Alernatives: Cosmological redshift/BBE

[Tubbythin]

Then for about 300,000 years there was a “Radiation Era”, during which electron-positron pairs mutually annihilated and the resulting radiation became the dominant constituent of the Universe.2

Silk really said this? Can you give us an exact quote please?

 

[edd]

The shell could be the residue of a stellar event that happened very long ago. There is no specific reason why the energy vs frequency distribution of its radiation could not be that which is observed.

SZ Effect. Amongst other things. If it's a nearby shell it can't be affected by distant galaxy clusters can it?

 

[Perpetual Student]

PS, here is a proposed "alternative explanation of the [cosmological expansion] red shift".

Would you - or Skwinty, or Zeuzzz, or INRM, or ... - like to read it, and point out why it can be "ruled out"?

I intend to do so later today.

 

[HannonRJ]

sol Invictus:

Interesting opinions! Einstein claimed T=(t-vx/c^2)B, so time does have a metric... a unit of measurement of duration that depends on B. Since light propagates at constant c in "empty space", light is measured by the metrics of space and time of the space in which it propagates at any instant. c=xt=X/T.

Please tell me how space and time can be homogeneous when their metrics are not everywhere and always the same.

SR is purported to be intrinsic to GR.

 

[sol invictus]

Interesting opinions!

They're not opinions - they are facts.

Einstein claimed T=(t-vx/c^2)B, so time does have a metric... a unit of measurement of duration that depends on B.

If you wanted to write down the metric of spacetime in special relativity (the Minkowski metric), it's [latex]$ds^2 = -c^2 dt^2 + d \bar x^2$[/latex].

Since light propagates at constant c in "empty space", light is measured by the metrics of space and time of the space in which it propagates at any instant.

That's too incoherent to comment on.

c=xt=X/T.

I can't think of any definition of "xt" which would make that a sensible equation.

Please tell me how space and time can be homogeneous when their metrics are not everywhere and always the same.

OK, "homogeneous" is evidently another term you do not know the meaning of. When people refer to a "homogeneous universe", they mean homogeneous in space - not in time. Expanding cosmologies change with time, obviously. As every grammar school child knows, 13 billion years ago the universe was extremely hot and dense. Now it isn't.

SR is purported to be intrinsic to GR.

It is.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

All of the description of the early universe and the conventional view of the CBR in my paper published on PHILICA on that subject is quoted from the references Any "misunderstandings" are those of their authors

Here is a copy of the MS:

AN ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION OF THE COSMIC BACKGROUND RADIATION.
Robert J. Hannon

ABSTRACT: The current explanation of the Cosmic Background Radiation, based on the Big Bang Hypothesis, is briefly examined. An alternative explanation is offered, predicated on a possible cosmologically-local situation.

KEY WORDS AND PHRASES: Big Bang Hypothesis, Electromagnetic Radiation, radiation era

I. In 1965 Penzias and Wilson discovered the microwave noise now called the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR). It is purported to be a proof of the Big Bang Hypothesis (BBH), because it is claimed to be the remnant of the electromagnetic radiation (EMR) emitted by the Big Bang, redshifted by the expansion of the universe. The CBR has a “temperature” of 2.732K. Its peak energy spectrum is at a wavelength of about 2 millimeters, and its energy spectrum is virtually that of an ideal black body.1

The belief that the Big Bang produced EMR is more an assumption than a provable fact. Supposedly, during the first microsecond of the existence of the Universe, there were hadrons, followed within a second by electrons, positrons, photons, and (maybe) neutrinos. How these were created is unknown, but their existence is postulated by the BBH. Then for about 300,000 years there was a “Radiation Era”, during which electron-positron pairs mutually annihilated and the resulting radiation became the dominant constituent of the Universe.2

While gamma radiation is produced by electron-positron rest-mass annihilation, we have no knowledge of how this takes place. Each such annihilation of rest-mass supposedly produces two identical gamma rays each having an energy of 0.818x10-6 erg, which corresponds with a frequency of 1.234x1020 Hertz or a wavelength of 2.43x10-10 meter. These values are determined only by the mass of an electron or positron. They are the same for every electron-positron annihilation. They are independent of the number of such events. The kinetic energy of the pair contributes only trivially to the total energy, so the frequency or wavelength of the gamma radiation is virtually independent of “temperature”, and therefore almost monochromatic. So it appears that the supposed source of the CBR should not have a black body spectrum.

II. Is it possible for expansion of the universe to cause an observable redshift in light, gamma radiation or other EMR? According to the Theory of General Relativity (GR), which is the predicate of the BBH, the Universe is assumed to be uniformly “expanding” relative to every point in space and time. This expansion is not limited to those points actually occupied by anything: space itself is expanding. This is why the GR Universe has no center. Except possibly in the locales of massive objects, the metrics of space and time expand in exact proportion, otherwise c, the velocity of light in empty space, would not be a “universal constant”.

How does the expansion of the Universe proceed in terms of space and time?

Does the number of invariant standard meters and seconds between any two objects increase? Do points in space measurably move apart? This would seem necessary in order for us to observe the Cosmological Redshift. If so, only the distance between points changes. The wavelength of EMR already propagating space is unaffected; it simply requires more time to reach any distant point than when it was emitted. If its velocity, c, is indeed constant then no observable redshift can arise from this kind of expansion.

Or, does the number of meters and seconds between points in space remain constant while the length of the meter (the metric of space) and the duration of a second (the metric of time) both increase? Were the meter and the second shorter in the past? This kind of “expansion” is not measurable, and would not produce the Cosmological Redshift. Changes in the metrics would not be perceptible to any observer because the uniform universality of the expansion would require the meter and second of all observers, everywhere and everywhen, to increase by exactly the same amount. Nevertheless this seems most consistent with the variable metrics of GR, and it also appears not to require kinetic energy to be imparted to every object in order to “move” it relative to every other.

Assume that it is the metrics of space and time that are continually changing in exactly the same way, uniformly and simultaneously everywhere in the Universe. It is impossible for an electromagnetic wave (or anything else) to have metrics different from those of space and time wherever it may be. So EMR emitted at any past time cannot retain the metrics which may have existed at its birth as it propagates through the expanding Universe. The metrics of EMR (or anything else) must change in exactly the same way as those of the Universe change. When such EMR reaches the earth, its metrics will be identical with those of EMR emitted from the same kind of source here and now. Thus a redshift due to this kind of expansion of the Universe would be undetectable by the usual methods.

So it seems that expansion of the Universe cannot cause an observable redshift in light, gamma radiation, or any other EMR.

Big Bang cosmologists evade this subject, and “explain” the supposed redshift of gamma radiation purportedly produced billions of years ago by applying the thermodynamic gas laws to the Universe, ignoring the fact that empty space cannot have a “temperature”. They assume that expansion of the Universe decreases its “temperature” and that of all EMR propagating within it. This decrease in “temperature” supposedly produces an increase in the wavelength (or a decrease in the frequency) of the gamma radiation produced by electron-positron annihilations billions of years ago. Thus EMR emitted billions of light-years away from us is “cooled” in transit by the expansion of the Universe, and is therefore redshifted when we receive it. No accounting is offered for the loss of energy involved.

III. Are there other possible sources of the CBR?

The conventional wisdom says there are none, primarily because of the isotropy of the CBR: it is supposedly uniform to within 0.001% (1 part in 100,000) in all directions from the earth. However, such measurements have been made only within a radius of about 500 km of the approx. 0.25 light-year long path along which our solar system has moved in the past few decades. Such observations cannot be claimed to represent the entire Universe.

Suppose the CBR is EMR emitted by a spherical shell of gaseous radiators, having an unknown radius of anywhere from ten to thousands of LY, and that the entire solar system has been moving inside this shell for many years. At distance R (inside the sphere) the energy Er from any point on the sphere is Er=Es/R2 where Es is the energy at 1 meter from the source. At distance R±D, the energy Ed of that radiation is Ed=Es/(R±D)2 so:




For Ed/Er=1.00001: at R=10LY, D=0.00005 LY=470x106 km. At R=1000 LY, D=0.005 LY=47x109 km. So if we are 10 LY from the inside of the shell, we will find its radiation isotropic to 1 part in 100,000 (0.001%) anywhere within 470 million km from our location. If we are 1000 LY from the inside of the shell, we will find its radiation to be isotropic to 1 part in 100,000 (0.001%) anywhere within 47 billion km of our location.

The shell could be the residue of a stellar event that happened very long ago. There is no specific reason why the energy vs frequency distribution of its radiation could not be that which is observed.

REFERENCES:

1. Guth, Allen H: THE INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE, Chapter 4, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co, Inc, Reading MA, USA, 1997.

2. Silk, Joseph: THE BIG BANG, Chapter 6, WH Freeman and Co, New York, 1980.

Looks like this idea has some fatal flaws in it too.

Skwinty, PS (Z? INRM?): can you follow the reasons why this idea can be ruled out?

 

[Skwinty]

"If its velocity, c, is indeed constant then no observable redshift can arise from this kind of expansion."

The speed of light cannot exceed 3e8m/s. There is no law law that states that the speed of light cannot be less than 3e8m/s. An example would be be light in a Bose -Einstein Condensate or the fact that a fast electron exceeds the speed of light in a boron rich liquid, otherwise known as cerenkov radiation.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Looks like this idea has some fatal flaws in it too.

Skwinty, PS (Z? INRM?): can you follow the reasons why this idea can be ruled out?

You're asking a lot from a non-physicist. But here are some things that don't seem right:

Assume that it is the metrics of space and time that are continually changing in exactly the same way, uniformly and simultaneously everywhere in the Universe. It is impossible for an electromagnetic wave (or anything else) to have metrics different from those of space and time wherever it may be. So EMR emitted at any past time cannot retain the metrics which may have existed at its birth as it propagates through the expanding Universe. The metrics of EMR (or anything else) must change in exactly the same way as those of the Universe change. When such EMR reaches the earth, its metrics will be identical with those of EMR emitted from the same kind of source here and now. Thus a redshift due to this kind of expansion of the Universe would be undetectable by the usual methods.

I believe the above is false. I have never heard of the "metric of time" changing as the universe expands. And, there is no evidence that the size of objects (particles, EM waves, and hence atoms and molecules) grow with an expanding universe, which would appear to result from this scenario. I can't see how the above could be a viable explanation if matter did not also grow in size along with time slowing down and space expanding. Such an effect would change the very behavior of matter in the universe over time. But, what do I know?

Big Bang cosmologists evade this subject, and “explain” the supposed redshift of gamma radiation purportedly produced billions of years ago by applying the thermodynamic gas laws to the Universe, ignoring the fact that empty space cannot have a “temperature”. They assume that expansion of the Universe decreases its “temperature” and that of all EMR propagating within it. This decrease in “temperature” supposedly produces an increase in the wavelength (or a decrease in the frequency) of the gamma radiation produced by electron-positron annihilations billions of years ago. Thus EMR emitted billions of light-years away from us is “cooled” in transit by the expansion of the Universe, and is therefore redshifted when we receive it. No accounting is offered for the loss of energy involved

First, no one says "empty space has temperature." I believe cosmologists refer to the temperature of the matter and radiation within the universe.
Second, my understanding is that as the universe cooled, the energy remained constant but filled an ever growing universe, making the temperature lower. The same amount of energy is filling a larger space. That seems to be quite similar to what happens to a gas in an expanding chamber. But what do I know?

The conventional wisdom says there are none, primarily because of the isotropy of the CBR: it is supposedly uniform to within 0.001% (1 part in 100,000) in all directions from the earth. However, such measurements have been made only within a radius of about 500 km of the approx. 0.25 light-year long path along which our solar system has moved in the past few decades. Such observations cannot be claimed to represent the entire Universe.

Suppose the CBR is EMR emitted by a spherical shell of gaseous radiators, having an unknown radius of anywhere from ten to thousands of LY, and that the entire solar system has been moving inside this shell for many years. At distance R (inside the sphere) the energy Er from any point on the sphere is Er=Es/R2 where Es is the energy at 1 meter from the source. At distance R±D, the energy Ed of that radiation is Ed=Es/(R±D)2 so:




For Ed/Er=1.00001: at R=10LY, D=0.00005 LY=470x106 km. At R=1000 LY, D=0.005 LY=47x109 km. So if we are 10 LY from the inside of the shell, we will find its radiation isotropic to 1 part in 100,000 (0.001%) anywhere within 470 million km from our location. If we are 1000 LY from the inside of the shell, we will find its radiation to be isotropic to 1 part in 100,000 (0.001%) anywhere within 47 billion km of our location.

OK, now here I would think we would be able to find other signs of this local explosion -- what else could cause a "a spherical shell of gaseous radiators." There would also be a Doppler effect as we moved through the radiation -- blue shift ahead and red shift behind us. On the other hand, don't we observe that anyway as we move relative to the CMB? Also, how could such an event, which would have to have a center, give us the isotropic measurements we see? And, wouldn't there be particles as well as radiation from such an event? As I said, what do I know?

 

[edd]

And, there is no evidence that the size of objects (particles, EM waves, and hence atoms and molecules) grow with an expanding universe, which would appear to result from this scenario.

Atoms and other particles don't grow. EM waves do* - it's what redshift is.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/expanding_universe.html
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html#SS

First, no one says "empty space has temperature." I believe cosmologists refer to the temperature of the matter and radiation within the universe.
Second, my understanding is that as the universe cooled, the energy remained constant but filled an ever growing universe, making the temperature lower. The same amount of energy is filling a larger space. That seems to be quite similar to what happens to a gas in an expanding chamber. But what do I know?

The radiation is what has the temperature - at least in the sense that it has a spectrum of a black body of a certain temperature, so it's a convenient way to describe what that radiation is. As for the energy conservation thing - in general relativity energy conservation is not as simple a business as you might think.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/energy_gr.html

None of the above should be taken as a defence of HannonRJ's postings, of course.

*at least on their way from distant galaxies

 

[The Man]

c=xt=X/T.

I can't think of any definition of "xt" which would make that a sensible equation.

I might surmise that Hannon read something somewhere in Natural Units, which would be quite easy to do, and then conflated it to 1 * 1 = 1/1 = c in natural units. Of course as you indirectly note even in natural units space * time is not the same as space / time or c, even when though then might all equal 1.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Thread's gone a bit quiet ...

Good on you Skwinty and PS, for having a go at trying to find reasons why the HannonRJ material can be ruled out!

To what extent were you able to follow the others' posts on that material (si, TM, TT, RC, edd, ...)?

So what open questions are there, other than stuff to do - directly - with the HannonRJ material?

Some comments by PS on "theory".

One final comment on Skwinty's "how to tell the component causes in a redshift spectrum?".

... and a look at the third (and possible fourth?) kind of source of ideas on possible alternative explanations for cosmological redshift (PS' question, from waaaay back), and what work has been done to rule them out.

Am I missing any?

 

[Skwinty]

Good on you Skwinty and PS, for having a go at trying to find reasons why the HannonRJ material can be ruled out!

Thanks, I only picked out 2 based on words and not math.

To what extent were you able to follow the others' posts on that material (si, TM, TT, RC, edd, ...)?

I was able to follow, but don't ask me to repeat the math

So what open questions are there, other than stuff to do - directly - with the HannonRJ material?

I don't think that we mentioned Marmet's explanation of molecular hydrogen being the cause of redshift.

 

[Tubbythin]

From the other thread:

http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/hydrogen/index.html

That man seems very confused.
Apparently dark matter doesn't exist and it is all molecular hydrogen. And yet at the same time the dark matter (which doesn't exist you'll remember) is what absorbs the visible light to solve Olbers' paradox.
Not to mention he seems to reject QM and SR/GR.

 

[Skwinty]

From the other thread:


That man seems very confused.
Apparently dark matter doesn't exist and it is all molecular hydrogen. And yet at the same time the dark matter (which doesn't exist you'll remember) is what absorbs the visible light to solve Olbers' paradox.
Not to mention he seems to reject QM and SR/GR.

I interpreted him as saying that molecular hydrogen is dark matter, not that dark matter doesn't exist.
I agree his stance on SR/GR and QM is rather odd, given all the successful tests over the last 50 years..

 

[HannonRJ]

Tubbythin: See the references cited in my paper.

Skwinty: There is no "Law" that light cannot exceed any specific speed. The purported immutability of the value of c is just a postulate of SR.

The Man: c=x/t=X/T is intrinsic to Einstein's 1905 derivation of the SR transformation equations.

 

[The Man]

The Man: c=x/t=X/T is intrinsic to Einstein's 1905 derivation of the SR transformation equations.

So...

c=xt=X/T.

was just a typo?

 

[HannonRJ]

sol invictus: They're not opinions - they are facts.

RJH REPLIES: In your opinion.


SI: That's too incoherent to comment on.

RJH: Just plain English.

SI: I can't think of any definition of "xt" which would make that a sensible equation.

RJH: See Einstein, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".


SI: OK, "homogeneous" is evidently another term you do not know the meaning of. When people refer to a "homogeneous universe", they mean homogeneous in space - not in time. Expanding cosmologies change with time, obviously. As every grammar school child knows, 13 billion years ago the universe was extremely hot and dense. Now it isn't.

RJH: Homogeneous: The same everywhere and everywhen. See Einstein, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".

Metric: a unit of measurement.

 

[Ziggurat]

Metric: a unit of measurement.

Sol was right: you don't know what a metric is. In the context of relativity (both general and special), it is not a "unit of measurement". It is a function which defines distances.

 

[edd]

SI: OK, "homogeneous" is evidently another term you do not know the meaning of. When people refer to a "homogeneous universe", they mean homogeneous in space - not in time. Expanding cosmologies change with time, obviously. As every grammar school child knows, 13 billion years ago the universe was extremely hot and dense. Now it isn't.

RJH: Homogeneous: The same everywhere and everywhen. See Einstein, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".

Einstein is famous for many things. Writing dictionaries is not one of them.

 

[Ziggurat]

SI: OK, "homogeneous" is evidently another term you do not know the meaning of. When people refer to a "homogeneous universe", they mean homogeneous in space - not in time. Expanding cosmologies change with time, obviously. As every grammar school child knows, 13 billion years ago the universe was extremely hot and dense. Now it isn't.

RJH: Homogeneous: The same everywhere and everywhen. See Einstein, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".

Yeah, um... that paper is on special relativity. Cosmology and expanding space require general relativity. There are major differences between special and general relativity. So aside from the fact that you're still wrong about what homogeneous means in this context, the paper you cite to support your opinion is completely and utterly irrelevant.