to me that Bohr got it right, and that the particles revealed in high-energy experiments exist only transiently thanks to the high energies applied. If so, then all the HEP experiements actually demonstrate is the consequence of extreme conditions, so that the derived laws actually pertain only to the conditions, and not to the underlying matter at all. I'm wondering what physicists today think of Bohr's original formulation. It would be a shame if the physical framework in which quantum physics was developed were lost. pardon the simplifications, and thanks, Eric Flesch ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dark energy detected on Earth's surface? 06-Dec-2006 sci.astro.research Yes, an amazing phenomenon shows that dark energy is affecting the Earth's surface. As you move away from a central point, you will find, after travelling a long distance R, that the circle of distance R around the central point is not 2-pi-R as you might expect, but is less! Clearly, some form of dark energy is shrinking the Earth's surface with distance. Some kind of Hubble measurement needs to be taken. What's that you say? The Earth is round, not flat? So that accounts for it -- hmm, I guess it is a simpler explanation. But wait, a similar phenomenon is now known to exist for the universe (if in reverse). Spatial expansion is seen to be accelerating. There is more space "nearby" than you'd expect with 4-pi-R^2. Clearly, some form of dark energy is expanding the universe. Hubble measurements are once more required. Oh wait, maybe the universe is just hyperbolic instead of flat. Yes, that would be simpler. Oops, not so? Dark energy is right, after all? So what's wrong with the nice, simple, hyperbolic curvature explanation? In such a universe, objects at distance R would be fainter than in a flat universe, and would also be more numerous than expected. And this is what we see. So why this new generation of flat Earthers, now proclaiming a flat universe? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Re: Flat Earthers back in charge of Cosmology? 27-Nov-2007 sci.astro.research On Fri, 23 Nov 07 10:25:39 GMT, Phillip Helbig wrote: >eric@flesch.org (Eric Flesch) writes: >>there must have been a lot of prior construction to be able to calculate >>the sum of omega and lambda from that. Surely there are many places >>where the ladder could have been leaned against the wrong wall. > >It's not a trivial calculation. We are talking about several Ph.D. >projects to get to this conclusion. However, many people have obtained >the same result independently with different methods, so I would say >that it is a robust result, assuming basic stuff ... is valid. OK, I don't know the underlying math, but I see the general idea is that the curvature of the universe is deduced by measuring the size of the brightest spots on the CMB. Because the spots are 1 degree across, we know the universe is flat to within 2%. Hmm. Mmph. MmmppphhhhhHAHAHAHA HA HA HA!! Ahem, look at it this way. imagine reading the WMAP data without any preconceptions of any kind. You see some very small irregularities in an essentially homogeneous background, you fine tune it close to the instrument error, and you see some spots. The standard reaction is "Ooo, some spots!". Now, how did we get from there, to today's reaction, which is "Ooo, a flat universe!" ? We got there by building a very large edifice. This edifice is FRW cosmology which is premised on a flat universe (i.e. requiring inflation, although I certainly note that you are an inflation skeptic, Phil, which I laud, but then there are those problems, etc). The FRW cosmology predicted the black body spectrum, which was duly found. This builds up a model of ionization out of which these spot sizes are calculated. Look, it's one platform on top of another. Do you really think that the whole edifice has been so accurately constructed that we can actually trust these results? Various papers are published showing problems: (1) astro-ph/0605135v1 shows problems with the WMAP interpretation. (2) astro-ph/0604011v1 wonders why the WMAP result show us to be living just at the time when omega(tot) = 1 (3) astro-ph/0511628v1 says the SNe Ia observations disprove all current cosmological models to a confidence of 95%. (4) astro-ph/0709.3102v1 gives a review, shows problems, and says it all depends on the universe being flat. (5) astro-ph/0612106v1 is typical of many papers in that it says accleration is shown "if the universe is nearly flat" -- then it goes on to explain its result, but the premise of a flat universe is left unexamined -- typical of many papers. So the point is, the whole edifice has been fine-tuned, from the top to the bottom, to stand and give a consistent result. Laudable, but it is separate from the question of if it is accurate. Really, the only evidence for that is that the black body spectrum was predicted and then found. That's pretty good, but does not have to be conclusive. A black-body spectrum is, after all, just a normal distribution over a logarithmic scale. That's not actually such a big deal. And if you compare the WMAP measurements with the original predictions, there's a fair bit of discrepancy. It's not like it fit like a glove or anything. > The flat universe is something which is derived from >observational data. While there was a time during which it was espoused >with the same almost religious faith which simpletons might have had in >the flat Earth, today it is an observational result. It is sure presented that way. In another posting, you explained how the 1990s SNe Ia observations were initially held to confirm the "critical density" universe, and then, subsequently, shown to overturn it. The difference between the two stances? Just one data point, which was either utilized or dropped, depending on what result the team was trying to achieve. That religious faith hasn't died, Phil. The whole edifice is still supported by that flat universe assumption-conclusion-whatever. There are hundreds of papers out there, building up a huge FRW big bang model, and in each paper there is a phrase like "assuming a flat universe". Who notices that phrase? What referee calls them on it? The whole confounded structure is standing on an unproven premise, because the "proof" is based on circular reasoning which uses the FRW cosmology to build the physical model by which the WMAP results are interpreted and so the flat universe "proved", and then the flat universe props up FRW. Remember the first Superman movie? Superman catches Lois Lane, and says "Relax, Miss Lane, I've got you". And Lois Lane replies "You've got me? Who's got you?!?". And that is what we're missing. We need a Lois Lane in this business. Where is she? >Just because someone believes something on faith doesn't mean that >it has to be wrong. That's right, but trivial. Sorry to have been so wordy. I've pretty much said it all now. Phil, I see you are an inflation skeptic, which is great, but yours is a minority view. The majority is stomping all over you, and me, and everybody. And they are wrong. It is an unpublicized scandal. Now I've done what I could. Thanks for engaging in this with me, and I hope it has given you food for thought. Eric Flesch --------------------------------------------------------------- Re: A Brief History of the Flat Universe 29-Nov-2007 sci.astro.research On Wed, 28 Nov 07 09:11:23 GMT, Phillip Helbig wrote: >eric@flesch.org (Eric Flesch) writes: >> The results speak for themselves. Their >> accounting of how they came to those results, are just afterthoughts. > >This is simply rubbish and an unnecessary criticism of the people >involved. Hey, get their original data, reduce them yourself, http://www.sheldrake.org/Onlineexp/offline/constants/index.html Data creep of fundamental constants. e.g. Millikan's oil drop experiment, as explained by Richard Feynman: "It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge on the electron after Millikan. If you plot them as function of time, you find that one is a little bigger than Millikan's, the next one's a little bigger than that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number that is higher. Why didn't they discover that the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of--this history--because it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they would look for and find a number closer to Millikan's value when they didn't look so far. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that." But I guess you would call Feynman's text, "simply rubbish"?. How about the speed of light? From the web page: "In 1929, Birge published his review of all the evidence available up to 1927 and came to the conclusion that the best value for velocity of light was 299,796 ± 4 km/s. ... "From around 1928 to 1945, the velocity of light appeared to be about 20 km/s lower than before and after this period. The 'best' values, found by the leading investigators using a variety of techniques, were in impressively close agreement with each other, and the available data were combined and adjusted by Birge in 1941 and Dorsey in 1945. In the late 1940s the speed of light went up again. ... "How can the lower velocity from 1928 to 1945 be explained? If it was simply a matter of experimental error, why did the results of different investigators and different methods agree so well? And why were the estimated errors so low?" I suppose, Phil, that your explanation would be that the speed of light actually was 20 km/s lower from 1928 to 1945, right? Eric --------------------------------------------------------------- Re: Accelerated expansion of the Universe - revisited 01-Apr-2010 On Mon, 29 Mar 10, carlip-nospam@physics.ucdavis.edu wrote: >... As for dark energy, very few people I know think of it as anything >more than a temporary stand-in for "physics we don't understand." ... Thanks for the comprehensive reply, Steve. It is just that the perambulations of the professionals don't get much publicity -- it's all "dark matter" and "dark energy" in the media. >The problem is that there are a ton of possible new models, but most >people I know in the field don't find any of them particularly elegant. But it is curious that back in the days of "critical density" it was held that if the universe were forever-expanding, that it would have an open (hyberbolic) manifold. Today, we do indeed believe it is forever-expanding, and the "accelerating expansion" observations would indeed be well-explained by an open (hyperbolic) manifold, but instead we are wedded to a flat manifold! Argh! > since explaining dark matter or dark energy seems sexier. The Earth's surface could similarly be described as a flat surface with "contraction" to account for its decreasing conic sections with distance. But instead we say the surface is curved. Any chance that anyone will ever again describe space manifold as curved? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spatial Foreshortening and the Pioneer Anomaly 20-Nov-2012 sci.astro.research (calculation refined by my follow-up posting of 30-Nov-2012) The Pioneer anomaly is a well-known anomalous Sunwards acceleration of the Pioneer spacecraft. At 20AU the acceleration was measured at 9x10^-10 m/s^2. This has supposedly been resolved by Turyshev et al (2012) as thermal recoil force, but such a laboriously derived finding over so many years in search of an already-known result is obviously open to question. Setting aside Turyshev et al for now, I would like to point out an interesting aspect of the anomaly. Pioneer's speed at 20AU was 12500 m/s, so the velocity anomaly per second was .5a = 4.5 x 10^-10 m/s, taken over the 12500 m/s velocity, yields 3.6 x 10^-14 as a velocity ratio and thus as a foreshortened distance ratio of the anomaly at 20AU. Now 20AU = 3x10^9 km, so let's divide this by the ratio we've just calculated => 8.33 x 10^22 km => 9.26 x 10^9 LY, which is basically the Einstein Radius of a static universe model (10^10 LY). Now how did that happen? The physical interpretation of the calculation is that the Pioneer spacecraft's path was foreshortened by that ratio at the distance of 20AU, and extending that rate of increasing foreshortening onwards, would reach 100% at the Einstein radius. Let's follow the trail a little further (omitting the causal agent of "scale" for now). The foreshortening can be shown to equate to a redshift which increases monotonically to 100% at the edge of this static universe model. In such a universe our Galaxy's furthest stars will have a redshift of 3 km/s, so observationally dwarfed by their orbital motions. Andromeda's redshift would be 60 km/s, again observationally subsumed into its proper motion, so the redshift would not be perceived locally. However, high-precision measurements of the Galilean satellites would demonstrate the presence of the redshift, much as they were originally used to demonstrate the speed of light. This topic opens a Pandora's box for all to consider: Astronomy makes the great assumption that we have an untrammeled clear view of the Cosmos, and that no warped lens is queering our view. I put forth the proposal that the cosmological redshift shows us that our view is warped, that things are not as they look, and that our attempts to build a great Standard Model under the assumption that our view of the Universe is clear and undistorted, must fail. All going well, I'll shortly put up a posting titled "Through the Looking Glass, Redly" which describes the 1/z static universe model which explains the whole picture including the CMB radiating from the apparent edge of the universe where infinities clash. While this model is obviously speculative, it is soooo-o-o-o much simpler than the incredibly contrived and epicycle-ridden standard model under which we currently labour. Eric Flesch 19 Nov 2012 Re: Spatial Foreshortening and the Pioneer Anomaly 30-Nov-2012 This is just to close out the thread with a corrected calculation for the Einstein Radius using the Pioneer anomaly: At 20AU Pioneer was travelling 12500m/s. The anomalous sunward acceleration was 9 x 10^-10 m/s^2 Therefore, per each second, the distance travelled was 12500m, and the anomolous distance shortfall was d=.5a = 4.5 x 10^-10m. Thus the ratio of the shortfall to distance travelled is 3.6 x 10^-14. Spatial foreshortening is equivalent to an open Lobechevskian curvature of the manifold which brings distant places closer. Let's say that curvature X yielded the above foreshortening at 20AU. Such foreshortening linearly increases with distance in tandem with the increasing total curvature, eventually reaching 100% at what we would perceive to be the edge of the universe. That distance would thus be 20AU / ratio = 3 x 10^9 km / 4.5 x 10^10^-14 = 6.67 x 10^22 km = 7 x 10^9 LY, close to the standard Einstein radius of 10^10 LY. If this were a true relationship, then the Pioneer anomaly would be seen to be twice at 40AU as it was at 20AU. I doubt that this would be found to be the case, but it would be interesting to find out. cheers, Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------- Geometry of Look-Back 11-Dec-2012 sci.astro.research Not much work seems to be done nowadays on open (aka hyperbolic) or closed (aka spherical) manifolds, but it's instructive to consider what they would look like as a nightsky. The answer is they would look just the same as flat space, but if one were to hop in a rocket and travel out there, one would find that objects are closer than their angular size indicates in an open manifold (i.e., "foreshortened"), and in a closed manifold they would be further away than expected. So nowadays we model that we can't visually distinguish at all between these alternative curvatures. But spectroscopy illustrates how nature finds ways to convey information -- astronomers of 100 years ago would be astonished at how much signal there is in mere light. My supposition is that there is indeed a visual way to distinguish between open, flat, and closed manifolds, and that the cosmological redshift shows us the way. Regardless of all the complex constructs of standard cosmology, the simple anchor is that cosmological redshift results from recession. No recession, no big bang. So alternative viewpoints of the redshift are not welcome to some -- which is no reason not to try, of course. Lopez-Corredoira gave a useful review of static models in his paper "Angular Size Test on the Expansion of the Universe" (2010 IJMP,19,245; arxiv:1002.0525) and observed (as have others) that 1/z is well-fit to angular size across all redshifts -- without need of evolution, dark matter, dark energy, whatever. Occam is calling. So these are threads for me to follow, hopefully to assemble into a coherent whole, after the holidays. cheers, Eric. On Sat, 22 Dec 12, Phillip Helbig wrote: I wrote: >> > One of the models that I'm juggling treats time dilation as the >> > square root of the redshift, > >Is there any physical motivation for this? Yes, one model of "geometry of look-back" is that we see the past as smaller and slower than the present, because of the drift of a (new) cosmological factor. This maps into seeing the nightsky as an open-manifold universe with a redshift. So this proposes to swap this one new cosmological factor for all of yours (dark energy, etc, you know what they all are). But I have to well-fit this to all observations, which is daunting for me, since so much observational data is published only as post-FRW-processed data, which is hard for me to decode backwards. I may indeed have to do as you and Steve Willner kindly suggest, which is to request the original data from the authors. I remind all that the usual riposte to the "many worlds" advocates is that we prefer to economize on universes. Similarly, I wish to economize on all the magic tropes of modern cosmology, and remind all that things flying apart at high speed is no way to model a universe. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Precise and Accurate, or Imprecise and Inaccurate 27-Dec-2012 Two new pre-prints with contrasting results are out, kind of like the scientific equivalent of a food fight. It's a hot topic, the CMB temperature as a function of redshift -- which, if true, makes any static model untenable. On 24 December arxiv:1212.5456 (accepted by A&A): "A precise and accurate determination of the cosmic microwave background temperature at z=0.89" by S. Muller et al determines a CMB temp of 5.08K for PKS 1830-211 at z=0.89, although they stated some assumptions, particularly page 2 column 2 top "of great importance for our study" that the emission is behind the absorbing gas. On 27 December arxiv 1212.5625 (accepted by ApJ): "On Measuring the CMB Temperature at Redshift 0.89" by M. Sato et al, determines a CMB temp of 1.1 - 2.5K for this same galaxy! They pointedly assert that high-resolution imaging shows that the absorbing gas covers at best only part of the emitter. So the 2nd paper clearly refutes the assumption "of great importance" of the 1st paper, that the absorbing gas covers the whole emitter. Reading further, the first paper is based on observations done in 2011-2012, the 2nd paper is based on observations done in 1999 (!). Not making sense? My loose reading is that the 1999 observers found that the PKS 1830-211 observations did not confirm the CMB temp / redshift dependency, but did not publish. Now in 2012 a new group of "young pups" do find such a dependency, in the process ignoring the findings of the "old timers" of 1999. These old timers are not happy because their careful observations are being ignored, so are now publishing their findings at last. Appreciate if anyone can shed better light on this. On Fri, 01 Mar 13, Dan Riley wrote: >If you want to really delve into reading the tea leaves, it would seem >that Sato--a relative newcomer to the group--played some significant >role in reanalyzing the 1998 data to test the covering factor >homegeneity. Yes, she is evidently a VLT multi-wave specialist at Max-Planck. Possibly she will review other papers for similar problems. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Gravity and its Spherical Asymptote 01-Feb-2014 sci.astro.research As you all know, gravity has never been unified with matter & energy into a theory of everything (TOE). Quantum cosmology often explores models in which gravity, in addition to Newtonian law, also operates out of an additional dimension -- which would account for its failure to unify within 3D+1. In such a picture, gravity crosses the "brane" of the extra dimension, and mass which subtends gravity deforms the brane. Resisting the deformation is the tension of the brane -- which presumably would be a universal parameter of some kind of units. However, consider the notion of equal and opposite reaction. Deformation of the brane would not be for free -- there must be a reaction, just as pushing into a balloon makes it stretch elsewhere. Similarly, gravitational lensing has the counterstroke that in places not lensed, there is a small net decrease of light transmission due to fringe effects from places which do lens. Therefore, if gravity crosses the 4D brane, and mass deforms that brane, there is an opposite reaction -- a gravitational asymptote -- elsewhere. And the location of that asymptote depends on the tension of the brane. As gravity acts spherically, the asymptote will also be spherical. It will be a gravitational effect shaped as a sphere, at a distance from the gravitator. It will be a spherical lip effect which gravitates with some kind of opposite polarity -- like a hollow sphere. The current FRW parameter says that dark matter accounts for over twice the gravity of baryonic matter. So the gravitational spherical asymptote could have twice the gravitational power of the masses within -- maybe half facing inwards, the other half facing out. The effect would be as a hollow sphere within which the stars of elliptical galaxies and globular clusters can float freely, and also the stellar haloes of spiral galaxies. Some galaxies like the Sombrero galaxy would have such a large gravitational asymptote that the stellar halo is as big as the whole galaxy. Think this pretty much expresses it. Hope this is a help to someone. ----------------------------------------------