I don't think space is expanding.

Status
Not open for further replies.
Ziggurat said:
So glass, for example, can transmit light, and thus neither reflect nor absorb it.
Click to expand...

At the quantum level, glass is absorbing and emitting photons.

If galaxies keep going, at some point, their light will dim below the ambient temperature of space.

We see that as the CMB. It isn't a body in itself.
 
Ziggurat said:
The temperature changes as the universe expands, so it is not constant in time.
Click to expand...

According to the big bang theory. According to my theory, the CMB was the same temperature billions of years ago and billions of years from now.

But the shape is. It remains a perfect blackbody shape in perpetuity.
Click to expand...

Ok, well, what specific feature of that shape can only the CMB explain?
 
Mike Helland said:
At the quantum level, glass is absorbing and emitting photons.
Click to expand...

That's one way to interpret the process, but it doesn't matter. The point remains: black body emissivity is proportional to absorptivity, NOT to 1-reflectivity. And space has zero absorptivity, and therefore zero emissivity.

If galaxies keep going, at some point, their light will dim below the ambient temperature of space.

We see that as the CMB. It isn't a body in itself.
Click to expand...

No. Galaxies do not emit perfect blackbody spectra. They have characteristic absorption and emission lines, which make them very NOT like the CMB. You can't make the spectra match even if you red shift it.
 
Mike Helland said:
Ok, well, what specific feature of that shape can only the CMB explain?
Click to expand...

The fact that it's a perfect blackbody shape. Stars don't do that. Nebula don't do that. Interstellar gas doesn't do that. Dust doesn't do that. Planets don't do that. All other sources in space have significant deviations from blackbody spectra.

And as I said, Eddington got the spectrum completely wrong, not even close.
 
Ziggurat said:
The fact that it's a perfect blackbody shape. Stars don't do that. Nebula don't do that. Interstellar gas doesn't do that. Dust doesn't do that. Planets don't do that. All other sources in space have significant deviations from blackbody spectra.

And as I said, Eddington got the spectrum completely wrong, not even close.
Click to expand...

Ok, so, star light is headed our way, and it hits some dust, a couple photons get knocked in stray directions.

They never reach us. They go somewhere else completely.

What happens to all those stray photons?
 
Mike Helland said:
Ok, so, star light is headed our way, and it hits some dust, a couple photons get knocked in stray directions.

They never reach us. They go somewhere else completely.

What happens to all those stray photons?
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter where they go. They cannot reproduce the CMB. Interstellar dust isn't black.
 
Mike Helland, I'd like to go back to your starting premise and ask a few questions, if you don't mind:

"I don't think space is expanding."

Say you're right. Space isn't expanding. What would would you say is the biggest change implied by this?
 
Mike Helland said:
Given that we observe a static background noise in the universe, it would seem those are the stray photons.
Click to expand...

Of course there are stray photons. So what? We know that gas and dust is out there, and that it scatters star light. That's not the issue. Those stray photons aren't responsible for the CMB. The issue is what can account for the CMB. dust cannot. Stars cannot. I don't think you appreciate how unlikely it is to find anything in nature that is truly black.

Your theory, as far as I can understand it, cannot produce the CMB. Eddington certainly couldn't. The BBT can.
 
Ziggurat said:
I don't think you appreciate how unlikely it is to find anything in nature that is truly black.
Click to expand...

Let's define the observable region as including any place light keep reach us.

Just beyond that, the Hubble Limit, light cannot reach us.

Seems like that would be pretty black, eh?
 
Mike Helland said:
Let's define the observable region as including any place light keep reach us.

Just beyond that, the Hubble Limit, light cannot reach us.

Seems like that would be pretty black, eh?
Click to expand...

No. No, it wouldn't, not from a thermodynamics perspective. And if you're talking about what's beyond where light can reach us, then obviously a blackbody spectrum cannot reach us from there, so this argument is rather self-defeating.
 
theprestige said:
Mike Helland, I'd like to go back to your starting premise and ask a few questions, if you don't mind:

"I don't think space is expanding."

Say you're right. Space isn't expanding. What would would you say is the biggest change implied by this?
Click to expand...

If space is expanding, it started as a small point 14 billion years ago, and it about 96 billion light years across today.

We used to think that stars were 20 billion years old, mind you.

If space is not expanding, as Edwin Hubble explains, "the observable region is an insignificant sample of a universe that stretches indefinitely in time and space."

The difference is a tiny little, young universe, and one that goes way WAY beyond what light can physically show us.
 
Ziggurat said:
No. No, it wouldn't, not from a thermodynamics perspective. And if you're talking about what's beyond where light can reach us, then obviously a blackbody spectrum cannot reach us from there, so this argument is rather self-defeating.
Click to expand...

First you say "No", then you say "Yes, obvously."

It's not a self-defeating argument. I think the word you're looking for is self-sealing, aka, tautological.

I misread.

I guess there is something to the black body thing I'm missing, because it seems obvious to me that when there is no body, it'll appear black.
 
Last edited:
Mike Helland said:
If space is expanding, it started as a small point 14 billion years ago, and it about 96 billion light years across today.

We used to think that stars were 20 billion years old, mind you.

If space is not expanding, as Edwin Hubble explains, "the observable region is an insignificant sample of a universe that stretches indefinitely in time and space."

The difference is a tiny little, young universe, and one that goes way WAY beyond what light can physically show us.
Click to expand...

That's the biggest change implied by this, that you can think of? Stuff exists that we can never see or prove anyway?

Let me clarify: What is the biggest change to us here on Earth and the things we observe and work with, if space isn't expanding?
 
theprestige said:
Mike Helland, I'd like to go back to your starting premise and ask a few questions, if you don't mind:

"I don't think space is expanding."

Say you're right. Space isn't expanding. What would would you say is the biggest change implied by this?
Click to expand...
We are in the exact center of the universe?
 
Samson said:
We are in the exact center of the universe?
Click to expand...

That's not implied by my theory.

The universe is indefinitely large, like 10^100 bigger than you can think times another trillion.

We're at the center of our observable part, but beyond that, there's nothing to indicate the universe's size from our vantage point.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom