Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[Michael Mozina]

Because neutrinos are hot not cold.

True

Or at least that's why neutrino's cannot account for the bulk of dark matter. As an aside, it is worth pointing out (again) that there would be reason to believe SUSY particles may exist whether or not DM exists.

True. In other words a SUSY related WIMP could in fact form and be destroyed in milliseconds.

 

[Michael Mozina]

MOND doesn't predict properly anyway lensing - it's not relativistic. I think it's not quite so trivial to calculate in TeVeS - the GR-ish extension.

The Bullet Cluster was sold as a system that required dark matter, but it's also fit by including warm dark matter - which I would expect you wouldn't have such issue with as neutrinos are detected (edit: on preview I see that's the case, although quite how WDM would fit in with observed neutrinos isn't very clear). I'm not sure how it's been holding up since.

My opinion is that one way or the other there's a lot to be explained, but I think dark matter sounds more plausible right now.

As you surmised I do not have any problem with using neutrino mass to resolve a "missing mass" problem and like you I'm inclined to believe that we underestimate the amount of mass in galaxies. I also believe that we grossly underestimate the effect of the EM field on the distribution of matter in a galaxy as the mainstreams aversion to Peratt's work demonstrates IMO.

 

[ben m]

I also believe that we grossly underestimate the effect of the EM field on the distribution of matter in a galaxy as the mainstreams aversion to Peratt's work demonstrates IMO.

Tell us, Michael: what do you remember from the last thread about Peratt's plasma simulation?

Do you remember the calculation of the maximum charge-to-mass ratio of a star? Was this larger, or smaller, than the charge-to-mass ratio of Perratt's simulated plasma particles?

Do you remember the calculation of the B field that would be required to get the magnitude of acceleration observed for a star? Was this larger, or smaller, than the observed B fields of the Milky Way?

Do you remember the comparison of rotation curves for orbiting objects with different directions/inclinations/eccentricities? Does Perratt's model predict these to be the same or different? Does data show them to be the same or different?

How about the comparison for different tracers (HI vs. stars)? Does Peratt's model predict them to be the same or different?

Does Peratt's model predict that gravitational-lensing data will agree, or disagree, with rotation curve data?

I suppose you could just say "no, none of that was mentioned, you all just ignore the model", but that'd be lying.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Tell us, Michael: what do you remember from the last thread about Peratt's plasma simulation?

Not much. Care to point me to the thread in question?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

I suppose you could just say "no, none of that was mentioned, you all just ignore the model", but that'd be lying.

I think, by now, there's rather a lot of empirical data consistent with this.

Why do you lie so much MM?

And why do you do so so blatantly?

 

[ben m]

Not much. Care to point me to the thread in question?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=164073&page=19

Say, do you plan on remembering "much" from this thread? Maybe a system of Polaroids and tattoos could help.

 

[Michael Mozina]

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=164073&page=19

Say, do you plan on remembering "much" from this thread? Maybe a system of Polaroids and tattoos could help.

I think some rereading would be appropriate, and maybe some explanation of how and why my statements are a recap of Peratt's work????? Huh? Is your cited calculation in that post directly related to Peratt's work? I'm confused.

 

[Michael Mozina]

FYI Ben...

As far back as Birkeland, an EU orientation predicts that most of the mass of the universe is in motion and not inside of stars. The trick to moving stars is to move the mass *OUTSIDE* of the stars and the stars will follow, if only due to gravity. It seems to me that the last time we discussed this issue you failed to recognize that I do not believe that we have already accounted for all the ordinary mass in a galaxy, or the fact that moving the galaxy is about moving individual charged particles that are *NOT* inside of stars, not about moving the stars directly. I don't recall you ever responding to those points, but you might want to respond to the in the other thread.

 

[ben m]

I think some rereading would be appropriate, and maybe some explanation of how and why my statements are a recap of Peratt's work????? Huh? Is your cited calculation in that post directly related to Peratt's work? I'm confused.

Now that you've been pointed in the right general direction, the way to become un-confused is to try to learn something.

We were talking about magnetic/plasma models of galaxies, like and including Peratt's. Several posters raised important questions which argued that Peratt's simulations are of something so entirely unlike a real galaxy that they don't have anything to say about galaxies.

This discussion raised all of the questions that I repeat here.

Do you remember the calculation of the maximum charge-to-mass ratio of a star? Was this larger, or smaller, than the charge-to-mass ratio of Perratt's simulated plasma particles?

Do you remember the calculation of the B field that would be required to get the magnitude of acceleration observed for a star? Was this larger, or smaller, than the observed B fields of the Milky Way?

Do you remember the comparison of rotation curves for orbiting objects with different directions/inclinations/eccentricities? Does Perratt's model predict these to be the same or different? Does data show them to be the same or different?

How about the comparison for different tracers (HI vs. stars)? Does Peratt's model predict them to be the same or different?

Does Peratt's model predict that gravitational-lensing data will agree, or disagree, with rotation curve data?

Let me put it this way, Michael. For your personal benefit, I listened to your claim that Peratt had explained flat rotation curves. I read Peratt's paper, cracked open an astro textbook and did some calculations, and found that Peratt had not done what you claimed.

What good came of that? It'd be one thing if you disagreed. "Well, you assumed X and I still think Y". It'd be another thing if you were confused. "I know you did those calculations, but I figured that the double-layer iron sun was different." It'd be one thing if you'd forgotten the details. "There was something about vectors, but I admit I've lost the gist of it."

But no, you pretend that we never presented an argument at all. You come back time and again with "You're wrong because you just ignore Peratt." WE DIDN'T IGNORE PERATT, YOU TIME-WASTING AMNESIA VICTIM. Get that fact into your head and try to keep it there between this thread and the next.

Do you want to re-discover what we learned about Peratt's model while we weren't ignoring it? Go re-read the old thread.

 

[Tubbythin]

In terms of Peratt's work, there's truth to that statement. I would expect that the mainstream would make some attempt to read and understand the work of Alfven and Peratt and others *before* passing judgement. Alas, that isn't how the universe seems to work.

People have read it. People have shown why they do not match with reality. What more is there to say on this?

In terms of how the physics "should be" from my perspective, that actually has very little to do with it. I changed my views about 5 years ago, rather radically in fact, simply because I do not have any views about how it "should" work. I could let my previous beliefs die a natural death and I could easily go where the evidence led me. In fact, the changes in my views were based upon the study of coronal loop activity by the way.

IT has everything to do with it. You have a set of preconceived notions and if anything disagrees with it you say "Nah, nah not listening".

When you say "evidence", you must mean "mathematical models", because to my knowledge SUSY theory is still the minority viewpoint, and standard theory remains well, "standard".

I said dark matter, not SUSY. The evidence for DM does not rely on there being any evidence for SUSY. The fact that one could be the other and we thus kill two birds with one stone is basically an application of Occam's razor. But, like I said, Occam's razor is a last resort.

I'll grant you that there are 'mathematical' reasons to believe in DM, there are no "physical" reasons that I'm aware of to verify such models.

Well only if you believe things like Newton's law of gravitation is entirely mathematical. But then one should make a similar argument for Coulomb's law.

I think you missed my point/complaint. I just pointed out that there is evidence that your original mass estimates were WRONG.

I don't recall having seen any necessary adjustment that would require a significant change in the estimates that would not be dwarfed by the size of the relevant error bars. In that sense the ordinary to dark matter ratio is unaffected.

We did not account for the amount of light that was being absorbed, so we grossly underestimate the number of LARGE stars in a galaxy, potentially by a factor of two. We grossly underestimated the number of smaller stars compared to the larger ones, potentially by a factor of 4 or more. We are only now able to see things as large as a very large JUPITER SIZED object, and we already see evidence that such objects could be more numerous than the number of stars in a galaxy.

These have been discussed before. With reference to jupiter sized planets, for example, you'd need 1000 jupiter sized planets per star just to double the mass of stars+jupiter sized planet. The fraction of visible matter that is in stars is much less than 100% (I just found 10%) and the amount of matter that is visible compared to the total needed is less than a 5th. SO clearly the fact that jupiter sized planets are more numerous is of no relevance to the calculations. That's without even considering that the other pieces of evidence such a hypothesis is completely inconsistent with.

We have evidence we grossly underestimated the amount of mass in a black hole.

The missing mass is of order 10¹¹ solar masses per galaxy. The mass of supermassive blackholes in the centre of galaxies is typically 10⁶ solar masses. Therefore for these to have even a 1% effect we would have to understimate their masses by a factor of order 1000! That's like mistaking a kilometre for a metre! Moreover, as I've already pointed out, if this were the case then to reproduce the observed rotation curves at large distances we'd have to add more, not less dark matter!

All this information demonstrates that we did NOT correctly estimate the amount of mass in a distant galaxy

Actually it does no such thing. It demonstrates nicely that we can have made errors of order 2 or 3 or 4 and it makes no difference to the estimated visible to dark matter ratio.

and yet I've seen absolutely NOTHING done about it,

Because the effects are so tiny they make no difference. As you would know if you were capable of quantitative analysis.

and nothing done to minimize the need for exotic brands of matter.

There you are again, trying to impose you ideal universe on to the real one. This is the exact opposite of science. If multiple lines of independent observation show your ideal universe to be wrong then your ideal universe is wrong. Get over it.

Your own theory can and should be falsifiable by itself, without *ANY* competing theory.

It is.

It has in fact been falsified by observation but nothing has been done about it,

No it hasn't

not even one single percentage change in the mass estimation techniques in over three years.

That's because the "errors" you point to are at less than the 1% level. It really is that simple.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Now that you've been pointed in the right general direction, the way to become un-confused is to try to learn something.

You mean "learn/assume" stuff like this?

We've ruled out Coulomb's Law on net solar charge.

So essentially your premise begins and end with a completely different set of scenarios, and a completely different model than used by Birkeland. So now all you have to do explain why should I put any value in them Ben?

Birkeland's experiments led him to "predict" that every sun acts as a cathode. Now whom shall I believe, you or Birkeland?

 

[Michael Mozina]

In terms of how ANY of this ties back to Peratt's work, well......I guess I'll keep reading for awhile.

 

[Michael Mozina]

But no, you pretend that we never presented an argument at all.

Er, no, that's your own strawman Ben. I said you folk have an irrational aversion to his work. Big difference.

 

[Tubbythin]

True. In other words a SUSY related WIMP could in fact form and be destroyed in milliseconds.

And...?

 

[Tubbythin]

Er, no, that's your own strawman Ben. I said you folk have an irrational aversion to his work. Big difference.

So I suppose it wasn't you who said:

In terms of Peratt's work, there's truth to that statement. I would expect that the mainstream would make some attempt to read and understand the work of Alfven and Peratt and others *before* passing judgement

?

 

[Michael Mozina]

People have read it. People have shown why they do not match with reality. What more is there to say on this?

Gee, maybe something like....."It doesn't quite work, so we'll stuff it with magic energy until it fits?" How about a practical approach like "It needs some work"?

IT has everything to do with it. You have a set of preconceived notions and if anything disagrees with it you say "Nah, nah not listening".

Not at all. I've listened, and I've even changed my opinions from time to time. At first I thought MRx theory was pseudoscience. Now I KNOW that they really mean "electric field reconnection via current deflection".

I said dark matter, not SUSY. The evidence for DM does not rely on there being any evidence for SUSY. The fact that one could be the other and we thus kill two birds with one stone is basically an application of Occam's razor. But, like I said, Occam's razor is a last resort.

Somehow this sounds like an "escape plan" in case SUSY theory bites the dust at LHC. Humm.

Well only if you believe things like Newton's law of gravitation is entirely mathematical.

No, I can feel and experience gravity myself, with or without math. The same is true of electrical current. There are mathematical models of these things of course, but they have a tangible effect on me here and now.

I don't recall having seen any necessary adjustment that would require a significant change in the estimates that would not be dwarfed by the size of the relevant error bars. In that sense the ordinary to dark matter ratio is unaffected.

That is because you simply skipped over the star count problem entirely as I'll demonstrate:

These have been discussed before. With reference to jupiter sized planets, for example, you'd need 1000 jupiter sized planets per star just to double the mass of stars+jupiter sized planet. The fraction of visible matter that is in stars is much less than 100% (I just found 10%) and the amount of matter that is visible compared to the total needed is less than a 5th. SO clearly the fact that jupiter sized planets are more numerous is of no relevance to the calculations. That's without even considering that the other pieces of evidence such a hypothesis is completely inconsistent with.

You took the LEAST important aspects of the mass estimation problems to focus on, and you completely skipped over the fact that you underestimated the large star count by a factor of 2 and a small star count by a whopping factor of 8! You simply ignored those two points entirely.

The missing mass is of order 10¹¹ solar masses per galaxy.

So I guess we really should start by at least doubling the amount ordinary baryonic matter in galaxies by doubling the amount of larger stars in a galaxy, eh?

I love how you folks just glace over the fact that you can essentially double the amount of normal amount of mass (or more) of a galaxy based on these findings! It's like you'll all do anything and everything possible to ignore the fact you blew the star estimates to start with, the "dust" estimates, and everything else in between. Instead you insist in trivializing the significance of these findings and you engage in what amounts to "damage control" rather than attempting to really fix anything. You'd much rather write about WIMPS and how the emit gamma rays that you can then "see" in a telescope, even though you've never seen such a thing in a lab.

 

[Michael Mozina]

And...?

And in that case it won't help you much.

 

[ben m]

So I guess we really should start by at least doubling the amount ordinary baryonic matter in galaxies by doubling the amount of larger stars in a galaxy, eh?

Go ahead and translate that into masses. Numbers, please. You're looking for a model of the galaxy with ~10^11 solar masses of "something" in the disk and bulge, plus almost ~10^12 solar masses of "something" in the halo.

Go ahead and start adding it up. Dwarf stars, ultradwarf stars, Jupiters, M-stars, giant stars, cold molecular clouds, HII, HI, H2, dust, rocks, neutron stars, neutrinos, black holes. Add as much as you think the observations can possibly tolerate. If you build a model of a 10^12 solar mass halo that's not (a) red-hot and as thick as pea soup and/or (b) sparkling like a Christmas tree with all the microlensing, let me know.

(Then do the same thing for a supercluster.)

Until then, just be aware that smarter people than you have tried to put together that budget and it didn't work.

 

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Tubbythin
But the "right direction" is your own personal preference for how you think the physical universe should be, not how the physical universe is.

In terms of Peratt's work, there's truth to that statement. I would expect that the mainstream would make some attempt to read and understand the work of Alfven and Peratt and others *before* passing judgement. Alas, that isn't how the universe seems to work.

That is how the universe (i.e. the scientific community) does work !

• The work of Peratt has been read and understood in this forum, e.g.
  Peratt's work on galaxy formation that deccribed an imaginary universe where spiral galaxies have actual arms rather than brighter regions (Anthony Peratt's Plasma Model of Galaxy Formation).
• The work of Alfven has read and understood in this forum.

You though have an obsession with forcing people to read 30 old year textbooks as if they were sacred texts. There are modern textbooks that are better than the books by Alfven and Peratt for the simple fact that they contain 30 more years of exploration of the field.

 

[Tubbythin]

Gee, maybe something like....."It doesn't quite work, so we'll stuff it with magic energy until it fits?" How about a practical approach like "It needs some work"?

By all means come back with a better model. Its not my job or anyone else's to do that for you. Especially when you pay no attention to any criticisms anyway.

Not at all. I've listened, and I've even changed my opinions from time to time. At first I thought MRx theory was pseudoscience. Now I KNOW that they really mean "electric field reconnection via current deflection".

And you KNOW that how?

Somehow this sounds like an "escape plan" in case SUSY theory bites the dust at LHC. Humm.

Not in the slightest. In fact you have it almost completely backwards. We have a possible extension of the standard model of particle physics and we have strong data suggesting a large amount of missing mass. The data for each is completely and utterly independent of the data for the other. Therefore if one falls this has no bearing on the evidence for the other.
Think of it like a bank account. We observe that Mr Jones has £1 million pounds in his bank account. We want to know how it got there. Somebody remarks that large amounts of money can be made by investing in risky businesses on the stock exchange. The hypothesis is constructed that Mr Jones got his million pounds through investment in stocks. After investigation it turns out that Mr Jones has never invested in stocks or shares. Nevertheless, Mr Jones still has £1 million in his bank account.

No, I can feel and experience gravity myself, with or without math. The same is true of electrical current. There are mathematical models of these things of course, but they have a tangible effect on me here and now.

Application of Newton's law of gravity is still physics though, no?

That is because you simply skipped over the star count problem entirely as I'll demonstrate:

I skipped over it because I can't remember exactly what it said and didn't have time to re-read it. Given your track record for claiming things outside what is claimed by the authors and your complete inability to do quantitative analysis and think I'll trust my original assumption.

You took the LEAST important aspects of the mass estimation problems to focus on, and you completely skipped over the fact that you underestimated the large star count by a factor of 2 and a small star count by a whopping factor of 8! You simply ignored those two points entirely.

Where does the number 2 come from? One of the news articles you linked to suggested that stars were twice as bright. The luminosity-mass relationship would then suggest that the mass of stars may have been underestimated by a factor of 1.2. Recalling that the mass of stars is considerably less than the total visible mass this makes little difference to any calculation.
I dunno why I bother with this mind. Tim already responded to these with reasoned explanation of what the actual papers actually said and, unless I've missed it, you completely ignored him. Why?

So I guess we really should start by at least doubling the amount ordinary baryonic matter in galaxies by doubling the amount of larger stars in a galaxy, eh?

Erm... no.

I love how you folks just glace over the fact that you can essentially double the amount of normal amount of mass (or more) of a galaxy based on these findings!

No you can't. And nobody except you is claiming you can.

It's like you'll all do anything and everything possible to ignore the fact you blew the star estimates to start with, the "dust" estimates, and everything else in between.

What are you talking about? You're pretty much just ranting now in the vain hope that somebody will be foolish enough to believe you.

Instead you insist in trivializing the significance of these findings and you engage in what amounts to "damage control" rather than attempting to really fix anything.

They are insignificant in terms of the matter to dark matter ratio.

You'd much rather write about WIMPS and how the emit gamma rays that you can then "see" in a telescope, even though you've never seen such a thing in a lab.

Seriously, stop ranting. You're just making yourself look like a fool. And stop making claims from press releases that aren't made in the paper or the press release. All it highlights is that you do not understand what is being said in the press releases.