Bang/Crunch Revisited

[Erasmus00]

Then, in order to compare the scale of the cosmos we can observe to the "big balloon" I made our sphere of visibility an "atom" within the rubber of the balloon.

 

Thats fine, but your model still makes an incorrect prediction- we know the observable universe is isotropic to about 1/100,000, and we know the power spectrum of the CMB anisotropies.

 

Your model predicts a strong preferred direction. It is simply incorrect. Changing scale won't change that. The "Mooney Balloon" predicts the wrong power spectrum.

 

We will never see the proposed "strings" of which "membranes" are said to be made, either, but somehow that is ok with the scientific community while "the atom-cosmos within the Greater Balloon" is here considered "wacko" fantasy born of "magical vision" ... inappropriate to science.

 

Why won't we ever "see" strings? The theory DOES make predictions- some day they may well be verified (or they may not). String theory has implications for planck scale stuff. Your theory also makes predictions- wrong ones.

 

I like science based on observable/detectable phenomena, like objects, radiation, plasma, etc in dynamic action *in space.* Space is not such a phenomena, tho I totally understand it as a "metric" with three coordinates... 3-D space... and of course "it takes time for things to happen... tho time is not a "local environment" different for each point of observation.

 

Michael- you don't know the first thing about radiation, etc. You don't even know what a metric is! You don't have any real understanding of modern physics, and yet you make these sweeping pronouncements. Why should you be taken as more of an expert than the scientists who devote their lives to these issues? You can't even extract reasonable predictions from your own models!

 

What makes an electromagnetic field fit nicely into your ideas of ontology, but not a metric field? Why should every field but the metric be dynamics, but the metric static?

[modest]

First, I must apologize for my mixed metaphors in various posts. One metaphor has the "rubber molecules of the big balloon" ("maxi-cosmos") as galaxies and its atoms as stars, as Modest pointed out.. This was to illustrate that the "balloon" I *envision* was actual "stuff" moving in an outward trajectory, (the rubber, not "space itself expanding.")

Then, in order to compare the scale of the cosmos we can observe to the "big balloon" I made our sphere of visibility an "atom" within the rubber of the balloon. (This both before and after Modest's Illustration with a sphere nearly the diameter of the balloon's membrane thickness.

 

Size doesn't matter... or, uhhh... Scale doesn't matter. The scale factor is the same regardless of scale (scale being how big one thing is as compared to another).

 

Imagine it this way: Draw a dot on a string then stretch the string to four times its original size. The width of the dot will get four times larger. No matter how small you make the dot, it will still get 4 times larger when the string is stretched.

 

You have proposed that the visible cosmos is like an atom in the balloon. You presumably say this because the size of an atom does not change with the inflation of the balloon. But, our observable universe is changing size—it has doubled in size many, many, many times over. It did this isotropically while the motion of your balloon example is NOT isotropic.

 

Changing the scale of the observable universe in the balloon doesn't help with this. Scale doesn't matter. The balloon either needs to be 4 dimensional or you need to represent the observable universe with two dimensions. Otherwise the characteristic motion of the balloon is different from the characteristic motion of the universe.

 

Neither a single specific atom embedded in the surface of a rubber balloon or a group of atoms embedded in the surface of a rubber balloon expand isotropically. your model does not act the way our universe acts. It is falsified.

 

I ask you again, Boerseun, what is it that science says is expanding?

 

I've answered at least 10 times: "Distance" is expanding! The distance between things is increasing with time. The observable universe has expanded approximately 1,300 times since the surface of last scattering. This means the distance to an atom at the edge of the our observable universe which is currently 46 billion lightyears from us was 36 million lightyears from 'us' when it emitted the CMBR photon which we see today. The distance increased by a factor of 1292 in those ~13.7 billion years... the distance.

 

Expanding space is expanding distance. When you say "things move through space rather than space expanding" you are proposing that space is a thing—something which things can move "through". Physical cosmology does not need that kind of assumption. Space is distance. Things can't move through distance... things just move away from each other is all. All cosmological distances increase over time in a way that's best described by a scaled metric.

 

Please Google the "redshift controversy" (I've just reviewed several sites on it) and post your critique.

 

(See Arp's book "Quasars, Redshifts, and Controversies," "Interstellar Media,"( Berkeley) and " Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science.")

 

We've all studied Halton Arp's anomalous redshifts. You can search astronomy and cosmology for "Halton Arp". His 'theory' is not compatible with cyclical or ekpyrotic models of cosmology and one wonders how you can advocate cyclical cosmology and object to redshift. Visit your library.

 

~modest

[Michael Mooney]

Erasmus:

Thats fine, but your model still makes an incorrect prediction- we know the observable universe is isotropic to about 1/100,000, and we know the power spectrum of the CMB anisotropies.

 

Your model predicts a strong preferred direction. It is simply incorrect. Changing scale won't change that. The "Mooney Balloon" predicts the wrong power spectrum.

 

Given that science will never see, by presently existing means, the "maxi-cosmos" I have (let's say) "envisioned," (nor will we see strings or membranes likewise... so said two scientists at the end of a NOVA presentation on "string/M-theory")... I am willing to drop the "maxi-cosmic balloon" as a scientific unknowable and focus on the cosmos we can observe... whether it is an "atom" deeply embedded in a larger expanding, relatively thick membrane or shell of cosmic stuff or not. (Not on the "surface," Modest... you still don't get what I envision.)

 

The model I see of our observable cosmos is that it either explodes periodically from a central ball of "crunched" matter (many SMBH's after coalescing on the implosion half of the cycle, or (if bh's can not overcome gravity to explode) our visible cosmos is in an environment of once cooling plasma (now all the stuff we see) having jetted out from the axis of a really big pulsar-type spinning mass... such that our local environment (cosmic event horizon) can not see far enough to detect directional motion. Yes, scale does matter. ( A single atom in my body, if it were a conscious observer, would have no way of knowing whether I (this whole body) am walking down the street or orbiting Earth.

 

Why won't we ever "see" strings? The theory DOES make predictions- some day they may well be verified (or they may not). String theory has implications for planck scale stuff. Your theory also makes predictions- wrong ones.

 

I've studied string theory from the beginning, through all its permutations to the eleven dimensional theory which unites all five types of strings into one membrane. This is all metaphysical, theory with no evidence to support it. The concluding critique of the NOVA program just mentioned capped it as metaphysics and explained how small the proposed "strings" are, totally precluding observation... and the "membranes" are fantasies way less than microns apart... which are supposed to "clap together" and "create new universes" like ours.

 

So how exactly is it that a bang/crunch cosmology, on the scale of our visible cosmos "makes wrong predictions?"

 

Michael- you don't know the first thing about radiation, etc. You don't even know what a metric is! You don't have any real understanding of modern physics, and yet you make these sweeping pronouncements. Why should you be taken as more of an expert than the scientists who devote their lives to these issues? You can't even extract reasonable predictions from your own models!

Psychology 101: Never presume to tell another person what s/he knows or does not know. The rule derives from the obvious fact that I know what I know better than you do, which applies to all but the totally deluded, and I really don't qualify as the latter by clinical definition. (I am a psychologist, quite familiar with what delusion is.)

I used "radiation" to cover the whole realm of "what radiates"... not confined to "matter/plasma./energy. I also know the difference between space as volume described by the three coordinates and space as some "thing" that expands (has shape, etc.) (Space without defining boundaries is infinite and endless. Posit a boundary, if you will, to space. You can not. It *must* be infinite, or what lies beyond your proposed boundary/limit?)

What makes an electromagnetic field fit nicely into your ideas of ontology, but not a metric field? Why should every field but the metric be dynamics, but the metric static

?

 

Magnetic fields can easily and obviously be detected by what it is that they effect... from the ionized gases glowing as the "northern (or southern) lights" to iron filings on paper over a magnet. There is nothing static about stuff moving through space. But what do you think "space itself" is "made of" that it can expand and curve? The observable movements of *stuff in space* does not require that space "itself* is a thing with properties of malleability.

 

(Incidentally, why don't you answer my challenge that Doctordick mathematically explains relativity without "spacetime?")

 

Michael

[Michael Mooney]

Modest:

Size doesn't matter... or, uhhh... Scale doesn't matter. The scale factor is the same regardless of scale (scale being how big one thing is as compared to another).

 

See my reply to Erasmus above.

Imagine it this way: Draw a dot on a string then stretch the string to four times its original size. The width of the dot will get four times larger. No matter how small you make the dot, it will still get 4 times larger when the string is stretched.

 

In the real world (remember the real world?) an atom within the string will not stretch out as you stretch the string. Nuff said.

 

You have proposed that the visible cosmos is like an atom in the balloon. You presumably say this because the size of an atom does not change with the inflation of the balloon. But, our observable universe is changing size—it has doubled in size many, many, many times over. It did this isotropically while the motion of your balloon example is NOT isotropic.

 

I have *repeatedly* said that the "atom-cosmos" deep within the balloon membrane has the same expanding dynamic and isotropy as we actually observe. Of course the metaphor fails in this dynamic. It was only a size/scale reference to relate "our cosmos" to the larger context I envision.... as I explained in my last post.

 

As posted to Erasmus, I am abandoning the "atom in the balloon membrane metaphor because of just such literalism and distortion (of my model) as you just committed.

 

Changing the scale of the observable universe in the balloon doesn't help with this. Scale doesn't matter. The balloon either needs to be 4 dimensional or you need to represent the observable universe with two dimensions. Otherwise the characteristic motion of the balloon is different from the characteristic motion of the universe.

 

Three dimensional space and the "time" between one designated "now" and another will suffice perfectly well for both a cosmos such as we can observe and a larger one (if it exists as I envision it) that we can not observe. (The latter now left on the shelf of unknowables.)

 

Neither a single specific atom embedded in the surface of a rubber balloon or a group of atoms embedded in the surface of a rubber balloon expand isotropically. your model does not act the way our universe acts. It is falsified.

 

Again and again... tho not heard... The "atom" is seen as deep within the relatively thick balloon membrane, not on (in?) the "surface." Like the atom in the stretched string, it has its own dynamic, not distorted by the stretch of the balloon (or string.)But, unlike an atom (limit of the metaphor) our cosmos, does, as I see it, bang and crunch in perpetual cycles as a micro-system not being distorted by the larger context of the differential between the inner and outer surfaces of the "greater balloon."

I've answered at least 10 times: "Distance" is expanding! The distance between things is increasing with time. The observable universe has expanded approximately 1,300 times since the surface of last scattering. This means the distance to an atom at the edge of the our observable universe which is currently 46 billion lightyears from us was 36 million lightyears from 'us' when it emitted the CMBR photon which we see today. The distance increased by a factor of 1292 in those ~13.7 billion years... the distance.

 

I have agreed at least ten times that as objects move further apart the distance (space) between them *obviously!* increases. And equally as often I have repeated that this *fact* does not mean that "space expands!" Science's misconception, I maintain, is that "space itself" has such properties as being effected by gravity causing "it" to curve and, according to "inflation cosmology" "space itself" expanded rapidly after the big bang.

Which way do you want it? "Space expands"(etc., etc.) or the distance between objects increases as they move apart... which is blatantly obvious?

Expanding space is expanding distance. When you say "things move through space rather than space expanding" you are proposing that space is a thing—something which things can move "through". Physical cosmology does not need that kind of assumption. Space is distance. Things can't move through distance... things just move away from each other is all. All cosmological distances increase over time in a way that's best described by a scaled metric.

 

As immediately above. Space can be absolutely nothing... emptiness... nada... void... volume... and all "things" can still move "through this emptiness." (Where things exist, space is not empty.... this being a no-brainer, but seems it must be said anyway.

"Things can't move through distance." (??) Things moving through empty space either get closer or further apart (or stay the same distance apart if on parallel trajectories!) In so doing the distance between *things*either increases or decreases (or stays the same.)

 

The stuff of cosmos keeps on traveling in outward trajectory from whence it came. Space is the infinite emptiness in which, on whatever scale, this occurs. The ontology of space as an expanding medium is not an established fact but a disputable (and presently being argued) concept.

 

We've all studied Halton Arp's anomalous redshifts. You can search astronomy and cosmology for "Halton Arp". His 'theory' is not compatible with cyclical or ekpyrotic models of cosmology and one wonders how you can advocate cyclical cosmology and object to redshift. Visit your library.

 

I only cited the "redshift controversy" to dispute the claim above that "expanding space" is an established fact, where the standard interpretations of redshift is cited as a quasi proof... and gives distant galaxies a speed relative to Earth faster than light... which is also nonsense.

 

Once we dispense with such nonsense (with Arp's help) we can then argue against "expanding space" as supposedly proven by redshift. This is independent of which is ones favorite cosmology.

 

Michael

[Erasmus00]

Yes, scale does matter. ( A single atom in my body, if it were a conscious observer, would have no way of knowing whether I (this whole body) am walking down the street or orbiting Earth.

 

A false analogy, every molecule in a rubber sheet knows if the sheet is being stretched.

 

I've studied string theory from the beginning, through all its permutations to the eleven dimensional theory which unites all five types of strings into one membrane....

 

No you haven't. String theory is a highly mathematical subject, and you have very limited math at your disposal. If you cannot do basic calculations with a theory, you have not studied it, and you do not understand it. If you have next to know understanding of quantum mechanics and next to no understanding of general relativity, how can you study the attempt to unify them? Reading popular science books and watching NOVA specials is not studying a theory.

 

So how exactly is it that a bang/crunch cosmology, on the scale of our visible cosmos "makes wrong predictions?"

 

It predicts that acceleration of the universe should be slowing down. It is not.

 

Never presume to tell another person what s/he knows or does not know.

 

I have witnessed your ignorance of basic physical and mathematical ideas in dozens (if not more) of posts. You CANNOT understand the idea of space (or spacetime) as a metric without understanding what a metric is. You have yourself admitted your ignorance of math, which precludes knowing what a metric is!

 

Magnetic fields can easily and obviously be detected by what it is that they effect... from the ionized gases glowing as the "northern (or southern) lights" to iron filings on paper over a magnet.

 

Why should there be a magnetic field, you can't see it. You can measure the effect of one piece of lodestone on another, or a moving current on a lodestone,etc. Why create this magnetic field, what is its "ontological status?"

 

(Incidentally, why don't you answer my challenge that Doctordick mathematically explains relativity without "spacetime?")

 

If you believe this, you do not understand what Doctordick has done. He has reorganized spacetime, not done away with it. He still has a 4 dimensional space, and has given up coordinate independence in favor of simplicity for one observer.

[modest]

In the real world (remember the real world?) an atom within the string will not stretch out as you stretch the string. Nuff said.

 

From your reply there is no way for me to know if you understood what I told you.

 

Get a rubber band, cut it, and lay it out flat in front of you. Draw some squares and rectangles on it. Then stretch the rubber band....

 

 

I scaled this virtual rubber band 126% (140% horizontally and 90% vertically) The scale factor is 1.26. The surface area of the rubber band was 40 cm² before it was scaled and 51.2 cm² after being scaled.

 

Each red square gets larger by a factor of 1.26. Each ends up 140% wider than before it was scaled and 90% its height before it was scaled. This is true of all the red squares regardless of their size. The big ones get 1.26 times larger and the really, really small ones get 1.26 times larger.

 

The same situation applies with embedding a sphere into a shell's thickness (i.e. the thickness of a rubber balloon). By whatever factor the circumference of the balloon enlarges when it expands, so too will the embedded sphere's diameter change by that factor making an oblate spheroid—regardless of how small the embedded sphere is. If the circumference of the balloon doubles in size then the diameter of the embedded sphere will double in size.

 

Likewise, by whatever factor the thickness of the balloon's rubber shrinks when the balloon expands, so too will the embedded sphere's axis shrink by that factor, further squishing it into an oblate shape. If the balloon's rubber thins to half its previous thickness then the embedded sphere's axis shrinks to half its original size. We would now have an embedded spheroid which is 4 times wider than it is tall.

 

Regardless of the size of the embedded sphere (i.e. observable universe), it ends up:

 

 

This is why your post #39 and #92 make no sense. Size has nothing to do with the change in shape of the embedded sphere... it's irrelevant to the problem with your model.

 

I have *repeatedly* said that the "atom-cosmos" deep within the balloon membrane has the same expanding dynamic and isotropy as we actually observe. Of course the metaphor fails in this dynamic.

 

As posted to Erasmus, I am abandoning the "atom in the balloon membrane metaphor because of just such literalism and distortion (of my model) as you just committed.

 

The metaphor fails in every conceivable respect. Nothing that humanity has ever observed regarding the nature of the cosmos is represented well by your model. And, you feel the need to blame that failure on the "literalism and distortion" of Will and I. Really? Can you imagine what would happen in a real scientific peer review?

 

Again and again... tho not heard... The "atom" is seen as deep within the relatively thick balloon membrane, not on (in?) the "surface."

 

"embedded in the surface" meant "embedded in the thickness of the rubber of the balloon". I understand your meaning.

 

Three dimensional space and the "time" between one designated "now" and another will suffice perfectly well for both a cosmos such as we can observe and a larger one (if it exists as I envision it) that we can not observe. (The latter now left on the shelf of unknowables.)

 

I think so too.

 

Which way do you want it? "Space expands"(etc., etc.) or the distance between objects increases as they move apart... which is blatantly obvious?

 

You don't know what you're talking about. There's no difference between "space expands" and "the distance between any two points increases with time". They are different English word descriptions for the same exact thing. It only matters to you which way it is said because you don't understand the fundamentals of the theory. You're objecting to a philosophical interpretation.

 

What does "x" mean in the Robertson Walker metric?...

[math]ds^2 = (cdt)^2 - R^2(t) \left[ dx^2 + S_k^2 (x) (d \Theta^2 + sin^2 \theta d \phi^2 ) \right][/math]

Is it "space" or is it "distance"? When all values of x increase with time is "space expanding" or are "all values of distance on the metric increasing"?

 

When scientists explain these theories they'll say "it's as if space is expanding and the galaxies are riding along with the expansion". Or, "it's as if space is growing between galaxies". They are popularizing a concept which most people are not familiar with. It's an interpretation. It's a metaphor for how the metric behaves. You're refuting an interpretation!

 

There actually is meaning in that metric up there. There is meaning in the Freidmann Equation's scale factor. It translates directly into measurements people can make. It describes in a precise way the evolution of the universe. Why would you not put more time into actually understanding the science you're trying to object to? I don't understand what would be the down side to that.

 

I only cited the "redshift controversy" to dispute the claim above that "expanding space" is an established fact, where the standard interpretations of redshift is cited as a quasi proof... and gives distant galaxies a speed relative to Earth faster than light... which is also nonsense.

 

Arp's hypothesis was that distances between galaxies doesn't increase—that they are not moving at all (expanding space or otherwise). That you would cite such a thing while supporting cyclical cosmology...

 

He's a crackpot and his ideas on QSOs and anomalous redshift have been disproved. Experiments such as the Tolman surface brightness test have shown him quite wrong. Expansion is real. (Of course, by that I mean that the distance between all cosmically distant galaxies is increasing with time :evil:)

 

~modest

[maddog]

Psychology 101: Never presume to tell another person what s/he knows or does not know. The rule derives from the obvious fact that I know what I know better than you do, which applies to all but the totally deluded, and I really don't qualify as the latter by clinical definition. (I am a psychologist, quite familiar with what delusion is.)

Where is it written that all pyschologist (or psychiatrist for that matter) are prohibited from

being deranged/deluded. We are not BTW presume to tell you what you do or don't know.

We are presuming to know that you appear not use said knowledge properly and therefore

may not have it all down that well. Like you don't know it. For instance a "metric" is a

measure (in particular a distance measure in most cases). You can think of a "yardstick".

So if the "distance" expanded (your yardstick), then your metric expanded. You missed

that. So I might presume that either you don't know what a metric is or you don't apply

what you know.

Isn't the delusional ? :eek:

 

maddog

[maddog]

As immediately above. Space can be absolutely nothing... emptiness... nada... void... volume... and all "things" can still move "through this emptiness." (Where things exist, space is not empty.... this being a no-brainer, but seems it must be said anyway.

"Things can't move through distance." (??) Things moving through empty space either get closer or further apart (or stay the same distance apart if on parallel trajectories!) In so doing the distance between *things*either increases or decreases (or stays the same.)

Quantum Mechanically the Vacuum of Space is not empty. See the link borrowed below:

 

Copied from the Origin... thread from Astronomy forum:

Interesting powerpoint slideshow here:

http://server.physics.miami.edu/~cgc/Miami2007/Burdyuzha.ppt

 

I only cited the "redshift controversy" to dispute the claim above that "expanding space" is an established fact, where the standard interpretations of redshift is cited as a quasi proof... and gives distant galaxies a speed relative to Earth faster than light... which is also nonsense.

 

Once we dispense with such nonsense (with Arp's help) we can then argue against "expanding space" as supposedly proven by redshift. This is independent of which is ones favorite cosmology.

Using the unconventional to lend evidence contrary to the norm is Not evidence.

 

This does not dispense. Sad you don't see that. You have already acknowledged "distance"

can expand. Since the metric by which you measure space is bigger, you have alreay

accepted space expands. QED. :ip: :eek:

 

maddog

[maddog]

I would like to know how to add the kewl looking graphics. Are these items I just "cut" and "paste" ?

 

maddog

[modest]

When writing your post you can click on the 'add image' icon:

 

 

And add the url of an image from the internet. I got that one from:

 

Rotating Oblate spheroid at eccentricity=0.87 — University of Leicester

 

If you set up an account somewhere like imageshack or photobucket you can upload your own photos and add them by using their url.

 

~modest

[Michael Mooney]

Erasmus:

]A false analogy, every molecule in a rubber sheet knows if the sheet is being stretched.

 

My metaphor was scaled to atoms, which do not, to the best of my knowledge, distort in a stretched string or an expanding balloon.

 

No you haven't. String theory is a highly mathematical subject, and you have very limited math at your disposal. If you cannot do basic calculations with a theory, you have not studied it, and you do not understand it. If you have next to know understanding of quantum mechanics and next to no understanding of general relativity, how can you study the attempt to unify them? Reading popular science books and watching NOVA specials is not studying a theory.

 

Please refer to the following link from my first post in the "Math's Place in Physics" spin off thread (Philosophy of Science section), quoting from my favorite link on the subject:

 

http://hypography.com/forums/philosophy-of-science/19480-discussion-math-s-place-physics-thread.html#post267382

 

As per: "Every physical theory has a mathematical component and a conceptual component"... my intro to this forum disavowed expertise in math, but I am very reasonable in my analysis and criticism of concepts.

 

It predicts that acceleration of the universe should be slowing down. It is not.

 

In the cosmology I "see" there is a lot of matter producing gravitational pull beyond our cosmic event horizon. This could account for the accelerating expansion.

Also, whatever "dark matter" is, some believe it to be generate the mysterious force of accelerating.

In either case, "my favorite cosmology" is no falsified.

 

I have witnessed your ignorance of basic physical and mathematical ideas in dozens (if not more) of posts. You CANNOT understand the idea of space (or spacetime) as a metric without understanding what a metric is. You have yourself admitted your ignorance of math, which precludes knowing what a metric is!

You have witnessed my disagreement with you and with mainstream science. Your assumption seems to be that those who so disagree must be ignorant of... Again, please contemplate "the place of math" in the above quote.

 

Why should there be a magnetic field, you can't see it. You can measure the effect of one piece of lodestone on another, or a moving current on a lodestone,etc. Why create this magnetic field, what is its "ontological status?"

 

Huh? Obviously the iron filings on paper over a magnet fall in a pattern conforming to the magnetic field. There is no other explanation for the pattern.

There is another explanation for (for instance) the curvature of light's path around masses generating gravity... other than the standard "curved space" explanation. I've presented that explanation many times.

 

If you believe this, you do not understand what Doctordick has done. He has reorganized spacetime, not done away with it. He still has a 4 dimensional space, and has given up coordinate independence in favor of simplicity for one observer.

 

I invite Doctordick's response here. It was my understanding "spacetime" as central to relativity is not required in his version.

I also thought his version worked in 3-D Euclidean space without a fourth spacial dimension.

(3-D describes volume. What does a "fourth dimension" add and how is it described (other than making "space itself" spherical with a curved surface, etc.)

 

Michael

[Michael Mooney]

Me:

In the real world (remember the real world?) an atom within the string will not stretch out as you stretch the string. Nuff said.

You:

From your reply there is no way for me to know if you understood what I told you.

 

Get a rubber band, cut it, and lay it out flat in front of you. Draw some squares and rectangles on it. Then stretch the rubber band....

 

Hey, Modest! Scale does matter. My comment above asserts that an atom in a stretched string will not be distorted... nor in an expanding balloon. Rubber molecules, yes. Atoms, no.

 

Yet you repeat, in principle, the dot on a string elongating as it is stretched... with squares and rectangles on a rubber band.

 

Seems you simply ignore me and essentially repeat your example.

Then you go back to the "atom" within a rubber molecule, the latter of which will distort, while the former, I am sure, will not.

 

(It would be interesting to verify this if there were an electron microscope powerful enough to to examine an inflating balloon on atomic level. If its atoms turn into flattened spheroids as you illustrate, I will eat my words.

Anyway, I was willing to abandon the balloon metaphor for various reasons, one of which: because its atoms would not be expanding and contracting like a bang/crunch cosmos would. Again, the atoms were a scale reference not claimed to have the same explosion/implosion cycle as my favorite cosmology.

But this detail was lost on you and continues so.

 

You don't know what you're talking about. There's no difference between "space expands" and "the distance between any two points increases with time". They are different English word descriptions for the same exact thing. It only matters to you which way it is said because you don't understand the fundamentals of the theory. You're objecting to a philosophical interpretation.

 

Translation: You don't understand what I'm talking about, as usual.

I have always agreed that as objects move apart, the distance between them increases. "Blatantly obvious" as I said.

This is very much different than the claim that "space itself expands" as in inflation cosmology. Also way different than positing that "space curves" in response to gravity. Both cases make "space" into an actual medium that has shape and dynamics "of its own: as distinct from objects moving *through space.*

 

Your characterization of Arp as a "crackpot", given his credentials, is more a statement of your rigid intolerence of dissent than about him.

Never the less, I agree that, "that the distance between all cosmically distant galaxies is increasing with time."

I will research "the redshift controversy" more thoroughly. What I do know (and thought the said controversy challenged) is that "space itself expanding" (quickly after the Bang... inflation theory) and still expanding as a medium making galaxies recede from earth at faster than light speed... is false. This is a way different concept than the obviously increasing space/distance between objects as *they* move away from each other.

Simple question: Do you understand this difference?

 

Michael

[Erasmus00]

My metaphor was scaled to atoms, which do not, to the best of my knowledge, distort in a stretched string or an expanding balloon.

 

Yes, of course they will be distorted, though the manner and type is dependent on the material in question. In a simplified scenario, where we imagine a string as a 1-d lattice of atoms electrically bound, each atom will "feel" the uniform stretch of the wire.

 

As per: "Every physical theory has a mathematical component and a conceptual component"... my intro to this forum disavowed expertise in math, but I am very reasonable in my analysis and criticism of concepts.

 

The conceptual can never be put in place without the mathematical. Theories are mathematical first, conceptual second. First describe, then understand. Popular descriptions do not at all capture what is happening in string theory. Even the word "string" is at best an analogy to the fundamental entities in the theory. Mathematical descriptions are exact, verbal descriptions are not. The conceptual part of the theory is connecting the "symbols" to the physical reality.

 

In the cosmology I "see" there is a lot of matter producing gravitational pull beyond our cosmic event horizon. This could account for the accelerating expansion.

 

Even with the excess matter outside the event horizon, if the expansion is not slowing down, the universe cannot head back towards a big crunch. Further, if the matter is distributed uniformly it will not exert a gravitational pull (a uniform sphere of mass produces no field or force at its center).

 

Also, whatever "dark matter" is, some believe it to be generate the mysterious force of accelerating.

 

Your thinking dark energy which cannot exist in your cosmic model (its a property of "empty" space, which you disavow).

 

You have witnessed my disagreement with you and with mainstream science. Your assumption seems to be that those who so disagree must be ignorant of... Again, please contemplate "the place of math" in the above quote.

 

No, your ignorance has been repeatedly demonstrated- you don't know what a metric is, you were unaware of the idea of a gravitational wave, etc. You clearly have not studied general relativity (or any physics really) at a meaningful level. You have basic conceptual misunderstandings of special relativity, etc.

 

Huh? Obviously the iron filings on paper over a magnet fall in a pattern conforming to the magnetic field. There is no other explanation for the pattern.

 

This is simply not true- if magnets exert a force on lodestone or iron then the filing will conform to the force field around the magnet. Just like Newtonian gravity, classical electo/magneto statics can be formulated entirely in terms of action at a distance. Fields were largely considered a trick for calculating until Maxwell.

 

I invite Doctordick's response here. It was my understanding "spacetime" as central to relativity is not required in his version.

I also thought his version worked in 3-D Euclidean space without a fourth spacial dimension.

 

His is a 4-d space, with time as one of the dimensions, just like special relativity. His 4d space has a 4d Euclidean "metric" (its not a proper metric, as it isn't coordinate invariant, but DoctorDick has different motivations then Einstein, and so isn't concerned with coordinate invariance, rather simplicity for a single observer).

 

(3-D describes volume. What does a "fourth dimension" add and how is it described (other than making "space itself" spherical with a curved surface, etc.)

 

This is more ignorance- a 3d volume can be curved without a forth dimension. The number of dimensions is unrelated to curvature.

[modest]

Hey, Modest! Scale does matter. My comment above asserts that an atom in a stretched string will not be distorted... nor in an expanding balloon. Rubber molecules, yes. Atoms, no...

 

(It would be interesting to verify this if there were an electron microscope powerful enough to to examine an inflating balloon on atomic level. If its atoms turn into flattened spheroids as you illustrate, I will eat my words.

 

Yes, atoms stretch when their bonds are strained. Atoms are like little blobs. Here's are some imaged atoms,

 

http://www.physik.uni-regensburg.de/forschung/giessibl/fjg/imagegallery/afmimages/harmonische.jpg

 

But, that's beside my point. You're either dissembling or incapable of understanding the size irrelevance of a scale factor.

 

Again, the atoms were a scale reference not claimed to have the same explosion/implosion cycle as my favorite cosmology. But this detail was lost on you and continues so.

You thought a small scale would solve the motion problem I outlined in post #37, saying:

If our little mini-cosmos is the size of an atom relative to the balloon membrane thickness and deeply embedded within that membrane... one minuscule bubble within the whole balloon membrane... then the differential rates of "membrane expansion" between its inside and outside would either not effect our little atom-cosmos or its effect could never be detected... as we can't even com close to seeing the outer or inner "surfaces" of the expanding mega-cosmic "Baloon."

This is not how it works. Size has no effect on how much something is scaled by a scale factor. I can see how you might have intuitively thought otherwise, but that's not how it works. The only reason size would matter is when the substrate is inhomogeneous at small scales.

 

I have always agreed that as objects move apart, the distance between them increases. "Blatantly obvious" as I said.

This is very much different than the claim that "space itself expands" as in inflation cosmology.

 

You cannot tell me one qualitative difference between "inflation cosmology" and cosmology in the current epoch.

 

The difference between the "expansion of space" and the movement of bodies through space is a coordinate choice:

 

What Causes the Hubble Redshift?

 

There is no difference between the "expansion of space" and the measured increase in distance between all points as with the metric measured expansion of space distance.

 

If space expands then what is the relationship between redshift, distance, and velocity? If objects move through space rather than space expanding then what is the relationship between redshift, distance, and velocity? If space is expanding then what is the redshift of the CMBR? If the surface of last scattering is moving away from us while space is not expanding then what is the redshift of the CMBR? Will the duration of supernova be different if space is expanding vs. space not expanding? If there is a difference then how much is it? Will the brightness of distant galaxies be different if space is expanding vs. not expanding? What is the relationship between redshift and brightness if space is expanding and the relationship if space is not expanding?

 

I don't expect you to answer any of those questions and I'm not asking you to. But, recognize, this question is one of physics. With a knowledge of basic physics you could answer those questions and understand the concepts involved. There'd be no need to rely on mystic visions and gut feelings and all that. As I've been saying: there's no down side to that. Go to the library and get a book on cosmology. :evil: :rant:

 

~modest

[Michael Mooney]

Modest:

Yes, atoms stretch when their bonds are strained. Atoms are like little blobs. Here's are some imaged atoms,

 

http://www.physik.uni-regensburg.de/forschung/giessibl/fjg/imagegallery/afmimages/harmonische.jpg

 

Interesting. What is the medium here and what is stretched. I thought that molecules distorted while the space between atoms increased as the molecules distorted. Is this shown to be untrue by the image? Is there a before and after of the same atoms before and after whatever medium of molecules is stretched?

 

But, that's beside my point. You're either dissembling or incapable of understanding the size irrelevance of a scale factor.

 

Your continually insulting tone aside...("Go to the library and get a book on cosmology"... Ive been reading cosmology all my adult life and still disagree with spacetime as a malleable medium)... I hereby officially abandon the atom-in-a-balloon metaphor.

 

I do see our visible cosmos as a relatively small *sphere of visibility* (oscillating in a perpetual "Bang/Crunch") within a much larger cosmos, beyond our event horizon. (The matter beyond our horizon, I think, is pulling our cosmos outward in an ever increasing rate of expansion, eventually to coalesce as clumps of supermassive black holes and collapse back into the Crunch phase and again "launch" a "reborn cosmos."

 

Makes much more sense than imaginary membranes "clapping" or primordial "Singularity" launching out cosmos out of a magical origin (everything out of nothing.

 

{Snip}...

The atom metaphor *was* taken too literally. I just meant to show a scale of cosmos as a relatively small sphere... (eventually to "crunch" and "bang" again) in a much larger (than we can see) cosmos. End of atom metaphor.

 

You cannot tell me one qualitative difference between "inflation cosmology" and cosmology in the current epoch.

 

I was not claiming that there is a qualitative difference. Simply that inflation theory has "space expanding" very rapidly after the Bang... still expanding according to "expanding space" theory to explain the speed of receding galaxies.

But such "expanding space* *is different* than *stuff moving away from other stuff*... resulting, of course in more distance/space between "objects" (in the generic sense of all observable stuff.)

 

The difference between the "expansion of space" and the movement of bodies through space is a coordinate choice:

 

What Causes the Hubble Redshift?

 

Some choice!

Switching from one viewpoint to the other amounts to a change of coordinate systems in (curved) spacetime.

We have a choice of "coordinate systems" as long as we *assume as a given* that each is "in curved spacetime." (See links on the ontology of spacetime in the locked thread.)

 

There is no difference between the "expansion of space" and the measured increase in distance between all points as with the metric measured expansion of space distance.

 

You don't seem to understand the theory of "expanding space" as an "expanding medium itself" (in error, as I see it) which allows objects to travel apart *way faster* than accounted for simply by their natural movement away from each other. And, originally, inflation claims that cosmos expanded faster than light after the bang... as "space itself expanded carrying along the plasma that would cool and become the observable cosmos."

You also conveniently ignore the claim that "space has curvature" and shape. (The stuff in space obviously has shape, trajectory, etc.)

 

If space expands then what is the relationship between redshift, distance, and velocity? If objects move through space rather than space expanding then what is the relationship between redshift, distance, and velocity? If space is expanding then what is the redshift of the CMBR? If the surface of last scattering is moving away from us while space is not expanding then what is the redshift of the CMBR? Will the duration of supernova be different if space is expanding vs. space not expanding? If there is a difference then how much is it? Will the brightness of distant galaxies be different if space is expanding vs. not expanding? What is the relationship between redshift and brightness if space is expanding and the relationship if space is not expanding?

 

Like your use of math to put me in my proper place of ignorance, the above seems to be an attempt to lose sight of the forest by examining the trees in great detail.

For this reason I will repeat my basic challenge in last post to you (bold added for emphasis):

 

I have always agreed that as objects move apart, the distance between them increases. "Blatantly obvious" as I said.]This is very much different than the claim that "space itself expands" as in inflation cosmology. Also way different than positing that "space curves" in response to gravity. Both cases make "space" into an actual medium that has shape and dynamics "of its own: as distinct from objects moving *through space.*

 

(Snip... Arp issue aside)...

 

What I do know ... is that "space itself expanding" (quickly after the Bang... inflation theory) and still expanding as a medium making galaxies recede from earth at faster than light speed... is false. This is a way different concept than the obviously increasing space/distance between objects as *they* move away from each other.

Simple question: Do you understand this difference?

 

So was your post a "yes" or a "no" to the above?

 

There'd be no need to rely on mystic visions and gut feelings and all that. As I've been saying: there's no down side to that.

 

As I've said dozens of times, I realize that nobody here "has visions", and I am not claiming special privileged information (tho I know what I see in that mode.) Rather, over and over, I have put my visions on par with the common scientific tool of envisioning which always precedes empirical verification, but is still a vital part of science. Your continual insults in this regard ignore the above repeated disclaimer.

 

Go to the library and get a book on cosmology. :thumbs_up

 

... In other words: 'And, by the way, here is another parting slap in the face, being as you (Michael) are obviously uninformed on cosmology.'

PS: Erasmus,

No, I didn't get all of what I know about string/M-theory out of Popular Science and the NOVA program.

You guys are so intolerant of and condescending upon dissent and challenge to mainstream cosmology!

 

And if you think math trumps the concepts it addresses, you have the cart before the horse. If the concepts are based on false assumptions, the math will not make them true, no matter how internally consistent the math... (which, after all is a technical form of logic.)

Michael

[Erasmus00]

No, I didn't get all of what I know about string/M-theory out of Popular Science and the NOVA program.

You guys are so intolerant of and condescending upon dissent and challenge to mainstream cosmology!

 

I have become, through much interaction, fairly intolerant of YOUR claims.

 

This is not because you are dissenting with the mainstream of physics, but because you don't actually know what you are talking about. You further claim expertise you do not have, which I find infuriating. You pointedly refuse to make any attempt to learn the material you claim to know. This leads to you suggesting self refuting models over and over again.

 

And if you think math trumps the concepts it addresses, you have the cart before the horse. If the concepts are based on false assumptions, the math will not make them true, no matter how internally consistent the math... (which, after all is a technical form of logic.)

 

Michael, almost all of modern physics is based on concepts that are impossible to describe without math. Verbal language is not precise enough for describing the foundational concepts of physics.

 

As I read this, I realize I need to stop these discussions- this hasn't ceased to be worth my time, it never was.

[modest]

The matter beyond our horizon, I think, is pulling our cosmos outward in an ever increasing rate of expansion

 

The interior of a hollow spherical shell of mass feels no acceleration toward the shell.

 

~modest