Cosmology keeps changing

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Cary Cook

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Apr 4, 2020, 1:12:55 AM4/4/20
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Last century, were all told that red shift happens because objects (galaxies in this case) were traveling away from each other.

 

NOW YouTube is full of videos telling us that red shift happens  because SPACE is expanding.

 

Do-o-o-o-n ???

 

Cary

 

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don stoner

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Apr 4, 2020, 4:52:30 AM4/4/20
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Hi Cary,

Yes I've heard that claim made repeatedly, but as I've always answered: I don't even understand what they mean by making it.

 The problem (and the "solution") is that, "There is no aether."  What this means is that space isn't made out of "anything" which anyone can move relative to. Objects in space only move relative to each other; -- not relative to space (because "it" isn't "really" there). Something which "isn't there, can't be stretched, bent, broken or anything. It's just "empty space." I've done the M&Morley experiment myself, many times, and am convinced that that much is true.

So, where does the wild idea come from? I don't really know. My best guess is that it's someone's attempt to bend their mind to accommodate the super-luminary expansion of space, under general relativity (without going to the bother of actually trying to understand the details). Since two objects can't move (relative to each other) faster than the speed of light, they "reason" that space itself must be "stretching" (forgetting that there is nothing there to stretch).

The "reality" (as I "understand" it -- and that does belong in quotation marks) is that time is "mathematical" rather than "physical" so, like everything else in this universe, it does, pretty much, as it "damn well pleases" (within the applicable mathematical laws). In chapter 5 of WDG, I give a 7-page-illustrated-explanation of "why" accelerating clocks tick at different speeds. (it actually makes "graphical" sense, if not "Newtonian" sense). When you look at this, side-by-side, with the reason why two things "can't" move apart "faster" than light, you can see that there is really an "escape clause;" and that they can. As I explain on WDG's p.48, it isn't a paradox, it's just a subtraction problem. It isn't really all that complicated an idea, it's just a little hard to step out of Newton's world into the "real" (but very strange) one.

Bottom line: all those guys on the net don't know what they're talking about -- and would only repeat their mantra if they were asked to explain what they even meant by their claim. (Best-case: they can't be bothered to waste their time trying to explain it to the uninitiated.) My bet is that most of them wouldn't even know how, "there is no aether," relates to the problem.

But then (right after general relativity) the next chapter (6 of WDG), is about quantum mechanics, where things get even harder to understand (at least in Newtonian terms). It's enough to make an otherwise-rational human decide that math and thought are all that's real and become a pandoxist.

- Don

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Cary Cook

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Apr 4, 2020, 10:41:13 PM4/4/20
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Don, THANKS. That was helpful.

Cary

 

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P Calderone

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Apr 5, 2020, 1:53:59 AM4/5/20
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The red shift and galaxy distance measurements are the demonstration that it is happening. It seems to be driven by dark energy but we don’t know what that is yet.


Read this Nobel synopsis for the sequence of discovery (ignore the formulas).


https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/advanced-physicsprize2011.pdf


https://youtu.be/QXfhGxZFcVE


Phil

On Apr 4, 2020, at 7:41 PM, Cary Cook <cary...@att.net> wrote:



don stoner

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Apr 5, 2020, 2:08:52 PM4/5/20
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Hi Phil,

> Read this Nobel synopsis for the sequence of discovery

I did, but I may have misunderstood your reason for drawing out attention to it. I say this because it appears to address the "acceleration" of the expansion of matter within the observable universe, rather than the presumed "super-luminary" expansion of matter beyond the visible fraction, as it might be explained by any "stretching of the fabric" of space.

>  (ignore the formulas).

This is never a particularly good Idea. In particular, it focuses the reader's attention on the metaphor used by the source-authors rather than on the substance of what they are really saying. This can be quite misleading as the following two examples illustrate:

1) "The new insight was that gravity is really geometric in nature and that the curving of space and time, spacetime, makes bodies move as if they were affected by a force." (p.2)

Here the metaphor "curving of space and time" gives the impression of a "distorting" of the "geometry" of spacetime, while the relevant equations refer to the differences (subtraction) between the Newtonian and general relativistic effects on the relative motions between Sol and Mercury. Yes, "subtraction" is a "distortion" of sorts. But it does not negate the absence of any "aether" with-respect-to-which any "distortions" to spacetime could, even theoretically, be measured.

2) "In relativistic quantum physics the vacuum is not empty but filled with quantum fluctuations allowed by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (Nobel Prize in Physics 1932)." (p.14)

Again, when the writer address the "non-emptiness" of space, he is not claiming that anything having the "anchoring" properties of "aether" exists; he is addressing the ubiquitous spontaneous formation of stuff (e.g. photon pairs -- which travel at the speed of light) which cannot be used as a "stationary" reference point with-respect-to-which any "distortion" of space could (even theoretically) be measured.

The whole problem is strictly mathematical, and has nothing to do with any comprehensible "stretching of the fabric" of space. The Michelson-Morley experiment proved that much, The use of literary metaphor does not negate that proof.

- Don

P Calderone

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Apr 5, 2020, 8:46:22 PM4/5/20
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> >Read this Nobel synopsis for the sequence of discovery

>I did, but I may have misunderstood your reason for drawing out attention to it. I say this because it appears to address the "acceleration" of the expansion of matter within the observable universe, rather than the presumed "super-luminary" expansion of matter beyond the visible fraction, as it might be explained by any "stretching of the fabric" of space.

Phil: I draw attention to it because of your statement that expansion is  “someone's attempt to bend their mind to accommodate the super-luminary expansion of space.” These are the someones who have worked on the problem. We can get more specific with people like Guth.
(I’m adding some info here that you know, for Cary’s benefit.) 
The separation acceleration is the same thing as the expansion, though it’s from a combination of factors—gravity (in) and dark energy (out). Dark matter/energy was the thing proposed to cause spatial expansion, though we still don’t know what it “is.”  To my knowledge we also don’t know if there are more factors, particularly since that rate of expansion has and is changing, with dark energy having a lesser effect over long time. For example there was a “phase change” between early rapid expansion and the current rate of expansion; perhaps there is another phase change ahead we can’t predict.

Do you know when super-luminal separation was first estimated to have happened? (The first time that two points within the universe were further apart than light could communicate between them?)

More to follow...
Phil

On Apr 5, 2020, at 11:08 AM, 'don stoner' via BYS vs MH <bys-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



P Calderone

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Apr 5, 2020, 9:02:45 PM4/5/20
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>>  (ignore the formulas).


>This is never a particularly good Idea. In particular, it focuses the reader's attention on the metaphor used by the source-authors rather than on the substance of what they are really saying. This can be quite misleading as the following two examples illustrate:


>1) "The new insight was that gravity is really geometric in nature and that the curving of space and time, spacetime, makes bodies move as if they were affected by a force." (p.2)


>etc


Phil: Come on, Don. Clearly people like Bill, Cary and me can’t interpret such equations. Feel free to chastise physicists who might say such a thing to each other, but that’s just rude saying it to us. 

If you have the education to explain them to us, please do so when you can, but don’t pretend we are able to interpret them without years of physics education. 


Phil

On Apr 5, 2020, at 11:08 AM, 'don stoner' via BYS vs MH <bys-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



don stoner

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Apr 6, 2020, 2:12:06 PM4/6/20
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Hi Phil,

> These are the someones who have worked on the problem. 

If you are equating these individuals with the ones whom I was addressing, this would only be true if you were also to confuse their use of metaphor with the substance of their arguments. "Space" doesn't expand, the various "objects" within it move farther apart.

> Do you know when super-luminal separation was first estimated to have happened?

Shortly before 1980. It's a G.R. consequence of the inflationary model:
Inflation (cosmology)


If the metaphor of "space itself" (as opposed to mass within space) is to be taken literally, then we would need to start completely over again, beginning with a different explanation for the Michelson-Morley experiment.

- Don 

Cary Cook

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Apr 6, 2020, 10:42:11 PM4/6/20
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Don,

 

So you definitely assert that space is infinitely divisible, right?

 

Cary

 

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From: 'don stoner' via BYS vs MH
Sent: Monday, April 6, 2020 11:12 AM
To: 'P Calderone' via BYS vs MH
Subject: Re: Cosmology keeps changing

 

Hi Phil,

 

> These are the someones who have worked on the problem. 

 

If you are equating these individuals with the ones whom I was addressing, this would only be true if you were also to confuse their use of metaphor with the substance of their arguments. "Space" doesn't expand, the various "objects" within it move farther apart.

 

> Do you know when super-luminal separation was first estimated to have happened?

 

Shortly before 1980. It's a G.R. consequence of the inflationary model:

don stoner

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Apr 7, 2020, 4:53:20 AM4/7/20
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Hi Cary,

> So you definitely assert that space is infinitely divisible, right?

As much as I can assert that about anything which has no "physical" existence. However, I could as easily argue that it can't be "divided" (in any tangible sense) at all.

An "imagined" line can be infinitely divisible (e.g. by putting marks on it) but space has no aether upon which such marks could be placed -- even in principle. All that would "exist" would be the marks themselves, their relative positions, and their relative velocities.

-Don

Cary Cook

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Apr 7, 2020, 5:27:01 AM4/7/20
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Don,

 

Of course it can't be divided in any tangible sense, because space is not tangible.  Why would you even put that phrase in there? The question becomes nonsensical when it is added.

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5CC45955722A40B0A8DCD4BA119B99AF.png

don stoner

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Apr 7, 2020, 1:39:53 PM4/7/20
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Hi Cary,

> Why would you even put that phrase in there?

For clarity -- since the suggestion sounded nonsensical when I considered that as a possible interpretation.

- Don

Cary Cook

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Apr 7, 2020, 9:30:32 PM4/7/20
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Don,

 

OK, you assert that space is infinitely divisible as much as you can assert that about anything which has no "physical" existence.

 

Then space is not composed of units.

Then how does it bend?  Or is that just a misleading way to say photons bend around physical objects?

don stoner

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Apr 7, 2020, 10:30:15 PM4/7/20
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Hi Cary,

The term "curvature" expresses the idea that time proceeds at different rates at different elevations within gravitational fields. Clocks tick faster at higher elevations. This is mathematical. Space contains nothing which can be bent; but objects within space operate according to mathematical rules which suit the metaphor of "curvature."

On a physically-curved planet, you can start at the north pole, travel 1/4 of the way around the globe due south, make a 90-degree turn and travel a quarter of the way around the equator due east, then make a second 90-degree turn and travel due north to your original starting point. That's one way to observe curvature.

Likewise, on the surface of a large planet, in a deep gravity well, you can climb straight up a few thousand miles, wait exactly 10 years, and climb back down to your starting place, and then compare how much more time has passed on the surface of the planet than passed for you at the higher elevation. The two lapsed times don't match; your clock ticked off the ten years much faster than the surface clocks did. This seems to indicate that "space-time" is "curved," but that curvature is all in the dimension/direction of "time." Your physical route was along the same perfectly "straight" line in both up and down directions. Time was simply passing more quickly at the top than at the bottom. This effect follows from general relativity and explains why super-luminary velocities are sometimes possible.

This also explains how gravitational effects work.  A photon closely passing a gravitational well has time passing faster on its side away from the planet than on the near side. This makes it travel faster on the "away" side, which bends it's path toward the planet (as if gravity was pulling it in - or as if "space" were "curved" in the gravitational field).

I tried to explain this in chapter 4 of WDG. In particular, on p.43, I try to explain how space "curves" (metaphor) into past time, the farther away we look from our present location. When we observe objects t extreme distances (in any direction), we are studying objects for which very little "time" has passed (as observed from our "frame of reference") since the Big Bang origin of the universe. This effect is primarily due to special relativity.


In the final analysis, you can visualize reality using many different models: "curved space," "curved time," "mathematical-only reality." There are "problems" with all of the models except one: When you try to get a completely consistent picture of how everything fits together withing a conceptual "geometry," you run into paradoxes. If you drop the "physical geometry" and go with mathematics alone, the problems all go away (but so does everything else -- except: thought, logic, and a few other things which are equally difficult to nail down.)

- Don



Cary Cook

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Apr 7, 2020, 11:31:14 PM4/7/20
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Don,

 

Excellent response!  Thanks.  I actually understood most of it.

 

This is particularly interesting:

A photon closely passing a gravitational well has time passing faster on its side away from the planet than on the near side. This makes it travel faster on the "away" side...

Does this cause photons to spin?

don stoner

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Apr 8, 2020, 4:59:17 AM4/8/20
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Hi Cary,

It's not that extreme a force; but a photon can briefly "orbit" a black hole.

- Don

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